Monday Morning Coffee



April 11, 2022

The most shameful Laker season ended yesterday in Denver. Thank God for that, but the shamefulness continued with the front office leaks. This time it was somebody leaking to Adrian Wojnarowki that Frank Vogel will be fired. If Woj said it, it’s gotta be true, and I can’t blame him for doing his job. However, I do blame the classless idiots in the front office who couldn’t just wait 12 hours until the man was respectfully relieved of his duties. Since Vogel is holding onto the job in five minute increments at this point, he’s likely to be fired by the time you read this. The one thing I can’t understand is that for a franchise that does things so differently than others, why not do something different and keep Vogel? Only an idiot would think that this season’s outcome was his fault. He’s only getting fired because optically they have to make it look like they are trying something different. He led you to a championship 18 months ago, now suddenly he’s a scrub coach? This is a roster issue that will be difficult, but not impossible to fix. Heck if the Lakers are just willing to take back contracts beyond next season, they might actually be able to find a decent deal for Russell Westbrook. The real question people should be asking themselves is if it’s Rob Pelinka who should be making those deals anymore.

As for the Clippers, they are very quietly going to be matching up with the Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow night in the NBA’s Play-In Tournament. The Wolves have been solid this year, however, the Clippers suddenly have a lot of confidence with Paul George coming back as well as Norman Powell. I think everybody forgot that Normal Powell actually plays on this team, and that the Clips performed the equivalent of armed robbery at the trade deadline on the Blazers to get Powell and Robert Covington. I’m sure Pat Beverley will be looking for his revenge here, but I like the Clips chances of taking this one. I also have to wonder if they win, whether or not we will see Kawhi.

To baseball, where the Dodgers dropped 2 of 3 in their opening series against the Rockies over the weekend. You probably shouldn’t panic 3-games into a 162-game season, but there are a few things to raise your eyebrows at here. Apparently nobody told the Dodgers that spring training was over, because they are approaching these games with the urgency of the Lakers. The “historic offense” is also being carried by Gavin Lux and Austin Barnes through three games. I expect a lot more production when your lineup has Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and Trea Turner (among many others). More concerning though is the performance of Julio Urias, who’s velocity was down, and was rocked for the second straight outing, if you’re including spring training. With that being said, all three of those games were winnable, and the Dodgers still probably win the last two if they just make a play or two more.

As for the Angels, it was a rough opening weekend, dropping 3 of 4 to the Astros. I know Halo fans don’t want to panic either, but the slow starts, especially against divisional foes the last couple of years don’t exactly make you feel all that great about this weekend. Joe Maddon insisted that the Angels are very close to the Astros right now, but I’m not so sure about that from what I saw. I’m also not sure why Anthony Rendon was resting on Sunday, three games into the season. I guess he needs an extra day of rest to spend that $36 million he is making this year. The Ohtani-Trout-Rendon combination didn’t yield much against the Astros, but much of that was due to some stellar defense played by the ‘Stros. On the bright side, the Angels have to feel pretty good about the starting pitching they got in all three games, since the bullpen and the offense was to be blamed for the three losses. The Angels better plan on taking care of business this week against the Marlins and Rangers, two teams that should have no business winning a series against the Halos.

In College Hoops, it’s bitter sweet news, but Jake Kyman is transferring from UCLA to Wyoming. Kyman is a sharp shooter that could not find consistent minutes on a very deep and talented UCLA team for the last couple of seasons. He also approached Mick Cronin about what he could do to get more minutes, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much. Kyman is also a Bruin through and through, with both of his parents being alumni athletes as well. With that being said, UCLA is not going to be able to keep everybody, and find minutes for all the talented players that they have. Kyman is an unfortunate reminder of that, and you can be sure he won’t be the only one that has to make this kind of decision because it’s best for his college career.

The Masters went down over the weekend, but the story wasn’t Scottie Scheffler winning. Nor was it the azaleas. It was Tiger Woods, who was back on the course after suffering a catastrophic leg injury a year ago. There are some athletes you have to enjoy while they are still around because they are so special, and Tiger is just that. He didn’t come close to winning, but he put together a fantastic first round, and still gave us some tremendous shots over the weekend. His drive and will to win is still there, and he’s what actually makes watching golf interesting for the average fan. I’m very happy to hear that Woods is committing to The Open in a couple of months, and we can only hope that he is not only healthy, but even healthier than he was coming into The Masters.

Finally, the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead went down on AMC last night. Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it. This episode was a fight to the death with Maggie and Leah. You didn’t really think TWD was going to take Maggie from us too did you? That was one hell of a fight and I admit I was a little stressed, but thank god Daryl saved the day by killing Leah. I can’t imagine how Glenn would feel about all this right now though, knowing that Maggie is somehow trusting the guy that murdered him. Or even the fact that Negan is babysitting his kid. It’s crazy to think that happened 6 years ago. I have a bad feeling though that we will end up losing Rosita sometime in the final season. We lost her in the comic, so I’m sure they have some ridiculously tragic death planned for her in the fall. It was a solid mid-season finale, and I’ve gotta give the writers credit for how they re-invented the show. I’m over 10 years invested, so I need to see it to the end, and looking forward to it come the fall.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *