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Rui Hachimura

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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1141 » by payitforward » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:59 pm

Shoe wrote:
nate33 wrote:
Shoe wrote:There's a thing called the rookie wall folks. Post all-star break it's a grind to finish out the season.

I don't think that's the case here. Rui had a 23-game rest in the middle of the season. I don't think he's running on fumes.

I think he just missed a bunch of consecutive shots. Other than the ball not actually going in the basket, he looks good to me.

He was rehabing during that time, flying on jets, sleeping in hotels. The rookie wall is more mental than physical I believe. Its got to be a system shock to go from college with long breaks in between games to never ending travel, photo shoots, etc. I can only speculate but I wouldn't over react to a rookies performance at this time of the year.

Forgive me, but don't you think you're engaging in a little special pleading -- which isn't even needed to tell the truth. The kid had 1 bad game!

Has Ja Morant hit the rookie wall? Thybulle? Clarke? The other dozen or more rookies who've played the kind of minutes Rui has? Plus, he had a terrific week just a week or so ago. He's hit the wall in the last 70 minutes on court, but before that he was the best he'd yet been? Is that what you're saying? :)

What are you going to say when he has another terrific game? That he's busted through the rookie wall? :)

There's no need to reference a rookie wall. It's enough just to say he's a rookie.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1142 » by Shoe » Tue Mar 10, 2020 9:56 pm

payitforward wrote:
Shoe wrote:
nate33 wrote:I don't think that's the case here. Rui had a 23-game rest in the middle of the season. I don't think he's running on fumes.

I think he just missed a bunch of consecutive shots. Other than the ball not actually going in the basket, he looks good to me.

He was rehabing during that time, flying on jets, sleeping in hotels. The rookie wall is more mental than physical I believe. Its got to be a system shock to go from college with long breaks in between games to never ending travel, photo shoots, etc. I can only speculate but I wouldn't over react to a rookies performance at this time of the year.

Forgive me, but don't you think you're engaging in a little special pleading -- which isn't even needed to tell the truth. The kid had 1 bad game!

Has Ja Morant hit the rookie wall? Thybulle? Clarke? The other dozen or more rookies who've played the kind of minutes Rui has? Plus, he had a terrific week just a week or so ago. He's hit the wall in the last 70 minutes on court, but before that he was the best he'd yet been? Is that what you're saying? :)

What are you going to say when he has another terrific game? That he's busted through the rookie wall? :)

There's no need to reference a rookie wall. It's enough just to say he's a rookie.


Arguing over lexical Semantics is not my thing but I'll do it anyways. He hit the idiomatic rookie wall. There are reasons for his poor play recently that could not be ascribed to poor play in November. Stand down soldier, we are using the term rookie wall from here on out.
“Schedule-wise it’s been hard, especially this month,” Hachimura said after the Wizards’ loss to the Miami Heat on Sunday, in which he went scoreless in 40 minutes of play. “We started with the West Coast trip and we played four games in [six] days, and then we come back and play right away. It’s been tough, but it is what it is.”
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1143 » by payitforward » Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:46 am

Fine, if it makes you happy, makes you feel like you have an explanation -- hardly worth a debate.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1144 » by Shoe » Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:05 pm

payitforward wrote:Fine, if it makes you happy, makes you feel like you have an explanation -- hardly worth a debate.


Im glad you came around. Rui hit the rookie wall and is just going through an adjustment period. He's right on track to be a star player.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1145 » by payitforward » Wed Mar 11, 2020 3:10 pm

Shoe wrote:
payitforward wrote:Fine, if it makes you happy, makes you feel like you have an explanation -- hardly worth a debate.

Im glad you came around. Rui hit the rookie wall and is just going through an adjustment period. He's right on track to be a star player.

Absolutely! You can't get better until you get worse. In fact, the worse you get, the better you will be. That's why his 0-for night was so valuable.

Just another instance of the well-known fact that once you turn off the lights, then feel your way to a place of total darkness, black and white are exactly the same!

Congratulations.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1146 » by Shoe » Wed Mar 11, 2020 4:34 pm

payitforward wrote:
Shoe wrote:
payitforward wrote:Fine, if it makes you happy, makes you feel like you have an explanation -- hardly worth a debate.

Im glad you came around. Rui hit the rookie wall and is just going through an adjustment period. He's right on track to be a star player.

Absolutely! You can't get better until you get worse. In fact, the worse you get, the better you will be. That's why his 0-for night was so valuable.

Just another instance of the well-known fact that once you turn off the lights, then feel your way to a place of total darkness, black and white are exactly the same!

Congratulations.


This is a great development you're starting to see the value in things you can't input into a calculator. Rui fighting through a slump is a part of the growth process we can all agree and sometimes you can't get better until you get worse.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1147 » by payitforward » Wed Mar 11, 2020 4:48 pm

I don't use a calculator. I do the Math in my head exclusively.

Some days I'm off, but I fight through the slumps. The result is that this year I trust the process 63% of the time, which is better than last year when I was stuck at 58.5%.

Above all, you are right that "sometimes you can't get better until you get worse." In fact I've found that there are times when you can't even get worse until you get worse.

Luckily, at least, we won't have to talk about the rookie wall much longer -- word is that it's going to be eliminated in the next CBA. Until then, we'll just have to hope we don't draft Humpty Dumpty, right?
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1148 » by Shoe » Thu Mar 12, 2020 2:07 pm

payitforward wrote:I don't use a calculator. I do the Math in my head exclusively.

Some days I'm off, but I fight through the slumps. The result is that this year I trust the process 63% of the time, which is better than last year when I was stuck at 58.5%.

Above all, you are right that "sometimes you can't get better until you get worse." In fact I've found that there are times when you can't even get worse until you get worse.

Luckily, at least, we won't have to talk about the rookie wall much longer -- word is that it's going to be eliminated in the next CBA. Until then, we'll just have to hope we don't draft Humpty Dumpty, right?


Well it looks like 2020 hit the rookie wall. I'm not optimistic about the Wizards playing another game this season, and it'd be a real bummer if Rui can't represent Japan in the Olympics. Stay safe everyone!
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1149 » by Ruzious » Thu Mar 12, 2020 2:14 pm

Shoe wrote:
payitforward wrote:I don't use a calculator. I do the Math in my head exclusively.

Some days I'm off, but I fight through the slumps. The result is that this year I trust the process 63% of the time, which is better than last year when I was stuck at 58.5%.

Above all, you are right that "sometimes you can't get better until you get worse." In fact I've found that there are times when you can't even get worse until you get worse.

Luckily, at least, we won't have to talk about the rookie wall much longer -- word is that it's going to be eliminated in the next CBA. Until then, we'll just have to hope we don't draft Humpty Dumpty, right?


Well it looks like 2020 hit the rookie wall. I'm not optimistic about the Wizards playing another game this season, and it'd be a real bummer if Rui can't represent Japan in the Olympics. Stay safe everyone!

Amen on everything there. If I was Rui, I'd be thinking the Olympics in Japan will be the highlight of my life.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1150 » by payitforward » Thu Mar 12, 2020 8:22 pm

Yeah... it's a tough moment -- I fear we can't really grasp yet how tough it will be.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1151 » by payitforward » Fri Mar 13, 2020 9:40 pm

Excerpted the section on Rui from the trade thread to initiate our post-season discussion of Rui, here are 2 quite differnt takes on his rookie season....

nate33 wrote:...Hachimura projects to be the most coveted type of player positionally - a long, mobile forward with a strong base. He can guard (or will be able to guard) the 3, 4 or 5 and can hold his own when switched onto a guard. Those kinds of guys are very rare, and the teams that have them ultimately succeed. Think Pascal Siakam, PJ Tucker, OG Anunoby, Paul Millsap, Justice Winslow, or a poor man's Kawhi Leonard or Draymond Green. I think Hachimura will ultimately have that type of defensive versatility.

Offensively, as he hones his 3-point shot, he'll be a respectable floor spacer who is good enough in the paint to punish a team if they switch a guard onto him. A best case scenario is that he develops an unstoppable midrange shot that he can get whenever he wants a la Kawhi Leonard.

and...

Ruzious wrote:We usually agree, but this is one where we don't. I wish I saw the defensive ability you see in him. I don't. He certainly doesn't have the footwork on the perimeter to play 3's, and while he has solid length, he doesn't know how to use it - as evidenced by how few blocks he has while always going for fakes and never using them on offense. I'd like to say some of it is inexperience, but really - either ya got it or ya don't - and he don't. Near the basket, players shoot right over the top of him.

What he is - is a poor man's Juwan Howard - and I wasn't crazy for the real Juwan Howard. He's a good mid-range shooter - and that's not what works well in today's game. The one thing I really liked about his game is he will attack the rim - but he gets so many of his shots blocked against better athletes - he's 6'8 with average explosion and never pump-fakes. Yes, he showed some ability to hit 3's in one of the international tournaments, but he never did in college, and he's rarely done it in the NBA. His shot is relatively flat - which makes it harder - Rashard Lewis is the only player I remember with that flat a shot that was also a good 3 point shooter.

