Muttroxia

Big news! One of Muttrox’s pet causes is The National Popular Vote. I first wrote about NPV in 2023. At that time we were at 195 votes (out of 270). Two years later it was at 209.

Virginia and Governor Spanberger just signed HB 965. The count is now 222. It’s getting realerer!

The Path Forward

Let’s look at the math. Virginia, get us to 222 and we we need 270 to trigger the activation. The NPVIC is now 82% of the way to eliminating the Electoral College, without passing a Constitutional amendment. But the nature of this effort is that the remaining states are the toughest. We have exhausted the “easy” blue states. Here are the next couple up (likely):

1. Michigan (15 votes): With a Democratic trifecta in charge, it is the primary 2026 target.
2. Nevada (6 votes): Already passed both chambers previously; currently navigating final procedural hurdles.

If Michigan and Nevada fall, the count hits 243. At that point, any combination of Pennsylvania or a few smaller swing states (Arizona, Wisconsin) pulls the trigger.

“Gerrymandering Madness”

Voters understand that geography has become a weapon. Trumps ongoing efforts to rig the election via gerrymandering (amount other tactics) have made it even more visible. If you’ve seen the disgusting gerrymandering of the 2026 cycle— in Texas, California, North Carolina, Ohio, and the “retaliatory redistricting” referendum happening in Virginia —you see the connection. One promotes the other. Visibility is good – the NPVIC is broadly popular so the more people who understand it is an option the more energy it gets.

By ensuring the candidate who wins the most actual human votes across all 50 states becomes the President, the NPVIC effectively “de-gerrymanders” the election. The frenzy in Virginia—where leaders are fighting for fair House maps while signing the NPV—is a unified front against the idea that your zip code should determine your political utility.

The Legal Landscape

The moment the count hits 270, the legal “madness” will eclipse the redistricting fights. Opponents will point to the Compact Clause of the Constitution, which forbids states from entering into agreements without Congressional consent.

But the NPVIC is built on a clever “states’ rights” foundation. The Constitution gives state legislatures the exclusive power to determine how their electors are chosen. If Virginia wants to award its electors to the national popular vote winner, that is Virginia’s business.

Is NPVIC Blue vs Red, or Pre-Democracy Bipartisanship?

The compact is currently driven by the Democrats. Every governor to sign the NPVIC into law has been a Democrat, and the remaining 33 non-member states are largely Republican-controlled. Many GOP leaders view the Electoral College as a necessary “firewall” against urban dominance. But public polling tells a different story. In Virginia, roughly 50% of Republicans and a majority of Independents favored the move. For a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, the compact is the only way their vote for President actually impacts the final tally.

To reach 270, the NPVIC must break this “Blue Trap.” If it is purely partisan, it faces a lethal “Compact Clause” challenge in the Supreme Court. To survive, it needs to flip Republican governors in a state where voters feel their “winner-take-all” status has rendered them irrelevant.

We are moving toward a world where the candidate who gets the most votes actually wins. Virginia just brought us 13 steps closer to finding out if the American system can handle that much transparency. Let’s go!

(This post was partially written by AI Gemini.)

June 2025: I started earning at $20/hour, it’s now up to $25. Gradually learning this system.

July 2025: I go into a housing complex. I text the passenger for the gate code. (This is an ongoing frustration. I’ll idle at the gate waiting for a response so I can pick them up. The clock isn’t running because I’m outside the gates, Uber just sees I’m not at the pin yet. Wasting time and money.) This fare says to drive in through the exit gate when someone leaves, don’t worry there’s enough time. Right… I’m not doing that. Enter the code or walk your ass out here.

July: Cruising down Peachtree near the hotels, some kid in an SUV in the next lane rolls down their window and throws a bunch of food and soda on my hood. Unbelievable. Control your kids, lady.

August: I am no longer working a real full time job. With more ability to pick my hours, I’m actually at $35/hour. Not bad!

