Month: July 2019

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Every Front Office In The NBA Is Dysfunctional If Their Coaches Don’t Believe LeBron Is A Top 3 NBA Player

When in a recent ESPN Survey Of 20 Coaches not one coach listed Lakers forward LeBron James as a Top 3 player in the NBA. Two of the players listed in the Top 3 have never won a championship or even performed well in the conference finals. Certainly all NBA players are better at basketball than the general population so any list of the top players in the NBA will leave off some great players. Though it would be interesting to see how many coaches in the ESPN survey would choose two out of the top three players they selected over LeBron James to lead their team instead of LeBron in the playoffs.

Now some basketball pundits would separate the regular season from the playoffs and say that LeBron is great in the playoffs but he is not a Top 3 player in the league when you consider the regular season. That's hog wash! The regular season only brings out measured efforts from the top players. The term "load management" has become popular for usage of playing time for NBA players. Even with injuries LeBron hit his career averages during the regular season last year, which averages were better than two of the Top 3 players listed ahead of him on the ESPN coaches survey. So while LeBron's playoff abilities are indisputable his regular season numbers are at Least Top 3 also.

With the 2019-20 Lakers team that will surround him LeBron and the Lakers, will be back in the playoffs, and his playoff performance will be such that no coach who gets knocked out of the playoffs by the Lakers will be saying that they got beat by a team without any Top 3 NBA players on it.  That brings us to the next questionable part of the ESPN coaches survey results where the Lakers were not listed by anyone to come out of the West to play in the NBA Finals. One team listed instead of the Lakers has never been out of the second round of the playoffs. None of the other three teams listed have come out of the West in the last two decades. It's strange that the Lakers with LeBron and Anthony Davis got zero votes among the coaches surveyed.

It's been a foregone conclusion among the media and many NBA front offices around the league that the Lakers are disorganized, if not dysfunctional. But which other front office accomplished as much as the Lakers did in the off season?They had to give up value in order to get Anthony Davis in a trade with a team (and probably the league) that didn't want to see the trade happen. Then when pushed up against the July 6th deadline because of the delay in the trade they couldn't make for Kawhi Leonard they still pulled off signing valuable pieces for their team that, despite what the coaches surveyed said, will be competing for a championship.

Needless to say the Lakers front office is no more dysfunctional than the other NBA team front offices who have coaches that left LeBron James out of the list of the Top 3 players in the league, and who had no votes for the Lakers coming out of the West. The upcoming NBA season should be one for ages. Lots of things will be settled. Can't wait for the NBA season to get started!

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Scale Trust In People To Build Better Relationships And A Better World

The world is made up of elements that connect with one another to form something bigger, hopefully in the case of human relationships the something bigger is a better world. In fact the whole universe works that way. This process, connecting smaller elements together to build a bigger structure describes a term called scaling. You can scale connections to make things bigger, stronger, or both.

Whether speaking of math, finance (i.e. stock trading), human relationships, or molecules that make up the universe, we can see connections that can be made to form a bigger or stronger product greater than the original components. Often we call this scaling "up". Scaling "down" is also possible by subtraction, but that is a negative effect and is not what this article is about.

With the foregoing as the basis let's delve into human relationships that can be developed for greater unity and accomplishment. Today's world is filled with so much distrust and hate that those negative human qualities are making connections and amplifying to such an extent that sometimes there can be no agreement between people on even the most obvious truths. Truths that have been recognized for centuries.

On the matter of building trust between people we see that positive connections can be made so that a relationship can be built that provides strengths greater than that of the individuals originally involved. Marriage and family is the result of the trust developed between just two people who connect and raise a family that can grow (scale) to be stronger than either of the individuals that made up the original couple.

Consider that two opposite human creatures, a man and a woman, can come together in trust to form a relationship that let's them take on all of life's challenges together. Homemaking, child rearing, building a family business if that is ever desired, and most of all the decades long efforts to overcome the challenges of the marital relationship itself. Building a family is a wonderful example of scaling in the realm of human relationships.

