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Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault Case Ends in a Mistrial
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Trade Grades: Sixers Best Celtics In Win-Win Draft Deal
The Celtics have reportedly agreed to trade the No. 1 pick in this week’s NBA draft—which carries the opportunity to select Washington guard Markelle Fultz—to the Sixers in exchange for the 2017 No. 3 pick and the Lakers’ 2018 first-round pick (protected from two through five). If they wind up keeping the Lakers’ pick, the Sixers will reportedly send the Kings’ 2019 first-round pick to the Celtics.
Let’s grade the trade.
Celtics: A-
Number one picks are rarely traded in the NBA, and this year’s will move for one simple reason: Fultz, a gifted scoring guard and the consensus top player in the 2017 class, makes far more long-term sense in Philadelphia than in Boston.
While many observers were intrigued by the possibility of Fultz to a Celtics team that advanced to the East finals, there were clear concerns as soon as Boston won the draft lottery. SI.com deemed Fultz a “loser” that night due to his uncertain fit with the Celtics, who are in “win now” mode and already have Isaiah Thomas, a ball-dominant guard in his prime. Top picks are generally accustomed to the red-carpet treatment, unlimited touches and shots, and plenty of bandwidth to make mistakes and learn on the fly in year one. In Boston, though, Fultz would have been walking into a narrow role and heightened short-term expectations.
While Celtics president Danny Ainge has hoarded draft picks in recent years and coach Brad Stevens has turned over meaningful roles to recent draft selections like Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier, the 19-year-old Fultz is overqualified to be “Another promising Ainge State University enrollee” and unequipped to help Boston topple Cleveland next year. Fultz is an A-list prospect, but he’s not the guy to help the Celtics defend LeBron James, shore up their interior defense, or improve their team rebounding. There just isn’t much overlap between Fultz’s skills and Boston’s immediate needs.
• Report: Celtics, Sixers agree to pick swap, Philly will draft Markelle Fultz
As such, he would have been headed for an awkward purgatorial transition of power with Thomas. The “When will this be Fultz’s team?” question would have complicated Thomas’s 2018 free agency and required a degree of patience and sacrifice from Fultz that would have been highly unusual for a consensus top guy. The Celtics surely could have made it work, but they didn’t need to given the presence of Avery Bradley and Smart, two quality complementary guards, and the very real possibility that Ainge can add All-Star Gordon Hayward in free agency and/or trade for the likes of Jimmy Butler or Paul George.
The substantial return package helps Boston’s cause whether or not Ainge is able to the extra picks into a star this summer. If Hayward stays in Utah and both Butler and George prove to be unavailable, Ainge can select a player with a better positional fit than Fultz—perhaps Josh Jackson or Jayson Tatum—while also adding a quality future first-round pick. Remember, Boston also has Brooklyn’s unprotected 2018 first-rounder, which will likely give Ainge two top-10 picks to work with next summer. At this point, it would be downright shocking if Sacramento crawls out of its lottery abyss by 2019, making for a bountiful back-up plan if the Lakers’ pick falls through. That’s a strong haul, with a good ceiling depending on how the conveyance terms play out—to drop just two draft slots in a year when neither of the top two players on the board fit cleanly into the Celtics’ scheme.
The best-case scenario, however, is that Ainge has maneuvered Boston into position to construct a trade package compelling enough to pry away Chicago’s Butler or Indiana’s George while also convincing Hayward that he should leave Utah to truly compete for a title in Boston. Want a team talented and versatile enough to push Cleveland in 2018 and beyond? The East won’t do better than a roster that boasts Thomas, Hayward, Butler/George and Al Horford. Ditto for a potential Blake Griffin pursuit. What’s the best way to convince Griffin to break up the Clippers’ Big 3? Sell him on playing in a weaker conference as part of a Big 4 with Thomas, Butler/George and Horford.
