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Pro Hoops Deacs - Jake LaRavia with 89 points in last three games of the season

PhDeac said:
"Cabbie, could you take me and my son to the secret cartel museum at the top of the hill?" is either the beginning of a great story or the beginning of the end.
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Wife was there too. She was a bit in shock that within a few minutes of arriving she was taking fotos with a guy who once had a $10M bounty on his head when all any of us expected was a trip to a museum. Same cabbie took us from there to La Comuna 13, which is one of the coolest half day tourist spots on the entire planet that I've been to at least. We all gave Medellin super high marks as a destination. Great food, beautiful city in an amazing location with great weather and relatively safe for a LatAm city.
 
inspectah said:
Interesting. I admire your sense of adventure. I definitely remember reading about the house/museum you mention. I think there was a long article on it in the New Yorker a couple of years back and I believe they interviewed the brother you met.

I took my kids out for mini golf and ice cream over spring break. :noidea:
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They definitely ran a story on that in the Smithsonian magazine as well. That's a fun memory to have, Deacman. Good job not getting shot.
 
DeacMan said:
Wife was there too. She was a bit in shock that within a few minutes of arriving she was taking fotos with a guy who once had a $10M bounty on his head when all any of us expected was a trip to a museum. Same cabbie took us from there to La Comuna 13, which is one of the coolest half day tourist spots on the entire planet that I've been to at least. We all gave Medellin super high marks as a destination. Great food, beautiful city in an amazing location with great weather and relatively safe for a LatAm city.
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huge expat community in medellin

blew up during covid especially
 
inspectah said:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/the-afterlife-of-pablo-escobar
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Interesting article. He didn't use any drops in his eyes when we were there but yeah that eye looked messed up. We were also the only ones there until just before we left when another cab of local tourists pulled up. The quote he said about his brother in the article was interesting as when he talked about Pablo with us the message was along the lines of how "you love your brother regardless". We asked him if there were any regrets and he basically said it was the life he led and once he was involved there was no way to turn back (hence me reading between the lines on the plata o plomo). FWIW, he did not personally lead us around the house like the people referenced in the article. Someone else did and he just was hanging out with friends outside. He also was a bike racer in his youth and got his nickname when he wiped out during a race, got covered in mud and crossed the finish line looking like a little bear - "Osito".
 
I would bet Manman has figured out how to get an edge on his opponent on court. Now he needs to learn that it is possible to get an edge on competitors off court. Every year there are hundreds of applicants for player positions on NBA teams. 30 plus a few applicants get guaranteed paychecks. The rest get probationary, make good spots. Because, as a player, you become the face of the organization, every little thing you do becomes a plus or minus for the organization. Some don't care. Others do. Wearing a Tshirt with the face of a guy who blew up a plane with over 100 innocent people on board to an interview for a public facing position is not a good look.

Also, the idividual whose face is on the T shirt probably indirectly shortened the careers and/or lives of some of the guys who used to be NBA players.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of T shirts out there that are less off putting than the one Manman chose. Manman really missed an opportunity to get an edge in the off court area. When you are at that level, every little bit helps, or in this case may have been a detriment.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
huge expat community in medellin

blew up during covid especially
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You don't feel that when you are there, but the city is huge. And I could totally see it as the nice parts of town are really nice and are cheap by our standards. The weather is pretty much perfect all the time so long as you can put up with a rain shower in the afternoon for a while. I'm obviously biased given the kids were adopted from Bogota but I think Colombia is a great country to visit overall and Medellin is my favorite city of the one's I've visited.
 
OldGouldandBlack said:
I think it's funny that the tone of that article wasn't even that critical of ManMan; if anything, it shows how ludicrous the teams' behaviors are and the piece is littered with odd stories of these guys' interactions. I thought it was hilarious, and he probably/maybe should have chosen a different shirt, but whatever. These teams and their questions are crazy. Of course some folks just immediately jump in as if he walked into some corporate interview with it on, and push their elitist bullshit, which is no shock in this place, I guess, sadly. We don't even know the circumstances of the meeting. ManMan is going to be ManMan and I think that's great. Fuck'em up ManMan.

Like, is the response of the Warriors dude any better? Tell them that it signifies you are a killer on the court? Whole thing is a joke.
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Are you trolling or is this just cope?

The Alondes mention was definitely not positive. It was the only negative one in the whole article. Every other player had either funny anecdotes or serious ones about their playing careers.

These are supposed to be weird questions. The teams are trying to get a player to react to something they are not expecting. They want to see how they think on their feet, their emotional reactions, how they handle it. Basically - did the player prepare for this?

Alondes made two errors right out the gate based on his unusual wardrobe choice, it wasn't some gotcha question or scenario he had to respond to. Who cares what the Warriors guy said as a potential response, he was probably trying to give Alondes an out. He's not the one looking for a spot in the league.

It was not a positive mention for a player who is a borderline pick. He needs to give teams as few reasons as possible to pass him by.

