#and I hope Brad sticks around and becomes a member of the team | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flameoutfics · 3 years

Text

We’re Only Young and Naive Still Chapter 1

Summary: Nora is the first woman in the NHL, a recent call-up to the Calgary Flames, who has her own reasons for being there, much to the hesitation of her new teammates. As they get to know her though, she’ll find the family she never knew she wanted and sparks fly with a certain-future-captain. *This fic will update every Monday.

Nora waited outside the locker room for the rest of the team to join. She had been waiting for them to head out on the ice, knowing that they were in various states of undress behind the other wall. She had scrambled to get changed in the small bathroom that a member of the Avalanche’s front office had led her to. He’d sheepishly told her that this was the best that they could do and Nora had just nodded. She’d had to change in supply closets before in the absence of a women’s restroom close to the ice level.

Waiting in the empty corridor for the team allowed her anxiety to fester. Nora could only imagine what was going to await her once she got out onto the ice. There were some who were excited for her to become the first female NHL player to ever play a professional game. She knew they had clambered to get tickets, to show the little girls that anything was possible and that they, too, could join the NHL some day. Nora was nervous to step into that role of a role model, but she didn’t mind. It was the other faction, the one who had already mentioned her on Twitter and caused her to change her Instagram settings that worried her. They didn’t want her to play, they didn’t want a woman in the NHL. Nora could only imagine what they would say after her first game, that anything she’d do wouldn’t be good enough, that she was proof of why women didn’t belong in the NHL. Nora was so lost in her thoughts that she was jolted by the sound of the locker room door opening.

Jacob Markstrom readjusted his goalie mask on his face and headed out to the ice for warm ups. Nora followed close behind until they got to the ice’s edge.

“You first,” Jacob nodded towards the ice and gently tapped her on the back of her legs with his goalie stick. Nora sighed. It was tradition for players playing their first game to skate the first lap solo, but she’d rather forgo it. Nevertheless, she gritted her teeth and took her first steps onto the ice. For a moment, she hoped that with her hair tucked into her helmet, people wouldn’t recognize her, but as she started to gain momentum the crowd ignited. It was like everyone had an opinion. Sure she heard the cheers, but intermingled with them she heard the boos. To be honest, she wasn’t sure which there was more of. Much to her relief, after the first solo lap, the rest of the team piled on the ice and joined her for warm ups and she felt herself relax as she began to blend in with the other red jerseys.

Nora played 5:43 in her first NHL game. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a first. Nothing remarkable happened, and the Flames lost 3-1 in the end. It wasn’t an Auston Matthews level debut by any means but it wasn’t bad. She’d completed most of her passes and she’d made all of her line changes. Sutter didn’t play her much, nor did she expect it. She knew how he felt about having her on his team. She’d been great in the AHL racking up points and causing the hockey writers to wonder if she was going to break the glass ceiling and play in the NHL. Then she was brought up to the NHL and started practicing with the team, always being a healthy scratch when the final line up was decided. But the Flames kept losing and Nora knew that there was pressure on Sutter from the front office to play her. She wasn’t naive to the press that would surround her debut, neither was Brad. So, when Sutter finally announced that she was going to play her first NHL game, it wasn’t completely a surprise, but the timing took her off guard. The rest of the team had acknowledged it with polite cheers, but Nora knew that they weren’t thrilled to have her there either.

She’d sat in the locker room after the game, still fully in her gear while Sutter reamed them. “None of you played well today. Fuck, she played better than half of you and it was her first fucking game,” Sutter said as he pointed Nora out. She felt the cold gaze of the other players turn towards her as Sutter had pretty much just put a target on her back. She drowned the rest of his diatribe out and as she snuck a glance around the room, it looked like the rest of the team was also ignoring him. When he stormed off, Nora finally felt like she could breathe and retreated to the bathroom where she’d gotten dressed.

She’d only been in there for a few minutes before there was a knock on the door.

“Nora, they’re going to want you for post-game interviews,” Tanya, the PR rep said, from outside of the bathroom where Nora stripped out of her gear. She was sweaty from the game but knew she’d have to wait until she made it back to the hotel room before she could

“Okay,” Nora agreed, even though she knew that she was going to be the focus of the interview, “is anyone else going to be there?”

“Matthew will be too,” Tanya said. Nora sighed to herself but nodded.

“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute,” Nora said. She wished it was Jacob or even Johnny doing the interview with her instead of Matthew. She didn’t hate him, but she didn’t like him either. Since she’d been called up to practice with the team, he’d coolly ignored her. Most of the guys treated her that way too, with Jacob and Johnny being two exceptions.

Matthew was already waiting at the table that had been set up for them for press availability. He glanced up at her and nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything. Nora didn’t know what she was expecting. Did she think he’d say ‘hi’ or ‘great job today’? They weren’t friends, they were barely even teammates.

“Alright, let’s start with the first question,” Tanya said.

“Nora, how did your first game in the NHL feel?” a reporter asked. It was a softball question and one that Nora appreciated.

“It was great. It was a dream come true, honestly,” Nora said, “and I’m really fortunate to be able to be here and on such an amazing team to share the game with them.”

“It’s not the result that I’m sure you wished for, though,” the reporter followed up.

“No,” Nora conceded, “I definitely thought that I could have played better, especially in the third period, but Matthew had an amazing goal in the second period, and really it’s just an honor to be here and play a game in the NHL.

“Any family here today to celebrate your first game with you?” A different reporter asked.

Nora pasted a smile on her face, “No, unfortunately they couldn’t make it, but I know they were watching from home.”

“I have a question for Nora…” another reporter started and Nora wished that just one of them could direct their attention to Matthew.

“Why aren’t you in the NWHL?” a reporter asked. That caused Nora to pause. The answer caught in her throat. She knew that was the question that thousands of people had on their minds. There was a league for female hockey players, a great league, so why wasn’t Nora playing in it? Nora had rehearsed the answer to the inevitable in the mirror for what felt like hundreds of times, but here the words failed her.

Tanya looked over at her and watched as she floundered for a response. “Sorry,” Nora said as she brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “would you mind repeating the question?”

“Sure, Nora, why aren’t you in the NWHL?” the reporter repeated.

“I- I-...”

“Alright, I think our time has wrapped up,” Tanya said as she closed out the interview, saving Nora from answering. Once all the reporters left, Nora turned to Tanya. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I couldn’t answer that.”

Tanya smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, “Don’t worry, we can discuss some possible answers and better prepare you for media availability in the future.”

“Thanks,” Nora said. Matthew hadn’t said anything except for the one question directed towards him about his second-period goal. All Nora wanted to do was go back to her hotel room and take a nice warm shower. She didn’t give either of them a chance to say anything and instead headed out and grabbed her coat, knowing her gear would travel with the rest of the team’s. She walked the couple of blocks back to the hotel. She kept her head down, hoping to remain unrecognized by fans who were still lingering by the arena and made it back to her hotel room without running into anyone. She stripped out of her Flames-branded gear and headed for the shower. In the mirror, she could already see bruises starting to develop from where she’d been checked into the boards. She should have been ecstatic to be playing in the NHL; most people in her position would be, but she didn’t. She just wanted the day to be over and to go to bed. That was what made her sad, that she didn’t care that much about being in the NHL, it was just a means to an end. Before she went to sleep, she took one more look at her phone and reminded herself why she was doing this. She knew why she was playing in the NHL; she just couldn’t say it.

