By now, anyone even remotely familiar with the concept of news and media has already been made aware of what happened on the field at Giants Stadium last Sunday. Odell Beckham's actions have been, and still are, all over sports news channels, and I have seen stories about him on national television news channels, newspaper stands, and over the radio airwaves. So, for the sake of saving some space, I won't give you a summary of what happened, because you most likely know. What I want to do is tell you all about what I was thinking watching the game on Sunday, and what I think now, a few days removed from the game.
As usual, going into any Giants game, I had no clue what to expect. I thought the Giants had a chance to win, and I said that the reason for that is that they play to the level of the competition. They have done it this year, and they have done it for a long time now. If you look at the results of the 14 games that the Giants have played this year, it is mostly games decided by one possession. In Weeks three and four, the Giants had two convincing wins over Buffalo and Washington. Two weeks after that, the Giants were completely shut down by the Eagles in a game that was really hard to watch. Aside from those games, the only other one decided by more than one possession was a win over Tampa Bay, and that was only so because the Giants got a defensive touchdown on the last play of the game, so I don't really factor that into the equation, because the game was still technically able to be decided as the final play began.
That means out of 14 games, 11 of them were competitive to the final whistle. And that is why I thought the Giants had a shot to beat Carolina last Sunday. When I saw Eli Manning throw a long pass down the middle of the field and Beckham running underneath it, I knew that the game was really on. However, Beckham dropped what would have been a sure touchdown, and the Giants blew an early chance to jump out to a lead over the undefeated Panthers. I usually watch the first half of games that Giants play at 1:00 at work, so while I am able to watch, I can't really get completely into the game until I leave and can fully watch the second half. During the first half, I saw that things seemed to be getting heated with Beckham and whoever he was matched up against. It was mostly Josh Norman, but it certainly wasn't only those two. However, it always involved Beckham, and it started to seem like a problem.
When the second half began, and I could really take in the rest of the game, it wasn't about the players on the Panthers anymore, it was only about Beckham. It seemed like he was getting into unsubstantiated confrontations after every play, and some time about halfway through the third quarter, I thought that no matter what the score was, and no matter what the game meant, that Beckham should be off the field. Could the referees have ejected him? Sure. Would they have been right in doing so? Definitely. But, in my opinion, this should not have been a decision made by the officials. The team should have told him to go to the locker room, and that he was not going to play for the rest of the game. People I was speaking to during the game seemed to agree with me for the most part, and earlier today I heard a clip of Bob Papa and Carl Banks doing the game for WFAN, and I was glad when I heard both of them reacting the same way as the game was going on. I don't care who you are, what you have done, and what you might do for years to come. Odell Beckham, Jr. should not have been allowed to complete that game.
So the first question to ask is, why did he stay on the field? The answer varies depending upon who you ask. According to the league, his ejection would have been warranted, and in suspending him for this Sunday's game, they have somewhat backed up that stance, although I still wonder if the officials had the thoughts lingering in their minds during the game that if they threw Beckham out of the game, they would take heat from their bosses for tossing one of the marquee names in one of the marquee matchups of the week.
For the most part, I lay the blame at the feet of the Giants team and coaching staff. Where was Eli Manning when all of this was going on? Eli, I love you, and I know you aren't as vocal a leader as some people would like, but how could you see this happening and not do anything about it? Tom Coughlin is the head coach, so he certainly has to take some heat here as well. Following the game, Coughlin said that he was "trying to win the game" and the sad reality of the NFL is that sometimes, in the case of a head coach, winning means putting morality aside. Is Coughlin on the hot seat? Maybe. I think it is closer to probably than maybe, but in order for him to keep his job, he needs his best players out on the field, and right now, Beckham is the best player that the Giants have. It is a sad contradiction, but I think in the back of Coughlin's mind, even though he would never admit it, he had to have been thinking that if Beckham was out of the game, the Giants had no chance to come back and win. And what makes that point even more valid is that the Giants did score 28 straight points (including Beckham's game tying TD) and did have a chance to win. So Coughlin's answer as to why Beckham stayed in the game was completely true.