August: I go to a housing complex in the pouring rain, stop right on the pin. (As a driver, I go to wherever the pin is set.) The rider contacts me, the pickup isn’t at the pin, it’s at building 21. Annoying, but fine, whatever I try to be flexible, I start driving to 21. There is no building 21. I’ve been in this complex before. The speedbumps are brutal and frequent. She calls me yelling to come to the front. I was just in the front! I ask her why she isn’t at the pin. She has no coherent answer, and yells to come get her by the pool. I’ve been all over this complex, I haven’t seen any pool. I feel bad for her. It’s raining and she’s stuck in the rain, but nope. If you can’t tell me where you are clearly, I’m not going to ruin my suspension trying to find you. Learn how to set the pin (hint – use “current location”).

August: It’s 5:30 a.m. Monday morning. Normally the calmest of times outside of airport rides. Not today. I pick up two loud women from Waffle House. They are still drunk from the Sunday night birthday celebration. I drop off one of them. On the way to the other’s house, driving in the dark, I run right over a huge construction hole on Piedmont road that wasn’t been covered or marked. Bam, my two right tires go flat — instantly. Well dang. I slowly drive towards her house since we are only a mile away (to get rid of her and deal with this), but after 1/4 mile I have to stop. The tires are 100% flat. I’m not going to drive on rims and wreck the car even more.

The passenger calls for another Uber. She isn’t mad at me. In fact she’s mad for me. Excessively so. She’s yelling that I should sue gdmn Uber, sue the motherfn city, sue the motherfn Waffle House etc. Okay, calm down drunky. I get a tow to Discount Tire and spend $573 for two new tires.

For the first time in my life I initiated legal action. I filed a notice of claim against the city to get my money back. I figured they are negligent because they didn’t cover their work up properly. I hand delivered it to the office of the city council. My main takeaway was – gee the City of Atlanta town hall is really very nice. We’ll see what happens. I’m glad my car is always automatically recording video. I have perfect documented evidence. When I went back to the intersection later, the plates had been moved to a proper location and warning cones had been added.

(What happened in the end? It took five months to resolve. They offered $500. I took it. To fight for more would have meant actually appearing in front of the entire City Council during their monthly meeting. Maybe a fun blog post, but not worth my time.)

I drive part time for Uber. Everyone is fascinated by that. Now that I’m retired it seems to be the most interesting thing about me!

The most interesting things to me are the economics, the product fit, how it results in a driver strategy and such. That’s very hard to write up, to articulate clearly, so for now, I’ll just share interesting fares.

Background: I had my first ride in January, 2025, but didn’t drive much (I still had a real full-time job). My goal was $25 per hour. I didn’t know anything about costs or allowable deductibles (they are considerable). I assumed my costs were close to zero, since I drive an electric car and have solar panels. I started driving more after retirement of course. I do 8-15 hours a week. It’s concentrated on Friday – Monday on airport trips but I’ve done a bit of everything .

Volume I

May 29 2025: My first repeat customer. Antonio was going home from the Walmart nightshift. I also got my 100th 5-star rating. That is out of 104 ratings from 205 rides, most people don’t bother rating.

May: I drive two young guys to Alpharetta. The whole way they are talking poker. Of course I listen in. Finally I’m forced to interject, “Of course you have to call! At worst it’s a coin flip!” We talk cards — one of them is part owner of Showdown Social, a new restaurant with daily poker games. Excellent! I went a couple times. They have high tech sit-and-gos with sophisticated RFID table and cards and a dealer. Fun place.

June 2025: When he walked towards my car at the Uber pickup at the airport, I had to catch my breath. He was striding towards the car looking like an athlete or model, he was just ridiculously handsome. For a few seconds I sincerely thought that 1999 Brad Pitt was my passenger. Of course he wasn’t, but he wasn’t far off either. You forget how the extremely pretty or athletic people emanate an aura until you’re around one and feel it.

His name is Rusty Joiner. Rusty was discovered by a modeling scout in Atlanta and soon found himself “hanging out and working with Julia Roberts and all of those folks, it was unreal!” He then turned to Hollywood. You know him best as Blade, one of the Purple Cobras (bad guys) from Dodgeball. When I picked him up, he had just wrapped most filming for a show he was doing. He plays a gym owner in a mockumentary style show somewhat based on his own, but also playing a character somewhat like The Rock. Rusty was dog tired from filming all day. Besides filming and starring he was doing multi-hour workouts both mornings and nights to keep his physique up. This was his first time back home in weeks.

