November 15, 2021
Let’s start with the team that is playing the best basketball in Los Angeles: The UCLA Bruins. UCLA took down Villanova in overtime at home on Friday, in a game that had March Madness Final Four intensity. I don’t want to hear from you casual fans that you don’t care about college ball until March Madness. Tell that to all the students, fans, and celebrities that packed Pauley Pavilion on Friday night. This UCLA deep is deep, talented, confident, and very well coached. This looks like a continuation of the level they were playing at last spring, and what’s not to love about that? The fans are also getting a little uh…..extra excited…….
On the other hand, the team that isn’t playing great basketball is the Lakers. They may have found the win column yesterday against the Spurs, but it feels like everyone is ready to trade Russell Westbrook to Mars for a can of Coke. I respect how hard the man plays, but we can now finally see why his triple doubles are negated by other aspects of his game. He’s an inefficient shooter, he’s a walking turnover, and a reckless defender. Lebron can’t get back soon enough. Then again, I’m not sure who is going to tell Lebron that it’s Austin Reaves team now. That kid has been a really nice find. So has Carmelo Anthony, who has finally become “Olympic Melo”. Right now this team isn’t close to championship level basketball, and even after seeing THT in the lineup, I’m not that optimistic they are going to get there this year.
Meanwhile, the Clippers are quietly 8-5, handling business against crummy teams. Despite yesterday’s loss to the Bulls, the Clips had won 7 straight before that, and Paul George was telling all the haters to shut up with his play. Considering that Marcus Morris and Serge Ibaka can’t even get healthy, this is another pretty impressive coaching job by Ty Lue. In fact, I don’t hear anybody making fun of Lue anymore, and saying he does nothing but draw clown faces on clipboards during timeouts. The man clearly knows what he’s doing, and it’s showing up in the results. At some point though, the Clippers need to get their stars back and productive if they want to go anywhere this season.
To the NFL, where the Chargers are continuing to find ways to lose their grip on the division. The Bolts lost to the Minnesota Vikings yesterday in typical disappointing fashion for them. This team has a top 3 QB in the league, and they dropped 7 passes. 2 of them would have been for touchdowns. Might as well put these receivers in Times Square for New Years since they are ball dropping experts. As if that’s not bad enough, they’ve got 8 guys that couldn’t even tackle and stop the run. These guys tackle like high schoolers. All of sudden, here come the Chiefs, and they look ready to rip the division away from the Chargers.
Then there’s the Rams, who have a big showdown with the 49ers tonight on Monday Night Football. The real story though is Odell Beckham Jr., who signed with the Rams last week. I feel like OBJ really just signed in LA to hang out with Lebron and drink wine. However, in terms of fit, initially it was really not necessary before Robert Woods tore his ACL. Now that that happened though, OBJ is probably much more of a need. The real question is if the guy can stay healthy though. For all the noise and the antics he’s made over the last few years, he also hasn’t been very healthy during that stretch.
In College Football, Baylor upset #8 Oklahoma, and now suddenly people are talking about Dave Aranda as the next USC Football Coach. Aranda came to Baylor and turned the program around after their rape cover up scandal, which is clearly why everyone is talking about him. If the idea is to just bring in a bunch of people who can clear the air after some scandals than Aranda is your guy. But isn’t that why USC hired Clay Helton? Just to calm things down and get out of the spotlight? Aranda is accomplished, but if the Trojans came away with him as their new head coach, I think most alums would end up burning their season tickets.
I guess we can’t forget about UCLA Football. Does anybody know if Johnny Juzang can play quarterback? Just asking for a friend. The Bruins struggled early but took down Colorado on Saturday. They are now bowl eligible, and everybody is suddenly supposed to be really excited. Chip Kelly is making boat loads of money, and after four years he finally got this program to a bowl game. It’s probably going to be the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl, or some other meaningless consolation game. It’s time……we’ve seen enough. This is as good as it gets with Kelly and UCLA, and its very mediocre. Let’s move on Martin Jarmond.
To baseball, where the off-season rumors are heating up around the Dodgers. They already started things off by signing Andrew Heaney to a one-year deal. I have no idea why, as Heaney was awful for the Angels, and basically has one good year of major league pitching. That’s it. As for Corey Seager, I still have a hard time seeing him coming back, and especially not at a price tag of $300 million. He’s saying all the right things and not ruling it out, but since his agent is Scott Boras, you can bet he won’t leave a single dollar on the table. I still like the chances of the Dodgers retaining both Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw though. With Scherzer, I just don’t want to see them give him a 3 year deal. That’s risky for a 37-year-old pitcher. For Kershaw though, I think he’s too great of a competitor to say he wants to go pitch for the Texas Rangers and sit home every October. I say he either pitches for the Dodgers next year or he retires.
The Angels are making noise too. I keep hearing them talk a big game about wanting to add starting pitching, and durable pitching at that. That sounds nice and all, but the real question is if they can outspend all the other teams with free agent money to burn. You also have to wonder how much the reputation of the organization has taken a hit with the lack spending on player development, and the conditions of their minor leaguers. They’ve certainly had some turnover in the scouting and strength and conditioning departments, but you can’t necessarily turn around that perception in a couple of months.
Meanwhile, The Bachelorette is back on ABC tomorrow night with episode 5. Chris S looks like the work-obsessed fiancé that gets dumped for the small town lumberjack in a Hallmark movie. Michelle must be the first bachelorette to realize that men wrestling doesn’t help her find a husband. Props to the producers for actually giving us a musician that we actually know this time. Martin looks like he could be one of Joe Exotics husbands. Best line of the season was from Romeo: “Chris S is a snake, that’s what the S stands for”. Nayte, Brandon, and Joe have to be considered favorites to make it to the Fantasy Suites. I’m not surprised that Will ended up going home after all. If we’ve learned anything about the producers, it’s that just because you survive some drama with one contestant, that doesn’t mean you’re going to stick around yourself. Looking forward to seeing who gets sent packing next!
