Plus: Bryan Curtis examines the death of a daily paper and Allison P. Davis looks at female sociopaths on TV.

View in your browser Share | Subscribe In the April 8 newsletter, Robert Mays picks a side in the Goff-v.-Wentz debate, Bryan Curtis examines the death of the Oakland Tribune, Allison P. Davis calls for more fictional female sociopaths, and Danny Chau previews the NBA’s coming attractions. Getty Images Goff v. Wentz: Dawn of Judgment By Robert Mays Whenever the quarterback debate at the top of a draft comes down to two guys, it’s tempting to paint the players as opposites: Andrew Luck was the perfect prospect, but Robert Griffin III was the phenomenon; Jameis Winston could make the throws, but Marcus Mariota had the legs. When players are branded as disparate ideas, the debate becomes about what a franchise believes instead of who it prefers. That’s not as easy this year, however, because neither Jared Goff nor Carson Wentz is an archetypal top QB. Goff went 1-11 as a true-freshman starter at Cal, with his only win coming against Portland State two weeks into the season. Meanwhile, before this year’s Senior Bowl, few outside the scouting world had even heard of Wentz, an FCS product who missed half of his final season with a broken wrist. These aren’t Heisman Trophy finalists or the prides of storied programs, and their less conventional paths make it tougher to pit them against each other. But while the contrast between Goff and Wentz may be harder to spot, it’s still there. And the order in which teams rate the two will say a lot about the traits those franchises prize. Most of the Wentz love has centered on his mobility, which often helped North Dakota State in crucial moments. The Bison weren’t afraid to use Wentz as a runner on designed plays, and plenty of third downs ended with him stepping up in the pocket, taking off, and slowly driving a defense insane. I get why that’s appealing, but I also thought that we’d already learned how dangerous it is to prop up a QB prospect because he can run. To be fair, Wentz also has a nice arm, and with a clean pocket and room to work, he can really show it off. But he lags behind Goff when it comes to how, and how often, he finds himself in that setting. NDSU loved using motion and play-action to dictate where defenders would be on a given play, and when either technique created a wide-open throwing lane, Wentz, with that mobility and that 6-foot-5 frame, looked the part of an NFL starter. But he struggled when he had less space: Throws outside the numbers could be an adventure, and Wentz rarely placed the ball in a way that gave his receivers extra separation. All quarterbacks prefer clean pockets and open windows, but Goff was less reliant on them than Wentz. Save for Cal’s quick-screen game, Goff was usually responsible for the ways the Bears influenced defenses. He’s already adept at controlling safeties with his eyes, in part because his eyes are never on the pass rush. Wentz feels outside pressure and steps up with ease, but Goff navigates the entire pocket. He subtly slides to find or make windows that many quarterbacks can’t. That’s a different type of speed. If a team wants the QB with the faster feet, it’ll go with Wentz; if it wants the one with the faster mind, it’ll go with Goff. Based on everything that we know about quarterbacks, I’d go with the mind. Getty Images Farewell, Tribbies: Oakland Suffers a Rare Defeat By Bryan Curtis Want to read about the Warriors’ quest for 73 wins? Lucky you. ESPN The Magazine has a special issue. The New York Times Magazine has an article on the team’s majority owner. The Times even dispatched basketball writer Scott Cacciola to embed in Oakland. Now the bad news: Monday was the final daily issue of the Oakland Tribune. Which means that during the stretch run of Oakland’s biggest sports story in years — not to mention the cultural boom that’s overtaking the city — the oldest source of local sportswriting is dead. As Dave Newhouse, a sportswriter who spent 45 years at the Tribune, said recently, “Only in Oakland do these things happen.” Newhouse was a classic “Tribbie,” which is the nickname the paper’s writers gave themselves. On his first day of work, in 1964, Newhouse didn’t even look up the Tribune’s address; he merely drove toward the 21-story tower that loomed over downtown. Back then, the Tribune sports desk was staffed by a bunch of newshounds like Ed Schoenfeld, who wrote and looked like a bulldog. This was typical. Tribbies tended to be as scrappy and unpretentious as Oakland itself. A snob could go write for the Chronicle in San Francisco. “Maybe it’s braggadocious to say, but I thought in the late ’60s and early ’70s we had the best sportswriters,” Newhouse said. There was upside to working in Oakland. From 1972 to ’77, the city won five world titles in three sports — the kind of bounty that Boston writers are enjoying now. Moreover, the Tribune was an early and loud proponent of diversity. The African American writer Ralph Wiley became a columnist in 1979, which propelled him to Sports Illustrated and, later, ESPN’s Page 2. The Tribune had a touch of goofiness. Tribbies would get drunk in a bar called the Hollow Leg. The paper’s aviation writer used to gin up bits of philosophy, post them on the newsroom walls, and sign his missives “The Phantom.” But the sports staff kept minting big-name writers. Kit Stier on the A’s. Ron Bergman on the A’s, Raiders, and Warriors. When Warriors coach Don Nelson would complain to Bergman about his press, Bergman would tell him not to worry. “The birds shit on the paper the second day,” he’d say. For a Tribbie inclined to see Oakland as a hard-luck town, the death of a sports page is merely another data point. “The Warriors” — who will move to San Francisco in 2019 — “are already gone,” Newhouse said. “I can just hear Mark Davis or Lew Wolff saying, ‘Why should we stay in Oakland? They don’t even have a daily newspaper.’” Newhouse noted that the