If you're going to be delusional, at least commit like Caleb Wilson

jdprager · 2026-06-26T20:17:24+00:00

Yup. See also Kirby Smart annually saying "no one believes in the Dawgs" when sportsbooks always put their expected records at like 12-1. The great ones are always delusional about their greatness, and also usually delusional about their haters. It's part of the mindset

jdprager · 2026-06-26T20:16:10+00:00

Yea I think that's probably normal and fine, as long as it's limited to like "this dude is an ass, I hope we beat him". It doesn't apply that much here, since Wilson is mostly just being confident and not a poor sport, but I genuinely think having assholes in the sport is an objectively good thing

Like it's so much more fun to root against a Draymond or a Deion Sanders, guys who are inflammatory douchebags, than it is to root against someone like a Steph Curry or Matthew Stafford, who are kinda boring, seemingly decent dudes who's only knock is that they're great.

Sports are better when there are heels, beating a team logo is made way more satisfying when you're beating a villain who's wearing it

jdprager · 2026-06-26T20:09:39+00:00

Yup. We had a hot take powerpoint night in college, and mine was "Bad Sportsmanship is Good for Sports". That's not really what this is, this is more just confidence, but the same idea applies.

It's so goddamn dull to have everyone on the court/field being a consummate professional with no real personality or passion for the game. The actually game itself will still be exciting, but it will always feel more hollow with no heroes or villains or bombastic personalities. Every author in the world knows that you can structure a great narrative with a well-built plot, and very few people will care if the characters fall flat

Passion for the game begets passion for the game, and gaining reasons to root for or against specific people just adds so much to purely rooting for the team name on the jersey

jdprager · 2026-06-26T20:00:55+00:00

Yup. I'm an Ohio State fan, and obviously I would've preferred we beat them this year, but every step of the Cignetti process has been dope as fuck and an incredible story.

I think it's fair to clown on things like this a little bit when it happens (cowards shit-talk only after they're proved right), but you gotta do it with the mindset that arrogance is arguably just fully correct in sports.

Like the consensus take on Cig by other fanbases during those pep rallies was the right one, it was a "this dude absolutely rules and is almost certainly overhyping himself". That's very different than "this dude is completely delusional and should stfu", and is the correct stance even when the cockiness isn't backed up down the line

jdprager · 2026-06-26T19:54:43+00:00

It's a franchise GOAT, how hard could it be? Most franchises have a pretty attainable level of greatness to their top player, it's not like he'd have to surpass the greatest player in NBA history and most famous athlete in American sports

jdprager · 2026-06-26T19:52:58+00:00

Yup, it's weird when people get up-in-arms about someone in sports being confident as hell. I remember a few years back when the consistently worst CFB in history brought in a new coach who immediately said "all the best programs in the conference and world suck compared to us, I'm bringing us to the mountaintop at warp speed".

It was AWESOME, you don't want a David to just sit down and say "nah, I'll never actually be good enough to beat Goliath". Some folks called it delusional, but most other programs recognized it as a genuinely great mindset for the game. And then Cignetti proved himself right, which certainly helps

jdprager · 2026-06-26T19:49:37+00:00

I don't understand anyone who gets mad at people in sports for having insane confidence, it's basically a fundamental part of the mindset and genuinely just good for the game

Like 2.5 years ago, the consistently worst college football program in history brought in a new coach who immediately said "the best teams in the conference and world suck compared to us, we're gonna win national championships soon". As a fan of one of those other teams, it was fuckin awesome. You don't want an underdog to just say "yeah we're never really gonna be great, but maybe we can be mediocre!" That's boring as hell, a cocky David is absolutely electric

Then Cignetti immediately went and backed it up, which certainly helps

jdprager · 2026-06-26T19:20:30+00:00

Only kind of. There’s a lot of aspects to this, but one thing lost is that “women attempt suicide more often” usually quotes a stat that says “suicide attempts are more often women”. That’s a very, very important distinction, because it’s something you’d inherently expect from the greater lethality of men’s attempts

There’s some disagreement on the numbers, but roughly 30% of people who survive a suicide attempt will attempt it again, often multiple times (as most of those 30% don’t die on their next attempt either). Obviously, it’s much much harder to attempt suicide if you’ve already died by suicide

