Tech

Verizon Jumps on the “iPhone Every Year” Bandwagon

NEW YORK – If you purchase either the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus with Verizon’s Device Payment option beginning Friday, September 25, you’ll be eligible to get a new iPhone every year. Yes, no more waiting for your contract to end. Now you can always have the latest iPhone – on the network that has the largest 4G LTE coverage in America.

The cell phone industry has gone through a fascinating transformation over the past couple of years.  Gone are the 2 year contracts and the subsidized pricing, people want phones quicker than ever before and carriers like T-Mobile got that party started.  I myself am considering getting on a one year upgrade cycle for the first time since I have been buying iPhones.  It’ll be interesting to see now only how carriers keep responding to this demand, but how companies like Apple and Samsung respond to this.

Sports

Lee Jenkins (Sports Illustrated) on Chris Bosh’s Recovery From Blood Clots

For the first 36 hours in the hospital Bosh feared for his life, until doctors were able to assure him that the blood thinners they administered were working. For the next six days he feared for his career. Bosh already knew his season was over, but he still had to wait for test results that would show whether his condition was hereditary, and therefore likely to recur. “If those tests came back positive,” the 31-year-old Bosh says, “I couldn’t play anymore. For almost a week I didn’t know.”

Not sure any player has gone from consistently being clowned to so respected as quickly as Chris Bosh has.  As the league has “gone small”, a player like Chris Bosh is extremely valuable and his willingness to sacrifice his role during Miami’s Big 3 Era was instrumental in their two championship wins.  Miami was poised to make the Eastern Conference playoffs very interesting last year, but as soon as the scary news came out about Chris Bosh’s blood clots, that went out the window.  He seems like a great guy, a really good teammate, and I’m hoping he can regain his form and be healthy this season.  I still think a Dragic-Wade-Deng-Bosh-Whiteside starting 5 can contend for a top spot in the conference, but I’m a crazy person who things that can stay healthy.  Lee Jenkins has emerged as one of the best basketball writers working today, and he continues to shine with this piece.  Fun read.

Adrian Wojnarowski (Y! Sports) Talks to Doc Rivers

The communication. This is where Rivers believes he holds so much of the culpability, and where he’s most grateful that Jordan returns to these Clippers and everyone gets a second chance together. Here comes Paul Pierce and Josh Smith and Lance Stephenson onto the Clippers, a deeper, better bench and a fuller understanding of how precious of an opportunity this franchise has for itself.

What a wacky offseason for the Clippers (and the Mavs, for that matter).  As much blame as Rivers is taking, I think that no team who implodes as badly as the Clippers did against Houston can function without at least some adversity and bad feelings.  Chris Paul seems like a pain in the ass, but at the same time nobody benefits more from playing with a player like CP3 than DeAndre Jordan.  All the drama aside, it makes sense that Jordan chose to come back to the Clippers, they have built a much deeper team and will be right in the conversation as contenders in the West.

Now, for Doc Rivers.  These are the kinds of situations that I think are less likely to happen if a coach is devoted full time to coaching.  As President of Basketball Operations, Doc clearly has a lot more responsibility and although I’m positive he’s not negligent towards his role as a coach, one has to wonder if it’s a good idea for any coach to have the responsibility that he does.  From an organizational perspective, I understand that having one unified voice from coaching and management can have it’s benefits.  Conversely, how can we expect one person to handle two roles with mismatched incentives?  A coach has the incentive to win TODAY, a general manager has the incentive to build sustainable success even if it requires sacrificing wins and losses TODAY.  This balancing act will be interesting to watch this season, especially because I believe where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Podcasts

Fitzdog Radio – Whitney Cummings [Posted Saturday, September 19th; Length: 70 minutes]

Greg Fitzsimmons and Whitney Cummings are two of my favorite comics today and it’s no surprise that they produced a really funny and insightful conversation. I’ve particularly been impressed that somebody like Whitney who has been through quite a bit is so aggressive about confronting her demons and dealing with them head on. Even more difficult than doing that? Openly talking about it. Her work ethic and perseverance throughout college and till today are straight up inspirational. Thank you, Greg and Whitney!