last issue of the Tribune wouldn’t even be delivered to him — as part of its slow death, the paper stopped delivering to homes on Mondays years ago. Newhouse sighed. “It doesn’t get any more macabre than that.” Starz We Need More (Fictional) Female Sociopaths By Allison P. Davis In an early episode of Starz’s The Girlfriend Experience — based on the Steven Soderbergh film and executive-produced by the man himself — the protagonist, played by Riley Keough, is called a “female Ted Bundy.” It’s not an insult; her male client offers the appraisal with an air of admiration because he realizes that he’s in the presence of that rare, terrifying, but pretty fun-to-watch species: the female sociopath. Keough plays Christine, a Chicago-based law student who moonlights as an escort. She doesn’t like people or interpersonal relationships, but she likes sex — specifically, having sex for money — a lot. Even in the show’s uniformly glacial, Soderberghian climate, her cool demeanor and dead-eyed stare are exceptional. Every time you see her face, it’s like being thrown into a cold-plunge pool. It’s enough to put her in the Female Sociopath Hall of Fame, right next to Revenge’s Emily Thorne, Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, and the little girl from The Bad Seed. Christine is not quite Gone Girl level; instead of Amazing Amy’s cartoonish, “cool girl” sociopathy, Christine’s tendencies are so subtle that you aren’t immediately sure of the diagnosis. What makes the serialized version of The Girlfriend Experience so watchable is this internal debate: Is she just really selfish? Is her professional ruthlessness just an aggressive version of leaning in? Does she feel emotions, or is she smiling just to get what she wants? Is she unable to feel empathy, or does she have to just pretend to be detached to deal with the emotional labor of playing doting girlfriend to an endless stream of whiny rich guys? And after all this back-and-forth, the realization that (spoiler) she’s probably just a good old-fashioned sociopath is unnerving enough to make you start to wonder how many potential sociopaths are lurking within your own inner circle. (I can think of at least three or four in mine.) Right now, networks are providing audiences with an abundance of “strong female characters”: Annalise Keating on How to Get Away With Murder, everyone without a Y chromosome on Game of Thrones, the great Olivia Benson from Law & Order: SVU. Some are antiheroines or power bitches; others are unapologetically successful and money-hungry or sexually insatiable. All of them are tasked with upending gender norms, but even our favorite “strong women” are at some point undone, or at least softened, by their emotions. Which is why I delight in watching a true female sociopath like Christine screw clients, manipulate her enemies, demand more, take it all, and destroy anyone who opposes her, without so much as a flicker of remorse. All we need now is an American Psycho with a Patricia Bateman and we’ll really be having fun. Getty Images Don’t Sleep on the NBA’s Coming Attractions By Danny Chau The Minnesota Timberwolves’ stunning victory over the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday was a beam of light shining down on what is a dead zone in most seasons. This is normally the time at the end of the season when statistically eliminated teams have nothing important to play for, when fans have little incentive to care. But there was an inarticulable, you know it when you see it quality to the Wolves that night. Between Andrew Wiggins and Shabazz Muhammad tapping into their past glories as prep-star titans and Karl-Anthony Towns showing us the shape of the NBA to come with his critical late-game defense of Steph Curry, we were treated to a sneak peek of something. And we’re seeing it not only in Minnesota. The blockbuster postseason is a week away, but for now, please enjoy the trailers for some paradigm-shifting talents, coming to a future near you. Here are a couple of others: Monster Apocalypse Flick: Giannis Antetokounmpo It was a disappointing season in Milwaukee, but fans will forever remember 2016 as the year we witnessed the birth of Jason Kidd’s Monster: a 6-foot-11 triple-double machine who was less Vitruvian Man, more Vitruvian Mantis. With Giannis, it begins and ends with his exceptional body — and that’s not a slight. When Magic Johnson would make cross-court bounce passes in the ’80s, the action was an undulation of all 6 feet and 9 inches, from the arching of the back to the downward propulsion of the ball, akin to cracking a whip. Antetokounmpo’s innate sense as a facilitator is nowhere near what Magic’s was, but Giannis similarly manipulates his physical presence to bend the will of his opponents. They sputter when he minimizes himself on the court and weaves through defenders. They buy his exaggerated ball fakes, because Giannis’s size and agility trigger an immediate fight-or-flight response. He’s a giant in the sandbox. With bated breath, we wait as he discovers the rest of the playground. The Reboot: Devin Booker Back in March, on his first-ever possession with Kobe Bryant defending him, Booker caught the ball in the post and proceeded to do what millions around the world have dreamed of: The Suns guard stole his childhood hero’s signature move — a fadeaway jumper in the post — and used it against him. Kobe loved it; he’d done the same thing to Jordan. The NBA isn’t necessarily about reinventing the wheel, but learning what can be accomplished through modern adaptation and reinterpretation. Booker, the league’s youngest player, already plays with the poise of a swingman who understands how to create for his team — something many of the league’s established wings spend several seasons easing into. Combine that with one of the NBA’s smoothest 3-point strokes, and Booker begins to resemble an unfinished, modernist Klay sculpture of Kobe himself. 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