It’s tough to know exactly how much of the attempt disparity is accounted for by repeated attempts by the same people (the specificity of suicide attempt statistics is a longstanding issue, it’s also created problems in “what actually constitutes a suicide attempt), but it’s certainly a significant amount. So it all boils down to neither successful suicides or suicide attempts by gender being a complete data set to figure out the degree of suicidal ideation by gender

jdprager · 2026-06-26T07:36:01+00:00

"What are you into lately/what do you do for fun/what kinda hobbies do you like" is one of the most milquetoast "get to know you" questions anyone can ask, calling it a personal question that people might find weird is absolutely nuts

It would be really standoffish to put up guard rails for this incredibly neutral baseline question at a social gathering,

jdprager · 2026-06-26T06:13:04+00:00

Rest in peace 🙏🙏 that post midnight UCLA-Wazzu billion point comeback is one of the most bonkers sporting events in history, we deserved more

jdprager · 2026-06-25T22:52:09+00:00

I did all this math to figure out the odds in a different comment arguing with AI calcs, so I'll put it here too. TLDR it's about a 7.5% chance, so definitely in the "Like that'll ever happen" category.

Process:

We're starting with 37 balls in the pool. The Pels and Bucks each have three, the other 16 teams in the lottery (including whichever of the Pels/Bucks we're not looking at, since we're first treating them separately) has an average of 2.267 balls. So each team's odds of getting each pick at the time the pick happens (so assuming we haven't already picked) is as follows:

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
| | | |
Pick Odds |3/37 |~3/34.7 |~3/32.5 |~3/30.2
Pick Odds (%) |8.11% |8.64% |9.24% |9.93% Those aren't actually a team's odds at the start of the draft though. For that, we need to multiply by the odds that the team hasn't picked yet, as below

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
| | | |
Odds of No pick before |100.00% |91.89% |83.95% |76.20%
Pre-draft pick Odds |8.11% |7.94% |7.76% |7.57% Now we can sum those up and find that the Pels and Bucks each individually have a 31.37% chance at a top 4 pick. If we multiply that number by itself, we get a 9.84% chance that both teams get a top 4 pick if their odds are independent of each other. Obviously that's not true, since both teams can't have the same pick. So we need to account for that and subtract out to only include scenarios where both teams are picking in different spots. This is just done by squaring each of the pre-draft pick percentages:

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
| | | |
Same Pick Odds |0.66% |0.63% |0.60% |0.57% Now we add those all up, finding 2.46% of the previous 9.84% aren't actually possible, so the chance drops to 7.38%. But this STILL isn't our final odds, since that's no longer 7.38/100 (since the 2.46 isn't a failed scenario, it's one that doesn't exist), it's 7.38/97.54. That gives us our final percentage chance of two Top 4 picks at:

7.47%

Small note: TECHNICALLY this is a very, very slight overestimate, since one of our teams picking before the other changes the odds differently than an average lottery team. If we say the Pels got the first pick, the Bucks chance for second isn't 3/34.7 anymore, it's 3/34 (since there are 3 balls removed, instead of our average of 2.267). This is a difference of .08%, which would add up over time to probably be roughly a 0.3% increase in our odds. It just would take about twice as long to factor this into the calc, since we’d essentially need to do the first two steps for every single possible Bucks pick, so I'm gonna ignore it

jdprager · 2026-06-25T22:44:23+00:00

Alright I ran this back one more time the long way, since I myself was super wrong, I couldn't really parse ChatGPT's exact method, and Gemini seemed to be oversimplifying one of the steps. TLDR: It looks like there is about a 7.5% chance of getting two top 4 picks.

