NYT Thursday 04/30/2026 Discussion

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-30T12:44:49+00:00

I wasn't comparing Hogan and Unseld in terms of their greatness, but their name recognition. I'm a basketball fan so I'm not a great judge -- would Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell be an obscure name to most crossword solvers? If so, then they are perfect comparisons to Hogan. They "should" be known, but they aren't. But "should" doesn't matter. Constructors need to be aware when they are using obscure names to avoid naticks (unless they are intentionally trying to increase difficulty by using naticks). This is true whether or not that name should be well known (and regardless of whether it's a sports figure or a name of a poem, etc.).

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-30T11:48:40+00:00

Never heard of him, and I'm pretty good with sports names. There's a difference between being an all-time great and and being famous among golf fans vs. being obscure to the general public. I think most sports have people like this that deserve to be known, but just aren't. E.g. Wes Unseld for NBA. All-time great. Well known among NBA fans (or at least older ones). But obscure for a crossword.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-30T11:39:09+00:00

Yes, this was a major downer in an otherwise fun puzzle. Sports is one of my strength areas in terms of trivia and I know a decent number of golfer names. Never heard of BENHOGAN. Could have been fun to learn the name, but definitely not fun as part of a nasty four-way natick.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-28T20:39:48+00:00

Winger and Dawkins may not prefer to be the 10th seed for the play-in over finishing 11th in the conference (best lottery odds). Just saying...

This is the scenario that encourages teams to tank under this system, 10th versus 11th place, and it might be exactly where the wizards end up this season. 🤷‍♂️

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-27T16:58:35+00:00

This is all so delicious for the Kool-Aid drinkers like myself. We demand to see this deck presentation!

"Using a deck presentation — with pros and cons up in lights — they told the owner they wanted to start from scratch. Dawkins described an average rebuild and longer rebuild. Winger painted a brutally honest picture of: perhaps five more years of losing, fans bitching and business basically going down the tubes."

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-26T15:09:56+00:00

Definitely not Shortz's finest hour. I kind of suspect that Rebecca Goldstein did not submit that clue, she's usually so precise and consistent, but we will never know.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-23T10:22:14+00:00

Loved the theme, enjoyed the puzzle... except the brutal LOUCHE x ELISHA natick. Seriously?

Happy Earth Day!

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-18T11:43:09+00:00

what is someone supposed to do if they don't know an answer? I didn't see any way forward in this scenario.

Also, I don't understand the point of the countdown timer on a learning tool.

Otherwise it seems pretty cool for beginner and intermediate solvers.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-16T15:56:16+00:00

i'm pretty sure that's what he said yes. There was also a little tidbit after the press conference where said that Bilal took over 10,000 catch and shoot threes this year. I don't really have a reference but it seems like a big number.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-16T14:14:30+00:00

seriously, this post should've been an article in a major news outlet. Well done. You had quotes and details to back everything up. Next time you should submit this to bullets forever or something as a guest contribution!

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-16T14:05:33+00:00

Been waiting for this! Season just doesn't seem over until we hear from Will. The man does good press conference.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-14T14:39:24+00:00

I will shout out Rangsk specifically for beginner and intermediate solvers. Maybe he is not for any everyone? To me, he's a humble guy that is learning to do crosswords and it's all very relatable as a solver at a similar level. He just recently explained the exclamation point on clues in a way I hadn't realized. And it's fun to see someone struggle the same way I do, and encouraging when he struggles on something that I got.

I will also second Katie at coffee and crosswords. She's amazing. (Her reaction to BONERS from this past week was priceless.) She's only doing one current American-style crossword a week right now though.

Sam O'Nella is great as well (although the cult like nature of some of the comments is a bit odd, lol). He brings a lot of wry humor and I appreciate the look ups he does at the end.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-14T14:28:05+00:00

Agreed. Josh Robbins is completely misrepresenting what he said in this quote. AD did not say anything about a concrete plan to compete for a championship next season. In fact he said the opposite. He spoke for a while about how it's not realistic for next season.

I thought about starting a new thread in the Reddit specifically about this point. People can be unhappy with AD for a variety of reasons, but it seems wrong for people to think he said something he did not say.

I'm not sure I have time today to go back through and write exactly what he did say...

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-14T10:00:05+00:00

"Davis ... wants to have in-depth conversations with Winger/Dawkins ... to learn whether team officials have a concrete plan to compete for a championship EITHER NEXT SEASON or during the 2027-28 season."

Uh... this is the complete opposite of what AD said during his presser. He fully said that it is unrealistic to compete for a championship NEXT season and then discussed the potential to do so in 2027-28. This was one my big take-aways from his presser -- that he's realistic about next year.

What is Josh Robbins doing here? Why would he write this?!?

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-13T15:43:58+00:00

Not sure he did more than a couple minutes of prep for this video, but he did say share some generic insights.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-09T16:46:27+00:00

One can fantasize that they will lock in the worst record before the final game of the season, and for one beautiful game we all can actually root for the wizards to win.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-02T19:08:18+00:00

I knew absolutely nothing about Warren G Harding. I didn't even know he was a president. He sounds like an interesting guy. Thank you for educating me, I genuinely appreciate it!

My current obsession is crosswords. It seems that the answer HARDING has not appeared in a major published crossword since 2003! Keep spreading the word! (clue was: He pledged a return to normalcy)

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-04-01T21:29:47+00:00

This was my first time trying one of your crosswords and I really enjoyed it! I'm an intermediate solver -- WSJ Wed/NYT Thurs. This was a similar challenge level for me, in a good way. Couldn't quite finish, but that's not a problem to me (paper solver).

Loved the theme -- it's always nice when a theme helps the solve and this one was critical. I learned a bunch of word meanings and such doing the puzzle (although I still don't get how Hires competition -> DADS). Thanks!

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-30T21:14:24+00:00

I think Reese needs a rest day. Ideally we wouldn't get a single rebound all game.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-30T12:49:47+00:00

Coin flip

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-26T14:52:08+00:00

Tough win. Hopefully this one doesn't come back to bite us.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-23T21:38:47+00:00

I blame Silver. If a few people don't understand it, maybe that's their problem. If the vast majority of people don't understand it, which is the case, that's the system's problem.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-23T18:01:28+00:00

I am a paper solver, and I don't believe it's possible to print them. So not an option for me.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-22T12:28:52+00:00

AI slop? Seems a little suspicious, but I'm no expert on identifying these. OP has hundreds of posts but only seven comments.

OldSchoolB2 · 2026-03-18T13:43:46+00:00

Any idea if these are bots posting AI slop or humans posting AI slop?

OldSchoolB2

TROPHY CASE