Detractors will point out that Boston is giving up a shot at nine years of Fultz, a potential franchise player. If Fultz blossoms into James Harden, there will be some second-guessing. But Boston wasn’t ideally positioned to guide Fultz to his best-case scenario and it didn’t mortgage its future by passing on the right to add him to the fold. On the contrary, there’s a strong case to be made that Ainge has increased his franchise’s ability to sustain contender-level success over the next five years.
Sixers: A+
Fultz was a “loser” on lottery night because he didn’t know for sure where he was going to play or what his role was going to be. This trade moves him into the “winner” category on both fronts: Philadelphia is both a rebuilding organization that can afford multiple years to develop him and a talent-deficient team that is in desperate need of his scoring and playmaking skills. This is a great home.
The Sixers’ thinking throughout the Sam Hinkie-led “Process” has been pretty clear: assemble a young core of high lottery talent that can serve as the foundation of a year-in, year-out championship contender. Bottom out to win big. It took longer than expected and led to Hinkie’s dismissal, but Philadelphia now possesses its “Big 3” to rival Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Harden or Portland’s Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden. Fultz will join 2016 No. 1 pick Ben Simmons and 2014 No. 3 pick Joel Embiid to form the most-envied collection of under-25 talent in the league.
While all three of the Sixers’ building blocks remain unknowns, the fit here is promising: Simmons is a pass-first point forward who can collapse a defense, Fultz is a shooter who can space alongside Simmons and should thrive as a secondary playmaker, and Embiid, when healthy, is a do-everything, two-way center who can play pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop with either Simmons or Fultz. Given those complementary skills and profiles, building around this trio should be a lot easier than assembling it.
The sneaky nice thing about this deal from Philadelphia’s is that it still makes sense in less-promising alternate scenarios. Let’s say Embiid, who has played just 31 total games in his first three seasons, simply can’t stay healthy. In that case, Fultz and Simmons still form an intriguing and potent duo to guide a longer-than-expected turnaround. It’s possible to envision Fultz functioning like a Damian Lillard-like savior for the post-Oden Blazers.
• NBA Mock Draft: The best fit for every team
Let’s get even darker. Imagine Embiid washes out and Simmons, who missed his entire rookie season due to injury, succumbs to health problems and/or struggles to become a star due to his lack of shooting. In that event, Fultz gives Philadelphia one more shot at a franchise-level talent to redeem the last four years of brutal losing.
If ever there was an organization set up to “overpay” or cash in multiple assets to make a modest move up the draft board, it was Philadelphia. This entire trade package had Hinkie’s fingerprints on it: The Sixers’ No. 3 pick jumped up two spots on lottery night thanks to a pick swap with Sacramento, the Lakers’ 2018 pick arrived courtesy of the Michael Carter-Williams fleecing, and the Kings’ 2019 pick came via the Nik Stauskas robbery. Philadelphia prevailed so convincingly on the previous moves that Bryan Colangelo, Hinkie’s replacement, enjoys a wide margin of error on this one.
To really drive home the “Why cash in now?” question consider these three four facts in addition to Fultz’s promising future:
1. Philadelphia has lost 253 games over the last four seasons combined. That’s 16 more than the next closest team (the Lakers) and 37 more than any other team besides the Lakers (the Magic are next). Put bluntly, the time to sell hope was three years ago. The time to stop sucking by any means necessary is now.
2. Philadelphia still possesses a ludicrously long list of extra future picks even after it makes this trade. This deal demands really good pieces but doesn’t completely empty the coffers.
3. Philadelphia has good reason to believe that Sacramento’s 2019 first-rounder will be better than LA’s 2018 first-rounder given that the Lakers are two years ahead of the Kings in their respective rebuilding efforts. If that’s how it plays out and the Lakers’ pick does convey, the Sixers will have added Fultz without sacrificing their best future asset.
