Category Archives: Myles Valentine

NYC passengers get ‘ride to remember’

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By MYLES VALENTINE

NYC passengers riding the A train Tuesday were on their way to Manhattan when the train came off its tracks, crashed into a subway wall and caught on fire around 125th Street.

Passengers reportedly said they were stuck on the train, which was quickly filling with smoke, for 20 minutes before help arrived. Some passengers had asthma and some were pregnant. Passengers took to Twitter using hashtags like #FixTheSubway to let alert New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the situation.

The loss of power underground halted the A, B, C, and D train service at 125th Street, causing an uproar by riders. Apparently the MTA isn’t new to screwing up with subway service because one customer had this to say: “Yet again @MTA, ‘Going Your Way’ is exactly what you DON’T do… But please, take more of our time & money.”

Passengers on the smoke filled A train were eventually evacuated and had to walk through the subway tunnels to exit. No serious injuries were reported. More information on the story should be emerging soon.

One way ticket to bankruptcy

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By Myles Valentine

I could only dream of becoming a professional athlete and being able to give back to everyone who helped me along the way. As a fellow athlete I think I can speak for a majority of athletes when I say we dream of huge contracts and many luxury items. One thing we don’t dream about is bankruptcy. It doesn’t matter how much they make. Recession or no recession, many NFL,NBA, and Major League Baseball players have an appetite for losing most or all of there money.

According to Pablo Torre from Sports Illustrated there and two numbers,78 and 60. 78 percent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress due to joblessness or divorce by the time they have been retired for two years. Within five years of retirement an estimated 60% of Former NBA players are broke. Numerous MLB players have suffered from the same economic crisis.

“A pro athletes money is suppose to outlive his career. Most players never get that” says Bill Duffy a veteran agent who’s clients include Steve Nash and Carmelo Anthony. Put the salary aside and the closest analogue to a pro athlete is not some white collar executive. It’s a lottery winner who’s often in his or her early twenties. For athletes, it’s not a lottery, or a game of chance. Pro athletes go broke due to a constant series of bad decisions, and seemingly no amount of cautionary tales. For example Evander Holyfield burned through his $230 million fortune on a 235-acre Utah estate, which has 109 rooms and included at least one monthly electric bill of $17,000. There was also a $550,000 loan he took out to pay for landscaping; $200,000 in back taxes, plus alimony and child support for three ex-wives and 11 children.

Taxes also have to come into consideration when trying to figure out why athletes file for bankruptcy. Every year the average football,baseball or basketball player owes about 1 million in federal taxes. In an article that MLB All-Star José Canseco wrote for vice magazine, he says ” The issue is very simple: If you’ve got friends and family, the more money you make, the more you spend on them,So let’s say you spend half your money on them and the rest on yourself and the cost of living. It may so happen that during all of that, you forget to pay your taxes.”

So when you make it to the professional level, the number one thing is money management. It is the key to success long term.

 

Harvey jokes about Flint water crisis

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By MYLES VALENTINE

Steve Harvey has become the talk of the town once again, this time for his insensitive jokes about the Flint, Mich., water crisis.

Flint, as you probably know, has now surpassed its 1,000th day without clean water. Flint’s residents to this day still have to use bottled water for everything from drinking, to cooking, and even bathing.

After the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the NBA championship, a caller, from Flint, made a comment on Harvey’s national radio show. The caller supposedly said that the Cavaliers “didn’t deserve jack.” Harvey — a Cavaliers fan — didn’t appreciate the caller’s comments and responded by saying “That’s why y’all ain’t even got clean water.” He continued with “When was the last time you touched water and it didn’t have lead in it?” The co-hosts of the radio show gasped and followed with laughter. Harvey then ended his rant by saying “enjoy your nice brown glass of water.”

Harvey has been under fire from critics on Twitter about his insensitive comments and it is said that the city’s mayor, Karen Weaver, who has appeared on Harvey’s show to discuss the crisis in the past, wants an apology from Harvey. Harvey insists the comments were just trash talk and not malicious.

If you can’t beat them, join them

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By MYLES VALENTINE

On June 12, 2017 the Golden State Warriors became the 2017 NBA Champions.

The Warriors edged Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 129-120 victory to take game five and win the series, 4-1. There was a lot of talk about the series potentially going to game 7 so that the NBA would still bring in revenue. With addition of Kevin Durant to the already dominant Warriors, there was no way they were going to let the Cavaliers stop them this year.