Rusty was about the nicest guy I’ve met. I suppose part of that is the job, and part of that is why he got the job, but either way a real genuine sweetheart. A man of faith and family first, fame and fortune second. Goddamn that guy was good looking.

Monday we went to see Celtics Hawks. No Jayson Tatum or Neemis Queta, but everyone else played. It was tied up at 54-54 at the half. Then the Hawks destroyed the Celtics in the 3^rd quarter and withstood a 4^th quarter push to win it fairly easily.

The Hawks are for real. Don’t kid yourself. Yes the Celtics were coming off a back-to-back and were missing key players, and yes the Hawks haven’t played many elite teams, but they are the real thing. Believe it. You don’t win that many games on luck. As a Celtics fan, I do not want to face the Hawks in the first round.

It was a house divided. My son was born in Atlanta and has always been a Hawks fan. I like the Hawks, but if they are playing the Celtics I’m a Boston man through and through. It’s a lot of fun to go with him! We both appreciate good basketball and judging the refs. We didn’t appreciate the incredibly loud screecher behind us. Wow, I love the enthusiasm but calm down. You’re a grown woman, not a six-year-old who goes through elation and depression cycles at top volume every play. We couldn’t take her. One of the more fun father-son things… teaching him how to sneak up to better seats aggressively. We went from row 30 to row 12.

Trading Trae Young, which I have pushed for three years, was the best thing they ever did. Shortly after he left, all these players suddenly realized they could play defense. They remembered how to move. They saw they could play as a team. Trae was a cancer, and after resection the patient is doing fantastic. They’ve lost three games since the all star break. (This deserves a very long “I told you so” post.)

I had early access to see the pregame warmups. It’s great to see professional ball players practice moves. When you see them play it looks so smooth and natural. You forget how every step and movement has been practiced thousands of times. There are always more moves to practice more times. Garza particularly was putting in the time. Amari Williams, you have lots of great moves, but all of them add a little half step for no reason to gather your legs together. It gives the defense too much time, take your shot with no hesitation please.

Jaylen Brown

I’ve always been a fan of Jaylen Brown. He’s always been better than the media treated him. The season has been amazing for him. But. But, how to solve The Mystery of Jaylen Brown. He almost had a 30 point triple double last night but looked awful for most of the game (and said it was one of his worst games). Jaylen Brown is a mystery because the eyes and the brain are such different stories.

He has been incredible this year. He is the man. He can score on anyone and does. He makes the right play. He is the dominant alpha that every team needs to account for. Going into this year the Celtics roster was Jaylen Brown, a couple more decent to good players (Derrick White and Payton Pritchard) and a huge group of “Who is this guy? I’ve swear I’ve never seen him in my life” players. Shaq said to the country: “I ain’t never going to let anyone named Baylor or Scheierman score on me… Scheierman? Who he play for?” Yet Brown led the Celtics into one of the elite teams in the league even before Tatum returned. He plays defense hard and wants to shut down other stars. He can drive on anybody in the league. He has a legit claim to be the best 2-way player in the league. He level jumped. He’s not the MVP, but has a strong claim to number five, maybe six or seventh best. I watched almost every play he made this year, he’s an incredible player.

The case against JB as a superstar is also strong. His plus minus is crazy. The Celtics are better when he’s not on the court. That’s not true of any other superstar. And this is a very large sample size (since Jan 1) How can that be?

AI suggests one reason is the bench unit is elite. The Celtics bench murders the other bench. Other stars have worse benches, so their differential looks better. Yeah, okay, I guess? Then a bunch of other arguments that don’t add up.

Maybe he’s just taking more shots. His increase in points is proportional to the increase in his usage rate and free throw rate. He shooting percentage is about the same. His assist to turnover ratio has actually dropped. Some of the drop is because he has to take more bad shots (there’s only so many good ones), so keeping his shooting statistics high is an achievement. Other teams focus on him more so it’s harder.

Honestly, it’s a mystery. I don’t get it. The eyes see one of the best players in the league, the math says he’s about the same as ever.