4. Philadelphia needs a quality guard to pair with Simmons/Embiid and really needs that guard to be a shooter. The best alternative options – settling for a non-shooter like De’Aaron Fox or selecting a forward at No. 3 before pursuing a free agent like Kyle Lowry – are far less attractive than simply adding Fultz.
This trade goes down as a clean win/win/win: Boston gets to dream the Superteam dream while enriching its future, Philadelphia completes a must-see foundation after seasons of suffering, and the consensus top pick gets a place he can truly call home.
Missing sailors found dead in flooded compartments on US Navy destroyer
(CNN)Seven missing sailors from the USS Fitzgerald were found dead in flooded berthing compartments following the warship’s collision with a merchant vessel, a US Navy official said.
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Amazon to Buy Whole Foods for $13.4 Billion
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Trump allies hit Mueller on relationship with Comey
President Trump’s legal team is zeroing-in on the relationship between former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey to argue that their long professional partnership represents a conflict of interest that compromises Mueller’s integrity as special counsel.
The effort to make the case about a conflict of interest around Mueller’s investigative body comes amid reports that Mueller is looking into whether Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice for allegedly asking Comey to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump later fired Comey.
The president tweeted Friday that he is under investigation for firing fired Comey — proceedings Trump ripped as a “witch hunt.”
Those making the case that Mueller is compromised because of his relationship with Comey point to a Justice Department statute that says recusal is necessary when there is the “appearance” of a “personal” conflict of interest.
“Mueller is compromised by the close professional — and I would sure think personal — relationship with Comey,” said Bill Otis, the former special counsel for President George H.W. Bush. “That is an encompassing standard…that should be interpreted broadly so that the public will have maximum confidence in the outcome of the special counsel’s work, however it winds up.”
That is not the view of many others in the legal community, who are irate that some would seek to cast doubt on the veracity of Mueller’s special counsel by alleging that he is incapable of conducting a fair investigation.
Mueller, a decorated Navy veteran, has a sterling reputation as an independent investigator.
“Mueller is absolutely not compromised by his professional relationship with Comey,” said Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “This is just an effort to undermine the credibility of the special counsel.”Spokespeople for Trump’s legal team and Mueller’s special counsel declined to comment.
These heavy questions and many more hung over Washington on Friday as Mueller built the special counsel’s staff by hiring a dozen top-level prosecutors.
Mueller’s hires have experience in complicated investigations, including Watergate, Enron and Mafia prosecutions. That’s raised speculation that the special counsel investigation might extend to Trump’s business empire, which the president has tried to shield from public scrutiny.
“The biggest risks in these kinds of cases are the collateral offenses,” said Jonathan Turley, a legal professor at George Washington University.
Vice President Pence has obtained legal counsel, as has Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. Members of Trump’s transition team are being told to preserve materials that might be relevant to the special counsel’s investigation.
“If I worked at the White House right now I’d quit,” said Painter. “There’s no way I’d stick around and wait for someone to throw me under the bus.”
The administration’s allies are pushing back back furiously on the special counsel investigation, pointing to donations some prosecutors made to Democratic candidates. Trump’s backers are also fuming over the latest round of anonymous leaks, which they say are designed to keep a shadow of suspicion over the White House.
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein took the unusual step Thursday of releasing a statement warning that reports citing anonymous officials are not to be trusted, suggesting that the leaks revealing the obstruction investigation into Trump did not come from the Justice Department or the special counsel.
Still, speculation is growing that Trump is laying the groundwork to have Mueller removed special counsel, an action that Trump’s allies warn would backfire and potentially lead to impeachment.
“It would be a mistake to fire Mueller at this point,” said Bill Barr, a former attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.
The fate of Rosenstein is also the subject of intense speculation. There are questions about whether the deputy attorney general, who wrote the memo the administration initially used to justify firing Comey, will have to recuse himself from the investigation if he becomes a witness in the obstruction case.
“The safest thing is probably for him to recuse himself,” said John Wood, a former U.S. attorney.
