Old guy

I always thought Platt was not bad at what he did. Like the common saying goes: "How can you soar with the eagles when you are stuck among the turkeys?" I think Platt was surrounded by people that did not allow him to shine.

Just a thought, the train wreck at Baylor may be better than the train wreck at Mizzou, at least Rhoades thought so.

Got news for you ChosenOne: there is no problem or difficulty to find ways to blow through a million dollar salary anywhere in a large city, including St. Louis. This is particularly true if you consider the fact that he has to pay Fed taxes (no State taxes in Florida), pay his agent, and fund whatever set aside fund the league/team requires. As a single person, he will be lucky to have much over 1/2 of his salary to spend in any given year, if he is married he will pay less taxes but he will have to fund her spending; if he is divorced he will likely get a lot less spending money to play with (and the ex will increase her alimony and enjoy the raise in most States). Make a list my friend, a suitable house and car (Porsche Cayenne?), nice clothing, suitable entertainment... All of this will have a major impact upon his balance sheet, not to mention property taxes, sales tax, and insurance (all pretty high in Florida). Yep, no problem at all in spending his $1M per year salary, as you say, but extended to anywhere he goes, not just Miami, FL.

If you can have multiple citizenship you should be able to have multiple passports. I have known born Canadians naturalized in the US who have both passports.

Good for Willie, I hope he does very well and has a long career in the NBA.

Agree the Willie Reed saga, finding his way into NBA against enormous odds, should be a cause of rejoicing for us. Everyone makes mistakes, Willie included. The fact that he has been able to advance through hard work should be taken as a success story, not as a cause of resentment against an 18-19 year old who made bad choices.

I always liked Willie and hope he makes the best out of the opportunities he will be presented with. I have observed that in life success does not always goes to the very best, rather it goes to whoever can best manage his way through the choices and options available. I hope Willie does very well choosing among his options.

Very nice, thank you.

Well hsmith19, not only are you a trained Urban development professional, but you are also a "pioneer" in the trenches of area development. I am always impressed by people who live the way they talk. Thank you for sharing your experiences in the world of neighborhood renewal. I hope your house has high lofted ceilings, like a lot of the old properties had, that will allow you some day to install a false ceiling of some sort with modern ductwork and improved living comfort. All the best with your rehab project.

I have no training in urban development at all but I have observed that in many cases the development of a derelict area has come from grass roots origins, people willing to move in and improve things. Eventually little shops and places to eat open, and the area slowly blooms. I think this comes slowly at first with some real "pioneers" moving into bombed out areas and deciding they like what they see, whatever it is that they see. We know a couple that bought a house right out of college with holes in the roof, and floors in Lafayette Sq when it was a bombed out derelict area, moved into it and remodeled it slowly. They watched their house change and the neighborhood bloom. They still live there and are now old as I am. The same goes for the Grove, the Flora area near the Botanical Gardens, Benton Park, and the ritzy areas north of Forest Park. I know a lady (her long time husband died some time ago) who bought an 11 room house with slate roofs and a carriage house just north of Westmoreland Place and Forest Park. It was in a terrible state of disrepair when they bought it for $11,000 a very long time ago. This was a gated street and the families that eventually moved in developed very close ties among themselves, some kind of reverse ghetto type of thing. They eventually sold it for over a million and moved to a condo. You need to have vision, but you need to have the right temperament to do this, and oftentimes (depending on the condition of the house and the owner's finances) be willing to go back home after work to do a second work shift in a house with leaks, holes in walls and roofs, terrible heating and plumbing and, never to be forgotten, unsafe neighborhoods until the area blooms. Finally, while you are doing all of this, you need to have enough strength to calm mother and tell her you are not going to die because you live in such a place. It can eventually be a very rewarding experience in many ways. For those of you with an interest in the subject, in the 1930's the fabulous Georgetown area in DC was a bombed out slum full of derelicts, and the same can be said for Old Town Alexandria across the river in Virginia, who was a dilapidated drug addict den in the 1960s and 1970s. Just look at them now.

I could not agree more that collaboration between Wash U and SLU is an excellent idea that can only benefit both organizations. There are multiple cases of real multilevel exchanges between local universities and colleges. For example all the schools in Amherst, MA (U. Mass, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, Smith and Hampshire College) are organized as a consortium which not only collaborates openly in research, library resources, and community efforts, but also allow students enrolled in any of the member institutions to take classes in any of the other schools. This is great for students interested in specific subjects. The students eventually graduate with a diploma from the University / college they enrolled into. I would very much like to see similar collaboration efforts springing in other cities and towns with a significant amount of good Colleges and Universities.

