James Harden joins Jeremy Lin on the Rockets

Yesterday, after the Oklahoma City Thunder and 3rd guard James Harden were unable to reach an agreement on a contract extension, the Thunder traded Harden to the Houston Rockets. Harden will now be joining Jeremy Lin in the Rockets backcourt. A good pic of the two standing together.

How does Harden view his new backcourt partner? Harden responded:

How does Jeremy Lin’s game complement your style of play?

Harden: We’re similar. He’s a point guard but he can obviously score the ball. He makes tremendous decisions. He can pass the ball and it’s tough to guard him. It’s the same with me: I can score but I’m unselfish as well. We’re going to work off each other and then we’ll find a way to get our bigs and shooters involved.

I think it’s going to be great. You saw what he did last year when he had that great run and he’s capable of a lot more. So we’ll sit down and talk and figure things out and how to make the most of each other.

This statement by Harden was the piece in the Harden trade I was looking for to project Harden's beneficial impact on Lin.

On paper, Harden's game should enhance Lin's game. Harden is the next-generation Ginobili, meaning he combines basketball smarts and an all-around floor game with point ability, creative breakdown ability, and scoring and shooting ability. His experience playing with Russell Westbrook, a college combo guard converted to NBA PG like Lin, should help him adjust quickly to Lin. The Ginobili-Parker comparison is also apt.

I'll highlight three ways Harden should make Lin better. One, the most important goal for Lin this season is to log a full season, and Harden will allow Lin to pace himself and save wear and tear. Two, Lin's streaky shooting is less of a concern with Harden's superior shooting ability. Three, Harden will allow Lin the option of playing off the ball. If Lin struggles running the Rockets half-court offense against a top NBA defense, as happened at times last season with the Knicks, Lin can stay on the floor while Harden steps into the point role. When the Knicks signed Jason Kidd, I looked forward to pairing Lin with a cross-matching big point guard so that Lin could use his strengths as an off-the-ball, creative scoring and playmaking combo guard - a better version of 2011 Finals Heat-killer JJ Barea. Lin excelled in that role at Harvard. I believe Lin would be a devastating playmaker from the weak side initiating his offense (including secondary pick and rolls) against rotating defenders and mismatches. Of course, Kidd is on his last NBA legs and only scores as an outlet 3-point shooter, so it would have been a limited option for the Knicks. But coming to the Rockets, playing Lin off the ball was no option because Lin would be forced to dominate the ball again at PG. Now with Harden sharing the backcourt with Lin, the big guard with point ability will allow the Rockets to better exploit Lin's versatility by playing him on or off the ball. Lin's points and assists should bump up as a result.

My concern with Harden was that the ambitious, hungry, former 3rd guard would look to make his NBA rep as a front-line starter with a Kobe-esque approach that the ball belonged to him, and his new teammates, especially Lin, must co-exist with Harden on his terms. The Harden statement shows that he is joining the Rockets with the right attitude and views Lin as a complementary partner, not a competitor. I like it.

In terms of the team leader question, the NBA is not like the NFL, where the starting quarterback must always be the undisputed alpha male for the team to function. NBA teams need more than 1 star playmaker/scorer. As Harden should understand from playing with the Thunder, dynamic duos, and preferably big threes or even fantastic fours, are the baseline necessity to contend for the NBA championship. With the Knicks, the versatile Lin had the potential to form one of the best G/F combos in the NBA with the versatile Carmelo Anthony. Indeed, at the point Lin was lost to injury, the two players under Woodson were showing incipient signs of a legit dynamic duo. But by leaving the Knicks for the Rockets, Lin was going to be stuck as his team's lone star playmaker/scorer - good for Lin's personal stats, perhaps, but bad for team wins and the wear-and-tear load on him. Now the Rockets can stretch out defenses with Lin playing off Harden and vice versa. In principle, I still prefer a G/F combo like Lin/Anthony over a G/G combo, but a big/small-guard dynamic duo can work well, too, when both guards can run the point, make plays, and create scores.

Finally, nothing secures an athlete's reputation like a track record of clutch, even when the athlete has flaws in his game. When Kidd joined the Knicks, he emphasized that games are mostly won or lost in the last 5 minutes (ie, end of regulation or the full over-time), which is the only stage of the game the aged Kidd expected to play. Closing a game in clutch fashion is a Lin specialty, and depending on how much ability Kidd has left, a Kidd-Lin combo would have been effective at the end of games. Harden, based on his track record with the Thunder, should help Lin close games, too. One, while Harden took his share of clutch shots with the Thunder, he smoothly worked with Kevin Durant and Westbrook so that Harden's star teammates excelled in clutch situations. Two, Harden struggled to score in the clutch when his star teammates were contained in the Finals, which may make him more inclined to set up Lin for game-winning shots. If Lin game winners become a regular highlight on ESPN, his skeptics will have little to say, even if Lin's shooting remains streaky and his turnovers remain relatively high.

Harden sounds like his mindset is in the right place to play with Lin, which means the two smart, unselfish, multi-talented, hungry young guards should be a joy to watch playing together. Paired with Harden, Lin is now better positioned to sustain his play over a full season, which is his main goal for this season. But more than that, Lin can win with Harden. The Rockets have a competitive core of versatile guards with Lin, Harden, and Delfino. The team just needs one or two of the young bigs to step up and fill the offensive hole left in the frontcourt by the amnestied, reliable Luis Scola.

