May 1, 2017
The Clippers should be totally embarrassed the way the Jazz eliminated them in game 7 yesterday. They lost 3 times at home in a seven game series. Role players are supposed to play well at home, and the Clips role players disappeared like houdini. JJ Redick couldn’t even get his shot off, yet somebody is going to pay him $20 million next season. Jamal Crawford is making $14 million and was nowhere to be found for much of the series. The Clippers “depth” is actually more shallow than Howard Stern, and that’s what really needs to be addressed in the offseason. However, based on what we’ve heard from Steve Ballmer and Doc Rivers, keeping this team together is up to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Unless the Spurs get creative with their salary cap, their probably isn’t a better place for CP3 to go. As for Griffin, he seems uncertain whether or not he wants to stay, and the Clippers don’t seem confident in his return. In any case, a 1st round loss in 7 is probably better for the Clippers own self perception, instead of getting swept by Golden State.
Meanwhile, the Lakers and their fans are going to be sitting on pins and needles between now and the NBA draft. First they’ll be anxiously awaiting May 16th, which is the day they find out if they keep their top 3 protected pick. Should they keep it, it becomes a huge building block for the future, or a very valuable trade asset. The Laker will also be awaiting the announcement of the All-NBA teams, which they hope will not include Paul George on the 3rd team. If it does, then there’s a much stronger likelihood that George remains an Indiana Pacer because he can be offered an extension around $220 million, which no other team can match. How would you like to be Rob Pelinka and Magic Johnson right now? This means that their success as executives for the next 3-5 years might just be determined by luck in the next two months. Who could blame someone for being superstitious?
Is it too early for the Dodgers to panic? Probably not. They just faced the worst team in the National League for four games, and could do nothing more than split four games with them. Even their sweep against Philadelphia were unimpressive. The rotation is so underwhelming after Clayton Kershaw. For the last week Dave Roberts was pretending like Brandon McCarthy was the 2nd coming of Don Drysdale. Then he looked mediocre on Saturday against the Phillies. Now they’ll probably pretend like Alex Wood is the next Sandy Koufax. To make matters worse, Adrian Gonzales doesn’t have any power, yet for some reason, the teams plans on sending Cody Bellinger back to the minors in a few days. I’m not analytics guy, but I think hitting three home runs in your first week of Major League Baseball is pretty good.
As for the Angels, why didn’t Garrett Richards just have Tommy Johns surgery? He’s going to be out until near the All-Star break, and then who knows if his arm will even hold up after that. Meanwhile, Andrew Heaney is probably going to be back in the rotation before Richards ever gets healthy again. I’ve gotta admit though, the Angels are playing better than i thought. It makes you think if they can stay in contention by the trade deadline, maybe reinforcements will be on the way. However, then you realize they don’t even have the prospects to make an impact trade. Even if they did, would it be worth it at the risk of further damaging the health of their top pitchers? The Halos need to get their young and most valuable pitchers healthy before continuing to give some “half a deck of cards” effort toward contending. Otherwise, they really are wasting Mike Trout’s best years.
On the ice, good thing for the Ducks they won last night. Their fans were probably having a hard time deciding whether to buy tickets to the next round, or buy a season pass at Disneyland. The Oilers are far less intimidated by Anaheim than the Ducks thought they would be. They also have one of the best players on the planet in Connor McDavid. As for the NHL Draft lottery, it was crazy. The Devils, Flyers, and Stars ended up with the top 3 picks. To put that in perspective, the Devils had the 5th worst record, and an 8.5% chance to get the top pick. The Flyers had the 13th worst record, and the Stars had the 8th worst record. That means Colorado, Vancouver, Vegas, and Arizona got screwed out of good draft position after having horrible seasons. Good thing the NHL uses E&Y. PWC has declared La La Land the winner of the NHL Draft Lottery.
The Rams might have a new coach, but it still didn”t prevent the front office from keeping their annual tradition of draft day foolishness. Last year, it was trading a boatload of draft picks for Jared Goff. This year, they did not select a single offensive lineman in the draft. That’s right folks. The Rams had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL last year, and did very little about it, other than 1 free agent signing. Without a decent offensive line, I have no idea if Goff can actually play, or if Todd Gurley is good running back or not. It’s arguably the most important position to build your team around, and the Rams have neglected it for two years. Here comes another horrible year.
I can’t make fun of the Chargers too much for their draft, because they actually did a great job. That’s unusual when you talk about the Bolts. The bad thing for the Chargers is that they didn’t draft a quarterback to start grooming a successor for Philip Rivers. Also, before you start naming the Chargers as 2017 AFC Champions, keep in mind that they still play in one of the toughest divisions in football, and will have to contend with the Raiders and Chiefs.
As for the rest of the NFL draft, Myles Garrett is on suicide watch after being draft by the Browns. Cleveland is probably counting on a local radio contest to decide who is their starting QB in 2017. Colin Cowherd said it best…..the NFL draft is like planning a wedding. You start out by saying “We’ll keep it small baby, family and friends, it’s just about us and our love.” Then three weeks before the wedding you have 300 guests, most of them business colleagues and family you hardly know, and you pay $200 for each of those charger plates underneath the plate you actually eat off of. You do this all because you saw it at another wedding several months earlier. NFL teams have a plan, and then they are pressured by what other teams are doing. I guess nobody learned from the Rams stupidity last year.
Finally, ESPN has fired so many people, they had the Rocky statue covering part of the NFL Draft. Everyone is pointing to the fact that their content is becoming more political rather than sports oriented. However, this has nothing to do with their issues. The customers motivation to cancel cable has killed ESPN after the billions they spent on broadcast rights fees for the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Eventually the current cable model will be destroyed, but in the meantime, this is going to hurt cable companies and eventually sports teams. Still, ESPN is making the cuts that are an absolute must. If Andrew Friedman were in charge, he would have fired Linda Cohn, Max Kellerman, the legacy staff, and sent the LA SportsCenter crew to Miami. Is it too soon for this logo?
