Sports fans are, typically, very invested in their teams. This can be positive, as it gives them something to root for, perhaps a group of friends that share a common goal, and a relaxing event to watch. However, it can also lead to some toxicity. Unfortunately, that has become the case due to this year’s NBA MVP race. On this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss how three generally personable players are the source of so much vitriol.

Embiid is top 3 in the MVP race but was not an All-Star Game starter this year.

The subjects: Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers), Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets), and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks). All three are tremendous players leading their respective teams toward or to the top of their conferences. Jokic is an offensive savant, the best passing center of all time and a triple-double machine. Giannis is built like a Greek god and operates like a train through defenses, and has won Defensive Player of the Year before. Embiid is a dominant force on both ends, as one of the top scorers in the league and an intimidating defensive force. All three seem to get along with each other when they face off, though their fanbases are much different.

An important point to note is that Embiid is the only one of the three without a Most Valuable Player award. Jokic has won it the last two seasons, and Giannis took it home the two seasons prior. Embiid himself has made it known he wants an MVP, but will mostly let his play do the talking while fans and teammates campaign for him. 76ers fans, upset that he hasn’t gotten MVP recognition, have noticeably become more aggressive in campaigning for him, which brings me to the main drama at hand. Fans have become so obsessed with the MVP race that they are ignoring the greatness unfolding in front of them.

Jokic is flying up the all-time assists and triple-doubles leaderboards.

Philadelphians are infamous for not being the most polite of populations. As such, some have taken to social media to trash the other two MVP candidates, particularly Jokic. The Nuggets’ star has his struggles on defense, and Embiid supporters rush to post Jokic defensive lowlights on Twitter and Reddit (the main sources of all this controversy). Jokic supporters will fight back with Embiid turnovers, claims of him flopping to draw fouls, and your choice of four-letter words (something Philadelphians are familiar with). Giannis fans are kind of just there at the moment, as he seems to be in third place but has been playing well as of late. They can soak in the drama of the other two while enjoying the opportunity to trash both when warranted.

Giannis fans are kind of just there at the moment.

Unfortunately, fans are missing the point. Embiid, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo are ridiculously good athletes that we are lucky to watch on a nightly basis. I’m a 76ers fan, so I of course prefer Embiid, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love watching Jokic’s playmaking and Giannis’s defense. All three deserve their praise, and it will be a sad day when each retires. Let’s focusing on enjoying what we have and letting the competition play out on the court, not on social media.

With that said, Embiid is the MVP and I will not hear other opinions.

“These people going to Heaven. Ain’t nothing to do in this boring ass city.” That Charles Barkley quote about sums up the majority of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend that took place February 17-19 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Although it wasn’t the fault of Utah for the poor showing, this was a regrettable All-Star game to say the least. On this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss the lackluster performance of the NBA’s best.

Barkley is known for having no filter on TV.

Much like most of the All-Stars, this game flopped. Hard. The marquee event of the weekend, the All-Star Game on Sunday night, took a hit in TV ratings compared to the past few years. This was the fourth edition of the Elam ending format in the game, where 24 points (Kobe Bryant’s number) are added to the leading team’s score after 3 quarters as the “target score” that ends the game when hit. There is no clock, no commercials (thank God), just a target score. The first 3 years saw lockdown defense in the 4th quarter as both teams actually started trying, rather than chucking up the deepest threes and attempting the fanciest dunks like in the first three quarters.

Sadly, this year was different. The players didn’t change anything in the fourth quarter, allowing the glorified layup line and shooting drills to continue. There was a big enough gap after 3 quarters between Team Giannis and Team LeBron that it was obvious who would win given the lack of any defensive effort. Unlike the last few years, there was no last-minute excitement, no defensive highlights that saved the game. Even the announcers kept saying eventually they would start trying, almost like they were desperate to keep their viewers attentive.

One can consider the risk of injury, yes. Nobody wants to get hurt in a meaningless game, and a fair number of these players may rather be in Cancun for the weekend. But considering the hundreds of dollars fans shelled out for tickets and the theatrics that occur every year, the players could have shown a little more effort. Fouls and hand-fighting aren’t necessary; a little defense would make it watchable.

Three of the other weekend events were…whelming? at best. The Rising Stars game, the three-point contest, and the Skills Challenge had some fun moments but nothing that stole the show.

