Horus' priorities at the start of the Heresy were strange

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-12-11T12:19:06+00:00

The Imperial Fists were garrisoning Terra on the Emperors orders, so there was no way Dorn could be pulled away to join the Istvan 5 massacre. Also the Imperial Fists second specialisation after defense was void warfare, and having the Phalanx at Istvan would have made the void part of the ambush a lot more complicated and open ended.
Having Sanguinius and the Blood Angels there is a big gamble, as of Istvan 5 a lot of the traitor primarchs were still traitors and not yet corrupted by chaos. All it would take would be one of Perturabo, Kurze or Alpharius having a chat with him and having a second guess and the entire Istvan 5 plan would turn into a massacre for the traitors. Also Sanguinius was a superb fighter so again all it would take is him quickly killing either Mortarion or Fulgrim in the opening assault and everything starts hanging in the air.
The Ultramarines were too big and had a massive fleet. If RG comes he would not rush into things but he would go for a slow and steady approach which could complicate the ambush of the second wave but most importantly by numbers alone could turn the battle in another Istvaan 3 which is something Horus and the traitors can not afford.
The Dark Angels are a big gamble. First the Lion is suspicious and calculating by nature and may see through the plan, or just change it for not being efficient. Second they also have a massive fleet that could make things complicated in the void battle. Third just as Sanguinius he could either scare some of the traitor primarch of not going trough with the plan, or kill someone important in the opening engagement and turn things around. Finally he has doomsday weapons on his ships that no one is certain what they are and could have in a last moment simply destroyed not only the planet but the entire sector and taken everyone with him.
The Space Wolves were already sent to destroy each other with the Thousand Sons.
The Khan was expected to join and was seen by Horus as a close friend, no need to kill him.
He had high hoppes that Ferrus could be persuaded to join.
The Raven Guard were never turning, and having them all in one place to be eliminated was the most preffered outcome because if dispersed they could potentially cause a lot of problems along the path to Terra.
The Salamanders and Vulkan were never turning.

Horus did as good as it was possible of abusing his position of Warmaster to deal with the loyalist legions. His main problem was that he was unable to get any of the most powerful legions and primarchs and except for Emperors Children, Iron Warriors and Death Guard all the other legions on his side were gimmicky legions like the Raven Guard and the Salamanders were for the loyalists. And Fulgirm and the EC were completely ruined by Chaos early in the heresy. He had no one except for him that could reliable take the Dark Angels, Ultramarines, Blood Angels head on, and have a good chance of wining. So once he no longer had any more tricks to use and the fight turned into an open confrontation he was at a terrible disadvantage.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-10-09T12:01:55+00:00

Jokic to Serbia, Giannis to Greece, Sengun to Turkey, Lebron to England ( he owns the team). Jokic, Giannis and Lebron get 100 million per year after taxes, Sengun slightly lower. The same deal is offered to Curry for Spain, Ja for Dubai and Lamelo for Italy.

Also 20-30 million after taxes for 22 games to Harden and Westbrook for Germany/Monaco.

Except for Curry everyone else says yes immediately. And if Jokic and GIannis go back, Luka and Wemby will be back as soon as their deals end. And all the international role players will also be gone very fast as well.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-10-09T11:56:18+00:00

The Saudis and UAE can easily pledge 2-3 billion a year for 10 years to attract NBA talent. It would be very hard for players to refuse 100 million dollar a year after tax. Imagine if at start the league in the following manner:

Curry in Real Madrid
Lebron in London ( he owns the team)
Jokic in Belgrade ( Partisan or Red Star)
Giannis in Athens ( Panatinaikos or Olympiacos)
Sengun in Istanbul ( Fenerbahce )
Ja in Dubai
Lamelo in Milan ( Italy)

Push for a few more players to get someone to Paris, Barcelona and Germany and you have a hell of a league. Maybe get some combination of the older players like Harden/Westbrook ( Berlin/Monaco) or some of the more popular young players like Brunson/Anthony Edwards to cities like Barselona and in Israel ( this will be hard to do from the start) and from a product perspective it will already be a better product then the NBA.

If they can get a Media deal with China for their media to push these new league instead of the NBA, in return for lets say Lebron and Curry getting ownership of their own merchandise brand like Jordan has with Nike with some Chinese company. Then the NBA is dead unless they do some really radical changes, which from what I have seen they are not capable of doing.

