Monday Morning Coffee

February 21, 2022

Happy Presidents Day everyone! The Laker crisis has turned into a movie that we’ve seen three times before: Lebron setting himself up to leave in free agency. You can already tell with Lebron’s passive aggressive comments toward Rob Pelinka and the Laker front office, while heaping praise on other front office executives in the NBA, and even in the NFL. If you think I’m taking his comments and stretching them into something else, you need a history lesson. This is the exact same thing that occurred twice in Cleveland, and in Miami. Ramon Shelburne even validated this with her report last week that the Lakers are unlikely to make drastic changes in the off-season, because essentially, Lebron and Anthony Davis created this roster, so they need to make it work. That is the proper position to take. It sure would help if Anthony “Day-to-Davis” could stay on the court and dominate for more than a handful of games at a time. Still, without any draft picks, the Lakers would be smart to not make any salary commitments beyond next season. That way they can arm themselves with Anthony Davis and boat loads of cap space to re-make the team, even without any draft picks. And no, Anthony Davis isn’t getting traded for Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler as Chris Broussard says. He probably got this info from Drake while hanging with him at Tao night club. If Lebron wants to leave the Lakers, he’s certainly earned that right, but the Lakers need to protect themselves appropriately and prepare for the next era post Lebron in a smart way.

As for the Clippers, they’ve had plenty of injuries and plenty of excuses to lean on, yet they keep treading water. The Clips are sitting in the 8th seed, hovering right around .500, and playing hard enough to give teams some problems in a play-in tournament. It’s also funny how just a couple of years ago, everybody thought that Ty Lue was nothing more than a coach for Lebron, who was probably drawing clown faces on clipboards during timeouts. Instead, he’s now developed a reputation as one of the top coaches in the league, and one that players really like playing for. Kawhi Leonard likely won’t play this season, but if Paul George can make it back in a few weeks, they could make things even more interesting.

As for All-Star Weekend, Steph Curry put on show, and was making every shot from virtually the parking lot. It was fitting for Lebron to score the game-winner, but that’s also the hardest I think I’ve seen him play in at least a couple of weeks. That had to have been the longest halftime in the history of any basketball game. I think Scottie Pippen ended up being virtual for the Top 75 player ceremony just so he didn’t have to see Michael. Let’s all just pretend like that Slam Dunk contest never actually happened Saturday night. I get that we are trying to introduce younger players into the dunk contest, but that was a disaster with a bunch of no-names. I can appreciate what they did with the Rising Stars Challenge, making it more of a tournament format. However, they need to make the three-point shootout the final and main event moving forward. It has names, and lately seems to turn out a lot more exciting than many of the most recent dunk contests.

LeBron James, right, celebrates with teammates, including Stephen Curry after hitting the winning shot.

Meanwhile, the Rams enjoyed a nice celebration for the last week after winning the Super Bowl. It was an eventful week where we learned quite a bit. First of all, according to Veronika Khomyn, Sean McVay’s fiancé, who we basically all trust because she’s smoking hot, says that he’s not retiring on her Instagram account. I will wait until I feel a little more confident that nobody has been drinking at a parade, or in their home before I’m really confident that McVay is coming back to coach, but I feel a little better about it then a week ago. I also feel a little better about Aaron Donald returning, only because he laid out some requests to come back: OBJ and Von Miller re-signing. Both of those sound realistic, given the cap money coming off the books, and OBJ likely taking a discounted deal after his injury. Donald had his shirt off for most of Wednesday’s parade, and if my torso looked like his, I probably wouldn’t own any shirts. Then there’s the Matthew and Kelly Stafford incident, where they watched photographer Kelly Smiley fall off the stage and fracture her spine. The overreaction to this entire incident is the most 2022 thing I’ve ever seen. Yes, the Stafford’s reaction to the incident was completely insensitive, but it’s not like they could do anything anyway. The idea of them paying their medical bill is a nice gesture, but apparently these days all you need to do is fall in front of rich people and they will pay your medical bills. Then there’s all you idiots on Twitter that started a go-fund me instantly for her, only to want your money back when you found out Smiley had all these racist remarks from 5-10 years ago on her social media account. You people have way too much time on your hands.

On to UCLA basketball, where they handled business nicely over the weekend against both Washington schools. Mick Cronin deserves credit for digging a little deeper into his bench, rather than focusing on the same six dudes to get him by. That can pay dividends big time come the tournament. Their opponents may have stunk, but to dominate the way they did in the past two games without their starting point, or Johnny Juzang and Cody Riley speaks volumes about that depth. At this point for the Bruins, it’s about getting healthy, and peaking at the right time. When UCLA moves the ball and gets quality shots, they can beat anybody with the effort they put in defensively. The Bruins are also undefeated when they shoot 35% or better from 3, which tells you just how good that defense can really be. I still get weirded out hearing Steve Lavin talk about UCLA. He’s now picking them to win the National Championship this year. It’s like hearing your ex talk about you in a weird “I still have feelings for you” way.

By the time you finish reading this column, I’m guessing new USC Quarterback Caleb Williams would have signed another NIL deal. This kid is suddenly raking in the dough, with deals from “Beats By Dre”, “AC+ION Water”, and with a private equity group. This is suddenly becoming the Wild West, or maybe it’s the “Wilder West” because this was happening before, now it’s just happening everywhere because it’s legal. The NCAA is also in trouble now. They are losing control, like a parent over their kid going off to college. Wait until the College Football Playoff expands from four teams, then they will have nothing left. Rightfully so, as the NCAA is just a corrupt organization that has been taking advantage of kids for years to a large extent. Now they are getting what they deserve.

Finally, I don’t know about you but I’ve invested way too much in The Walking Dead to not watch the final 16 episodes of the series, which started last night. They’ve obviously had to re-make the show, due to many character departures, but last night got off to a bang with a lot to process for a mid-season premier. The entire Reaper organization has been decimated. Alexandria is lying in rubble. Negan takes off. The Commonwealth arrives, courtesy of Eugene, and invites our people to join the cause. Cut to six months later: Maggie’s defending the walls of Hilltop, someplace we haven’t seen in awhile, and a phalanx of threatening Commonwealth soldiers show up to do…something. Their leader? Daryl Dixon. Maggie has transformed into a women that is 56 weeks pregnant to a fierce soldier that is on a killing war path. It was pretty sad watching her lose Alden. Daryl could have been doing a shampoo commercial at the end of the episode when he took off his helmet, and shook his hair like he was a super model. Gabriel went from being a complete coward, to not even being phased by walkers or intruders at the gate. The final stretch is off to a good start, so I’m interested in seeing how it ends.

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