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Anchorage Man

@sethpartnow.bsky.social

19K followers 490 following 6.5K posts

Current: NBA Data Science @ Penn Interactive. Author: “The Midrange Theory” Prev: Director of Basketball Research @ Milwaukee Bucks. Dir. N. American Sports @ StatsBomb. NBA Analysis @ The Athletic

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 15m

Feel like The Animatrix is proof of concept for why this would be awesome.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 23m

No I mean merit-based punishment

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 29m

I dunno that’s pretty surreal in and of itself.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 37m

a cartoon character from spongebob squarepants is running to the salad bar

ALT: a cartoon character from spongebob squarepants is running to the salad bar

media.tenor.com

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 50m

Hidden?

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 56m

Teaching skills of basic empathy needs to become part of core curriculum through at least undergrad. Not even for any altruistic reasons, just for the ability to understand how others might act and react in and to various situations.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

I’m just saying this is ground well-trodden by thinkers over time, I’m not claiming to have special insight here.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

Appetite for physical risk is not an intrinsic trait. Imagine every material comfort you currently enjoy being removed. How does your behavior change?

This is basic Hobbesian stuff.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

In the future we’re talking about that’s not a lot of risk and there will be so many willing to try.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

it’s not just practice facility, it’s training staffs (sharing them is a bad idea because who do you think gets priority between the player making 25m & the one making 250k even in the 25m’s offseason), arenas (which must be staffed by hourly workers & can’t be used for other events on game night)

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

To paraphrase Jon Voight to trying to want De Niro off of the bank heist in Heat, the peasants only need to get lucky once.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

I had this realization after stumbling on a particularly ludicrous LinkedIn grindset post this weekend about some 23 year old getting lauded for taking client phone calls while at the gym.

What exactly is all this grind in service of? Being able to grind more?

Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 2h

I know it’s the most obvious thing in the world but it’s really sad that so many people have absolutely no desires or dreams in life except to accumulate money and our entire world is becoming a fucking pit because of it

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 1h

We played into June once when I was with the Bucks but I can assure you the facility was if anything busier than many other points in the year that and every other year.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

Point me the spot on the calendar where the NBA facilities aren’t being actively used by the NBA team. I’ll help, it’s the first 2 weeks in August.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

Oh man. I almost felt bad for him by the end.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

For example, even considering the vast gulf in luxury, travel expenses are so much larger a proportion of revenue.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

Agreed, but any framework for a true rev share deal has to start from a common understanding that (non-player salary) operating costs increase much more slowly than revenue. As I said above, I’ve done some back of the envelope calcs which suggest WNBA op costs are ~4x the NBA’s relative to revenue.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

Once someone starts ignoring stuff that matters but cuts against their argument in one context, you have to worry about other contexts where you might miss the hidden stuff because of lack of familiarity.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

NBA had the same problem 2 CBA’s ago. Cap smoothing would have been good, but the players had no trust that the league wasn’t actually screwing them to fully engage on negotiating.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4h

I’m quite familiar. His work is…problematic from an analysis perspective without wanting to relitigate decades long debates

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 6h

I think the Bucks just signed Uncle Dennis to an exhibit 10.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 7h

Maybe in a higher trust relationship there would be a path forward where the BRI split scales up as certain revenue milestones are hit, but hard to see that being worked out in the present negotiation given the apparent state of relationship between league and players.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 7h

The 50% BRI split the W players are asking for is IMO a complete non-starter until the revenues scale substantially as back of the envelope math suggests “fixed” or fixed-adjacent costs like facilities, travel, business ops and non-playing staff expenses are several X higher relative to revenue.

Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 7h

Very fair, the potential for Hollywood accounting here is not small, and maybe the NBPA is getting so much new money anyway that they’ve taken their eyes off the ball.

But I’d still want as much revenue as possible being “taxed” at 10% rather than 50%.

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 8h

Wouldn’t this incentivize offloading more revenue and fewer costs to the WNBA team given the relative revenue splits for contracts?

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