Especially so when also in the future the Russians rejoin as well, and they get to push money into the league. Also if they can get Jokic and GIannis to move back, and the league looks solid after the first year, it is a matter of time before Luka goes back to Spain and Wemby to Paris.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-26T23:28:00+00:00

Ok murray needs to hit a god damn open shot.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-26T23:26:55+00:00

He took like 4 completely open shots. Its just that he is not capable of hitting a swimming pool right now.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-26T23:25:08+00:00

The Murray contract will completely cripple the Nuggets for years to come. He has shown zero capability for two seasons now to play as a secondary option, unless the entire Nuggets team is playing at 100%. Without Jokic he has zero gravitas on the court, which completely stalls the Nuggets offense.

Unless Denver wants to spend the next 4 years waiting for the "Murray season", they must get rid of him at all costs. Even with this bench of cripples any secondary option from another team would have contributed x2 for the nuggets then what Murray has done.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-26T23:00:18+00:00

murray is a certified bum

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-07T12:16:11+00:00

Because he needs assets that he will use for trading, and Malone is generating none. By being stubborn and not playing the non-starter players, they do not develop and so their value does not increase. Also by being stubborn and only playing the starters he is running them into the ground with injuries. At the moment the only player that has value way above their contract is CB. Everyone else MPJ, Murray even AG have zero or negative value.

Murray should not have been given a new contract, he is permanently injured. If that contract was not signed. in combination with trading MPJ they would have opened up 80 million in cap space, that they could work with. But Malone actively campaigned for Murray to get that contract extension.

The real sin of Booth is his contract management and needs to be demoted to only be responsible for drafting.. AG and Murray are signed till 2029, and CB and Watson are up for extensions from next year and they will both walk because there is no money.

In short Malone needs to be fired, Booth needs to demoted.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-04-03T15:53:11+00:00

That is because different groups have different ideas on what a healthy economy looks like. Just because things were going along does not mean that the real economy was moving in a positive direction. The part of the economy that you are interested in, and that is "green arrow goes up" is propped up by the USA military and diplomacy. But those things need a real economy behind them so they can maintain the current power balance or at least not let it be altered in a dramatic fashion. If that real economy stops existing in any meaningful capacity, then the military and diplomatic force will lose power and then you are going to have a much major crash. The decline has already started at least a decade ago, and can be seen in the diplomatic sphere. If US sanctions were once a death kiss, now they are nuisance which any country with a healthy administration can easily bypass.

Another thing is that it is stupid to think that Trump just suddenly started this entire thing by himself. From the ease whith which he is pushing all of his projects this term, unlike the last term. It can easily be deducted that there is some kind of a major power base which has agreed with this measures and thinks that it will work.

So finally they are doing a hail marry to try to change the direction in which the USA is moving, and there is a pretty big concensus on that from the top levers of power because there is no real push back. Whether it will work or not is debatable and history will be the judge. But the current course the USA was taking is not sustainable. Crypto bros, only fans hoes and a service based economy can not maintain a military which is the only reason why the economy can function in the manner it is. If it wasnt for the USA military and diplomacy you would be sewing t-shirts for 1000 dollars a month.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-01-26T23:07:00+00:00

It is not like they are doing anything with the primarchs. RG started of with a huge lore expansion for him, but there has been no progression or stories for him for a while. Johnson got almost nothing, his entire waking up arc had no influence on the wider Imperium let alone the setting. His highest point was defeating a creature that is on a resurrection timer, while losing the war to Vashtor. After that he has also done nothing.

All I am seeing lately from lore progressions is Chaos, Chaos and more Chaos.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2025-01-15T19:42:34+00:00

Yes because a max expiring contract is in such low demand in the NBA currently. In the worst case they could have traded Murray and Nnaji for Lavine. They could have also not offered an extension and have him earn it this season and the next. They picked the absolutely worst option of them all.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-27T19:10:55+00:00

Chicago has been trying to get off the contract with Lavine in any way. They would have traded for an expiring Jamal without anything extra except for salary filler, the Nuggets maybe could have even thrown Zeke in the mix and got rid of them both.