Nora glanced around the dining room for breakfast the next day looking for a place to sit. It felt like high school all over again. Ideally, she would have sat near Jacob or Johnny, but their tables were all filled so instead she sat in an open seat with some of the other newer players, Elias, and Matthew. They were happily chatting about some football game that Nora knew nothing about. She tried to follow along for a while, but after realizing that she didn’t really have anything to contribute, she hurriedly ate her breakfast and wanted to rush back to her room. She cleared her plate and offered a faint excuse for something she’d forgotten in her room, hoping to leave. It wasn’t like any of them would notice that she was gone anyways. She’d only made it a little ways before she heard footsteps follow her out.

“What’s your problem?” Matthew asked as he cornered Nora.

“I don’t have a problem,” Nora said.

“You could at least try to pretend to be interested in getting along with the team,” Matthew said.

“What are you talking about?” Nora asked.

“You didn’t come out with us last night,” Matthew said.

“I wasn’t invited,” Nora answered.

“Everyone was,” Matthew said.

“Well I wasn’t,” Nora insisted.

“It was in the group chat,” Matthew said.

“I’m not in the group chat, so I didn’t see the message,” Nora said.

“Oh,” Matthew said.

“Yeah,” Nora said.

Matthew fished out his phone and fiddled around with a few buttons. “There, you should be added now.”

“Thanks,” Nora said. Matthew looked like he was going to say something more but reconsidered.

“Ready for the flight?” Matthew asked.

“Yeah,” Nora replied, “I’ll be back down soon.” She headed back up to her room and collapsed on the bed, with just a few minutes before she’d have to pack her things for the flight. Against her better judgement she scrolled through the group chat back to previous messages and saw messages from when it had been announced that she’d been called up to the Flames.

Johnny: That girl from the AHL’s being brought up.

Peter: Really? I didn’t think she was that good.

Elias: She’s on a five-game goal streak.

Matthew: We’re getting a girl on the team? Are we really that bad that they need to bring her up?

Nora sighed and put her phone away. Tears pricked her eyes as she tried to blink them away. There were other comments like that in the group chat that they hadn’t bothered to delete and Nora read them, wanting to know what her teammates really thought about her. Reactions ranged from ambivalent to disgust, with most somewhere in the middle. There was a knock on the door as a warning to head downstairs and Nora tried to compose herself.

“Are you okay?” Johnny asked when Nora arrived downstairs with her bag.

“Yeah, I’m ready to head to Detroit,” Nora replied with a fake smile on her face.

#matthew tkachuk imagine #nhl imagine #matthew tkachuk fic #nhl fics #nhl imagines

79 notes · View notes

diversemymedia · 5 years

Text

The Passage: The Goods and Gripes

The Passage wasn’t necessarily on my list of shows to watch but I am more than glad that I gave the show a shot. Before it aired, I had seen commercials for it every now and then but the promotion wasn’t to a point where I made sure I wanted to see it. What slightly intrigued me was the little Black girl who, from the looks of it, had superpowers? Something I couldn’t really recall seeing in my life—especially as a lead. Like many others, I was rightfully skeptical because it was meant to air on Fox. Instantly, I thought about Sleepy Hollow, Minority Report, and Pitch (a show I never watched but heard a lot about). Since I was unsure of what it was about I did a little more research and discovered that it is based on a novel trilogy of the same name by Justin Cronin. Initially, Fox paid millions to have the books adapted into a three-part film series but plans changed and it was morphed into a television series,and I couldn’t be more thankful. Our wonderful Saniyya Sidney was exposed to millions of people across the US. I told myself that if I was tired of seeing shows, that featured Black girls, get the axe, the least I could do was support it by watching. I feel the need to also mention that I had no idea Gosselaar, he co-star, was Indonesian, which made it all the more worth it.

Hope you enjoy reading. This will be a spoiler free review. I’ve also included a new rating system for myself. Instead of five stars, I will be using ten.

The Passage aired on January 24th, 2019. I missed the premiere because I never made plans to watch it. I found out about it through the on-demand menu and gave the show a shot. I had mixed feelings shortly after watching the first episode but I stuck around anyway because I was completely astounded by the little lead actress. The series follows a preteen named Amy Bellafonte (portrayed by Saniyya Sidney) and a federal agent named Brad Wolgast (portrayed by Mark-Paul Gosselaar) who are both caught in the crossfires of a medical government conspiracy known as Project Noah. Right off the bat, it’s evident that the father-figure/daughter-figure duo relationship is being built here. This trope can be well-received, especially if it’s done right. It gives characters a chance to explore backstories, have interesting dynamics, and build meaningful relationships and it’s usually with someone one of the characters least expect. I guess it’s fair to say that it was another one of the reasons why I decided to stick around. Ironically enough, a lot of my top favorite shows and games use this trope. To name a few there’s Ellie and Joel from The Last of Us, Clementine and Lee from The Walking Dead video game, and Rex and Agent Six from Generator Rex. The only difference with GR is that both are males.

The powerhouses of the show are Gosselaar and Sidney and their character’s relationships are undoubtedly the foundation of this series. The greatest thing about the pair is the chemistry they share on-screen together and whether it might be a flaw or strength, they’re even greater together than they are apart. Brad is introduced as a federal agent who has dealt with a devastating loss in his life, which in turn has made him become a stoic weapon for the government—willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. However, as time goes on, Brad not only shows a softer side but a far more empathetic one. As mentioned by a follower of mine, Brad isn’t the typical type of mentor who puts all of his burdens on Amy and tells her harbor it because she must remain “strong”. Instead, he acknowledges the trauma and grief that Amy experiences and he does everything he can to allow her to get some sense of closure, even if it means helping her find it.

Amy is a wonderfully complex character from start to finish and deals with a vast amount of emotions through the entirety of season 1. Although I’ve already said it before, Saniyya is an actress who is deserving of all the awards in the world to handle such a multifaceted role. Amy deals with loss, being abducted to being manipulated, and coming to terms with something that changes her entire life forever. Although other people constantly refer to it as “sass”, I saw her as nothing more than a preteen who stood up for herself against smart-mouthed adults who thought they could always one-up her, but Amy was always a step ahead. One thing I feel a lot of people missed is that Amy represents a latch key child and wears a key around her neck. Over time, the key serves itself as a prominent symbol, existing to tell other children like her that they matter and that they can be destined to do great things although the going gets tough.

Aside from these two, a lot of my praise also goes out to the overall production side of the show. This is one of the few times I can truly say I appreciate almost every single cast member’s acting ability. Special recognition to Caroline Chikezie, Jamie McShane, McKinley Belcher III, and Brianne Howey for their depictions of their respective, morally grey, characters. Everyone was truly fascinating to watch and I grew to passionately appreciate or dislike their characters for such superb presentations. Not to mention, the dialogue between the characters are just as great and seemingly realistic. I grew attached to a majority of them. Even the graphics and special effects—although they are basic, they were very fitting and not too overkill to a point where it felt like a flashy mcu film. My only advise would be to use effects a bit more during certain scenarios.