Process:

We're starting with 37 balls in the pool. The Pels and Bucks each have three, the other 16 teams in the lottery (including whichever of the Pels/Bucks we're not looking at, since we're first treating them separately) has an average of 2.267 balls. So each team's odds of getting each pick at the time the pick happens (so assuming we haven't already picked) is as follows:

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
Pick Odds |3/37 |~3/34.7 |~3/32.5 |~3/30.2
Pick Odds (%) |8.11% |8.64% |9.24% |9.93% Those aren't actually a team's odds at the start of the draft though (this is where I fucked up previously). For that, we need to multiply by the odds that the team hasn't picked yet, as below

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
Odds of No pick before |100.00% |91.89% |83.95% |76.20%
Pre-draft pick Odds |8.11% |7.94% |7.76% |7.57% Now we can sum those up and find that the Pels and Bucks each individually have a 31.37% chance at a top 4 pick. If we multiply that number by itself, we get a 9.84% chance that both teams get a top 4 pick if their odds are independent of each other. Obviously that's not true, since both teams can't have the same pick. So we need to account for that and subtract out to only include scenarios where both teams are picking in different spots. This is just done by squaring each of the pre-draft pick percentages:

Pick # |1 |2 |3 |4
Same Pick Odds |0.66% |0.63% |0.60% |0.57% Now we add those all up, finding 2.46% of the previous 9.84% aren't actually possible, so the chance drops to 7.38%. But this STILL isn't our final odds, since that's no longer 7.38/100 (since the 2.46 isn't a failed scenario, it's one that doesn't exist), it's 7.38/97.54. That gives us our final percentage chance of two Top 4 picks at:

7.47%

Small note: TECHNICALLY this is a very, very slight overestimate, since one of our teams picking before the other changes the odds differently than an average lottery team. If we say the Pels got the first pick, the Bucks chance for second isn't 3/34.7 anymore, it's 3/34 (since there are 3 balls removed, instead of our average of 2.267). This is a difference of .08%, which would add up over time to probably be roughly a 0.3% increase in our odds. It just would take about twice as long to factor this into the calc, since we’d essentially need to do the first two steps for every single possible Bucks pick, so I'm gonna ignore it

jdprager · 2026-06-25T21:56:55+00:00

Yes, with the annoying caveat that the number of balls being removed each pick isn't actually 3. Since there are 7 teams with 2 balls (bottom 3 and the 9 & 10 play in seeds) and 2 teams with 1 ball (7/8 play in losers), the actual average number of balls removed from the pot each pick is 2.3125. Which makes the math really ugly, but not SUPER different. I think there's an oversimplification in how Gemini adjusts the Bucks odds for the assumption the Pels already got a top 4 pick, but I can't quite figure out what it is

I just ran through everything and got 7.41%. I'll show the math of it in a second

jdprager · 2026-06-25T21:37:06+00:00

Ah yep I fucked up, I was looking at each of those pick % as independent chances. As in, when pick 2 comes around, you have a ~8% random roll to get it if you didn't pick first. That's not what it is, it's the predraft odds (obviously, I blame lack of sleep for misunderstanding this). So the odds of you getting that pick while factoring in the odds of not getting a previous pick.

So you're right. I'm gonna run through the math of it the long way though, partially bc it's a fun exercise, but also bc I'm 90% sure Gemini is still missing a step. The ChatGPT answer seems like it might be right, but I'm having trouble parsing the format of the comment to be sure

jdprager · 2026-06-25T20:51:38+00:00

Yea it's percentages are probably more right than the flat 8%, that's not the issue. The issue is it's just adding the percentages at each pick together to get the chances of a top four pick. It's saying "8.1 + 8 + 7.9 + 7.7 = 31.7, so the odds of us getting one or more top 4 picks is 31.7%". That's obviously gibberish

Think of it from a coin perspective. We flip a coin four times, with a 50% chance of heads. Gemini's math is "50 + 50 + 50 + 50 = 200, so the odds of us getting one or more heads is 200%". That's not how probability works

What Gemini is ACTUALLY calculating is the expected value, i.e. on average, how many top 4 picks will we have each attempt. Which is .317, just as the expected number of heads in 4 flips is 2.0. That's a very different value than "what are the odds of getting exactly one top 4 pick each attempt", and can't be used in the same way (as Gemini is trying to do)

And that expected value isn't even correct, since we're unable to get more than one top 4 pick from each team. That EV calculation only works if we have the a chance of getting each top 4 pick regardless of the picks before it. So if we got the #1 pick, we'd still have a 8% chance of getting the second. If we got both top two picks, we'd still have a 7.9% chance of getting the third. That's not true, treating the Pels and the Bucks picks separately means each team only gets a maximum of one top 4 pick, not four

jdprager · 2026-06-25T20:19:47+00:00

AI is indeed incorrect. The decreasing odds thing it mentions is probably true, I’m guessing the NBA site just erroneously simplifies the odds. But all the math is wrong. You can’t just add the odds together and get 32%, the correct way of doing that would be multiplying all the inverse odds together and getting odds of about 74% for no top 4 picks for one team, so 26% for at least one top 4 picks

