April 24, 2017
It’s become an unfortunate annual tradition for the Clippers. How do you know you get injured a lot? When your injuries eliminate you from the postseason even before the Clips are eliminated. Sure enough, it happened again in game 3 vs the Jazz. Even after losing game 4, and even after sending out a missing person alert on JJ Redick, as long as Chris Paul is on the floor the Clippers are still probably going to win this series. However, it’s only delaying the inevitable annihilation they will take from Golden State. The bigger question everybody wants to know about is the future. Well for those of you saying that keeping an injury prone Griffin and keeping the band together isn’t ideal, it’s also better than the alternative. That alternative is going back to being one of the most pathetic franchises in the NBA, which the Clips were for decades. Doc Rivers is wrong that his team is close to winning, but he’s right that keeping the team together is what they should do. Whether Steve Ballmer wants to foot the bill for this remains to be seen though.
The NBA just announced that the Celtics were not the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference heading into the playoffs, but instead, they were the #1 seed in the WNBA playoffs. That team is much further away from winning anything than most people thought. The bad news for the Lakers is that the Bulls success in this series make it more unlikely Chicago will trade Jimmy Butler. Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony is now taking losses on and off the court, after separating from his wife, LaLa. I guess nobody wants to be around ‘Melo these days since Phil Jackson wants him elsewhere too. The Grizzlies and Spurs are now locked up in a great series, and that’s thanks to the rant from Memphis Coach David Fizdale. In case you missed it after game 2, it’s an all-timer……
Let’s go to the ice, where the Ducks swept away the Calgary Flames in their 1st round series and are ready to take on the Oilers in round 2. Anaheim did more damage to the Flames than the Canadian dollar in the last few weeks. Things are setting up perfectly for the Ducks, taking on an inexperienced team they should have a nice advantage against, and then potentially taking on a Predators or Blues team, who are not nearly as talented. If the Ducks don’t get to the Stanley Cup Final, their fans should go jump off the top of the Magic Castle at Disneyland.
As for the Kings, they promoted John Stevens as their new head coach on Sunday. Stevens is a well respected voice in their locker room, but doesn’t seem like he’s too far removed from what Darryl Sutter did. It would be a decent hire if you like what Darryl Sutter was doing of late. I don’t. It would also be a decent hire if the Kings had really good young players to develop. They don’t. They need to re-invent they wheel, but they just don’t know it yet.
I respect people’s right to protest, but I don’t see how New England Patriot players skipping a trip to the White House to be honored for winning a Super Bowl is sending any kind of message. The President, regardless of how you feel about him, is taking the time to honor you for your accomplishments. If the player doesn’t want to be honored, then it’s their loss. As for Aaron Hernandez, sad to see the downward spiral of his life, and him ultimately taking his own life. I still don’t understand how he wasn’t convicted of that second murder. I guess the entire O.J. Simpson jury was assigned to that case as well.
I don’t know why anybody is really surprised that the Dodger pitching staff is falling apart. They are finally getting exposed for what they are: a bunch of injury prone, unreliable veterans, who are making way more money than they should be. Now that they actually have decent teams in their division like the Rockies and Diamondbacks, we are just noticing their flaws earlier in the year instead of when they get exposed in October. Andrew Friedman claims that starting pitching is one of the most overvalued positions in baseball. The only thing overvalued is Friedman’s front office work. Let’s see if he feels that way in another couple of weeks when the team continues to scramble to find somebody other than Clayton Kershaw to give the ball to. I’m pretty sure trading for Ryan Braun isn’t the answer either.
If it wasn’t for facing a terrible Blue Jays team and a couple of miracle wins in the first week, you would already realize the Angels are a bad team. Did somebody tell Mike Scioscia that the Halos are supposed to be tanking to get the #1 pick in the draft? It sure seems like it since he keeps insisting on sticking Jefry Marte in the lineup with his crummy defense. Scioscia claims that the Angels need his bat, but apparently he didn’t notice that Marte was hitting .179 coming into Sunday. Don’t forget about Danny “Mendoza Line” Espinosa, whose batting average is so consistently low, you can never tell if he’s in a slump or not.
I was under the impression that the Raiders were no longer a Mickey Mouse franchise in the NFL, but apparently I was mistaken. Instead of re-signing 27-year-old running back Latavius Murray, who had a nice season last year, they are replacing him with a 31-year-old Marshawn Lynch, who has been sitting on his couch eating skittles for the last year. Apparently their justification for this is that Lynch is from Oakland, so he should give the local fans a reason to show up to their games. Those same local fans they will be leaving behind in a year or two when they move to Vegas. With the NFL draft later this week, hopefully the Rams and Chargers don’t have any of these stupid moves planned themselves. You know….something as stupid as trading a boat load of draft picks for Jared Goff.
Finally, People Magazine named Julia Roberts the most beautiful woman in the world last week. Which world are they talking about? I initially thought that the writers of People Magazine gave up common sense for Lent. However, upon further examination I realize that this is the 5th time this has happened! Apparently we are still in the year 1991.