As I was watching the game though, I really thought that Beckham was going out of his way to be a problem. I don't mean to sound like some naïve old man who thinks that football is a sport of gentlemen. I know guys are going to talk and fight. Did Beckham taunt Norman when he caught the touchdown pass to tie the game? Yes, he absolutely did. But is that a terrible thing? No. If Norman didn't want that to happen, he should have made a play. It was a late-game tying TD, and Beckham made a great catch. I was happy. Eli Manning was happy. Tom Coughlin was happy. Odell Beckham was happy. But in the end, that play should never have happened, because Beckham should have been long gone from that game by then.
There are countless reasons that the Giants always have been, and always will be, my favorite team in all of sports. In my opinion, they do things the right way. The ownership of the team is full of class thanks to the Mara and Tisch families. Some of the greatest players to ever play the game have played for the Giants. Michael Strahan, Lawrence Taylor, Frank Gifford, Harry Carson, Eli Manning, the list goes on and on. Ask fans of the Cleveland Browns or the Buffalo Bills or the Detroit Lions if they would love to have been able to witness some of the things that the Giants have done. Each and every one of those people would say yes, they would. The Browns have Jim Brown and then what? The Bills are the most famous Super Bowl losing team of all time. The Lions have Barry Sanders and home games on Thanksgiving Day. None of that comes close to matching what the Giants have done as an organization.
Odell Beckham, Jr. has a chance to join that list of great Giants players. The fact that I am saying that even plays more into the fact that Beckham was the center of attention last Sunday. The entire football world has seen what this kid can do. I don't care what you think about his pregame routines or his cleats. What no fan of football can deny is the talent that this kid possesses. It is only his second season and he is already being mentioned with the greatest receivers to ever play the game. Is it too much hype? Absolutely. Are we crowning him too soon? Probably. However, it is impossible to see Beckham play and not see a world of talent.
One week ago, Odell Beckham's lasting image was making a one-handed touchdown catch on a Sunday night against the Dallas Cowboys. Now, that image has changed completely. I hope that this image is not one that defines him. The Giants have tolerated some wild personalities before. The greatest player in the history of the franchise was not exactly a choir boy to say the least. Beckham is still very young, and if he can use last Sunday as a learning tool, I hope he does just that. I honestly would not be mad if he didn't see the field for the final week of the season as well in addition to the one game that he has already been suspended.
When you are so young and so talented, sometimes you need landmark events to occur in order for you to keep yourself focused on the main goal at hand. There is going to be a time when Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning are gone. Coughlin's time might be sooner than Manning's, but that time will eventually come. As a Giants fan, I think that Odell Beckham has so much talent that he could surely become the face of the franchise after those two men leave. However, what I saw last Sunday worries me.
As a lifelong Giants fan, I implore the players, the coaching staff, the organization, but most of all Odell Beckham, Jr. himself. Please, get this right. This is a once in a generation type of talent we have. Decades from now, I hope that number thirteen on the Giants will be immortal. I think it can happen, but it isn't given. Nothing is given to you in professional football, and I think that nothing should be given to Odell Beckham by the Giants for the rest of the season. We are witnessing potential greatness here, but every rose has its thorn. I hope for the sake of Giants fans everywhere that last Sunday was only a small bump in the road. The New York Giants organization is too good to let a chance like this slip, and I hope that everyone there, from top to bottom, remembers that.
Daily Giants Update: Obviously, I don't need to elaborate much more, but the season is on the line this Sunday night against Minnesota. Win and there is still a chance. Lose and it is over.
Daily Rangers Update: The Rangers finally got a win last night against Anaheim, but the team has hit a very rough stretch over the past few weeks. Henrik Lundqvist has been nowhere near sharp, and the fact that the team still remains near the top of the Eastern Conference is a testament to how hot they were to start the season. Maybe a little holiday break will be good for the team, because they have looked nothing like an upper-echelon team in recent weeks.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: I think the offseason spending spree is probably over, as the Diamondbacks were being mentioned in the Mike Leake sweepstakes, but he just signed with the Cardinals. Nonetheless, Arizona has officially declared itself all in for the 2016 season, and it has been quite a while since I have been anticipating Opening Day like I will be this season.
