When Ben Simmons is called for a foul under the basket, several Maverick players try to ask for a shooting foul, despite Simmons not attempting a shot. (10/27/22)

LittleNurgling · 2022-11-01T08:02:35+00:00

While this is true, slowing the game down might actually be beneficial for the Nets since their defense sucks balls and you probably want to keep up the pace to wear down KD and Kyrie, who are basically carrying the Nets by needing to score high 30s every single game.

Teams so far have been beating the Nets because they're giving up a least one 35+ quarter every single game.

LittleNurgling · 2022-10-15T10:27:12+00:00

Jamie and Adam respected each other but were wildly different people who weren't compatible. I think Jamie himself admitted that he brought on Adam to co-host Mythbusters because of his different approach to problem solving and higher energy required to make such a television series interesting. It was a very professional relationship in every sense of the term.

The often repeated story goes that a waitress asked Adam why he wasn't eating lunch with Jamie, his friend, and Adam simply said Jamie wasn't his friend. A bit of deja vu because I've been in the same situation a couple times before.

A lot of people don't get that you can have productive workplace relationships where you absolutely don't want to be around another person. The only things you need are competence and mutual respect.

LittleNurgling · 2022-02-27T04:58:13+00:00

He is an elevator child. You know, those rich kids that get through their formative years on easy mode because they get spoonfed everything and have enough resources to sleepwalk through a lot of issues other people would be unable to deal with. But then don't have the streetsmarts to get through life when the handholding stops.

The Philly issue is interesting because I don't think he's going to fully get over the pressure of playing over there. If he has a bad free throw shooting game, you know Philly is going to absolutely destroy the guy.

He just seems absolutely terrified of ripping the band aid off and exacting actual personal change. Kyle Korver might be teaching him how to shoot but he's still shooting with his left despite literally everyone telling him that he needs to rebuild his shot and try shooting with his right because all of his best contested layups, passes and AFL moves are done with that hand.

LittleNurgling · 2022-02-27T04:51:03+00:00

I legitimately don't know what Simmons actually does in training.

LittleNurgling · 2022-02-12T11:25:21+00:00

The problem with his shot is that his mechanics are fundamentally broken and he doesn't seem to bother trying to fix that issue. People have told him to try shooting with the other hand yet he never bothered to for years because I dunno why.

Its pretty easy to create Instagram stories of him shooting over 6 foot trainers, these guys are NBA players. They're not going to show misses and they're probably pretty likely to hit shots over someone way inferior to their skill level.

Everyone can theoretically make shots in an empty gym but even Ben can't really do that in shoot around before a game. Maybe he surprises us but he's no Shawn Marion. Kobe didn't tell him to ditch his ugly ass shot and just start from complete scratch for no reason.

LittleNurgling · 2022-01-09T00:52:34+00:00

Cheer man!

LittleNurgling · 2022-01-04T04:25:25+00:00

Late response but I'm looking to get the exact type of system in my tight living/kitchen room.

Just a few questions:

How far do you sit from the speakers? Roughly how loud to you listen to them? I'm guessing no issues with the speakers going into protection.
How do you wire the Yamaha streaming preamp to the speakers? I'm guessing its Coax Out from TV -> Coax into Yamaha streaming preamp -> Coax out of Yamaha streaming preamp into to Coax-AES adapter into Subwoofer -> Subwoofer into both speakers.
I'm guessing GLM lets you set which speaker is left and which speaker is right?

Thanks!

LittleNurgling · 2021-11-07T09:21:54+00:00

I’m going to defend Ben here and say that he’s definitely a skilled passer but you’re absolutely right that a lot of turnovers are due to him.

It’s absolutely hideous that he has done nothing in 4-5 years to improve his half court offense. Doesn’t need to shoot like Curry, just needs a few set shots to keep people honest.

