July 11, 2022
This is the part of the NBA off-season where news is slow, so people try to manufacture stories in their minds. My favorite is Jeanie Buss’s tweet, saying she misses Kobe, and what it really means. “She’s taking a shot at Lebron!” Or “She must be frustrated about not making a trade!” Probably none of the above guys. She is fully capable of missing Kobe and it has nothing to do with what’s going on with the team now, or anybody on the team. That’s all this is in my opinion. Then there’s the manufacturing of there being some kind of a rift between Russell Westbrook and Lebron James at Summer League. “Oooooh they sat on the other side of the arena from each other, they must hate each others guts!” I like how nobody assumes that they even said hi to each other or spoke to each other but nobody saw. There is just no real Laker news to report. You people that keep saying “The Kyrie trade is done” are hilarious. Do you really think they would agree to the trade and Woj and Shams don’t know about it? Sounds like it’s going to take a while for the KD trade to get done, and that apparently needs to happen first. The Nets latest demands include Anthony Davis, Lebron James, 25 first round picks, the Laker girls, a Playboy magazine with Jeanie Buss, and Crypto.com arena.
To baseball where the Dodgers have won 7 straight games after sweeping the Rockies and Cubs. For all that bitching and complaining, the Boys in Blue have the best record in the NL. They probably should have had 7 All-Stars because Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Julio Urias were snubbed. However, Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin are very much deserving of All-Star spots. Same goes for Trea Turner and Mookie Betts. I’m also delighted to hear that Kershaw will be starting for the NL against Shohei Ohtani at the Ravine. Kershaw may have been hurt for part of the season, but he’s still been one of the best pitchers in the NL this season. Like I said before, this man doesn’t not get enough credit for still being a great pitcher to this day. The one concern I do have is the closer situation, and unfortunately, Andrew Friedman doesn’t want to address it via trade. Instead it might need to be from an internal replacement for Craig Kimbrel, if he still looks like garbage. My vote would be Dustin May, who I have always believed has the stuff to be an elite closer. Only time will tell if he’s the next guy, or if Kimbrel will get his act together.
The Angels on the other hand do not have their act together, and are skidding again, losing another 4 straight games. It’s really astonishing that this team is now `18.5 games out of 1st place, and 7 games out of the AL Wild Card. If firing Joe Maddon did nothing, and having Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout does nothing, it speaks volumes about how terrible of a team you have assembled. I’d say the Halos should be sellers at the trade deadline, but what’s the point? They are going to pretend like they are in “win now” mode and not sell much, and the parts they are going to get back wouldn’t be developed properly enough to help their organization. Have you ever looked at the Angels staff directory?
Congrats to LA Kings forward, Adrian Kempe on securing a 4 years $22 million extension. Kempe scored 35 goals last season, and $5.5 million is a pretty reasonable cap hit for the Kings. Now it would be a little more reasonable if he scored some goals for them in the playoffs.
Finally, all that talk about Baker Mayfield and the Browns making up, and it turns out they traded him to Carolina. The Panthers really just assembled a QB room for the season with Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. Something tells me that by Week 15, neither one of them will be starting.
