Monthly Archives: April 2020

Monday Morning Coffee

April 27, 2020

Episodes 3 and 4 of The Last Dance went down last night and it was awesome. We learned a ton more about Dennis Rodman, Phil Jackson, and Scottie Pippen. Pippen was so underpaid, the man deserves a stimulus check from the government. Then there’s Dennis Rodman, who went on a 48-hour bender in Vegas at age 37. I have no clue how he wasn’t incapacitated for two weeks. The fact Rodman was able to convince the team to let him go to Vegas and link up with Carmen Electra makes him deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Also the fact Michael Jordan walked in on them in bed together is exactly the kind of story we were all waiting for while watching this. That 48-hour bender deserves a documentary in itself. Electra also claimed later on that she had sex with Rodman at the Bulls practice facility. Michael Jordan is a billionaire but he apparently can’t afford any Visine. Can’t wait until the next episode!

To the NFL where the Rams had a bizarre draft over the weekend. I’m surprised the Rams didn’t place a greater priority on their pass rush, the cornerbacks, and their offensive line than the players they selected. I can blame Cox and Spectrum for a lot of things, but even if the internet went down, Les Snead can only blame himself for this one when he looks back. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong, but the division is getting a lot better and it doesn’t look like the Rams are.

Meanwhile, the Chargers finally got their QB of the future. Justin Herbert was a a solid pick. His ceiling might not be as high as Tua’s and although it could have been fun with him, Herbert is much safer. The only downside for the Bolts is they still have no fans. It’s so bad the NFL couldn’t even find 12 Charger fans to put on the screen when it was time for them to make their picks.

Elsewhere around the draft, it was nice of the Raiders to go back to their roots and take the fastest wide receiver in the draft instead of the best one available. Aaron Rodgers is going to be moodier than a teenage girl next season after the Packers drafted his replacement. Cliff Kingsbury made everyone look broke. Dude must have bought Apple Stock in 2007. Then there’s CeeDee Lamb, who’s side piece was clearly blowing up his phone during the draft, and he was determined not to let his girl find out!

https://twitter.com/NFL_Memes/status/1253514952222158849

Finally, what an ending to the Showtime Series Homeland last night! It’s very rare that even the best television series have satisfying endings. Homeland actually got it right. Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it, so read no further if you plan on watching it later. These guys should re-write the ending of Game of Thrones while they are at it. Carrie really had me going, thinking that she was going to not only betray Saul, but kill him too. Then again, you can see how the writers really thought this one through, and didn’t rush through the ending like Game of Thrones. By the way, the show runners actually trolled those writers as well without naming them in this quote: “We wanted to go out in a successful way. We obviously didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of some, you know, to be unnamed shows, that fell down and stumbled at the end.” I can’t imagine who they might be talking about!

Monday Morning Coffee

April 20, 2020

I’m thrilled that The Last Dance was released last night since we’re all starving for entertainment. It was fantastic! I can just see dopey analytics guy screaming while watching and saying “too many mid-range jumpers!” Imagine every member of the 84-85 Bulls in their living room, trying to explain that they weren’t a part of the “cocaine circus”. Scottie Pippen going from manager to top 30 basketball player is low key one of the best basketball stories ever. It’s a shame Jerry Krause looks like a big dope but he really had a remarkable run getting the Bulls job, then building one of the greatest teams in NBA history. I mean he was a baseball scout and just called asking for the job. He deserves more credit than he got, but less credit than he wanted. For the next month he’s going to steal the title of biggest villain on the internet from Carol Baskin. The Last Dance definitely almost never happened! Tracy McGrady revealed the Bulls agreed to a deal for him in exchange for Pippen, but Jordan vetoed the deal.

I’ve been hearing an awful lot about UCLA’s debt problem. Special thanks to Dan Guerrero, who is about to retire, and is leaving the athletic department with a nice parting gift of $100 million in debt. A large portion of that was well before this pandemic started, and Guerrero has demonstrated he’s as good at managing money as the CEO of Enron. I’m actually not sure why Mayor Garcetti is downplaying the idea of playing sports in California stadiums where fans gather in the thousands. That shouldn’t be a problem for UCLA football at the Rose Bowl, where fans don’t even gather at all anymore. In all seriousness though, declining revenue from football, a terrible television contract, and low attendance at sporting events is a sure recipe for financial disaster in any college athletic department. However, UCLA has a $5 billion endowment fund. The salaries of staff for 2nd tier sports shouldn’t be impacted by this, and neither should the second tier sports for men and women at the universities. They have plenty of money to solve their own problems and beyond. They just aren’t talking about it because they don’t want to have to use it.

As for USC, JT Daniels is entering the transfer portal. I realize that JT Daniels probably hasn’t had to win a real starting QB competition in his life, and you can probably criticize him for that. However, I truly have no idea if Kedon Slovis is really that good, or if Daniels might be a whole lot better, all because Clay Helton is coaching them. Something tells me if Helton owned a Ferrari, he would be driving it like a Honda Civic, so you really would have no idea he was driving a Ferrari. This is what’s happening here, except we probably won’t know who the Ferrari is until you see Daniels lighting it up at LSU or Michigan.

I know what you’re all thinking. The Athletic had a recent poll asking fans to rate the performance of Dodger President Andrew Friedman. No, I was not one of the two people that gave him a one. I’m as critical as anyone of Friedman, but there are certain things he does receive credit for, such as preserving the farm system. However, the inability for him to put the Dodgers over the top is not because of the lack of free agents. It’s because of his inability to build a bullpen. It’s actually been so bad in that regard, it’s damaged the legacy of Clayton Kershaw, who has had to overextend himself in playoff situations. For that reason, I can’t give him a 4 or a 5. Besides, if I did it would be totally off-brand for me!

Speaking of the Dodgers, I know that people are crucifying them right now for not refunding the money fans paid for games that are currently being postponed. We are in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic people. We have no idea what’s going to happen in a week, two weeks, let alone the next month. Give the Dodgers a chance to figure it out before jumping down their throats and giving you a refund.

The NFL Draft is set for Thursday! Look Chargers don’t get cute. If you get the opportunity to take Tua on Thursday you do it. If you can’t get Tua take Justin Herbert. You need a quarterback. Don’t try to tell me that Tyrod Taylor is going to be your QB for the next 5 years. He’s a nice stop gap, but don’t make him more than he is. Why am I not going to be surprised though if they screw this up?

Monday Morning Coffee

April 13, 2020

Here we are still locked up in our homes for at least another month. We’re all starving for entertainment, and basketball in particular, hoping it will come back.. However, if we are lucky enough to get this season back, Lebron probably isn’t going to be a happy camper. The King isn’t thrilled with the idea of playing without fans, or playing on a neutral site. Can you blame him? The Lakers played 3 quarters of the season, and were on track for home court in the West, which is a critical element in the NBA playoffs. He’s probably also upset that he won’t be able to get on another Banana Boat this summer with his boys. At this point though, I think we should all be thankful just to get sports back in any form. It sure beats seeing guys like Jamaal Murray make porno’s on his social media account.

I tried really hard to watch H-O-R-S-E last night guys, but just couldn’t do it after 15 minutes. The connection was horrible, and I’ve seen better graphics on NBA 2K. I’m not sure why you guys are surprised to see Chris Paul get eliminated in the first round either, since that’s been happening for his entire career. Trae Young and Tamika Catchings lost in their driveways. Conley and Billups had fancy courts. You see the trend here?

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball is coming up with their own wild plans to try and get their season going again. The latest idea is supposedly to have all 30 MLB teams play the season in Arizona beginning next month. That simply feels like too many players and too many logistics to keep everyone safe at the moment. Not to mention the fact that it’s really going to put a cramp in MLB Players style. I mean we know that professional athletes in general aren’t exactly the most faithful in their marriages, so now these MLB players will have to be quarantined from not only their families, but their 2nd and 3rd families in all the other cities they travel to, as well as their side pieces. Not even Andrew Friedman’s computer can help them out with that problem.

To the NFL, where the Rams found a way to get out of another big contract, sending Brandin Cooks to Houston for a 2nd round pick. Even though Cooks counts for $20 million against the cap this year, the Rams get out of the last two years of his deal, and still get a 2nd round pick in the process. Of course Bill O’Brien was on the other end of this trade. If 2020 was an NFL GM, it would be O’Brien. Cooks is a good guy, and a useful player, but he’s one more concussion away from his career ending, and he’s been passed around the NFL like a Kardashian is passed around at an NBA party. He’s the Tobias Harris of the NFL. The Rams may not be good next year, but they are on their way to cleaning up their ugly salary cap mess. Hopefully they can fix their offensive line in the draft next week to continue patching their holes. Remember, the NFL should stand for “Not For Long” because you can turn it around quickly.

I’m really looking forward to the NFL draft. Not only because we need the entertainment. Mostly because this virtual draft is going to be a disaster for many, and I can’t wait to see how these teams blow it. The Cleveland Browns will probably be using dial-up internet. Then imagine old school guys like Giants GM, Dave Gettleman, trying to get his kids to explain Zoom to him. Something messy is bound to happen, and I’m going to be there for it!

Remember a few months ago when everybody was talking about the XFL and how it was going to be different? I never bought into it and sure enough, they are going to fold. But hey, at least the XFL got more games in this year than Antonio Brown did.