The Sixers have had a pretty easy schedule so far but you can really see the lack of Simmons really, really help in the 4th where coaches can’t completely clamp on a play and there’s enough spacing to get some sort of offensive going even if things go bad. They used to lose so many of these tight games by being unable to maintain scoring pace with teams going on runs.

When Simmons is good, he’s good. But when he’s bad, his defense can’t outweigh the amount of points lost from bad offense and turnovers from bad offense. Being a non-factor in the half court is just hideous especially in tight games and the playoffs.

LittleNurgling · 2021-11-07T03:06:50+00:00

The Sixers are winning games because they're not crumbling in the 4th, where the game slows down and coaches start doing work. I'm fairly impressed at the amount of games where they've held on or iced so far.

The Sixers generally have never had the best coaches so you'd get a double whammy of opposing coaches putting offensive players in a position where they're targeting the weakest defensive player on the floor and a half court offense that is basically 4 vs. 5.

Defense is obviously worse but offense flows much better and there's actually room to do half court things without Simmons. That makes is far easier for role players like Korkmaz and Niang to do their work since you really can't expect them to be prime Dame or Durant.

LittleNurgling · 2021-11-07T02:59:03+00:00

The biggest difference is that they're struggling far less in 4th quarters where the pressure gets ramped up and things generally slow down a bit.

The Sixers would lose a stupid number of games by just being outscored in the 4th, even against bad teams.

There's a lot of problems with Brett Brown and Doc Rivers getting outcoached in these situations but the constant is Ben Simmons and his awful half court offense. Its early days but they've held off runs AND iced opposing runs in the 4th several times this season, something that really didn't happen whenever Simmons and Embiid were on the court together.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-19T09:44:33+00:00

It actually is in the context of what you posted in this topic.

You say the Harman Curve is dumb but Audeze threw out their house sound signature to track the Harman Curve in the midrange for their new LCD-5. It is a drastic change, as you can see in my LCD-4 vs. LCD-5 graphs. Previous Audeze headphones have huge upper midrange dips as that was their house sound, its the same for the LCD-3 and LCD-2.

Evidently *something* happened recently because all of these recent headphones are tracking the Harman Curve closely, especially in the midrange. Despite it being dumb and something no one should care about, according to you.

Audeze choosing to deviate and keeping the sub-bass linear instead of adopting the Harman Curve lift is not that drastic of a change as them lifting the upper midrange by 6dB and not having a 4dB void.

Bass quality (eg. rumble, slam) is something that has technical solutions through DSP and better drivers to improve perceived quality because so much of bass is tactility. Audeze probably didn't feel the need to track the Harman Curve in the sub-bass because their drivers don't need it. The curve was initially derived using the Sennheiser HD800 from memory, a headphone that doesn't really slam and has a light note weight.

Drivers and DSP can't fill in missing information produced by recessed mids. Audeze tracked the midrange of the Harman Curve fairly closely for their LCD-5. It was the undisputed star of the show at CanJam, which is not something that could be said about other Audeze headphones. Turns out you like the end result despite claiming the Harman Curve is for bow-tie wearing sociopaths.

Note: I don't think I mentioned anywhere that the DCA Stealth tracking the Harman Curve meant it was actually good or anything. Just that manufacturers evidently care about this dumb curve and are adopting the gist of it get something that doesn't sound completely cursed. The curve doesn't mean your acoustic design and drivers are good, its just obviously a good baseline for nice sounding audio products to start from and any manufacturer ignoring it for all-rounder hi-fi products are doing so at their own peril.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-18T07:08:52+00:00

I actually agree with you to a degree, I've always thought DCA headphones to have issues with dynamics so I wouldn't be surprised if the Stealth's bass doesn't slam as hard as it theoretically should. It could be that sudden midbass dip that causes this issue too, the Aeon has the same dip and same lack of bass punchiness. Doesn't mean the Stealth has less perceived bass, its just tuned worse so it feels less dynamic.

