Ask J-Dub – Episode 7
The mailbag here at Dubsism World Headquarters has slowed a bit as we hit the peak of the summer months, but that isn’t to say we aren’t still getting some conversation-worthy questions. Today’s episode reflects that. So, keep those emails and comments coming; you never know when we’ll use yours.
As always, we’re here to help, not judge no matter how brutally fucked up you are. Don’t worry about attracting a bunch of kooks sending you a lot of crap. We won’t publish your email or twitter handle unless you request us to do so. If you wish to remain anonymous, just supply us with a nom de plume* like you will see on some of the following questions…frankly, some of them are getting pretty damn clever.
*Nom de plume is just a fancy French phrase for “fake name.”
Question #1:
Dear J-Dub,
In the NBA Finals, LeBron got his pants pulled down and bare-ass spanked in front of God and the world. How can anybody say he’s still the greatest player in the game?
~LeBron Gets More Steps than the Shriner’s Parade
LGMSTTSP is a regular writer, and once again he’s got a great question. There’s no denying LeBron is a great player, but there’s also no denying he no longer THE greatest. Granted, LeBron put forth a superhuman effort in the series against the Warriors, but he and the Cavaliers really weren’t serious competition.
Nobody seems to remember the Cavaliers posted an 11-15 record after the All-Star break, largely because nobody in the Eastern Conference play-offs offered more than token resistance. Nobody seems to remember the Pacers, Raptors, and Celtics really weren’t that good. Not to mention, all this “superteam” nonsense aimed at Warriors conveniently forgets the Western Conference Finals against the Spurs could easily have had a different outcome if Kawhi Leonard doesn’t get hurt in Game 1.
That matters because I’m convinced all this “superteam” bluster and the anti-Kevin Durant bilge is all about the LeBron-o-philes not having to come to terms with the fact that he’s at the end of his career. LeBron just wrapped his 14th NBA season, and despite how well he played throughout these play-offs, it was plainly evident he’s lost at least one step…if not not more.
Think about it. Say for the sake of argument that a healthy Spurs club beats the Warriors in the Conference Finals and faces the Cavs in the NBA Finals. Cleveland would likely have lost that series as well, because the Spurs have more talent top-to-bottom than the Cavaliers. Once they lost, you know there would be a ton of excuse-making covering for LeBron because there always is (like “superteam”).
Any way you slice it, LeBron got outplayed in that series by Kevin Durant, and it took one hell of a performance by Durant to do that. The “superteam” non-sense is just a cover story.
Question #2:
Dear J-Dub,
Can the Milwaukee Brewers really make it into the play-offs?
~My name really is Jim Gantner
One of my blog buddies Neil Roberts has written about this, so if you really want to debate a guy whose dug into the numbers on this, he’s your guy. To me, there’s a really simple answer to this. Any team which is in first place at any point after the all-star break is for real. That’ s doesn’t mean they’ve got the ponies to make it through a play-off run; only time will tell that. but like a horse race, everybody who is within a nose of the front of the back coming into the homestretch has a chance.
Question #3:
Dear J-Dub,
Do you have any predictions for the upcoming NFL season?
~ Afraid to tell you I’m a Colts Fan
This guy only says this because I’m on record as having some rather unkind things to say about Indianapolis Colts fans. I’m also on record as saying that I’m suffering from a serious wane of interest in the NFL. But, this guy asked a question which at first I didn’t give a shit about, but I still think there’s two safe prognostications in this league.
1) The officiating will stink. That’s a guarantee. Today’s NFL official have been conditioned to an almost Pavlovian degree to blanche at the idea of close calls; they’d rather let the replay guys deal with it. This is why NFL game are nudging on four hours long.
2) The vast majority of teams will have a record between 5-11 an 11-5. At first, that looks like a simple “standard deviation” argument, but if you look at it in terms of the number of games won by each team, this league doesn’t have many really good or bad team; it has a lot of mediocrity.
