I mentioned yesterday that Mike Budenholzer might be fired as coach of the Phoenx Suns after the team significantly underperformed expectations in 2024/25. Well, that happened overnight; and Budenholzer is now looking for work having an NBA Championship on his résumé. He coached the Bucks to the title in 2021. Meanwhile, the Suns will be hiring their third coach since May 2023 when they fired Monty Williams.
Let me give you some facts about the Suns’ recent coaches:
- Monty Williams was NBA Coach of the Year in 2022 as the coach of the Suns
- Frank Vogel won the NBA Championship in 2020
- Mike Budenholzer won the NBA Championship in 2021.
I am beginning to think that it might it be the case that “the problem” with the Phoenix Suns is centered elsewhere in the organization. You make the call …
Sticking with the NBA, the play-in round of the Playoffs starts tonight. The NBA now has 20 teams out of 30 that qualify for the Playoffs and, frankly, that is too many. Consider this data:
- Of the 4 play-in teams in the East, none posted a winning record in the regular season.
- The 7th seed in the East (Orlando) is a “Playoff team” with a record of 41-41.
- The 10th seed in the East (Miami) is a “Playoff team” with a record of 37-45.
- Adding in the 4 play-in teams in the West, there are two more teams with records below .500.
Theoretically, the next two nights should be dramatic in the NBA. The play-in round is single elimination; there should be energy and anticipation for these games. Well, if there is any such energy, I don’t sense it at all. In fact, I know I will not be watching both games in full tonight because I really do not care who wins and loses in this playoff round.
Moving on to MLB … The Rockies lost to the Dodgers last night by a score of 5-3. By scoring those 3 runs, the Rockies broke a scoreless streak of 31 innings which set a club record. While that sounds amazingly inept, it is not even close to the MLB record for consecutives scoreless innings; that record stands at 48 scoreless innings, and it was done by two teams:
- The Philadelphia A’s in 1906
- The Chicago Cubs in 1968
The Colorado Rockies are off to a miserable start in 2025; their record of 3-13 is the worst in MLB – – even worse than the White Sox. Their run differential is minus-46; a negative figure is to be expected with a 3-13 overall record, but the Rockies are outpacing the other bottom dwellers in that category too. The next worst run differential belongs to the A’s at minus-24.
And this morning, the Rockies got another piece of bad news. Outfielder Kris Bryant was put on the IL with “lumbar degenerative disk disease”. I am not going to pretend to be an orthopedist, but that sounds extremely ominous. Bryant has been with the Rockies since signing on there as a free agent in 2022, but his time there has been spent on the Injured List more than it has on the field.
- Since he signed on in Colorado, the Rockies have played 502 games.
- Bryant has appeared in only 170 of those games.
Kris Bryant is a former Rookie of the Year and a former NL MVP and a four-time All-Star. His future does not seem nearly as bright as his past …
In other baseball “news”, the NL West standings this morning have the Dodgers in third place which is odd because some had speculated that the Dodgers might go 162-0 this season with its star-studded lineup. Both the Padres and the Giants hold small leads over the Dodgers as of this morning and the Padres have an interesting twist to their record:
- The Padres are 3-3 on the road.
- The Padres are 11-0 at home.
The Padres are scoring runs this year. As of today, the Padres run differential is +36 which is second in MLB to the Cubs who are at +37. Can the Padres – – and/or the Giants for that matter – – keep this up and make it a race in the NL West? There is still a whole lot of baseball to be played …
Finally, I’ll close today with this observation by Oscar Wilde:
“Some cause happiness everywhere they go, others wherever they go.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
I take it Kris Bryant will not be writing an autobiography any time soon under the nom de plume “Iron Man Kris.”