Well, so far, here's how I see it: 44caliber is giving hagrid a run for his money in the first debate. He scored major points for coming out on the offensive, being eloquent and easy to read at the same time. Hagrid loses points because he was a tad condescending with his "toying". Nothing against hagrid, it just struck me wrong. 44caliber surged ahead with the lead. Hagrid was offering no defense, merely "toying". 44caliber took the opportunity, and turned a simple question into another way to strengthen his opening argument. Hagrid gained some ground when he finally decided to argue his point, but his opening argument wasn't as strong. Caliber came back with another very effective rebuttal. At this point, Caliber has a large lead. Hagrid gains some ground in his next rebuttal, with the very effective point that as GM he put his stamp on the franchise. It wasn't the greatest of rebuttals, but was solid and effective. Here's where I feel Caliber kind of lost it. He could have kept attacking ruthlessly, but his argument faltered a tad. His explanation of the other 5 championships was weak, I felt he could have done more with that point. But he quickly rebounded with his point about Russell making his teammates better. The story about Russell adds a lot to the point too, more than it seems. The middle of this rebuttal was very effective, but just like the beginning, the end fell short. Caliber conceded the point that Auerbach put Russell there, which hurt him. He didn't need to. Just keep denying to the very end. At this point, hagrid's closing in, but Caliber still has the lead. Hagrid makes a great point about the Celtics being good before Russell came. 63 point MJ example is a tad weak. Obviously no man is a team, but Caliber clearly said that Russell's greatness was in his ability to make the players around him better, making the overall team great. Example would stand, but Caliber saw this and knocked it down in his next rebuttal. The idea that Red would have been given the keys to the franchise even without Russell (presuming that they would have made the leap from playoff to championship team without him) is unsupported. Overall though, still quite a persuasive argument. Caliber's opening rebuttal is weak, and is simply a question, not backed up much at all. The debaters seem to be tiring. He makes a great point about how a mediocre coach with a great player that leads him to championships me be thought great, unfortunately for him, hagrid stomps all over this point (quite effectively) when he says that even putting a great player on the team, it takes a great coach to utilize him correctly. Caliber, as mentioned above, does a nice job holding his ground and refuting hagrid's faulty rebuttal, then moves on to once again concede, Auerbach is the greatest coach of all time. Another unneccesary concession. The example about the Lakers is weak, because it was precisely NOT a good GMing job by Kupchak. Hagrid ignored it, so it still stands, albeit shakily. Caliber then concedes too much in his final paragraph. Hagrid comes back with a good rebuttal that I mentioned above, but doesn't, in my mind, do a very effective job slamming his points home. Here is where he has to put the nails in the coffin, slam his points hom over and over and over. Not done 100% effectively. As it currently stands, if I were to rate the debate in terms of points, from 1-50, I would give hagrid a 47 and Caliber a 45. But it's not over! I believe he still has until 10 AM to close that 2 point gap.
