July 1st, 2013

The Dwight Howard sweepstakes has “officially begun”.  However, does anybody really think that Dwight does not already know where he’s going?  This dude has had almost a full year to think about where he wants to go, and knows exactly what each team is offering.  Do you really expect me to believe that one of these teams is going to “convince” him of where he’s going?  If you do, than you are more naive than teenage girl.  According to Hoopsworld writer Alex Kennedy, the Rockets are now “cocky” because they are so confident they will land Howard.

Meanwhile, the Lakers have shown their pathetic desperation to keep Dwight by posting billboards all over town.  This is the kind of crap they would do in Cleveland or Orlando, but should not be doing in LA.  What’s next?  A song coming out this week pleading him to stay?  This lame piece of work was put together in Orlando:

There have been some rumors circulating that the Lakers may be prepared to fire Mike D’Antoni since they have yet to allow him to hire any more assistant coaches, and since Kurt Rambis’ name came up as a potential addition to the staff.  It’s an interesting theory, but if the Lakers were serious about keeping Dwight, they would have already fired D’Antoni, and assured him that Phil Jackson would be coaching the team.  In 2004, the Lakers had traded Shaq prior to trying to convince Kobe to re-sign with the team.  Even then, Kobe was on the verge of leaving the Lakers, before eventually coming back.  The Lakers recruiting plan is worse than the European debt plan.

Chris Paul’s free agency will be rather uneventful, which is great news for the Clippers.  In typical Chris Broussard fashion, he is reporting that Lebron James’ sources have informed him that sources close to Paul saw them at a club with Drake last night, and he received a call in the morning, saying that he will be re-signing with the Clippers.

The NBA draft is a joke.  How are teams that are starving for talent supposed to improve themselves when they are forced to select completely underdeveloped players?  Nobody is tall anymore, but instead, certain players “have great length”.  Nobody is a great player, but instead, some players “have great upside”.  On Thursday night, all I heard was 3 hours of Jay Bilas talking about wingspans.    It’s no wonder teams like Sacramento, Charlotte, and Detroit have been picking in the lottery for years yet are still in the league’s basement.

Very quietly, the Dodgers and Angels are starting to make moves.   The boys in blue are a little bit healthier, and they’ve now won 8 of the last 10 games, moving just 4 games back of first place Arizona in the NL West.  Yasiel Puig has been hotter than a whore house on nickel night, and added 4 more hits yesterday.  He finished his first full month in the majors with 44 hits, which is 2nd only to the legendary Joe DiMaggio.  Just think how good the Dodgers could be if Matt Kemp could pull his shit together?  This isn’t the most well put together ball club, but at least they are back in the playoff race.

As for the Halos, they’ve won 6 straight, and are 7.5 games back in the wild card race.  Although the team still has a big climb ahead of them, their pitching hasn’t looked like dog crap for the first time all year.  The bad news is that Peter Bourjos is going back on the disabled list because of a fracture below his right wrist, and Josh Hamilton is still fairly useless.

The Kings and Ducks had a very anti-climactic NHL draft, but things should get interesting this week.  LA is moving closer to a deal with defenseman Rob Scuderi, who is a vital part of their stellar defensive core, but Scuderi will have to take a discount to fit under the cap.  The Ducks locked up veteran defenseman Ben Lovejoy earlier in the week, but need to figure out what’s going to happen with Teemu Selanne.  Selanne’s annual retirement dilemma has made him the Brett Favre of the NHL.

The Aaron Hernandez murder trial has once again, made me question the long term health risks to playing professional football.  Can taking all those hits make you dumb enough to kill somebody when you are a multi-millionaire with a fiancee and an 8 month old daughter?  It seems clear the answer is yes.  Nevertheless, the Patriots did a commendable job of releasing Aaron Hernandez before even letting the justice system take its course.

Has anybody tried the “Monkey Style” Burger at In-N-Out?  I’ve always been a fan of the secret menu at In-N-Out, but only recently did I discover this item on that menu.  I’ve gotta admit, I was skeptical at first, but Animal Style fries in your burger make it that much better.  I was afraid I’d die of a heart attack from all the cholesterol, but it was definitely amazing.

I recently decided to see if all this hype about AMC’s Mad Men was justified.  I’m only through the first 4 seasons, but I have to admit, it’s a bit of a let down.  Since I’m already this far, I’m committed to watching the last two seasons, but the show is just too slow, and the characters aren’t interesting enough.  I completely understand the appeal of the 60’s, especially to the Baby Boomers, however, the show just repeats the same themes of adultery, sexism, and alcoholism in Don Draper’s life.  With no other interesting characters, these themes get a bit old after 4 seasons.   The show is also only focused on the white privileged wall street folks in that era as well, which leaves the show without enough depth.

June 24th, 2013

Donald Sterling was hoping he could take the easy way out again.  He was going to tell Chris Paul he tried to give him what he wanted and thought that would be good enough.  Sterling turned out to be more naive than Manti Te’o, because Chris Paul wasn’t going to let up.  Paul convinced Sterling to fork over 3 years and $21 million to Doc Rivers after a week of public pressure.  The Clippers have now taken a huge step in transforming the culture of their team by adding one of the top coaches in the NBA.  As a result, Paul is now expected to re-sign with Clippers in one week for 5 years and $107 million.

Now comes the tricky part.  The Clippers would complete their identity change by acquiring Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, but that will be impossible in a two team deal.  David Stern has already informed both teams he will impose his dictatorship and veto this deal for no other reason, other than being an a-hole, and pissing off Marcellus Wiley and the remaining 10 Clipper fans.  However,  the Clippers may still be able to acquire Garnett in a 3 team trade, which would be hard for Stern to veto.  At that point, how could Stern argue that the Rivers deal and the Garnett trade were contingent upon one another?  Garnett may be older than the bible, but he could vault the Clippers into championship contention.

Meanwhile, the Lakers are bracing themselves for the departure of Dwight Howard.  Laker general manager Mitch Kupchak mentioned to the media that Phil Jackson was serving as an un-official consultant for the team.  Dwight has expressed his desire for Phil to be part of the organization, but we all know that really can’t happen until Jimmy Buss starts to play nice with his future brother in law.  Maybe Jimmy is banking on the fact that Dwight changes his mind more than a teenage girl, however, even Donald Sterling was convinced to bring in someone to appease his star player. Are you really going to let Donald Sterling outsmart you Jimmy?

Yasiel Puig needs to be an all-star.  In 19 games this season, he has easily been the best Dodger player, and the most exciting in the entire league.  Of course baseball purists will say he hasn’t earned it, but I hear those people also enjoy watching paint dry.  The MLB instituted a rule that every team needs to have at least one all-star, and Puig should certainly be that for the Dodgers, with all due respect to Clayton Kershaw.  Besides, now that Bud Selig decided to make the all-star game determine home field advantage in the World Series, it’s that much more important to have a player like Puig in there, who is one of the hottest hitters in baseball.  That would be a small consolation in a season from hell for the Dodgers.

Speaking of hell, the Angels were swept away by the Pittsburgh Pirates at the Big A this weekend.  Does anybody realize how bad the pitching is for these guys?  The Halos have now lost 8 times when they score at least 6 runs.  If they had won just 5 of those games, they would be back at .500.  Only 3 teams in all of baseball have a worse team ERA than the Angels, and one of them is the Houston Astros, who aren’t even trying!

Many Kings fans were surprised they didn’t get a bigger return for backup goaltender Jonathan Bernier, however, general manager Dean Lombardi really pulled off highway robbery.  The only thing that pisses me off is that we helped out that two-face bastard Tim Leiweke.  That guy deserves to go find his own damn goaltender after trashing Kings fans!  In any case the Kings got two useful players, and Toronto payed a third of their salary.  Sending Bernier out also improves their reputation of how they develop players.  Plus, how can you not love your new backup goalie when he posts this on his twitter feed?

I’m hip! I’m with it! https://vine.co/v/bVUnQKwBLKl 

I hope nobody in my keeper fantasy football league was planning on having Aaron Hernandez on their team this season.  Even if he is somehow able to avoid jail time, Rodger Goodell is going to suspend this guy for eternity for being a dumb ass.  Why does this guy feel the need to carry so many guns?  He’s busy carrying guns, while Tom Brady is carrying the Patriots.

I just have one question for Kim and Kanye: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?  North West?  I wonder how old that child will be when she comes to the realization that her parents were senseless morons?  Then again, by that age, I’m pretty sure that her parents will be long separated by then, since Kim changes partners more frequently than a Nascar Driver changes tires.

Doesn’t the name “Edward Snowden” make you think we are talking about some Game of Thrones character?  Everyone is all up in arms about their rights when this story came out, but people are freaking out over nothing.  The US government isn’t reading emails and listening to phone conversations to find out what color panties your girlfriend is wearing.  As long as you aren’t talking to Al Qaeda, or some other terrorist group, I’m pretty sure the government doesn’t really care.  I don’t complain when I have to go through a long security process at the airport because it keeps the airport safe.  I see this the same way.  As for Snowden, who is now in Russia, here’s an idea: Putin should give the U.S. Snowden and Robert Craft’s Super Bowl Ring, and we’ll give them George Zimmerman and Frank McCourt.

