Month: October 2025

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 one 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.

We (Mr. and Dr. Muttrox) took to the streets yesterday for the No Kings Rally/March in Atlanta. What did we think?

We arrived right at the opening bell (10:00 am). People were pumped; the attendance and atmosphere were excellent. They had just gotten permits approved, so we were going to march to the State Capitol at 1:00 pm.

The organizers and staff did a great job making sure everyone had water, access to bathrooms, first aid, and so on.  They were careful to instruct everyone on how to respond to any provocateurs, and lawyers from several groups were also present, just in case. This preparation was smart. There was an obvious helicopter from Homeland Security, and an unidentified drone hovering over the crowds. I assume footage of us is now living somewhere in Palantir (I waved to every camera I could see), and ICE probably took pictures of everyones license plate.

The speeches for the first hour were… well, frankly, terrible. For every speaker who focused on the core theme of the rally (lawlessness, executive overreach), there were two who went on about trans rights, Palestine, billionaires, or something that had nothing to do with anything. I don’t know why the leader of the NEA was speaking; if I were a conservative teacher, I’d be angry at the obvious politicization.

After about an hour, we decided we were tired and hungry. We grabbed a quick bite, then headed to meet the marchers. Our timing wasn’t great though. We missed Abrams, Warnock, all the interesting speakers. And by the time we made it to the Capitol , most people had already left and they were just about to open the roads up again. Ah well.

This post is mostly just an excuse to share pictures of the interesting, “Yes, exactly!”, or funny signs. Mostly funny signs. Let’s get on with it!

Some of the signs I thought were so clever turned out to be less original than I thought. The first “Faux-king” pun is great. The sixth is not. Many of these signs were duplicated in marches across the country.

Frogs were a theme. Why frogs? I gather that it’s a response to the Administration painting the Portland protests as terrorists. It’s hard to pretend that someone wearing a big inflatable costume is a terrorist.

Not shown are several signs about Epstein. I also spotted three separate signs referencing The Lord of the Rings. Two were about Saurman and Wormtongue, one was a Palantir reference.

This was my favorite sign of the whole march. It’s so beside the point, so ridiculous, and all the funnier because of it. Classic. I laugh every time I look at it.

I am reading that attendance was well over five million people. That’s amazing. It was a great day. Despite the light tone of this post, this is important work. As this administration accelerates it’s anti-democratic goals and tactics with control of almost all government functions, one of the only ways to push back is popular support.