No Kings continues to grow. We went in October and went again yesterday. Here are the estimated USA totals:

It would have been one higher but Mrs Muttrox had to work. Thanks for subbing in with me, Holly! Some Gemini insights below point to a broadening of the message away from stereotypical attendees and towards more “regular” Americans. That’s great, let’s get mainstream.

• Geographic Expansion: While the October rally was heavily concentrated in “Blue” urban hubs, the March event saw a massive surge in the suburbs and traditionally “Red” states. Over 3,300 locations held events yesterday, compared to approximately 2,700 in October.
• Demographic Shift: Data from the Brookings Institution indicated the crowd was more demographically diverse than previous iterations, with a higher percentage of male and independent-leaning participants compared to the 2025 events.

Last time we missed the actual March part of the March. It was great to do it this round, to be in the crowd. It’s so energizing!

My informal estimate is the crowd was 25% idiots. The dumb socialists with their megaphones (there’s not going to be a general strike), the ignorant Israel/Palestine signs, the Trump is a child rapist signs (He isn’t). And of course there was Princess Leia, and her sign was the Rebel Alliance symbol (had to look that up) with rainbow coloring. I thought she was a joke at first, but she was sincere. Her boyfriend played American Pie on his boombox several times at loud volume. The full version. C’mon.

But that still lives 75% fairly normal people taking a day out to protest.

Again, wonderful organizing. There were folks bringing around water and one fella brought Ben & Jerry’s for everyone. It was easy to find volunteers and helpers. I didn’t see a whiff of violence, barely even a raised voice.

I connected with an old friend there. Nancy and I hadn’t seen each other since both getting RIFd in 2017. Good times! She estimated the crowd in terms of the Fox Theatre (~5,000 people). It grew to a full Fox by the time we started marching.

Raphael Warnock is a good speaker.

I was disappointed there weren’t more coherent asks. There was talk about the SAVE act and a couple Georgia Court judges. But nothing else. Nothing about specific policy asks or how to turn all this energy into votes. It was a missed opportunity. Walking and yelling with folks you agree with gives you a nice lift but doesn’t do anything.

Random photos and videos.

See you at the next one!

2025 original predictions are here.

I made 20 predictions. I got 13 right, missed on 5, and took 2 out. Thirteen out eighteen is 72%. That’s a bit worse than last year (80%). I’m happy with that score. I didn’t get any wrong in politics and the economy. Sports was the weakest subject.

Sports

1. The NBA MVP will once again be Nikola Jokic. Nope, it was SGA.
2. The Thunder win the Western Conference. Yes. And the title.
3. The Cavaliers or Celtics win the Eastern Conference. Nope, it was the Pacers.
4. The Oklahoma City Thunder will be in the NBA finals three of the next five years. Ongoing. They got in this past year, so they need to be there two out of the next four.
5. The Atlanta Hawks will finish the 2024/2025 season at 60% or less. Yes. They were 40-42, 49%.
6. The NBA All Star game will continue to suck. No. It wasn’t what it should be, but it didn’t suck. You know why? There was only one reason. Wemby. One great player giving a shit and coming to embarrass everyone else made all the difference.
7. Payton Pritchard will win the sixth man award. Yes.
8. The New England Patriots will win 8 or more wins. Yes. Holy cow, we went to the Super Bowl somehow. Incredible.
9. Bijan Robinson will have over 1,500 yards in 2025/26. No. He barely missed, with 1,478 yards. Dang.
10. Saquon Barkley will have less than 2,000 yards in 2025/26. Yes. 1,140 yards.

The Economy

My overall prediction is the economy under Trump wouldn’t change much.

11. Inflation average for 2025 will be between 2.3% and 3.5%. Yes. Inflation averaged 2.6%.
12. The Misery Index will stay below 7 in 2025. Yes. But so close, it averaged 6.95
13. Electric car sales finish above 10% in 2025 Q4. N/A. It averaged 9.4%. I phrased the prediction badly. I meant that it would hit 10% by Q4. It did, hitting 12.5%, but then bombed in Q4. I didn’t specify the question well, so I’ll remove it.

