February 17, 2025
Welcome to the President’s Day edition of Monday Morning Coffee! We start with the NBA All-Star game, which once again, ended up being terrible. This used to be must-see TV, but sadly, now it’s unwatchable. The effort yesterday was slightly better than previous years, but there were so many commercials and game interruptions, it feels like there was barely any basketball played. When there was basketball played, the product still wasn’t great, with an abundance of 3-point shooting. I don’t recall anybody in the 90’s or early 2000’s worrying about getting injured during these games, so why should they be concerned about it now? I have no problem with Lebron sitting out because of an ankle injury, and probably even prefer it for the sake of the Lakers. However, he probably could have let the league know a little sooner so the likes of Norman Powell, Devin Booker, LaMelo Ball, Damontas Sabonis, or Jarrett Allen could have take his spot. It’s not every year some of those guys will get the chance to be an all-star, which is unfortunate for them. The only way to get the players to care is to raise the stakes for them. A USA vs the World format might be interesting in the short-term, but it really isn’t the long-term fix. Perhaps they can add home-court advantage in the finals to the winner of an East-West game. Damian Lillard had an interesting idea with an “all-snub” team instead of a G-League or Rising Star team, but having 4 teams and a tournament creates too many breaks in the action. I don’t have a great answer yet for how to get the players to care though. They shouldn’t have the All-Star Game in an international location though because if they did, the product is so offensive, other countries would consider watching it an act of terror and declare war on the U.S.
Credit to Mac McClung for doing his best to save the NBA Dunk Contest, and All-Star weekend in general. The man was basically out there risking his life by dunking over cars. His creativity was phenomenal, but he does make you wonder why the NBA doesn’t just bring in YouTubers for the contest, since none of the stars really want to participate in it. The dunk contest really doesn’t need stars for entertainment, it just needs creativity, and doesn’t even need great all-around basketball players for it. However, even the 3-point shooting contest fell off a great deal this year. Tyler Herro won, but it wasn’t the same as watching Steph, Klay, and Dame go at it. I love the NBA, but at this point, these All-Star Weekends are just embarrassing the league more and more.
As for the Lakers, they skidded into the All-Star Break with a nasty loss against the Jazz. They are currently the 5th seed in the West, and you have to wonder just how good they can be. At this point, I think we can reasonably think the Lakers should be one of the top 6 seeds in the West. Can they be better than that and go on a deep playoff run? That depends on two things. Health and defense. The Lakers played some of the best defense in the league the last couple of weeks headed into the break, and that’s because Gabe Vincent, Jared Vanderbilt, and Dorian Finney-Smith all returned to the lineup and were effective. When the Lakers are missing two of those players, their defense is going to suffer a great deal. Even though Alex Len should be delivering your Door Dash instead of playing in the Association, if the Lakers can patch it together with Jaxon Hayes and Jared Vanderbilt in their front court with the rest of those solid perimeter defenders I mentioned, they can rise higher in the West than you think.
The Clippers on the other hand went into the break treading water as the 6th seed in the West. The also added some reinforcements with Ben Simmons on the buyout market, who will help their defense, and Bogdan Bogdanovich. Simmons will probably be interested in playing basketball until one of the Kardashians or Kendall Jenner gets ahold of him again. This Clippers team has some good players, but how far they go will ultimately depend on the usual: how available and effective will Kawhi Leonard be in the 2nd half of the season. Kawhi has started to play better before the All-Star break, but the Clips need more. He’s only played 30 minutes or more in 3 of the 15 games he’s played this season, averaging 16.3 points per game with splits of 46.4%/81.3%/35.9%. Can he give the Clips more eventually? Probably. Can he give the Clips more without getting injured again? Probably not.
To the NFL where there are still trade rumors surrounding the Rams and Matt Stafford. The Giants are reportedly interested in trading for Stafford, so they can unite him with his brother-in-law, who is on the their coaching staff. However, the Rams want the #3 pick for him. I cannot possibly imagine the Giants giving up the #3 pick for a 37-year old quarterback, or for that matter, anybody trading for Stafford unless a Kings ransom is coming back in return. The Rams are at the tail end of a championship window with Stafford. Their road map is simple: add a cornerback and elite wide receiver to replace Cooper Kupp, and try to contend for a Super Bowl next year. The moment they trade Stafford, without an excellent replacement coming back, that’s over. They won’t find that in this year’s NFL Draft. Just ask the 49ers what it’s like having an elite roster without an excellent quarterback. You get nowhere. That’s exactly what will happen if the Rams trade Stafford right now. Meanwhile, Kelly Stafford should take her commentary to the school parking lot, her community tennis courts, or her mommy podcasts, but NFL executives don’t care what you have to say about the football to be honest.
To baseball, where Spring Training is getting under way. The Dodgers did what we all expected by re-signing Clayton Kershaw. Although Kershaw probably won’t be ready to pitch until June, I’m happy to see him back in Dodger blue. The question with Kersh is frequently about health, so if he can be healthy come October, the Dodgers will hopefully have enough arms around him that he could function as an effective complementary piece at this point in his career. Otherwise, he’s an extremely positive clubhouse presence, and no doubt a first ballot Hall of Famer. As for the rotation and who is going to pitch, stop trying to pencil in 6 guys and argue over it. The reality of it is, you will almost never have 6 guys healthy at the same time. This is 2025 and pitchers get hurt. That’s exactly why the Dodgers have 12 guys who can start a game.
As for the Angels, they made some news of their own last week. They signed former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen. I’m sure Jansen very much wanted to return to the Dodgers, but at this point, don’t they all? If Kenley came back to the Dodgers, at best, he would be a 5th inning reliever. On the other hand with the Angels, he will be relied upon as a high leverage reliever, and potentially their closer. He may not be what he once was, but he still saved a lot of games last year. Sadly enough, this is probably the best acquisition the Halos have made all off-season. Meanwhile in completely unsurprising news, Anthony Rendon will be out indefinitely after undergoing hip surgery. This feels like Rendon’s way of saying he wants to work from home this year, especially after waiting until Spring Training to realize that he needs hip surgery. Someone needs to call the Anaheim Police Department on Rendon, because this guy has stolen $245 million for the last 7 years. The guy is so lazy he won’t even call Ron Washington back. Then this morning, Mike Trout announced that he will playing right field full-time this season. When he says “full-time” he really means about 60 games, since right field is closer to the trainers room than the actual playing field. Get ready for another rough year in Anaheim.
Finally, UCLA basketball got back in the win column on Friday night against Indiana. Dylan Andrews made two clutch free throws down the stretch, and the Bruins have now won 8 of 9 games. Joe Lunardi has them currently as a sixth seed in his projected March Madness Bracketology. By the way, a bracketologist has to be the biggest scam ever. Imagine convincing someone to pay you to come up with fake brackets all year. There’s a sucker out there everyday! Oh back to basketball…. I still think a good showing in the Big Ten Tournament can get them as high as a #4 seed, and put them in a better position to make a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 run during March Madness. They’ve convinced me that they can in fact beat any team in the Top 10 on any given day, as long as they defend at a high level, and don’t turn the ball over. More interesting though was the fact that Mick Cronin was asked point blank about the fact he is a candidate for the Indiana job, with Mike Woodson announcing he departure after the season. Cronin deflected about the possibility of being a candidate, and acknowledged it would be inappropriate to comment. However, I do find it notable that he did not mention anything about his level of satisfaction at UCLA, and has previously mentioned a year ago that he wasn’t happy with UCLA’s commitment to NIL recruiting. In other words, the idea of coaching Indiana for him doesn’t seem to be a “no”.