Daily NBA Update: The Warriors are good and the Cavaliers are good. We get it. Christmas Day should be really fun when they face off for the first time since the Finals last season. However, I saw today that Dirk Nowitzki is only 10 points shy of passing Shaquille O'Neal for sixth on the all time scoring list. I never realized historically, how great Nowitzki really has been. That means, 10 points from now, Nowitzki will trail only five people as far as all-time leading scorers go. Chamberlain, Jordan, Bryant, Malone, and Abdul-Jabbar. It will be tough for him to crack the top five, but wow, what an underappreciated legend you are, Dirk Nowitzki.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Another shot at NBA history
While in my last post, I wrote about the historically good start that the Golden State Warriors had gotten off to opening the NBA season, tonight we could possibly see another record broken, except this one is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The Warriors have already broken the record for the most consecutive wins to start an NBA season, and they now sit at 19-0. However, on the other side of the country, the Philadelphia 76ers sit at 0-18, and with a loss tonight, they would break the record for the worst start to a season in the history of the NBA. In 2009, the New Jersey Nets opened the season 0-18, before finally notching their first win in the 19th game of the season. With what is happening in Philadelphia right now, I would not be surprised one bit if that record fell a few hours from now.
In every major sport, teams go through re-building phases. Dynasties never last forever. Whether it be front office changes, bad drafting, or player movement, every team in every sport is destined to face some tough times. Let's just take a look at this from the perspective of the teams who currently could be categorized as "dynasties" in sports today, and for the sake of this conversation, let's begin in the NBA. I think that over the past decade, the closest we have seen to a dynasty in the NBA is the San Antonio Spurs. Thanks to Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich (among many others), the Spurs have exemplified success. However, it was not always that way. Duncan's rookie year was 1997. The year before Duncan was drafted, the Spurs finished with a record of 20-62. Duncan was added to team with David Robinson and the two would form one of the best 1-2 punches in the history of the league. However, in the four years before Robinson was drafted, the Spurs had a combined record of 115-213.
In the NFL, let's look at the New England Patriots. Prior to the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady regime, the Patriots were actually a very good team. They made a Super Bowl appearance, ultimately losing to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, but from 1996-2000, their win total declined each year. Before Bill Parcells, Drew Bledsoe and Curtis Martin, things were even worse. From 1987 until 1993, the Patriots never had a winning record, and that stretch included one 1-15 season, as well as one 2-14 season.
In baseball, obviously, when we talk about dynasties, it is impossible to have a conversation without mentioning the New York Yankees. My generation of fans has a hard time remembering the Yankees ever being an afterthought, but it did actually happen many years ago. Derek Jeter won the Rookie of the Year award in 1996. In the 14 years prior to that, the Yankees made the playoffs only once (that does include the 1994 season that ended with a players strike, and the Yankees were clearly one of the best teams in baseball that year, but there were no playoffs, so the history books will never see it as a postseason berth). The Yankees did actually have a shortstop before Derek Jeter, even if it might be hard to believe for some. Jeter's career wiped away memories of Pat Kelly and Luis Sojo and Randy Velarde, but those guys did play, and from the mid 1980's until the mid 1990's, the Yankees were simply not a good team.
So, what I am trying to illustrate here is that there will never be a sports franchise that is good forever. Players and coaches retire, teams make bad draft picks, and sometimes guys just do not meet expectations. The difference between good franchises and bad franchises though, is how they can bounce back after such lean years, and what is happening within the Philadelphia 76ers organization right now is very tough to watch. It isn't like this is a franchise devoid of any type of history either, which makes it even tougher to stomach the abomination that is the 2015 Philadelphia 76ers.