Now, there were only a couple of things that made me grumble and, if done excessively, could impact on the show’s life span. For starters, my biggest gripe is with the series’ showrunner, Liz Hildens. I question if it’s just me but I think it’s clear by her track-record that she isn’t the best person to lead a show. Personally, every episode she’s had a hand in has been the weakest to me (episodes, 1, 2, and 10). Ratings fell drastically whenever Hildens’ episodes aired. The other writers, however, managed to keep a firm hold on the remaining audience although they had to work with what they were given by Hildens. Everything was going in the right direction right up until Hildens returned for the finale and gave us a very subpar tenth episode.

The only thing I can commend Hildens for is her history of hiring black actresses as leads in her shows. For a white woman, this is a trend I’ve seen of hers and if it weren’t for her, I’m inclined to believe that Saniyya would not have been on our television screens every Monday night. For those who didn’t know, Hildens also created a soap-opera called Deception, that aired back in 2013, where Meagan Good portrayed the show’s lead. On a macro level, Hildens appropriates a lot of soapy techniques and the tone of her writing just doesn’t mingle well with a series that’s supposed to reflect an intense thriller. She attempts to cover so much in a single episode that a lot of subtext gets lost. I could arguably say that having her on the writing team was detrimental to the series but I fear Amy being put in the hands of someone else.

Any other criticisms are extremely minor. For instance, characters react a little unrealistic in the face of danger, and it’s usually done for the sake of getting the immediate plot going. There’s a scene where a character is getting pursued by an enemy. Instead of running to one of the many armed gunmen for help, this character decides to run to a fellow colleague who is locked in a cell and pleads for their help. There are plenty of moments like those. There are also times I wish the writers utilized Amy a lot more. As episodes progressed, Amy did spectacular things. Seeing that she is just a child, the care given to her is understandable but her defenselessness in later episodes was such a backpedal to her character and it was disappointing. Taking this direction begged the question as to how the finale played out the way it did.

A brief synopsis of the show is that Project Noah is currently in the process of trying to develop a cure-all remedy. The twist? They’re experimenting with vampire’s blood. These vampires are commonly known as ‘virals’. Basically, a scientist comes to the conclusion that a younger patient would be an ideal candidate for their research and as horrifying as it sounds, they go through with it and assign an agent to fetch one.

Overall, The Passage certainly did meet my expectations considering that they were low after the first two episodes. It wasn’t below nor above, yet It does a fabulous job at telling young girls everywhere, including those who look like Amy, that they’re capable of being superpowered on-screen. With the first season completed, all there’s left is to do is wait for a renewal of the sci-fi thriller.

The Passage: Season 1 rating: 7/10 stars.

Hope you enjoyed this read. Feel free to follow my blog for more posts and critiques on diversity & representation.

(Updates: I corrected Liz’s surname to ‘Hildens’ instead of ‘Hilden’.)

#the passage #amy bellafonte #saniyya sidney #mark paul gosselaar #brad wolgast #review #black girls #sci fi #thriller #post apocalyptic #i felt like a real critic for a minute lmaoo

20 notes · View notes

magzoso-tech · 4 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/deciding-how-much-equity-to-give-your-key-employees/

Deciding how much equity to give your key employees

Lewis Hower Contributor

Lewis Hower connects Silicon Valley Bank and VC/startup communities as a Managing Director with SVB Startup Banking.

More posts by this contributor

Manage your angel investors, or they’ll manage you

Anu Shukla had found the perfect VP of Engineering to help her build her latest startup, a company called RewardsPay. By that point, she had founded or cofounded several venture-backed startups (she’s up to five). The standard, she knew, was a roughly 1.5% to 2% stake for a key employee at the executive level.

But Shukla knew sometimes you need to give up more to get the right person. “At that point, there wasn’t much cash in the company,” Shukla says of RewardsPay, the company she founded in 2010 to help consumers convert rewards points into a commodity they could spend elsewhere. “This is the person we were asking to come in and build the technology and build our technology team,” she adds. He was also someone with experience who could command a sizable salary from a more established company.

Shukla ended up giving him a 3% equity share in the company. He needed to remain motivated to stick around for the long-run, Shukla explains, “and we also knew through subsequent rounds of funding he would become diluted.”

Tech’s main currency is built on a range of factors

Equity, typically in the form of stock options, is the currency of the tech and startup worlds. After dividing initial stakes among themselves, founders use it to lure talent and compensate employees for the salary cut that they almost inevitably will take when joining a startup. It helps keep employees motivated with the tantalizing prospect of a big payday when the company is sold or goes public.

But how much equity should founders grant the first engineers hired to help them build their product and the new hires that follow? What about that highly coveted VP of Sales brought on once a company has a product to sell? And what about others a young startup seeks to enlist in the cause, including key advisors whose insights and connections might increase its chances of success or perhaps an outside director with the right expertise to join a nascent board of directors?

Properly parceling out equity is a challenge for first-time founders. What stake an employee deserves depends on a range of factors, from skills to seniority and employee badge number.

“Is this employee #5 we’re talking about or employee #25?” asks serial entrepreneur Joe Beninato, who has founded or cofounded four startups and worked at another four. “What’s the experience of the person coming over? You have to look at each situation individually.”

1% or .05%? It depends on position and seniority

Yet while complex, several online guides provide compensation benchmarks that help founders think about the size of each slice of the company they give away when recruiting talent. Index Ventures, for instance, has published a handbook aimed at helping entrepreneurs figure out option grants at the seed level. At a company’s earliest stages, expect to give a senior engineer as much as 1% of a company, the handbook advises, but an experienced business development employee is typically given a .35% cut. An engineer coming in at the mid-level can expect .45% versus .15% for a junior engineer. A junior biz dev person should expect .05%, which is the same for a junior person coming in as a designer or in marketing.

And just because someone gets a big title, it doesn’t mean you should give away the store. “We see a lot of role and title inflation going on at the seed stage, which is best avoided,” warns Reshma Sohoni, co-founder and general partner at Seedcamp, a European seed fund quoted in the Index handbook. “At this stage, you are unsure of who is going to continue the adventure with you.”

Timing trumps seniority and experience

When Shukla was building her team at RewardsPay, she gave the earliest engineers joining her team an equity share of between .5% and 1%, depending on both experience and a person’s salary requirements. Some were willing and able to work for a minimal salary and higher equity, whereas others asked for higher cash compensation because of their personal circumstances. Regardless, Shulka says, “the early team you put together definitely gets a lot more stock than later employees.”

Indeed, in many circumstances, the timing of an employee’s decision to join has a disproportionate impact on how much equity is offered. It makes sense: the earlier someone commits to your startup, the more risk the hire is taking on.

If a key hire is the third person joining a two-person team, he or she can almost be considered a co-founder and may get as much as 10% of the company. But if a head of sales or VP of marketing joins once a startup has a product to sell and promote, they may get between 1% and 2%, depending on experience.

“The percentages really vary dramatically,” Beninato says. “I don’t want to say it’s like a decaying exponential, but it’s something like that. The first people get more, and it goes down over time.”