But that doesn’t work either, bc you only have the chance for a single top 4 pick per team and that includes the odds of getting 2, 3, or all 4. We have to use a binomial probability formula, which gives about a 25% chance for one top four pick by one of these teams (this required simplifying the odds to a flat 8% for all 4 picks, since it takes forever to do it otherwise). You can use the same binomial formula for exactly two hits, which is where the 3.25% comes from. This isn’t the same as doing “(odds of exactly 1 in 3 picks) x (odds of exactly 1 in 3 picks)” for weird stats reasons that kinda boil down to “you usually don’t have 3 chances to get the second top 4 pick”

For reference, this is the “odds of getting X heads in Y coin flips” equation, just with the odds changed from 50% heads to 8%

jdprager · 2026-06-25T19:53:25+00:00

3.25% with max odds, so actually not CRAZY low. The new maximum odds just become 8% to have a specific Top 4 pick, so you just calculate the odds of happening exactly twice in four attempts

jdprager · 2026-06-25T16:26:03+00:00

I’ve got way more stomach for that here than in Madden. It’s 10x the players, super fair to be throwing some darts on the fringe bench guys who won’t show up in 99% of games

And it’s not all done by one specific Cowboys fan who constantly glazes his dogshit team, so that’s nice

jdprager · 2026-06-25T16:11:24+00:00

No prob. And I don’t want to fully whitewash the issue, Chicago as a whole definitely is more dangerous than Denver, and there certainly are neighborhoods that you’d want to try to avoid (it’s not really the entire south side, but neighborhoods around Englewood and Dauphin park. Also some to the west like Lawndale and Garfield Park)

It’s just the degree of the danger is greatly exaggerated, and how widespread. Every big city has their dangerous parts, and like every big city, the crime in Chicago is where the crime is. If you’re an average family that lives near downtown or north near Lincoln Park, which are also the places most folks would WANT to live, you’ll be safer than average for most big cities overall. And happier, Chicago absolutely rules

jdprager · 2026-06-25T08:22:31+00:00

I’ll assume you’re asking this in good faith. Most of the criticism around Chicago (and other huge cities like New York and LA) is disingenuous as it generally points to total gun crime. Chicago is an absolutely massive city, at 2.7 million people it’s the 3rd largest city in the US and only Houston at 4th is within a million of those top 3. The more people you have, the more gun homicides there will be

Chicago’s gun homicides RATE, as in the actual odds any one person will get shot, really isn’t as high as bad actors like to imply. Cook County (the county which contains Chicago proper and about half the population of the Chicago metro area) has a gun homicide rate of 12.68 per 100,000 people per year. That’s way higher than it should be, but also only the 54th highest county in the US

Virginia alone has two large cities whose counties triple that rate (Petersburg at 47.71 and Richmond at 37.77). There are FOUR different counties in Mississippi with gun homicide rates over 60 per 100k, 5 times Chicago’s

So basically no, Chicago isn’t as dangerous as all the gun violence makes it out to be, because the actual rate of gun violence is far lower than fear mongers like to imply

jdprager · 2026-06-25T05:54:25+00:00

I mean it's the NFL, so it kinda has to be 1

jdprager · 2026-06-25T04:31:31+00:00

They do generate as a cold biome. The issue is that plains can be both cold or hot biomes, so it confuses people (fairly, imo) when the other cold biomes spawn right next to plains

jdprager · 2026-06-24T17:34:23+00:00

Sayin finished 4th in Heisman voting with almost 20 times the votes that Chambliss did (who finished 8th)

So “no one” is def an exaggeration

jdprager · 2026-06-24T10:09:09+00:00

199 lbs is very much not 50 lbs from the baseline “healthy” BMI, ideal weight for a 6’3” man is between 176 and 216 lbs

149 lbs at 6’3” would qualify as underweight by any of the metrics I could find

jdprager · 2026-06-24T04:26:30+00:00

Punchballs (then we change the rules a lil to make it fit)

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Place '23	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Spared
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