Cheeseman, the third "freshman" is Welmer who has yet to play his first competitive D1 game. We expected a lot from him last season but he was sidelined. He is, for all extents and purposes a "freshman" at least functionally and in terms of playing experience in D1. Verbal commits lists him as a freshman in their lists.

Very nice post hsmith19, nice to know you are in Urban redevelopment. I always found Urban Redevelopment a wonderful area of work, capable of doing incredible things.

Since we are comparing school campuses, specifically urban campuses. I have a few others to add. MIT is right smack dab in Cambridge, with Mass Ave cutting it in two portions the academic core, and the housing areas. MIT is a maze of grey squat buildings with a few exceptions, some green areas and some massive sculptures. The periphery of MIT is very much urbanized with many campus buildings spreading into the city like tendrils and accessed by normal streets. However the core of MIT is like a subterranean city with glass walled walkways and brightly lit tunnels, and some passages above ground as well, connecting the buildings. MIT is, despite its own core structure, very much integrated and very much a part of the city. Harvard is Harvard, it is different, only the medical center is integrated into the city. It has it all, a central walled core with ancient trees and courtyards surrounding stately buildings, academic centers and buildings beyond the walls, some of them with ultra modern buildings (science center), mixed with old granite and brick buildings, and academic satellites (large academic satellites) across the river into Allston and Boston proper. These satellite centers house a very urban and huge medical center (like Wash U's) and a business school / sports arena satellite (also walled and isolated from the surrounding city) in Allston. As far as Harvard is concerned, the city is just there as an impediment to Harvard itself. The place is its own universe, you could look at it like a piece of suburbia (which preceded the creation of roads, city sprawls, and suburbia as we know it) located there within a city. The truth is that Harvard was there before the city got there and the city grew around it and threatened to choke it. For an off season topic this one is not bad, by the way.

The question here is how high can we climb from the bottom during next season. Again our team may have more talent than what was shown under Crew's coaching and the 3 freshmen may be able to contribute significantly. If this is the case we may not end at the very bottom or the next to the very bottom level.

Congratulations Pistol, the first child is always such a special child. You spend hours by the crib watching the child breath and moving his tiny fingers with tiny itty bitty nails on them and wonder about the miracle of it all. All the best and much happiness for the parents as they watch their kid grow.

Division II, hope he will do fine and be happy there.

Guys, it is ridiculous to compare RE prices in Hong Kong, or San Francisco to prices in Stillwater OK, pop 43,000.

Well, no. It may mean more money than taste.

RiseAndGrind is your name Donald Trump or Bill Gates by any chance?

Yes, he built the house because he could, that is correct. He will have trouble selling it. Houses like that in small communities priced much below asking price are very hard to sell. The American Dream turns into the American Nightmare. Ever been stuck with paying two mortgages at the same time?

Did not say he could not dunk, what I said is that I did not see the whole highliht clip. It was long and I had to go. He may have dunked in the portion of the clip I did not .watch.

The way I see it is this, there are 3 sets of factors that will determine how we do this coming season: 1. The team: a) What will be the effective contribution of Moore, Johnson and Welmer to the overall results? 2) Will the injuries that affected Bartley, Crawford and Gillman's play last season recur and affect their play this year as well? c) How well will the team hold up playing a season with basically 10 active players under scholarship? 2. Crews: How bad a coach was Crews in reality? We all know he was not good but was he really worse than we thought, as it may have been indicated by Grandy's performance last season? 3. Ford: We know he can recruit, we know he is a very good spokesman, now, the acid test, we are going to find out how good is he as a coach and how good will his staff be in coaching our players. We all agree, he should do better than Crews did, but how much better? If we have mostly positive outcomes for the issues listed above: the new players are very good and can contribute effectively this season, the prior player injuries do not recur, the team holds better than expected under heavy playing pressure this year, and Ford and his team turn out to be much much better than Crews outfit was, If all of this turns out in our favor we may have a fairly decent season coming up. It may turn out that there was indeed a lot more talent in the team than we have come to believe, and it may turn out that Ford and his team were what was needed to free this talent. Who knows what will happen this coming season? We have to wait and see.

Watched a piece of his highlights video, nice moves and shoots lots of 3 pointers, did not see all the video but there were no dunks in what I saw. His stats look good too.

This has nothing to do with basketball, but happy father's day for all of you that have children or have raised them.