New York Times, Saturday, October 11, 2014

I'm particularly proud of this themeless puzzle as it features the seed entry of one of my favorite pro athletes, KEVIN DURANT of the Oklahoma City Thunder. I'd love to say I knew exactly how big Durant's star would become when I originally conceived this puzzle, but that's not the case. I got lucky. When I first constructed this themeless back in late 2012, Durant was just a 24-year-old kid with a dream (and, OK, three NBA scoring titles). I had no idea he'd become a league MVP, nor did I anticipate that 15-Across, BREAKING BAD, was gearing up for an amazing final season that would place it among the best TV shows of all time. Again, fortuitously timed for this puzzle. Thank you, Vince Gilligan.

I was pleased with my construction of this grid, featuring the stacked 11s in the corners and the 15-letter GREASE THE WHEELS through the middle. The fill actually came together with relative ease — I finished off the bottom half first in a rather contained fashion, allowing for a great deal of freedom in the top half. I was basically able to include two seed entries, which made me giddy to no end.

As for my cluing, it can still use some work, to be sure. I give Will all the credit for sprucing mine up (and thereby elevating the difficulty to Saturday level). And hey, at least he kept my "Manhattan architect?" clue for BARTENDER.

Debut! Always impressive to see a debut in a themeless grid, as the competition for themeless slots is fierce. I like what Evans did today, connecting two sides of the grid with GREASE THE WHEELS, appropriately enough. Often that connectivity requires a compromise, reducing the number of long (8+ letter) slots, but we get 15 of them today. All sorts of potential.

That SE quadrant was both fantastic and bittersweet. Seeing KEVIN DURANT brings me painful memories of our beloved Sonics being ripped away, but he's such a crazy good player, plus he manages to keep his humility and even donates to charity. For this NBA addict this entry was a gimme, but I can imagine that a lot of folks are going to have trouble, especially crossing ADP. I personally know that company well, as they're a major player in payroll handling, but it's not something I would expect many to know.

It brings up some questions interesting to me. Yes, Durant gets millions of Google hits, but is he 1.) fair game for crosswords and/or 2.) desirable as a debut entry? I generally shy away from entries that either a solver either knows or doesn't — those in the latter camp often leave with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Even if all the crosses are perfectly fair and the solver learns something, KEVIN DURANT might be only as relevant to their life as the latest rapper or the boy band of the week. So I think any MVP is fair game, but I personally favor entries like the colorful FROG MARCH when it comes to a debut. Much more likely to appeal to a bigger number of market segments.

All the connectivity throughout the grid brings great flow, no section cordoned off from the rest. That does bring trade-offs though, as connecting the quadrants in so many different ways brings the little glue entries like SOC, SER, AT ME right in those transition regions. Generally I sense inelegance when there's roughly more than five glue entries in a themeless, so when you're going to need some TRAVE, LII, SGTS stuff as well, it can be a tough call as to how much interconnectivity is optimal.

All in all, a nice debut with quite a few strong entries and clues. BARTENDER is a good entry in itself, and using a clue like [Manhattan architect?] really makes it sing.