NBA playoff predictions

Sidenote - I wrote these thoughts before the playoffs started.

Here are my thoughts on the NBA playoffs. In no real order: 

First, the Vegas odds for the winner: 

Heat 3/2 

Bulls 3/1 

Thunder 4/1 

Spurs 6/1 

Lakers 12/1 

Celtics 15/1 

Knicks 18/1 

Clip 20/1 

Griz 25/1 

Pacers 40/1 

So the Heat are the favorite again, but if they miss out again, what do they do? Do you just keep playing and assume you’ll get the breaks eventually, or jump for a big move? If I’m the Heat I’m dealing Dwayne Wade for a big guy. Unleash LeBron as the alpha dog, use Bosh as the secondary scorer, add the third guy who can grab rebounds and score from the post, and surround them with a bunch of guys that can knock down jump shots and run around on defense. Couldn’t you swing Wade for Dwight Howard? Keep Wade in Florida, drop Howard off to a contender, everyone’s happy. Or what about Wade for Blake Griffin? If CP3 leaves Blake isn’t sticking around anyways. 

I went to ESPN.com and researched random statistics. The Spurs are the only team with three players in the top twenty for PER. I don’t know what that means – but it must mean something. 

Here are my teams that could win it all: Heat, Bulls, Thunder, Spurs, Lakers, Celtics. The Celtics are the only sleeper team that could win it all. They have three or four players that could absolutely take over a game (KG is a maybe). Couldn’t you see Ray Allen sinking eight 3’s in a game? Rajondo triple doubles are a norm. I’ll definitely be rooting for one last run from the big3. 

Sidenote – I love that the Celtics are still considered a big 3, when their alpha dog player isn’t even part of the big 3. At this point that team is like Rondo and friends. 

If anyone could be a catch-lightning-in-a-bottle type teams, I could see the Knicks. Carmelo – despite his lack of hustle is one of my favorite players. If he decided to take up jogging as an off-season hobby, took some responsibility and stopped complaining so much, he’d be a perennial MVP candidate. I swear, intangibles are so freaking important. How much would NBA teams be willing to pay if I could discover a way to instill intangibles? 

If I was a gambling man, I’d pick the Spurs. They seem like the one team that could sustain a big injury and still dominate. I watched them only once, and they have some great role players but they’re just so small, so they could get steamrolled by a Grizzlies or Lakers. At the same time, they have to be the best rested team – Ginobili’s barely been unleashed. 

I wouldn’t consider myself a Celtics fan, even though I grew up near Boston, so I’ve been hoping to adopt an NBA team. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’m leaning towards watching half a decade of Linsanity/Melo. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

My Pillars Theory to Life

I recently picked up season one of “Men of a Certain Age.” It’s a TNT show made by Ray Romano (Everybody loves Raymond). It’s about three best friends who are dealing with the realities of middle age. One character is a divorcee trying to work out his new relationship with his kids, another is a struggling actor trying to sustain an LA 20’s to 30’s lifestyle of expensive fun and cheap sex, and a third is a family-man with the usual family struggles – paying for a mortgage, losing weight, and maintaining a healthy marriage. 

Apparently, the show got cancelled during season 2 so other people didn’t share my love for this show, but I did draw an interesting insight from the show: 

 “The grand essentials to happiness are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” 

-- 

I love this idea because it ties into my theory of multi-facetedness. 

Sidenote - Back in college, my friend Amulya and I had this theory of the three pillars. 

Primarily, we valued three things. 

Athletics – I was a cross country and track runner in college, and Amulya was an ultimate Frisbee player, so a lot of our worth was determined by our current athletic success. 

Academics – we were both pre-med Bio majors, so we were grade-conscious. 

Adult women – we were girl crazy, so what. 

Whenever we chatted, we’d assess our lives in terms of the pillars, talk about which pillar was the highest and doing the best, which we’d been neglecting to work on, and so on. 

I’m not sure if the pillar imagery is the perfect metaphor, but our idea was that as long as we were doing well at athletics, academics, or adult women it would sustain our happiness. 

Basically, my theory of multi-facetedness was about spreading your efforts out, and doing different things with your time. 

-- 

To go back to the quote: 

“The grand essentials to happiness are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” 

The reason I love this insight is because it takes this theory of multi-facetedness to another, more complicated level, and I love analyzing complicated life theories. Not only do you need to do different things, they need to provide your life with different feelings. 

