April 18, 2022

The NBA Playoffs are underway but sure enough, all people are talking about is the Lakers. That’s how amazing this franchise is. What’s not amazing though is the complete lack of self-awareness from Russell Westbrook. After his exit interview last week, Westbrook told the media that he wasn’t given a fair chance and wasn’t allowed to be himself. He also didn’t understand why he felt like he always had to prove himself to Frank Vogel. Somebody needs to show Russ footage of him blowing layups, dunks, and hitting the side of the backboard all season long. Philip Seymour Hoffman had a better jumper in Along Came Polly than Russ does now. I thought there was a small chance Russ could return next season, but now I think there’s no chance. The Lakers should be willing to take back long term contracts just to get rid of Russ, and find veterans that are better fits in the process.

Meanwhile, the Clippers season ended on Friday night against the Pelicans, during the play-in game. I really thought the Clips were going to take down Minnesota, and for sure the Pelicans. However, that Paul George Covid protocol did them no favors. You’ve gotta hand it to the Clips for playing their asses off all season without their stars. Still, I find it interesting that everyone thinks the Lakers can’t win anymore because Lebron and AD are always injured, when Kawhi and Paul George have missed even more games than those two in their time with the Clippers. Things look promising now for the Clips, but the last time we said they just needed to add a couple of stars to their team of nice role players, they ended up with lousy chemistry and getting bounced in the bubble. Mixing Kawhi and PG back into the fold sounds good on paper, but we’ll see if it is finally their year as we keep hearing.

I’m always amused about the prisoner of the moment story lines that emerge from the NBA playoffs this time of year. Some of my personal favorite from this year include the idea that Brandon Ingram is suddenly a better player than Anthony Davis. Or that the Lakers were foolish for giving up their entire young core for Anthony Davis, and that the Pelicans won the trade. I guess most of these delusional people forgot that the objective of an NBA team is to win a championship. The Lakers won one with Anthony Davis as a key piece of that 17 months ago. The Lakers young core is really nice because they draft well, but they were right to give them up for a guy that gave them a championship. It’s also adorable that everybody loves the Lakers young core now, when prior to the Anthony Davis trade, everyone was saying how much they stink. I guess the Lakers really do know what they are doing when it comes to drafting and developing players. Some of these people need their Twitter accounts revoked immediately if we’re going to start fact-checking these sites and all.

UCLA Basketball lost another key player last week. This time, Peyton Watson declared for the NBA draft, and hired an agent, assuring everyone that he isn’t coming back to school. I’m not sure who is giving Watson advice, but it sounds like the equivalent of taking financial advice from Bernie Madoff. A kid who is averaging 3 points and 2 rebounds as a freshman, and is projected to be a 2nd round pick, isn’t ready for the NBA. Especially with NLI opportunities to make money in college, Watson could have made money while staying in school. I told you last week that UCLA couldn’t keep all the talent on their roster, but Watson isn’t somebody I expected to depart. UCLA should still be great next year, but this one will hurt the program, and I fear it will hurt Watson too.

To baseball, where the Dodgers are off to a strong start after handling business against the Twins and Reds. They’ve won 6 in a row, and I was pleased to see Julio Urias and Walker Buehler turn things around in their last starts, and it’s also nice to see Cody Bellinger remember how to hit a baseball. He’s probably not smoking as much weed over the past week. All of you want to talk about Clayton Kershaw though. I get that we were all deprived of watching a perfect game, but removing him after 7 innings was the right decision. I’m more upset that the Dodgers didn’t use Blake Treinen to preserve the perfect game, rather than the fact they pulled Kershaw. He looks phenomenal, he’s coming off injury and a short spring training, and even he admitted he should have been pulled from the game. It was also super cold that day in Minnesota, which increases in the injury risk. Baseball has too many “get off my lawn” fans, and unfortunately, none of you will see it this way. However, this is the way the game is played and managed in the modern era whether you like it or not, so you might as well get used to it.

That was a big series win by the Angels over the Rangers this weekend with the Astros looming tonight. Unfortunately, it looks like they might be without Mike Trout after he took a pitch off the hand. At least nothing was broken, and he’s day-to-day. Coming into Sunday, the Halos were slugging their way to wins, leading the league in home runs. They are also getting some fantastic pitching from Noah Syndergaard, which is nice to see. If Shohei Ohtani can look like the ace we think he is, the Halos are a much different team than we think. There’s a lot of promising things when looking at the roster and the performance, but whether they can actually come through against the likes of the Astros and Mariners and the tough division games is what really matters. What’s not so great though is the Angels remote broadcast team. I haven’t seen anything this embarrassing since the Halos played ball last season. Matt Vasgersian called a home run a foul ball, and called a foul ball a double. They lost audio at one point, and then Vasgersian confused the broadcast freezing with the pitcher holding the ball for a long time. Now the Angels made a last second call to send a broadcast team to Houston for the next series. Arte Moreno must have gotten a 2 -for-1 deal on Spirit Airlines to make this happen.

The LA Kings are hanging on for dear life in the final 5 games of the season to try and make the playoffs. The Kings are 3 points ahead of Las Vegas with 5 games left. Vegas has one extra game to play, but a much tougher schedule. LA is also limping toward the finish line with Drew Doughty out for the season with a wrist injury, and their #2 defenseman Mikey Anderson out of the lineup with the always mysterious “upper-body injury” as well. Still, the Kings are back to being fun to watch again. That is when they aren’t giving up 6 unanswered goals to Minnesota and 9 goals to Colorado. You have to really hate your goalies to let them endure that kind of punishment.

Finally, I’m ecstatic that Better Call Saul is back on AMC tonight with the season premiere of the shows final season. This show isn’t Breaking Bad, but it’s still a masterpiece, and if you saw Breaking Bad, you’ll have a much greater appreciation for it. I’m still trying to figure out how 42-year old Aaron Paul is going to be playing 17-18 year old Jesse Pinkman on the show this year. Ultimately, there’s two things we are all dying to know: what happens to Kim? And do we get to see Walter White and Jesse Pinkman? We already know the answer to the 2nd question, but I guess the better question is how we see them. We have no idea on the first question, but I’m almost terrified to know the answer. Can’t wait!