I'd like to be wrong - particularly about his defense. Even with coronavirus shutting down the season, Carmelo Anthony is probably scoring on him right now. Great kid and a hard worker.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1152 » by payitforward » Sat Mar 14, 2020 2:06 am

Again, I've moved this here -- fits better...
nate33 wrote:
Ruzious wrote:We usually agree, but this is one where we don't. I wish I saw the defensive ability you see in him. I don't. He certainly doesn't have the footwork on the perimeter to play 3's, and while he has solid length, he doesn't know how to use it - as evidenced by how few blocks he has while always going for fakes and never using them on offense. I'd like to say some of it is inexperience, but really - either ya got it or ya don't - and he don't. Near the basket, players shoot right over the top of him.

What he is - is a poor man's Juwan Howard - and I wasn't crazy for the real Juwan Howard. He's a good mid-range shooter - and that's not what works well in today's game. The one thing I really liked about his game is he will attack the rim - but he gets so many of his shots blocked against better athletes - he's 6'8 with average explosion and never pump-fakes. Yes, he showed some ability to hit 3's in one of the international tournaments, but he never did in college, and he's rarely done it in the NBA. His shot is relatively flat - which makes it harder - Rashard Lewis is the only player I remember with that flat a shot that was also a good 3 point shooter.

I'd like to be wrong - particularly about his defense. Even with coronavirus shutting down the season, Carmelo Anthony is probably scoring on him right now. Great kid and a hard worker.

While I would have agreed with this take over the first 25 games of the season, I think Hachimura has shown MASSIVE improvement defensively since returning from injury. He has been our 3rd most reliable player since then, and Brooks won't take him off the floor in crunch time. His +/- since his return has been positive (+0.3), which is much better than the -8.2 he was posting in his first 25 games. (He's also shot 40% from 3-point range since his return.)
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1153 » by payitforward » Sat Mar 14, 2020 2:26 am

Before his injury, Rui was scoring over 18 points per 40 minutes. Since his return, he's scored 16.33 points per 40 minutes. Slightly down, in other words. But, that's because he's shot a fair amount less -- 12.25 attempts per 40 minutes (on the season as a whole he's taking 15 per 40 minutes).

Thus, his TS% is actually up -- 56.7% since his return. That's still below average for a 4, but it's a fair amount better than it was before the injury (under @54% if I recall rightly). That's meaningful improvement.

Otherwise, his numbers since his return vary only a little bit up or down from his season averages. Thus, since his return it is true that overall, Rui is playing a little better than he did prior to his injury. But, the entire difference is accounted for by the fact that his TS% is up -- though on lower usage -- & that rise in his TS% is itself completely created by his shooting the 3 at a much improved rate -- even though he hasn't shot a lot of them (@2 attempts per 40 minutes).

Thus, if there's been a big improvement in Rui's play overall since he returned, it must be on defense -- which is what nate says.

OTOH, I'm giving no weight to the improved +/-. That, I speculate, was caused by the departure of Isaiah Thomas, w/ whom Rui played most of his minutes in those first 25 games. Surely it must be obvious that if the 8.5 point difference in his +/- could be viewed independently, then the team's overall +/- would also have changed quite a bit once he returned -- after all his 30 minutes a game were virtually all with the starters. Thus his +/- references the team's play for @150 of the overall 240 minutes.

edit: to illustrate -- up .3 over 16 games means for the total of the 16 games Rui was up 5. Thing is in the win against the Bulls, the starters were up 106 in total. Rui was up 20. In the Knicks game 2 nights earlier he was up 14. In the win over GS, the starters were up 78. Rui was up 12. He was up 16 in another blow-out win where all the starters were up in double figures.

Thus, in the other 12 games he was down 57.

Individual +/- tells you nothing. In that Knicks game, Rui went 3-7 & had 4 boards. Scored 8 points. The other starters killed it, so he was +14.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1154 » by payitforward » Sat Mar 14, 2020 12:38 pm

moving this here...
DCZards wrote:Rui is also using pump fakes more often. He's not using them enough...but you can see that he's learning the value/importance of pump fakes. He will likely never be an explosive athlete but Rui has no problem being physical and trying to bully people in the paint. With more time in the weight room that bullying will pay off in more buckets.

I agree that Rui's shot is flat...the midrange jumper that supposed to be his bread-and-butter hasn't been there lately. However, there's still a place for a good midrange jumper in today's analytics-driven NBA. Chris Paul, Kawhi Leonard and DeMar Derozan continue to prove that.