The Sixers won a title in 1967 and had Wilt Chamberlain, who is probably the most dominant player in the history of the league. While they definitely did not reach the level of Bill Russell's Boston Celtics teams of that era, the 76ers were still a very good team for a span of multiple years during the 1960's. When Chamberlain was gone, there were certainly tough times (including a dreadful 1973 season that saw the team go 9-73), but with the arrival of Julius Erving, the Sixers once again returned to prominence, winning another title in 1983. Then Allen Iverson arrived, and while he never led the team to a title, they did reach the Finals once, and experienced a lot of success while he was their star player. So is this just a lull in between title contenders, or is this something different? If you look at the results of the past few years and the makeup of the current roster, I have to say that this seems like much worse than just a temporary lull. What the 76ers have done over the past two years, and what they continue to do into this season is historically bad, and I'm not sure that it will get better anytime soon.
In 2013, the Sixers finished 19-63. In 2014, they finished 18-64. In 2015, they are already 0-18. I have heard of organizations trying to "tank" a season in order to get a shot at an incoming rookie superstar, but this isn't just one season. The 76ers have been mailing it in for multiple seasons now. Philadelphia took Jahlil Okafor, a college superstar with their first pick in the past draft, and he has the potential to become a very good NBA player, but the organization is doing a terrible job of surrounding him with a network of support that can allow him to grow and flourish. Instead of a knowledgeable head coach or a roster of experienced veterans willing to mentor younger players, the Sixers have surrounded him with nothing but inexperience and mediocrity (at best). Brett Brown is an undeveloped and unproven head coach. The roster is made up of only one player born before the year 1990. There are a few top draft picks, and absolutely nothing else right now on the floor for the 76ers. The fact that the "veteran presence" of the team is Carl Landry is laughable. I mean no disrespect to Carl Landry, but he is not the type of established veteran player that can lead a group of young players to the promised land.
Let's look at some of the other top picks in this past NBA Draft. There were two players drafted ahead of Okafor, and they were D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns was drafted by a bad Minnesota Timberwolves team, but he has future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett as a mentor, as well as experienced veterans like Andre Miller and Tayshaun Prince. D'Angelo Russell went second overall, and he has an experienced head coach in Byron Scott as well as one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Kobe Bryant, to teach him how to become a better player and more importantly, teach him how to become a professional athlete.
I understand that surefire Hall of Famers like Garnett and Bryant don't grow on trees, and Towns and Russell are lucky to have mentors like that, but the Sixers have zero veteran leadership at all. Nothing. Coming into the draft I heard no questions at all about the character of Jahlil Okafor. He had all the talent in the world, he was coming off a national championship, and he had been coached by arguably the greatest coach in the history of college basketball, Mike Krzyzewski. They don't recruit guys at Duke who are problems off the court. They recruit not only great players, but great people as well, so no one had any inclination to question Okafor's character as he left school, and they had no reason to question it.
Yet, since Okafor has arrived in Philadelphia, he has had multiple off-court incidents that have raised my eyebrows. He was cited for speeding while driving as well as being caught using a fake ID to try to get into a bar. These are surely not serious problems, and I am willing to overlook them as immature mistakes, but they are not the only ones. Okafor also supposedly had a gun pointed at his head during a late night dispute, and now video has surfaced of him fighting outside a nightclub. Things like this are serious. I don't understand why the national media glosses over the fact that Okafor had a gun pointed at his head by someone else. Is that a problem? Yes, it definitely is. Now we see him fighting outside a club, and it is no longer a problem that we can just chalk up to immaturity. It is a problem that the organization has to address, and they did so by assigning a security guard to accompany him during any and all public appearances from now until further notice.
Jahlil Okafor is a very talented and very young basketball player. He is entering the NBA and not even close to fully matured as a man. What happens during the second decade of any man's life is crucial to his growth, and I just worry that Okafor is off to a bad start. I don't know for sure, but I am willing to bet that Okafor has already lost more games this season than he did during his entire high school and college career. I don't know what losing so many games can do psychologically to a young player, but I do know that this is uncharted territory for Okafor, and this is almost uncharted territory for any team in the history of the NBA.
