August 17th, 2015
We’re about a year away from the selection of the 2016 USA Basketball team for the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro. Most of us seem to think that Kobe Bryant’s Olympic career ended in 2012, after winning his second gold medal. Apparently, he and Jerry Colangelo, who is the chairman of USA basketball, think otherwise. Colangelo said that he and Bryant have had discussions about him possibly being on the team next summer, if he plays well enough to earn a roster spot. That conversation tells me that Kobe finally realizes that his odds of winning another NBA Championship before his career is over are about the same as my odds of marrying Jennifer Aniston. An Olympic gold would be the next best thing to finish it up. Problem is, I have my doubts Kobe can make it through an entire NBA season healthy enough to play. Even if he does, whose roster spot would he take? It would surely mean a promising young player like Kyrie Irving, DeMarcus Cousins, or Klay Thompson would get left off the roster. It would be a nice way for Kobe to end his career, but probably not a realistic one.
Speaking of Team USA, during their mini camp scrimmage that was aired on ESPN, Austin Rivers had a few things to say on Twitter. Rivers said “Straight up better than a lot of those dudes playing last night….. Have to prove that this year.” Does Rivers mean he’s actually better at playing basketball than those dudes? He must mean beer pong, or bowling, or something else, because he couldn’t even stop Pablo Prigioni the 2nd round of the playoffs last year. Oh, and then he must have forgotten about this moment too…..
Don’t you just love the NBA? The Cavs have yet to re-sign restricted free agent big man Tristan Thompson. Thompson wants a 5 year $94 million contract. $94 million for a guy that averaged 8 pts and 8 rebounds? Typical NBA. The only factor that could make this happen is Lebron James putting pressure on the Cavs to get this done, since they share the same agent. I don’t care what Lebron says, signing Thompson to a deal that big would be idiotic. He’s a nice player, but he’s not a max guy. You have to draw the line somewhere. Good for the Cavs for playing hardball. If teams are going to give out max money like financial crisis bailout money, I’d like to personally declare myself an NBA free agent today.
On to baseball, where the Dodgers took 3 of 4 from the Reds over the weekend, but it’s hardly anything to get excited about. For roughly the last 80 games, the Dodgers have been nothing more than a .500 team, and they’ve done that by beating up on scrub teams like the Reds, who have been waiving the white flag for months. People want to blame Don Mattingly for the decisions he does or does not make with his bullpen. However, Andy Friedman has given Mattingly nothing more than an empty water pistol to put out a forest fire. Friedman has had nearly a year to fix a bullpen, which is the easiest area to fix, especially for a team with a unlimited financial resources. Somehow, he’s managed to make the bullpen even worse than last year, The man just doesn’t know pitching. He even had a chance to add another all-star starter which would put much less importance on a week ass bullpen, but failed to do so. This is a team doing it with smoke and mirrors that’s going to get exposed come October.
As for the Angels, things aren’t much better. They blew a 9th inning lead last night, and lost in extra innings to the Royals on Sunday Night Baseball. They ended up losing 3 of 4 to KC, and now sit 3.5 games back of the Astros in the AL West. They are also trailing by .5 games for the 2nd wild card spot. Even though they seem to be within striking distance of the playoffs, the pitching is crumbling. Matt Shoemaker suddenly can’t pitch, CJ Wilson is done for the season, and Jered Weaver is more unpredictable than Nicki Minaj’s hair color. It’s gotten so bad that the Angels actually think Chase Utley might save their season. Wouldn’t it have been easier to acquire a real impact bat a few weeks ago? What they really need is an effective leadoff hitter. No team in baseball has a lower OBA from its leadoff hitters. That’s tough when you’ve got Mike Trout and Albert Pujols in the middle of your lineup.
The NFL preseason games are pretty overrated, but they’ve provided us with some nice entertainment over the last week. Phil Rivers played his hand very well with the Chargers, securing a 4 year contract extension with $65 million guaranteed. For that price, I’m sure he’ll move his 65 million children to Los Angeles if he has to. They say Geno Smith tried to punch back after getting his jaw broken. He missed the punch by about 10 yards though. Trent Richardson is amazing. He’s the only running back in the NFL that knows how to run right into a pile of lineman instead of a gaping hole that will lead to the end zone when both are right in front of him. You know it’s the preseason when Jay Cutler isn’t throwing interception and the Browns are winning. Speaking of the Browns, Johnny Manziel really had to check himself after scoring a TD the other night so that he would not flash that stupid money sign he used to. Even Tim Tebow managed to get into the end zone for the Eagles over the weekend. Here’s a look at what was going on at the ESPN headquarters after that happened…..
For a second there, Jay Day was beginning to look like the new Phil Mickelson, who was the lefty loser for so many years. He finally broker through and won the PGA Championship over the weekend. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods has fallen off a cliff and missed Saturday’s cut. Do you realize in Tigers first 8.5 years as a pro, he missed one cut. He’s now missed four of the last ten cuts. He has literally lost his mind, more than his game. You can’t free fall like that just off of losing a skill set alone. Oh, I’m also pretty sure that when Jason Day loses, he still wins. Meet his wife Ellie….