Something to do – I see this as your day job, your errands. Things that keep you busy enough that you don’t get lost in the bullshit floating inside your head. Also something that pays the bills. 

Something to love – I see this as your family, your friends, and your hobbies. The part of life that keeps you inspired, happy, and hopefully, sane.

Something to hope for – These should keep you afloat on the days the things you do and the things you love are a greater struggle than usual. They provide inspiration to get through the day-to-day. 

-- 

So the modified pillars looks like this: 

I think I like it better, but I'll probably have to think about it more. Especially the "something to love" part.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

How do I choose a PhD lab?

 This weekend I’m flying to sunny Charleston, SC to visit the Medical University of South Carolina. I’m visiting nine potential PhD mentors with a great range of science, but as always, I’m planning to choose my PhD lab based on intangibles. 

So I’ve come up with three key intangibles, and ten tangible questions to figure out if the lab is a good intangible fit. 

Sidenote - In case you don’t want to keep reading, here are the three key intangibles: personal happiness, quality of education, job potential. 

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Intangible #1) Personal Happiness 

Question #1) How friendly is the boss? 

I’m not saying I have to be best buddies with my boss, I just like being liked. 

Question #2) How friendly are the other students/postdocs/techs? 

I have a theory that the number one factor in how much you like your job is how much you like your co-workers. 

Question #3) How long have the technicians been with the lab? 

If a tech has been with the lab for 5+ years, then you know the boss takes care of their own. 

Question #4) How many hours per week should I work? 

I like working hard, but I want it to be my choice to spend long days in the lab. I’m an adult, I expect to be treated like one. 

Intangible #2) Quality of Education 

Question #5) How long does the average student take to graduate? 

Question #6) Are there clear guidelines for graduation? 

Question #7) Have you mentored prior MD/PhD students? 

These three questions kind of get at the same thing, but it’s critical. MD/PhD programs are so long (average of 8 years) that I don’t want to waste any time. I want my goals to be clear, so I can accomplish them, and move on. 

Question #8) How often does the boss meet with students? 

I want clear guidance, but not someone looking over my shoulder. Ideally, I’d say I’d like to meet with my boss every other week to go over my data. My track record is good, leave me alone and let me do my thing. 

Intangible #3) Job Potential 

Question #9) Do you have lots of ideas for projects? 

I’ve been in labs that are like project deserts. If there are only a couple good projects, they’ll go straight to the senior members of the lab, and I’ll be left with the high-risk dead end projects. 

Question #10) How legit is the research? 

One of my many goals is to be a leader in science. I want to run a lab with thirty people and empower people to do great science. I want to write grants all day and help people become the best scientists they can. To reach this position, I’ll need a lot of scientific success – which means lots of top-of-the-line publications. 

-- 

So anyways, those are the ten tangible questions. I’ve equipped myself with worksheets to grade each potential PhD mentor on these ten questions. They will each receive a grade out of 100. Eventually I’ll make my final decision based on impulse instead of this rational process, but at least this has entertained me. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

MLB 2012 Preview

 

Back in the day, I used to be a huge baseball fan. Mainly so I could dominate fantasy baseball, but I also loved the sport. Anyways, for this week’s post, a set of predictions for the coming season.

AL MVP: Adrian Gonzalez 

Supposedly his shoulder was hurt last year and he wasn’t even swinging hard. He’s a lock to destroy the ball, and he’ll need to carry the Red Sox through the regular season. I’m assuming some combination of Beckett, Lester, Bucholtz will be hurt for the entire regular season, so he’ll need to. I could see a power eruption getting him back to his 40+ home run range. 

AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander 

Complete stud, any pitcher who wins MVP is huge. He racks up K’s like no one’s business so he won’t be affected that much by the defensive downgrade. And he’s a lock to win 20. He went longer than six innings in every single start last year, en route to a pitching triple crown. Basically a modern day Randy Johnson. 

NL MVP: Justin Upton 

The NL is a less clear picture than the AL, the AL is just so much more stacked. Pujols and Fielder leaving the league dilute it. Ryan Braun is great, but I don’t see the Brewers winning enough games with the loss of Fielder for Braun to win back-to-back MVP’s. Upton could make the leap into another level and have an Ellsbury like season. A 30-30 season would definitely put him on the radar. As a bold prediction I’ll go with Hanley Ramirez. 

 NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay 

Tons of studs here. Greinke, Lee, Kershaw. I’ll go with Halladay because he just finishes so many games. Greinke, might not have the impressive win total that Cy Young winners need, and Kershaw – the disarray of the Dodgers has to get to the players. Halladay is a lock for 20+ wins, though his stiffest competition might come from within his team. 

AL division winners: New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers 

Yankees and Tigers will respetively crush their divisions. Especially the Yankees – so deep this year. The Rangers – Angels will definitely be the most interesting pennent race. There’s so much more pressure to win the division this year with the dual wild card teams, and facing off against a tough AL East loser won’t be a cakewalk. I just think the Angels will struggle more than everyone thinks. They aren’t a lock. On the other hand, the Rangers are a back-to-back World Series team. 

AL wild card teams: Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels 

NL division winners: Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants 

Chipper’s last season, and the Braves climb back into the power seat of the NL East. I’m convinced you need a solid lineup to win a ton of baseball games. Cards will get back there as nobody really stands out in that division, though it could be a dog fight if Cincinnati makes it interesting. 

NL wild card teams: Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks 

AL Champion: Boston Red Sox 

NL Champion: Philadelphia Phillies 

WS champion: Boston Red Sox 

Pitching and defense wins in the playoffs. It’s an old saying, but supposedly it carries more statistical weight than anything else. Plus, lightning doesn’t strike twice. The Red Sox should have been in the bag for the playoffs last year. This year, their offense will carry them into the playoff, and the top three (Beckett, Lester, Bucholtz) will carry them to the title. Crawford will be the comeback player of the year, and October baseball will be rocking in Boston once again. 

Ah, the first week of a new season. Hope is in the air. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

I’m going to take my talents to South Carolina

Eight months ago, I spent weeks editing and re-editing my med school personal statement, and days filling out the endless AMCAS forms. When I finally finished on June 3rd and hit submit, I felt a huge sense of relief. 

It turned out I was far from the end. That day was followed by a good two months of chiseling away at secondary applications, then about five months of flying across the country to interview at various schools, and then a month of obsessively checking my email and praying for an acceptance somewhere. 

Whenever I met other people along the interview trail, or I talked to my friends also applying this year, we’d complain about how the process was draining our relationships, sapping our sanity, and chopping years off our life. It’s not any one day or one moment that’s especially hard, like taking exams, but it’s a drawn out process with a lot of helplessness and a whole lot of waiting. 

But the other week, I finally reached an end when I was accepted at two schools. I was accepted to an MD/PhD program at St. Louis University, and the Medical University of South Carolina. 

Sidenote - How MD/PhD programs works: 

2 years of medical school in a classroom 

2 – 5 years of working in a lab and writing a PhD thesis 

2 years of medical school in a hospital 

It's a total of 6 to 9 years, but the program has free tuition and a living stipend, so it’s a great deal. 

Sidenote within a sidenote - My theory is that biomedical research will be a different landscape in twenty years or so. As we move towards more emphasis on the clinical relevance of basic science research, MD/PhD’s will be far outcompeting PhD’s for jobs. 

Anyways, I decided to take my talents to the Medical University of South Carolina for several reasons. For one, I liked it enough to write a three-part post about it: 

Part 1: Forever 21

Part 2: Black Suits Coming

Part 3: Reflections   

Most importantly, it’s been one of my long standing dreams to live near the beach, and somewhere I could wear shorts and flip flops all year. 

Sidenote - It's one of my theories that everyone has an ideal self they imagine themself as.  Say a brilliant undiscovered writer, or a hardcore cyclist.  In reality, people are nowhere close to these ideal selves.  This doesn't stop me from maintaining that my ideal self would be some hybrid of Chris Paul/Jack Johnson/Paul Farmer/Bill Simmons. 

In addition, MUSC felt like an academic environment that would help me succeed. I’ve endlessly debated the merits of a cutthroat environment like a Harvard against a supportive student-oriented world like a Kenyon [here's a post: "Which pond?"]. 

But as usual, the decision was made for me, and I got into two schools I considered on the supportive/student-oriented end of the spectrum. My competitive side still wants to tangle with the students at the Harvard’s of the world, but maybe the cards aren’t quite in place for me yet. 

So anyways, my wife and I will be launching are life together for the next six to nine years in Charleston, South Carolina.  Hopefully we'll come out with more kids than debt. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.