arc

But Yelena was freed from the Red Room's mind control in 2016. Remove five years due to getting blipped, and with estimates that Thunderbolts is in 2027 MCU time, that's still five-six years free of Red Room mind control, where she chose to use her Black Widow skills (in part) as a contractor for Valentina. And also Eleanor Bishop, maybe?

That's fair, but I enjoyed Wicked pt 1 as a story in its own right, far more than Dune pt 1. And I say this as someone who doesn't know the Wicked story, book or stage show, and who has read Dune. But I came to the Dune movies late and watched them one after another just a couple of months ago. I would have been so mad if I watched Dune pt 1 in theaters, whereas I felt pretty satisfied with Wicked pt 1.

There's a nice AJ+ short documentary by Dolly Li about the Chinese Delta community on Youtube. Coogler then hired Li as a consultant for Sinners. And even if none of that got them, the wretched economics under Jim Crow of a juke joint for sharecroppers who mostly only had plantation scrip to pay would have gotten them.

New poster too!

I’ve always liked Kenny Atkinson, but he should have to give back the Coach of the Year award after what happened in game 4. Esp because with three minutes to go in the first half, Indiana only had 61 points. They had a 19-2 run to close the half.

My take is WB knows the previous DC movie brain trust was flat out terrible so pushing Gunn is their move to sell to the audience that things are different now.

I choose to believe games 2 and some of 3 were feel-out games esp because Kerr had to adjust to not having Steph. I think they can get it back to 2-2. But I’m worried Steph won’t be back for game 6.

AV Club: Spoiler Space: Thunderbolts*' big twist hides deep connections to its comic book roots

For the series, Steph led his team in points, rebounds, and assists, becoming the oldest player in league history to do so. Rebounds! He’s 6-3 and he’s 37 years old!

🙏😴. The Warriors knocking the Rockets outta the playoffs is my favorite sports tradition. TBF Houston would be incredible if they had a half court offense.

Warriors-Rockets game 5: uggghhhh. The only silver lining is that even in a blowout, the Warriors scrubs made Udoka play his actual rotation, so the Warriors starters should go into game 6 with a little more rest than the Rockets. Letting Luka walk would be more catastrophic than Dallas trading him for AD; at least Dallas got AD. Luka isn’t an unimpeachable superstar, but even with Lakers exceptionalism, there’s no way they can sign a better player on the free market. The inexplicable Luka trade aside, Luka should normally be in the tier where those guys are too good to ever get traded. Even getting 100 cents on the dollar in a hypothetical trade, few teams who have a comparable player would want to make the deal, because a good team with a top tier superstar should be constructed around him (like Dallas was) and the fit after a trade would be suboptimal.

The implicit premise behind these “Warriors couldn’t have hacked it in the 80s or 90s” takes is that the rest of the NBA forgot how to grab guys (or yes, hand checking is no longer legal), and it requires ignoring that Curry actually already does get grabbed all the time. Also, the skill level in the league is much higher now than back then. We don’t even use the term “7 foot stiff” anymore because those types of guys are nearly unplayable. A rotation center can shoot, dribble, and pass now. “Defense-first” guards like Tony Allen get played off the court because they’re so ignorable when they play offense that their team can’t sustain playing 4-on-5. (I suppose the old rules limiting zone defenses also contributed to this, a sort of implicit subsidy for defense-only players.)

PHEW. I'm actually kinda glad I missed the Warriors-Rockets game. I was stressed just watching the box scores online at work.

Houston gotta give up that "Clutch City" nickname.

That is absolutely not what “wide open” means. KD got a sliver of separation, but this is still a contested shot. And again, player tracking data shows most of his shots have low shot quality, meaning a defender is close and contesting the shot. He is efficient despite being tightly guarded. Curry also makes contested shots, miraculous ones even, but he actually does shoot a lot of slightly more open shots too because he is really good at getting open, whether by using screens or just one-on-one moves. But a lot of times KD just rises up because he’s that tall and that good a shooter. From 2013-2019, he was by far the most efficient scorer in the midrange, despite facing a contest on 95% of those shots. Now, I’m not saying KD is the best player ever. He can score over contests and double teams like few others ever, but his passing out of a double is not that great.