76ers fans may look at Okafor and Nerlens Noel and potentially four first round picks in the upcoming draft as a reason for optimism, but I would caution them to temper those expectations. The 76ers organization has dug itself into an extremely deep hole over the past few years, and it seems like it could be a long time until they reach ground level again. The Lakers come to town tonight, and at 2-14, they are surely not in good shape either, but when you are 0-18, you are really never in good shape. Even with a win tonight and a home run of a first round selection in the upcoming draft, the 76ers still have a long way to go in terms of even becoming a mediocre NBA team, and I can't imagine being a fan of the team and wanting to spend my own money to go see them, because they are beyond putrid, and with a loss tonight, their level of putridity will reach historic proportions.
Daily Rangers Update: After three straight losses, the Rangers got back into the win column last night with a victory over a struggling Carolina Hurricanes team. The Rangers will meet the Islanders tomorrow night for the first time this season, and obviously, bragging rights are always on the line when the Rangers and Islanders meet. Both teams have started the season well, so tomorrow night should be fun.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: David Price signed with the Red Sox and it was announced that Johnny Cueto turned down a big offer from the Diamondbacks in recent days. Between that, Zack Greinke and Jordan Zimmermann already being gone, and the team having to give up a first round pick in order to sign one of the next tier of free agent starting pitchers, I think the time to improve the rotation via free agency may have already passed. I won't rule anything out, because spring training is still months away, but we need to focus on guys like Braden Shipley, Aaron Blair, Archie Bradley, and Patrick Corbin in the rotation right now. I like the offense, but the pitching is going to be unproven.
Daily Giants Update: Everyone was on the Giants last week. Newspapers, television, radio...everyone was saying that the Giants had the division in their grasp. And you know what happens when everyone thinks that? The Giants lose. And that is exactly what happened last Sunday. At 5-6, the Giants are tied with the Redskins atop the NFC East, although the Redskins hold the tiebreaker. The Jets are next up this Sunday, and even though we only play the Jets once every four years, this is obviously a huge game not only in terms of bragging rights, but in terms of playoff position as well, as both teams are fighting for their playoff lives heading into December. As usual with the Giants, I have no clue what to expect, but hopefully it works out better than last Sunday.
Daily NBA Update: As I already highlighted, the 76ers will try to avoid history tonight, and this actually may be their best chance to do so, as they play a Lakers team that has at least won two games, but is surely not good at all. Aside from that, the Warriors are still unbeaten, and Stephen Curry could somehow be in line to not only win the MVP, but also win the Most Improved player award this year. That is how good he has been, and that is how dominant the defending champions look.
In every major sport, teams go through re-building phases. Dynasties never last forever. Whether it be front office changes, bad drafting, or player movement, every team in every sport is destined to face some tough times. Let's just take a look at this from the perspective of the teams who currently could be categorized as "dynasties" in sports today, and for the sake of this conversation, let's begin in the NBA. I think that over the past decade, the closest we have seen to a dynasty in the NBA is the San Antonio Spurs. Thanks to Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich (among many others), the Spurs have exemplified success. However, it was not always that way. Duncan's rookie year was 1997. The year before Duncan was drafted, the Spurs finished with a record of 20-62. Duncan was added to team with David Robinson and the two would form one of the best 1-2 punches in the history of the league. However, in the four years before Robinson was drafted, the Spurs had a combined record of 115-213.
In the NFL, let's look at the New England Patriots. Prior to the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady regime, the Patriots were actually a very good team. They made a Super Bowl appearance, ultimately losing to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, but from 1996-2000, their win total declined each year. Before Bill Parcells, Drew Bledsoe and Curtis Martin, things were even worse. From 1987 until 1993, the Patriots never had a winning record, and that stretch included one 1-15 season, as well as one 2-14 season.