Add Oct 31, 2012: Lin on Harden. The Rockets 1st game of the 2012-13 season is tonight. Finally, Lin will begin to settle the spirited debates over his NBA future that have been non-stop since he went down with his knee injury in March.

Eric

A parents' nightmare

A parents' nightmare.

Why?

They were beautiful children. The young Krim family's life appeared idyllic, NYC-style. However, when the father was hired by CNBC Bloomberg, the parents apparently left behind a close-knit extended family for both parents when they moved from California to NYC. If they feel guilt over the killings, it will be from leaving a good job in California that allowed them access to regular family childcare help for a better job in NYC that took the Krims away from their families. So they hired a nanny. Mom's livejournal featuring her children. The condolence I left on her blog. Dad and mom's old livejournals.

I hope it at least turns out that the nanny was wounded trying to defend the children. One seemingly odd detail in the newspaper account: "When Ms. Krim returned around 5:30 p.m., the commissioner said, she found a dark apartment." Would the nanny turn off all the lights in the apartment before trying to commit suicide in the dark? Why it's not odd: Sunset in NYC on October 25 was 6:01 pm and the apartment building is on the upper west side and its windows face west and south, so it would have caught the last light of the day. There's still enough daylight to see without artificial light at 5:30 pm in late October in NYC, but the daylight is just dim enough at that time to begin switching on the room lights. Presumably, the murders occurred before 5:30 pm during the dwindling afternoon light. Does "dark" mean the shades were drawn? A still, quiet apartment probably worried the mom as much as the gathering gloom.

An updated report on the nanny. The update says the nanny tried to kill herself in front of the mom when the mom walked in on the nanny and the children in the bathroom, and a neighbor (Charlotte Friedman, aka Songline) shared the elevator going up with the children and nanny at about 5 pm. More here and here.

I wonder if more UWS moms will now opt to hire Columbia and Barnard girls as babysitters rather than full-time nannies.

Nov 3, 2012 update: The nanny has been charged with murder. I wonder whether the Krims returned to California to be with their families. I wonder whether the father has returned to their UWS apartment.

A troubling question: Some news reports say the children were still breathing when medical help arrived at the apartment and they died either in the ambulance enroute to the hospital or at the hospital. They may have been mortally wounded regardless of medical help; in other words, there may have been no 'golden hour' where medical help could have saved one or both child's lives. If the children were indeed still alive when discovered in their bathroom by their mother, though, precisely when did they first receive medical attention? The reports seem to indicate the mother immediately ran out of the apartment with her surviving daughter while the super shut the door on the bathroom with the nanny inside - with the dying children still in the bathroom with the nanny. In other words, it's implied the children did not receive medical help from the mother, super, or anyone else until emergency services arrived. Was a fleeting opportunity missed by the first responding adults, including the mother, to save one or both lives? It's a troubling question.

Nov 6, 2012 update: The memorial for the children was held at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center yesterday. Does this mean the Krims are staying in NYC? I can't imagine they'll return to live in La Rochelle. Perhaps they will stay in the NYC area, but move to a secluded rural location upstate, so the father can stay in his job.

Radaronline seems to be following the nanny's story and reports the unspooling details of the nanny's resentment are as sordid as speculated. The NY Times reports on same. The nanny reportedly criticized how the mom spoke to a housekeeper, which matches a post in the mom's blog. If what the nanny says about arguments with the mom is true, then why didn't the Krims let her go, and instead allow the tension between them to build? Could it be that the parents viewed the nanny too much like family, which you don't cut loose at the first sign of trouble, rather than an at-will employee? Or, could it be that the perception the Krims had about their relationship with the nanny was radically different than the perception the nanny had about their relationship? I believe it's the latter. There are reports the nanny had exhibited outward signs of changed behavior indicating mental illness. A spiraling state of depression and anxiety in a corrupted mind can alter one's perception, judgement, mood, decision-making, values, thinking processes - the whole mindset. A corrupted mind can lose its resiliency and become stretched thin and brittle, so that the person can no longer solve problems effectively. Thus, adverse situations and challenges that are normally bearable for the person turn into sparks landing on dry brush or a rock thrown against glass. The unsolved life problems worsen and compound, becoming harder to solve, thus placing greater pressure on the person, thus accelerating the disintegrating spiral. The nanny could have been interacting directly with the Krim family but literally experiencing a different reality in her mind about their seemingly ordinary interactions than the Krims experienced. In other words, the nanny was no longer thinking like a 'reasonable' person, while the parents, long accustomed to thinking of their nanny as a reasonable person, were ill-equipped to detect the change. (The Massachusetts crime lab tech comes to mind as someone in a responsible duty position who reacted extremely and unexpectedly within her duties.) Still, while changed behavior, worse judgement, and reduced capacity to deal with life are par for the course for a stressed anxiety/depression sufferer, the Cujo-like killing of children is an abnormal radical leap in reaction. A more normal reaction would have been a withdrawal from the pain of life (suicide being the extreme measure), not killing children. That's not to say the nanny was incapable, in the legal sense, of knowing that her killing the children was wrong - an altered mind is not necessarily out of mind.

There is trollish facebook page of indeterminate authorship proclaiming the nanny's innocence.

The parents have started the Lulu & Leo Fund to promote children's participatory arts and science in the names of their deceased children. A joint statement from the parents.

I feel it's important to recognize that when she was attacked, 6-1/2-year-old Lucia fought back. Reports say Lucia suffered multiple knife wounds, including defensive wounds. I like to imagine Lucia was trying to defend her little brother as well as herself when she died, and it's not a stretch to think she realized the danger to both of them. She went down fighting. That matters.