The Warriors needed to add Kevin Durant to the core of a team that won 73 regular-season games and pushed James to the brink of elimination in the 2016 NBA Finals.

Last season, Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder blew a 3-1 lead of their own to the Warriors in the 2016 Western Conference finals, Durant had still won two more games against Stephen Curry than he did against James the first time they squared off in the 2012 NBA Finals. Curry, he could beat. Probably should’ve beat. But they needed to join forces to defeat James and Kyrie Irving. I believe Lebron was the driving force behind Durant’s championship decision.

It has been five seasons since Kevin Durant had reached the NBA finals. This time he went out with a bang. Durant finished with 39 points, seven rebounds and five assists on 14-for-20 shooting in 40 minutes. He averaged 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists in the Finals, with a 55.6 field-goal percentage. With this amazing performance not only did he get the win over the Cavs, named Finals MVP. Durant also becomes the third player to win four NBA scoring titles and an NBA title, joining Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.

I believe it’s safe to say that the Warriors+Durant is a recipe for domination. The next question is: Are the Golden State Warriors, who completed the best postseason record in NBA history by beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-1 in the NBA Finals to finish 16-1, the greatest single-season team in league history?

Documentary film vs. news story

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By MYLES VALENTINE

Recently some friends and I were discussing the differences between a documentary film and a news story. Most of them couldn’t tell them apart. There are a few main points to look at.

A documentary film is basically a movie that attempts to document reality. Even though the scenes are carefully chosen and arranged, usually through editing after filming, they are not scripted and the people in the movie are not typically actors. Sometimes, a documentary film may rely on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage; in other films, the images speak for themselves without commentary.

A documentary often includes interviews with people in the film for additional information. Documentaries can use more time to establish world, character and struggle whereas, with news, a journalist has only a few seconds or minutes. There is often more mat sound with a documentary, also. Many documentary filmmakers attempt to change or improve society in some way with their messages. They want to inform.

Their goal is to bring to light a certain cause or injustice with the hope that their film will help galvanize the masses to demand change. An example might be a documentary on all the recent crimes that have been happening. In general documentaries are longer than news segments or stories and they focus more on real life. The mood of a documentary is also changed smoothly by the music that was chosen by the filmmaker. The news doesn’t use music as much.

News is defined as newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events. The news also wants to inform just like documentaries. There is less time that the news has to establish world,character, and struggle. News also tries to entertain its viewers. They entertain viewers by choosing to talk about stories that are new, unusual, interesting and also about people. News covers many different topics.

The freshness of news gives it an uncertain quality which distinguishes it from the more careful investigations of history. The news describes the world in the present or immediate past. The news is given to you from a news anchor in different segments. All in all a news story is a factual, prose story for print or broadcast media about a person, place or event answering these five questions: who, what, when, where, why and how.

Last, but not least, a news story is sometimes written in the inverted-pyramid style, giving the most important information first and additional details later.

3-on-3 Olympic basketball planned

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By MYLES VALENTINE

The International Olympics Committee added 3-on-3 basketball to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic program on Friday. The IOC called the changes more youthful, urban and female focused. They are striving to one day have an even split of 50 percent male and 50 percent female athletes. There were about 45 percent female athletes in Rio. As far as what teams are selected and how teams qualify, that’s still unclear.

“They don’t want just the basketball powers to compete in 3-on-3,” said USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley . “FIBA will get together and figure out how teams will qualify. They will definitely want to reward countries that have been doing a lot of 3-on-3 activities.”

The U.S. has been pushing 3-on-3 over the past few years and held a national tournament last month. The winners will head to the World Cup in France later this month.

Three-on-three only uses half of the court. It’s played with one-basket with two teams of four players (one sub). Typically, game time is 10 minutes or first team to 21 points. The 2020 Olympic 3-on-3 tournaments will include eight men’s teams and eight women’s teams.

The rules are made for more up-tempo competition. There should be more updates in the coming weeks .FIBA said it will announce qualification procedures and a competition format at a later date.

Hmmm. Who will win NBA finals?

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By MYLES VALENTINE

This year there was a lot of hype coming into the NBA Finals because of the stellar performances we all witnessed last season.

So, for anybody who knew what was going on in the NBA has assumed and hoped that Golden State and Cleveland would end up in a heated Battle Royale rematch.