The true highlight of the weekend was Mac McClung, a 6’2 guard that looks like your local insurance agent. Based on his looks alone, no one would have expected McClung to steal the show at Saturday’s dunk contest. But that he did, winning in style and with little competition from the other three players involved. McClung jumped over 2 people on one dunk and whipped out a variety of moves. Perhaps the most impressive part of his performance was his ability to make dunks on the first attempt, something many struggle with as they go too extreme for their capabilities. The dunk contest has been stagnant in recent years as well, and McClung brought it back to relevancy for at least 2023.

I’ve included the shortest highlight video of his dunks I could find; it really is worth a watch to see how athletic some people are even if you don’t care about basketball. If you only want one or two angles of the dunk, skip to 0:04, 0:34, 1:04, and 1:48.

McClung raised the bar for years to come with his dunk showcase.

Here’s hoping we can bring back a competitive All-Star game in 2024.

Kyrie Irving is a moron. I think that’s a great opener for another blog about the man who has given me so much content this year. I suppose I should thank him for that, but I think I’d rather never hear about him again. He may or may not think the earth is flat, sat out home games in Brooklyn due to his refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine, and has negative sentiments, to say the least, about Jewish people. The ladder caused even Nike, who have few moral standards, to cut ties with him. Perhaps we’ll see him on the doorstep of Skechers soon? In this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss the newest piece of Irving drama.

Irving has once again asked out of Brooklyn. Source: Yahoo Sports

On Friday afternoon, a bombshell was dropped on the NBA world. Irving had requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, who are 4th in the Eastern Conference at the moment. The Nets had undergone turmoil earlier in the season (see: Irving, Kyrie) and fired their coach, Steve Nash, but turned things around and are playing much better. Irving’s superstar teammate, Kevin Durant, is currently injured but things were going pretty well for Brooklyn overall. Durant hadn’t attacked fans on Twitter in a while, Ben Simmons was playing poorly but staying out of the news cycle, and Irving hadn’t shared an antisemitic movie in over a month (progress). All that changed Friday.

Irving’s contract is up after this season, and he and Brooklyn had been in discussions over a new deal. He’s eligible to sign a 4-year deal worth just shy of $200 million, but Brooklyn may have some reservations about handing over that cash. Besides what I mentioned in the intro, Irving has also gone AWOL to celebrate his sister’s birthday (just ask your coach? cmon man) and at one point had a pregame habit of burning sage on the court. He’s missed plenty of games the last few years due to injury or personal reasons (lol) and just is not a reliable player at this point in his career.

According to Yahoo’s Chris Haynes, the Nets had some contract stipulations relating to winning a championship, which didn’t go over well with him and his team (his mother is his agent). Even opposing teams rumored to be interested in him, like the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks, are reportedly hesitant to give him a 2-year, $78.6 million extension he would be eligible for if traded.

Kyrie Irving’s camp did not negotiate after Brooklyn Nets presented an offer that was tied to team winning a championship, league sources tell @NBAonTNT, @BleacherReport. Told the issue was not about money, and now it’s said he wouldn’t even stay if offered a full max contract.

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) February 3, 2023

This isn’t even the first time Irving considered a trade in the last calendar year, as both he and Durant had explored their options last summer before opting to return. He’s forced his way out of Cleveland and Boston before, and any future team will be wary of him suddenly deciding he wants out because a coach mildly inconvenienced him.

The trade deadline is Thursday afternoon (probably when you read this), so we’ll see what happens, if anything. All I can hope is that something crazy happens for my next blog. Or, maybe, Irving falls off the “flat earth” and we never hear of him again.

EDIT: Kyrie was traded to the Dallas Mavericks after I wrote this post. I’m glad Luka Doncic will finally get some help but I foresee some side-eyes in the locker room. Also of note, Durant was traded to Phoenix a couple days after it was reported he was still committed to Brooklyn (post-Irving trade). The Nets blew it up.

In yet another example of why courtside seats in the NBA shouldn’t exist, ex-NFLer and current Fox Sports paid troll Shannon Sharpe tried to fight the entire Memphis Grizzlies team this past week. Sharpe was reportedly yelling at forward Dillon Brooks most of the first half, and things boiled over during halftime. Brooks, Ja Morant, and literal grizzly bear Steven Adams approached Sharpe, along with many security personnel and who knows how many others. On this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss why this entire thing was pointless but it still gives me blog content.

