July 26, 2021
The Summer Olympics finally got underway this weekend. As weird as it is without any fans, it’s still special to watch these athletes competing and representing their countries. Except for those dogs playing for our USA Men’s basketball team. More on them in a moment. Thank goodness for our wonderful swim team, who led the way this weekend with 6 of our 10 medals. The US is expected to win the medal count according to the betting odds. However, the stakes should really be much higher than this. If we finish with more medals than China and Russia, the Chinese should be forced to stop taking our jobs for the next four years, and the Russians should be forced to stop safe harboring our hackers. I forever thought that badminton was just some sport that you played at a family reunion because nobody brought a football. It turns out it’s actually an Olympic sport. It’s these types of obscure sports that I enjoy watching most over these three weeks. USA Women’s softball could sure give the Dodgers some tips on how to hit in the clutch, as they did in their extra inning win over Australia. Watching Simon Biles dominate puts women’s gymnastics in perspective for. To me the women are arguably more skilled in their sport than the men.
As for the USA Men’s Basketball team, Kevin Durant will probably demand a trade to team France after yesterday’s loss to the Frenchman. I’m sure Greg Popovich is going to try and convince us that they are getting better and gaining more chemistry with every day they play together. Apparently nobody has told Pop that his team could be done playing in a week if they don’t get it together now. Not having a true point guard, a dominant big man, or lackadaisical defense isn’t doing this squad any favors. Heck, the way we assemble rosters in the NBA might not be how we should assemble rosters in International Play, especially since referees don’t fall for American embellishment to get to the free throw line. Every player on Team USA is going to hug the NBA referees when they get home. It turns out this dude from Rush Hour was right all along.
Speaking of basketball, congratulations to the Milwaukee Bucks on winning the 2021 NBA Championship. I admire any team, especially small market, that knows it’s window to win and takes advantage of it with big moves. The Bucks did exactly that by trading for Jrue Holiday and then getting Giannis to sign his supermax extension. That was the piece that put them over the top. Funny how the last few months everybody formed their own narrative that Giannis is limited, will never be able to shoot, and was some fraudulent NBA star. It turns out he found his true identity by dominating in the paint, and all he really needed was for his teammates to step up. Giannis is a great superstar, and a great guy that’s easy to root for. Here’s to bonehead NBA media now having to re-create their narrative around a player they got wrong once again.
The NBA off-season rumor mill has gotten ridiculous yet again. NBA Twitter is now pushing noise that the Lakers are going to acquire Russell Westbrook or Chris Paul once free agency begins next week. These are the types of ideas that are written on post-it notes and put up on a kitchen fridge, but the practicality of them never gets executed. That’s probably how this rumor started. These names are fun to throw around and all, but reality is that the Lakers probably aren’t going to give up 4 players for a $40 million Russell Westbrook that can’t shoot, or a $100 million aging Chris Paul. However, what is realistic and a huge help to the Lakers is Montrezl Harrell opting into his contract. At worst, ‘Trez is a nice trade asset. An expiring deal for a former 6th man of the year with upside. He might even still be a solid backup center off the bench for the Lakers. Either way, it’s a good situation for this team.
Memo to the Dodgers: summer is supposed to be fun. I can’t do this every night. The stress level, anxiety, and frustration you have caused us fans in the last week has been off the charts. Kenley has been phenomenal all year, but he sure picked a horrible week to collapse. The Dodgers have blown so many opportunities in the past week, by now they should be a couple of games up on the Giants. I’m also not sure what hell the Dodgers hitting coaches have been doing with Cody Bellinger’s swing. This dude is totally lost at the plate, and trying to hit everything to Mars every time he comes to bat. It’s like Andruw Jones has been working with him. I would love to see the Dodgers go get Max Scherzer this week, and add a high leverage bullpen arm to give them some insurance for Kenley Jansen. However, given Andrew Friedman’s propensity to hold on to prospects, I have my doubts we’ll see it.
The Angels are back in the news, and it’s not because Shohei Ohtani is hitting home runs like Babe Ruth. It’s because once again, Arte Moreno is being criticized for being a cheapskate owner. This time, it’s minor leaguers in their system, who are claiming that their living conditions have become unbearable and have impacted their mental health. In general, minor league conditions are terrible. However, do you realize how bad minor league conditions are in this case if players are actually complaining about it? Kieran Lovegrove , an active minor league pitcher in the Angels organization, is quoted in an ESPN piece saying that Arte “doesn’t give a “sh** about the winning side”. This dude is basically saying that Donald Trump would feed him better food with his fast food at the White House than the Halos are providing him. What joke! It’s no wondering the player development for the Halos has sucked. I feel bad for Lovegrove though, who’s career will probably end faster than that of the career of Vanilla Ice after these comments.
Awful news for the Rams last week, losing stud running back Cam Akers to a torn achilles injury. That’s some kick in the balls for this team. As much of a genius as Les Snead is, it’s not exactly like he can find Barry Sanders to plug in the lineup to replace Akers. We’ve seen how much different a Sean McVay offense is without a dynamic run game, especially when Todd Gurley was no longer the same player he once was, and how good they became once Akers began to emerge. I’m sure Darrell Henderson will get his shot, but he’s seemed a little bit frail in the early going in his career. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong, but this doesn’t bode well for the Rams.
Finally, another episode of The Bachelorette went down last week. Everyone is asking themselves how the hell Katie managed to keep Justin and Blake over Andrew. However, perhaps the worst line in Bachelorette history was Mike P saying “She reminds me of my mom.” I think everybody got chills down their spine when they heard that, and not in a good way. Even more bizarre was Katie chasing Andrew out, like she didn’t just shatter his heart into a 1,000 pieces. He had perhaps the classiest exit in the history of the show though. The man might have set himself up to be the next Bachelor. Nice strategic move by the producers to put the virgin on the sexual cuddling date. Greg has to be the most vanilla bland ass dude I’ve seen in a while on the show. Too bad she and Greg have been wearing matching outfits, which makes me think the fix is in and he’s going to win when it’s over.