Politics

14. The election interference case against Trump in Georgia will not be decided against him in 2025. Yes.
15. Congress passes no significant legislation about immigration. Yes.
16. There is at least one real threat of government shutdown in 2025. Yes. There was one before he even took the oath.
17. No major Democrats are indicted for crimes related to their political activities. Yes. In fact, Trump pardoned or dropped cases against Democrats up on corruption charges.
18. At least two of these four get confirmed:. The picks are Pete Hesgeth for Defense, RFK Jr for Health and Human Services, Tulsi Gabbard for Director National Intelligence, and Kash Patel at the FBI. Yes. Shamefully, they were all confirmed.

Randoms

19. One of these three people will die in 2025: Clint Eastwood, Alan Greenspan, Mel Brooks. No. 95, 100, and 99 respectively. Clint and Mel are still working.
20. Muttroxia will have a month with four or more posts after January Yes! April 2025 had four posts.

I will skip these in 2026. It’s already near the end of March, it’s not fair to start now. Besides, I don’t want to make any predictions about politics. The most obvious one is that Trump will significantly interfere with the midterm elections. It’s been a clear progression since he was elected. He already tried to overthrow the last one, he’s laying the groundwork to do it again.

There was a lot of talk for a few weeks about Tanking in the NBA. It’s horrible, every team is doing it, it must be stopped. I don’t think it’s so bad.

Why does tanking happen? It starts with parity. The system in the NBA (like most leagues) is designed to keep the rich from getting richer. They want an entertainment product where all franchises have a chance. They use several tools to do this. For instance, the salary cap and shared TV revenue and luxury taxes keep small market teams from being outspent by large market teams. And the draft is designed to send better players to bad teams to increase parity. Bad teams should get better. A more even league is a better product.

How do you decide if a team is bad? You measure wins and losses. Objective. But. A team that actually isn’t so bad can generate losses. It’s easy to fake being bad.

As long as bad teams are rewarded, some teams will try to be artificially bad to get the reward. Almost all proposals to change the drafting system ignore this basic truth. The only proposals that address this issue directly remove the reward for bad teams, in other words, draft position isn’t based on performance. Everything else is just tweaks around the edges – trying to maximize parity while allowing some tanking, but not too much.

How much is too much tanking? This season for sure. Lots of teams are tanking. But this season is unusual in two ways. Tanking won’t be nearly as bad next year.

1. Injuries. There is a tension between short term vs long term. Being a bad team for only one year might get you a great player. If the player is good enough it is may be worth being bad for that year to be good for many years. Or you might be forced into it. Due to ACL injuries to  D Lilliard, T Haliburton, and Jayson Tatum respectively, the Bucks, Pacers, and Celtics all had stars out for just that one year.  This is a perfect opportunity for tanking. Your team is abnormally bad for one year already. If it works, the next year you get your star player back and a draft stud. [Interestingly, the Bucks never tanked, the Celtics never tanked (despite pressure to), though the Pacers are going full tank.]

2. A deep and rich draft class. Most draft years do not have a franchise altering player. Not every draft produces Wemby or Flagg. The Hawks had the overall #1 pick in 2024 and only got Zaccharie Richaser who is… fine. (See how many other names you recognize from that draft.) But this upcoming year has a extraordinarily deep draft. The top three are all considered franchise studs, and the next few are also very good players. That changes the math. Most teams wouldn’t tank for a shot at one player in the draft because the odds of getting a stud aren’t good enough. But tanking now gives you a great shot at three studs and several more quality players. If you can get six lottery tickets for the same price, of course you’re likely to play.

My advice to the league is… relax. Calm down, Adam Silver. Do some of the small tweaks under discussion, just to look like you’re doing something. But give it a year, see what happens. It will probably be a much smaller issue next year. And if it is still a big problem — the only real solution is to separate the draft order from performance. Good teams get a shot at the studs, just like the bad teams.

