Category: Places

Posts that are about a special place

Thoughts on Rubio

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The season starts tonight for the Timberwolves.  As part of that, this will be a defining year for Ricky Rubio.  

 

His contract is up at the end of the year and he has already rejected a 4 year $48m offer.  For the other positions they have:

  • Center: Pekovic and Deng – both above average centers in the league
  • PF: Thad Young – an above average PF in the league
  • SF: Andrew Wiggins – predicted to be the next Tracy McGrady
  • SG: Kevin Martin – pretty good 

Ricky is supposedly the leader of that group.  Looking at that lineup, if they don’t do well, it’s probably his fault and his inability to impact games.  If they do well, it’s likely because he has a great season.  As Rubio goes, so do the Wolves. 

They way I figure this goes is one of two directions: 

Direction ONE: the Wolves do well, i.e. approach 35 wins and compete for a playoff spot.  In this scenario, I think they pony up and pay Rubio more money

Direction TWO: the Wolves are a lottery team.  In this scenario, they don’t resign Ricky and draft a point guard in the lottery. 

That’s my guess.  Any thoughts?

 

Andrew Wiggins Era Begins & NBA Season Bet

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I’m excited for the NBA season to start. On Monday night the Twolves had their first pre-season game and it looks like Andrew Wiggins could be the real deal.  A summary of his performance from the blog post: 

Andrew Wiggins. There is obviously a player here. He led the team in minutes (32) and points (18). He took some poor 20 footers and wound up shooting 4-11 overall, but got to the line 10 times and made both of his threes. He also blocked 3 shots and grabbed 3 offensive boards. There is obviously stuff to work on, including getting stronger around the rim and ball handling, but there was a lot to like.

There’s also a good YouTube video of his action here: 

As we do every year, we place a friendly bet in the office for the season.  This year it’s between Niraj and Ian.  Here is how our teams are projected to do: 

  • Timberwolves: Projected 26.5 games won
  • Nuggets: Projected 35.5 games won
  • Pistons: Projected 35.5 games won

The bet we’re making with each other is whichever teams performs the worst relative to their projected win count, the loser buys the winners a lunch of their choice at Rio Grande.   Now, let’s get it started!

 

My Minnesota Vikings vs. Lions Bet

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Niraj and I just made a bet.  The Lions are projected to win 9 games this season and the Vikings are projected to win 6.  We have a bet to see who wins more and he is spotting me 3 wins.  The loser buys the winner some football paraphernalia (max price $30)

Bring it on!

On a related note, I really want a website to exist that allows you to enter in a bet, a prize for the winner and a date for it to be resolved and then this app notifies you when that date comes.  I have so many little bets placed but I need something to keep track of them.  Somebody please build this.

Also related: the new Vikings stadium looks amazing.

Why I’m Excited About the Super Bowl

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Here’s something I think is cool.

Broncos-Seahawks-Superbowl

The Denver Broncos shattered records this year as the most dominant offensive team in NFL history. They scored 38 points per game this year, an NFL record.  Their QB, Peyton Manning,  also set records for most passing yards and touchdowns by a QB in a season.  They play Seattle whose defense was the best in the league and is the fifth-best overall statistical performance of any team since 1989.

So, it will be an epic showdown of a historical great offense against a historically great defense.

If that hasn’t blown you mind enough, check this out…. the difference between the Broncos’ average-points-scored and the Seahawks average-points-allowed this season is the widest in the history of the Super Bown. It is what one website found to be “the greatest offense/defense showdown in Super Bowl history.”

So there’s that.  Let’s go Broncos!

 

 

PandoMonthly’s Fred Wilson Talk

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One of my new favorite things to do is watch the PandoMonthly videos.  They are really long – usually over 90 minutes – but it is a super in-depth interview with one of the internet’s big dogs.  My favorite one so far is a 2-hour video with John Doerr who worked early on at Intel and sits on the board of Google and Amazon. 