Today, I ate a hot dog at Gray's Papaya, asked about pool fees at the Jewish Community Center, drank a (gross) chocolate milk from Duane Reade at 325 Columbus Ave, gazed at the family's dark, curtained windows at La Rochelle, couldn't find an outside path to the Natural History Museum Rose Center's outdoor water fountain, used the boys bathroom in PS 87 (open to the public for election day), and spoke briefly with the custodian? at La Escuelita. Earlier, I had left 2 pennies, 1 for each child, in 1 each of 2 candles outside of La Rochelle.

08 1630EST NOV2012 update:

The time is now 4:30 pm EST on Thursday, November 8, 2012. It is now exactly 2 weeks since the mother discovered her dying children. (Due to the time change, 4:30 now was 5:30 two weeks ago.)

Good-bye, children. Rest in peace.

Lucia Ursula "Lulu" Krim
May 25 2006 - Oct 25 2012

Leo Hidalgo "Lito" Krim
Sep 30 2010 - Oct 25 2012

Jan 7, 2013 update: How did I miss this? The parents have a Lulu & Leo Fund facebook page. Their latest updates inform they are currently on a RV road trip from California returning to NYC. My god, they're strong. Folks who dismiss American "bobos" (bohemian bourgeoise) like the Krims underestimate the underlying toughness many of them possess. The Krims' decision to openly - even defiantly - return to NYC shows the inner steel belying the Eloi exterior of their lives. Their success in life before their children were murdered was not accidental; they made it. Will they actually return to La Rochelle? I'm already surprised (and admire) they left their strong family safety net in California to come back to NYC. I'd be more surprised if they resumed residence in their old apartment, but an argument can be made that staying close to Lucia and Leo's spirits means living in their home. If they live in NYC and don't return to La Rochelle and the Upper West Side, based on the family's bobo lifestyle, I guess they would relocate to West/Greenwich Village or perhaps hipster Brooklyn.

May 17, 2013: They'll be having a son this fall. Mom's Lulu & Leo itinerary, a walking tour.

Eric

Robert Griffin III is Aaron Rodgers v2.0

Right now, the 2012 NFL draft 2nd pick, Redskins QB Robert "RG3" Griffin III, looks like a better quarterback than the 2012 NFL draft 1st pick, Colts QB Andrew Luck, who is no slouch. Interesting fact: Griffin is an Army brat.

RG3 made an impressive introduction to New York Giants fans yesterday in a very close 27-23 loss to the Giants. Griffin showed off a complete skillset: solid fundamentals, electric runner, strong arm, impeccable touch, poise under adversity, decision-making ability, and clutch ability. He surveys the field well, can make all the throws, and make them under pressure. He has already mastered the play fake in the option. Since running aggressively into a concussion 2 weeks ago, he has adjusted to avoid unnecessary hits while still using his legs to buy time to pass or rush. Griffin looks like a faster version of Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, who is also a precision-passing, smooth, mobile quarterback. The two QBs are even the same size (6'2", 220 lbs). Some fans compare him to Eagles QB Michael Vick, who has similar gifts (strong accurate arm, electric runner), but Vick doesn't give off the calm in-control vibe that Griffin shares with Rodgers.

The Giants struggled mightily to contain the Washington Redskins' option offense, which is more impressive in light of the Giants defense's domination of the Panthers' similar Cam Newton-based option offense earlier in the season. The Giants eventually won with a string of 2nd half Redskins turnovers and yet another game-winning play by Eli Manning. As he has done often in his storied career, Manning made unforced errors, sprayed the ball (his passes constantly look 2-3 feet off target), and threw the football at the hands of overlooked defenders until his team needed him to take the win at the end, at which point he flipped a switch and turned into the robo-Superbowl-winning quarterback who is unfazed by heavy pass-rushing pressure and fits difficult deep passes into tiny windows.

Nineteen seconds before Manning hit WR Victor Cruz in stride for the game-winning catch-and-run 77-yard touchdown, RG3 led WR Santana Moss into the endzone with a perfectly thrown 30-yard lob pass for what appeared to be a comeback-winning touchdown. Earlier in the same drive, RG3 had converted a 4th-and-10 with a 19-yard pass off a scramble with the Giants' elite defensive linemen bearing down. After the Manning-to-Cruz game winner, RG3 was calmly and quickly driving the Redskins down the field again when Giant LB Chase Blackburn stripped the football from Moss to close the game.

As much as RG3 looked like Aaron Rodgers on Sunday, Rodgers is a veteran, league MVP, and Superbowl winner, while young Griffin is still a rookie. NFL defenses adapt well and quarterbacks have a long developmental curve. Some good rookie quarterbacks look strong early then plateau, like Cam Newton this year, while some bad rookie quarterbacks, like Eli Manning, look lost early then improve into reliable winners. Seven games into his young career, though, RG3 shows every indication that he will be a great one.

Bonus: Nick Javas rap recap of the Redskins-Giants game, featured on WFAN's Boomer and Carton morning show.