Rui needs to become a better ballhandler so that he can use the dribble to get to those spots on the floor where he can get his midrange jumper off.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1155 » by payitforward » Tue May 19, 2020 8:12 pm

I thought picking Rui at #9 was a big mistake. If I'd had a pick in the mid-20s & Rui was on the board, I'd have been tempted to take him; that's about where I thought he would start to make sense.

But, looking back at the 2019 draft, offers a really strange perspective. None of the 10 guys taken directly after Rui have looked good as rookies, with the exception of Cameron Johnson, who was a graduated senior. Plus everyone thought he went way too high!

Next after those 10 was Thybulle, who was pretty good, significantly better than Rui, though he fell off some in the last month or so.... & then came Brandon Clarke -- he knocked out of the park. But, the next 9 guys picked, #22-30, either did not play much or at all this year or were not good.

In other words, Rui was as good or better than pretty much anyone picked after him in R1 except Clarke -- & obviously it's only b/c Clarke was Rui's teammate that the comparison is especially pointed.

What's especially weird is that Rui was also better -- much better -- than 5 of the 6 guys picked just before him! Barrett, Hunter, Garland, Culver & White looked just awful as rookies.

Now... it still would have been better to trade down. Clarke was my target. But... what if the team trading up did so, because they wanted Clarke!

If not Clarke, we still would have gotten Thybulle & one other player -- maybe Rui! -- so it still would have been a better way to manage the draft. But not as dramatically as if we'd gotten Clarke.

If this post was kind of boring, I apologize! :)
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1156 » by payitforward » Thu May 21, 2020 9:53 pm

nate33 wrote:
doclinkin wrote:Rui does not have that flaw. And while the analysis is correct that his currently anemic rebounding and slow read/react skills hurt the team, his physical talents are suggestive of a player who could actually be a strong asset on the Defensive side of the ball. In fact with his range fluidity and length he could become an intimidating strong safety defending from the arc to the paint and make up for the immobile but sturdy Bryant underneath. A clever coach could use these two as hammer and anvil if they taught them their roles and got them to commit.

This.

I think Rui has the potential to be far more than a passable defender. I think he can be a plus defender, a mistake eraser who can impact the game defensively either on the ball or off the ball. I think he can have an effect not unlike Ben Simmons, Draymond Green or P.J. Tucker. Maybe not quite as good as those guys, but in the same mold.

I'm actually more optimistic about his defense than his offense.

Really glad to hear this from both of you. & if it turns out that way... what a plus for the Wizards!
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1157 » by doclinkin » Thu May 21, 2020 10:14 pm

payitforward wrote:
nate33 wrote:
doclinkin wrote:Rui does not have that flaw. And while the analysis is correct that his currently anemic rebounding and slow read/react skills hurt the team, his physical talents are suggestive of a player who could actually be a strong asset on the Defensive side of the ball. In fact with his range fluidity and length he could become an intimidating strong safety defending from the arc to the paint and make up for the immobile but sturdy Bryant underneath. A clever coach could use these two as hammer and anvil if they taught them their roles and got them to commit.

This.

I think Rui has the potential to be far more than a passable defender. I think he can be a plus defender, a mistake eraser who can impact the game defensively either on the ball or off the ball. I think he can have an effect not unlike Ben Simmons, Draymond Green or P.J. Tucker. Maybe not quite as good as those guys, but in the same mold.

I'm actually more optimistic about his defense than his offense.

Really glad to hear this from both of you. & if it turns out that way... what a plus for the Wizards!


I do have doubts that Rui will ever become more than an okay rebounder. The players who rebound at a high level seem to intuitively understand the angles and start moving before the shot is off. And as for me I'd be happy if he were a decent defender as long as he continues his offensive development. It's just that he has so much further to go on defense that there is a likelihood he will improve a great deal. The gap between his physical talents and his experience/skill level is vast. With effort AND GOOD COACHING I think that gap can close. If he even gets 50% return of his physical ability, his defense will not be a liability.

But myself I dont think I'd ever put him in the discussion with Draymond, who thinks the game better than anyone. To get good, Rui would need good coaching and an oncourt mentor like Horford or MGasol to teach him how to actually use the skills he has. A captain on defense behind him calling out the switches or telling him when to attack and back off, until that instruction becomes like a conscience he can rely on even when their not there.