Again, the legal community is split here.
“Rosenstein needs to stay on to protect the integrity of the investigation,” said Robert Ray, the former independent counsel for the Whitewater case. “If Rod thinks he needs to recuse, I’m sure he will, but for the life of me I don’t see a basis for it.”
But the allegations that Mueller is too close to Comey have moved to the forefront of the debate around the special counsel and go to the heart of whether the special counsel can conduct an impartial investigation around Trump and his associates.
Mueller was the director of the FBI in 2003, when Comey was deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft.
Their professional relationship was cemented in 2004, when Mueller backed Comey in a dramatic standoff against George W. Bush when the president sought to reauthorize a controversial surveillance program they believed to be illegal.
Comey famously rushed to the bedside of a hospitalized Ashcroft to talk him out of reauthorizing the program. Mueller assisted, ordering Ashcroft’s FBI detail to give Comey access and to not allow White House officials to be alone with the sick attorney general.
Both threatened to resign the next day. Bush backed off, ultimately asking the Justice Department to find firmer legal footing for the surveillance program.
That dramatic story takes on new meaning in 2017 with Comey and Mueller back in the thick of things.
Comey has given his detractors some additional political ammunition, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he leaked details of his private meetings with Trump in order to spur the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel.
It worked. Rosenstein appointed Mueller.
“Their historical stand together during the Bush administration has made them part of the legacy and lore of the Justice Department,” Turley said. “Mueller would be a tremendous choice for a special counsel. I would not have recommended him for this one.”
Now, legal experts are debating the veracity of two bombshell reports in the Washington Post. One story said Trump is the target of an obstruction investigation. A second said that the financial transactions of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had attracted the scrutiny of the special counsel.
Kushner’s spokesman said that it is “standard practice” for the special counsel to request records associated with the investigation.
Barr, the former attorney general, said the media stories were overblown. Most of what is going on now is early, normal course investigative work that says nothing about the special counsel’s ultimate findings, Barr said.
“I suspect the Washington Post story exaggerates the maturity of the investigation, » he told The Hill. « I don’t think it has crystallized to that point.”
Barr also called the obstruction investigation “asinine” and warned that the special counsel risks “taking on the look of an entirely political operation to overthrow the president.”
But Ray, the Whitewater lawyer, said the White House is not doing itself any favors by attacking Mueller.
“I’m sure the White House feels threatened and under siege, but it’s unfortunate that they’re trying to undermine the duly appointed special counsel,” he said. “I’ve lived through this before. It does nothing but prolong the investigation. That’s not in anyone’s interests and will only undermine public confidence.”
US and Japan launch air-and-sea search for 7 missing US sailors
TOKYO — U.S. and Japanese joined in air-and-sea search missions Saturday for seven American sailors missing after their Navy destroyer collided with a much-larger container vessel off the coast of Japan.
The damaged USS Fitzgerald reached its home port at Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo after emergency efforts at sea to control flooding.
The operators of the merchant ship, ACX Crystal, reported all members of the 20-member Filipino crew were safe.
Civilian and military investigators, meanwhile, began trying to piece together the cause of the nighttime collision.
The Philippine-flagged Crystal is nearly four times as large as the Fitzgerald, an Aegis guided missile destroyer. Japanese and U.S. search vessels and aircraft fanned out across waters off Japan’s Izu peninsula south of Tokyo. The Japanese coast guard led the search teams.
Three sailors, including the destroyer’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, were evacuated from the damaged vessel and are being treated at the U.S. naval hospital at Yokosuka, the home of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet.
Benson was reported to be in stable condition in the hospital, while the other two were still having their injuries assessed. The Seventh Fleet had set up an information center for families of sailors serving on the ship.
“Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the well-being of the sailors,” said Adm. Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
The USS Dewey, another destroyer, and two naval tugboats were at the scene, about 12 miles from the Izu Peninsula and 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, searching for the missing sailors. Two Japanese coast guard cutters with helicopters were helping. The Fitzgerald eventually returned to Yokosuka Naval Base.