Finally, watching Nic Wallenda’s high wire across the Grand Canyon on Discovery was one of the most amazing, and simultaneously, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.  For a man who has made Christianity such a focal point in his life, even Jesus has to be wondering what kind of idiot would high wire across the Grand Canyon in jeans?  Obviously, if this guy were blacked out drunk he could still pass a sobriety test with skills like that.   I love how he jogged across the wire for the last few feet as well.

June 17th, 2013

Well folks, it’s that time of the week where I remind you all how much our So Cal baseball teams stink.  The Angels found a way to be pathetic on and off the field this weekend.  The Angels were promoting Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera coming to town this weekend, and even gave out collectible certificates commemorating his career.  Are you kidding?  Don’t we have enough douchy Yankee fans that are showing up to the Big A when NY comes to town?  Arte Moreno must be getting desperate to fill all the empty seats at the stadium.

The team was equally as horrible on the field yesterday as well, with a 6-5 loss against the Yankees.  Once again, Jered Weaver looked more like Sigourney Weaver after getting lit up for 5 runs and 7 hits in 6 innings of work.  The Halos tried to rally, but Albert Pujols proved that $250 million just doesn’t buy what it used to, when he struck out with the bases loaded to end the game. One a positive note, Josh Hamilton’s batting average didn’t drop any further, and that’s a relief because Mike Scioscia kept him chained to the bench.  Oh by the way, Torii Hunter is making half of what Hamilton is this year, and he’s batting nearly 100 points higher and driven in more runs.

Then there’s the Dodgers, who continued to take one step forward followed by three steps backward.  The Boys in Blue dropped 2 of 3 to the Pirates, and are now a season worst 10 games under .500.  This team couldn’t hit water if it fell out of a boat.  Yasiel Puig is hitting .479, and he can’t even save this team.  Don Mattingly did announced that Puig is going to remain in the major leagues for the rest of the season, so at least the team will be entertaining.  The Dodgers are 5.5 games behind the Padres, who have a payroll that’s not even one-third of LA’s.  Now I see what the Dodgers meant by “A Whole New Blue”.  Watching this season hurts more than blue balls.

Why is Clayton Kershaw so upset over details of his contract extension leaking?  Kershaw claims it’s a distraction, but let’s be honest,  we all need a distraction from this piece of crap season the Dodgers are giving us.

The NBA rumors surrounding the Clippers this weekend were crazier than Justin Bieber speeding through a neighborhood full of kids.  The Clipps were deep into negotiations with the Celtics, and were attempting to acquire Doc Rivers, Kevin Garnett, and eventually Paul Pierce, while giving up Deandre Jordan, Caron Butler, and some draft picks.  Both sides reached an impasse after the Clippers refused to put Eric Bledsoe in the deal.  The most shocking part of this deal would be the fact that Donald Sterling would be willing to pay Doc Rivers $7 million per year.  I’m still waiting for Sterling to call the deal off when he finds out it’s really Doc Rivers and not Doctor Jack Ramsey.

Even if the Clippers pull this off without including Bledsoe in the deal, the rumor that Blake Griffin and Bledsoe could be dealt in a sign and trade for Dwight Howard is hard to imagine.  Although Griffin and Bledsoe solve a lot of the Lakers current problems, Jim Buss isn’t going to help another franchise in his own building put together a super team with Chris Paul and Dwight Howard.  The Lakers end game is to try and acquire Lebron next summer, even if the chances of an asteroid hitting LA are greater.  Letting Dwight Howard go to the Clippers would not only reduce the Lakers chances of landing Lebron, but would also increase the chances of the Clippers landing Lebron next summer if Pierce and Garnett retire.  In other words, Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak would have to be drinking jet fuel in order for them to trade Howard to the Clippers.

Speaking of the NBA, ESPN insider Marc Stein is a fantastic and reliable reporter, however, he’s a bitch.  Back in 2002, Stein refused to come on my Jock Talk radio show at UC Irvine, and he said “sorry, you are an Anteater, and I’m a Triton, can’t do it.  Great show though”.  Good reporting this weekend Marc.  You’re still a bitch though.

Phil Mickelson is the Kevin Durant of the PGA.  Mr. 2nd place!

Did anybody catch the Miss USA pageant yesterday?  Miss Utah stumbled and rambled through a question regarding income disparity in the U.S., and ended her bizarre statement with a  “to create better education” phrase.  This was not as bad as Miss Teen South Carolina’s legendary jibberish back in 2007, but still gave everyone watching a good laugh.  I’ve never really understood the concept of the Q&A portions of these pageants.  More often than not, it just makes these women look like morons.  It’s a beauty pageant, not a Model United Nations Conference!