So it’s official. Stephen Curry is a System Point Guard.
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Idaho and New Mexico State will no longer be part of the Sun Belt Conference after the 2017 college football season, the nation’s map said in a statement.
“Sun Belt, my ass,” the statement read. “Idaho has as much to do with the Sun Belt as it has to do with the Brazilian rain forest. Whoever thought of this should be shown an atlas on the Internet and then forced to eat his or her own PC.”
New Mexico State had no comment for the 39th consecutive year.
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Major League Baseball’s 30-game suspension of New York Yankees pitcher Aroldis Chapman comes with a statement that doesn’t actually say what he was being suspended for, except for something called “inappropriate conduct.” In fact, Chapman’s own statement says he never harmed his girlfriend in the alleged domestic violence incident but that he was being punished for firing his gun. The MLB statement never mentioned a girl at all.
So there is no precedent for domestic violence being set here at all, except maybe using a firearm for something other than venison procurement. Yay lawyers!
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Michail Antonio of West Ham United scored a goal against Sunderland the other day and promptly went onto the ground to run around in a circle in homage. His coach, Slaven Bilic, noted the celebratory terpsichory, and approved:
“I am a big fan of the Simpsons and saw his celebrations,” Bilic said. “To see him connected with Homer Simpson – no connection between the two. Homer is lazy. Michail is a workaholic. But I enjoyed his celebration.”
Three things stand out here, Slav’ old man, old chap, old sock, old goat. One, good call on the Simpsons. Two, don’t dog Homer. And three, the original run-around-in-a-circle-on-the-ground-kateer was Curly Howard of the Three Stooges in 1937, and if you don’t know that, Coachie, you aren’t fit to work at this level.
Now apologize to all involved and write a thousand times, “I’m a victim of soi-kum-stance.”
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The best thing about good intentions is the way they almost always turn to the dog’s business, as Michael Weinreb of Vice Sports points out here.
In this case, North Dakota had to change its nickname, Fighting Sioux, and after years of wrangling came up with the far weaker Fighting Hawks. But the NCAA settlement says they have to retain the copyright to Fighting Sioux, which means . . . oh, yes, this:
“The NCAA settlement has tied the university in knots. That settlement calls for UND to retain sole possession of the rights to the "Fighting Sioux" brand, and in order to prevent other entities from co-opting it, UND has to retain the trademark. And in order to retain the trademark, the school has to use that trademark. So since 2013, the university has been selling a limited amount of Sioux merchandise as part of what it called its Dacotah Legacy Collection. The line's latest run—which rolled out last month and included T-shirts, key chains, and hats—was for sale inside a gift shop at the school's hockey arena (UND is a perennial national hockey power).
So Sioux merchandise is openly being sold simply to satisfy the agreement the school made with the NCAA in order to abandon the nickname in the first place.”
This is the best thing today, beating Super Tuesday by an actual landslide trapping villagers under yards of snow at the bottom of a hill.
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And finally, Steve Kerr is 1-0 after abject Monday Green apologies. In fact, he’s 1-0 after everything ever. If he were a co-worker in any other business, you’d cheerfully hate him behind his back.