I don’t know about you guys, but if there’s on thing I have learned from this cornavirus pandemic, it’s a a reminder that everything is political. I can’t even talk about the weather anymore without it being political. If I tell somebody “wow it’s really hot today”, I’ll probably get a response like “Ooooh so you believe in global warming??”. I don’t care what your political beliefs are or what you think of our President, this situation isn’t political.

Monday Morning Coffee

April 6, 2020

ESPN should be ashamed of themselves and their “Greatest of All-Time Bracket”. I know we are starving for entertainment right now, but the fans that voted on it are just a bunch of fan boys that have never watched College Basketball, and also just started watching the NBA yesterday. Anybody with half a brain knows that Kareem is best NCAA player of all-time. Oscar Robertson, Pete Maravich, Bill Walton, and Bill Russell are among the greatest as well. All of them were eliminated early in the ESPN bracket. Michael Jordan ended up winning the entire bracket. Jordan was the greatest player of all-time way down the line, but as a collegiate, he wasn’t even top 10, and maybe not even top 20. Even Larry Bird, who was in the finals of the bracket, might not have been in the top 10. I know it’s easy to say it’s the fans fault. Then again, ESPN are the same bozos that thought Lebron was just the third best player in the world going into this season. Their experts couldn’t recognize talent if it dunked on them.

Speaking of the NCAA, they blew it again by not granting another year of eligibility for winter sports athletes. That means they screwed all those men’s and women’s hockey and basketball athletes at getting a shot in the tournament. The sensible thing to do would be to allow winter athletes to apply for the extra year of eligibility and grant it to them for those athletes that didn’t get to compete in the postseason. That’s definitely the right thing to do, but expecting the NCAA to do the right thing is like expecting the people in Florida to stay home right now and not party on the beach.

At long last the Dodgers and DirecTV have come to an agreement! Now the 70% of you that can’t watch the Dodger games can stop complaining, assuming there is a season. For the record, I never blamed the Dodgers for making the deal they did with Spectrum. Many of you clueless baseball traditionalists labeled it “greedy” but fail to recognize that this is how well-run baseball teams today come up with the money to put a competitive team on the field every year. Now the question is whether or not we are going to get a season to watch and how many games. Hopefully it’s more than 50 games, because Andrew Friedman’s software update doesn’t get completed until game 60 or so.

Congratulations to Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Tamika Catchings, Rudy Tomjanovich, Eddie Sutton, Kim Mulkey, Barbara Stevens, and Patrick Baumann on their induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Obviously Kobe, Duncan, and Garnett were first ballot no-brainers, and collectively, the class is arguably the greatest of all-time. As for Kobe, Vanessa Bryant once again showed the strength of 1,000 men when she spoke about the honor for her late husband.

I’m not sure if you guys realize just how bad this whole CNN vs Donald Trump rivalry has gotten. No matter what side you’re on, it’s bad. It’s becoming a bigger rivalry than boxers vs briefs or Siracha vs Tabasco. On the CNN side of things, what kind of legitimate news network doesn’t air parts of the President speaking during a worldwide crisis? I thought you were reporting the news, not your own spin? On the other side, what kind of a President is so committed to trolling that he actually trolls a news network on daily basis about their ratings during a worldwide crisis? It’s true that CNN’s ratings are sinking like the Titanic, and that their digital following is less than Fox News even when combined with that of MSNBC’s. That’s why Trump keeps talking about his own press conference ratings. That’s also why he keeps calling out CNN. However, can’t we just put all this nonsense aside during a crisis? Ok fine, I admit it. It has some entertainment value. And frankly, we are starving for entertainment.

Finally, The Walking Dead had a “soft” season finale last night on AMC. I say “soft” because they were unable to complete the filming of the actual season finale due to the coronavirus, so we’ll have to wait on that. Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it, so read no further if you plan on watching it later. Everyone is laughing at Princess, except the joke is going to be on all of us when we come out of quarantine and start socializing with people. This whole hoard that Beta is bringing is setting up for the survivors to have to escape by disguising themselves as Walkers again. I wonder what everyone was thinking about “King” Ezekiel when Princess said “Queen makes me sound ‘pretentious'”? Apparently Maggie is coming back in the season finale. I’m sure she’s gonna be thrilled to know Hilltop burned down. Another horse died. PETA is going to tear the writers of this show a new one tomorrow morning. Those Walkers really need to practice social distancing. Everybody is talking about The Tiger King, but we forgot that it was Ezekiel who was the real Tiger King. I still haven’t figured out whether Rick is going to make his appearance in “The Walking Dead World Beyond” series, as well as a separate Walking Dead movie we were told about. In any case, whenever the season finale airs, it’s going to be good!