Monday Morning Coffee

Kobe sits out

December 21st, 2015

I like how everybody thought for a second that the Lakers might reel off a few wins after beating the Bucks.  Nice try folks.  This team still stinks.  They looked like a bunch of high schoolers playing against pros in Oklahoma City, and they got demolished by Houston.  Poor Anthony Brown.  His first NBA start and he’s up against Kevin Durant.  It was like child abuse.  The young players are coming along, but watching the last two games just shows you how much work is ahead of them.  Then there’s Kobe.  At least he’s playing better and not looking like total dog crap.  The real question though is whether or not he should be an all-star.  Being an NBA-All Star isn’t easy.  The honor is only given to 24 players, and people always get the shaft.  Take a player like Eric Bledsoe for instance.  Having an all-star worthy year, but may or may not make it. If Kobe makes the team as a “legacy award”, that’s a spot a player like Bledsoe won’t get.  Bledsoe may be young, but he’s a guard, which is a stacked position in the West.  This may be his best chance to make an all-star team.  Would it be nice for Kobe to be there? Of course, but it shouldn’t happen at the expense of a roster spot.  The commissioner should give the West an honorary 13th spot.  I don’t think anybody would have a problem with that.

As for the Clippers, exactly as I suspected.  They tear it up against the league’s trash, then get exposed against real competition.  Only 5 of their 16 wins have come against teams over .500.  They  fell short against the Spurs then got punked by the Rockets, who are softer than Charmin.  The funny part is, the Clippers haven’t actually played that badly against teams like the Spurs and Warriors, but instead of building off the success they’ve had, they always have the body language of team that knows it isn’t going to come through in the most critical moments.  They also don’t seem to enjoy playing with each other either.  This is a leadership problem more than anything.  Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, and Doc Rivers have created this culture.  They are the ones that need to be accountable for turning it around if it’s ever going to happen.  Since they’ve been together for years now, it seems unlikely to change.

Dwight Howard is such a chump.  That dude has fallen so far, and his act is wearing thin in Houston. He’s played the last two games against the Lakers and Clippers like he’s playing pickup basketball at 24 Hour Fitness.  His teammates don’t even respect him anymore, and he’s a total liar.  He claims he doesn’t want out of Houston and that his relationship with James Harden is fine.  That’s about as believable as a promise from a Presidential candidate, especially since Dwight echoed the same thing in Orlando and Houston before he left those teams.  I can’t imagine any team that’s going to give him a 4 year max deal if he opts out of his contract this summer.  If Darryl Morey were smart, he’d ship that fool to Philly to let him rot, and just take the cap space and some draft picks.  Meanwhile, Kendrick Perkins set this epic screen last week…..

For a little over a week, UCLA looked like it might be one of the best basketball teams in the country. They even looked that way in the 1st half against Carolina.  It was like John Wooden rose from the dead and took over the body of Steve Alford.  In the 2nd half Saturday, Wooden went back to his grave because the Bruins returned to playing no defense and turning the ball over, while getting outclassed by elite competition.  Much of that can probably be attributed to UCLA big men Tony Parker and Thomas Welsh, who got themselves into foul trouble early, and couldn’t play together for much of the game that they dominated early on.  UCLA probably won’t face another team that good until NCAA tournament, but at least they’ll be well prepared for Pac 12 play.  It’s just hard to know exactly how good this team is right now.

Has anybody seen MonMouth play basketball? Then again, you probably are all wondering where that school is.  This squad has actually beaten some halfway decent competition this year, taking down UCLA, USC, and Notre Dame.  They’ll be a dangerous mid major come tournament time.  However, the real story with these guys is their bench.  They have some epic celebrations that you’ve gotta see.  Of course there’s rumors of the NCAA creating rules to prevent teams like MonMouth from doing these types of celebrations.  As usual, the NCAA is nothing but a wet blanket that won’t even let these kids have fun.  Now this is a team that is clearly having fun both on and off the court…..


The Dodgers off-season is actually becoming hilarious.  The latest joke is that they couldn’t even finalize their deal with pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, who ended up re-signing with Seattle.  Sorry but there’s just no way the Dodgers aren’t doing this on purpose.  You think a team goes from a $300 million payroll to half that in one season accidentally? Friedman has been stupid by just giving away talent, but the Dodger ownership is enabling them to do this because their $5 billion television contract isn’t what it was once worth without being distributed by Time Warner Cable.  Other than Corey Seager, many of the Dodgers top prospects are several years away from making a big impact at the Major League level.  If the Dodgers were really trying to make their team better they would have acquired Todd Frazier in that three way deal last week, and would have already signed Howie Kendrick.  You thought it was Frank McCourt that didn’t like to spend money and only Ned Colletti that signed old guys? Think again.  For now, we’re re-living the past.  Don’t worry though….most of you won’t actually have to watch the garbage product the Dodgers put on the field next year, because you won’t be able to without the Dodgers channel distributed again.  Meanwhile, the TMZ video of Yasiel Puig’s recent violent acts surfaced.  However, TMZ later reported that it wasn’t Puig in the video.  That makes sense…..there weren’t enough hits.