Eric

Links about anti-Asian discrimination in university admissions

The NAACP lawsuit against the SHSAT aka Stuyvesant test recommends the university admissions model as a replacement. Here are resources about anti-Asian discrimination in university admissions:

Minding the Campus article: Let's Be Frank about Anti-Asian Admission Policies.
Inside Higher Ed report: Think Outside 'The Box'.
Yahoo article: Some Asians' college strategy: Don't check 'Asian'.
NY Times article: Do Asian-Americans Face Bias in Admissions at Elite Colleges?
NY Times article: Asian-Americans in the Argument.
Dartmouth article: Race poses challenges to admissions.
The American Conservative Ron Unz article: The Myth of American Meritocracy.
Professor Steve Hsu comments on The Myth of American Meritocracy.
The Atlantic Conor Friedersdorf follow-up: Is the Ivy League Fair to Asian Americans?
Blogger Chuck Ross post: Prestige by Osmosis.
Princeton Professor Thomas Espenshade's homepage.
80-20 National Asian American Educational Foundation.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

With the NAACP lawsuit re Stuy in mind, Minding the Campus on anti-Asian discrimination in university admissions. Inside Higher Ed report. Yahoo article. NY Times article. NY Times article. Dartmouth article. The American Conservative Ron Unz article; summary by Steve Hsu; follow-up by Conor Friedersdorf. Chuck Ross. Princeton Professor Thomas Espenshade's homepage. 80-20 National Asian American Educational Foundation.

A Stuyvesant alumni twitter. Twitter is just like a scrolling headline newsfeed.

The Simpsons captured nicely the unrequited love of awkward lonely boys for mortified girls in the highwater season 4 episode 15, I Love Lisa, two episodes before all-time Simpsons great episode Last Exit to Springfield. The sadness of Ralph Wiggum on Valentine's Day, Lisa's sympathy, I Choo Choo Choose You, the shock of love story turned lie in an instant, and the catharsis of reenacting one of history's great romances with Lisa as George and Martha Washington. Interestingly, and true to life in my experience, the rejection by their love objects transform both Ralph Wiggum and the Phantom of the Opera from awkward misfits into electrically dynamic men, infused with the explosive passion of the dark side.

Génération Identitaire, a French youth nationalist movement, has a slick "declaration of war" on youtube. Interestingly, not all the youth in the video are white, which speaks to more of a cultural and perhaps class-based movement than an ethno-nationalist movement. When I visited France, there was a palpable conscientious sense of French cultural identity, so a strong reaction against invasive non-conforming cultures makes sense. I'm reminded of some of the comments to my first NAACP-Stuyvesant post objecting to the "white privilege" concept, which in turn reminds me of a main reason I want the military ethos of "green" injected into civil society. I've observed that the social nature of people is tribal and competitive. We are part of ancient tribes that bind us with powerful personal, familial, ethnic, and religious ties. A multicultural nation can be torn apart in a microcosmic version of Sam Huntington's Clash of Civilizations if the populace does not also share a powerful national tribe. The United States is a multicultural nation. In college, I learned a tribe that crossed boundaries to bind a community was called a "cosmopolitan identity" - think the diverse but unified crew of Star Trek's Enterprise. I was part of a diverse but unified national tribe as a soldier. My national tribe was the United States Army. I would like to bring the American military's conscientiously shared perspective to civilian America; however, I do not want to repeat Mao's disastrous mistake of trying to forcibly unify heterogenous China with comprehensive social militarization. I haven't figured out yet how to spread the unifying "green" ethos in civil society except for the civil-military movement I tried to foment in college. As Americans, we belong to many different tribes, but it is essential that we all also identify ourselves with the same American tribe: United we stand, divided we fall.

An article by former Barnard professor Thaddeus Russell. It's heartening to see Bad Thad is still beating the contrarian anti-progressive/anti-conservative drum for personal freedom, which I admire. He'd be an MGTOW guru if he wanted to be. Russell taught my favorite and most thought-provoking class (American Civilization after the Civil War) I took at Barnard/Columbia, which was also the last class he taught at Barnard. And yes, I realize my advocacy for a civil-military "green" social ethos contradicts my support for Professor Russell's rebellious countercultural individualist ethos. I haven't thought much yet about how to reconcile the two beliefs.

A comment about military service as American racial unifier.

Dress Gray by Lucian Truscott IV (USMA '69) gives good insight into the West Point life from the perspective of one rebellious, narcissistic graduate. The murder mystery and grand conspiracy plot is contrived and loosely drawn, but the far-fetched plot seems to be only a device for the author to write about his love-hate relationship with West Point rather than the main purpose for the book. A 1979 article on Truscott points to his motivation for writing the book: "Lucian had turned his attention to Dress Gray, encouraged by a $20,000 advance from Doubleday, after deciding, for legal reasons, to forsake a book on his West Point class." I actually would have been more interested in his original concept. He could have changed the names. I wonder if it would have helped had I read Dress Gray and Atkinson's The Long Gray Line before I went to West Point. Looking back, I'm surprised that prepsters weren't encouraged to be more curious and read more about West Point.

Oldie but goodie MilVets press release (that no one actually saw outside of Columbia).

Bookmarked for later comment. Upsetting, angering. Liberals vs Islamists. Drone assassinations and military/security financial aid to the government may be necessary, but by themselves will not advance the liberal narrative in the civilizational war of ideas. A reminder that Afghan women and girls face the same dangers from Islamist radicals as was inflicted on Malala Yousafzai.

Reject Bush-era liberalism/neoconservatism and this is what you get: the Ambassador Stevens assassination in Libya, the fumbling away of post-Surge Iraq, and jihadists feeding on the Syria conflict. I agree that Bush's whole post-9/11 foreign policy was too expensive, but it was a fundamentally better option than Obama's realist foreign policy. Start-up is normally expensive and mistake-filled, but that's just the developmental curve. We should have streamlined, improved, and made Bush's interventionist foreign policy more cost-effective under Obama rather than throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Fellow Stuy alum Reihan Salam talks about Iraq by piggybacking on a Kimberly and Frederick Kagan article. An anti-OIF reader commented and I responded. I haven't replied to the reader's reply to my response because my comment took a long time to make it past the editors and I had given up on it. I'm very late by now, but I'll get a reply out. (Done.) Add: Washington Post fact-checker calls out Obama's attempt to spin his egregious Iraq failure into a foreign policy success.