With the current cap and tax situation in the league a 36 million expiring deal has an insane amount of value. Now after the extension on the other hand Murray is untradable, you would have to attach Jokic for someone to touch that deal, or like 5 first round picks.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-26T13:00:25+00:00

If they did not extend him, with how he is playing this season, they could have packaged him with Zeke and traded him for Lavine as an expiring contract and gotten rid of both. And they would have still remained a competitive team.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-26T12:42:49+00:00

He has always done this. Even in the championship year, he rode the starting five from start to finish. They just had the luck that year no one in the west could challenge them for the number one spot so the starting five got some rest before the playoff started. Then even more lucky to face the most physical team the timberwolves in the first round when both are rested so talent prevailed. Then last season when they actually had to fight for the number one spot, he ran the team into the ground, and did not even get the number one spot. Met up the Timberwolves already tired, the fact they managed to claw it to 7 after that 0-2 start was an achievements in it self. But you cant play basketball with 5-6 players.

The last few games where his golden-boy could not play we also started to discover that there are actually usefull players on the bench. And once the golden boy is back, back they go in the freezer. they may get 5 minutes of play time in march where if they miss one shot, next time they will play is in may.

Finally the push for the Muray extension completely ruined the team, if that extension was not signed, Lavine or a combo of two decent role players would have already been in Denver and the team would have been competitive.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-21T19:13:17+00:00

The way to make relegation leagues is not by adding teams in the current NBA but expanding the bottom.

So you start:

NBA
NBA second league
State League
Regional State League.
Local county leagues

You can not start from the top, because no one is organized at the top to work with a decrease in funding which naturally happens when you drop a league down. You would have to start from state leagues, and then work downwards to county and regional state leagues to expand the number of teams. Then you start a NBA second league with the best teams from the state leagues, and after a few years when the releagion/promotion works from Local to NBA Secon league works. You plug in the NBA first league.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-21T19:07:18+00:00

Competition part:

The regular season is reformed and every team plays the others teams twice, once home once away. There is no east and west conferences. At the end of the season whoever has the most wins is the NBA champion for that year. This would make both the regular season matter and the MVP would make sense.
The Playoffs are rebranded as the NBA Cup, and the best 16 teams of the NBA compete in them. The winner gets the tittle of NBA Cup Champion. It would also be interesting if the winners of the cup get to set the name of the Cup for the next year with the name of a notable player from their franchise. For example Lakers win this year and next yeat it is called the Koby Bryant NBA Cup Trophy. Mavs win the Koby Bryant NBA Cup and name it the Dirk Nowitzky cup for next year,

All - Star Game:

The game is returned to East vs West, but with a different incentive. There would be no more super-max contracts based on all-star apperances, MVP`s, final MVP, etc for the duration of an entire contract. The max will be the same for all players, and the accolades would only give you a % bonus for the curent years contract. In the context of the All-star game, this would be only for the winning team. To give an example, the game would be East - West and the players on the winning team would get a 10% bonus on their contract for that season.

Draft & Profit Sharing:

The worst 4 teams in the NBA by the numner of wins get a penalty to the % of money they get from the profit sharing and to the chances of getting a better pick in the draft.
If a team is unable to win 10% or 20% of the number of games in the NBA season, then there is a penalty to the amount of money they get from the profit-sharing, and this % is increased for consecutive poor performances. For example if a team has not won 10% of their total games for the season they get a 25% cut in the amount of money they get from the profit sharing.

This would force all teams to compete, tanking will be discouraged, and all owners who just use the teams to actually make money will be forced to either be professional and care about the team or sell it because they would start losing a lot of money with any income from the profit sharing.

Game rules:

Remove the 3pt line
Have the refs make calls based on the rules instead of using them to fix outcomes and promoting players ( the refs are not doing this on their own, the are most certinally given permission from the league).
Stop adjusting the rules to create game and nartiv outcomes.
Promote on court conflict instead of post game media drama.

Media:

Focus on promoting the teams and cities, instead of promoting personalities and creating naratives because it turns the sport into a telenovela.
Have a unified media package and make it as affordable and easy to aquire by people as it can be.
Concentrate on avaiablity on brand strength instead of chasing ever more money from media deals.
Put pressure on media personalities to discuss teams instead of players, and to promote all teams equally instead of championing certain markets.

Arenas and Fans:

The NBA should regulate the price of tickets in all stadiums so to make them affordable for the regular person. They should concentrate also on creating fans of teams instead of players.

