June 15, 2020

Suddenly I’m getting nervous that sports might not be coming back. The NBA in particular. Kyrie Irving is trying to rally the players against re-starting the season in Orlando next month to instead, focus on solving racial injustice. He’s even got Dwight Howard on his side. I realize that Kyrie’s heart and intentions are in the right place, but the man’s emotions are more volatile than the Dow Jones. Those emotions are causing him to miss the point: NBA players and pro-athletes have a voice against racial injustice because they are playing ball and using that platform. So why shutdown that platform when you need it most? This is why you can’t trust a guy who thinks the earth is flat to lead this effort. Dwight Howard on the other hand gets a pass because the mother of one of his children passed away recently, so if he doesn’t want to play I can understand that. With that being said, not playing would be a grave mistake of both social and financial consequences, and I refuse to believe that NBA players will actually follow through on this idea. Not even 20% of the league was on Kyrie’s call Friday, and I doubt that all of them even agreed with what he was saying.

Then there’s baseball, which appears to be ending its disastrous labor negotiations. The players decided to do so because they believe the owners aren’t negotiating in good faith. Hard to argue with them knowing that Commissioner Rob Manfred can implement whatever length of a season he wants, and it will likely be around 50-games. The sticking point is that no matter how long the season is, the owners only want to pay the players for 50-games and no more. No matter what side you believe is right, both sides look like crap, and have no self-awareness. Each side keeps making dumb public statements trying to win over the public. Nobody buys it. If Rob Manfred really had any vision or guts, he would implement something that both sides wouldn’t be happy with. Instead, having this dude in charge is like having your 10-year old negotiate a divorce between two parents. Even if you put the money issues aside, it’s going to be hard enough to re-start the season in the midst of the COVID-19 resurgence. Plus, even if we get some Mickey Mouse of a season this year, I can guarantee a strike will happen in the near future given the lack of trust on both sides. MLB should just rebrand their league as MBL. My Bottom Line.

Reggie Bush is being welcomed back to USC! After 10 years of being exiled from the history of USC due to archaic NCAA rules, the Trojans welcomed him back with open arms. Even in the midst of all the scandals going on at USC, this just feels right. Just because Bush got caught accepting gifts doesn’t actually change what happened on the field. We know he was still great. He also made the NCAA tons of money while he comparably received very little. Aunt Becky’s kid wants to know when she will be welcomed back by the Trojan family.

Ray Ciccarelli is quitting NASCAR because they are banning the flying of the Confederate flag. Yea I know, I had to Google him as well to see who he was, but I can see why he can identify with them. Both he and the Confederate Army have 0 victories. Even if Ciccarelli wants to stand by his claim that flying the flag doesn’t make you a racist, what it does make him is completely clueless when it comes to American history. You’ve gotta give a lot of credit to NASCAR for taking stand against it, even thought they knew it might not be received well from a lot of their viewers.

Do you realize how absurdly awkward this whole topic of racial injustice has become? Think about this: we have a President of The United States who has not addressed the country during civil unrest because his base is largely racist. We have organizations like the NFL and NASCAR who have had to make “difficult” decisions around denouncing racial injustice because it might alienate some of their supporters. Think about how ridiculous all this sounds in 2020. Did I say 2020? I guess all kinds of absurdity is possible this year. I mean to say think about how ridiculous this sounds in this day and age. We are still dancing around people who are racists and protecting these dinosaurs who are out of touch with society. It’s like 2020 is the year people learned they need to wash their hands and that racism is bad. I know lots of people want to “stick to sports” but this is impacting every aspect of life right now, including sports.

June 8, 2020

The NBA still has a lot of things to work through, but they are well on their way to beginning play again at the end of July. Unfortunately for teams like the Lakers and Bucks, they won’t get the benefit of home court advantage because there will be no fans. That’s a shame because home court means a lot in the NBA playoffs, and would have in a year like this. At this point, the Lakers will be lucky to get Jack Nicholson and a fan to be named later sent to Orlando to cheer them on. Maybe the NBA will throw in some free parking and open bar at Disney World, but that’s about as good as it’s going to get. Still, I like the Lakers chances in this kooky format the league was forced to come up with. I don’t think skills are going to be sharp with this much time off, so if you are a team that relies on shooting you might be in trouble. The Lakers rely on defense and getting easy buckets in the paint, which should serve them well.  

Apparently NBA players will be allowed to bring their families into the bubble in Orlando. For those of you unfamiliar with the Wide World of Sports in Disney World, it’s a park within the park. I’m curious which member of the NBA Players Association negotiated this. If anything it feels more like something the owners proposed, thinking they were doing the players a solid. In reality, the players can’t be happy because it will interfere with their social agenda. Then again, how do the players expect to sneak all those Tinder girls and their side pieces into the bubble in the first place? COVID was a tough blow, but now it’s going to be another tough couple of months for NBA side pieces. Keep your thoughts and prayers with them in this difficult year.

Drew Brees really stepped in it last week with his comments around anyone “disrespecting the flag”. His comments were certainly insensitive and hurtful to many. In fact, the next day, Travis Rodgers, Keyshawn Johnson and LZ Granderson not only condemned Brees on ESPN Radio 710 for his comments, but basically wrote him off saying they were done with him. While there’s no disputing the fact that his comments were insensitive, if you are just going to write people like Brees off after incidents like this, you’ll never see progress. It saddens me to have seen someone like Brees get completely crucified publicly, given everything he’s done in the New Orleans community. If anything, Brees has the ability to be a powerful voice in both the black community and the white community, leading the charge against racial injustice. In fact, not only did he apologize several times since then, he’s made it a point to publicly call out President Trump regarding his stance on this issue. Since then, LZ has written a very good article in the LA Times regarding the difference between being “non-racist” vs being “anti-racist”, which addressed Brees specifically. The type of action he’s taken in recent days seems a lot more “anti-racist”, and pretty impactful. Hopefully LZ, Travis, and Keyshawn can recognize this.

I’m not trying to stir the pot, but I’m going to stir the pot right now. Keep an eye on the Chip Kelly situation at UCLA. Let’s start with the fact that Kelly already has a growing perception that he’s a guy who barely cares about his job, and is just enjoying a fat paycheck. I also found it interesting that while in the NFL, several comments from his former players insinuated that he was either racist, or at least does a poor job relating to young African American men. Some of his former players in Oregon seem to disagree with this idea, but his tweets last week around George Floyd’s death brought this incident back to light. Kelly made some vague statements around unity, which three former players publicly criticized. It’s hard for me to imagine that Chip Kelly is a racist, but there is a quietly growing narrative that he’s having difficulty recruiting at UCLA because of this noise. Oh by the way, UCLA has a new Athletic Director, Martin Jarmond, who is the first African American Athletic Director in school history. Not so convinced? We are now living in a world where an LA Galaxy player was just cut because his wife made some racist comments on Twitter. The complexity of these situations is growing exponentially.

For years my cousin has been fuming about the fact that in the mid 90’s, he walked into a club in Miami and saw Dennis Rodman in the bathroom. He tried to talk to him and he completely ignored him. He saw Michael Jordan in the bathroom an hour later in that same club, and talked to Jordan, raving about what an engaging guy he is. I told him, Rodman probably was just having a bad day. I guess he was having a bad day too on Saturday night, since I saw him at Gulf Stream restaurant in Newport Beach. I was with someone who asked to take a selfie with him, and he said “Wooooooow! Noooooooooo!” Then walked away. To be fair though, he was hitting on a table with 7 girls in the minutes prior to that.

Finally, Barstool Sports has a very entertaining Instagram account, but they are 100% full of crap. They came out with a graph showing America’s favorite food chains by state. This is supposedly based on 2020 data from the Public Information and Statistics Society. Not even an NFL player suffering from CTE in California would choose Denny’s over In-N-Out. I don’t even think there is a Long John Silvers in Maine, and there’s no way Sbarro is the most popular in New York. Chuck E Cheese? Nobody is picking that as their favorite restaurant with a rat as their mascot. Barstool Sports is either just messing with us, or getting their data from CNN. Just another example of why 2020 is so screwed up.

June 1, 2020

If you want to know just how creative NBA players need to be to exercise these days, all you have to do is take to the streets of LA and find Lebron and his teammates going for a bike ride to get their cardio in. With gyms and NBA practice facilities closed for long stretches, most NBA players idea of cardio is walking to their refrigerator to slam another snack. Instead, it sounds like Lebron and many of his teammates have been finding creative ways to stay in shape, and it looks like they might benefit from it a great deal when the season resumes in Orlando in July. Another thing they might benefit from is a 1-16 seeded playoff system, if the NBA goes that route. That would mean that the Lakers would be on the opposite side of the bracket as the Bucks, Clippers, and Celtics. I hope this happens just so I can see NBA Twitter’s head explode when they complain about the benefits the Lakers are getting. I’m sure all those people who mocked the Lakers for months for playing hard every night will say it was rigged, or argue an asterisk is needed if the Lakers end up winning an NBA title.