The Crystal, which is fully loaded with cargo, is bound for Tokyo, according to a website that tracks maritime traffic. Nippon Yusen K.K., the Japanese shipping company that operates the container ship that collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer, said its crew was accounted for.
Local broadcaster NHK showed helicopter footage of the container ship with minor damage to its bow, while the Fitzgerald appeared to have significant damage above and below the waterline. Water was being pumped from aboard the Navy ship.
The Fitzgerald is part of the Yokosuka-based group that includes the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, but it was operating independently of the carrier when the collision occurred, Flanders said.
The Fitzgerald was operating under its own power after the collision, but was making only 1 to 3 mph.
When its crew is at full strength, the Fitzgerald usually has more than 250 personnel aboard and can reach speeds well over 30 mph. It is unclear how fast the destroyer was traveling when it and the merchant ship collided.
Also unclear was how the two massive vessels collided.
There are extensive international guidelines for accident avoidance at sea known as the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or Colregs.
The rules require that ships must have a watch posted at all times and follow a number of collision-avoidance steps when crossing paths with or overtaking other vessels.
Gibbons-Neff reported from Washington. Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more:
The Navy thought this sailor was lost at sea. He was just found alive — on his own ship.
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Amazon Incorporates Suggestions From YouTube Tech Stars In Dad And Grad Gift Guides
Amazon is no stranger to influencer marketing, and the digital retailer wants to use the power of online video creators to bolster its yearly gift guides. In June, as shoppers search for gifts for dads and grads, Amazon teamed up with influencer marketing agency gen.video to integrate recommendations from three YouTube personalities into its suggestions.
The three creators in question are UrAvgConsumer, Dom Esposito, and Krystal Key, all of whom ply their respective trades within YouTube’s tech community. Taken together, the offered their recommendations in categories like “Smart Home,” “Gaming,” and “Gadgets Gizmos,” providing professional voices for consumers who may not be sure which gift to pick up. Each suite of recommendations is accompanied by a video featuring that category’s resident YouTuber. Links with each video’s description send viewers directly to the products discussed therein.
The launch of this campaign comes just two months after the launch of the Amazon Influencer Program, which expanded the Amazon Affiliates program to offer more selling privileges and tools to “social media influencers with large followings.” With its recent updates, Amazon is encourage personable creators to set up shot on its platform, and given the heat generated by the influencer marketing industry, that is a smart decision.
Editorial? Advertising? Call it "Comtent"
Editorial? Advertising? Call it « Comtent »
Today’s publishers offer a range of marketing opportunities to brands, going way beyond traditional advertising and sponsorship. Branded content — especially branded video — and native advertising (they’re not exactly the same thing) help marketers to reach an audience by presenting not just a product message, but an immersive, engaging experience which can be just as enjoyable as regular editorial content.
The revenues, of course, help the poor publishers too.
But imagine the opportunities for publishers if all and any editorial content could function as branded content — « comtent, » some might call it . In other words, let’s say that I mentioned a product in this story, as a natural part of the story. After all, we do that all the time here at DMN when discussing marketing tech platforms and solutions. Equally naturally, I add a link. But if a reader follows that link and buys the product, there’s no benefit to DMN (believe me), because there’s no attribution and no revenue sharing agreement.
Skimlinks, the London-based affiliate marketing platform, is rewriting that scene. And in doing so, it’s going beyond affiliate marketing. That’s what founder and CEO Alicia Navarro says: « What we’re talking about is content, driven by an editorial voice. It can make money, even though that’s not why it was written. » And « comtent, » of course, is Skimlinks’ term for it.
