Slow Week in sports this week. That is the first thought that I had when getting ready to jump into the Week That Was. As I start to look back it was not as a slow week like I initially though. We had the NBA trade deadline. Which seemed to be more interesting that the season so far. There was also the start of the NASCAR season with qualifying for the Daytona 500. Alliance of American Football had it first week of play. Have to say that it was a pleasant surprise to go into the weekend thinking that football was gone. Then remembering that there was going to be some football to check out. Phil Mickelson was showing us the old Phil is still in there. Darkness caught up to the players and play on Sunday had to stop. Baseball is getting ready to report for Spring Training. NCAA Basketball is finally getting to the interesting part of the season. This is when I really start to pay attention. All this and more in the Week that Was.
The NBA Interesting Part of the Season
The Super Bowl was still the most interesting thing that carried over into the week. The second most interesting thing was the NBA Trade deadline. We had some talk about that last week and how it is sad that the trade deadline is more interesting than the middle part of the NBA season. This deadline did not disappoint. It also did not produce the big trade that everyone was expecting. The Pelicans decided not to trade Davis. This will either turn out to be a brilliant move or a huge mistake. I don’t see the Pelicans being able to hold on to Davis past this summer. If they try to wait till the next trade deadline they will lose some of their bargaining power. Of course there is always the chance that someone will over pay for him. That could drive the deal up to what the Pelicans are looking for. With out Boston being able to deal at the trade deadline. Maybe Boston has put something out behind closed doors that we just don’t know yet. Really though when has the teams on the other end of a deal with Boston come out better. Not in a really long time. So unless Boston gives the Pelicans the world. I would absolutely stay away from dealing with them.
As far as the NBA standings go. Nothing changed this week. It is almost like they took the week off for the Trade Dead line. The Bucks lead the East. The Warriors lead the West. The Lakers are still on the outside looking in. There is still 27 or so games to go yet. So a lot could still change. But chances are slim that much will. A team or two could sneak into the playoffs but for the most part it is going to be the top eight in each conference going for position. I really don’t see much else going on in the NBA till we are two or three weeks out from the playoffs.
In the NBA and the NHL I used to think that having an East and a West conference was important. I no longer think that. Since each of those leagues takes 16 teams into the playoffs. It is starting to look like the best thing to do would be taking the top 16 teams from the league. You could still have teams play a rival more times than other teams but having a home and home with every team in the league would end up making it a pretty fair and even schedule. I don’t want to hear these teams complain about the cost of travel. They all make enough money to be able to handle it. It would also make for some pretty good basketball and hockey.
NASCAR Start with a Crash 17 cars wreck in a 20 car race
Over the weekend there was qualifying for the Daytona 500. Qualifying for the Daytona 500 is always different and unique from the other races. The front row is decided. Each of those drivers then start on the pole for the twin 125 qualifying races that are held on the following Thursday. I love this format. It would be nice if they could do this for more races but I know that there just is not time to do that for the other races. The big winners for qualifying were William Byron and Alex Bowman both racing for Hendrick Motorsports. If the qualifying is any indication of how the season is going to go then Hendrick Motorsports will have a fantastic season. The four Hendrick drivers will start the top two spots in each of the twin 125 qualifying races.
The second part of the NASCAR Weekend is the Season starting race they call The Clash. Its field for the Clash is comprised of drivers who won a Busch Pole Award in 2018, are former Clash winners who also competed full time last season, former Daytona 500 winners who competed full time last season and all the drivers who qualified for the 2018 Monster Energy Series Playoffs. This year there were 20 drivers that qualified for the 75 lap exhibition event. It is a non points event and is really pretty much for bragging rights. This year it was a pretty clean race till the last few laps. Then JImmy Johnson and Paul Mendard were dueling for the lead. Bing Bang Boom JJ causes a crash that takes out 17 of the 20 drivers. Not sure if that is some kind of record or not. The most drivers taken out by one car in a race. A lot of drivers were pretty upset. That is understandable. Saying that if they were in Jimmy Johnsons spot winning the race. They all would have been good with it. NASCAR needs some excitement if this race is an indication of how the season is going to go then it will be a pretty exciting season.