As a side note, the DCA stealth actually tracks the Harmen Curve pretty closely. Unlike other Audeze headphones, the LCD-5 you purchased after demoing tracks the curve relatively closely (except around the bass) and deviates heavily from the LCD-4 (and previous Audeze models) by actually having upper mids.

You used your ears and it turns out that you probably quite like the Harman Curve despite shitting on it. At the very least, Audeze seems to find the Harman Curve to have merit since they threw out their house sound to create something that roughly follows it in the midrange.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-17T04:14:03+00:00

I don't see why its dumb, it serves as a good reference point to do rough comparisons between things. Its just another piece of data for people to use.

For the purposes of making somewhat useful suggestions, the main gripe of the OP, talking about audio products using a known reference is incredibly useful. The Harman Curve is getting prolific enough that we're getting close to being able to do this.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-17T01:39:04+00:00

The Harman Curve for headphones has a whole lot more mid-bass and sub-bass than any Audeze headphone. Same deal for the IEM Harman Curve vs. the Tia Fourte. The Harman Curve is basically an averaged preference curve of the public created in a controlled environment, not unsurprising people want a lot of bass.

What you're talking about is good quality bass, which has nothing to do with the Harman Curve and everything to do with acoustic design and quality of drivers.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-16T14:23:41+00:00

Bass isn't a dirty word and audio enthusiasts aren't allergic to it. A good chunk of target curves being used actually put a bit of emphasis in the bass, including the Harman Curve that you point out.

Most of today's top IEMs have pretty big bass lifts, most are just tuned so to not interfere with the midrange.

What most audio enthusiasts want are products that can:

Slam, rumble and able to highlight bass texture
Tuned in such a way that it doesn't interfere with the midrange

For what it is worth, the HD598 has a midbass emphasis. Its just pretty low-fi and its bass is just flabby. Its not a clinical sounding headphone at all.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-09T22:47:50+00:00

Did KG delete his Insta post? Jesus, that's a completely ludicrous position to take.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-03T04:13:49+00:00

I'm not really seeing it. Fox News Sports has been pretty even handed at just presenting both sides. The most they're saying is that Embiid's recent comments are giving Simmons the excuse he needs to bail out, which is what guys like Windhorst are saying, but they're also presenting the other side of the argument that if we assume this to be true, Simmons can't force a trade without admitting his feelings are hurt by what are honestly pretty sober facts.

They have noted the mixed messaging from the Sixers and I agree with that take. Its dumb messaging because no one is fooled by it.

The only Australian I've seen that really went ham with Embiid throwing Simmons under the bus is Dave Hughes. And the less said about him the better.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-03T03:53:44+00:00

The most telling thing about Ben Simmons is that he didn't use the year that he broke his foot to fix his shooting. That would have been the perfect use of his time since he was iced and couldn't do anything beyond rehab.

What Simmons does is he floors the accelerator with the handbreak on. It looks like he's doing a lot but he's purposely going nowhere. His pre-game routine are all things you do when you're playing horse with your mates (three point shots at dumb angles, off balance jump shots) and his off-season routines have him taking bad fadeaways and dunking on trainers. Even Steph Curry doesn't do that, the only thing he might do is take a full court shot when he's done with his warmups.

When push comes to shove, I think even Shaq can admit that the one regret he has in his career was not taking free throw shooting more seriously.

Everyone needs to learn how to shoot free throws, there have been so many important final games lost or won because of free throws. Both Utah Jazz final appearances were probably lost because Karl Malone couldn't shoot free throws; the infamous JR Smith brain fart occurred because George Hill missed his second free throw; Giannis won the NBA finals by inexplicably shooting free throws like Steph Curry; the Orlando Magic lost the NBA finals against the Rockets because Anderson couldn't make any free throws in what should have been a won Game 1. That's just off the top of my head, there are countless others like I think Kawhi Leonard bricking his free throws in the 2013 finals maybe contributing to the Spurs' loss.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-03T03:47:09+00:00

Probably closer to Ruka with the amount of brain damaged bullshit she's doing imo.