Last night i watched Fred Wilson’s interview.  Some highlights:

  • He talked about how it was a huge loss for Twitter to not buy Instagram.  He thought that with the trifecta of tweets, images and video, Twitter could challenge and possibly unseat Facebook.  But Twitter didn’t have the assets that FB had of pre-IPO shares or valuation to be able to offer them the amount they needed, thus they lost the sale.  He remarked on how it was just genius for Zuckerberg to recognize that possibility. 
  • He talked about CEO’s of his portfolios such as the Twitter trifecta, Etsy and Tumblr.  How Twitter is like the Beatles in that it had multiple creators who were all vital at different stages: Jack at stage 1 in building the product, Ev at stage 2 in building the company and Dick at stage 3 in building the business.  He also points to this terrific post about how Tumblr is all about David Karp and is really a one-person product. 
  • On that he told a story about how at Etsy, they were promoting the #2 guy to the CEO position and he went to the board and said, “hey, you’re promoting the wrong guy. That guy down the hall is beloved by the company, runs the biggest business unit and bleeds Etsy.  You should promote him.”  Pretty cool story of something putting the company’s interest above theirs. 
  • Hating Saas: he talked about why he hates investing in Saas companies (1:18 mark) because they get commoditized too easily. 
  • About bitcoin: he talked about how it is the closest thing he’s seen to a replacement for cash money and that’s why he’s investing.  He’s also investing there because he’s burnt out on social. 
  • About SnapChat: It’s not a replacement of instagram, but rather the text message (or WhatApp).  It’s not a photo service but rather a messaging service.  (see my thoughts on Snapchat here)
  • About blogging every day:  He hates how media distorts his message so he’s taken it on himself to create his own media so he can control it. 

All in all, some good stuff.  The full video is here:

New Vikings Stadium is Awesome

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The Vikings announced a while ago that they would build a new stadium, but just this week they revealed what it’d look like – and whoa is it beautiful.   The new stadium will be one of the advanced, state-of-the-art facilities in the world.  Some highlights: 

Clear is the new retractable: 
There is no retractable roof, but it will be made entirely of cutting edge materials and glass that will make the roof and the sides clear. There will also be five clear pivoting doors that will be the largest in the world of their kind:

 

Versatility
This will be the most versatile sports facility in the US, capable of hosting Final Fours, World Cup or MLS soccer, concerts, baseball, or Super Bowls. It will seat 65,000, expandable to 73,000 for the Super Bowl.

Total Baller
This is probably the coolest stadium I’ve ever seen. The innovation with the largest pivoting glass doors in the world, to the largest clear roof in the world and the first on a stadium in the nation, to the bowl that is level with the street as you walk in, to the modern lines and glass ceiling just combines well and works

 

Totally awesome.

Ponder is going to bring it home this weekend

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Christian Ponder was pretty awful for a two-month stretch this year, but with 4 games left, the Vikes had to run the table.  At that moment, a funny thing happened. While Adrian Peterson continued going absolutely nuts against opposing defenses and Minnesota’s defense continued to step up their game, Christian Ponder got better. How much better? ESPN.com blogger Kevin Seifert puts it into perspective.

But after a disastrous Week 13 performance against the Packers, Ponder quietly turned himself around and had the NFL’s second-best QBR (86.8) over the final four games of the season, trailing only Peyton Manning. Over the second half of the season, Ponder’s QBR on third down — measuring not only passes but also his scrambles — was the league’s second best.

Yep, second best QB after Peyton Manning. I’ll take that.

The REAL tech meetups in Boulder

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This morning I took a ride up Sunshine Canyon in Boulder.  We stopped half way up and we looked around and took a little poll about who was on the trip.  We had 4 Techstars companies represented (Orbotix, Kapost, Everlater, and PivotDesk), one VC (Hwy12), and one Techstars mentor (Jamie).  

While biking 6 miles straight up, and in between deep breaths, we talked about building product faster to meet demand (Dave from PivotDesk), growing revenue (Mark from Hwy12), and how to correctly build a financial model for a an early stage company (Nate and Natty from Everlater).  If you’re wondering how work in Boulder happens or how the tech community interacts, I’d say this was a pretty perfect example.  

Oh, and the views aren’t bad either….

You can see the damage from the fire from 2 years ago still: