Monthly Archives: January 2020

Monday Morning Coffee

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January 27, 2020

This is by far the hardest Monday Morning Coffee I have ever had to write. Let me start by saying my heart goes out to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family, as well as the families of all the other people that were on that flight. Obviously, everyone is going to talk about Kobe, but there were 8 other people on that flight that were people with families as well, and some people that were even close to some of my own family members. Yesterday’s helicopter crash was a shocking tragedy that left me shaken, and like many of you, I’m sobbing and sick to my stomach.

It’s amazing that the man that at times appeared to be invincible died yesterday. As a life-long Laker fan, and a Newport Beach resident, Kobe has felt like a part of my life, and that of many other Southern Californians for the last twenty years. We watched him grow up and mature before our very eyes, and captivate us for decades. It was easy to take for granted, but he was an absolute privilege to watch. Every time he took the court, you knew that you were watching greatness, and waiting for what he was going to do next.



I love the fact that Kobe defied logic on the basketball court. He built his career on making impossible shots. These impossible shots that he made were the shots that his opponents were hoping he would take, yet that’s how he succeeded.

Kobe also commanded respect from everyone. Even his most hated rivals, and those that hated him as a player or person. His work ethic and his ability to push through pain was second to none. I always loved it when over the years someone would tell me how much they hated Kobe, yet how much they had to respect him for all that. That work ethic is what’s so inspirational to people around the world.

What makes me even more sad is knowing how much closer it felt Kobe got to the current Laker players over the last few weeks. He finally started going to games again because Gigi got him into it. Dwight Howard is going to be in the Slam Dunk Contest next month at All-Star Weekend, and he wanted to have Kobe be a part of his routine. Their relationship had come so far. Then Kobe had expressed his support for Lebron before LBJ eclipsed his scoring mark on Saturday night.

Coincidentally, in recent days I began asking myself about Kobe’s legacy as Lebron approached his scoring mark. I thought to myself that Kobe’s legacy was largely around basketball. However, after seeing everyone’s reaction the last 24 hours, it solidified the fact that Kobe’s legacy goes beyond basketball. First of all, thanks to Kobe, he set a ridiculous standard for winning in Los Angeles. If you aren’t in the business of competing for championships, then we think you suck. Why do you think I complain about Andrew Friedman and the Dodgers every week?

More than anything though, Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality” is a metaphor for life. Kobe gave every ounce of his body on the basketball court until he physically had nothing left give and his body couldn’t handle it anymore. He also took that approach after basketball, and even won an Oscar. The metaphor is that if you don’t give it your all no matter what you’re doing in life, you will wake up one day with a lot of regret. In other words, live life every day like Kobe did…..pretending like your house is on fire, and strive to be great. You only have one life to live and approaching it with that mentality is this reason why Kobe inspires people around the world. Thank you Kobe for inspiring us all.

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Monday Morning Coffee

January 20, 2020

The Lakers have won 12 games in a row against teams over .500. That can’t be correct right? I mean we were all told that the Lakers only beat bad teams and couldn’t compete against the elite. Did I mention the fact they beat the Rockets on the road without Anthony Davis? Suddenly I don’t hear anybody complaining about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope anymore. At this point the Lake Show needs to figure out how to match up better with the Clippers and Bucks, as well as stay healthy. That’s it. That’s a pretty damn good position to be in. Also, those of you that want to trade Kyle Kuzma need to take an elementary school math class. You can’t trade a guy making $2 milion for a guy making $20 million in the NBA. This also goes for “Scream’in A Smith” who thinks the Lakers should trade Kuzma to Phoenix for Devin Booker. Kuz isn’t going anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Clippers are still approaching each game like a high school Senior that’s been accepted to college. I realize the Clips want to load manage not just Kawhi, but their entire approach to these games. However, they probably don’t want to settle for anything less than a top 3 seed. Otherwise they could potentially face the Lakers before the conference finals. For all the depth the Clips have as well, they sure could use some bigger bodies on the front line. There is some wild speculation out there about what the team could do, but I can’t see them moving Harrell or Lou Williams without seeing what this group can do in the playoffs first.