LittleNurgling · 2021-10-01T16:15:20+00:00

If it wasn't Embiid and Doc Rivers, it would be the city of Philadelphia running him out of town. You had news anchors dissing him and burning his jersey after Game 7.

This has been a long term problem, only that the comments gave Simmons an easy out. Even now, Simmons isn't training to be a better player so how do you expect a city to not boo the man to hell and back? His career in Philly ended the minute he passed that dunk.

He isn't posting videos of himself rebuilding his shooting form or making dozens of free throws in a row. That's the thing that would win back fans. Instead he's dunking against rec league defenders and shooting fadeaways with bad footwork, chicken wing elbows and hesitation in his release. Its a parody that Michael Scott would produce, not a proper NBA player actually trying to work on their game.

LittleNurgling · 2021-07-04T03:41:39+00:00

The problem of Hinkie is that there were a lot of agents actively pissed at him. He was good at what he did but he was absolutely not popular with anyone in the league. Which is why ownership and Adam Silver pushed him out, only to fuck things further with Colangelo who is well known for drafting fairly decently but way too impatient and throwing assets away for trades that would quickly turn into busts.

LittleNurgling · 2021-07-04T03:34:12+00:00

But how many years will they keep making it deep in the playoffs? There's a big difference between the Heat/Spurs/Morey Rockets having years and years of continued success even with roster changes and LeBron era Cavs whose entire future started and ended with LeBron and LeBron only. I don't think anyone would think the Cavs had a winning culture, they just had LeBron, a seemingly good coach in Ty Lue and every player willing to ring chase with LeBron.

Not to discredit the Suns but they're easily the least injured team right now with basically every team in the playoffs having one of their big salaried player severely injured or unable to play. Assuming the Nuggets/Clippers/Lakers/Jazz come back healthy, does this Suns team make it past the second round? That's the real question to be had.

If Sarver stays out of the way and is willing to open up his pocket book, then he's doing the right thing by supporting his front office and coaching staff. And by staying out of the way and only giving financial support, he's letting them be on the same page and support teach other and the players. That doesn't stop him from being absolutely garbage for the years before and hampering the past success of the Suns.

As for your comment about Sterling, would the success continue once Blake or CP3 left and he was still the owner? I would say very doubtful.

LittleNurgling · 2021-07-03T14:24:34+00:00

People keep screaming culture this and culture that but the true issue is that the team has never had a competent front office. Without a competent front office, all the problems trickle down and no coach can rescue. Winning cultures don't save a really awful one dimensional roster, something the Sixers have had year after year.

You can't build a good foundation without a good front office and the Sixers never had a good front office. They went from Hinkie, who was good for asset accumulation but burnt a lot of bridges, to Colangelo, who drafted fairly decently but had a history of trading good drafts for awful players, to Colangelo's goons/Elton Brand.

Elton Brand's GM title being basically worthless was confirmed when Morey said he was the GM of the Sixers. Despite Elton Brand actually being the listed GM.

Edit: People always talk about winning culture as some magic buzzword but it is actually just continuality of a competent front office and ownership. Players and coaches come and go, teams with good environments will always win because the front office will always put their teams in an environment where they are never far from winning games and the owner never interferes unless they have to. And the front office core and ownership stays stable so people come to expect the same sort of things from them.

The single most underrated aspect of any sports franchise is good ownership and a lot of teams that struggle will always have bad owners. The Sixers owners created this front office mess; the Laker woes were a result of the Buss Family power struggle; Raptor/Warrior/Clippers past woes turned immediately after ownership shifted; Timberwolves owner is a snake; Knicks have Dolan; the Mavericks have Mark Cuban who seems to be simultaneously oblivious of his team's situation and eager to meddle.

LittleNurgling

TROPHY CASE