April 23, 2018
The Kawhi Leonard rumors are about to break Twitter. It’s weird that any player would not want to be a part of the Spurs’ winning culture, but Kawhi is clearly a weird dude. Not only is he weird, he’s an injury risk, and he’s going to cost the Lakers half their young core to get him. You know what that means right? Obviously, I want him on the Lakers. I know it sounds crazy, but I want him under two conditions: both Lebron James and Paul George are on the team as well next season. If I can put those three dudes on the Lakers, the talent outweighs the risks. As for the idea that Pop would never deal Kawhi to a Western Conference team, give me a break folks. If the Lakers put the best deal on the table with the most promising young talent, the Spurs aren’t going to say no and cut their nose off to spite their face.
Elsewhere around the NBA Playoffs, the Pacers had their chance to put Lebron away last night, but they are toast now. The Wizards may have tied the series, but I still think their only hope of beating the Raptors in the 1st round is if Drake starts the next 3 games for them at point guard. The Pelicans did some spring cleaning, sweeping away the Blazers. Portland won’t be participating in the second round, and will more than likely be participating in a group therapy session over the summer. AMBER ALERT: Hassan Whiteside. Last seen actually scoring points and getting rebounds for the Miami Heat during the regular season. If you have any information, please contact Erik Spoelstra immediately. Can we just get to Rockets vs Warriors already?
To baseball, where I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate JoK Pederson (and the “K” in his first name seems far more appropriate than a “c”) on getting his batting average over the always challenging Mendoza line after Saturday night’s game. Hopefully the Dodgers don’t have to wait until his next birthday to see him hit another home run, because it sure feels like that might happen. I still have no idea why Andrew Friedman and the front office is obsessed with this guy. His defense isn’t even as good as they want us to believe it is. After watching Kenley Jansen get his act together this weekend, I can’t decide if he isn’t that good anymore, or if he was just on the “Shaquille O’Neal Offseason Workout Plan”. I sure hope it’s the latter because the Dodgers would have literally no bullpen without one elite arm anchoring it. Speaking of arms, Hyun-Jin Ryu is easily the Dodgers’ best pitcher right now. This team is a serious work in progress. They only wish they could play the Padres every game.
Just when I thought the Angels might be a decent team they go ahead and lose a series to the Giants. Brandon Belt wore them down with the longest at-bat in MLB history, and by the time you finish reading this he might still be at the plate. I can understand getting bombed by the Red Sox, who have been hotter than the sun, but the Giants are terrible. At least Garrett Richards looked good, but Andrew Heaney got rocked on Friday, and the rest of the starting pitching looks shakier than the earthquake we had in LA last week. Shohei Ohtani is reportedly having blister issues. He should call Rich Hill to urinate on it for him to make it all better. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the Halos have to go to Houston to play the Astros for the next three days. I guess there’s still time for the Angels to complete their usual underwhelming first month of the season.
On the ice, the Kings are Ducks were eliminated last week, both getting swept out the playoffs. Both teams were probably commiserating with each other at Coachella over the weekend. The Kings best forwards disappeared like Hodini, and there should be an investigation by the FBI on where Corey Perry’s offensive game has gone. It’s true the Kings did get screwed by the league when Drew Doughty got suspended for a game for what was a clean hit, while Anze Kopitar was victimized by a stick to the face with no repercussions for Vegas. It’s like David Stern is running the NHL. Still, both teams need to give themselves long looks in the mirror this offseason, and consider making significant changes to their core. The game is all about speed and skill now, and both teams are built to be physical and wear opponents down. The league has adjusted, and now it’s time for both teams to adjust or else they’ll become extinct faster than the Dinosaurs did.
Just how bad have things gotten at ESPN? They are using Adam Schefter to do sideline reporting for NBA playoff games. I think it’s safe to say the network is spread a little bit thin after all those layoffs. However, one thing they’ve always been terrible at is covering the NHL, and that was evident this weekend when they tried to write an article about the Jets advancing to the second round of the playoffs. Too bad they put up a picture of the Vegas Knights. That led to the LA Kings Twitter handle trolling ESPN pretty hard.
Finally, I will never understand what goes through the mind of some of these network television producers. Scandal was a great show that had decent ratings. It might not be what it was in its heyday, but it’s far better than some of the ridiculous network shows ABC and Fox have tried to force down our throats, only to pull the plug on them after one season. Yes, the show had a satisfactory ending to it for most of its fans, but it easily could have gone on for a few more seasons. CBS kills it during primetime with the Big Bang Theory, so trying to come up with another unproven catastrophe to compete with them doesn’t exactly seem like the smartest decision.