Billy Hunter’s ESPN: the Body Issue Cover

Billy Hunter now gets cover of ESPN: the Body Issue. And the NBA Lockout steamrolls on…

Unlike the NBA, CFAAP on is back on Cavs: the Blog, baby!

And – I think to prove a point? – I’ve decided to do my part in ending the lockout by posting a union and/or league executive on the cover of an ESPN: the Body Issue every week until this unseemliness is resolved. Because no executive wants to be caught with his pants down. Or completely naked.


So, if you're keeping score, we now have:

David Stern.
Billy Hunter.

And this is just beginning.

Freud would say I have a problem with authority. I’m more hoping I just want to see some basketball.

Now, for the Cavs: the Bloggers:

Just to see if we can’t begin a little debate here to keep ourselves entertained…let me start throwing some hypotheticals at you. (Along with drawings of naked old men, hypotheticals are my specialty.)

HYPOTHETICAL ONE:

Assuming the Cavs team stays as presently constructed, and knowing what you know now… what would you rather come out of the 2012 NBA Draft with?

A) Any one of Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, or Harrison Barnes.

or

B) Any two of Michael Gilchrist, Quincy Miller, Perry Jones, Bradley Beal, Austin Rivers, James McAdoo or Jared Sullinger.

I’ll share my answer a bit later in the day.

(Actually, screw that, let's do it now...

I'm "A" all the way.

Two reasons. The first is that the top three guys represent the safest NBA picks in that Davis and Drummond should at worst find a way to contribute something defensively (they're both uniquely talented in that regard), while Harrison Barnes is as close to a sure-thing as there is in the draft.

The second reason is in my mind even more convincing. The Cavs (as do all teams) need one "great" far more than they need two "goods." As deep as this draft is, I don't see anyone from that second group becoming elite elite (with the possible exception of Quincy Miller, who I still view as a long shot star, and Brad Beal, who I don't know particularly well yet). They're all really good, but they're Iguodala good. At best, they're Rudy Gay good. There isn't a LBJ/Durant among that group. Each has a substantial liability that's already evident.

Davis and Drummond, they're the only two guys in the draft with "top of the NBA" potential. Harrison Barnes I love as well -- and again, he's the safest bet to fulfill his promise of anyone -- and is just a tier below them ceiling-wise.

And so ends hypothetical one.)

(Ps- If you're coming from CTB, I hope you answered before you read that.)

By Ryan + Aron, for Cavs: the Blog.

Funny Plates: Itty Bitty Titty Committee Gets Serious!

The Itty Bitty Titty Committee gets serious in "Funny Plate" number nine...which comes just an hour after "Funny Plate" number eight because A) I'd missed a week, and B) it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I wanted to be as proactive as possible.

Even if they're itty bitty, get them checked 'cause they're really pretty. (I worry that as soon as I turn 30, I'm going to lose the ability to talk about breasts without sounding creepy.)

By Ryan, for CreativelyDisposingOfPlates.com.

Funny Plates: Money Laundering

"Funny Plate" eight is a homage to Money Laundering.

I'm 99% certain this is how you do it.

By Ryan, for CreativelyDisposingOfPlates.com.

David Stern’s ESPN: The Body Issue Cover

David Stern gets the cover of ESPN’s Body Issue because of the NBA Lockout.

Congratulations! If you’re coming from Cavs: the Blog, chances are you like my favorite team and are just, in general, a learned person.

Here is Drawings from the Notebook of Chris Grant (episode 18) in all its potentially NSFW glory:


What do we need the players for?

I think Stern looks fine.

By Ryan + Aron, for Cavs: the Blog.

Funny Plates: Jewno MacGuff

It's our seventh "Funny Plate," celebrating the sassiness of Jewno MacGuff. She's a lot like Juno MacGuff, except her Michael Cera is a doctor.

By Ryan, for CreativelyDisposingofPlates.com.