To the NFL where the 49ers ran over the Packers yesterday and are in the Super Bowl. This Packer loss must be Mike McCarthy’s fault too right? Aaron Rodgers just lost the NFC Championship Game to a Backstreet Boy with a nice defense. State Farm’s hopes and dreams were completely shattered after their two biggest celebrity endorsers won’t meet in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs handled business yesterday against the Titans and are in the Super Bowl. Andy Reid is pumped he’s only one win away from an epic fast food buffet at The White House. The only thing more impressive than the Chief’s comeback is the fact Andy Reid did it without blowing all his timeouts like he usually does. Patrick Mahomes may be the man, and he may be a very rich man this off-season, but he still has to go home to a very annoying girlfriend. I’m not even dating her and I want to break up with her.

So let me get this straight. You think that Tom Brady is actually going to play for the Chargers next season? Dean Spanos is so cheap, he breathes through his nose to keep from wearing out his teeth. Tom Brady is too smart to play for a bum owner like Dean Spanos. Not to mention it wouldn’t even make sense for the franchise. If they are going to replace Philip Rivers, they shouldn’t replace him with an old quarterback when they can draft a good one this year with their 1st round pick. Even if they are just trying to sell tickets in the new stadium, they are better off doing it with a young player.

To baseball where the cheating scandal the Astros and Red Sox were a part of is only getting worse, as we hear more about it. This completely altered the legacy of Clayton Kershaw, and the career and earnings of Yu Darvish. Everybody owes these two men a serious apology, because the cheating qualifies what happened in 2017, and even in 2018. As for the MLB, they should absolutely strip the title from the Astros. The fact Rob Manfred won’t tells me the Commissioner earned his degree from the Vince McMahon School of Ethics in Sports. This doesn’t excuse the Dodger front office from not doing enough. Andrew Friedman is so saavy with his analytics, yet his software can’t figure out that the opponent is cheating. I think the only solution is for the Dodgers to cheat to win the 2020 World Series. That way they win and Andrew Friedman gets fired. Sounds like a win-win for everybody.

Did you watch the NCAA Championship Football game last week? They should have just saved everyone a lot of time and had the Republican National Convention at halftime. Trump was cheering for Clemson right? I mean they are both Orange. Ed Oregeron needs to be the new voice on the Waze app. I guess it makes sense why USC didn’t want him as their coach. He’s a winner, which does’t fit their culture. When exactly did College Football give up on playing defense? That game is more reason that the playoff shouldn’t be expanded. The difference between the top team in nation and everybody else is usually pretty significant. LSU crushed it, and was far and away the best college football team in the country this year. However, Joe Burrow will probably retire now that he’s going to be drafted by the Bengals.

I can’t believe you suckers paid $65 to watch Conor McGregor fight for 40 seconds on Saturday night. I saw the entire fight on YouTube through somebody sitting in the front row and I paid nothing. What’s the ROI on your $65 investment? Meanwhile you’re all like…..

Finally, another episode of The Bachelor went down on ABC last week, and it’s back tonight. The last episode proved nothing other than HANNAH B IS STILL OUR NEXT BACHELORETTE. The season will probably end with Peter as Hannah’s boyfriend. Something tells me the majority of these girls don’t need $20,000 of Revolve clothing. They seriously brought Demi back for an episode? I love how Kelsey just gave Peter a $5 bottle of Andre to replace her expensive bottle of Dom. Gotta love Kelsey trying to explain that bullying only counts if you do it more than once. Here’s a full recap of the episode:

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Monday Morning Coffee

January 13, 2020

You guys still want to trade Amber Rose…..I mean Kyle Kuzma? Kuz has been balling since the trade rumors started, but most of you Laker fans have the patience of a 5-year old. You can’t trade a guy with that much potential for spare parts, which is the only thing he can bring back at the moment. Meanwhile, Lebron played Friday’s game against the Mavericks like Luka Doncic was hitting on his wife. I wish Lebron would take these games against Kawhi and the Clippers that personal, because he’s going to need to for the Lake Show to beat them. Anybody still think Rob Pelinka doesn’t know what he’s doing? Congrats to him for getting a promotion and an extension despite having to deal with Magic Johnson, who probably didn’t even know how to turn his computer on in the Laker front office. I love seeing Alex Caruso being 6th in All-Star voting for West guards. For any player that has a problem with it, I suggest you call your agent and demand a trade to the Lakers.

Meanwhile, the Clippers are acting like they are in the 3rd year of a championship run with the way they are not showing up against crummy teams. It’s like they have a championship hangover without the championship, and without the alcohol. It shouldn’t take Paul George and Kawhi Leonard to beat the Grizzlies, and even without them, they should have handled the Warriors and Knicks easily. Instead, it was a struggle. Apparently this team only shows up to play against the Lakers. That’s great, except they don’t get to play the Lakers 82 times a year. Ironically, the Clips don’t matchup as well with everybody else as they matchup with the Lakers. Nevertheless, if they don’t start bringing it against everybody else, we might not get to see Lakers v Clippers in the playoffs like we all hope to.

To the NFL where the Houston Texans need to start cheating like the Astros to win in the playoffs. The Falcons blew a 28-3 lead in a half, but the Texans said “hold my beer” and blew a 24-0 lead in one quarter. Pete Caroll must have been shocked to learn that Marshawn Lynch could score from the one yard line, and we were shocked to learn he punted to Aaron Rogers down 5 with 2:50 left. The Ravens lost as well, which is the worst thing to happen to the franchise since they erected a statue of a murderer. The 49ers won again, and Bill Belichick is going to drown himself in the Boston Harbor if Jimmy G makes it to the Super Bowl. This Packers lineman is actually wearing a thong!

Somebody neesds to take Keenan Allen’s Twitter account away from him. He didn’t seem to realize that Mike McCarthy didn’t coach the Packers anymore when the Cowboys hired him. You you would think someone with as much time on his hands would know what’s going on in the NFL. Then again, he might have been doing some day drinking.

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It’s going from bad to worse for UCLA Basketball. They’ve lost 5 of their lat 6 games, and are already near the bottom of the PAC-12 after losing to USC. The Bruins are just 8-8, and they are scoring less than a pimple faced high schooler on Prom night. There is no elite scorer on this team, and defensively can only take them so far. I have no idea how good of a coach Mick Cronin is yes, but I sure hope he has the ability to recruit, because he will need to in order to get Bruin basketball back to a respectable level. UCLA should never lose to USC in basketball, let alone on their home floor. It’s going to be a rough couple of months ahead.

We are exactly a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training and the Dodgers haven’t done crap in the offseason. They should change their name to “The Bears” since their front office goes into hibernation during the winter. The worst part is that Stan Kasten is claiming that they will surpass the luxury tax this year. The Dodgers are about $25 million away from the tax, which tells me that they will be spending money on some very mediocre players left in free agency if they plan on spending that much more. Then again, they signed a mediocre player yesterday in Alex Wood, so maybe I shouldn’t be all the surprised. Nolan Arrenado, Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor, and Mookie Betts are all available, the Dodgers have the assets to get one, yet they don’t want to do anything to make their club better. This front office is pathetic.

Then there’s the Angels, who are really going to go into another season without any pitching. The Halos blew all their money on Anthony Rendon, which is nice and all, but it’s like buying a nice car when you need fix your roof. The Halos need to hope that Shohei Ohtani turns into Nolan Ryan and that he can stay healthy. Otherwise, you can count on the Astros running over them again in the division, and another wasted year of Mike Trout.

Every time I hear about the LA Kings these days, all I hear about is how they will be good in two years when their young prospects arrive in the NHL. I’d feel pretty good about that if it wasn’t Rob Blake who drafted them. Blake’s coach hiring decisions have been uninspiring, his free agent signings have been disastrous, and he’s made 15 trades that have resulted in almost no current NHL players. That’s tough to get excited about. Now the trade deadline is coming up, and he’s sure to not move any of the veterans on the roster that are expensive, and have some value left.

Finally, The Bachelor is back! Another season of this train wreck television show you can’t stop watching. This time it’s Peter Weber who is The Bachelor this season. I love how Hannah Brown walked into Peter’s group date to remind all the women that she had sex with him 4 times in a windmill. There’s nothing quite like watching 30 women cry over a man they’ve known for 48 hours. Then again, what do you expect from a group that largely thought the cow that appeared on the show was a horse. I guess it wouldn’t be The Bachelor without that and hearing about a childhood trauma, which in this season is some woman who had a traumatic experience riding the teacups. Anybody else mad that Kelly cheated on the obstacle course? Victoria F modeled for a company called “White Lives Matter”. Where do they find these people? You clearly have to be abnormal to be on the show, otherwise it’s not happening. In any case, looking forward to seeing where it goes from here this season.