NFL Plows along The Off Season Begins
And now the time is here for other sports to take the spot light. LOL really the NFL is a beast and even in the off season gets time in every where. That is just the beast that the NFL has become. There is nothing wrong with that. In another season where the Patriots finished a season with a win. The NFL will have a win in the off season again. The combine will be coming up soon. The NFL Combine will start on March 1st and last four days. This is one of the things that show how successful the NFL has been. The Combine is nothing more than a huge job interview for the players. The teams are interviewing poking and prodding the players trying to figure out which players they are going to take where. The amazing thing is that even with other sports getting ready to go into playoffs and tournaments. the combine will grab great attention. People talk about the NBA off season being so interesting. They are talking about players moves between teams. The combine grabs at least the same amount of attention. Probably more for job interviews.
Kyler Murray also showed the state of the NFL. He is a player that had already signed with the Athletics of the MLB. He is pretty good at both sports. There is no debating that a career in baseball is much less demanding on your body then a carer in the NFL. The money if you turn into a super star is higher in baseball as well. Of course if you make $10 million or $30 Million a year you are still super rich so does it really matter. Any way with Murray picking to go into the NFL the NFL shows it muscles and gets a player that at least for a few years will be very interesting. It is difficult to say if he will go the way of Robert Griffin III or become a star. That they got him to pick football is another huge win for the NFL. This is a huge blow to Baseball. They had a possible star. A player that win the Heisman trophy. In the end the pull of the NFL was just to big and Murray decided to go with Football.
Golf Back to the Future
Phil needed an extra day. Darkness caught up to him on Sunday and that was the only thing that kept him from winning at Pebble Beach for the 5th time. Phil showed this weekend that he is still going to be relevant on the tour, He became the second player to surpass $90 Million in winnings. Of course the other one is Tiger Woods. The Pebble Beach win ties him with Mark O’Meara for the most wins there. The significance here is that this is setting Phil up for another really good year. At 48 he is not going to have a lot more of these. It would be really nice to have one last go round of Phil and Tiger going at it before the young guns take over for good.
MLB on to the Crawl
Even though it seems like the MLB season just ended. It is already time for them to get back at it. Pitchers and catcher report. This means that we have had our last week with out baseball for what will seem like 100 years. Not really. I am not much of a baseball fan but I do keep track of what is going on. Baseball has put out many different rule changes to try and keep the game relevant. The problem with the rule changes is that there is no guarantee that they will attract new fans. There is how ever a real chance that it will cause traditional fans to move one. No one knows for sure. It seems that baseball is getting very desperate and they are now willing to take some very serious chances. Taking those big swings and missing could hurt the sport even more. Even though numbers are down. Baseball is still a pretty strong sport. I think that the bigger problem is the huge disconnect with the players and the fans. People just can no longer identify with them. In the end that hurts interest in the sport. It will be interesting to see the path that baseball takes this year. We will be keeping track but more than likely will not be watching.
On the TV Front
A lot of people have been telling me that the Masked Singer is a pretty good show. It may be. As long as Jenny McCarthy is part of it I will not watch. Kick her to the curb and I would give it a chance. The Walking Dead came back this week. The opening episode of the second half of the season was actually one of the best episodes of the last few years. Still strange that Rick is gone. Also we have been told that Michonne will be leaving the series and that will make things even stranger. Still bummed that they killed off Jesus. He had great potential and they never developed it for some reason. Did not watch the Grammys. Just have not had the motivation to watch many of the awards shows. They are all pretty much the same and have questionable winners. So we have for the most part kicked them to the curb. Guess it was not a slow week after all. Seems like a lot actually went on. This time of year is pretty much the only time in sports that there can be anything close to a slow week.
Check out last weeks post here.
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