Sounds familiar - from Grantland: Burton, in a 1991 interview: "It's about depression and it's about lack of integration. It's about a character. Unfortunately, I always see it as being about those things, not about some kind of hero who is saving the city from blah blah blah. If you asked me the plot of Batman, I couldn't tell you. It's about duality, it's about flip-sides, it's about a person who's completely fucked and doesn't know what he's doing. He's got good impulses, but he's not integrated. And it's about depression. It's about going through life, thinking you're doing something, trying very hard. And the Joker represents somebody who gets to act however he wants."

Bachelor chow: Icy Point canned pink salmon - good stuff. Mix a can of salmon, oil included, with a can of Progresso soup - talk about a rich broth. Eat with pretzels. The fishy smell of the salmon soup gets to be too rich, though - it's not an everyday kind of meal. A Ragu sauce, can of salmon, Ramen mix with a can of Spam on the side is a pretty good meal, too. Dinty Moore Beef Stew - not good.

Reading Terminal Market is a must-visit tourist location in Philadelphia famous for its eateries and stalls selling various foodstuffs. While there are better known eateries in the market such as Dinic's and Carmen's, if you only have the time to sample one Reading eatery, I recommend the very tasty Beck's Cajun Cafe. A bonus is the waiting time for service at the not-famous-but-should-be Beck's Cajun Cafe at meal times should be reasonable. The better known eateries are notorious for their long winding lines at meal time and their food isn't better.

Oh yeah, Pat's and Geno's cheesesteaks are bland and overhyped, but they're both touchstone landmarks, so a tourist to Philadelphia still needs to try them both out one time in order to set a baseline experience for genuine Philly cheesesteaks. Fortunately, you can visit both in one trip since they're across the street from each other. The only sandwich I ate in Philadelphia that lived up to my pre-visit fantasy of Philly cheesesteaks was the Train Wreck PO Boy at Beck's Cajun Cafe.

Les Stroud's pre-Survivorman specials (Winter, Summer, Off the Grid) are better than his Survivorman series, which is still pretty good. Stroud, even as boss as he is, is still no Dick "Alone in the Wilderness" Proenneke, though I admit I haven't finished watching Stroud's Off the Grid.

Businessman blogger Tigerhawk gives his take on the "you didn't build that" argument by Elizabeth Warren.

One for the good things list: WFAN 660 AM on-line. The on-line WFAN sound is clear, which is not the case with my staticky radios. Latenight sports radio does not get better than Steve Summers and Tony Page back-to-back. Bonus: ESPN New York 98.7 FM on-line.

GQ's cover story on Jeremy Lin by Lin-fan Will Veitch. Contrast with the gratuitous hit piece on Lin by Lin-hater Mitch Lawrence. Stats-based prediction by Knickerblogger.net founder and Lin fan, Mike Kurylo. Last season, Lin's play reminded often of a proto-Nash, but also reminded that he didn't play PG in college. I believe the ceiling for Lin is Steve Nash, if he can fully convert to PG and improve his streaky jumpshot, and his floor is Delonte West, if he is unable to convert to PG, loses his intuitive flair, and settles as a servicable combo guard. The niche for Lin between his floor and ceiling is do-everything, game-changing 3rd guard. Much of what Bill Simmons says about James Harden's 3rd guard role with the Thunder could apply to Lin, such as "like Dennis Johnson, Manu Ginobili, Joe Dumars and (going way back) Sam Jones before him, Harden has shown the enviable ability to lay low for 42 minutes, then rise to the occasion when it matters." With the Knicks, Lin could have shifted to the 3rd guard role if starting PG didn't work out. The Knicks need a versatile, clutch, playmaking 3rd guard to fill in the gaps on a team of specialists and poorly matched players, help Carmelo Anthony as a pressure release valve, and bail out the Knicks' clunky offense. On the Rockets, it's starting PG or bust for Lin.

Advice on eliminating fear.

Destruction, one of the Endless siblings in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, is an allegory for a once-passionate, now-burnt-out activist who is repelled by the causes to which he once gave of himself totally. Activism is about destruction in search of creation. In Brief Lives, Destruction lives a self-obsessed MGTOW lifestyle, which is a characteristic of former activists who have turned their light inward.

Warriors, Come out to play-ay! and Somebody to Love.

TLC show Breaking Amish is a fraud according to this interesting ex-Amish blog.

Problem with stocking food in my apartment: I eat it impulsively.

You snooze, you lose: In the morning, I saw that someone in my apartment building had thrown out a desk chair that was dirty and missing the sliders on the left runner, but otherwise looked comfortable and intact. I decided to go down late at night for a closer examination to decide whether to take the chair. But it was gone. Oh well, maybe it was buggy or its frame was cracked somewhere anyway.

Eric

Stuyvesant entrance exam is equal opportunity as an academic competition

For background, see NAACP et al claim Stuyvesant entrance exam is racist.

