Monthly Archives: July 2015

The Blueprint 2: Free Agency and the Lakers

Ever since Dwight Howard left the Lakers, I’ve been generally an advocate of the “keep your books empty, and sign a couple of max players together” strategy that it seemed like Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss were going for.  Signing players to 1 or 2 year deals that wouldn’t put a dent in the Laker books while simply waiting for the “big splash” made sense.  The Lakers are the Lakers after all, they’re located in Los Angeles. What could go wrong?

Well, the strategy simply hasn’t worked.  Carmelo didn’t want to sign here last summer, LaMarcus Aldridge (the only “splash” worthy player who changed teams) never really took the Lakers seriously, and Kevin Love didn’t even give the Lakers a meeting.

Continue reading →

Podcast Recommendations: Week of July 27th

Hello! Started this week, I will start classifying the podcasts I recommend as “topical” or “evergreen”.  Topical generally would mean that it has a shorter shelf life, depending on topic it might be 1-7 days. Evergreen is good to go any time.  As always, you can find previous week’s recommendations here. Thank you as always, I appreciate every single one of you readers.

Monday, July 27th

  • Fitzdog Radio: Nick Di Paolo Returns [Evergreen; Posted July 21st; Length: 61 minutes]
    • I’ve said this before: I prefer East coast comics and their humor, and Nick Di Paolo is as good as it gets.  Greg Fitzsimmons hosts this great podcast with Nick in which they discuss the comedy industry, politics, and more.  What I love about Greg as a host is that he has strong political beliefs, but he is willing to enjoy the argument on the other side.  Too often with our comics we label them as a “conservative comic” or a “liberal comic” and judge whether or not we will enjoy them just based on that.  I’m as moderate politically as I think is possible, and both Greg and Nick have said stuff that bothers me.  Who cares? They’re funny as hell and I’m glad any time we can get them on a podcast to have a conversation about it.
  • The Dalrymple Report: Special Guest: John Gruber [Topical; Posted July 25th; Length: 99 minutes]
    • I’m a huge Apple fan, and this podcast was between two of the most respected names in tech discussion about the company.  Jim and John discuss Music, Apple’s earnings report, the Apple Watch, and the tech journalism industry as a whole.  John had a really interesting answer to Jim’s question about what or who he considers his competition, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
    • Technical note: Jim Dalrymple recently had some major issues with Apple Music, but in between the course of recording this podcast and the posting of it, Apple had fixed a lot of Jim’s issues. Thus, there was a portion of the discussion of Apple Music that was edited out as the information they discusses must not have been up do date.  This doesn’t change the fact that the problem shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.

Continue reading →

Podcast Recommendations: Week of July 20th

For previous week recommendations, please click here.

Monday, July 20th

  • Pardon The Interruption: The Finish to The Open: 7/20/15 [length: 21 minutes]
    • Ever since I’ve been a sports fan, I’ve watched PTI.  I recommend today’s episode because these two were off for a couple of weeks and I just missed them so damn much.  I’m very grateful that they release their shows as podcasts, and I listen to these every day.  The chemistry between Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon is unparalleled as far as I’m concerned, which translates to a supremely entertaining podcast, even though we are in the dog days of summer with no NBA and NFL to really talk about.
  • Upgrade: Upgrade 46: The S Could Stand for Snell [length: 84 minutes]
    • Speaking of chemistry, I love this tech podcast hosted by Myke Hurley of Relay FM and Jason Snell of Six Colors (& more!).  Today’s topics were a discussion of the new iPod Touches and how decisions that Apple’s making with this line might translate over to the iPhone.  Any time there is a new release of a product it leads to interesting discussion, even though at this point in the company’s history an iPod refresh ranks pretty low in terms of Apple excitement.  Still, really good podcast, and Myke and Jason had a really funny discussion about American geography which I much enjoyed.  Nice try, Myke!

Continue reading →

Podcast Recommendations: Week of July 13th

For previous weeks, please click here.

Monday, July 13th

  • Slate’s Whistlestop: Ford, Reagan, and the Halloween Massacre [length: 28 minutes, originally posted May 13th]
    • Really interesting podcast about the behind-the-scenes dynamic between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan prior to the 1980 Election.  Fascinating that Ronald Reagan was challenging an incumbent (even though he wasn’t elected) President for his own party’s nomination.  (There is a part 2 to this I haven’t heard.)
  • Stuff You Should Know: How Zero Population Growth Works [length: 51 minutes, originally posted April 16th]
    • This is another really good podcast that I’ve slowly been catching up on.  They discuss an incredible variety of topics, and this one was really interesting.  Many population theories exist about how long we can sustain our population with our scarce resources and hosts Josh and Chuck go through a good amount of detail to talk about them, specifically focusing on Paul Erlich’s 1968 prediction of famine and mass death. You know, the fun stuff.
  • Dunc’d On Basketball: July 11 (News and Summer League with Seth Partnow) [length: 96 minutes]
    • Nate Duncan, Daniel Leroux of RealGM and Seth Partnow of Nylon Calculus discuss the ongoing off-season news well and sprinkle in some thoughts on the Summer League action.  I will always take their audio quality to task, but the depth of analysis of the basketball and contractual fits of all the moves in the league remain top-notch.

Continue reading →

Podcast Recommendations: Week of July 6th

For previous weeks, please click here.  Apologies for an incomplete week last week, but my best friend was getting married! Will hope to keep updating these posts daily.

Monday, July 6th

  • Dunc’d On Basketball: July 6th (Full Weekend Analysis) [length: 119 minutes]
    • Yes, I know, this podcast keeps coming up.  My pod-crush remains stronger than ever.  This is just the next installment of reactions towards free agency and evaluation of where teams stand as of right now.  Nate Duncan and Daniel Leroux of RealGM continue to be an outstanding team and a joy to listen to have adult conversations about basketball.  Keep killing it, guys!
  • Steven Lebron Radio: Ep 97: Sage Steele [length: 79 minutes – posted 06/10/15]
    • My apologies for being about a month late on this, but what a great listen.  I’ve never heard Sage Steele outside of her hosting duties on ESPN’s NBA Countdown show, and I’m so glad I did.  Alex Wong, host of this podcast does a great job discussing a very wide array of topics.  I was especially inspired by Sage’s overcoming of her intense shyness to accomplish her goal of being an ESPN broadcaster.  I have a newfound respect for Sage and am rooting for her even harder.  She also discusses her friendship with Stuart Scott, who I can’t believe has been gone for 7 months now.  This is a definite listen.  If you’re interested, Alex has a GREAT newsletter in which he recommends things to read around the web which you can subscribe here.

Continue reading →