Sharpe looking at the consequences of his own actions last Friday.

Who is Shannon Sharpe? A Hall of Fame tight end who played mostly for the Denver Broncos and now makes his living trashing other athletes behind a desk each morning on Fox Sports. Is he relevant? Well, I guess so. Should he be? No, probably not, but he and co-host Skip Bayless make obnoxious comments every day to get @’ed on Twitter and stay in the news cycle. Sharpe also happens to love LeBron James, which is who Dillon Brooks was assigned to guard that night. Sharpe told a reporter after the incident that he told Brooks he was too small to guard LeBron, and the player took exception to that. With a few other expletives mixed in, Sharpe stated that nobody on the Grizzlies wanted “these problems”. For a full transcript, see this tweet from the reporter:

Shannon Sharpe spent halftime in the tunnel with security before returning to his seat for the third quarter. He granted ESPN a brief interview explaining what happened with the Grizzlies on his way to his seat: pic.twitter.com/XZNw6sQhEG

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 21, 2023

If I may mention, Sharpe specifically said that Brooks, Morant, and Morant’s very involved father (who looks way too much like Usher) didn’t want to come at him. Notice how he excluded Adams. Adams is a 6’11, 265 pound New Zealand piece of steel who would fold the 6’2 Sharpe like a lawn chair if he so chose. Adams has literally lifted up a 7-foot NBA player before:

Sharpe and Tee Morant, Ja’s father, made up in the 3rd quarter and Sharpe issued a public apology this week on his show. However, does that really matter? No, because we just want the drama. This is called Real Housewives of the NBA, after all, and ESPN is pretty much the same thing. In the end this was another pointless on-court argument that has now receded into the background but gives the media something to talk about.

I would like to wrap up with a plea to the NBA and NCAA: get rid of courtside seats. There are too many instances of spilled food/drinks delaying games, players tripping, referees tripping, players falling into the fans, and fans harassing players. Keeping the fans further back would promote safety and discourage fans from trying to harass the athletes (although you’d hope people who could afford those seats aren’t dumb enough to waste the opportunity). It will never happen, because all these leagues see are dollar signs, but it was worth complaining on here for 3-4 people to read.

I got this awesome panorama of the stadium pregame.

For my last blog of the semester, I am going to change things up. As much as I love NBA drama, baseball has always been and will always be my favorite sport. My favorite team, the Phillies, made the playoffs this year for the first time since 2011 and won their first three series, advancing to the World Series for the first time since 2009 (they last won in 2008). I had the opportunity to go to their clinching game of the NLDS (second round) against the Braves and Game 3 of the World Series against the Astros, which they won 7-0 with five players hitting home runs: Bryce Harper, Brandon Marsh, Alec Bohm, Kyle Schwarber, and Rhys Hoskins. It was their last win of the series as they would lose the next three and the series, but for a team that had no place making it that far I couldn’t be prouder. This week of my blog will be showing my appreciation for the team and my experience at the World Series.

I was one of about a billion people who got their photo at this spot.

The game was supposed to be Halloween Monday, but weather did not agree. The game was postponed to Tuesday, and after some thought and my brother yelling at me that I should go the next night, I decided to stay home (had planned to get back late Tuesday morning and make CAS at 1:35) and it was well worth it. We got to the stadium around 4:15 for the 8 PM game (crazy traffic) and the atmosphere was incredible. We got inside around 6:45, and I took as many pictures as possible. I have a 2011 playoff ticket on my bulletin board at home, but have no recollection of it nor does my dad. With that, I’m treating this year’s two games as my first Phillies’ playoff games. I’ve been keeping track of their record at games I attend since 2018, and we are now 12-11. I’ve been going to around 6 games a year since 2012ish so I’ve probably been to more than 50 overall, and I finally got the chance to watch my team in the playoffs.

The game was electric from the start, with a great national anthem and the massive flag all the way through the raucous crowd cheering the Phillies starting lineup and mercilessly booing the Astros. The game was just as incredible, with five home runs being hit and the crowd going absolutely insane on every one. Superstar Bryce Harper hit a two-run homer in the first inning that started it all and the crowd was the best I’ve ever seen, with the only competition coming from the student section at the Whiteout.

