Monday Morning Coffee

June 24, 2019

One of the best rivalries in sports is becoming Laker fans on Twitter vs ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowki. You cannot deny how amazing of a reporter Woj is. However, ESPN wants him to provide his opinion, which can often be misconstrued for his sourced reporting. When it comes to his opinion, make no mistake about it, this man has Celtic ties. Woj is an east coast guy, with serious east coast ties, and it’s always been hard not to associate him with the Celtics, especially given that he worked with notorious Celtic homer Chris Mannix while at Yahoo. Sometimes you can almost hear Danny Ainge leaking him information with his “sourced material” sure to irritate Laker fans. The last thing Woj wants to see is a Laker super team. For that reason, Laker fans are dying to see this man be wrong, and are practically bullying him on the internet. I’m beginning to think Laker fans just want Woj to be wrong more than they actually want the Lebron-Kawhi-AD super team. This rivalry is only sure to get better in the next two weeks.

Who are these UCLA kids getting draft advice from, Lavar Ball? Moses Brown and Kris Wilkes were not drafted, and Jaylen Brown was barely selected before it was over. Even if these kids can develop in the G-League, they are leaving school early to make $35,000 a year. That would be a paycut from what some of the boosters are paying these kids at USC and Kentucky. Imagine how much better UCLA and College Basketball would be if kids like that stayed in school for another year or two? Imagine how much better the NBA would be if the kids they picked were ready to contribute and make an impact right away. Unfortunately, we’re not only going to continue to see this, but it will only be worse because drafting kids right out of high school again is going to become a thing.

Speaking of Lavar, are we finally done with him? Now that Lonzo is off to New Orleans maybe ESPN won’t care about him. They might not also let him back on their network after he was hitting on First Take host Molly Qerim last week. Qerim is married to ESPN’s Jalen Rose, who was probably in the room next door when the incident took place. Rose hasn’t been this disrespected since Kobe dropped 81 points on him at Staples Center in 2006. Lavar claims that he wasn’t actually hitting on her, and he tried to tell TMZ that by “changing gears” he meant “changing topics.” That’s hard to believe, because at the time, nobody watching or on the set interpreted the comment that way. Nevertheless, something tells me that people won’t stop putting a mic in this guy’s face, and he’ll keep giving people nonsense to talk about.

The Dodgers are losing bodies, but they keep winning games. Rich Hill, David Freese, and AJ Pollock are all out with injuries, but the Boys in Blue keep plugging in guys you’ve never heard of and they keep winning. I know you want me to credit Andrew Friedman for that, but riddle me this. If he believed in Alex Verdugo so much, then why did you have to go out and sign Pollock to a massive contract? Verdugo is killing it as an everyday player, while Pollock is killing the Dodger payroll on the injured list.

The Angels got handled by the Cardinals this weekend in St. Louis, and Albert Pujols finally made his return to the place he spent the majority of his career. Pujols actually hit a home run in this series, and it’s nice to see that he can do that every now and again since he’s only making $25 million. Albert should also put his foot in his mouth after telling the media before the series that he can’t wait for Mike Trout to play in front of “real fans”. Albert, there are “real fans” that actually come out to see your unproductive butt every night in Anaheim, and they can’t wait to see you retire.

Congratulations to Sean McVay who got engaged to his girlfriend Veronika Khomyn. That’s bad news for all the dudes drooling over Khomyn, and bad news for all the women who were hoping to lock down McVay. The good news for McVay is that he finally got a ring! Oh, and this is what he looked like in high school.

I’m not one to get very excited about the NHL Draft. Even if you’re a huge hockey fan, you’re watching your team pick teenagers that you won’t even see play pro for 2-3 years at best. However, the real sad part of this is the LA Kings, who had a top 5 pick this year because they stunk, and seemed determine to stink next year with another top 5 pick. Imagine having a team with Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Jeff Carter, and Dustin Brown, and planning on tanking before the season even starts. That’s as wasteful as it gets.

Finally, The Bachelorette is back on ABC tonight. Hannah actually threw out the first pitch the other night at the Dodger game which makes perfect sense. The Dodgers are run by Andrew Friedman, who has questionable judgement, and they selected someone with very questionable judgement in men to throw out the first pitch. That entire episode is an example of a meeting that could have been an email. How is this Luke P dude still around? Since when do people get to stay on the show when they don’t get a Rose? Is Chris Harris going to regulate this or is he just going to drink Pina Coladas on the beach like he usually does all season? Hannah looks like she’s reached her breaking point and is ready to quit. Honestly though, would you be that upset if she did and they cancelled the rest of the season? I sure wouldn’t. I’m ready for this season to be over. You are too, but sure enough, you’ll probably be back next season to watch the train wreck again.

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