To baseball where everything is a mess, beginning with the Angels. In the last 10 years, Owner Arte Moreno can’t seem to do anything right. This man probably thinks Del Taco is too expensive for a meal, while an unreliable player like Josh Hamilton is worth $125 million. His latest blunder is just nine days before the draft, furloughing the area scouts who spent the past year evaluating draft-eligible players in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Area scouts are the among the lowest paid in baseball, and if they live in Orange County, they might as well be buying food stamps. They also so happen to be among the most critical personnel for a team that is putting the focus on rebuilding and player development. How are small market teams like the Brewers and Twins able to pay their scouts during this time, yet the Angels are not? Imagine these scouts jumping on with other teams just before the draft, and how much of a competitive disadvantage that would be for the Halos. Arte Moreno’s work from home stint clearly isn’t going very well.

As for baseball, the owners and players still can’t get out of their own way. The owners and players wouldn’t even trust each other with a cup of coffee, so it doesn’t look like they’ll be coming to an agreement anytime soon. There’s plenty of blame to go around. I blame the owners for not being reasonable on asking the players to take bigger pay cuts when they already agreed to one, and those players don’t reap the benefits of more successful revenue years. On the players side though, I blame them for being babies about safety and not more accommodating. The NBA and NHL players are committed to playing in another city for the rest of the season. Baseball players really can’t do this? They can even have their families with them. Baseball has never been the same since the season that was cancelled due to the strike in 94. Since there is even more to do now, people will care even less about it when it comes back if they lose another season. I put the majority of the blame though on Rob Manfred, who probably isn’t even qualified to lead a group of boy scouts.

Last week was obviously a rough week for the country, and served as a reminder for how hard it is to be black man in this country, and how much work we have to do to unite the country. However, we also learned that even in a riot, nobody will steal a Kirk Cousins jersey….

I watched the Lance Armstrong ESPN 30 for 30 last night and I found it rather ridiculous. Whenever someone says “let me tell you my truth”, their credibility is in question instantly. I’m pretty sure there is just “the truth”, rather than your version of the truth Lance. The man’s legacy is complicated. He beat cancer, and raised a lot of money while creating a lot of awareness around it. But sadly, his cheating was a key to his success, even in a sport where everybody was cheating. He seemed inspirational on the surface, and I sure loved those Livestrong bracelets at the time. You can probably get one for less than the cost of a Happy Meal now. However, he destroyed the lives of those who dared speak truth. Stories like his leave us less able to be inspired the next time. That might be even more harmful than the rest of his peers that just cheated to try and win.

May 25, 2020

We are a whole week after the ending of The Last Dance, and everybody is focused on “The Flu Game”, which is really now “The Bad Pizza Game”. These dudes had 23 years to come up with a story and all they could come up with is food poisoning? Jordan’s camp forgot that this is the social media era, and when the former manager of that Pizza Hut in Utah heard the story, he completely shot it down. There weren’t five guys that delivered the pizza, and it wasn’t tampered with. Also hard to believe MJ’s camp would allow that with his always tight security. Was it altitude sickness? Maybe. Did he smoke a couple of cigars and throw back a few drinks? That’s possible too. It’s hard for me to believe that he went out to some club or bar in Park City and partied. Although nothing would surprise me, I’m thinking a couple of cigars and a drink or two combined with altitude sickness made him ill. Either way, poor judgement by MJ’s camp in thinking nobody would call him out on this story. They should have just said he had the flu and that was it and people would have bought it. Can’t wait until the next Jordan Nike shoes come out. They’ll probably be called “The Bad Pizza 12’s”.

I love how everyone is talking about what other sports figures they want to see a Last Dance style documentary on. Look people, I know we’re desperate for sports content, but there is nobody I can think of that would warrant a documentary this long and in depth. Tom Brady’s last season with the Patriots and the truth behind their breakup would be interesting, but I don’t need to see 10-parts on it. Even Tiger Woods wouldn’t cut it, unless he had footage of all the babes he hooked up with on the road for a decade. This Lance Armstrong documentary might hold my attention for a little, but don’t even try to compare it to The Last Dance.

The Match: Champions for Charity was really good television yesterday. Tom Brady was hot early, and then ice cold late. Early on it looked like Brady learned how to deflate golf balls. However by the end it looked like nobody needed the beverage cart more than him. Good thing he quit before it started to impact his football legacy. I also love the trash talking that Peyton Manning did about who he would have as his caddie: “Do you bring Eli? You could do that. Do you bring Nick Foles? Maybe.” Even Sean Payton had this savage barb while watching it.