I wish we had a Coach Ginobili and Coach Duncan in our locker room.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1158 » by I_Like_Dirt » Fri May 22, 2020 1:44 am

doclinkin wrote:I do have doubts that Rui will ever become more than an okay rebounder. The players who rebound at a high level seem to intuitively understand the angles and start moving before the shot is off. And as for me I'd be happy if he were a decent defender as long as he continues his offensive development. It's just that he has so much further to go on defense that there is a likelihood he will improve a great deal. The gap between his physical talents and his experience/skill level is vast. With effort AND GOOD COACHING I think that gap can close. If he even gets 50% return of his physical ability, his defense will not be a liability.

But myself I dont think I'd ever put him in the discussion with Draymond, who thinks the game better than anyone. To get good, Rui would need good coaching and an oncourt mentor like Horford or MGasol to teach him how to actually use the skills he has. A captain on defense behind him calling out the switches or telling him when to attack and back off, until that instruction becomes like a conscience he can rely on even when their not there.

I wish we had a Coach Ginobili and Coach Duncan in our locker room.



I would also add that I think being more than an "okay" rebounder is significantly overrated amongst fans in the current NBA reality. The book is already out on offensive rebounds. The bottom line is that teams are succeeding by being able to defend everywhere on the floor, which is far more critical than rebounding or steals or blocks. This doesn't diminish the value of defensive rebounds but it does increase the value of being able to rebound a little bit at every position. If a player can gobble up rebounds from everywhere without sacrificing on the defensive end like Giannis, great! But those kinds of players are few and far between. I've done my share of posts pointing out that Rui's rebounding is right on point, if not slightly to the higher end of any number of talented modern NBA forwards. Tobias Harris strikes me as a reasonable comparison to Rui, for example, and I secretly suspect Rui has the potential for more in him though I'm not sure if he achieves it or not.

For what it's worth, I actually think Beal is an incredible role model.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1159 » by payitforward » Fri May 22, 2020 2:32 am

Yeah, you've written this before & it's just as wrong now as it was then. To put the matter simply, the value of a rebound is not subject to fashion or style of play -- any more than the value of a point is.

How you score doesn't matter -- how much you score does -- & how much you score is the direct result of how many opportunities you have to score & how efficiently you turn those opportunities into points. Thus, the value of points & the value of possessions (which you get mostly via rebounds) never change, because those are the only factors that lead to wins. Period.

Now.... just as it doesn't matter who on your team makes a shot, the points just get added to the team total, so too, it doesn't matter which of your players gets the rebound -- only that your team does. But, if you substitute a player who gets more rebound for one who gets fewer rebounds, then your team gets more rebounds. And each additional rebound has the same additional value -- just the way each additional point has the same value.

As to Tobias Harris, he is ok, nothing special. He's overrate, because he scores a few points more than an average 4 -- but that's only because he takes a few more shots than an average 4. Period. For the rest, he's no help -- no team he's gone to has gotten better b/c he was there, no team he's left has gotten worse b/c he was gone.
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Re: Rui Hachimura 

Post#1160 » by payitforward » Fri May 22, 2020 10:05 pm

I'd like to revise the above slightly; it's slightly misleading, & it exhibits frustration -- sorry about that I_Like_Dirt . My bad.

Let's look at this: "The book is already out on offensive rebounds." People often say, "look, it's bad teams that get lots of offensive rebounds."

Of course it is. As you would expect!

When do you have a chance to get an offensive rebound? When you miss a shot. Hence, bad shooting teams will have more opportunities to get offensive rebounds. It must be so.

But, that doesn't directly translate to "bad players get o boards" or "offensive rebounds must be over-rated." In fact, the difference between the 2d best offensive rebounding team in the league & the 2d worst one (leaving out the outliers) is only 2.7 per game.

But, when you miss a shot & get the ball back via an offensive rebound, you have wiped away the cost of that missed shot. I.e. it's still a good thing, & it can be measured. It has the same value as a steal. Which is to say that it has the same amount of positive value as a turnover has negative value.

That doesn't mean you should gamble on steals any more than you should fail to drop back on defense so you can boost your offensive rebounds. &, as a matter of fact, good players don't do either of these things. But, there are still players who get more steals than others. Ditto more offensive rebounds. Just as there are players who turn the ball over more than others do.

& if you turn the ball over, it hurts your team -- there's not some argument to make about how somehow it doesn't. Similarly, if you steal the ball or get an offensive board, that act helps your team. There's no argument to make about how somehow it doesn't.

So, if you see a team -- like OKC for example -- that is low in FGAs (2d lowest in the league) but is high in FG% (5th best in the league), you can be sure they will be low in offensive rebounds! How could they not be?
Breaking News: In a shocking development, Wizards owner Ted Leonsis has sold the NBA franchise to a consortium of participants in a discussion board devoted to the team on realgm.com. Details to follow....

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