Monday Morning Coffee

December 30, 2019

Tough week for the Lakers.  They snapped a 4-game skid but not before losing some games to some quality competition, namely the Clippers.  On top of that, I’m pretty sure Kyle Kuzma’s trainer isn’t going to be invited to Taco Tuesday at Lebron’s house, after firing off some highly critical tweets.  Lebron is already sending a strongly worded letter to the Santa at the North Pole demanding that he takes a crap in the trainer’s stocking next year.  I don’t know if Kawhi is better than Lebron on a nightly basis, but he certainly makes the matchup difficult.  In all seriousness though, Lebron is going to have to figure out how to be the smarter and more skillful player against the Clippers, rather than the most athletic guy.  That’s the only difference between the Lakers and Clippers right now, but I think Lebron is capable of figuring out that challenge.

As for the Clippers, yes they are basking in the glory of a win over the Lakers on Xmas Day, but then they followed that up by laying an egg against Utah.  Doc Rivers blamed the loss on the fact his team is sick, but they are probably sick from watching Paul George shoot 30% from the field the last 4 games.  He been awful lately, and nobody cares unless your name is Lebron, Harden or Westbrook.  Then there’s Kawhi Leonard, who won the AP Male Athlete of the Year, but I’m sure he’s going to miss the ceremony due to load management.  The Clippers are winning but they are annoying.  So is Kawhi’s Uncle, who probably asked Jeannie Buss for sexual favors while negotiating with the Lakers over the summer.  This dude reminds me of the Uncle in the movie “He Got Game”.

The Rams may have found the win column yesterday to finish the season over .500, but it was a lost cause. Todd Gurley just isn’t getting enough work, and whatever happens next season, he and Sean McVay need to hold hands and sing ” Kum-By-Ya” until they resolve whatever weird beef they have. They are also going to be a team that is shopping at the “99 Cent Store” this off-season, since they have paid everybody already, and still need to pay Jalen Ramsey. Despite that, I see no reason why the Rams can’t get back to the playoffs next year if they get creative with the cap, and fix the offensive line. There is still talent on this team.

The Chargers’ season also mercifully came to an end yesterday, but sadly the Charger career of Philip Rivers probably did as well. After watching Rivers get emotional at the post game press conference yesterday, I was thinking how much respect I had for the guy. I’ve gotta admit, I’ve always been a Drew Brees guy over Philip Rivers, but Rivers played so hard and didn’t care about the interceptions. He was always about going for it, even if the ride with the Bolts was bumpier than the Matterhorn. For Philip’s sake, and the sake of his 22 children, I hope he goes someplace else next year where he can win. For the Chargers, it’s going to be a disaster either way moving into a new stadium and losing name players like Rivers and Melvin Gordon, while having no fans.

Elsewhere around Week 17, America is cracking the champagne open after the Patriots lost to the Dolphins, which means they have to play next weekend in the playoffs. Marshawn Lynch was serving tequila shots at a parking lot tailgate in Oakland two weeks ago for the Raiders’ last game there. Last night he started for the Seahawks on Sunday Night Football.  Legend.  The NFC East playoff spot should go to LSU instead of the Eagles. More on them in a moment. Jameis Winston has thrown 30 interceptions this season, and he’s asking for $30 million next season. Isn’t this country amazing? The Bengals are so bad, even their celebrations suck.

USC football finished up their season with a Holiday Bowl loss against Iowa State. The only thing worse than the SC coaching is Qualcomm stadium.  The seats in that stadium look like they were recovered from the Titanic.  As if Trojan fans aren’t mad enough, now USC AD Mike Bohn is blaming the fans for the Trojans’ poor recruiting class. Maybe it’s because recruits don’t want to join a Clay Helton-coached team that consistently gets embarrassed by good competition.  Not because the fans want to see them fail.  Helton has embarrassed USC Athletics more than Lori loughlin.  Anybody that wants to point out that USC lost Kedon Slovis, Slovis doesn’t play defense or special teams, where much of their problems were against Iowa State.  USC was supposed to finish strong in the Holiday Bowl.  Instead, it validated every concern its frustrated fan base has levied against Clay Helton.

As for the College Football Playoff, the United Nations has charged LSU with crimes against humanity for what they did against Oklahoma.  Oh should Oklahoma join a conference now? Or maybe they should be relegated to Division II.  Look, for all the “Prisoner of The Moment People”  saying Oklahoma didn’t belong in this game, yes they did. They had the fourth best season in the country. This happens sometimes.  The top teams are just really good.  The same thing can be said for Division II and Division III College Football, which has the larger playoff format most people are pushing for.  Meanwhile Ohio State and Oklahoma have agreed to play a 3rd place game and Ohio State is already up 28-0 before the game started.  Hopefully the Championship game is a little more competitive.

I don’t even know what to say anymore about UCLA Basketball.  They lost at home to Cal State Fullerton.  UCLA should NEVER lose to Fullerton.  Now Coach Mick Cronin issued an apology to all the fans for the poor defense that they played Saturday.  However, it’s actually their offense that is far more offensive to watch.  Cronin is basically saying he doesn’t have enough talent.  He also said he plans on talking to Chip Kelly and borrowing some of his football players to work on post defense with his players in practice.  That’s like asking Chris Brown for advice on domestic abuse prevention.    Kelly’s players have no talent, and they sure don’t win.  Things look like they are going to get worse in Westwood before they get better.

For those of you that missed it, Dodger free agent pitcher Rich Hill and his wife were arrested at a Patriots game last week.  This arrest makes him a great candidate for the Astros to sign, since it’s pretty much a requirement to have a criminal record to play for them.  This also validates the  “Dick Mountain” nickname he gave himself for being so ballsy.   Have you seen Hill get angry and throw water coolers when he gets removed from a regular season game by Andrew Friedman’s computer? Imagine what he did to those cops if he did that to a water cooler.  Probably took the whole squad to take him down.

OJ Simpson Twitter is still great for jokes that simply write themselves.  OJ’s latest Twitter debacle was after he won his fantasy football championship, and showed up on social with a belt hours later.  I’m beginning to think the league doesn’t really exist because it usually take a while to get your league’s belt or trophy if you win.  Juice got his hands on it like he was given the Stanley Cup, which seems unlikely.  Kirk Cousins should be a little nervous since OJ thinks he nearly “murdered” his chances.  Clearly, OJ is still “killing” the competition.  But seriously though: who would play in a Fantasy Football League with OJ, let alone invite him to one?

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