Monday Morning Coffee

February 28, 2022

Just when you think the Lakers can’t embarrass themselves any further, they go and get smoked by 28-points at home against the Pelicans. If Chick Hearn were still alive and called that game last night, he would have absolutely crushed the Lakers. This team simply doesn’t care. Even Lebron, who scored 32 points last night, showed a very lackluster effort on the defensive end, and isn’t even leading. Of course it’s gotta be hard for Russ to show up to work everyday, knowing that Lebron tried to have him traded a week ago. I’m beginning to wonder if the Lakers are even going to make it to the play-in game at this point. If they are really going to put this kind of effort out there with 22 games left in the season, then they are really just ready to book their vacations to Cancun. Now Lebron is mad at Bill Oram of The Athletic for reporting that he had beef with Rob Pelinka for not making a move at the trade deadline. He claims that information didn’t come from him. We’re apparently supposed to believe Lebron when a week ago in Cleveland he told us that he hasn’t dismissed the idea of re-joining the Cavs at some point. I’m also not even really sure why we are all still watching this team. Apparently none of us care about our mental health.

To the NFL, where we can talk about much brighter news: Sean McVay has officially announced that he’s coming back to Rams! We heard for weeks that McVay was really considering walking away because he was burnt out, and flirting with the idea of broadcasting. I know many of you think this was some kind of a money grab by McVay, but I don’t really think it was. If that was the case, why did it take McVay a couple of weeks to publicly commit to coming back to coach the Rams? I think he was seriously considering calling it quits. I also think that by 2025, Sean McVay won’t be coaching anymore. If you put this kind of idea out there, the end is a lot closer than you think. Now the question is whether or not Aaron Donald is coming back, which we should find out shortly. He probably still has his shirt off celebrating somewhere.

In baseball, do you really think these idiots are going to come to a labor agreement today? Your odds of winning the Powerball are better. The owners are going to force the players to start missing game checks once they start cancelling regular season games, really putting the heat on the players association. There are 30 owners, and hundreds of players. Naturally, it’s a lot easer for the players to give in than for 30 owners to do the same. No matter what people say though, I don’t buy the notion that “fans won’t come back” if games are cancelled. They forgiven and forgotten before, and they will forgive and forget again.

UCLA basketball had a mixed weekend of results on their trip to Oregon. They lost to the Ducks, and then beat up on Oregon State. The Bruins will likely end up as the #3 seed going into the Pac-12 Tournament, and would probably need to win the tournament to become a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Otherwise the bracketologists of the world have them closer to a #5 seed. In any case, this team just needs to get healthy, rested, and in rhythm. They looked in rhythm on Saturday night, but they certainly aren’t healthy or rested. Jamie Jaquez is playing on two bad ankles, Johnny Juzang has his own ankle injury, and they are in the midst of playing 6 games in a 12-day stretch. One thing that might help the Bruins is that teams in the Top 10 AP Poll have been dropping faster than Joe Biden’s approval rating. With 6 of the top 16 teams losing over the weekend, they might be able to move up a little with a strong week against Washington tonight, and USC on Saturday.

The LA Kings are suddenly a very interesting and dangerous team to watch again. The Kings are surprisingly sitting in 2nd place in the Pacific Division with 29 games left in the season. That’s surprising because the Kings are in a developmental stage, with many younger players in their lineup and in their farm system. The Kings actually have the 2nd best farm system in hockey, according to The Athletic, and if anything, they have too many high-ceiling players that play the same position. For that reason, they are in an excellent position come the trade deadline in three weeks. They can make this team even better by adding a star player on defense, or even a star goal scorer. Even if they don’t the Kings might not be that far away from Stanley Cup contention again, in the next season or two.

Finally, props to The Walking Dead for learning from their mistakes from previous seasons. No, they haven’t brought back all their old characters, but in last night’s episode, they sped up the storyline instead of spending 5 or 6 episodes story telling about whether or not a new community should be trusted. Yes, it has a “Game of Thrones” feel to it, but most of you liked that aspect of GOT before they botched the ending. I also find it very hard to believe they are going to end The Walking Dead without bringing Rick Grimes back for another appearance at some point. Of course if you ask Scott Gimple and Angela Kang, they will tell you it’s not happening, but that’s also like believing Putin when he said he wasn’t really going to invade Ukraine last week.

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