Monday Morning Coffee

UCLA guard Tyger Campbell, right, drives past Arizona guard Kylan Boswell.

March 13, 2023

March Madness is upon us! UCLA is banged up but managed to make it to the finals of the Pac-12 Tournament, before losing to Arizona in the final moments on Saturday night.  It’s fine that the Bruins are a #2 seed in the West, which is probably less pressure than being a #1.  However, don’t try to tell me they shouldn’t be a #1 seed after barely losing to a Top 10 team down two starters, both big guys fouling out, and getting nothing from Lloyd McClendon, Dylan Andrews, and David Singleton.  This team is tough, and they just keep playing better when more adversity strikes.  Jaylen Clark is done for the season, but Adam Bona sounds like he’ll be ready next week.  The committee is clearly not very creative.  Once again if UCLA is going to the Final Four, looks like they’ll have to beat Gonzaga followed by Kansas in weekend 2.  I’m sure Mick Cronin would probably slap me and tell me “we gotta get there first.”

To the NBA, where the Lakers dropped one to the Knicks last night.  That one just had some terrible shooting, but the Lakers should actually be feeling better about things.  They’ve got a real shot to suddenly make the play-in tournament, and a possibility to even get the 5th or 6th seed and bypass it altogether.  They’ll have to play through Anthony Davis way more than they did yesterday, but if they stay afloat for another week or so, they might even get Lebron back to push even harder.

Lakers forward Anthony Davis tries to control the dribble on a drive against Knicks center Isaiah Hartenstein.

Meanwhile the Clippers appear to be back on track, but that’s mostly due to the greatness of Kawhi Leonard.  Kawhi has been playing like the all-nba player we know him to be.  However, one can’t help but wonder if by himself he can help them overcome their chemistry issues.  This team at times looks like they just haven’t spent enough time on the court together, despite their flashes of brilliance.  On the bright side though, the new Intuit Dome will have thousands of toilets, which Steve Ballmer is pretty pumped about.  Cue the jokes about the Clippers being a toilet franchise.

Load management in the NBA makes no sense anymore.  The idea behind it is to give the players more rest to prevent them from getting injured, and prolonging their career.  Instead, players are not only missing high profile regular season games fans spend a lot of money on to attend, but players are still getting injured more.  I believe it’s because their bodies aren’t used to the rigors of playing and practicing regularly like they used to do.  If the players aren’t careful, they are going to screw themselves in the next CBA negotiation.

In the NFL, the Rams made a big move yesterday, trading Jalen Ramsey to the Dolphins, for the equivalent of a dirty sock and a can of coke.  This move goes to show you a few things.   First, the Rams may be giving up on 2023 with a mini rebuild.    Ramsey may be a bit in decline, but he’s still an effective corner and a big part of their defense.  Getting his money off the books allows them to get closer to signing all their upcoming draft picks, while opening up a ton of cap space the year after.  That also tells you that Sean McVay is here to stay for more than just this year.  He’s committed to building this thing back up.  Even Matt Stafford was being shopped at one point, which makes you think the Rams may do an extensive reboot, but if anything, it tells you they are already looking for their next franchise QB.  I would too knowing that Stafford’s health doesn’t seem all that stable.

In baseball, Arte Moreno finally spoke to the media, and gave an interesting puff piece to Sports Illustrated.  He claimed he had a few good offers, but even those prospective owners knew he wasn’t ready to sell the Angels.  Arte tried to make it seem like he was just a die hard fan that wanted to enjoy drinking beer at the ballpark.  However, this whole thing has to be related to any scrutiny on him from the failed sale of the stadium from the city.   There’s also the topic of Shohei Ohtani, which he addressed.  As you would expect, he said they will not trade him as long as they are in contention, and deflected on this question if they aren’t in contention.   I’m curious come July what Arte’e definition of “contention” is.

I finally got to watch the Chris Rock special on Netflix.  As usual, he was hilarious.  If you’re offended by anything he said, you probably shouldn’t be watching in the first place.  As for the Will Smith part though, that was just sad.  I personally, love Will Smith, and apparently so did Rock, until last years slapping incident at the Oscar’s.  That segment was more of a sad reminder of how Rock feels about him now, and how Jada Pinkett has ruined Smith, and changed him from the person many of us love.

I’m sure those of us that tuned into the Oscar’s last night were disappointed that nobody slapped Jimmy Kimmel.  In all seriousness though, it was a good show.  There is always that one movie that sweeps every award.  In this case it was “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.”  It won 7 awards.  Happy that Jamie Lee Curtis won after all these years.  Tom Cruise didn’t actually attend when “Top Gun” was nominated? They Academy was probably thrilled so they didn’t have to see him stand up on couches yelling things.

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