Since every game which doesn’t end in a tie has to have a winner and a loser, a 16-game schedule means the median number of wins for a team would be 8; the value at which 50% of the range is greater and 50% is less. In a non-skewed distribution, that would would mean the standard deviation from the median would be three; meaning 50% of teams should be within three wins of 8…in other words, half the league should have records between 5-11 and 11-5. If you do the math, that also should mean 25% of the league should have records of 12-4 or better, and 25% should be 4-12 or worse
But it doesn’t. In fact, 2016 saw the NFL fielded 24 teams with records between 5-11 and 11-5. That’s 75%. That also means the NFL only had four teams 12-4 or above and 4 with 4 or less wins. That’s 12.5% for each category.
The whole idea behind the NFL’s goal of “parity” is to keep more teams alive in the play-off races, which is obviously working. The problem is it creates a lot of pretty bland football. If you doubt that, ask yourself a question. Wouldn’t the NFL be much more interesting if you had more team worth watching?
Nobody wants a league full of 8-8 clubs. Except the NFL…which is why it sucks.
Question #4:
Dear J-Dub,
What do you think is the biggest problem America faces today?
~Frank Furter
This is an easy one. As a society, we spend far too much time listening to worthless people. That’s really not hard to see, and as this is the first installment of this series to run on our partner site at TurtleBoy Sports, this question couldn’t be timed any better. If you read TBS, you see right away that many of the societal parasites who get called out on that site are EXACTLY the type of people the New American Left points to as “victims of an unjust society.”
I’m not going to tell you what to think…just head over to TBS and look at posts in the “Nudnik” or “Hoodrat Heroes” categories. It will take you no time at all to see how these people have transmogrified a complete lack of anything socially redeeming or contributory into a virtue. It gets even better when those people get exposed. My favorites are the soft-skulls who think “invasion of privacy” applies to something they themselves already posted on the web. Again, it just goes to show you that this country has created a monstrous number of people who aspire to be little more than self-absorbed parasites and the minute they are exposed for being exactly what they are, the only thing they know how to do is play the victim.
Here’s where this gets dangerous. The noise you hear in the political discourse in America today is the death rattles of 1960’s liberalism. That’s because the people who have the most invested in the continuance of an elitist-run nanny-state have been foiled by the fact the minions they created can’t be counted on to do anything productive when it matters. The problem is that when two successive generations of “participation trophy kids” finally figure out they aren’t going to get their way, a real shit storm happens.
If you doubt that, just look at the nonsense happening on college campuses today. In four years or less, that shit is going to be in the real world. It’s up to you Dubsists and Turtle Riders to stop it. Its has an easy starting place. You would be amazed how much crap you can kill by being careful about what you share on social media. It takes no time at all to create something blatantly false, post it , and get people to share it. Joseph Goebbels called that “propaganda;” Barack Obama called it “fake news.”
Social media doesn’t have a “Fact Check” button; you have to do that. If you don’t, the social parasites get to control the narrative.
Got a question, comment, or just want to threaten us? Email Dubsism at dubsism@yahoo.com, and follow us @Dubsism on Twitter, or on our Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook pages.
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Great point about the whole 5-11 and 11-5 thing, Dubs.
The league strives for parity, wanting their fans to think that yes, their team has a shot at the Super Bowl.
Ask AFC East fans how well that’s worked out for them over the last fourteen years.
Some like our dynasties, some hate ’em but it’s a helluva lot more enjoyable watching greatness than it is mediocrity.
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It works like this. The NBA and MLB are loving having marquee teams which win. Don’t tell me Adam Silver doesn’t love having the Warriors as his flagship franchise right now, and he can’t wait for the Lakers to rebound and provide a real rivalry with them. As for baseball, don’t even try to tell business isn’t better when the Yankees and Dodgers are both pretty fucking good.
Yeah, I know the Patriots were 14-2 on their way to the Super Bowl, but did any of us ever look at that team and say “Wow, that team is really unstoppable?” I mean, there surely weren’t the 1989 49ers.
And I didn’t just call you Shirley.
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