Time for an employee option pool

Eventually, founders need to think about creating an employee option pool — a more disciplined way to award equity over shaving off more shares with each new hire. “After a seed round, you want to have that employee pool at around 10% or 12%, plus or minus,” says James Currier, a four-time founder who is now a managing partner at NFX, an early-stage venture capital firm. Calibrating the precise size of that option pool, Currier and others say, depends on a company’s hiring ambitions over the coming 12 to 18 months — through a next funding cycle.

Again, online guides can help. The Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation, for instance, is an 80-page handbook that explains arcane terms such as “cliffs,” “claw backs,” “single trigger” and “double trigger” that any entrepreneur must know to even understand what their lawyers and advisors are telling them. The guide also identifies landmines to avoid and breaks down the equity ownership of a pair of sample companies whose employee pools range from 9% to 20%.

Over time, founders will need to tinker with the option pool as everyone’s shares are diluted with each venture round. “After an A, you want to put it back to 10 to 15%, depending on how many managers you need,” Currier says. Adds Anu Shukla, “Usually, the VCs are going to ask for a completely empty option pool where every share is available.”

Prepare to negotiate

The size of the option pool must be part of the negotiations with any venture capitalist — and founders would be wise to have thought about the issue before sitting in a VC’s conference room. “VCs often sneak in additional economics for themselves by increasing the amount of the option pool on a pre-money basis,” warn Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson in their book, Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. At that point, the option pool is coming from the founders’ shares and those of their earliest investor so Feld and Mendelson encourage founders to push back if they feel the VCs are asking for an unduly large option pool.

“The entrepreneur can say, ‘look, I strongly believe we have enough options to cover our needs,’” Feld and Mendelson advise. To protect the VCs, they say, offer full anti-dilution protection in case the founders are wrong, and they need to expand the option pool before the next financing.

No one gets everything at once

Equity awards, regardless of their form, are subject to vesting schedules. Traditionally, startups have used a four-year benchmark with a one-year cliff: no ownership until an employee has worked twelve months, and then 25% for each year worked (or an additional 1/48th for every month worked). Yet there’s also the growing recognition that building a successful company usually takes a lot longer than four years, and options are about retaining people to build something great. As a result, longer vesting schedules are becoming more commonplace.

The growing time it takes companies to go public or be acquired is also affecting other stock option terms. Typically, employees have had up to 90 days after leaving a company to exercise their options, which can be costly and come with a large tax bill. Now companies are sometimes extending that period well beyond 90 days so that an employee won’t end up with nothing if they leave long before they can turn their equity into cash.

Boards of advisors and directors

Equity is also suitable for drawing a different kind of talent to your company: experienced people in the field who won’t come to work for you full-time but, if their interests were aligned with yours, might serve as advisors who increase your chances of success. (At this stage of a company, non-founder board members are likely to be its investors, so their equity will be commensurate with the size of their investment.)

Currier, the serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, says he typically offered between .1% and .3% of the company to attract an advisor to one of his companies. “What you’re hoping for is that one advisor who tells you something that triples the value of your company,” he says. “The problem is you don’t know which one of the five or six people you’d brought in as advisors will be that person. So you pay them all .2% and hope one gives you that idea that more than pays for itself.”

The takeaway: cash is limited, but so is equity

Giving out equity may feel painless. After all, it’s an easy way to preserve your cash as you staff your startup with top-notch hires that can significantly increase your chances of success. But take the time to understand the value of what you’re giving away, and bring discipline to the process early by creating an employee pool. Then if you have to spend a little extra to get someone really exceptional, as Shukla’s RewardsPay had to do, you’ll know where you stand.

#Miscellaneous

0 notes

superbeitmenotyou · 5 years

Video

youtube

standard knowledge says that in the latest Hollywood panorama, film stars don’t count number, at least any longer as a whole lot as they acclimated to. New personalities anchorage's stepped as much as fill the shoes of stars like Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, or Tom Hanks of their respective primes, so the job of cartoon audiences out of their homes for a huge opening weekend has fallen to franchises and highbrow property. “IP,” as the executives and even the enthusiasts name it.

men in black: overseas and Shaft spent their improper opening weekends exploring the worst-case situation. They’re the newest casualties in a sequel-saturated summer where very nearly each comply with-up without Avengers in the title has underperformed. It seems now not each sequence can accidentally pull off a James band-style reinvention with new gamers.

decades in the past, the band authorization changed into one of the most only collection that found success while transferring from celebrity to celebrity. many sequels had been low-hire money-ins without the customary stars — think of The bite II or Caddy Shack II. paying audiences certainly didn’t. extra lately, independence Day: improvement tried to carry on devoid of Will Smith, who went supernova after the fashioned. That film became an ensemble image, with artisan because of the standout lead; the long-established men in tournaments was his observe-up and his genuine coronation as Hollywood royalty. He caught around for a few sequels, but actors inevitably wish to move on to new issues or at least restrict themselves to at least one or two advancing sequences at a time. therefore the men and women in tournaments activity overseas.

by contrast with ability Day’s disaster-movie ambit, the whole funny story of men in black is that it treats alien invasion accidentally. Pairs of black-appropriate brokers investigate crooked conflicting pastime, operating in secret and wiping the recollections of any civilians they come across along the manner. There are splendidly designed creatures alive in the course of the film and its sequels, but the megastar attraction is the allure amid ball artisan as new recruit agent J, and deadpan Tommy Lee Jones as adept agent K.

men in black: international makes an attempt to circulate on from that group. In conception, the shift makes experience: the MIB company is meant to be titanic and much-reaching, and smith’s de facto alternative is rising celebrity Tessa Thompson, a talented actress who has also aggressive her share of franchise films Thor: Ragnarök; the marvel films. It’s probably lustrous that Thompson isn’t tasked with assuming artisan — the place J starts out as a reckless, dedicated cop, Thompson’s agent M is a distinct-absent alarmist who becomes IBM's aboriginal non-recruited worker by devoting a great deal of her young life to monitoring them bottom ward. She’s fastidious, strange, and ambitious — a special sort of cocky-control than artisan’s vigorous self-belief. It sounds just like the type of identical-but-diverse recipe that’s purported to accomplish sequels alluring.

however, the first men in black and, to a bottom extent, its different sequels was well-engineered to take knowledge of artisan’s selected energy. MIB: I am supposed to prove that the series is famous person-doubter, however, its barter turns into a metaphor for a pretty good actor disturbing to fill out a celebrity’s suit. agent M is a hard worker. She deserves her shot on the profession she’s practising herself for. She isn’t content to coast on her attraction or her record, in contrast to her associate, Chris Hemsworth’s agent H. Ms hiring makes loads of experience on cardboard, just as Thompson’s did.

however, simply active Thompson into thin outfitting practising montage sans a lot specific practising doesn’t make her an artisan-degree presence. Her confidence is quieter and greater interior than Smith's. That could flip MIB: International into a fascinating antagonism of the primary movie, with Hemsworth taking on artisan’s more affectionate bluster, and Jones’ deadpan intelligence going to the rookie, as opposed to the coach. however MIB: International’s writers don’t seem to be certain about the way to address Thompson’s inferiority, apart from by giving her the briefest flashes of artisan-ish bravado. smith’s self-announced arrival as a superstar “I accomplish this seem good,” J abundantly says back he receives his tournaments suit in men in black are high that the sequence has been chasing ever due to the fact that. right here, the lobar come what may consider each sweaty impulsively trying to supply Thompson a makeover arrangement, hoping anything within the battery of montaged moments will stick and lazy authoritative her long-time men in black fan above anything else.

agent M is shipped to London on a mission that’s firstly so vaguely described that it becomes complicated. That also advance with how MIB use Thompson, by way of dashing her into the authorization and assuming her reasons for being there will finally make the experience.

