meteora3255

Just wanted to get in here and give some thoughts on both parties in the Cousins-Warriors marriage because I keep seeing a lot of misconceptions.

On Cousin's I have seen a lot of resentment that he took the Warriors offer in the first place. There seems to be some notion that Cousins had multiple offers available to him with more money on the table. In his most recent podcast, Zach Lowe mentioned that he heard the Pelicans were willing to offer a 2 year deal (or 2 year with a third year player option) at between $15-17 million per year. Lowe also mentioned that if he heard about this then so did Cousins and his reps, which means they turned it down. For almost every other team in the league Cousins on a 1 year deal wouldn't be worth it. For starters, most teams can't afford letting their big free agent acquisition sit until December at the earliest. Assuming he was against long term deals at less than the max (which seems likely based on everything out there) the team that signed him wouldn't get his Bird rights (because he wasn't on the team long enough). Without Bird rights many wouldn't be able to re-sign him if he did end up earning a max contract next year, and those that could would be competing against several other teams that have max money next offseason.

Cousins wasn't being petty or immature, he was betting on himself. He didn't see offers he like and gambled that he can show he is a max guy. If he wins that gamble he could be looking at a 4 year $150 million deal next offseason. Even if he isn't the same player, if he shows he is still a starting caliber center there will likely be money for him next season, remember there won't be enough tier 1 free agents to go around to all the teams with cap space next summer. Guys get overpaid all the time, Timofey Mozgov and Bismack Biyombo both make over $15 million a year. That $15-17 million per year deal is very likely going to be there for him next summer so barring a complete disaster he likely loses very little with this gamble. This way he gets to play in the playoffs (which he has never done and reportedly was upset about missing his first time this year), take as much time as needed for his rehab and re-enter a more player friendly market next season.

On to the Warriors, there seems to be a lot of complaining about competitive balance around this coming season which seems a bit extreme. Beyond the fact that the Warriors were going to be the favorites regardless, there are some real concerns with integrating Cousins into their team and what they gave up to get him. The first is that Cousins is a ball dominant post-up player. Cousins likes to hold the ball, survey things and make a decision and he doesn't cut and move with much urgency without the ball. He also likes to post-up with the intent to score. The Warrior's offense at it's best is the exact opposite. The ball (and players) are constantly moving and making quick, split-second passes to keep defenses off balance. When the Warriors do post-up, it's almost always to facilitate offense somewhere else. Asking Cousins to take a back seat and change how he plays is a tough sell, especially when he also needs to showcase himself for free agency in a year. Just integrating Cousins will be tough since he likely can't even begin to play until December (and then likely on a minutes restriction). The Warriors, if lucky, will get half a season to figure out how to mix Cousins in before the playoffs.

The Warriors also sacrificed their ability to sign wing depth by spending the full mid-level on Cousins. After Iguodala, Golden State is looking at Shaun Livingston, who doesn't shoot 3's (only 6 attempted in 92 total games last year), Patrick McCaw coming off an injury and rookie Jacob Evans. With guys like Tyreke Evans, J.J. Redick, Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute available, the Warriors might have been able to sell one of them on a 1 year deal at the mid-level plus the chance to get a ring and re-enter free agency in a player friendly market next year. Now, the Warriors are really hoping that 34 year old Iguodala is healthy and won't see his play slip because they are perilously thin behind him. All the above ignores the elephant in the room: Cousins may no longer an impact player post-injury.

Bottom line: Cousins took a calculated risk and there wasn't much of a market for him anyway based on what he wanted and the Warriors-Cousins marriage isn't the guaranteed world beater people seem to think it is.

@hnke: It's not a perfect 1-to-1 translation but I suppose you could make a case that the demo was "on background" i.e. you can use the information (discuss it, write about it, describe it, etc.) but you can't "quote" it (using audio/video). The thing is, those parameters need to be set before the interview as it were. You can't say something and then later declare it to be off the record/on background. This case is very different because they used assets from the demo, but keeping with the comparison, it can be reputation breaking to name sources/use info that was provided on background/off the record.

Just use the same name? I mean DC and Marvel both have several characters with the same/similar names (Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange and so on) so why not?

