March 25, 2019
The Lakers were officially eliminated from the playoffs on Friday. It’s very fitting that they were eliminated while wearing the ugliest uniforms in team history. It’s disappointing but don’t write this team off from being really good next year, even though the optics look bad right now. They have the tools to improve drastically. I love how the Lakers probably leaked nothing, Doc Rivers rumors started, he squashed them, and some people think that alone damages the Laker brand. Rivers is barely an upgrade over Luke Walton. He’s like a car salesman that makes you feel good before the sale, but terrible right after you drive off the lot. Rivers also said “I’m going nowhere”. You coach the Clippers Doc. Everybody already knows that!
The NCAA Tournament has been great even though I’m about ready to burn my bracket. Admit it…you were dying to see UVA upset again by a #16 seed, even if it meant your bracket was going to be destroyed. UCI may have lost to Oregon, but they haven’t been this excited since In-N-Out opened across the street from campus. Louisville lost in round 1, and Rick Pitino’s semen is still haunting the basketball team. Auburn dude passed up an open layup to tie it on Thursday, despite their win. Auburn and New Mexico State should write a book on how not to finish a game. Ja Morant looked so good in the tourney, ESPN decided to show 5 whole seconds of him between Zion highlights. Eric Musselman must have thought by losing early in the tourney he’d be a great fit for UCLA. Glad Duke is still alive because Zion is just too entertaining not to watch for two more weeks.
Carol Folt is now the president of USC. Let’s hope her performance is better than the reviews she’s getting. According to the LA Times, sources at the UNC campus described her as not a strong leader, aligning herself with censorship of a history course, and refusing to acknowledge the culture of white supremacy on campus. This is setting up well isn’t it? Her final act was recommending the removal of a confederate statue on campus. Her first USC act should be the removal of Lynn Swann and Clay Helton from their current positions. This is a University that’s a disaster right now, and is bringing in a President that has just faced a disaster and did ok, not great. Only time will tell. No NCAA or NIT for USC Hoops. Instead it’s the FBI!
To baseball where the Angels shocked the world and extended Mike Trout for 12 years and $430 million. Another 10+ year contract? I guess That’s because baseball games take two years to finish. Trout’s first move should be to use some of that money to buy out the remainder of Pujols contract. Trout’s new contract could also pay for 860 of Lori Loughlin’s kids to get into USC. These contracts are never good deals for the owners, but congrats to Arte Moreno and the Angels for biting the bullet to win the PR battle with their fans. It’s going to take a couple of years for the Angels to get back to the playoffs though. They’ll need a lot better pitching and the Astros to get a lot worse. On the bright side, they have the benefit of time now that Trout is locked up. I don’t want to hear another baseball player whining about their compensation. $430 million? Put your kids in travel ball folks.
I know we adjusted the clocks an hour forward recently, but Rams GM Les Snead must have turned the clock back to 2010. That’s because he signed Eric Weddle and Clay Matthews instead of retaining LaMarcus Joyner and Ndamukong Su. The Rams strength was on defense last year, and that defense played very well in the Super Bowl. However, they may have just gotten slightly worse in a very competitive NFC. While both Weddle and Matthews may be great in the locker room, they were let go from two teams who are desperate for defensive help. Even if the 49ers got a little better, I don’t see the Rams having trouble in the NFC West. However, getting back to the Super Bowl will be tough with these senior citizens now anchoring the defense.
The LA Kings brought in Will Ferrell to play Ron Burgundy and join the broadcast team the other night. Seriously? Did they think that the teams play wasn’t laughable enough? The Kings pretended like they were Stanley Cup contenders up until the beginning of this season. That was 5 years ago!!!! Now the highlight of their season was putting Snoop Dog and Ron Burgundy on their broadcasts. This is pathetic. Just air all the games on Comedy Central while you’re at it. Time to blow it up and rebuild the right way. Just like they did before they won their first Cup in 2012.
Finally, a shocking episode of The Walking Dead went down last night on AMC. Major spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it, so read no further if you plan to watch it later. This was by far the most shocking and devastating episode we’ve seen since the death of Glenn and Abraham. This time we lost 10 people. But in reality you only care about 3: Enid, Tara, and Henry. Frankly, you probably only care about two since most of you wanted Henry to die because he was an annoying little bitch. The scene was very well done, dramatic, and frankly, the show just couldn’t afford to lose the characters that were taken in the comic in this scene. That’s why Ezekiel and Rosita were probably spared by the producer. Somebody get Negan a bat and let him go to work on Alpha. Gotta feel bad for those Highway Men though. They lost their lives protecting people they didn’t even know, and they didn’t even get to see that movie! It feels like I just watched “The Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones again.