As talented as Thompson is, she doesn’t generate any precise comedian abrasion, past some mild testiness with Hemsworth. The writers seem convinced that what made men in black compelling and humorous wasn’t J and K's snarly attitudes and sharp banter, however the very thought of tournaments-perfect agents under-reacting to crazy-looking aliens. At this aspect, just the authorization’s emblems — the dark sun shades, the shimmering affected weapons, the neuralgias — are speculated to entice the audience as without problems as an “Oh, hell no” from Smith or a deadpan quip from Jones.

This kind of bewitched considering is probably required for anyone who notion it turned into profitable to reboot men in black: International without the long-established stars. during this case, the film-makers seem to have had adverse visions over what artisan-much fewer men in black should appear to be.

as the Hollywood anchorman addendum, the movie became, in the beginning, each more adventuresome and greater contemporary, and the sharp edges were eased out all through a collection of at the back of-the-scenes struggles between administrator F. Gary Argy and ambassador Walter Parkes.

The article makes a speciality of plot-related clashes, however, while the storyline is abashed, the film’s real problems are accent and personality.

the inability of both creates a brand new abandoned at the core of the collection.

Hiring the charismatic Thompson and Hemsworth makes the circumstance worse, in place of stronger, as a result of they’ve both been so tons enhanced in other places, together with within Thor: Ragnarök. Thompson’s abettor M works tough and gets what she desires, which means little of outcome occurs to her as a personality.

The movie is unintentionally about the futility of carrying on men in black company as general.

At least the team at the back of the brand new Shaft is a little greater awareness of what audiences might accept loved about old entries in the series.

like the reboot Shaft, the new movie is titled to suggest an accommodation of the traditional Shaft, despite the fact that it’s really an assiduity of varieties.

back in, Samuel L. Jackson stepped into the role of John Shaft, as the nephew of the “customary” John Shaft Richard Round tree, who regarded in a cameo.

Shaft services as a form-of sequel to that film, bringing back Jackson and giving him a nerdier millennial son named John Shaft Jr. Jessie T. usher, with a just a little accelerated and retconned! function for the Round tree.

although Jackson is evidently Shaft’s best noted forged member, the conductor is the film’s point-of-view persona. by making him and Jackson into mismatched partners on against the law-solving mission, the movie foregrounds generational battle, which brings a way of the specific alternate that eludes men in black: overseas.

but to dramatize this conflict, Shaft makes Jackson into a cocky-carefully old-faculty bear who’s appalled via the supposedly feminized affability of his son, who works for the FBI as an information analyst because he doesn’t look after firearms. Jackson’s edition of John Shaft became already different from Round tree's — extra gross, less smooth, greater Jackson-y. This additional after the light is likely, in its ball-y means, realistic.

Of route Shaft is crankier as a sixty-something than he becomes years ago, and naturally, a new generation would buy a more technological method to issues that have been solved in the Nineteen Seventies with shoe-leather-based and shoot-outs. And at the least Jackson and conductor enliven one of the most canned banter.

The difficulty is, Shaft feels obligated to define usher’s character virtually completely on his dad’s terms. John Jr. gets in some address about his historic man’s absurdity and fogey-ish tastes, however, eventually, the movie wants the kid to man up and hearth the guns he claims to abhorrence. it could be greater wonderful to peer a Shaft Jr. who sticks to his principles, which the movie pointers at via giving him an unconventional combating fashion.

but like men in tournaments: foreign, this Shaft blunders time-honoured, abrupt artifice turns for advantage, giving its characters little possibility to believe like anything however bung-and-play abstracts.

They’re coming at us right through a period back sequels are presupposed to be de-stigmatized, and even exciting. here is the period that gave us Mad Max: acerbity street, The final Jedi, and The dark knight, sequels which have proven how reboots, long-term authorization extensions, or even actor substitute can nonetheless result in a very good film.

men in tournaments and Shaft aren’t least expensive or bequest-tarnishing sequels within the Caddy shack II experience, however, they’re low-employ at heart. It’s one thing to accomplish an extra Godzilla movie.

Godzilla has survived for many years because of endless sequels that mainly abide by up the ante on city-level destruction and loopy opponents. however as accidental as viewers, attention can be and for what it’s valued, advantageous audiences who saw Shaft perceived to delight in it, it makes sense that they’d feel the thuggishness in studies, tones, and even full characters that appear backwards engineered from company revivals. as a substitute for famous person vehicles, these are automobile vehicles.

And that’s too inferior, as a result of these newest after-effect flops have whatever abroad in ordinary.

They’re both videos-turned-franchises absorption on black actors, both of their original and current incarnations.

This wasn’t an in particular normal occurrence back Shaft fabricated a large-flat version of blaxploitation in, nor even when guys in tournaments proven smith’s huge superstar vigour in.

The primary MIB is still one of the crucial biggest-grossing motion pictures with a tournaments actor in an unequivocal lead role, rather than a part of an ensemble. The casting builds some additional goodwill and acclaim activity into both collections. They’re business initiatives, inaugurate attempts at branding, but they nevertheless offer frustratingly infrequent star-making alternatives for tournaments actors.

If the authorization itself is supposed to be the big name, although, it might expect the exact stars to adjourn to its wants, which generally quantity to the need to preserve the authorization activity.

So instead of honouring the cultural legacies of Shaft or men in black, these new instalments put talented tournaments performers at the mercy of past-top franchises, sticking Tessa Thompson and Jessie T. usher on excursions of other americium's hits.

poor usher has been through this earlier than; he played the son of Will artisan’s absent character in that baseborn ability Day sequel, one other film that apparently took place because its creator's concept the authorization become so attractive to admirers that they’d reveal up regardless of the cast alterations.

It’s effortlessly responsible for more recent actors for not being excessive-wattage sufficient to attempt with the brand of Will Smith, Leonardo Aperiodic, Sandra Bullock, and other superstars of fresh antique.

But it surety's complicated for performers like Thompson, usher, and Hemsworth to shine their brightest within the nonsensicality of so a good deal mindlessly, purposelessly constructed-up IP.

0 notes

yourlittlestarlight-blog · 6 years

Text

Google Go Vs Objective C

1. Introduction

“The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.” Fredrick Nietzsche.

Every computer programmer has few comments on how his programming language of choice is the best. There are common attributes that most programmers want, like an easy to use syntax, better run-time performance, faster compilation and there are more particular functionalities that we need depending on our application. These are the main reasons why there are so many programming languages and a new one being introduced almost daily. Despite the large amount of interest and attention on language design, many modern programming languages don’t always offer innovation in language design for example Microsoft and Apple offer only variations of it.