Look i’m definitely interested in “Blackballed”, and the Donald Sterling story from the players side. However, leave it to Steve Ballmer to stick it on some subscription only platform that nobody has ever heard of. I realize that there is a 14-day free subscription, but this is a significant story in the history of the league that needs to be told. Why stick it somewhere that nobody can see? Mind you, we are in the middle of a global pandemic where people are starving for entertainment, and Quibi isn’t even one of the 50 most downloaded apps.

Gavin Newsom clearly reads Jock Talk LA. Last week, after I criticized him for being overly cautious and not allowing sports to resume anytime soon, he is now saying pro sports teams can now resume activities without fans. Sports are going to come back, but they will look as different as Khloe Kardashian now looks. I’m not saying this is financially driven, but I am saying he suddenly changed his mind once the NBA, NHL, and MLB started talking about playing their games elsewhere than California. Apparently someone in Newsom’s office refreshed their Excel spreadsheet, and informed him there’s a $54 billion deficit, and over $100 million in taxes would have been coming from a full baseball season alone. Even more would have come from the NHL and NBA. Why do you think LA is suddenly bidding for NHL games even if they don’t involve the Kings? At this point, every little bit of revenue counts to get California out of debt.

Speaking of NHL games, they are farther ahead than anybody else in planning to get back to playing and finishing the season. These guys already have a union and owner approved playoff structure. It’s got 24 teams. Imagine being such a bad hockey team that in a season where 24 teams make the playoffs, you get left out. And you won 7 in a row before this decision was made! That’s the LA Kings folks. It’s probably not worth it anyway for the Kings to finish the regular season and get their older players hurt, while also risk damaging draft positioning. However, no matter how many good players the Kings draft, they badly need to fix their system and their culture.

Finally, while the NHL and NBA are quickly working their way towards a return to playing, the MLB can’t even get out of their own. Funny how a month ago we heard that MLB had a plan in place to get going. It turns out their players and owners can’t even agree on what to order for lunch, let alone how to shoulder the revenue losses that are going to occur. If they can’t agree on that they certainly won’t be agreeing on a structure for the season either. Not to mention that their league’s leadership is clueless. Rob Manfred is still probably trying to figure out how to turn his computer on after beginning his work from home stint.

May 18, 2020

The Last Dance concluded last night with the Final Two Episodes and it was an amazing ride. It’s sad it’s over, but wow did I enjoy that. The Flu Game was a lie! It was food poisoning all along! Makes sense since I wondered for all these years how he got better so fast for Game 6. “I ate the pizza, all by myself. Nobody else ate the pizza.” I’ve never felt so connected to MJ after that quote. I would have loved to see Rodman take off for WWE in the middle of the Finals during the social media era. I never knew about the Steve Kerr story, and the man deserves a documentary himself. His only flaw is that he actually named his son “Nick”. “Nick Kerr”. I have tremendous respect for him now. What did Michael write in his poem? “Roses are red, Violets are blue, hey Jerry, just wanted to say eff you.” Thank you to Michael Jordan and ESPN for giving us 5 great Sunday nights when we needed them most.

Speaking of the NBA, Adam Silver said last week that he plans on making a decision on whether or not to continue the season in the next 2-4 weeks. Getting ready for “The Decision: Commissioner Edition”. For those of you who are saying “just shut down the season” you are overlooking just how damaging it would be financially to the NBA. These NBA owners break out in a cold sweat when they have to pay a small luxury tax bill. You think they are going to be ok losing hundreds of millions in revenue for a lost season? I know you’re all going to say they are billionaires who can stomach the loss, but they don’t think that way. Most of the players want to play too because they want to get paid as well. You may just call this nothing more than millionaires and billionaires squabbling, but it’s really just a microcosm of what we’re all trying to decide right now: is being locked down and shutting down our lives worth the other damage that comes along with it? There’s really no right or wrong answer. Personally, I’d rather see them try and come up with an attempted solution as long as it’s safe, rather than just give up.

Congratulations to Martin Jarmond, who has been named the new Athletic Director at UCLA. The good news is that nobody knows who this guy is, he has no UCLA ties, and he’s had success as a fundraiser. The bad news is that he takes over for an Athletic Director who ran up a fat deficit like he was the CEO of Enron. As if that’s not challenging enough, he takes over a football and basketball program that can’t find a way to get fans to come to their games, in a conference that’s having it’s own issues (more on that in a moment). He also has a football coach who doesn’t really give a crap about his job or the team. This job is going to be so tough that it’s going to require a young, new, fresh thinker. Jarmond appears to have the makings of that.

Then there’s the challenges USC Football has to deal with. The noise is suddenly getting louder that USC and Alabama might not play on September 5th. We’re not even talking about a game in California. This game would be in Texas, but it doesn’t matter since there might not be any football for California schools come the fall in any situation. As if USC didn’t have enough problems with a football coach that has no idea what he’s doing, a pissed off fan base, and new University leadership that has football very low on on it’s list of priorities.