There are other players in the article talking about it being a job interview. They didn't think it was a joke. Why would the teams waste time and money to do this at all? They clearly see some value in it.
 
Deaconblue said:
I would bet Manman has figured out how to get an edge on his opponent on court. Now he needs to learn that it is possible to get an edge on competitors off court. Every year there are hundreds of applicants for player positions on NBA teams. 30 plus a few applicants get guaranteed paychecks. The rest get probationary, make good spots. Because, as a player, you become the face of the organization, every little thing you do becomes a plus or minus for the organization. Some don't care. Others do. Wearing a Tshirt with the face of a guy who blew up a plane with over 100 innocent people on board to an interview for a public facing position is not a good look.

Also, the idividual whose face is on the T shirt probably indirectly shortened the careers and/or lives of some of the guys who used to be NBA players.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of T shirts out there that are less off putting than the one Manman chose. Manman really missed an opportunity to get an edge in the off court area. When you are at that level, every little bit helps, or in this case may have been a detriment.
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Yeah, this is my read on it too. The whole you have a public facing job angle and you're not a "can't miss" player. So don't give any team a reason to question you.

To be clear Escobar's legacy is way worse than just blowing up an airliner. Tens of thousands of people died because of him and there were (and remain) literally millions of refugees within Colombia who fled the countryside to move to the cities because of the drug trade and the violence it brought to the country. Just one story - my Mother-in-Law sponsored an elderly woman through her church. So when we were down there about 5 years ago we met up with this woman in Bogota. She was like 80 at the time and we pick up her and one of her daughters outside her home way up on one of the hillsides on the Southside of town. We're talking a dirt floor place with a shared kitchen (so I presume basic services like running water and electricity were on offer) with other ramshackle units. We take her to a local mall down off the hillside, buy her some stuff for her place (sheets, towels, etc.) and then took her to lunch at a local (somewhat nicer) equivalent of a TGIFriday's. During lunch she told us how she fled to Bogota years ago because the paramilitaries showed up on their little finca. They helped them bc they had guns. A week later the FARC shows up and says they heard the family gave assistance to the paramilitaries. They then proceeded to shoot one of her adult sons in front of her and said never to help the other side again before taking off. At that time this all went down both the paramilitaries and the FARC were heavily involved in the drug trade.
 
Now that we're in the social media age and the whole world is Hollywood, only no publicity is bad publicity. Alondes will be fine.
 
They're not drafting a backup guard in the second round to be the face of the franchise. It's not like he's a malcontent, the chemistry he had with his teammates last year was insanely good. Everyone in the locker room loved him. Manman's tape and skills will get him some drafted, it doesn't matter what t-shirt he wears.
 
BarcaDeac said:
yeah and now his hippos are destroying the environment there
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I'd have liked to have travelled outside of town to see his "prison" and perhaps some of the hippos, but we didn't have enough time before heading onto Bogota (our son met his birth siblings for the first time on this trip). The climate is apparently perfect for them and yeah, they're fucking stuff up like any invasive species.
 
PhDeac said:
"Cabbie, could you take me and my son to the secret cartel museum at the top of the hill?" is either the beginning of a great story or the beginning of the end.
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Still a good story.
 
Alondes compared his game to Jrue Holiday and Lebron.
https://theathletic.com/3329200/2022/05/24/2022-nba-draft-prospects-comparison/

Wake Forest guard Alondes Williams
Comp: Jrue Holiday, but he watched a lot of LeBron James growing up and modeled his game after James.
Why: “I’m a pass-first type of guard and I’m a bigger guard… I like to pass the ball first and score at will whenever I want to. That’s what he always did so I looked at that.”

Jake said he watched a lot of Gordon Hayward in his interview.

USAToday compared Jake to Kyle Kuzma.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/nba-draft-combine-player-comparisons
 
Pro Hoops Deacs - LaRavia and Alondes invited to NBA Combine

Jake listed as one of the 3 best options for the Spurs at #20 (along with Nikola Jovic and Jalen Williams):
https://clutchpoints.com/3-best-options-for-spurs-with-no-20-pick-in-2022-nba-draft/

Jake LaRavia Jake LaRavia was projected as a second-round pick on the early 2022 NBA Draft boards. That has changed over the last few months because of his fit on a plethora of teams that run a modernized system. LaRavia would be an incredible stretch 4 to play alongside Jakob Poeltl in the starting frontcourt of the Spurs. Furthermore, it is the intelligent and quick decision-making that has caught the eyes of other teams as well.


When drafting at this juncture, some organizations would decide on the most talented player left, but the attitude and competitiveness are some of the few traits that the Spurs would heavily consider. LaRavia has the rare breed of being a high-level passer with his size, which could make him an initiator from the pinch post or elbow. LaRavia’s physical attributes and ball handling still need to be enhanced, but his rising stock has been something that San Antonio has noticed over the past weeks.
 
I think Jake would be a great fit on the Spurs. Dallas, GS, and Memphis are other intriguing late 1st landing spots for him
 
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