@john1912: There are a couple places where Sony can argue they lose money. First is on console sales. Anecdotally, most of what I have seen and heard from people is that console choice is first and foremost driven by what their friends have. Cross play means those sales aren't a guarantee. If I can only afford one console why buy a PS4 to play Fortnite if the cheaper Switch will do the job?

Sony also gets a cut from every PSN transaction. If you had one unified Fortnite account (which is the other side of this issue) you could theoretically buy something om your PC/Xbox/Switch and then bring it to PS4 without Sony getting their cut.

CD Project Red knows better than most developers what happens when you show a game too early, as the backlash from the first Witcher 3 trailer's graphics showed. It's understandable that they would be aggressive in keeping that demo under wraps.

The thing that got to me was that he kept harping on his "real journalism" and then proceeded to say they were basically doing it for the clicks. As another "trained journalist" (B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University) I don't ever remember being told to "create news" using my available assets or that my goal was to drive clicks. I'm not naive, money drives everything, but it's also not the core tenet of the job.

It was also quite annoying to hear him claim everyone who didn't record audio was either not thinking critically about their job, "on the take" or a "lemming" following the publisher's orders. I understand he wasn't bound by an NDA but that doesn't mean he has free reign to publish whatever without consequences. He had to know there was a non-zero chance CDPR would flag the video. In fact, based on his comments I expect he knew it would happen and just hoped it would get picked up by the mainstream (with his name/website attached) before that happened.

At the end of the day, he was pretty transparent on the video about what this was. It was a publicity stunt for his website to try and get in front of more people.

@creepingdeath0: That is what I was thinking. If Anthem gets a ME:A reception it could be the end of BioWare.

Crackdown has been pushed so many times that Microsoft has to know you can't give an exact date and then miss it again.

The other two seem pretty likely to make it, as they were in development for a while before the announcement.

@frytup: In that regard I think the Warriors are fine. They are a championship level team without Cousins and it's not like he is the franchise cornerstone. There is basically no downside, worst case they trade/cut him/chain him to the bench and since it's a one year cheap deal they don't have to worry about long term problems.

@deathstriker: You can't compare the Chris Paul and Cousins situations. When David Stern vetoed the Chris Paul trade the NBA technically owned the Hornets/Pelicans. That veto wasn't so much competitive balance as it was ensuring that the team the NBA was trying to sell didn't give up it's best player before a buyer had lined up (thereby lowering it's value).

The Cousins (and Durant) situation is part of collectively bargained free agency. The league and players' union agreed to the salary cap structure that allowed the cap to spike and gave the Warriors money for Durant. Silver did present a "smoothing" proposal to the union that would have prevented the spike (and thus limited GS) but the union rejected it. Since it was part of the active CBA it was all he could do. Same thing this season, the Warriors get the same taxpayer mid-level that everyone else gets. All accounts were that Cousins had no other offers he liked (he was looking for a max or near max deal plus multiple guaranteed years). His injury has ended multiple careers, his locker room reputation on top of that made teams rightfully wary. If he only had short term deals why not bet on himself and enter free agency next year after proving he is still an All-Star? This way he gets to win big while also preparing to get paid next season.

In fact, getting paid next season also points out something you overlooked: the Warriors have basically no shot at keeping Cousins if he plays at a high level. Due to another quirk of the CBA called Bird rights, the Warriors cannot exceed the salary cap to sign Cousins to any deal larger than 120% of his current salary (so roughly $6.5m illion). So basically, if Cousins plays himself into a big contract the Warriors (who are already over the cap) would have to get under the cap and then create enough room to sign him, which means at least one (and possibly 2) of their All-Stars have to go.

TLDR: A team owner vetoing a trade isn't the same as a league commissioner interfering in collectively bargained free agency. And Cousins didn't take a pay cut to ring chase, there wasn't a robust market for him.

It's either Monster Hunter, God of War or Celeste. Depending on the mood I'm in I could pick any of those three.

Really though it's Dark Souls Remastered if we are just looking at release dates and not when the original shipped. I missed the train the first time and am glad I caught it this time around.

I'm playing Kingdom Hearts right now and those Gummi Ship sections are the worst.