Fake PuigAnybody actually watch the Bowl games this past weekend? In case you missed it, there was New Mexico vs Arizona in  “The Meth Bowl”.  BYU vs Utah in “The Premarital Sex is Bad Bowl”.  Ohio vs Appalachian State in “The Teams Michigan Can’t Handle Bowl.”  San Jose State vs Georgia State in “The These Two Teams Play Football? Bowl”.  And finally, there was Arkansas State vs Louisiana Tech in “The Still Better Than The SEC East Bowl”.

It seems like we’re closer than ever to an NFL stadium solution, but very far apart on the owners agreeing which teams will be moving to LA.  The Chargers and the Raiders have one foot out the door in their current markets, who have done very little to provide them with a solution for a new stadium.  The Rams on the other hand, have been provided with a reasonable stadium solution in St. Louis from public money.  However, do you really think that Stan Kroenke would buy all that land in Inglewood and not move his team there? I still think when push comes to shove, Kroenke is going to move his team regardless of what the owners think, even if it means dealing with lawsuits from the league.  If the Rams were to move to LA, in many ways the Chargers and Raiders are screwed, because they desperately need stadiums.  What the Chargers don’t realize though is that if they move to LA, their fan base will be even smaller than that of the Los Angeles Clippers.  When the Chargers had their training camp in Carson, nobody showed up.  Many fans from San Diego are also claiming they wouldn’t follow the team anymore if they move. At least the Rams and the Raiders can stake their claim to a fan base they already know is here.

Speaking of the NFL, Week 15 went down yesterday.  How did Odell Beckham not get ejected from that game? If it were a UFC fight he would have been disqualified.  The Dallas Cowboys have now clinched a wild card bye, a division round bye, conference championship bye, and a Super Bowl bye.  The Chiefs have won 8 straight games and have been dominating for weeks.  I doubt anybody in the AFC is going to take down New England though.  The Chargers finally scored a rushing touchdown!  Wasn’t Melvin Gordon supposed to solve all those problems? I don’t know if the Panthers can handle the pressure of going into the playoffs if they are 16-0.  Sometimes Teddy Bridgewater makes you think he’s an elite QB, like yesterday.  The Bills made Kirk Cousins look like Dan Marino.  The Redskins look like they are going to take the NFC East.  I wonder how RGIII feels about all this.  Remember that guy?  The Seahawks are still dangerous, but them playing on the road in the playoffs is like Superman battling Lex Luther without his cape.   I have no idea how the Texans have 7 wins, but they look like they will win that pile of trash known as the AFC South.   After the Rams beat the Bucs on Thursday Night Football, they should take on Mayonnaise next week in the “The Condiment Bowl”……

Mayo-Bowl

Steve Harvey had the most hilarious screw up last night during the Miss Universe contest in Las Vegas.  He mistakenly announced Miss Columbia as the winner, when it turned out it was Miss Philippines.  That mistake was so bad, I fully expect him to be hosting an ESPN midday talk show shortly.  Here it is in case you missed it……..

That was a good season 5 finale of Homeland last night, but it almost covered waaaaay too much.  Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it.  In less than an hour, we covered Carrie preventing the Sarin attack, her suddenly renewed then severed relationship with Jonas, Laura’s threat, Carrie’s cloudy future with the agency, and Allison’s whereabouts.  There was so much that it felt like an episode of 24.   And of course it left the fans unsatisfied because Peter Quinn died.  Everybody wanted him to live because they wanted him and Carrie to start some type of romance.  But it’s Homeland, which means that everybody that Carrie loves dies.  Quinn was a man who was living on borrowed time all season, so his death (or so we think) was inevitable.  I also wanted a more satisfying ending to the Allison saga.  In fact, I kind of wanted her to get away, instead of just seeing her shot to death in the trunk of a car.  I still wanted to see her demise, but in a different way. Since each season of Homeland post Brody has been a  a story by itself, it’s hard to know how good the show will be moving forward.  You know that Carrie is coming back to the agency, or else the show won’t work.  I guess I need to take the leap of faith and watch next fall just to be sure.

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