A mother of NYC specialized public high school students suggests ways to improve the preparedness of black and Latino students for the SHSAT. While she's fine with the SHSAT itself, she takes issue with differences among test-takers during the process. She ends her post with the conclusion that if her suggestions aren't followed, then "the specialized high school admissions process will remain neither merit-based nor equal opportunity." While I think her suggestions are worth considering, I disagree with the framing of her conclusion. The SHSAT test-taking process, as it stands, is fundamentally merit-based and equal opportunity in the context of competition. The SHSAT is an academic competition with a math, reading comprehension, and logical reasoning test where the winners are determined by a simple rank order of test scores. The competition's prizes are the thousands of seats in the 8 specialized public high schools, with Stuyvesant on top. Elite academic competitors, just like top athletes with their abilities, start with natural talent and hone that talent into superior academic abilities with training, practice, and tests of skill over time. In my comment to her post, I compare the equal opportunity of the competitive SHSAT to equal opportunity in competitive sports:

Carolyn,

I agree with you that the "NAACP LDF’s focus on the test – and not the entire process – is misplaced". Your ideas for equitable fixes in the whole test-taking spectrum are worth considering. For the most part, you and I are on the same page with this issue. However, I have a few thoughts and quibbles.

I agree and disagree with your conclusion that "the specialized high school admissions process will remain neither merit-based nor equal opportunity". As it stands now, the SHSAT-based rank-order admission is fundamentally merit-based and equal opportunity.

No party to the complaint, including the NAACP LDF, is disputing the exam itself is race-neutral. The SHSAT's test of math, reading comprehension, and logic reasoning abilities matches the fundaments required of students to successfully engage the exam schools' math and science intensive curriculae. Those abilities are not race-exclusive traits. The 'holistic' admission process requested by the NCAAP LDF to replace the standardized SHSAT is better suited to humanities intensive and arts intensive curriculae, and indeed, we find specialized schools like Townsend Harris and Laguardia already use different admission processes tailored to their programs.

Regarding merit, rank-order placement is a pure, straightforward, transparent form of merit-based selection. (Disclaimer: I use Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech, which I assume continue to accept students from the top 3 tiers of ranked scores, as reference; I don't know the SHSAT admission formula of the more-recent specialized schools.)

Regarding equal opportunity, I believe the difference is our understanding of the SHSAT's context. The whole process of the SHSAT can be understood as equal opportunity in the context of competition, not in the context with which we normally understand public education as a matter of right. Students must compete for the finite number of seats available at the specialized public high schools. The SHSAT is the arena of competition from which the winners and losers emerge.

The SHSAT provides the equal opportunity of a level playing field. But similar to PSAL competitions, the inequality of the SHSAT stems not from the sport, gym, or the officials, but from the competitors themselves with their unequal levels of natural potential (talent) and preparation (training and practice). When PSAL athletes compete, the opportunity provided to them by the PSAL is equal, although their athletic abilities vary by a lot.

We expect our best PSAL athletes to be naturally talented and to have trained with coaches, intensely practiced on their own, and competed outside of school teams, often starting years before high school. Yet when our best PSAL athletes overpower their competition resulting in disparate impact, we accept the merit of their achievements as a result of fairly won competition. Is it fair then for the NAACP LDF to accuse and degrade the achievements of talented, trained, practiced, and therefore able, public school students on the SHSAT, rather than accept their ranked scores as fairly won in competition?

Food for thought. The NAACP LDF advances the assumption that black and Latino students are not winning seats at Stuyvesant in higher numbers because their families cannot afford test prep. However, lower-income Asian families are sacrificing, scrimping, and saving to pay for test prep, so the financial bar for test prep cannot be unreachable for similarly lower-income black and Latino families. How many black and Latino families who do not invest in test prep are making or would make an equal or greater investment in their children's athletic activities, perhaps from an even earlier age than needed for SHSAT test prep?

To stretch the competitive SHSAT-sports comparison further, the best PSAL athletes must try out alongside their less athletic classmates to join PSAL championship teams. The champion teams are the best only because they accept athletes who demonstrated they were the best in try outs. Stuyvesant and other top schools are only elite because they take students, like your kids, who demonstrated they were academically superior in their SHSAT try-out. If we forced PSAL champions to take lesser athletes to cure disparate impacts in athletic competition, the teams would no longer be PSAL champions. Nor would they provide sufficient conditions for our most talented PSAL athletes to hone their abilities for higher-level competition where the athletes are just as talented but perhaps better trained and prepared. The specialized schools are designed with the same championship concept. Regarding 'holistic' admissions for math and science schools, a try-out that's tailored for baseball would be an inefficient selection device for a championship football coach, despite that the two sports have significant overlap. Athleticism is athleticism, but the two sports are not the same. Smart is smart, and while Stuyvesant has scientists who are creative writers and Townsend Harris has creative writers who are scientists, the two schools still choose their students to match their different curriculae.

As I said, your ideas for equitable fixes to the process are worth considering. However, can the tax-paying public afford them? Does the city have the resources (money, teachers, facilities, etc) to expand programs like SHSI-Dream to encompass all students? I believe the SHSI-Dream program limits acceptance to students with sufficient test scores, not by a quantity cut-off (eg, a lottery). In other words, NYCDOE will provide the training, but only to students who have first demonstrated they have sufficient natural talent to compete on the SHSAT. I can't think of a fairer way to allot public resources for SHSAT prep. By the same token, I wouldn't ask the city to expend the amount of resources that would be needed to train every wannabe PSAL basketball player like Stephon Marbury (he was the best PSAL baller in my time).

