Derek Bodner’s Blog

Earlier this week Marcus Camby was awarded the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award, obtaining 70 first place votes, over three times as many as the runner up, and over four times as many as San Antonio’s Tim Duncan. The basis for this large margin, however, escapes me.

It could not have been determined based on Camby’s man-man defense, as Tim Duncan clearly bests him in this regard. You could compare their opponents PER (13.9 for Duncan at C, 17.7 for Camby), but the edge clearly goes to Duncan. You could compare their opponents points per 48 minutes ratio (16.2 for Duncan, 18.1 for Camby), but Duncan wins that decisively as well. Their opponents eFG% sings the same tune, as Duncan wins that (47.4% for Duncan, as compared to 50.7% for Camby).

Man-to-man defense has never been where Camby truly shined, however. His major benefit has always been as a team defender, and this year was no exception. He averaged a stunning 3.3 blocks per game to go along with 1.2 steals per game. Surely, that proves his worth right there.
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The expectations for the Eagles heading into the draft were not overwhelming. With the 26th pick in the draft, you were looking to get a corner who when he learns the system could play the Nickel slot. Maybe draft a safety who could challenge Sean Considine, hardly a world beater. With a deficit of draft picks, moving up was not a likely probability. And while Tom Heckert had been quoted this week saying it would be hard for rookies to make the roster, knowing how the Eagles valued draft picks, trading down was a distinct possibility.

Nothing could have prepared you for what was next to come. And after giving it a few hours to sit back and let it sink in, I think I may be more confused.
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The second half of the 76ers 2006-2007 season appeared to be a success on the surface. The team that at one point had come within a half game of the worst record in the NBA with a 102-118 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies strung together an impressive post All-Star break resume. They compiled a 9-6 record in March, then followed it up with a 6-3 April. Their 18-12 record after the All-Star break got them to at least be able to talk about the playoffs in April. The continued improvement of Andre Iguodala was a pleasure to watch. And Andre Miller comfortably adapting the Sixers players gave fans reasons to be optimistic about the team’s future going forward. Couple that with 3 of the first 30 picks in the upcoming NBA Draft, and the future looked bright for a team that just months ago had gotten rid of two players with career averages totaling over 48 points per game.

Not so fast. The winning was fools gold, and the future of the team was hurt in the process.
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Saw this randomly today on a job posting:

“in-depth knowledge of UNIX system administration required; Sun Solaris and linux expertise strongly preferred”

Anybody see anything wrong with that? Drives me absolutely nuts. In that sentence, you would think that Linux is a type of Unix, in much the same way FreeBSD is a type of BSD, and BSD is a type of Unix. Um…no. Linux is a clone of Unix, not a fork. That would be like me saying:
“In-depth usage of MS Office programs needed. Office 2003 and OpenOffice preferred”

*shakes head*

Somebody sent me this today:

“I’ve come up with a great way to deal with phishing. Let’s call it the Fire Monkey Doctrine or Preemptive Phishing. That’s right, I said pre-emptive. Let’s face it, it’s impossible to stop incoming phishing emails. You have no authority over the senders, and spam filters will only stop some, but not all. What you do have control over are the victims. So here’s what you do:

1. 1) Create phishing emails
2. Send them to all your network users
3. Fire anyone who falls for them.

That’s it. Period. If you have users who are dumb enough to post their bank login information, then there’s no way you can secure your network with them on it. So get rid of them. “

That just about sums it up