Not A “Happy Day” Today…

The Los Angeles Lakers are officially eliminated as of this morning from the 2022 NBA Playoffs.  Last night the Lakers lost – not surprisingly – by 11 points to the Phoenix Suns, a team that has now won 63 games in this regular season.  That loss coupled by the Spurs win over a favored Denver Nuggets team last night eliminates the Lakers and cements the Spurs in the NBA playoffs as the 10th seed in the Western Conference bracket.  I would like to suggest that this outcome could be a plus for the Lakers – – and not because it puts them in the lottery where they might get the overall #1 pick in the Draft later this year.

The roster for the Lakers now is a cobbling together of mismatched parts; it more closely resembles Frankenstein’s monster than even a poorly oiled machine.  Let me count some of the problems with the Lakers’ roster:

  1. The roster skews old; 8 players are 32 years old or older.
  2. The roster is injury prone.
  3. The top players on the roster do not fit with one another – and probably did not even when all were in their prime.
  4. The bench is a mirage – – unless one turns back the clock to 2014

The Lakers spend about $120M in base salary for LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis; no other player on the team earns $10M and 13 players earn less than $2.7M per year.  Every NBA team has a huge disparity between its most expensive players and the “guys at the end of the bench”, but this imbalance is monumental.  [Aside:  Some politicians love to bloviate about “income inequality”.  Next time you hear about that, just remember these numbers.]  The Lakers need a complete restructuring of the roster but do not have a lot of wiggle room – – unless the “folks in charge” can put their egos aside and admit that they got themselves into Gargantuan mess when they cobbled together this team.  Just maybe, the ignominy of finishing 11th in the 15-team Western Conference with the likes of the Rockets, Thunder and Kings will get the “folks in charge” to blow this roster up and start over.

I would suggest that the braintrust for the Lakers should ponder this observation by the author, Anatole France:

“It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.”

Next time, act less foolishly…

Moving on…  For the last year or so, the sports world had been missing one of its great “drama queens”; not to worry, however, Tiger Woods is back.  After teasing the “sports journalists” who cover golf for about a week on the subject of would he play in The Masters or not, Woods finally ‘fessed up and told everyone he would indeed tee off tomorrow morning and gave the media the news they so desperately needed to report:

  • Woods thinks he can contend for a 6th Masters championship.

Obviously, no one knows what the state of Woods’ game might be this weekend; his last tournament appearance was in the 2020 Masters which was held in the late Fall that year because of COVID-19 concerns.  Maybe he is “rested and ready”; maybe he is “rusty and rotten”; there is no need to speculate about such things because we will all find out pretty soon when the scores come in for the first two days of The Masters.  Notwithstanding that certain status, you may be sure that the cameras covering the tournament will be focused on Tiger Woods from the moment he comes out of the clubhouse and onto the course.  If he stops to pick his nose, there will be a video record of that somewhere.

Lest you think I am exaggerating, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times about the coverage of Tiger Woods in the last week or so as he was leading the golf media around by the nose:

“If you’re wondering about who still moves the needle in golf,” tweeted golf analyst Jason Sobel, “Scottie Scheffler became No. 1 in the world a few days ago and didn’t trend on Twitter, while Tiger Woods took a plane ride today and has been trending all morning.”

Changing lanes – – while using my turn signal…  Thanksgiving in the US this year will take place on November 24th.  Four things are certain for that day:

  1. Lots of turkey and ham will be consumed.
  2. The Detroit Lions will play an NFL opponent in the early afternoon EST.
  3. The Dallas Cowboys will play an NFL opponent in the last afternoon EST.
  4. There will be another NFL game (Teams TBD) in prime time EST.

However, there is one other sporting endeavor that will be in progress on November 24th that could divert some attention from the NFL orgy that day.  The FIFA World Cup Tournament in Qatar will be in its first round of games on that day; there are 4 games scheduled for Thanksgiving.  Fortunately, the US team’s first game – – against England – – will be on November 25th so there will be no division of interest on Thanksgiving Day.

Lest anyone worry that watching the US/England World Cup Game might cut into significant time thrashing about on Black Friday looking for deals on things one really does not need, let me try to assuage those worries.  If my calculations are correct, Qatar is 7 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time – – so the US/England game starting at 1400 in Qatar will be on TV here in the eastern time zone at 0700.  No problem…

Finally, apropos of nothing other than my appreciation of H. L. Mencken as the quintessential curmudgeon, consider:

“It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.  If such a board actually exists, it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

 

 

4 thoughts on “Not A “Happy Day” Today…”

  1. Thanksgiving Day – Back in the good old days – when I was in college and freshmen were ineligible to play on the varsity – the Georgia Tech freshmen played the Geogia freshmen on Thanksgiving afternoon at Grant Field in Atlanta. Everyone, including the press and ushers, had to buy a ticket. All the proceeds went to the Scottish Rite Childrens Hospital in Atlanta. It was not unusual for the game to be a sellout.

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