Let’s be honest, the PAC-12 looks like they are screwed right now, making the challenges even tougher for the USC and UCLA athletic programs. They have a useless PAC-12 TV network that nobody can watch, and who’s revenue is sinking faster than the S&P 500. That’s making it harder and harder to recruit, not just in football, but also for the historically elite basketball programs like UCLA and Arizona. Now the safety first approach of Governor Newsome may torpedo this conference for good. Newsome is unlikely to allow gatherings in the thousands at stadiums and arenas in California for at least a year. Pro sports might be able to deal with this, but college athletic programs can’t. Not because they can’t survive financially, but rather the fact they can’t compete against schools in states with more politically conservative governors. The entire SEC is going to ignore the coronavirus and gather in the thousands this fall for games. The SEC doesn’t even need any other conference to play football against. The Big 10 and Big 12 will have many schools that are more appealing to recruits in both basketball and football. It also doesn’t help that none of the PAC-12 AD’s are working together, and simply trying to find solutions on their own. I am genuinely concerned for the long-term viability of the conference, and if you are a fan of one of those schools, you should be too.

Finally, I’ve never understood why these Major League Baseball players can’t just have a little bit of self-awareness. This has been the case historically, and the latest one of these clueless players is Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays. Snell says that he’s got to get his money. This man just signed for $50 million. Funny how he’s saying he’s willing to play for his full $7 million salary, but it’s not worth it at $3.5 million, and suddenly not worth the health risk. I don’t begrudge anybody that makes a good living like Snell, and everyone rich or poor has financial obligations they need to meet. He even has a point that the owners should be bearing the financial brunt of a cancelled season, since the owners of any business should bear the fruits of good times and the brunt of bad times. However, 95% of Americans aren’t going to buy into what he’s complaining about during a pandemic. There’s 33 million people unemployed, and millions more trying to figure out how to pay their bills. Shut the hell up Blake Snell and let your Players Association do their job.

May 11, 2020

Episodes 7 and 8 of The Last Dance went down last night on ESPN, and man was it good. Imagine someone telling Michael Jordan that the coronavirus said it was better than him. The coronavirus would be screwed. The sign that read “Legalize Kemp” might be the best thing on the show. “I’m back” is the greatest press release of all-time. MJ really can’t let anybody have a moment even 20+ years later. Gary Payton can’t have a couple of good games? BJ Armstrong can’t have one? A random dude from the Bullets can’t have a night? Jordan is still petty to this day! Funny thing about MJ getting mad at George Karl for not talking to him in the restaurant is that if Karl had talked to him in the restaurant he would have been mad about that too. I wish someone could have filmed MJ watching all 10 of these episodes because you can make a 10-part documentary out of that. This documentary has very few misses, but not having Jordan talking about crying on the floor after winning his 4th title because of his fathers’s death is one of them. I can’t believe Steve Kerr actually thanks MJ for punching him in the face, as if he cured the coronavirus. I get the feeling that when the NBA resumes, Lebron is going to start calling his teammates hoes and punching Kyle Kuzma in the face. This is powerful stuff though and you don’t have to agree with it, but you have to respect it.

This may sound outrageous, but the Rams need to take their new found cap space and sign Cam Newton. He’s a great insurance policy for Jared Goff, and so what if he plays well enough to win the job? It’s only going to give the Rams a better chance to win in their brand new stadium. Cam is going to have to accept a backup role and try to compete. He’s a nice lottery ticket for the Rams if he hits. Plus if nothing else, he’s going to provide the fashion bloggers in LA with some good content to write about after each and every Rams post game press conference.

The NFL schedule is out. According to a poll, after seeing their 2020 schedule, 99% of Cowboys fans believe they’ll go “at least” 19-0 this year. Meanwhile the Lions schedule leaked early and it revealed 2 moral victories, an accidental win in Week 8, and a win that ruins their draft position in Week 17. The schedule didn’t do the Rams any favors though. The beginning is brutal with two east coast games, and two more later on. Then they’ll have to deal with most of the brutal divisional games later on as well. It’s like the NFL decided to tell the Rams to go to hell because ultra left wing Gavin Newsome is the Governor of our state.