The SHSAT is fundamentally competitive. It's well-tailored to the math and science intensive schools. Attending the specialized high schools isn't a civil right like access to the non-specialized schools. Just as in sports, equal opportunity in the SHSAT comes from a level playing field, a straight game. Merit is decided by the winners and losers, and that's the rank order. As with any competition, disparate impact on the SHSAT is inevitable due to the differing talent, practice, and training of the competitors.

I think if the NAACP LDF can accept that disparate impact is an inevitable result of the fundamentally competitive nature of the SHSAT, then we can begin to identify reasonable and fiscally responsible ways to identify and train all of NYC's sufficiently talented students. Many lower-income Asian parents who would otherwise sacrifice to pay for test prep would be grateful for more financial assistance from the city.

I'll make a final comment that's outside the scope of your post. The NAACP LDF harbors the misperception that the exam schools are making the students. As a Stuyvesant graduate, I understand the equation actuallly works the opposite way: just as the best athletes make for the best teams, the best students make for the best schools. The specialized schools are special only due to the quality of their students. Diluting the quality of the students would dilute the specialness of the schools. Stuyvesant's infrastructure, resources, and faculty are not actually substantively better than other NYC public high schools. This was especially the case when I attended Stuy in the old, small, overcrowded, falling-apart building on 15th Street. But even today in the larger (no longer) new building, Stuyvesant's resources and carrying capacity are stretched very thin by the expanded student body (+1000 since I attended in the early 1990s). Stuyvesant and the other exam schools only work because the quality of the students allows for efficient utilization, if not maximization, of the school's resources and faculty, such as they are. If less qualified students are shoehorned into the specialized schools, they won't be helped. Instead, the resulting inefficiencies will drag down qualified students like your kids.

Eric

A comment on the NAACP 'othering' Asians in the Stuyvesant extrance exam controversy

For background, see NAACP et al claim Stuyvesant entrance exam is racist.

I wrote this comment responding to a blogger who supports the NAACP in the Stuyvesant High School entrance exam (aka Specialized High Schools Admissions Test - SHSAT) controversy:

Jose,

A transparent objective admissions standard accessible to all and free of favoritism of any kind has been a major win for minorities and civil rights. The NAACP isn’t contesting the neutrality of the exam. As you say, their claim is based on the result. The problem is the NAACP’s solution calls for race-based disparate treatment, which is a worse civil rights violation than disparate impact.

I’m not angling towards separation. I’m calling out the NAACP for separating Asians. I agree that we should be able to trust the NAACP to guard the interests of Asian children – not ‘other’ and sacrifice Asians in order to favor other minority groups.

You know what’s insulting? Read the NAACP complaint and see how it marginalizes Asians with the rhetorical trick of grouping together “either whites or Asian Americans”. Even your post’s metaphorical premise of a brown cocoa puff in white milk evinced the same utter disregard for Asians in this issue. Distinct from the issue at the [ed: oops] hand, the NAACP’s decision to ‘other’ Asians in their case is troubling: it is a statement by the NAACP of how and where they view Asians in their heiierarchy of minority interests.

Hypothetical. Keep the same verbiage, arguments, and proposed solution to the ‘injustice’ of a 72% Asian majority at Stuy. Now substitute a white advocacy group for the NAACP and portray white children as victims of disparate impact. How does that look to you? From an Asian standpoint, it looks the same, a stronger group using its political muscle to impose biased structural changes to set quotas and take from weaker Asians.

Look, I’m not looking to codify an Asian super-majority at Stuy. I would welcome more diversity at Stuy, but not at the cost of Stuy’s historical equal opportunity and the integrity of the institution. The proper solution is to identify early on the upper-tier black and Latino students with sufficient potential and prepare them for the fundamental academic skills tested on the SHSAT, which is what Stuy parents have been doing on their own. Stuy alums are working on that. The free NYCDOE-provided SHSI-Dream program is working on that. There are no mysteries in the Asian success story at Stuy. I have faith that black and Latino kids can achieve what Asian kids from lower-income, immigrant, often English-poor families have achieved – I don’t understand why you don’t have the same faith.

Finally, I doubt the compelling need for the NAACP’s campaign. Stuy has added more seats since moving to Tribeca from the original old cramped building on the LES – 2000 seats when I attended; 3300 now. I don’t know whether the other specialized schools have expanded since I was in HS. As is, Stuy’s resources are spread thin. There are no magic doorways to Harvard at Stuy (quite the opposite, actually) – it’s always been the quality of the students that made the school special. And, as the NAACP notes in their own complaint, Stuy and indeed the whole group of NYC’s exam schools aren’t the only specialized HSs in NYC. First, several private schools (that typically don’t give Asians scholarships and Asians can’t afford) siphon off upper-tier white, black, and Latino students. Other NYCDOE specialized schools already use multi-measure (eg, Townsend Harris) or alternative (eg, Laguardia) admissions processes. That Stuy continues to be regarded as the crown jewel among NYC specialized public schools that use varied admissions processes only speaks to the real-world-tested validity of the SHSAT.

Given that everything the NAACP is demanding is already practiced somewhere else in the school system, I wonder what their complaint targeting Stuy and the other exam schools is really about?

Add: Something you said has been nagging at me and I think I finally put my finger on it …

Jose: “Standardized testing does not by any study in the last century show any fairness or demand real equity. It just distinguishes between those with the resources to prepare for such a test and those who don’t.”

You’re restating the NAACP contention that the math-and-language fundamentals-based SHSAT that has qualified Stuyvesant (and Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech) students for many decades lacks in actuality any predictive value that’s applicable to the requirements and demands placed on Stuy students. To wit, you claim the SHSAT “just distinguishes between those with the resources to prepare for such a test and those who don’t.”