Why consider this subject at all?

As previously mentioned relationships between humans today are so damaged by distrust and suspicion that agreement is hard to find even on matters that previously were accepted as the most obvious truths.  "All men are created equal" … "do unto others what you want them to do to you" … "there is only so much food that one belly needs" … "there are more things that connect us than separate us".

These truths were written down, handed down, and accepted by eastern as well as western cultures but today are marginalized in favor of selfish distrust of others who may be deemed as different than we are.

What can be done to make a change. Scale trust. That's done by accepting one truth and building on that with another truth. The body of truth and belief will grow stronger in a positive way so that distrust and hate can be challenged, minimized, and eliminated by the trust that is scaled "up".

Where to start?

There was an old admonition that said "walk a mile in another man's shoes and then you can better understand him". Essentially that means imagine yourself in other person's circumstances so that you can see where they are coming from, and thus be able to better understand them rather than distrust them. In this way empathy and compassion can scale up to trust and love.

Humans are wonderful creatures. With the correct goal (or motive) any effort made at understanding - no matter how small the effort, or how great of an understanding that is being sought -  will result in a compounding effect that can lead to success at reaching that desired understanding.

We can all be a part of the human element that makes up a society and culture that seeks the good, builds the trust, accomplishes the greater goal of building a better world together.

None of us on his or her own can come up with all of the answers to the questions and challenges the world faces. In fact there are some challenges that humans alone cannot solve (such as changing a hateful heart that refuses to change).  But as each willing individual continues  to search for and accept the truths that really are true about other people and cultures, then we can be a part of a world made up of people who get along and cooperate to accomplish the things that are beneficial to people everywhere.

Is this really possible? Can it really be done? You be the judge.

 

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Why Blog For Opinionalism.com To Get Your Point Across

Blogging For Opinionalism.com To Make Your Opinions Known

Blogging is something that many take seriously. Trying to stay on top of the various blogs of interest is hard enough, but writing a blog of your own is even harder because it can be time consuming. Blogs or web logs are used by many for personal journaling, promoting things, or just getting your point across. Using a blog for any of these purposes can be a great thing for you.

Because so many people love to read blogs and like to hear what others have to say, a centralized community blog like Opinionalism.com can be a good way to see other’s views on things, comment on them, and even post an article here yourself to get other people's comments on your opinions.

While some blogs are for specific points of view or niches Opinionalism.com  purposely is inclusive of opinions on many things. Whether it is reading a review of something that you are looking to purchase or experience, checking out or revealing a hobby, or getting a non-professional's perspective on news, blogs are loved by many. Contribute here and see how many would love to hear your opinion(s) in long form as you have opportunity to explain as much of the reasoning behind your thoughts as possible.

Posting your thoughts here will only be as hard as you make it. Make your posts here known just like you would a website only with no expense since you won't have to buy a domain nor have to host it. Posting here does not have any up front or monthly costs to you. Although there are plenty of other free blogging options available the other free ones do not have the built in recognition of purpose as Opinionalism.com. The name tells everyone that opinions are expressed here and each opinion can be commented on.

Stay on top of the news to discover and express your own opinions on timely local or world events. If you are aware of new things and want to share your knowledge of them that would be great too. Whereas you can use Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to give a shoutout to your friends you can direct your friends here to read your views on a subject or happening in a longer form of communication.

You can keep people aware of new things here, and as more contributors get involved in expressing themselves here your coming back here will keep you up to date on things too.

As you can see Opinionalism.com wants to make it very engaging for you and the world to post opinions in the form of an article here on this site.  You may already know that your opinions flow freely through your mind everyday. If you want to write more than a sentence about any of your opinions come back here and after you Register for Free you can post here opening up your opinions for all to see (so be thoughtful).  Be sure to use the social share buttons to let others know about the new article(s) you've written here.

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