In baseball, obviously, when we talk about dynasties, it is impossible to have a conversation without mentioning the New York Yankees. My generation of fans has a hard time remembering the Yankees ever being an afterthought, but it did actually happen many years ago. Derek Jeter won the Rookie of the Year award in 1996. In the 14 years prior to that, the Yankees made the playoffs only once (that does include the 1994 season that ended with a players strike, and the Yankees were clearly one of the best teams in baseball that year, but there were no playoffs, so the history books will never see it as a postseason berth). The Yankees did actually have a shortstop before Derek Jeter, even if it might be hard to believe for some. Jeter's career wiped away memories of Pat Kelly and Luis Sojo and Randy Velarde, but those guys did play, and from the mid 1980's until the mid 1990's, the Yankees were simply not a good team.
So, what I am trying to illustrate here is that there will never be a sports franchise that is good forever. Players and coaches retire, teams make bad draft picks, and sometimes guys just do not meet expectations. The difference between good franchises and bad franchises though, is how they can bounce back after such lean years, and what is happening within the Philadelphia 76ers organization right now is very tough to watch. It isn't like this is a franchise devoid of any type of history either, which makes it even tougher to stomach the abomination that is the 2015 Philadelphia 76ers.
The Sixers won a title in 1967 and had Wilt Chamberlain, who is probably the most dominant player in the history of the league. While they definitely did not reach the level of Bill Russell's Boston Celtics teams of that era, the 76ers were still a very good team for a span of multiple years during the 1960's. When Chamberlain was gone, there were certainly tough times (including a dreadful 1973 season that saw the team go 9-73), but with the arrival of Julius Erving, the Sixers once again returned to prominence, winning another title in 1983. Then Allen Iverson arrived, and while he never led the team to a title, they did reach the Finals once, and experienced a lot of success while he was their star player. So is this just a lull in between title contenders, or is this something different? If you look at the results of the past few years and the makeup of the current roster, I have to say that this seems like much worse than just a temporary lull. What the 76ers have done over the past two years, and what they continue to do into this season is historically bad, and I'm not sure that it will get better anytime soon.
In 2013, the Sixers finished 19-63. In 2014, they finished 18-64. In 2015, they are already 0-18. I have heard of organizations trying to "tank" a season in order to get a shot at an incoming rookie superstar, but this isn't just one season. The 76ers have been mailing it in for multiple seasons now. Philadelphia took Jahlil Okafor, a college superstar with their first pick in the past draft, and he has the potential to become a very good NBA player, but the organization is doing a terrible job of surrounding him with a network of support that can allow him to grow and flourish. Instead of a knowledgeable head coach or a roster of experienced veterans willing to mentor younger players, the Sixers have surrounded him with nothing but inexperience and mediocrity (at best). Brett Brown is an undeveloped and unproven head coach. The roster is made up of only one player born before the year 1990. There are a few top draft picks, and absolutely nothing else right now on the floor for the 76ers. The fact that the "veteran presence" of the team is Carl Landry is laughable. I mean no disrespect to Carl Landry, but he is not the type of established veteran player that can lead a group of young players to the promised land.
Let's look at some of the other top picks in this past NBA Draft. There were two players drafted ahead of Okafor, and they were D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns was drafted by a bad Minnesota Timberwolves team, but he has future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett as a mentor, as well as experienced veterans like Andre Miller and Tayshaun Prince. D'Angelo Russell went second overall, and he has an experienced head coach in Byron Scott as well as one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Kobe Bryant, to teach him how to become a better player and more importantly, teach him how to become a professional athlete.
I understand that surefire Hall of Famers like Garnett and Bryant don't grow on trees, and Towns and Russell are lucky to have mentors like that, but the Sixers have zero veteran leadership at all. Nothing. Coming into the draft I heard no questions at all about the character of Jahlil Okafor. He had all the talent in the world, he was coming off a national championship, and he had been coached by arguably the greatest coach in the history of college basketball, Mike Krzyzewski. They don't recruit guys at Duke who are problems off the court. They recruit not only great players, but great people as well, so no one had any inclination to question Okafor's character as he left school, and they had no reason to question it.
