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Is there a place online that…

Is there a place online that you recommend to buy/sell/trade these cards? What about a card store in Ann Arbor? 

My second memory was his game

My second memory was his game winning dunk with three seconds left for a 62-61 win over Duke at Cameron in December 1996.

Fond Memories

The memory that immediately comes to mind is the broken backboard.  It's fun to witness one of those in person, and watching it back on video where he walks through the glass like it is no big deal never gets old.

I also seem to recall a big dunk at the end of one of our wins over Duke.  Someone refresh my memory on that one.

And finally, sitting on the same airplane with him, you couldn't help but feel sorry for him as he was crammed into a coach seat with his legs sticking out in the aisle.  Coach seats were not made for Tractor Traylor.

Evan

Where's the love?

One of the guys who writes those rock festival commercials is a Michigan alum and big Michigan fan.

 

Evan

Midnight Madness

I seem to recall a Midnight Madness during or right after the Fab Five years. The highlight was a dunk contest where the players tried to out-do each other by jumping over progressively more teammates. Eventually, someone was gathering the entire team to sit down in the key so he could jump over all of them. The coaching staff was getting more and more nervous as this was going on, and I think they stopped the dunk contest before the player could jump over everyone, or, perhaps make a misstep, slip and injure half the team.

Does anyone share this memory? Am I making this up? I'm thinking it might have been Jimmy King and Ray Jackson's last year.

Evan

I like how he slams coaches

I like how he slams coaches for leaving a school, but forgets to slam Boston College for firing their coach. All the same horribles (the kids don't get to play for the coach they signed up for) apply to BC's decision, but that administration is the hero.

Evan

I'll chime in with the other

I'll chime in with the other folks who have expressed that we're all just happy to have a team that's winning games. A win is a win is a win. It's nice not having to find moral victories, so why are we trying to find moral defeats (that sounds weird)?

If you're going to peg the Duke win on Duke's poor shooting, I think it's only fair to recognize that Wisconsin and Indiana shot the ball extraordinarily well. And I choose "extraordinary" as the word because their shooting was out of the ordinary. Just because a team gets their shots to fall at an unusual pace does not make Michigan a bad team. With Wisconsin, I was worried because I knew that when they cooled down, they would still be shooting 50%. With Indiana, I wasn't particularly worried because when they cooled down it would be to a lower percentage and we would get back in the game. We did. Regression to the mean kept me calm.

With respect to Manny and the dearth of two-point shots, my impression is that Manny drove a lot in the Wisconsin game and did not have much success getting it in the basket. Since then, Beilein has done some good coaching because now Manny is kicking it out more often. I attribute the fewer two-point shots to good decisions on his drives to kick the ball out. The shots that resulted from that weren't falling in the first half, but the needle moved back to "average" in the second half. Teams are trying to stop Manny from taking two-point shots. He's taking what the defense is giving him and that's good for the team.

Yes, the team took a lot of three-pointers, but it worked. Good move by the coach to understand what his system is and that if you move away from the three-pointers, you have nothing else to go to. Yes, that's a weakness of the team, but at this stage of the team's development, it's nice that we're winning despite that flaw.

Evan

If the non-disparagement

If the non-disparagement clause wasn't in previous agreements, it's just evidence that UM's lawyers are getting with the program.

Having that clause can be taken as evidence that Shafer didn't have anything bad to say about UM. It's easy to agree to that clause if you don't have anything bad to say. It's harder if you have lots of bad things to say and then you'll worry that you'll accidentally slip up and speak your mind, so you would fight to have the non-disparagement clause eliminated or restricted. The language quoted by the Freep is nothing special, which makes me think it's UM's standard language and Shafer said "whatever, doesn't effect me" and didn't push back on it (same caveat that I haven't seen the entire clause, maybe the rest of it is scary, but if that is the case I am sure the Freep would have published it).

Evan

I'm glad you pointed out the

I'm glad you pointed out the weirdness about that article re: Shafer's non-disparagement clause. That is a standard clause in separation agreements. Think about it: you give a guy $1,000 bucks when he leaves, and he turns around and tells everyone you're an idiot. You'd feel like a chump. So you put in a clause that basically says please don't make me look foolish by taking my money and then talking smack about me. I imaging if you did a survey of executive separation agreements, you would see this clause in at least 95%, and the few that don't have it are evidence of lazy lawyering (or at least something unusual that would lead a good lawyer for the employer to agree to take out that clause). There are a variety of ways to negotiate a non-disparagement clause depending on the circumstances, but the language quoted in the Freep is pretty light stuff, which indicates to me Shafer probably doesn't have much desire to say something bad about Michigan. There are no carve-outs in the language quoted by the Freep, which indicates he doesn't fear he'll be forced to say something bad about Michigan, although there might be carve-outs that just aren't in the Freep quote. I'd be interested to see the full clause if anyone has a link to a copy of his full agreement.

Wow, I just read the Samuelson blog saying this is evidence of RichRod's thin skin. This is patently ridiculous. If I am Michigan and my lawyer does not put a non-disparagement clause in a significant separation agreement, I would get rid of that lawyer. It is standard. If I am Shafer's lawyer and I read the non-disparagement clause, I ask Shafer if he's bothered by it. Shafer says no. I leave it in, it's an easy give unless there is significant negative information that Shafer may be compelled to reveal in a legal or other administrative proceeding, in which case I negotiate carve-outs (which there might be).

I am a lawyer and I am familiar with executive separation agreements. So we have two opinions from lawyers now.

Evan

Thanks, that's really

Thanks, that's really helpful.

Evan

1-3-1

The most visible person (at least for me) in the 1-3-1 is the shooting guard, who is out there at the top of the key (I hope I'm using the right terminology) and close to the ball, so I'm watching him all the time, and he's actively jumping into the passing lane or jumping at the guy with the ball. It seems to my completely untrained eye that Novak does a better job out there than Douglass. Am I right to think that? Will LLP be out there, too, and will he do a good job (the post talks about him as the point on the baseline, but I would guess he'd be out on top of the key, too)?

Is there someone who would care to put some effort into explaining the role of the guards in the 1-3-1 so I can tell whether Novak or Douglass (or LLP) is the better defender in this zone, and also so every once in a while I can look at the point guard along the baseline and figure out if he is doing a good job? Or perhaps point out a good explanation/analysis of the 1-3-1 on the internets so I can feel a little smarter when watching us on defense.

Thanks,
Evan