I had no idea that Pau Gasol still considered himself an active NBA player. In fact, Pau actually said recently that if the opportunity presented itself, he would like to finish his career with the Lakers. I know we often like to romanticize about the Lakers past. For years we wanted Phil Jackson to come back to the Lakers after he was done. We’ve always wanted Jerry West to come back for about 20 years. None of that was really a good idea. This is a little different. If there is an open roster spot next season, nothing would be better than having Pau in a mentoring role. It would be a great story to have his career come full circle. Paul is such a good guy how could you not want that. In fact, he’s such a nice guy that a few seasons ago he turned down a $40 million offer from the Lakers, which was way more than anybody else had put on the table.

Day 60 without basketball. I needed to watch Star Wars over the weekend to remind myself what a PG-13 choke looks like in the spring. I do love though how the NBA is talking about not having any fans in the arena potentially for over a year. Meanwhile, the NFL is saying business as usual, making their schedule like nothing is happening. Ultimately, it’s going to be interesting when Governors Newsome and Cuomo draw their lines in the sand and say “no gatherings in the thousands indefinitely,” while every other conservative state Governor allow it. It’s those two Governors who really could decided whether or not were are going to see sports anytime soon.

May 4, 2020

Two more brilliant episodes of The Last Dance went down last night. Jordan was a real life Truman Show. MJ definitely doesn’t live by the G code: “They was drinking and doing drugs. Not me.” “That was Horace.”
I love the security dude hitting MJ with the MJ shoulder shrug after beating him at quarters. The security guards perm was also the MVP of the episode. MJ and the Bulls freaked out about the book written about them in 1991. Meanwhile today, teams have blogs, articles, and Twitter trolls coming after them after every game. Miller Lite had the best ad ever, and they didn’t even know it. I’m glad the documentary addressed his gambling, which I never thought was a big deal. I love how Kobe started as just “the little Laker boy”, but ended up commanding respect from everyone, including MJ himself. You can’t get more 90’s than MJ meeting Jerry Seinfeld. That was awesome. Of course it was Phil that kicked him out of the locker room. Those Dream Team practices were epic, and I couldn’t get enough of the trash talking between everybody.

Don’t get mad at the Lakers for applying for a small business loan. If anything, you should give them credit for returning the loan. It isn’t their fault they knew the government was going to run out of money, or not regulate who was going to receive the money. I can’t even blame the banks for prioritizing the loans that would make them money. The whole process just needed better regulation from the government. There’s plenty of public companies that took the loan when they could have raised the money through bonds or stock offerings. The same people that run the USC Athletic program must be running the loan program too.

We haven’t heard much from the Clippers during this lockdown. That’s probably because nobody really cares about them. However, everybody wants to talk about how small the Laker Championship window is, and how harmful it would be to lose the season for them. Keep in mind though, the Clipper championship contention window isn’t as big as you think. Montrezl Harrell is going to be a free agent this off-season, and he doesn’t exactly look like he’s been having a blast playing with this team. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are only under contract for one more guaranteed season, then they have player options after that. A season that gets cancelled is ultimately one that hurts the Clippers just as much as it hurts the Lakers.

The NHL is throwing around ideas as well for how they might be able to come back. They’ve even considered just having a 24-team playoff. However, why not just have a 31-team playoff at that point? What’s the point of the regular season? If they did have that playoff with every team, I wouldn’t even be surprised if the Kings won the Cup. Would you? I mean they were the 8th seed in 2012 when they won the Cup. Plus the NHL is the one sport where any team can knock off the top seed easily. However, something tells me Kings fans would prefer to have the a top 5 pick then a shot in a made up playoff tournament.

Finally, a very tough week for UCLA. The Bruins lost their top recruit for next year, Daishen Nix, to the NBA G-League. This isn’t just a black eye for UCLA, but one for all of College Basketball. Unless the NCAA stops drinking its own Kool-Aid thinking their archaic model still works, they are going to continue to lose elite talent to the NBA G-League. A league where the platform is insignificant, and the coaching is not as good. This is all over money. Allowing players to make money off their likeness might help, but that came too late in this case. The NCAA needs to find a way to get creative to keep this kind of talent in college for a year or two to keep them relevant. As for the Bruins, the only thing worse could be knowing that Dan Guerrero is staying at UCLA longer. Jalen Hill however, is coming back. Hill put his name in the draft and it felt like 5 minutes later he decided to come back to school. It seems he just wanted to get feedback on what to work on from the combine. I could have given him that answer though: EVERYTHING!

April 27, 2020

Episodes 3 and 4 of The Last Dance went down last night and it was awesome. We learned a ton more about Dennis Rodman, Phil Jackson, and Scottie Pippen. Pippen was so underpaid, the man deserves a stimulus check from the government. Then there’s Dennis Rodman, who went on a 48-hour bender in Vegas at age 37. I have no clue how he wasn’t incapacitated for two weeks. The fact Rodman was able to convince the team to let him go to Vegas and link up with Carmen Electra makes him deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Also the fact Michael Jordan walked in on them in bed together is exactly the kind of story we were all waiting for while watching this. That 48-hour bender deserves a documentary in itself. Electra also claimed later on that she had sex with Rodman at the Bulls practice facility. Michael Jordan is a billionaire but he apparently can’t afford any Visine. Can’t wait until the next episode!