Monday Morning Coffee

January 6, 2020

The Lakers are back to beating crummy teams again, and everyone should be perfectly ok with it.  They lost 4 straight in the month of December, yet still have a 4 game lead in the West.  Kudos to the Suns on still clearly finding a way to enjoy New Year’s Eve in L.A. last week despite it being a work trip. That’s work/life balance we should all strive for.  Did Darren Collison find God already?  That was a quick retirement and search for the man upstairs, if he’s really coming back next month.  The Lake Show really needs him to help their bench.  ESPN is the new CNN when it comes to covering the Lakers.  Woj harped on the relationship Collison has with Doc Rivers because he played for him, but conveniently failed to mention he played for Frank Vogel too.

Meanwhile, The Clippers sure do have a lot of games where they don’t show up for a team whose entire ad campaign is built around how real they are.   “Earned, not given” is acting like a team in the 3rd year of a three-peat run?  Lay off Kawhi though.  He must be EXHAUSTED after playing 4 in a row!  WHY DID KAWHI PLAY 35 MINS IN A BLOWOUT AND A MEANINGLESS REGULAR SEASON GAME???  I still don’t get this bizarre load management schedule they have him on, and I’m not sure anybody other than Kawhi does because he’s the one telling the Clips what he’s doing.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of former NBA Commissioner David Stern, who passed away last week.  Stern’s legacy will always be remembered as the man who helped globalized the NBA, and taking it from a sport few cared about to one of the top sports leagues in the world.  Also, as much as Laker fans want to hate him for vetoing the Chris Paul trade, the Lakers are the greatest franchise in the NBA partially because Stern knew the importance of big markets during his tenure.

That was a shocking Wild Card Weekend in the NFL.  Bill Simmons is in tears right now trying to figure out how the Patriots loss is somehow like Rocky III or Road Rules Challenge.  Tom Brady was doing his best Jameis Winston impression on Saturday.  You think the dynasty is over until Belichik signs 13 new refs and finds a new way to cheat.  Patriots haven’t won a playoff game since they arrested Rich Hill.  Then there’s the Bills who choked away their game against the Texans.  Bills Mafia bought all those tables to break at the tailgate for nothing.  I feel terrible for Drew Brees, but you can always count on the Saints and their fans complaining that the refs screwed them instead of holding themselves accountable for missed opportunities.   The Seahawks won and that means Beast Mode gets to continue entertaining us for another week.

I don’t usually agree with Scott Kaplan on much, and definitely not when it comes to his feminine orders at Starbucks.  However, I do agree on the fact that the Charger franchise really screwed Philip Rivers, when he’s shown loyalty to them.   Rivers could have “Bolted” to a better situation, but instead, showed faith in a franchise that set him up to fail.  The Bolts never added the final pieces to even put themselves in position to get to the Super Bowl, and it wasn’t like it was only Tom Brady that prevented them from doing so.   Now Rivers’ frustration has boiled over with the move to LA, where he knows the team has no fans.  At this point you can only feel bad for the guy.

Although this is quickly looking like a down year for UCLA Basketball, I was really happy to see freshman Jake Kyman not only get some minutes, but also take advantage of them.  Kyman looked like Klay Thompson against Washington with all his clutch shooting, and made a solid contribution in the loss against Washington State yesterday. There hasn’t been a lot to get excited about, but as long as this kid continues to develop, he can be a really important player for the program for the next 4 years.

https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/1212969555502477312

It’s January and as usual, the Dodgers have done nothing to improve their ball club.  Also as usual, Stan Kasten is in damage control mode with the media.  He’s trying to tell us this is a successful team already that is still determined to win the World Series.  You could have fooled me.  If the Dodgers were really concerned that Gerrit Cole wanted to be a Yankee, why didn’t they try to outbid them instead of telling us they could have?  Everyone knows Scott Boras clients always go to the highest bidder.  I have never blamed the Dodgers for making the TV deal they did, but I do blame them for not spending the money, and spending it the right way. They didn’t even spend the money to bring back Rich Hill, who is on the MLB equivalent of welfare. Kasten also thinks that just because we show up to his games we agree with how his team does things.  The man is simply out of touch with reality.  Here’s to proving me wrong Stan, but based on what you did in Atlanta, this looks like the sequel to a bad movie.

Finally, CNN is unbelievable.  I remember when they were a respectable network.  You knew that had a little bit of an agenda before, but it was professional.   Now they have become far more embarrassing than Fox News.  These people actually cried on election night in 2016 when Trump won.  Now they are getting drunk on New Years Eve, and talking about penises on the air.