1. I’ve watched Trae Young play for the Atlanta Hawks his whole career. And for most of it, I’ve been saying this guy needs to be traded. The front office wasted 3-4 years while his value declined, but they finally dumped him to Washington.
2. Trae Young is a net negative and has been for years.
3. Yes, he has many offensive gifts. His pick and roll is deadly. He lobs the ball to a big man better than anyone out there. He has a great attitude. But…
4. He’s not a great shooter (never has been). For all those assists, he somehow makes the team worse. Like my other most-hated players Luka Doncic and James Harden, everyone else stands around and watches Trae be Trae.
5. He’s a defensive liability. A huge defensive liability. Yes he is small, yes he is weak, but it’s mostly he doesn’t try. He hangs out on the perimeter, sometimes makes a half-hearted double-hand downswipe attempt at a steal. That’s it. Otherwise he stands around at watches. His whole career, the rest of the Hawks have had to play 4-on-5 defense.
6. He’s the kind of player I hate the most, someone who plays the refs. I can’t stand watching players endlessly jump into other players and manipulate the rules to get fouls called. Just the worse.
7. Going into this year, Mr. Kid and I agreed that if the Hawks had a Trae Young who committed to team ball and a healthy Krystaps Porzingis, they’d be great. If they had just one of those, they’d be pretty good. If they had neither, they’d be mediocre. That analysis was perfect – they had neither and they’ve been mediocre. But now without Trae they have a chance to be pretty good. And who knows, maybe Porzingis will be healthy for the end of the season.
8. They should have traded him two years ago. Anyone could see he was hurting the team, and he was steadily getting worse. But management decided to stick it out. One amazing playoff run in 2021 (and it was amazing… some fluky circumstances, but that happens) was enough to delude management. If Danny Ainge was in charge, they would have sold on him when the market was high. Instead, they are getting basically nothing back after blowing more years of .500 ball.
9. Jalen Johnson is an all-star. He’s fantastic. He works hard on both sides of the floor. His court vision is great, his assists are pretty. Everything works better when he’s out there. They have several other quality players. They have a great draft pick next year. Their goal should be: Don’t mess it up.
10. Anthony Davis? C’mon. That’s just absurd. I don’t know if this is real or just the media eating itself. You can’t buy a healthy young Anthony Davis, only an aging and fragile Anthony Davis. You already have one of those in Krystaps Porzingis why would you need another one? Both Davis and Porzingis are always injured, why think one is better than the other. A healthy KP is maybe not as good as AD, but not so far away. The gap doesn’t justify the price difference. The price tag is crazy high for Davis, you’d be crazy to make this trade. Update: Ha ha, Davis is injured again, out “indefinitely”.
11. Atlanta does have one thing now. Cap space. Options. Those are worth a lot. I don’t like a move for Anthony Davis, but there are others. And there will be more next year.

To summarize, good riddance. Don’t let the door hit on your way out.

I’ve written about the terrible Hastert rule before, and a notable exception that put Speaker Mike Johnson in power..

It’s still a normal part of politics. Not all politics. Only Republican politics. Here’s the latest on extending Obamacare subsidies:

And Speaker Mike Johnson, who has called them “a boondoggle,” has shown little enthusiasm for bringing up such a measure in the House, where Republicans typically refuse to consider any legislation that does not have the backing of the majority of their members.

The Democrats shut down the government over this (at least nominally), there are enough GOP supporters to pass it, but it won’t come to a vote because of this ridiculous rule (which isn’t a rule). Great way to run a country.

Federal Court Blocks Texas’ Republican-Friendly Congressional Map

Try to follow the background: Trump asks Texas to skip ahead five years and do re-districting now, to pick up five additional seats for the GOP. Blatantly corrupt. He does the same for some other states. Democrats freak out. California passes a referendum to do their own redistricting to match Texas.

As of today, the Texas redistricting is illegal. Because the Trump people screwed up and used race as their rationale, and Texas followed that guidance. Not much is still disallowed in redistricting, but race is. Meanwhile, California has passed it’s bill, so the net impact would be +5 seats to Democrats. Oops. As usual, Trump and MAGA are an bewildering mixture of rank corruption and pathetic incompetence.

“Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”

Democracy didn’t win. The Democrats did. Democracy took yet another kick in the nethers.

I mean, c’mon. This insanity is normal:

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement that “the Big Beautiful Map was entirely legal,” using Mr. Trump’s nickname for the Texas redistricting. Mr. Paxton said he expected the Supreme Court “to uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”

He’s right. Aside from the racial component, Texas can do what it wants. It can blatantly rig the districts so one party gets an advantage. This is the core problem. That seems so obviously unconstitutional, yet there is no bar to it and Paxton has no shame in saying Texas should be allowed to rig it’s elections however it wants to.

