Sunday Routine | Jane Eisner: Running on Israel Time

Running on Israel Time

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Jane Eisner, 57, who in 2008 was named the first female editor in chief in the history of the 116-year-old Jewish Daily Forward, moved to New York last year after four years of long-distance commuting from the Philadelphia suburbs. She and her husband, Dr. Mark Berger, an oncologist, live in a three-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive in the 80s with their dog, Charlie. The couple try to spend Sundays taking in the culture of the city, in between running, doing some work and seeing their grown daughter â€" one of three â€" who lives in Brooklyn.

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Game 7 of N.B.A. Finals Draws High TV Ratings

The Miami Heat’s defeat of the San Antonio Spurs in the N.B.A. finals averaged nearly 17.7 million viewers on ABC, the most to watch the Spurs play for the league championship. The higher numbers were helped by a series that went seven games and because the Spurs’ opponent was the LeBron James-led Heat.

The Spurs have generally needed a larger market team as a partner in the finals to help attract viewers. In 1999, the Spurs-Knicks finals were seen by an average of 16.0 million viewers. But the Spurs’ sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2007 averaged just 9.3 million. Only slightly better was the Spurs’ 2003 finals victory over the Nets, which averaged 9.86 million viewers.

Game 7 on Thursday night drew 26.3 million viewers, the second most to watch an N.B.A. game on ABC. The viewership peaked from 11:30 to 11:45 p.m. Eastern, at 34.2 million viewers.

In Immigration Reform, Republican Support for Citizenship Hinges on Obstacles

Two Republican senators reached a deal this week on a plan to strengthen the border security provisions of the immigration overhaul currently working its way through the Senate. Many G.O.P. legislators have said that tough border security measures are needed to garner enough Republican votes to pass a bill that also provides a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally.

But while Republicans in Congress may be focused on border security, public opinion surveys suggest that the best way to get Republican voters on board may be to emphasize the difficulty of the path itself.

Polls that describe the many requirements immigrants may have to meet to gain citizenship â€" for example, paying fines and back taxes, undergoing a criminal background check and waiting many years â€" have found much higher Republican support than polls that do not mntion the obstacles to citizenship or refer generally to “requirements.”

Among Democrats and independents, too, more requirements generally translate into more support, but the difference is not nearly as great.

Republican support nearly doubles, on average, in polls that specify the citizenship requirements compared with those that do not.

In surveys that do not specify more than one requirement, just 37 percent of Republicans support a path to citizenship. (Most polls have released partisan breakdowns, but those that have not are not included in the average.) In contrast, 72 percent of G.O.P. respondents favored citizenship in polls that laid out the obstacles immigrants here illegally would have to navi! gate. In other words, Republican support increased by an average of 35 percent.

As a result, in surveys that spell out the criteria immigrants may have to meet to become citizens, there is little difference in support among the three major partisan groups. They are within 11 percentage points of one another: 72 percent of Republicans support a path to citizenship with multiple, specified requirements, as do 77 percent of independents and 83 percent of Democrats.

It is less clear that linking citizenship to border control would have the same effect on Republican opinion.

A survey released this week by CNN was one of the few polls to ask about a path to citizenship and border security in a single question. It found that nearly half of Republican respondents, 48 percent, supported “an immigration bill that would attempt to increase border security and create a path to citizenship.” Including border security in the quesion does not appear to have increased G.O.P. support. When you average all the surveys conducted this year, including both polls that specified requirements and those that did not, 55 percent of self-identified Republicans favor a path to citizenship.

In a National Journal/United Technologies survey also released this week, only a bare majority of Republican respondents supported linking border security to citizenship: 52 percent agreed that immigrants here illegally “should not be placed on a path to citizenship until the government meets high standards for securing our borders against further illegal immigration,” and 39 percent were against linking the two.

The most recent push to pass immigration reform, during the George W. Bush administration, was scuttled in large part because grass-roots conservatives rose up a! gainst th! e effort. That has not yet happened this time around, although there are those who think it will.

So far, immigration reform advocates have highlighted the bill’s border security measures. But, if the polls are right, Democrats and pro-reform Republicans might do better in limiting a conservative backlash by emphasizing that the path to citizenship is a long and winding one.

Paula Deen Is a ‘No-Show’ on ‘Today’

Peter Kramer/NBC

Paula Deen cooking on the “Today” show earlier this year.

Paula Deen, the self-proclaimed queen of Southern cooking and a sugary mainstay of both the Food Network and the “Today” show, failed to appear on “Today” for a scheduled exclusive interview Friday morning with Matt Lauer, citing exhaustion.

Ms Deen had agreed to the interview, extensively promoted by NBC News on Thursday night, to address the uproar generated this week by her statements in a deposition for a discrimination lawsuit by a former employee. In the deposition, she admitted she had used racial epithets, tolerated racist jokes and condoned pornography in the workplace.

Clearly upset by her absence on Friday, Mr. Lauer told viewers that Ms Deen had spoken with him on Thursday, agreed to an “open and candid” discussion, flown to New York City â€" but in the morning, had her representatives cancel. “We just found out she’s a no-show,” he said. On Twitter, he added, “Hoping to get more info on the Paula Deen situation soon. Very confusing.”

She posted a Twitter message at noon saying, “I will be releasing a video statement shortly.”

Ms. Deen, 66, commands a small culinary empire, having produced numerous cookbooks, starred in cooking shows and served as a spokeswoman for Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Smithfield Foods. She and her sons own and operate a restaurant in Savannah, Ga. Her magazine “Cooking with Paula Deen,” has a circulation of nearly 1 million, her Web site says.

But Ms. Deen has managed to offend even her most uncritical fans before, most recently in January 2012 when she announced her diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes on the same day she endorsed the diabetes drug Victoza and a lucrative collaboration with Novo Nordisk, the drug’s manufacturer. Because she had built her career on a no-holds-barred approach to sugar and fat (creating recipes like a cheeseburger patty sandwiched between two doughnuts and a Better than Sex cake made with cake mix, pudding mix, and heavy cream), she was roundly criticized for encouraging an unhealthy diet for others, hiding her illness and then trying to profit from it.

On Thursday, criticism of her statements about race mounted on Twitter â€" even spawning a sarcastic hashtag, #paulasbestdishes â€" and on Ms. Deen’s own Facebook page.

The lawsuit against her was filed in March 2012 by Lisa T. Jackson, the general manager of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, a restaurant that Ms. Deen owned with her brother, Earl (Bubba) Hiers. Ms. Jackson, who is white, said that her father was Sicilian, with dark skin, and that she had suffered prejudice as a result.

In the deposition, Ms. Deen said that she had used a racial slur in the past, though not in the restaurant, and that she and her family did not tolerate prejudice. “Bubba and I, neither one of us, care what the color of your skin is” or what gender a person is, she said. “It’s what’s in your heart and in your head that matters to us.”

She also stated that “most jokes” are about Jews, gay people, black people and “rednecks.”

“I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person,” she said.

LeBron’s Odds of Catching Jordan

After LeBron James and the Miami Heat won their second consecutive N.B.A. championship on Thursday, I noted on Twitter that James was on the same pace at the Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan. Both James and Jordan won their first championship at age 27 and their second at age 28, I wrote. Jordan went on to win four more N.B.A. titles, for a total of six.

My statement depended on a technicality, I later discovered: Jordan’s biological age was 28 when he won his first championship in 1991 and 29 when he won his second in 1992. However, basketball statisticians generally define a player’s age differently: by how old he was as of Feb. 1 of an N.B.A. season, the rough midpoint of the basketball calendar. Jordan’s birthday is February 17.

Those semantics aside, it’s worth considering just how likely James might be to meet or exceed Jordan’s total of six championships. (From this point on in the article, we’ll ue the basketball statistician’s definition of age.)

Players like Jordan and James are so rare that it can be risky to compare them to anyone else. Still, one reasonably useful benchmark is to evaluate players who, like James and Jordan, had won at least one M.V.P. Award and at least one N.B.A. title as of their age-28 season, meaning that they had achieved the pinnacle of both individual and team success.

By my count, there were 13 such players in N.B.A. history prior to James. On average, they won about two additional championships (more precisely, an average of 1.9) after their age-28 season. So a reasonable over-under line for James might be two more N.B.A. titles, or four total.

It’s tough to say exact! ly what James’s odds of catching Jordan might be, as the average conceals a wide range of outcomes among the individual players. Four of the players on the list â€" Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Bob Pettit and Dave Cowens â€" would never win another championship after their age-28 season. But four others â€" Jordan, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar â€" would win four or more additional tiles.

James needs four more championships to catch Jordan, so one estimate of his odds might be 4 chances out of 13, or about 30 percent. But some of the favorable precedents, like Russell, came in an era when teams had far more ability to retain their players. Among the players on the list who played their age-28 season during the salary cap era (since 1984-85), only Jordan won four or more titles.

What seems safe to say is that you wouldn’t want to bet on James at even money. There are just too many things that can go wrong with a player’s career as he ages: injury or illness, early retiremnt, bad teammates or bad luck.

Even a team as strong as this year’s Heat began the season with only about a 30 percent chance of winning the title, according to the Las Vegas odds. That percentage happens to roughly match the historical likelihood of an N.B.A. team repeating as champion, which is 33 percent.

So LeBron’s chances of winning a third title next season in Miami are probably about one-in-three. After that, his odds begin to decline. For one thing, James will be less certain to be surrounded by strong teammates. (James has the right to opt out of his contract after next season, and even if he stays in Miami, teammates like Dwyane Wade are already seeing their skills atrophy.)

More important, players in team sports typically see their skills peak in their mid-to-late 20s, meaning that James’s ga! me might ! also begin to wane. The N.B.A. is a superstar’s league, and if James goes from being M.V.P.-caliber to mere All-Star by a few years from now, it will hurt his odds of winning further titles considerably.

In the chart below, I’ve estimated a player’s chances of winning an N.B.A. title based his Win Shares, a statistic calculated by basketball-reference.com that measures a player’s overall value to his team. The chart is built on data from all N.B.A. seasons since the introduction of the salary cap in 1984-85, excluding the two regular seasons (1998-99 and 2011-12) that were shortened by labor disputes.

During this period, the best N.B.A. player in the league in a given season has averaged about 18 Win Shares, which is a reasonably good match for James’s performance over the last several years. The model estimates that such a player has about a 20 or 5 percent chance of winning the championship in today’s N.B.A. environment.

What about the fifth-best player in the league â€" someone equivalent to the worst player on the All-N.B.A. team? That player has averaged about 13 Win Shares â€" which translates into only about a 10 percent chance of winning the championship instead.

Moving further down the chart, the 10th-best player in the N.B.A. at a given time has only about a 7 percent chance of winning a title, according to the model. And the 25th-best player â€" someone who might be the last reserve added to one of the conference All-Star teams â€" has only about a 5 percent chance.

This isn’t much better than an N.B.A. player chosen at random, who has a 3.3 percent chance of becoming! a champi! on by virtue of being on one of the 30 N.B.A. teams. A borderline All-Star in the N.B.A., in other words, is much closer to being a role player than a superstar, at least when it comes to his odds of winning a championship.

James, of course, will have considerable freedom to pick his employer. If he put winning titles above all other considerations, he could sign on for whatever role at whatever salary with whichever team he perceived as having the best chance to win the championship in a given season.

Few players in N.B.A. history have been willing to take things to quite that extreme. Instead, superstars expect teams to build around them â€" even if they are past their prime, and even if it means something as inglorious as Jordan’s late years spent with the Washington Wizards.

One can forgive Jordan, who didn’t have anything left to prove. But to match him, James will need to win two or three more titles over the next several seasons while he still plays at an M.V.P. level - which wil require good health and some good luck. Then he may need to chase after the last couple of titles by being willing to play the right role with the right club.

LeBron’s Odds of Catching Jordan

After LeBron James and the Miami Heat won their second consecutive N.B.A. championship on Thursday, I noted on Twitter that James was on the same pace at the Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan. Both James and Jordan won their first championship at age 27 and their second at age 28, I wrote. Jordan went on to win four more N.B.A. titles, for a total of six.

My statement depended on a technicality, I later discovered: Jordan’s biological age was 28 when he won his first championship in 1991 and 29 when he won his second in 1992. However, basketball statisticians generally define a player’s age differently: by how old he was as of Feb. 1 of an N.B.A. season, the rough midpoint of the basketball calendar. Jordan’s birthday is February 17.

Those semantics aside, it’s worth considering just how likely James might be to meet or exceed Jordan’s total of six championships. (From this point on in the article, we’ll ue the basketball statistician’s definition of age.)

Players like Jordan and James are so rare that it can be risky to compare them to anyone else. Still, one reasonably useful benchmark is to evaluate players who, like James and Jordan, had won at least one M.V.P. Award and at least one N.B.A. title as of their age-28 season, meaning that they had achieved the pinnacle of both individual and team success.

By my count, there were 13 such players in N.B.A. history prior to James. On average, they won about two additional championships (more precisely, an average of 1.9) after their age-28 season. So a reasonable over-under line for James might be two more N.B.A. titles, or four total.

It’s tough to say exact! ly what James’s odds of catching Jordan might be, as the average conceals a wide range of outcomes among the individual players. Four of the players on the list â€" Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Bob Pettit and Dave Cowens â€" would never win another championship after their age-28 season. But four others â€" Jordan, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar â€" would win four or more additional tiles.

James needs four more championships to catch Jordan, so one estimate of his odds might be 4 chances out of 13, or about 30 percent. But some of the favorable precedents, like Russell, came in an era when teams had far more ability to retain their players. Among the players on the list who played their age-28 season during the salary cap era (since 1984-85), only Jordan won four or more titles.

What seems safe to say is that you wouldn’t want to bet on James at even money. There are just too many things that can go wrong with a player’s career as he ages: injury or illness, early retiremnt, bad teammates or bad luck.

Even a team as strong as this year’s Heat began the season with only about a 30 percent chance of winning the title, according to the Las Vegas odds. That percentage happens to roughly match the historical likelihood of an N.B.A. team repeating as champion, which is 33 percent.

So LeBron’s chances of winning a third title next season in Miami are probably about one-in-three. After that, his odds begin to decline. For one thing, James will be less certain to be surrounded by strong teammates. (James has the right to opt out of his contract after next season, and even if he stays in Miami, teammates like Dwyane Wade are already seeing their skills atrophy.)

More important, players in team sports typically see their skills peak in their mid-to-late 20s, meaning that James’s ga! me might ! also begin to wane. The N.B.A. is a superstar’s league, and if James goes from being M.V.P.-caliber to mere All-Star by a few years from now, it will hurt his odds of winning further titles considerably.

In the chart below, I’ve estimated a player’s chances of winning an N.B.A. title based his Win Shares, a statistic calculated by basketball-reference.com that measures a player’s overall value to his team. The chart is built on data from all N.B.A. seasons since the introduction of the salary cap in 1984-85, excluding the two regular seasons (1998-99 and 2011-12) that were shortened by labor disputes.

During this period, the best N.B.A. player in the league in a given season has averaged about 18 Win Shares, which is a reasonably good match for James’s performance over the last several years. The model estimates that such a player has about a 20 or 5 percent chance of winning the championship in today’s N.B.A. environment.

What about the fifth-best player in the league â€" someone equivalent to the worst player on the All-N.B.A. team? That player has averaged about 13 Win Shares â€" which translates into only about a 10 percent chance of winning the championship instead.

Moving further down the chart, the 10th-best player in the N.B.A. at a given time has only about a 7 percent chance of winning a title, according to the model. And the 25th-best player â€" someone who might be the last reserve added to one of the conference All-Star teams â€" has only about a 5 percent chance.

This isn’t much better than an N.B.A. player chosen at random, who has a 3.3 percent chance of becoming! a champi! on by virtue of being on one of the 30 N.B.A. teams. A borderline All-Star in the N.B.A., in other words, is much closer to being a role player than a superstar, at least when it comes to his odds of winning a championship.

James, of course, will have considerable freedom to pick his employer. If he put winning titles above all other considerations, he could sign on for whatever role at whatever salary with whichever team he perceived as having the best chance to win the championship in a given season.

Few players in N.B.A. history have been willing to take things to quite that extreme. Instead, superstars expect teams to build around them â€" even if they are past their prime, and even if it means something as inglorious as Jordan’s late years spent with the Washington Wizards.

One can forgive Jordan, who didn’t have anything left to prove. But to match him, James will need to win two or three more titles over the next several seasons while he still plays at an M.V.P. level - which wil require good health and some good luck. Then he may need to chase after the last couple of titles by being willing to play the right role with the right club.