Yet, since Okafor has arrived in Philadelphia, he has had multiple off-court incidents that have raised my eyebrows. He was cited for speeding while driving as well as being caught using a fake ID to try to get into a bar. These are surely not serious problems, and I am willing to overlook them as immature mistakes, but they are not the only ones. Okafor also supposedly had a gun pointed at his head during a late night dispute, and now video has surfaced of him fighting outside a nightclub. Things like this are serious. I don't understand why the national media glosses over the fact that Okafor had a gun pointed at his head by someone else. Is that a problem? Yes, it definitely is. Now we see him fighting outside a club, and it is no longer a problem that we can just chalk up to immaturity. It is a problem that the organization has to address, and they did so by assigning a security guard to accompany him during any and all public appearances from now until further notice.
Jahlil Okafor is a very talented and very young basketball player. He is entering the NBA and not even close to fully matured as a man. What happens during the second decade of any man's life is crucial to his growth, and I just worry that Okafor is off to a bad start. I don't know for sure, but I am willing to bet that Okafor has already lost more games this season than he did during his entire high school and college career. I don't know what losing so many games can do psychologically to a young player, but I do know that this is uncharted territory for Okafor, and this is almost uncharted territory for any team in the history of the NBA.
76ers fans may look at Okafor and Nerlens Noel and potentially four first round picks in the upcoming draft as a reason for optimism, but I would caution them to temper those expectations. The 76ers organization has dug itself into an extremely deep hole over the past few years, and it seems like it could be a long time until they reach ground level again. The Lakers come to town tonight, and at 2-14, they are surely not in good shape either, but when you are 0-18, you are really never in good shape. Even with a win tonight and a home run of a first round selection in the upcoming draft, the 76ers still have a long way to go in terms of even becoming a mediocre NBA team, and I can't imagine being a fan of the team and wanting to spend my own money to go see them, because they are beyond putrid, and with a loss tonight, their level of putridity will reach historic proportions.
Daily Rangers Update: After three straight losses, the Rangers got back into the win column last night with a victory over a struggling Carolina Hurricanes team. The Rangers will meet the Islanders tomorrow night for the first time this season, and obviously, bragging rights are always on the line when the Rangers and Islanders meet. Both teams have started the season well, so tomorrow night should be fun.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: David Price signed with the Red Sox and it was announced that Johnny Cueto turned down a big offer from the Diamondbacks in recent days. Between that, Zack Greinke and Jordan Zimmermann already being gone, and the team having to give up a first round pick in order to sign one of the next tier of free agent starting pitchers, I think the time to improve the rotation via free agency may have already passed. I won't rule anything out, because spring training is still months away, but we need to focus on guys like Braden Shipley, Aaron Blair, Archie Bradley, and Patrick Corbin in the rotation right now. I like the offense, but the pitching is going to be unproven.
Daily Giants Update: Everyone was on the Giants last week. Newspapers, television, radio...everyone was saying that the Giants had the division in their grasp. And you know what happens when everyone thinks that? The Giants lose. And that is exactly what happened last Sunday. At 5-6, the Giants are tied with the Redskins atop the NFC East, although the Redskins hold the tiebreaker. The Jets are next up this Sunday, and even though we only play the Jets once every four years, this is obviously a huge game not only in terms of bragging rights, but in terms of playoff position as well, as both teams are fighting for their playoff lives heading into December. As usual with the Giants, I have no clue what to expect, but hopefully it works out better than last Sunday.
Daily NBA Update: As I already highlighted, the 76ers will try to avoid history tonight, and this actually may be their best chance to do so, as they play a Lakers team that has at least won two games, but is surely not good at all. Aside from that, the Warriors are still unbeaten, and Stephen Curry could somehow be in line to not only win the MVP, but also win the Most Improved player award this year. That is how good he has been, and that is how dominant the defending champions look.
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