Traditionally, most of the publishers involved in affiliate marketing have been what Navarro calls « pure affiliates. » The raison d’être for their existence, and for the content they published, was to generate revenue by driving sales. And the infrastructure was complex. Publishers had to sign up with affiliate networks, train editors to create content based around links, and keep the links up-to-date, and have a system in place to collect revenues from retailers. « Mainstream publishers just didn’t bother, » Navarro explains. « It was too much effort; the reward just wasn’t in it for them. »
But according to Navarro, even pure editorial content — not branded content or native ads — can be a content marketing channel. Here’s how.
Skimlinks sets out to make affiliate-type revenue easily available to mainstream publishers. Signing up to the Skimlinks program automatically plugs publishers into a broad affiliate network. Skimlinks adds product tracking to editorial content, and conversion generates commissions. It’s a lingering revenue stream for publishers: Navarro points out that for the top 25 publishers in the scheme, 40 percent of revenues are generated by content over 60 days old. Organic search is the publisher’s friend.
What’s more, the eco-system is monetized by brands based on product sales, not by the publishers. Skimlinks’ roster of around one and half million websites encompasses not just mainstream but major publishers — think Condé Nast, Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post, and The Independent — as well as a « very long tail. »
That’s only half the story. The other half is the data.
The Skimlinks eco-system aggregates what Navarro characterizes as « an immense amount of data along the whole commerce/content journey. » Skimlinks automatically tracks impressions and clicks and classifies them based on product meta-data (from a universe of something like 1.6 billion uniques per month). It’s enough data to drive meaningful insights into readers with shopping intent as opposed to casual readers: insights Skimlinks packages and sells as their Audiences product. « It turns out that we can predict [intent], » says Navarro, « and at a very granular level. »
The data is pooled, with well over 90% of domains within the eco-system opting into the co-op (representing some 80% of impressions). In practice, what opting in means for a publisher is licensing Skimlinks to sell their (anonymized) data to other members of the co-op. Why would publishers do this? Even a major publisher, says Navarro, occupies a tiny part of the Internet: « What is their audience doing elsewhere? »
In theory, readers should benefit from this infrastructure as much as publishers and brands. It creates the possibility of pre-targeting with commercially meaningful content, rather than increasingly annoying re-targeting. Traditionally, marketers have been torn between large-scale brand campaigns, leading to high exposure, but with an uncertain impact on sales; or re-targeting, which « works well and is measurable, » Navarro says, but is much smaller in scale.
« There’s a big space in between, » she concludes, where marketers can find scale and performance; a space Skimlinks’ Audiences is intended to stake out. Brands or agencies can add Audiences segments directly to their DMPs or DSPs. Publishers who opt into the co-op receive the data automatically. « It’s the future of the industry, » says Navarro. « It’s really exciting. »
Despite being head-quartered in London, most of Skimlinks’ business is here in the United States. But with customers in the UK and the rest of Europe, and some in Asia too, data privacy regulations are front-of-mind. Navarro describes Skimlinks as « actively involved » in the community discussing the future of data privacy. Her view is that it’s the responsibility of the publishing side, not the adtech side, to obtain consents for data usage, as the publisher is customer-facing. That’s the position she’s advocating for with the IAB, but it’s a developing situation.
PM Video Battle: Alexander Promotional Products Versus SWFL Marketing Group
Promo Marketing’s Video Battle pits two industry videos against each other for the chance at the ultimate bragging right: Being declared our readership’s absolute favorite. (Next up: Hope everyone had a great time at PPAI Expo East!).
Last week, Alexander Promotional Products won, and now will face off against SWFL Marketing Group.
The winner will be decided by a simple poll. The poll will close the morning of Friday, June 23, the same day a new challenge will start.
Companies whose videos win for four weeks in a row will be retired to the Video Battle Hall of Fame and General Awesomeness, forever enshrined in internet glory.
Click here for prior video battles. Have a promotional product video you’d like to submit to PM’s Video Battle? Send suggestions to bmenapace@napco.com.
The Promo Marketing Video Battle is brought to you by SnugZ USA.