The first logical inference of your contention is that the generations of Stuy students, myself included, who have passed the SHSAT have not actually been academically qualified for Stuyvesant. Which is to claim that for many decades, the SHSAT-based selection of Stuy students has been as equally predictive as a random selection of NYC 8th graders. Or alternatively, for many decades, Stuy students have been admitted based on a sole criterion (“those with the resources to prepare for such a test”) that has low-to-no correlative value with subsequent academic achievement at Stuyvesant.

The second logical inference, if the SHSAT is not a valid predictor and therefore has not actually selected qualified students for the exam schools, is we would expect to find that the histories of student achievement at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech are no better than the academic histories of typical non-specialized public high schools. But that’s simply not the case. Stuy students and students from the other exam schools have collectively accrued exceptional records of academic achievement that exceed the academic records of the non-specialized public high schools.

The third logical inference, given Stuy students consistently produce superior academic achievement despite the assumption that Stuy students are effectively randomly selected or selected based solely on a criterion (again, “those with the resources to prepare for such a test”) that is invalid as an academic predictor, is we need to look outside the unqualified Stuy students for an explanation of their long record of exceptional academic achievement.

This is where the NAACP and others have followed this logical inferential train to a myth version of Stuyvesant. They have convinced themselves that since “white or Asian American” Stuy students aren’t responsible for their own success, then Stuyvesant must be privy to a secret educational alchemy that has for many decades consistently transformed unremarkable students into exceptional students. Reality check: if you believe Stuy has some secretly hoarded academic elixir, there isn’t any. Based on my experience, especially at the old Stuy on 15th street where the majority of Stuy’s history took place, the school’s infrastructure, administration, faculty, and educational resources aren’t different in kind than any typical NYC public school. Stuyvesant isn’t Hogwarts on the Hudson. There’s no magic water coming out of the water fountains, no magic cafeteria food, no magic science labs, no magic library, no magic textbooks. No magic teachers either (at least no more magical than teachers at any other NYC school; I had a few egregiously bad teachers at Stuy). The essential difference between Stuyvesant and non-specialized schools is the SHSAT selection device.

Based on my experience, Stuy students aren’t given more or better resources than students at other public schools; Stuy students simply maximize the resources they do get. I’ve heard that the expansion from 2000 to 3300 students since I graduated has stretched Stuy’s resources and carrying capacity very thin. But the students continue to do their best with their own ability and what they’re given.

As I said, it has always been the quality of the students that made Stuy special, and that speaks to the time-honored, time-tested validity of the SHSAT as a selection device. The SHSAT works. It’s worked for a very long time. Trust it. Any black or Latino student who earns his or her seat on the SHSAT will deserve – more importantly, be qualified – to be a Stuy student. Shoehorning unqualified students of any race into Stuy at the expense of qualified students won’t help anyone.

Jose,

You’re right: I do place stock in my personal experience as a Stuyvesant student. My personal experience is my schoolmates, selected exclusively by their rank order on the SHSAT, were high-ability students, regardless of their race. Are you really contending that “actual research” has disproven my experience? Or, setting aside my experience, are you really contending “actual research” proves the venerated and consistent historical record of academic achievement by SHSAT-selected students is an anomaly or a mere coincidence of impossible magnitude that somehow has been repeated annually for decades?

As a teacher, you’re closer today to high school students than I am. Does your position really tell you that that there is no significant academic difference between the thousands of Stuyvesant and other present-day SHSAT-selected students and the NYC students who fell below them on their respective SHSAT rank orders?

Obviously, I don’t dispute that research matters, but not all research is proof. When your research tells you to disbelieve both your lying eyes that apples fall from trees and generations of memories of falling apples, perhaps more doubt should be cast on the research.

The SHSAT is race neutral and so the demographics at the exam schools have changed over the years. The demographics can just as easily change again without corrupting the admissions process: there is no race-based regulating mechanism in the SHSAT that bars black, Latino or any other group of students improving and becoming, as you say, winners on the test. If there was such a regulating mechanism built into the SHSAT, Asian students would have been barred.

Unfortunately and misguidedly, the NAACP is trying to inject race-based regulating mechanisms into an admissions process that is race neutral. They’re inviting unintended consequences. The SHSAT should be protected in fact and, just as importantly, in principle as a race-neutral selection device.

The Asian success story in NYC’s specialized public high schools is a success story for all minorities. In the past, Asians have benefited from the progress made by other-minority pioneers. This time, on the SHSAT, Asians are the minority pioneers – if Asian kids can do it, so can black and Latino kids. Asian progress on the SHSAT provides a proven model that can be emulated by other minorities. What the NAACP is trying to do isn’t progress for anyone.

What academic message and life lesson do you think the high-profile NAACP campaign is projecting to impressionable young students of all races? To the young kids who work their butts off to master the academic fundamentals of the SHSAT … AND to the young kids being told that meeting the basic math/reading/logic standards of the SHSAT – again, the intrinsic neutrality of which the NAACP is not contesting – in order to merit a seat at a specialized high school is hopelessly out of reach due to the immutable fact of their skin color? As adults, we know the world is too often cynical, greedy, and selfish, but in this case, the SHSAT is a preciously rare genuine level playing field. I like to hope that we – you especially as a teacher – would try to teach our children, at least in school, that earning what they deserve is a better way of life than taking what they covet.

Eric