It is not too far in the history when C stepped into the world of computing and became the basis of many other successful programming languages. Most of the members of this family stayed close to their infamous mother and very few managed to break away and distinguish themselves as an individual being. The computing landscape however, has changed considerably since the birth of C. Computers are thousands of times faster utilizing multi-core processors. Internet and web access are widely available and the devices are getting smaller and smaller and mobile computing has been pushed to the mainstream. In this era, we want a language that makes our life better and easier.

According to TIOBE Index, Go and objective C were amongst fastest growing languages specially in 2009 and Go was awarded “Programming Language of the Year” in the very same year. TIOBE obtain its results on a monthly basis by indexing. Indexing is updated using the data obtained by the links to certified programmers, training and software vendors. This data is assembled for TIOBE via the Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia and YouTube search engines. The results was more predictable for Objective C as it is the language of the iPhone and Mac, and Apple is running strong in the market. However, this result gets more interesting because it has not been long since the technology darling introduced her own programming language called GO.

2. A Little Bit Of History

Go’s infamous mother Google has dominated search, e-mail and more. So the introduction of a new programming language is not a shocker! Like many of Google’s open source projects, Go began life as a 20 percent time project which Google gives to its staff to experiment, and later evolved into something more serious. Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson started its Design and Go was officially announced in November 2009, with implementations released for Linux and Mac OS platforms. Google released Go under a BSD-style license, hoping that the programmer’s community will develop and build Go into a viable choice for software development. At the moment, Go is still very young and experimental. Even Google isn’t currently using Go in large scale production of applications. While the site that’s hosting the code is running a server built with Go as a proof, the primary purpose of the release was to attract developers and build a Go community around it. Despite its uncertain status, Go already supports many of the standard tools you’d expect from a system language.

Objective C In contrast has a longer and broader history. Today it is used primarily on Apple’s MAC OS and iPhone. Objective C is the primary language used for Apple’s COCOA API. Objective C was created by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 80s at their company StepStone. In 1986, Cox published the main description of Objective C in its original form in the book “Object-Oriented Programming, An Evolutionary Approach“. Since then, Objective C had been compared feature for feature with other languages, and now it is Steve Jobs’ language of choice.

There are many aspects that contribute to the design, and success or failure of a programming language. In this article, I attempt to give a general comparison of these two arguably very important languages of the future.

3. General Comparison

These days, the world is full of programming languages and they are becoming more and more general and all-purpose, but they still have their specializations and characteristics, and each language has its disadvantages and advantages.

Languages can generally be divided into many different categories. The following Table isn’t a complete list of all the possible comparable features. Features which were thought to be of somewhat more importance in comparison of the two chosen programming languages were selected and a brief explanation of each one is given.

3.1 Paradigm

Objective-C is an imperative object oriented language, meaning objects can change state. Objective-C also gives you the full power of a true object-oriented language with one syntax addition to the original C and many additional keywords. Naturally, object-oriented programs are built around objects, so in Objective C, objects are the roots of everything. A class is used to produce similar objects, called instances of the class. Classes are used to encapsulate data and methods that belong together. Methods are the operations that Objective-C applies to data and are identified by their message selectors. Objective-C supports polymorphism meaning that several classes can have a method with the same name. Also Single Inheritance is used for code reuse. The closest that can be achieved to obtain multiple inheritance is to create a class with instance variables that are references to other objects. However, the Objective-C philosophy is that programmers do not need multiple inheritance and it discourages it.

In GO things are a little bit different. The Go designers selected a message-passing model to achieve concurrent programming. The language offers two basic constructs Goroutines and Channels to achieve this paradigm. In their design FAQ, Google writes that GO is and isn’t an object oriented language! Although Go has types and methods and let us simulate an object-oriented style of programming, there is no type hierarchy. Lack of type hierarchy makes “objects” in Go to be much more lightweight than object in Objective C. Go utilizes an innovative approach to objects and programmers are not required to worry about large object trees. Since go isn’t a truly object oriented language, a programmer can solve the problem in whatever way he wants and still enjoys the Object Oriented-like features.

I can’t really think of any object oriented language which does not have a hierarchical inheritance mechanism. But for those who do have it, it seems to create a better model for flexibility and reuse. Absence of Inheritance in Go is interesting indeed! As far as I remember, Inheritance has always been taught to me as the punchline of object orientation. The reality is that inheritance is not the only possible mechanism for reuse in object orientation. Composition arguably is a more powerful mechanism for sharing behavior than inheritance.

Object-oriented programming became very popular specially in big companies, because it is suitable approach for the way they develop software and it increases their chances of successful project using teams of mediocre programmers. Object-oriented programming implements a standard for these programmers and prevents individuals from making too much damage. The price is that the resulting code is full of duplication. This is not too high a price for big companies, because their software is going to be full of duplications anyway.

3.2 Syntax

Objective C is an extension of standard ANSI C, existing C programs can be adapted to use the software frameworks without losing any of the work that went into their original development. In Objective C, Programmer gets all the benefits of C when working within Objective C. Programmer can choose to do something in an object-oriented way like defining a new class, or, stick to procedural programming techniques. Objective-C is generally regarded as something like a hybrid between C and Smalltalk. One setback due to the learning curve could be the necessity of having the basic knowledge of programming in C before entering the world of Objective C. C like syntax and Object-oriented programming, often presents a long and difficult learning curve to new programmers and Objective C is also not an exception.

Go is a C family member also, but I think Go manages to break the coding style and somehow makes it different. Compared to Objective C, declarations are backwards. In C, the notion is that a variable is declared like an expression denoting its type like in Basic, which is a nice idea in my opinion.

in Go: var a, b *int;

I find Go closer to a human natural language for example this statement: “Variable a is integer” can be shown as:

var a int;

This is clearer, cleverer and more regular.

Go also permits multiple assignments, which are done in parallel.

i, j = j, i // Swap i and j.

Control statements in Go do not accept parenthesis. While the most common control statement, if, would take the form of “if ( self ){” in Objective C and most of the other OO languages. But in Go, it would have the following form:

if self {

Another difference in Go is that semicolons are not recommended. However, you can terminate any Go statement with a semicolon optionally. In reality, semicolons are for parsers and Google wanted to eliminate them as much as possible. A single statement does not require a semicolon at all which I find rather convenient.

Go is a compiled language similar to a C. There are two Go compilers currently available, one for the x86 platform and another for AMD. Compilation speed of Go is very fast. When I first tried it (without any intended or proper measurement), it was just too damned fast! My experiences with programming languages is limited and rather focused on Object Oriented languages like Java so I had never seen a speed quite like that! One of the fundamental promised goals of Go is to be able to compile things really quickly. According to the official Go demonstration video, Go’s performance is within 10 – 20% of C. However, I don’t think that’s really trust-worthy until we get some performance benchmarks in the near future.

3.3. Exceptions And Generics

Objective C does not have Generic Types unless programmer decides to use C++ templates in his custom collection classes. Objective-C uses dynamic typing, which means that the run-time doesn’t care about the type of an objects because all the objects can receive messages. When a programmer adds an object to a built-in collection, they are just treated as if they were type id. Similar to C++, the Objective-C language has an exception-handling syntax.