The Phillies Phanatic with his hot dog launcher.

I’m running towards my word count, but I appreciate everything the team did this year. I’ve watched many games where they got blown out in the middle of June with no playoff hopes, and it was amazing to finally see the team I’ve watched so much make it all the way to the World Series. I had a wonderful time and I hope you enjoy my pictures. Go Phillies!

Among many famous people at the game were two Phillies legends, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Howard (right) is my favorite player of all time and I have a poster of him in my dorm and at home in addition to a signed ball.

This dude ruined an awesome photo.

The Astros had a cheating scandal a few years ago, and this woman was sitting with an Astros fan.

Golden State is giving me content for my entire blog! Last Tuesday, the Warriors were crushed by the Phoenix Suns by a score of 134-105. The reigning champs were embarrassed on defense, mostly by Devin Booker and … Jock Landale. Do you know who that is? Me neither. But the main story was not the game, nor Steph Curry, nor the fact that this is a potential Western Conference Finals preview. On this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss Klay Thompson’s antics and the foul-fest that was this blowout.

Not normally known as a hothead, it took Thompson 651 game to get ejected. But that he did, tossed by Ed Malloy in the third quarter after repeatedly jawing at Booker (and Malloy himself). Why was Thompson so angry? To put it simply, he sucks right now. After that game, the Warriors are 2-2 and Thompson is shooting a blistering 36% from the field and 29% from three-point range. Not exactly what you want from one of the “Splash Brothers” and a top-10 shooter of all time. Thompson is coming off of almost 2.5 missed seasons, playing only 32 games last year and missing the two previous seasons entirely due to injuries. He’s rusty, but he also shouldn’t be trash talking Booker just because he’s salty that Booker is better.

Klay Thompson upset as he encounters a better player than him (2022, colorized).

In just the third quarter of this game, 17 personal fouls and 6 technical fouls (more egregious, usually for scuffles or strong language, takes 2 to get ejected) were called. The game was chippy, and most of it centered on Thompson and Booker, though Draymond Green is always happy to collect techs as well. The 3rd quarter was a battle between Thompson and Booker, filled with trash talk and Thompson repeatedly putting up 4 fingers. Booker told the media Thompson was talking nonstop about his four championship rings. While I’m no Klay hater, I hope he remembers that he was a third option for 2 of those rings and would be absolutely nowhere without Steph Curry. Booker made it to the Finals two years ago with Phoenix but was beaten by Milwaukee and hasn’t had much playoff success outside of that.

Much like Green, Thompson may not find himself in San Francisco for too much longer. He is collecting over $40 million this season and will be earning more than $43 million next year as part of a contract that was both given to him out of necessity and respect for his contributions to the championship runs. He received fat stacks of cash to sit out those 2.5 years, and patience may run thin if the Warriors struggle. With the rise of Jordan Poole, and maybe Moses Moody, in addition to the Warriors’ sky high luxury tax bill I’ve mentioned before, don’t be surprised to see the Warriors move on within the next two years.

Tweet from The Athletic showing a video of Thompson’s ejection.

The Lakers started the season 0-2. The media is going crazy. I’m sure ESPN is running non-stop stories on Darvin Ham’s job security after literally two games. But what ESPN, FOX, and all the rest are missing is the real news of the day. The Lakers recently signed your local 80-year old Walmart greeter, because he brings something their bench doesn’t have: any sense of joy or effort. On this episode of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss the abysmal state of the Lakers’ bench and if they have any chance of fixing their problems (yes, I sound like ESPN. No, I do not care.).

This is Matt Ryan, who averaged 15.5 minutes for the Lakers in their first two games. Don’t worry, I’ve never heard of him either.

Lakers bench players to receive legitimate minutes (non-garbage time) have combined to put up 19 points in each of their first two games this year. They had 4 and 5 players splitting that legitimate bench time in their first two games, respectively. This is…not good. According to StatMuse, just 4 teams averaged below 30 bench points per game last season, and the low was 25.7 for the Toronto Raptors. I consider myself a strong NBA fan, and I know all of the Lakers’ contributing bench players except Matt Ryan, who has apparently made the decision to switch sports in his late 30s. However, the bench overall is filled with inexperienced, inexpensive, incapable players that have never shown ability to contribute significantly to an NBA team outside of Kendrick Nunn. And Kendrick Nunn isn’t even good!

