Urban Musings

Here’s a map of all of the coffee shops in San Francisco that I’ve visited or have been meaning to visit. Green signifies my favorites. Red signifies the ones I haven’t visited yet. Please note that this is a constantly evolving list. Various musings below about characteristics of some of my favorite ones.

• The location is accessible via public transit
• The indoor ambience veers toward cozy, often with exposed brick and/or wood accents with colorful pillows; quirky, with a distinct San Francisco cultural element such as live music, local books, interesting artwork; or modern and chic, with indietronic/chillwave/jazzy hip-hop music and contemporary furniture.
• Its exterior aesthetic embraces a colorful Edwardian or Victorian style, which is uniquely San Franciscan.
• It has outdoor seating on the street that allows for people-, architecture-, and/or foliage-watching; or it has outdoor seating in a back patio that is nicely appointed with beautiful greenery. I still believe SF establishments don’t leverage the outdoors enough, despite the pleasant weather.
• While I’ve never been a regular coffee drinker, I’ve started to learn more about espressos and how they are served. I’ve noticed that some spots offer sparkling water along with the espresso, and it definitely adds a refreshing cut to the bitterness of the coffee. Credit if the establishment serves sparkling water alongside.
  

NBA Musings

Out of curiosity, I wanted to figure out which NBA players have been selected as All-NBA First Team and All-NBA Defensive First Team in the same season, and to print out counts for each of them. In my mind, this theoretically would show just how dominant the player was on both ends of the floor consistently over time. After writing some code to parse the data from basketball-reference.com, the tallies are in:

(‘Michael Jordan’, 9),
(‘Kobe Bryant’, 7),
(‘Tim Duncan’, 7),
(‘LeBron James’, 5),
(‘Dwight Howard’, 4),
(‘Kevin Garnett’, 4),
(‘David Robinson’, 4),
(‘Hakeem Olajuwon’, 4),
(‘Artis Gilmore’, 4),
(‘Jerry West’, 4),
(‘Chris Paul’, 3),
(‘Jason Kidd’, 3),
(‘Scottie Pippen’, 3),
(‘Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’, 3),
(‘John Havlicek’, 3),
(‘Kawhi Leonard’, 2),
(‘Gary Payton’, 2),
(‘Karl Malone’, 2),
(‘Walt Frazier’, 2),
(‘Paul George’, 1),
(‘Giannis Antetokounmpo’, 1),
(‘Anthony Davis’, 1),
(‘DeAndre Jordan’, 1),
(‘Joakim Noah’, 1),
(‘Alonzo Mourning’, 1),
(‘Kevin McHale’, 1),
(‘Moses Malone’, 1),
(‘Sidney Moncrief’, 1),
(‘Dennis Johnson’, 1),
(‘Bill Walton’, 1),
(‘Julius Erving’, 1),
(‘Willis Reed’, 1)

While there are some limitations (because team selections are subjective themselves), I thought the results were mostly confirmatory. MJ still is king, while LBJ is fourth on the list (low for a player of his stature [probably top 2 ever], but not surprising given the way he manages his pace in the season). Duncan consistently was one of the best two-way players ever to play the game, as was Kobe, but having watched both, I do believe that Kobe’s number may be inflated due to some star-power gravity. Others warranting respect include Hakeem, KG, Robinson, CP3, Scottie, Kidd, Kareem, and Dwight Howard (this one is pretty shocking, but I forget how dominant he was in a four year span). Notable absences include Magic, Bird, and Shaq. The older greats such as Bill Russell and Wilt could not be assessed objectively because All-Defensive teams weren’t created until 1967.

Kawhi will likely reach 3 at the end of the 2019-2020 season, and Giannis and Anthony Davis will likely reach 2. Their tallies will probably continue to go up (assuming minimal load management to affect the number of games played to be subjectively eligible).