Monday Morning Coffee

March 7, 2022

Let me start by saying this, even though the Lakers are a disaster, Lebron just reminded us on Saturday night of just how great he is. He became just the 4th player in league history over the age of 37 to score 50+ points. He won’t be here forever people so you have to appreciate the greatness you are watching. With all that being said, he said he was fueled by “desperation”. Funny, because I would think “desperation” would have kicked in before they cratered to 9th place in the West with just 20 games left in the season, and on the verge of missing even the play-in tournament. I guess Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald, or some other Rams player needs to be in the building at all times for these guys to actually show up and play. Hope they are available every night for the next four months. Especially since every loss the Lakers endure, you’re going to hear more leaks like the one we heard Saturday, which trashed Russell Westbrook and indicated that many in the organization want him benched moving forward. Saturday was nice, but the Lakers are a bad team with or without Lebron James and Anthony Davis at this point. I was going to rattle off some joke about the Lakers being like the Russian army, but Saturday Night Live beat me to it!

https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA/status/1500382554637185028

As for the Clippers, we know they won’t get Kawhi back this season, and it feel like they won’t get Paul George back either. However, they are still a remarkable story with their ability to stay in playoff contention. I also couldn’t help but notice how Reggie Jackson was loving every single moment of embarrassing Russell Westbrook the other night against the Lakers. Jackson clearly holds grudges like he’s Aaron Rodgers, because he tore up Russ the other night, and clearly has some hard feelings after their divorce a few years ago in Oklahoma City. I thought these two were going to fight after this happened.

https://twitter.com/Ballislife/status/1499732539015061506

The MLB lockout continues, as I told you it would last week. We know for sure they are cancelling games, which means the heat is now on the players since they are missing game checks. These idiots were only $50K apart from making an agreement, yet they pulled the plug on the negotiation last week. Now they are starting from scratch. Of course it was Arte Moreno who opposed increasing the CBT threshold, which is so on brand for that cheapskate. Arte is probably tired of getting outspent by the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox, so he was just taking it out on them by turning down that part of the deal. However, it’s the Angel fans that are tired of Arte and his foolish ownership style, dictating to his front office the moves that should be made. He’s also looking like the slum lord of the MLB, with sub-standard conditions for his minor leaguers. When the lockout is over, we’ll see if all this negativity around him ends up hurting the Angels in free agency.

Speaking of MLB teams spending money, my expectation is regardless of what comes out of the new MLB labor agreement, the Dodgers will have money to spend. They should do everything they can to quickly sign Freddie Freeman, then re-sign Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen. That would give the Dodgers an excellent lineup that is arguably even better than last year. It would also fortify their pitching staff, which is littered with young talent, but just needs a couple of wily veterans in the rotation and the back end of the bullpen. None of those three should cost the Dodgers an unreasonable amount on an annual basis.

To College Basketball, where UCLA was looking healthier and in good form on Saturday night in their win against cross-town rival USC. They are also still undefeated when Jessica Alba is in the building. The Bruins finished in 2nd in the Pac-12 for the regular season headed into the conference tournament. Everyone seems to think Arizona might be the best team in the country. If the Bruins are healthy, they are quite capable of beating the Wildcats, or any team in the country for that matter. Jamie Jaquez suddenly looks like he has two good ankles, Jules Bernard is balling, and Johnny Juzang is starting to get healthy too. Mick Cronin indicated Juzang is not ready yet, but he will be. Joe Lunardi has the Bruins at a #4 seed, but if they can win the conference tourney, they can easily be a #3 seed. However, in either case, this is becoming a very undervalued team by betting standards. UCLA has the 12th best odds in the country to win the National Title. When healthy, they are no worse than a top 5 team. That’s especially important for all of us degenerates out there ready to open our wallets to bet on the NCAA tournament.

The NFL off-season is quietly going well for the Rams prior to free agency starting. They got a commitment from Sean McVay to return, and now Ian Rappaport is reporting the Rams are planning on giving Aaron Donald a big raise. You really think Sean McVay was going to come back without knowing that arguably the best player in the NFL was coming back? If you did, you probably believe the last thing Joe Biden said too. Even if the Rams also bring back OBJ and Von Miller, repeating is always an uphill climb. However, the best thing they could have going for them is Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson potentially heading to the AFC. I know many have been reporting that Rodgers is going to go back to the Packers, but if so, then why hasn’t it happened already? I still think he’s leaving because he wants to stick it to the Packers front office. People who hold grudges do crazy things, and he looks like he’s ready to do something crazy. I also love how people are just dying to know what he’s going to do and frustrated he hasn’t made a decision. This unfortunately isn’t the Netflix series you can just blow right through to the end to find out what happened. You’ve all been ruined by streaming TV.

Lastly, nice episode of The Walking Dead last night on AMC. Of course Eugene did the equivalent of online dating and got catfished during the zombie apocalypse. That’s very on brand for him. Meanwhile, Carol is now curing cancer and taking down drug lords at the same time. This felt like the Ozark episode of the series. Her level of badass continues to rise. Lance is shifty and suspicious. I wouldn’t trust that dude to tell me what he wanted on his pizza. I’m getting major Gregory vibes here. This show is very weird about swearing. Apparently you can smash someone’s head in with a barbed wire baseball bat, but saying the F-word is off limits. How can you not love Princess at this point? She’s hilarious and thriving in the Commonwealth. Also, people will always open doors for you if you bring them food whether it’s in the apocalypse or not. Props to the show for providing us with content that we can use endlessly in gif’s on Twitter.

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