The only real health concern on either side is on the Warriors coaching staff, and I guess we will ultimately see how much Steve Kerr’s absence plays a part. And Kerr, let me tell you, man, that as a person who has had a hamstring surgery and dealt with the nerve pain and shooting discomfort and all of that, I FEEL your pain and don’t blame you a bit for missing time.

My only suggestion would be to invest in some posture helpers and additional pillows for yourself if you do in fact make a return. I’m 100 percent positive an NBA team and their resources can come up with some sort of device to assist your pain while sitting on the bench.

My pick:

The Warriors. Klay, Draymond, Steph, and Kevin are simply too talented and too rested to lose this series. Way back in the day, I used to think that teams that shot a ton of threes were vulnerable in a series because the shooters could get cold and the percentages weren’t high and every other traditional basketball thought they teach you as a kid about layups over jumpers. Wellllll, the reality is that Durant, Thompson and Curry are such incredible shooting talents that they simply don’t really get that cold, and the odds of all of them being off are legitimately LONG. They play defense, they have simply stormed through the playoffs and they are HUNGRY to redeem themselves from last year.

Tulsa officer receives $35,000 back pay

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By MYLES VALENTINE

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby was acquitted of manslaughter after fatally shooting an unarmed black man, Terrence Crutcher, back in September. It’s been less than a week since she’s been cleared and she’ll reportedly return to work and receive back pay.

Why would Betty Shelby be receiving $35,000?

The deadly encounter started when Crutcher’s SUV broke down on Sept. 16, 2016. Two other drivers called 911, they were reporting a man running away from the SUV and saying it was going to blow up.

Police helicopter footage later showed Crutcher with his hands in the air as he walked toward his broken-down SUV.

This is were it gets a little bit iffy. As Crutcher nears the driver’s side door, part of the camera’s view is blocked. By the end of the video, Crutcher is on the ground with a large bloodstain on the front of his T-shirt.

Shelby testified that she called for backup and ordered Crutcher to get on his knees.

Crutcher ignored her order and also ignored orders from her and another officer, Tyler Turnbough, who arrived on the scene, Shelby said.

She said Crutcher put his hands on the SUV and then moved to reach into the vehicle. Shelby fired one shot from her weapon while Turnbough fired his Taser, she testified.

An attorney for Crutcher’s family has said that Crutcher’s window was rolled up, making it unlikely he was reaching in it. After everything Officer Shelby was charged by the district attorney’s office six days later.

The incident was caught on police helicopter video and a dashboard camera and footage from the shooting was released later, triggering protests as the latest in a high-profile string of unarmed police shootings in recent years.

According to Tulsa spokeswoman Michelle Brooks, Shelby has been on unpaid leave since Sept. 22 and will be taking home about $35,000 in back pay.

Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said Shelby will not be working in a patrol capacity, so in other words… she will be working at a desk.

Lebron James or Michael Jordan?

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By MYLES VALENTINE

For every professional basketball connoisseur out there in the sports world, there’s always going to be the dreadful question.

Who is the best ever?

I believe the real question here is, who would you rather have on your team? LeBron James or Michael Jordan?

First off there is no right or statistically correct answer to this question. When it comes to Jordan-James statistics, they duel back and forth, like Tom and Jerry. Jordan scores more. James rebounds and passes better. They shoot about the same, block shots about the same and are both fantastic defenders.

I know I said there’s no statistically correct answer, we must keep in mind that LeBron James just passed Jordan as NBA all-time playoff scorer. During the just-ended Eastern Conference finals, it was a three-point shot that gave James 29 points for the game and 5,989 points for his postseason career. That total continued to rise all the way to 5,995 points. Jordan’s mark of 5,987 points stood for 19 years. James is now in the NBA championship game for the seventh consecutive year.

Yes, Jordan needed fewer games than James (179 to 212). But James also reached his point total with fewer field goal attempts (yet more free throw attempts) than Jordan.

Michael Jordan still leads James in several significant categories, including championship rings (six to three), MVP awards (five to four) and regular-season scoring titles (10 to one).

It should be fair to say that Michael Jordan and LeBron James are the two greatest players. They both dominate the game but they both did it in very different ways. I think it comes down to this Michael Jordan was great for his time. But LeBron James is the new and best thing since the iPhone.