Houston Rockets Crash and Burn Playoffs Continue in the NBA and the NHL. Feel good stories from the NFL. Yes they still have those from time to time. The NHL and the NBA are both into the conference finals. The NHL playoffs had been interesting the whole time. The NBA is was better this round. We will see what the conference finals brings. Baseball seems to have some crazy stat happen. I know that is one of the things they need to do to keep people interested in the game. I am all for it even though I don’t think it is something that brings in the fringe fan. A Go date for the XFL has been announced. All this and more in The Week That Was.
NBA Conference Finals
In the West we could end up with the same ole thing. It will be the Warriors taking on the Trail Blazers. The last time that the Trail Blazers were in the conference final was in 2000. Of course you know that the last time the Warriors were in the conference final was last year. LOL. So one thing here is the same. In the East fo for the first time in four years Cleveland is not in the conference final. The Bucks are in the conference final for the first time sine the 2001 season. For the Raptors the last time they were in the conference final was 2016. Combined the other three teams left do not have as many championships as the Warriors. It will be interesting to see how things play out. Will the Trail Blazers be able to knock the Warriors out? Not sure but it would be cool so see them do it and play for a championship.
The Rockets Done
In the previous round between the Warriors and the Rockets. The Rockets showed just why out side of Houston no one is rooting for them. In one of the stranger things to happen. Steph Curry reserved some time at the Rockets Toyota Center to do some shooting for about an hour. Chris Paul found out about it and zipped on down to the arena to stop him from doing the shoot around. The strange thing here is Steph probably really did not need the practice. It was more like just a thing to do. So why go down and stop him like that. It appeared to work though as Curry did not score a point in the first half of game six. But then like a Hollywood script Curry turned it on in the second half scoring 33 points as the Warriors took out the Rockets 118 to 113. Guess on the bright side for Chris Paul is he does not have to worry about Steph Curry shooting around in the Rockets arena and he can have the whole thing to himself as much as he wants. I guess take the small wins.
Lakers Get their Man
Looks like the Lakers are going to hire Frank Vogel as their new coach with a side of Jason Kidd. Not sure why Kidd is included in the deal. It looks like the Lakers wanting him on the staff is part of the reason that the Ty Lue deal did not work out. That and the low ball $6 million a year for 3 years they offered. Of course he brought out the disrespect word for the offer. No they did not disrespect you . That is what they were willing to pay. You turned them down since you were not willing to coach for that. Offer made and rejected. They did not counter so clearly you were not the coach they were looking for.
I am really not sure they know what coach they are looking for. I am sure that Frank Vogel is a nice guy. Really though after the Lakers fired Walton who out there thought that Vogel was going to be the coach? I bet not even Frank Vogel thought that. There is speculation that Kidd is part of the deal because they really wanted him to be the coach but with the off court trouble he has had it probably would have been a bad look to hire him. With the mess the Lakers have made of all things Lakers the last few seasons. Could it really get worse?
Some are also speculating that the Lakers could do the thing we were talking about before and try to trade LeBron James. They could but would it really change anything? Yes it would mean that they no longer have the beast player in the league. He still has at least two and maybe three years of being able to hold that title. Even with having him I am not sure they can win. It has been such a crap fest that it maybe take more than three years to fix it. On the trade note. No Cleveland he is not going to get traded back home.
NHL Playoffs on a roll
Unfortunately for the rest of the world. The Bruins are really good. They were the second best regular season team and they took out the giant killing Blue Jackets. If you are an anti Boston fan. I have some bad news for you. Chances are good that Boston is going to get another I do not see the Hurricanes taking the Bruins out. They already have a two game lead and it has not been a close series yet. i am not sure it matters which team comes out of the West. The Sharks and Blues would be nice to see win but not sure that either of those teams can hang with the Bruins. Lets just hope for some good games here. I have not seen any of the numbers for the games played so far but I am sure they are going to be pretty decent.
NFL Feel Good Stories
Ten years after he was drafted by the Patriots Julian Edelman finished his college degree and walked in the commencement ceremony at Kent State. The other player that graduated this past week was Nickell Robey-Coleman who plays for the Rams. He walked in the commencement at USC. It is always nice to see players go back and finish their degrees. Most colleges have an open ended policy for players to come back and finish. This is great for the colleges and great for the NFL or any of the leagues. The option is out there. I say go ahead and take it even if you have made a boat load of cash. There is no down side to going back and getting your degree and it sets a great example. Glad to see these players doing this.
Not so feel good NFL Story
The Dolphins signed Mark Walton who was cut by the Bengals earlier in the year. Walton had been arrested three times this year. He was at best a roll player in Cincinnati so he must have had some kind of crazy good try out with the Dolphins. While none of his arrests were for domestic violence. The issue here is that he was arrested three time in 2019. I don’t know if you noticed but 2019 is not half way over yet. Hopefully he gets it together and does not let the Dolphins and the league down. You have been given a gift twice now Mark Walton. You better take advantage of it.
XFL is Back – Well Announced
Last week the XFL announced when their season would start. Commissioner Oliver Luck made the rounds talking about what is going on with the XFL. As we know from past attempts starting a new pro football league is no easy task. The XFL failed in its first attempt and the AAF failed in what seemed like a half baked attempt. Luck was saying a lot of the right things. The XFL has taken in what happend in 2001 and then this year with the AAF. I really do think that it is possible for a football league to make it. It has to be done right and it has to have the NFL on its side. It cannot and will not be able to compete with the NFL. It seems that the the XFL understands that. The strange thing about the plan is when they are going to start the games. The plan is to start the season the week after the Super Bowl. To me that seems like a huge mistake. Everyone is at their football saturation point. The NFL is the one league that seems to know when that point is and has done a good job of not over whelming their followers. At least in the length of the season. The number of day of the week they play now might be right on that line.
It would make a lot more sence for the XFL to allow people to decompress a bit before they start. The League will have a 10 week season with a two week playoff. That gives us a total of 12 weeks that the season will run. By starting right after the Super Bowl that would put the championship game up against the NFL Draft. No matter what the game play is like in this league. Who do you think is going to get the numbers? Yes the NFL draft will blow them away. The better thing to do at least in my opinion would be to count back 12 weeks from the weekend before NFL training camps start and start your league play then. Still would have games against the draft but not your championship game. There is room for this league but we will see if they can pull this off.
On TV the Tube Not You
If you are not watching 911 you should be. The situations the Firefighters and Police are put in are a bit unrealistic. For me and my evening entertainment. I am not looking for real I am looking for interesting. The characters are very interesting and the writers have developed some interesting story lines. One of the lines that was very funny and made you think. The partner is trying to get the firefighter to work from home. The firefighter says. “The day I work at home our house is on fire.” They had all kinds of subtle lines like that in there. Amazingly it is one of the shows on FOX we like that they did not cancel. Last night was the last episode of the season. It will come back in September with new episodes. If you want to catch up on it I am sure it is on the FOX web site and possibly on Hulu.
If you missed it here is last weeks post for The Week That Was
I am looking for people that are interested in writing posts on biglakesports.net If you are interested you can send me an email at jbigalke at biglakespots.net and we can go over what I am looking for and see if you are a fit. There would be no pay at this time but you would be able to put your writing out there and could post it on other sites if you wanted to.
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