Occupy Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

We better Occupy Wall Street, because if “Money Never Sleeps,” it’s probably making some unreasonable decisions.

At current, I am not sitting out on the street with a sign, nor am I boycotting Wall Street products – which are what, again? – so I’m kind of a weenie for jumping on the bandwagon.

But that said, all bandwagons need weenies, and I like this particular bandwagon.

I hope that Occupy Wall Street becomes the great political movement of my lifetime. I realize it’s not nearly there yet (more people need to get on the street! Lazy motherf*ckers…), but it’s already exceeded my expectations—let’s keep driving in the direction we’re going.

Now, clarification time:

Do I want Wall Street overrun with dissenters? Of course not. I don’t think anybody wants that, except for maybe this guy:

Hey, a man’s gotta eat...

With complete sincerity though, I think that these people are on to something. At least in sentiment.

The Tea Party – whose 2009 emergence is the one most immediately used in drawing OWS parallels – was/is angry at the state of the country (parallel), and tried to/is trying to strike back at the perceived regulatory bodies they felt/feel responsible (perpendicular).

The Tea Party’s biggest problem? (Besides issues of gay rights and religion creeping into their agenda and soiling what was originally a semi-earnest brand…)

I think they’re angry at the wrong people.

Occupy Wall Street, at its most focused, I believe is more in tune with the country’s issues.

The income divide – by definition, really – is the greatest threat to mass “American exceptionalism” since, let's say, the eighties. The reason our economy is faltering seems to be, to borrow a percentage from the OWS movement, that 99% of us don’t have any money to spend on anyone else’s products. Thus, the multi-nationals grow (because they can sell to a wider base), while everything local continues to fade (thus, exacerbating the problem).

So how do you fix that?

Tailoring the tax code (or even less drastically, tailoring the regulatory bodies that watch over multi-national businesses) to favor/aid the lower-tied consumers has been accused of being socialistic (which in my view isn’t the worst thing in the world) and wealth redistributive.

It is.

But should we really be fighting that?

Consider this: With the income divide as severe as it currently is, isn't not layering the economic system in such a way also wealth redistribution?

Isn't it redistributive even more so?

If everybody keeps 80% of their annual pay, but executive compensation continues to soar while the compensation of the middle and lower classes continues to stagnate...won't the income divide just continue to grow with each passing year?

So, I think then very practically, a (the?) solution to stimulating the economy is quite likely the alternative not acting...which would be to more radically tier the tax code/corporate regulations to favor the consumer, and to favor those suffering the stagnation.

We shift money from the very wealthy to the government, and then from the government to the very poor/middle-class. In theory then, the poor would immediately spend the money (they have no other recourse – if you had to choose between buying dinner or opening an offshore investment account, you settle on dinner…) on local businesses, thus increasing the quality of life for the poor and middle-class (the latter of which hopefully still own the local businesses), while bolstering the economy around them. It’s “trickle up,” economics, and it seems to me that with TUE there’s far less to go wrong than there is with the TDE.

And while I think that Occupy Wall Street’s centrifugal message (or at least what I hope it to eventually be) is “Get Money Out of Politics,” and not TUE... I actually believe that getting money out of politics will represent the most significant step possible toward the enacting of my latter economic musings.

You’d have a hard time convincing me that what I wrote above doesn’t make sense, and for that reason, I’ve got to think the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is the lack of cause-associated political capital. Political capital costs money, and the money would rather see opposite agendas go down. If we're able to take money out of the equation, the most obvious fix becomes more likely to step to the forefront. (Truth be told, even if we ended up with more conservative action post-the years of ridiculously hefty clandestine political investment, I’d feel better knowing that the policies enacted were at least enacted with the purest of intentions.)

And there you have it. Occupy Wall Street through the eyes of a layman.

It’s a step in the right direction, and I hope it continues to build.

Take it from me – I’m an English major.

By Ryan, for the Center for American Progress Illustrated. (Guilty little secret: It’s just a link to this site.)