June 5, 2023
How adorable. Kyrie Irving thinks he can convince Lebron James to join the Mavericks. Even more adorable is the idea that the Mavericks would actually have pieces the Lakers want in a trade. I mean if they want to send the Lakers Luka, I’m sure that would be fine. What a ridiculous story that broke this morning, and even more ridiculous that NBA writers spent time covering and analyzing this nonsense. Had the Nuggets actually won last night, Mike Malone would probably be livid that people were taking attention away from the Nuggets. The more fascinating question is whether or not the Mavericks will offer Kyrie a full max deal. This is really Kyrie saying “Well Lebron, I really want to play with you, but I’m not going to take less money to do so”. Well Kyrie, you might actually not play with Lebron, and take less money as well! This means nothing for the Lakers. They will most likely be bringing back the same team, and maybe even a better one with the assets and options they have.
I don’t know how the Miami Heat are doing it, but they are. They somehow took home court advantage away from the Denver Nuggets and are headed back to Miami tied 1-1. This made way more sense when Jimmy Butler was playing out of his mind. Now Butler looks exhausted, sometimes Bam Adebayo looks like nothing more than Robert Sacre with cajun seasoning, yet their role players are balling. I assure you if Jamal Murray were playing against the Lakers, his final shot to tie the game yesterday probably would have gone down, just because it was against the Lakers.
The Dodgers lost 2 of 3 to the Yankees over the weekend, but that’s not really the big story going on with them. They made the mistake that every big company is making: publicly supporting something that people view as political. The Dodgers invited Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to the Ravine to honor them. Of course by doing this they pissed off Clayton Kershaw, among other MLB players who are conservative Christians, or people of faith. The bottom line is that whenever you engage in anything remotely political these days, you are guaranteed to piss off somebody. It’s also probably best to not piss of your franchise player if you’re going to piss anybody off.
As for the Angels, it’s their fans that should be pissed off. They lost 2 of 3 over the weekend to the Astros, but when you watch that series it was much worse than it seemed. The gap in talent between these two clubs isn’t that wide. In fact, one could argue the Halos have more talent. But when they step on the field, you can see that something is terribly wrong. The Halos did not make sound fundamental baseball players, they did not look like they believed they could win, and their leadership looked non-existent. That’s just a further extension of the lack of scouting and player development we know already exists for them. The problem is their appears to be no end in sight to this as long as Arte Moreno owns the team. It was also such a tease to hear the Warriors ownership say they are interested in buying the Angels. If they end up buying the A’s, you’ll be even more pissed off.
To the College Hoops where UCLA got some good news, which is that Adem Bona is coming back for his Sophomore year. Bona was a beast this season, and will only build upon that next year. It was a smart move. I only wish that Amari Bailey would have stayed, and that might have taken the team to another level. Instead, it’s going to be Bona and a bunch of Euros. I truly have no idea what that means in terms of how good they will be. The only thing I can assure you is that with all the Euros on the UCLA and Arizona basketball teams, they’ll probably need to take smoking breaks at halftime.
Finally, the LA Kings have announced that they are parting ways with TV Play-By-Play Announcer Alex Faust. Faust was the heir apparent to Hall of Famer Bob Miller. He actually did a phenomenal job, and has a very bright future as a National play-by-play announcer. Unfortunately, he is a casualty of two things. The first of which is being a victim of Bally Sports bankruptcy, and some consolidation of broadcasting platforms to control costs. The Kings are now having Jim Fox, Nick Nickson, and Daryl Evans take over with a simulcast. That’s a great team and all, but it is not a reflection on Faust’s skill as a broadcaster. Faust is also victim to the fact that he came after a Hall of Famer. You never want to be that guy, as usually it doesn’t end well. There’s too much to live up to. The same thing happened when Paul Sunderland came after Chick Hearn of the Lakers. Faust will land on his feet because of his talent, but unfortunate the Kings had to lose him.