To the NFL where the Rams had a bizarre draft over the weekend. I’m surprised the Rams didn’t place a greater priority on their pass rush, the cornerbacks, and their offensive line than the players they selected. I can blame Cox and Spectrum for a lot of things, but even if the internet went down, Les Snead can only blame himself for this one when he looks back. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong, but the division is getting a lot better and it doesn’t look like the Rams are.

Meanwhile, the Chargers finally got their QB of the future. Justin Herbert was a a solid pick. His ceiling might not be as high as Tua’s and although it could have been fun with him, Herbert is much safer. The only downside for the Bolts is they still have no fans. It’s so bad the NFL couldn’t even find 12 Charger fans to put on the screen when it was time for them to make their picks.

Elsewhere around the draft, it was nice of the Raiders to go back to their roots and take the fastest wide receiver in the draft instead of the best one available. Aaron Rodgers is going to be moodier than a teenage girl next season after the Packers drafted his replacement. Cliff Kingsbury made everyone look broke. Dude must have bought Apple Stock in 2007. Then there’s CeeDee Lamb, who’s side piece was clearly blowing up his phone during the draft, and he was determined not to let his girl find out!

Finally, what an ending to the Showtime Series Homeland last night! It’s very rare that even the best television series have satisfying endings. Homeland actually got it right. Spoiler alert for those of you who have yet to see it, so read no further if you plan on watching it later. These guys should re-write the ending of Game of Thrones while they are at it. Carrie really had me going, thinking that she was going to not only betray Saul, but kill him too. Then again, you can see how the writers really thought this one through, and didn’t rush through the ending like Game of Thrones. By the way, the show runners actually trolled those writers as well without naming them in this quote: “We wanted to go out in a successful way. We obviously didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of some, you know, to be unnamed shows, that fell down and stumbled at the end.” I can’t imagine who they might be talking about!

April 20, 2020

I’m thrilled that The Last Dance was released last night since we’re all starving for entertainment. It was fantastic! I can just see dopey analytics guy screaming while watching and saying “too many mid-range jumpers!” Imagine every member of the 84-85 Bulls in their living room, trying to explain that they weren’t a part of the “cocaine circus”. Scottie Pippen going from manager to top 30 basketball player is low key one of the best basketball stories ever. It’s a shame Jerry Krause looks like a big dope but he really had a remarkable run getting the Bulls job, then building one of the greatest teams in NBA history. I mean he was a baseball scout and just called asking for the job. He deserves more credit than he got, but less credit than he wanted. For the next month he’s going to steal the title of biggest villain on the internet from Carol Baskin. The Last Dance definitely almost never happened! Tracy McGrady revealed the Bulls agreed to a deal for him in exchange for Pippen, but Jordan vetoed the deal.

I’ve been hearing an awful lot about UCLA’s debt problem. Special thanks to Dan Guerrero, who is about to retire, and is leaving the athletic department with a nice parting gift of $100 million in debt. A large portion of that was well before this pandemic started, and Guerrero has demonstrated he’s as good at managing money as the CEO of Enron. I’m actually not sure why Mayor Garcetti is downplaying the idea of playing sports in California stadiums where fans gather in the thousands. That shouldn’t be a problem for UCLA football at the Rose Bowl, where fans don’t even gather at all anymore. In all seriousness though, declining revenue from football, a terrible television contract, and low attendance at sporting events is a sure recipe for financial disaster in any college athletic department. However, UCLA has a $5 billion endowment fund. The salaries of staff for 2nd tier sports shouldn’t be impacted by this, and neither should the second tier sports for men and women at the universities. They have plenty of money to solve their own problems and beyond. They just aren’t talking about it because they don’t want to have to use it.

As for USC, JT Daniels is entering the transfer portal. I realize that JT Daniels probably hasn’t had to win a real starting QB competition in his life, and you can probably criticize him for that. However, I truly have no idea if Kedon Slovis is really that good, or if Daniels might be a whole lot better, all because Clay Helton is coaching them. Something tells me if Helton owned a Ferrari, he would be driving it like a Honda Civic, so you really would have no idea he was driving a Ferrari. This is what’s happening here, except we probably won’t know who the Ferrari is until you see Daniels lighting it up at LSU or Michigan.

I know what you’re all thinking. The Athletic had a recent poll asking fans to rate the performance of Dodger President Andrew Friedman. No, I was not one of the two people that gave him a one. I’m as critical as anyone of Friedman, but there are certain things he does receive credit for, such as preserving the farm system. However, the inability for him to put the Dodgers over the top is not because of the lack of free agents. It’s because of his inability to build a bullpen. It’s actually been so bad in that regard, it’s damaged the legacy of Clayton Kershaw, who has had to overextend himself in playoff situations. For that reason, I can’t give him a 4 or a 5. Besides, if I did it would be totally off-brand for me!

Speaking of the Dodgers, I know that people are crucifying them right now for not refunding the money fans paid for games that are currently being postponed. We are in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic people. We have no idea what’s going to happen in a week, two weeks, let alone the next month. Give the Dodgers a chance to figure it out before jumping down their throats and giving you a refund.

The NFL Draft is set for Thursday! Look Chargers don’t get cute. If you get the opportunity to take Tua on Thursday you do it. If you can’t get Tua take Justin Herbert. You need a quarterback. Don’t try to tell me that Tyrod Taylor is going to be your QB for the next 5 years. He’s a nice stop gap, but don’t make him more than he is. Why am I not going to be surprised though if they screw this up?

April 13, 2020

Here we are still locked up in our homes for at least another month. We’re all starving for entertainment, and basketball in particular, hoping it will come back.. However, if we are lucky enough to get this season back, Lebron probably isn’t going to be a happy camper. The King isn’t thrilled with the idea of playing without fans, or playing on a neutral site. Can you blame him? The Lakers played 3 quarters of the season, and were on track for home court in the West, which is a critical element in the NBA playoffs. He’s probably also upset that he won’t be able to get on another Banana Boat this summer with his boys. At this point though, I think we should all be thankful just to get sports back in any form. It sure beats seeing guys like Jamaal Murray make porno’s on his social media account.

I tried really hard to watch H-O-R-S-E last night guys, but just couldn’t do it after 15 minutes. The connection was horrible, and I’ve seen better graphics on NBA 2K. I’m not sure why you guys are surprised to see Chris Paul get eliminated in the first round either, since that’s been happening for his entire career. Trae Young and Tamika Catchings lost in their driveways. Conley and Billups had fancy courts. You see the trend here?

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball is coming up with their own wild plans to try and get their season going again. The latest idea is supposedly to have all 30 MLB teams play the season in Arizona beginning next month. That simply feels like too many players and too many logistics to keep everyone safe at the moment. Not to mention the fact that it’s really going to put a cramp in MLB Players style. I mean we know that professional athletes in general aren’t exactly the most faithful in their marriages, so now these MLB players will have to be quarantined from not only their families, but their 2nd and 3rd families in all the other cities they travel to, as well as their side pieces. Not even Andrew Friedman’s computer can help them out with that problem.

To the NFL, where the Rams found a way to get out of another big contract, sending Brandin Cooks to Houston for a 2nd round pick. Even though Cooks counts for $20 million against the cap this year, the Rams get out of the last two years of his deal, and still get a 2nd round pick in the process. Of course Bill O’Brien was on the other end of this trade. If 2020 was an NFL GM, it would be O’Brien. Cooks is a good guy, and a useful player, but he’s one more concussion away from his career ending, and he’s been passed around the NFL like a Kardashian is passed around at an NBA party. He’s the Tobias Harris of the NFL. The Rams may not be good next year, but they are on their way to cleaning up their ugly salary cap mess. Hopefully they can fix their offensive line in the draft next week to continue patching their holes. Remember, the NFL should stand for “Not For Long” because you can turn it around quickly.

I’m really looking forward to the NFL draft. Not only because we need the entertainment. Mostly because this virtual draft is going to be a disaster for many, and I can’t wait to see how these teams blow it. The Cleveland Browns will probably be using dial-up internet. Then imagine old school guys like Giants GM, Dave Gettleman, trying to get his kids to explain Zoom to him. Something messy is bound to happen, and I’m going to be there for it!

Remember a few months ago when everybody was talking about the XFL and how it was going to be different? I never bought into it and sure enough, they are going to fold. But hey, at least the XFL got more games in this year than Antonio Brown did.

I don’t know about you guys, but if there’s on thing I have learned from this cornavirus pandemic, it’s a a reminder that everything is political. I can’t even talk about the weather anymore without it being political. If I tell somebody “wow it’s really hot today”, I’ll probably get a response like “Ooooh so you believe in global warming??”. I don’t care what your political beliefs are or what you think of our President, this situation isn’t political.