February 13, 2023
Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on winning Super Bowl LVII yesterday against the Eagles. Let’s start with this: you may not have wanted the game to be decided by a penalty, but that was a holding penalty. Everybody is so focused on James Bradberry putting his hand on JuJu’s back, but the penalty wasn’t that. It was him tugging on the jersey moments before that. It’s a bad way to end the game, but it was the correct call. Bradberry even owned it afterward. The Eagles felt like they were dominating this game for such a long stretch, but they never put the Chiefs away, and you can’t do that when Patrick Mahomes is on the other side. Sure enough, it cost them the Super Bowl. Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense was pretty good too, but it wasn’t enough. I also don’t know what they gave Mahomes at halftime, but whatever it was, I want some. I thought his ankle was going to fall off, but he somehow managed to keep going and play at an elite level. I don’t know if he will get to 7 Super Bowls, but he’s got a chance to be one of the best ever by the time he’s done playing. Nice to see Andy Reid win a Super Bowl that the Eagles were actually playing in. The Super Bowl also re-confirmed something I’ve thought for a long time: cleaning up confetti must be one of the worst jobs in America.
As for the rest of the broadcast, I thought Rhianna had a great halftime show. If you didn’t like it, you either don’t like her music, or you’re just one of those Twitter heads that are looking for something to criticize. She’s a superstar with so many hits, and she played all of them. The fact she did it while pregnant is even more impressive, even if it did take away from her ability to do more choreography like she has in the past. For the commercials, I thought they were just ok overall. Tubi was great, and really made us all think that we accidentally pushed some buttons on our remote. The Budweiser Commercial with the dog and the horse had all the feels to it. Plus anything with “Breaking Bad” in it is always going to be a fan favorite. Other than that though, for $7 million, these brands should do a better job of making me realize what it is they are actually advertising.
To the NBA, where the Lakers are suddenly a completely different roster after the trade deadline. Russell Westbrook, Damon Jones, Juan Tuscano-Anderson, and Thomas Bryant are all gone. D’Angelo Russell is back, and also new to the team are Jarred Vanderbilt, Mo Bamba, and Malik Beasley. That’s actually a pretty nice trade by Rob Pelinka, that should dramatically improve the shooting, defense, rebounding, and balance of the roster. The problem is, the Lakers are running out of time and they don’t have any margin for error left. The Lakers probably need to go 20-7 just to get in the playoffs, and that may only be good enough to get them to the play-in game. 20-7 is a tall task for a team where the durability of Lebron and AD are always in question. The Lakers got a nice win on Saturday, which is a nice start, but the fact Darwin Ham keeps playing these 3-guard lineups with all these new pieces makes me think he might just have the IQ of a Snapping Turtle.
I don’t want to sit here and trash Russell Westbrook. He’s a great teammate, and he did buy into his role. However, he was not a great fit with the Lakers. Now the Clippers are rumored to have interest in Russ if he’s bought out by the Jazz. Paul George claims he’s a better fit than he would be for the Lakers. If I’m being honest here, this probably won’t end well. The Clippers need a true point guard. Russ is a bit more of a scoring point guard. The Clips also don’t have any guards left after the trade deadline, despite the piece they added. That means Russ will have to play bigger minutes than they would want him too. If you have Russ for the minimum in a role off the bench, that’s not bad, but you have to play him with the right group. I think he would play too big of a role with the Clippers for him to be good, and not hurt them. I mean if Kawhi sees Russ pull up for a three pointer with 20 seconds left, he might actually show some emotion for the first time.
UCLA Basketball picked up another pair of wins last week, this time over the Oregon schools on the road. The victory over Oregon on Saturday was especially impressive, with Jaime Jaquez Jr. scoring 25 points and looking more and more like an NBA player with each game that he plays. His play was much needed at a time when the offense was struggling, the big men were in foul trouble, and Amari Bailey was ailing. The #7 Bruins have now opened up a 1.5 game lead in the Pac-12 standings over 2nd place Arizona. UCLA still has a shot at a #1 seed in the tournament, but they will have to not only have a strong finish to the regular season, they will likely have to win the Conference Tournament to make that a reality. I’m not sure that really matters though as long as they are healthy, the offense is clicking, and they peak at the right time.
Congratulations to Dustin Brown, on having his own statue unveiled Saturday Night at Cryto.com Arena. Brown is an American born, two-time Stanley Cup winner on the LA Kings, and the franchise leader in games played. More importantly, thanks to Brown, I am able to make fun of every NHL fanbase that has never won a Stanley Cup, and I will never forget him for that. The Kings just had about 10 days off, but they looked great on Saturday night against the Penguins, winning 6-0. There’s also some big trade rumors around this team, so we might see a splashy trade from them in the coming days.