All is as I said last year. Same thing. Just disgusting.

The Atlanta Hawks were widely picked to have had the best off-season in the NBA. They are presumed to be among the elite of the Eastern Conference. Just yesterday I picked the “over” on their win total.

I went to see them against the Houston Rockets last week in pre-season. I was hoping to see Durant, Amen Thompson, and Sengun. I didn’t, because the Rockets rested their entire starting lineup – and still beat the Hawks. That was a bit worrying.

Muttrox went to the Atlanta Hawks season opener last night against the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors are your basic .500 team. Several good players, no one who is great (Mrs. Muttrox hadn’t heard of any of them). Certainly the Atlanta Hawks have the roster to beat them easily. They didn’tt. We left when the Hawks were down by 30 in the 4^th quarter.

It looked similar to every other year, and every other game I see the Hawks play. When they play as a team with effort, they’re very good. But they don’t do that very often. Lots of one on one ball, lots of slowing the pace down, and an incredible lack of defense from their alleged leader Trae Young.

The good ones:
Jalen Johnson. Wow. He was amazing. He tied for the lead in points, tied for the lead in rebounds, and led the team in assists. He made it look easy – always in the right place at the right time. He worked hard on defense and offense. He was easily the best player on the floor. I have my eye on him.

Zaccharie Risacher: Like Johnson, always seemed to be doing the right thing. He worked hard on both ends of the floor, and played good team-oriented ball.

Krystaps Porzingis: I am biased. He played for two years with my beloved Celtics. He’s a great player, but also a great personality, and my favorite Celtics interview subject (except Luke Kornet). Last night he looked good. Moved well, got his 20 points, 7 rebounds, and a couple blocks. There was a distinct lack of chemistry – he wasn’t being set up, and he wasn’t setting up folks. He looks like he is still waiting for the team to form.

The meh ones:

Trae Young. He is so frustrating! He had a bad shooting night (5 for 14), only five assists, and his 22 points were much worse than they seemed. That’s fine, it’s only game one, he will get better. But still. This is a contract year, and geez, there is still no attention to defense. Year after year he kills the team with a complete lack of effort. And still loves to take the long bomb, for no good reason. A couple times a game he’ll launch a shot from long distance when better shots are available — dude, it’s not a shootout with Steph Curry. Try to win the game.

Luke Kennard: Just fine. Solid.

Dyson Daniels: I have no memory of him at all.

The bad ones:

Both Alexander-Walker and Okongwu played lots of minutes and looked lost. Both made a few good plays here and there, particularly on offense. But both of them blew offensive possessions with dumb plays. Both seemed to have no idea where to stand or what to do on defense. It’s bad enough when Trae Young does it, but it’s appalling to see a lack of effort from these two.

 

It’s only one game. There are many new players who need to get used to each other. But it was a pretty terrible way to start the season. They’d better get their act together.

Tonight is NBA tipoff! Following Bill Simmons format, I am predicting which teams will be over or under their projected win total.

• Denver Nuggets: 54 or over. Jokic with better players around him… of course.
• Minnesota Timberwolves: 50 or over
• OKC Thunder: 63 or over
• San Antonio Spurs: 44 or over (and if they don’t hit this, it’s because Wemby was out for many games.)
• Atlanta Hawks: 42 or over. They’ve been hovering around mediocrity for years. This team will easily win 50% of their games now.
• Cleveland Cavaliers: 67 or over. Why wouldn’t they, with key injuries to three rival teams?
• Bucks: 43 or over. Giannis is still Giannis.

I didn’t take any unders. I don’t follow the bad teams enough to know who is truly terrible.

Of note: Bill Simmons and two others made predictions. There were 19 times were they all agreed. Of those, I took four. My other three picks were not unanimous from that group. Muttrox still makes up his own mind.

And of course, I predict the NBA MVP will once again be Nikola Jokic. He should have won it last year. With better players around him, his dominance will be absolute.