Go’s type system does not support generic types. At least for now, they do not consider them necessary. Generics are convenient but they enforce a high overhead in the type system and run-time, and Go cannot stand that! Like generics, exceptions remain an open issue. Go’s approach to Exception while innovative and useful, is most likely difficult for many programmers. Google’s codebase is not exception-tolerant and so exceptions are a similar story and they have been left out from the language. Instead, programmer can now use multiple return values from a call to handle errors. Since Go is garbage-collected, absence of exceptions is less of an issue compared with C++, but there are still cases where things like file handles or external resources need to be cleaned up. Many programmers believe that exceptions are absolutely necessary in a modern programming language. However, I like the no exception fact because I find exception handling in most languages ugly. In a language like Go, where it’s possible to return multiple values from functions, programmers can do things like return both a result and a status code, and handle errors via status codes.

3.4. Type Systems

Compared to other object oriented languages based on C, Objective C is very dynamic. Nowadays, programmers tend to choose dynamically typed languages such as Objective C. The downfall is that there is less information at compile time. This dynamicity means that we can send a message to an object which is not specified in its interface. The compiler holds detailed information about the objects themselves to use at run-time. Decisions that could otherwise be made at compile time, will be delayed until the program is running. This gives Objective C programs flexibility and power.

Dynamically typed languages have the potential problem of an endless run-time errors which can be uncomfortable and confusing. However Objective-C allows the programmer to optionally identify the class of an object, and in those cases the compiler will apply strong-typing methodology. Objective C makes most of the decisions at run-time. Weakly typed pointers are used frequently for things such as collection classes, where the exact type of the objects in a collection may be unknown. For programmers who are used to a strongly typed languages, the use of weak typing would cause problems so some might give up the flexibility and dynamism. At the same time and while the dynamic dispatch of Objective C makes it slower than a static languages. Many developers believe that the extra flexibility is definitely worth the price and they argue most desktop applications rarely use more than 10% of a modern CPU. I do not agree with the above justification that we only use 10% of the CPU. So what?! It is not a very good trend that the minimalist approaches aimed at efficiency and performance are being replaced by wasteful programs which are largely betting on the power of the hardware, and I personally prefer to work with a more static type checking.

Go also tries to respond to this growing trend of dynamically typed languages and it offers an innovative type system. Go ends up giving a programmer a language with a Pythonish duck typing. Go indeed has an unusual type system: It excludes inheritance and does not spend any time on defining the relationships between types. Instead, programmers can define struct types and then create methods for operating on them. Like Objective C, programmers can also define interfaces. Go is Strongly Typed, but the good thing is that it is not that strong! Programmer do not need to explicitly declare types of variables. Instead, Go implicitly assigns the type to the untyped variable when the value is first assigned to the variable. there is dynamic type information under the covers that programs can use to do interesting things.

3.5. Garbage Collection

It is very important these days to have garbage collection as one of the biggest sources of keeping everything clean and manage memory. In Objective C 2.0 Garbage Collection was introduced. It certainly was a good news for new iPhone and Mac Developers who might be very used to Java. Garbage collection simplified matters but still required programmers to be careful when dealing with the memory management. The Objective-C 2.0 garbage collector is a conservative collector meaning that not only developers have full access to the power of the C language, but also C’s ability to integrate with C++ code and libraries is preserved. A programmer can create the bulk of his application using Objective C, letting the garbage collector manage memory and where it’s needed, we can escape to the power of C and C++.

In Go, as a concurrent and multi-threaded programming, memory management is very difficult because objects can move between threads, and it becomes very difficult to guarantee that they will be freed safely once we want to get rid of them. Automatic garbage collection eases concurrent coding. Looking at it with the prospect of a person, like myself who is used to a high level, safe, garbage collected languages for many years now, so much of this is just a boring news. but in the other hand, in the low level world of systems programming languages, these types of changes are revolutionary, specially if the desired performance can be achieved. Go’s focus is on speed, and in garbage collection lies a performance overhead. Advances in the garbage collection technology however, allowed it to have it with no significant latency and enabled Google to include it in Go.

4. Future And Conclusion

There must be a reason behind the growth of the popularity of these two languages. Maybe the reason could be that when the light of Microsoft is declining; Apple and Google are rapidly taking over each with their own particular ecosystem. Go is a language promoted by Google, giving it an undeniable advantage in terms of popularity, reputation and technical coverage, and Objective C is supported by the might of the Steve Job’s empire.

Objective C enjoys the benefits of Cocoa libraries that ships with Mac OS. Mac OS X and the iPhone are the largest implementations of the language by a big margin. Recently, there has been a huge iPhone Applications trend and the potential to make easy money with easy programming projects is quite high. And I believe this very basic human fact will greatly contribute to the future growth of Objective C. Because the more developers use a language and test it in different situations, the better and the stronger a language can become.

Go is indeed an interesting language. With Google’s backing and resources, programmers can rest assured that Go will have some sort of a future even if not too shiny! I think the language has potential but it will be some time, not a very short time, before it can attract developers to drop their current platform and choose Go. Go still is a small language. It is experimental and is not recommended for production environments. There is no IDE integration and there are few code examples. Go is incomplete and they put out what they’ve got and encourage developers’ contribution. As an open source project backed by Google, I think Go will soon develop an IDE and an ecosystem, as it seems to be really well received as mentioned before on the TIOBE index. But it’s impossible to predict how big the ecosystem will get. If the language is able to generate an ecosystem, then things can go smoothly. I think there is a need to later put in support for the Windows operating system and also integrating it with Eclipse IDE to further expand it among programmers.

Apple and Objective C stress on object oriented programming and all of the documentation for the language is geared toward object-oriented programming. So in this sense there is a huge difference between Objective C and Go. But, like any other human or machine language, Objective C and Go are comparable by certain criteria and I tried to provide a general comparison between the two. However, it might take a very long time for the path of these two languages to actually come across. Go is young and full of uncertainties. This makes the comparison of these two programming languages rather difficult or maybe as my programmer friends say “impossible”. Go needs proper evaluation by unbiased referees for some time in order to be more comparable but I’m sure we will hear more about these two languages in the near future.

Ata Rehman

0 notes

yourabsentgod-blog · 6 years

Text

Google Go Vs Objective C

1. Introduction

2. A Little Bit Of History

3. General Comparison

3.1 Paradigm

3.2 Syntax

in Go: var a, b *int;

I find Go closer to a human natural language for example this statement: “Variable a is integer” can be shown as:

var a int;

This is clearer, cleverer and more regular.

Go also permits multiple assignments, which are done in parallel.

i, j = j, i // Swap i and j.

if self {

3.3. Exceptions And Generics

3.4. Type Systems

3.5. Garbage Collection

4. Future And Conclusion

Ata Rehman

0 notes

junker-town · 7 years

Text

The year the Celtics became real

Even in defeat to a superior foe, Boston found a solid winning formula and built a foundation for its future.