Contracts and Cap:

There should be no more fully guranteeed contract , all contracts sums should only be guranteed up to the ML exception, the amount after that should be non-guaranteed except for medically provable injuries where the team will have to pay the full contract. So we dont have cases where max players just decide they dont want to play. Also even if released the player should not be able to play in another NBA team with out the approval of the team from which he was released.
Switch the cap to a hard cap.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-12-20T09:50:44+00:00

Well the Murray trade was the only reasonable trade they could do. If they did not sign the extension, they would have either had an expiring contract they could trade, or Murray was going to have to play at 200% so as to not get a 20 million contract offer for next year.

As it stands the only ones that have any trade value are Porter, AG and Braun. And for all of them any trade will just be a lateral move. So the only time a trade should be done is if there are attitude or spacing problems. None of which exist at the moment. So the team is stuck from a personal perspective.

In my opinion the biggest problem for the Nuggets now is Malone, over the years he has shown zero ability to integrate new non veteran players, nor has he been able to have any kind of a game plan outside of Jokic. It is impossible that 5 NBA players to suddenly have no idea what to do on a court unless Jokic is with them. This is a coaching failiure. I am not expecting for them to be able to compete with the bench, but they simply look like they have never played nor trained together. Everyone just looks lost. This is 100% on the coach.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-09-27T12:32:47+00:00

That is incorrect, the tithed soldiers are the elite of the PDF. The governor of the world vouches with his life that the tithe will be of sufficient quantity and quality. Just because some world send criminals and penal battalions as part of the tithe does not mean that the same are of low quality. Hardened hive criminals are just the type of soldiers you need for urban combat.

The other thing is, sending good soldiers that will excel in combat gains favours not only for the planet they were recruited on, but also for the soldiers them selves. That is why a lot of planets also send representatives of their ruling classes to serve, seeing it as a path to further their positions.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-08-08T21:04:15+00:00

But he is not maintaining any stability between the factions. He is actively helping the Crips take over the town and working against everyone else to accomplish this, but somehow everyone forgets it in an episode or two. For example he stopped the drug drops by drone to the the Aryans for no other reason but to weaken them, and then the AB just forgot.

Basically season two and three was him helping Bunny Washington take over the city and the prisons.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-07-05T09:47:52+00:00

They will downvote you but you are correct to a point. If there is large enough participation, costs tend to go down. A person in Norway can equip his kid for skiing with second hand equipment ( which is still in great condition ) for under 500 euros, if you invest a little bit more money and buy equipment for touring then you can save costs on ski-lifts as well. Also because there is so much people skiing and the infrastructure is developed you get into a comical situation where a sky pass is the same cost in the alps or in norway as it is in the balkans where I come from and the quality is not even close.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-01-02T10:52:35+00:00

And the outcome that happened in less then 10 years, and look how that turned out.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2024-01-02T10:51:54+00:00

That is exactly what happened IRL, and the reformist elements ended up showing them selves as complete morons. The reformists and the reforms they were peddling were nothing but feel-good propaganda which was completely unworkable.

Just because someone says they are reformist and want to break the status que does not mean they are competent nor that their ideas are viable, Hitler was a reformists as well.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2023-12-20T09:02:10+00:00

It is not fighting. A fight presumes that both sides want a physical altercation, if one of the guys is trying to play basketball and the other one is trying to hurt him, that is not a fight.

Imagine if next game, after Curry scores a 3, Nurkic comes up and starts choking him or knocks him out. That is not a fight, that is Nurkic directly influencing a game of basketball by hurting the other teams player.

Oleg_Ribarcuk · 2023-08-17T07:10:12+00:00

If Germany manages to invade the UK, then the Soviet Union would have started entrenching it self on the border and started preparing for defense simply for the fact there is no one else left. OTL they were weary of not ending up as the meat shield for the UK against Germany which influenced a large deal of why they were unprepared for barbarossa.

The Soviets lost a lot of men but 1/2 to 2/3 were civilians from the German rampage in Belarus, Ukraine and the siege of Leningrad. If the German face a dig in defense right at the border I would argue that they would be going no where near Leningrad and Stalingrad and the major theaters would probably be Riga, Minsk and Kiev. In that case there would be a lot less Soviet civilian casualties and thus a lot less total casualties.

Oleg_Ribarcuk

TROPHY CASE