May 3, 2021
The Lakers seem determined to make things very stressful for themselves and their fans. Lebron and AD are back on the court, but they don’t look healthy, neither is Dennis Schroeder, and there’s only 8 games left in the regular season. They don’t seem to care about seeding as much as their fans do. However, they should. The Lakers don’t want to be in the play-in tournament. Anything bad can happen in one game. They also don’t want to play the Clippers in the 1st round. That means their margin of error is slim, which is a problem when they are playing these games like they are 5 pm scrimmages at Equinox. Frank Vogel is also tinkering with lineups in these games like he’s playing NBA 2K on PlayStation. Buckle up Laker fans. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
The Clippers have suddenly slipped to the 4th seed after losing three straight games, including Saturday night against the Nuggets. Weren’t the Nuggets supposed to lose games after Jamaal Murray went down? Instead, Nikola Jokic has gone into beat mode and they are up to the third seed. The Clips are also probably trying to avoid the Lakers in the 1st round like we’re all trying to avoid getting COVID. The good news for the Clips is that Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins are suddenly playing like they entered a time machine and got five years younger. The bad news is that the CDC still does not recommend wearing any Clippers gear in public, even once you are fully vaccinated.
The NFL Draft went down over the weekend and I don’t really understand the Rams draft strategy. Their 2nd round pick was on an undersized receiver they could have had 50 picks later. Another one of their picks was on a player who you can’t even find in a Google Search. I was also a little bit surprised the Rams didn’t draft even a single offensive lineman in 9 picks. I’m not saying that Les Snead doesn’t know what he’s doing, because clearly he does, but it’s almost like he just shrugged his shoulders at the entire draft process and said “whatever”.
Then there’s the Chargers. Watching their draft was like watching the Bizarro World episode of Seinfeld. You would expect the Chargers to find a way to screw up their draft, but on paper, the Bolts look like they had one of the best drafts of anyone. They beefed up their protection for Justin Herbert, and beefed up multiple areas of their defense. Unfortunately, the Chargers don’t play on paper, they play on a football field where they haven’t been able to win close games. Whether or not that changes seems like it has less to do with talent at this point, or more to do with execution.
Elsewhere around the NFL Draft, Aaron Rodgers wants to be traded to the 49ers, and it’s probably because he just likes tormenting Matthew Stafford. Speaking of Rodgers, at the Kentucky Derby he was dressed like a guy who was there to arrest Tom Brady. When you start running down the picks, Justin Fields could single handedly get 8 GM’s fired if he’s really good. The Bucs took Kyle Trask so he could be the heir to Tom Brady. He should be able to learn from Brady for the next 10 years before taking over. Mac Jones walked up to the stage to be drafted by the Patriots like he was the branch manager at a bank coming to deny you a small business loan.
To baseball where things are not great for the Dodgers right now. They have so much talent but they are playing like a men’s softball team after a long weekend in Reno. This team just isn’t hitting. It’s not helping that Cody Bellinger and Zach McKinstry are out, but not sure what the excuse is for Max Muncy, Gavin Lux, and Corey Seager right now. These guys are allergic to hitting with runners in scoring position. Even worse is the fact that the bullpen is missing David Price and Tony Gonsolin, which isn’t helping their cause hanging on to leads in the past week. This can only be explained by “The Curse of The Dodger Dog”. The Dodgers have gone away from serving Farmer John Hot Dogs for the first time in ages, which must have something to do with this slump!
As for the Angels, they are still hovering around .500, but Mike Trout might be the best version of himself we’ve ever seen. As insane as that sounds, entering Saturday, Trout had a slash line of .425/.523/.781, which has not been achieved over a month stretch since 2008. That’s remarkable, but the Halos pitching has not been for the past two weeks. The starting pitching has felt like it’s been held together with chicken wire and duct tape in the first couple of weeks, and it’s already coming apart. The good news is that the division isn’t that great, so the Angels might be able to hang in there.