When so much of their salary cap is devoted to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the corpse of Russell Westbrook, money is tight. But the Lakers have no excuse for the absolute abomination of a roster they have built. They shot 25% from 3 against the Warriors and 20% from 3 against the Clippers. We can talk about small sample sizes and regressing to the mean, but that is horrible for a team that is aiming to win a championship.

Russell Westbrook goes up for a shot he probably won’t make.

How do they fix these issues? Hell if I know. Perhaps trading for Russell Westbrook, who built a brick mansion on Thursday after going 0-11 from the field, was not the ideal move. It would take a whole lot of draft capital to incentivize another team to take him, and/or young promising players, of which LA has precisely zero. Their best bet hangs on Westbrook, as much as that makes me laugh. He must either commit to improving his shot selection (aka stop shooting anything outside of the paint) or accept that his athleticism is no longer what it once was and become the leader of the bench. The Lakers have two superstars, but Westbrook needs to be willing to accept a new role or else the chemistry will continue to tank.

I would love to see the Lakers flame out, but I also don’t like to watch murders on live television. Either way, this is an excitingly bad team to watch at the moment.

Although the NBA season has yet to begin — there is an exciting international tournament going on, though — there is no shortage of drama in the basketball off-season. On this edition of Real Housewives of the NBA, we discuss the New York Knicks once again failing to land a star player that they seemed to have great odds of landing.

Have you ever seen the State Farm commercial where a fisherman holds a dollar bill on a hook and taunts a woman who keeps grabbing for it?

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItUECpFi9_s

Well, that woman is the New York Knicks and the dollar bill is Donovan Mitchell, a Cleveland Cavalier as of his September 1st trade. Mitchell had been rumored to be interested in playing for the Knicks most of his young career; he was born in the state and his father works for the New York Mets. It appeared to be a match made in basketball heaven, but the Utah Jazz dealt him to Cleveland instead. The Cavs do actually look to have an exciting team this year, but Cleveland’s nightlife is…not exactly the same as New York’s. Considering Mitchell’s many ties to New York and the Knicks’ clear interest in him (all reports say they were the other team in significant trade talks with Utah), it appears to be another rendition of “LolKnicks”, a social media moniker given to the team because of their reoccurring failures. I could spend another few hours making fun of the Knicks for many reasons, but I have a 500-word limit on this blog. Instead, let’s focus on one thing: Why did this trade not work out?

A young Mitchell with his father, Donovan Sr.

The key prize heading to Utah, if Mitchell had been headed to the Knicks, would have been RJ Barrett, a fourth-year wing who has generally decent counting stats; poor efficiency and advanced statistics are his downfall. Admittedly, his surrounding cast has never been ideal and last season he was heavily relied on as a scorer. His best teammate was probably Julius “Beyblade” Randle, who earned his nickname because he likes to spin around in the post for 10 seconds before missing a shot. The Knicks balked at including Quentin Grimes in the deal, who averaged *checks notes* six points per game in his rookie season last year. I will spare any readers the basketball minutiae, but turning down a star player because you want to hold onto your second-year backup point guard probably isn’t the best idea. The Knicks also were willing to include less first-round picks (the crown jewel of NBA trades) and pick swaps (right to swap draft picks) than the Cavaliers were.

All in all, the Jazz ended up with 5 first-rounders (including two swaps) and three players, including Collin Sexton, who plays a similar way as Mitchell. The Knicks signed Barrett to a 4-year, $120 million extension as a consolation price and missed out on another star. To twist the knife as deep as I can, Mitchell was reportedly going crazy after news of the trade broke.

Forever and ever, LolKnicks.

Kevin Durant’s trade demand, the most pressing issue in the NBA this summer, caused shockwaves throughout the league and caused ramifications to the trade market and free agency. One of the best basketball players of our generation wanted off the Brooklyn Nets after playing just 90 games in three seasons (the first of which he missed entirely due to injury) and dealing with his best friend turning into a pseudo-intellectual anti-vaxxer and a former co-star escaping to Philadelphia. After all that, should anyone really blame him? No. Yes. Well…kind of.

From the start, everyone knew the Brooklyn experiment looked like, well, an experiment. Kyrie Irving maintains a reputation of the NBA’s most interesting player, and not typically in a good way. From going AWOL for a week to party with his sister on her birthday (and the rest of the week) to burning sage on the court to sitting out home games due to a refusal to be vaccinated, Kyrie remains…strange. For some reason, KD wanted to play with him anyway. We all see how that blew up in his face, although I give the Nets credit for somehow keeping both of them this summer amid all the trade rumors and personality clashes. Speaking of personality clashes, we might as well discuss James Harden’s escape from a toxic relationship. The precursor to Durant’s request this summer, Harden asked out this past winter, likely due to being fed up with Irving’s willingness to sit out home games for whatever unknown convictions he held against the COVID-19 vaccine. Dealing Harden to Philadelphia for notorious headcase Ben Simmons, Brooklyn built a more toxic workplace than the Kardashian household with Pete Davidson in attendance and Kanye on Twitter.

All of these wonderful events led to Durant’s trade request in the summer, months after signing a 4-year deal to remain in Brooklyn. The NBA’s most famous Twitter account holder (just ask his burners) seemingly no longer wanted to deal with the drama and decided to ask his front office to ship his 4 year, $200+ million deal elsewhere, all while not raiding the roster of the other team. Because, as we know, Durant possesses no ability to win by himself. Screams realistic to me!

Now, Durant does not bear responsibility for Irving’s insanity and Harden’s trade. However, he holds major sway in the organization and no important moves happen without his opinion at least asked for. Durant mostly did this to himself when he helped form the team, and few feel sympathy when he can not win with two superstar sidekicks. Of course, this matters little as in August he decided to rescind his trade request and attempt to fix his broken relationship with the franchise. Durant delayed much of free agency and the trade market as the biggest fish in the pond, but the consequences will not be his to deal with. The Nets appear as a special form of dysfunction this year, but that’s just the Kevin Durant experience.

My first blog idea is following the NBA season, because it coincides almost perfectly with the entire school year. Since we are continuing this in the spring, it would probably be a bad idea to choose baseball or football specifically because of their downtimes that occur during the school year. I would likely pick between following the Sixers, my favorite team, or mentioning interesting developments around the league as a whole. While I’m sure the Sixers can produce enough drama to keep me occupied, it may be better to do the NBA (or all of basketball, including college/international) as a whole. With the regular season going from October-April, I would likely have enough information to be able to keep the blog interesting and I would enjoy sharing my thoughts on basketball and the NBA. I am not sure what topic I would try to focus in on every week; it would probably be more of a general blog around the league following the news of the week. I have seen the NBA referred to as “Real Housewives for men”, so I don’t think I would be prone to struggling for blog ideas.

My second idea does involve all sports, from Penn State athletics to baseball to basketball to whatever international sports I had never heard of before. I would do something along the lines of a “statistic of the week” where I look to find an interesting stat from across the sports world and dive into it. I really enjoy math, statistics, and sports, so I think this idea would keep me involved with the blog and I would probably learn a lot more about stats as I am writing. This idea would also perhaps open my audience to those who enjoy statistics, not just sports fans which may or may not be a narrow group. I’m subscribed to a few different sport-specific newsletters, and ESPN and other social media platforms are also very good for hearing about interesting stats from the week in sports. The only problem with this idea is that one blog won’t necessarily tie to the next; it will more be a collection of interesting statistics across the semester(s).

My third idea actually came into my head as I was writing the first two trying to think of a more narrative-based approach. Investopedia has a stock market simulator, and I could keep my portfolio active throughout the year and continue a “story” so to speak. I briefly used this in high school for an investment club, but I would start fresh and blog each week about new investments I’ve made and why I chose them, based off of real-world events. All of the stock prices are real (on about a 15-minute delay) and not every aspect of real trading is available, but enough to feel realistic is in the simulator. As a business major I would definitely enjoy going down this path, and I think more people could appreciate this style of blog than one focused on sports; not everyone can follow along with sports, but most people can appreciate learning about stocks and money. With the weekly blogging forcing me to stay engaged with the simulator, there would be no chance of lost interest and I would have a lot of fun trying to make new trades each week that I could feature in the blog. It would be enjoyable to relish in my pretend successes while also be able to tease myself over massive failures that luckily don’t actually matter.