For the past four years, the Boston Celtics have existed more in theory than reality. Whatever they accomplished was merely a prelude to a time when draft picks and free agents became tangible roster elements instead of dreamy fantasies. Hiding behind the space reserved in the rafters for Banner 18 is an existential quandary that has followed this team around all season: Does any of this really mean anything?

Here’s a test. If you were to ask a Celtics fan back in October if they would be happy with a 53-win season that ended in the conference finals they would say, “Yes. Obviously.” They would want details, of course, and most of the details have been positive.

Isaiah Thomas became an All-NBA player and top-10 finisher in the Most Valuable Player voting. Prized free agent big man Al Horford showed his worth in the postseason after a solid, if occasionally uneven, first season in Boston. Avery Bradley continued to improve as an offensive player and was a defensive monster in the playoffs. Jae Crowder posted career best marks in 3-point shooting, rebounding, and assists.

The young players also made contributions. Marcus Smart did so many Smartian things that he became became an impactful player in the league even without a reliable jump shot. Second-year man Terry Rozier showed remarkable flashes of speed and power, becoming one of the best rebounding guards in the league, albeit in a limited role. Rookie Jaylen Brown offered glimpses of a ceiling many thought was beyond him when he was drafted, and pushed through the rookie wall to earn significant playoff minutes.

There were things the Celtics did well, and things that needed improvement, such as their wandering defensive intensity during stretches of the season. There were also fatal flaws, namely an inability to control the defensive boards and generate consistent offense without Thomas.

Still, there was much to appreciate about the Celtics’ season and that’s before we get to the first overall pick they won in the lottery via the legendary Brooklyn trade.

Taking all those factors together, there is no logical way to argue that this has been anything but a smashing success.

And yet, the C’s were overwhelmed in the conference finals by LeBron James and the Cavaliers in five games that included three losses on their home floor by an astonishing total of 90 points. They tested the limits of their abilities and it turned out to be exactly where everyone thought it was.

“We had a great year,” Brad Stevens said. “In some ways, we made a run at it. We made progress, but not good enough. And you know, I've said this before, if you coach in Boston, good enough is what matters.”

If LeBron and the Cavs are the measuring stick, then the Celtics failed their final test, just as Atlanta, Toronto, and so many others have before them. There is surely a case to be made that the only thing that matters is winning championships and everything else (even the super-fun stuff) is just for show. But that’s only half right.

“I don't have any objectives other than winning the whole thing,” Stevens said. “To me, that's the only goal you shoot for because then if you don't, if you put your goals lower, then you create a ceiling for your team, and I don't think that's fair to your team.”

Fair, but there is space between the good and bad when judging a season in full. This is the territory that Stevens works as a coach and this is where we really should examine their season.

After they beat the Wizards in seven games, I tried to get Stevens to bite on a big-picture question. He wasn’t having it. With Stevens, there are no mystical forces at work and the Basketball Gods find no favor here.

When I joked with him later that my goal in the playoffs is to get him to be introspective, Stevens casually replied that he has certain principles and he lives his life by those credos. The critical validation that comes with winning a couple of playoff series isn’t important to him.

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Stevens’ principles involve simple things like honesty and clarity. They also work on deeper levels, such as his belief in the ability to evolve and improve every day through practice and experience. That’s where the interesting stuff takes place. Get at that and you can understand what makes Stevens a good coach and what truly characterizes this team.

That Stevens is good at what he does is no great revelation. It’s obvious to even casual fans that he draws up super-neato plays out of timeouts that lend themselves to Zapruder-like breakdowns the next day. (The weakside screen is back and to the left.)

Yet, the X’s and O’s are merely the textures on the canvas that make the painting come alive. The broader outlines of the portrait take a bit longer to come into focus but are no less illuminating. This is the light they need to be viewed in at the moment.

In full view, the Celtics displayed an admirable feistiness that played well in Boston (as it would everywhere), and that quality defined them across the league. Coaches worried about getting run out of the Garden and opponents respected them because they’re a pain to play against. Whether they feared them is another matter.

Even the Celtics’ most ardent detractors gave them nods of grudging respect, while hoping they get put back in their place by better teams. Including the postseason, they were 2-7 against the Cavs and 19-16 against the rest of the East playoff field, which was hardly the stuff of dominance.

They did, however, beat every team in the league at least once except San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and (oddly) Denver. So, while they sometimes overmatched, they were usually competitive. You can’t win 53 games by accident.

That secured the top seed in the East and it was a weird achievement. They had their chance to take control of the race late in the season and were blown out by the very Cavaliers who gifted them the top spot with their lethargic disinterest down the stretch. That left the Celtics in the awkward position of defending their regular season status while needing to prove themselves worthy in the postseason.

What happened during the playoffs was validation, to a point. The Chicago series was harder than it should have been, and the C’s were fortunate that Rajon Rondo was injured during Game 2. When the Bulls took the fight to them, however, they responded. Bradley and Smart stood toe-to-toe with Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade and they ripped off four straight wins.

The Celtics then went seven frantic games with the Wizards, which seemed right. The C’s rallied to win games at home, while the Wiz won convincingly on their floor. There was a draining closeout attempt in Game 6 that ended in a crushing defeat, but they persevered in a memorable Game 7 performance.

It was a great series, arguably the best of the entire postseason, and either team could have won. The Wizards have been proclaiming themselves superior ever since, but that’s a hollow boast. Expectations may be graded on a curve, but wins and losses are not.

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Again there were positive individual signs. Horford came through like the max free agent he is with brilliant all-around performances. Even Kelly Olynyk -- long the most beleaguered member of the team by the home fans -- had his turn as a cult favorite and Game 7 hero.

Equally important was the play of Isaiah Thomas. Many people went into that series believing that John Wall was the best player on the court and while he often was, Thomas matched his best moments and even surpassed them.

The debate over whether Thomas is a great player or just a small guy doing amazing things will rage forever and it may ultimately define their future course. During the 2016-17 season, however, Thomas was a marvel to watch and one of the single best things about the NBA experience.

His postseason run has to be viewed as the culmination of that incredible star trip. That he persevered through personal tragedy and injury to deliver heroic performances when many wondered how effective he’d be during the postseason is now the stuff of legend.

Getting past the Bulls and Wizards were notable achievements and that’s where things stood heading into the conference finals. Even with homecourt advantage, no one seriously gave them a chance to beat Cleveland and they didn’t come close.

They were blown out and embarrassed at home in the first two games, losing Thomas to a hip injury in the process. Coming back to win Game 3 in Cleveland was astonishing and an immense credit to their character. They had a shot in Game 4, but had no answer for the individual brilliance of LeBron and Kyrie Irving.

Back home at the Garden for Game 5, their closeout game had all the intensity of a regular season blowout in December. That left a bitter taste to an otherwise fine season and all of that brings us right back to the beginning.

They will try to get a star in the draft and maybe even one during the summer. There will be roster decisions that will bring clarity to their ultimate direction. The Celtics will keep evolving because they have to if they want to truly be among the elite. This season needs to be viewed in that context, as a bridge to another destination.

This was the season when the Celtics went from a hypothetical entity to team of significance and it must also be said that the journey was a helluva lot of fun. They reached their potential and even if it left them wanting more, it’s hard to ask for much more than that from an NBA season.

0 notes