It’s Friday The Thirteenth

As a tip of the hat to the calendar today, let me begin with this:

“Friday the 13^th is still better than Monday “the whatever”.

About a month ago, Antonio Brown was involved in an incident that ended up with him drawing a gun and firing it.  At the time, the story was that Brown had attended a celebrity boxing event in Miami and that he was “jumped by multiple individuals who tried to steal my jewelry”.  Brown was detained by the police but released that night with no arrest or charges or anything like that.  In a statement by Brown the day after the incident, he said:

“I will be talking to my legal council (sic) and attorneys on pressing charges on the individuals that jumped me. I will keep you all posted step-by-step on the process. Thank you for the support and love.”

As of this morning, the narrative here has changed significantly.  According to a report in the Washington Post, the police are now seeking Brown with a warrant for his arrest and the warrant includes a charge of “attempted murder”.  The Post report says that police have video footage of Brown punching a man “sparking a melee” and after that it appears that Brown took a gun from a security officer at the scene and ran toward the man he had punched firing the gun as he approached the man.

Obviously, this is a situation of “innocent until proven guilty”.  Equally obviously this is a situation where the narrative from a month ago and the allegations in the arrest warrant are incompatible.  I suspect there is a lot more to come on this matter.

Moving on …  Ten days ago, the New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau even though the Knicks made it to the Eastern Conference Finals.  At the time, there were rumors and speculations that the Knicks had their eye on a short list of replacements for Thibodeau.  I take the intervening ten days since the firing with the lack of any announcement of the Knicks signing a replacement to mean that the Knicks had no plan in place as to what to do after Thibodeau was let go.

The Knicks’ job is an attractive one.  They have good players – – albeit not good defenders – – and they occupy an attractive market with a passionate fanbase.  I believe that if the team had a plan in mind, they would have already signed a new head coach; the only issues to be negotiated with the targeted replacement would be annual salary and length of the contract.

Now, if – – I said IF – – my reading of the situation is accurate and Thibodeau’s firing was a knee-jerk reaction and not part of some sort of strategy, that points to the downside of the Knicks’ head coaching job:

• The Owner.

I have to believe that The Owner was consulted prior to the firing.  Were I in that position, I would have asked the people who wanted to fire the coach to tell me who and what they had in mind for the position in the future.  If those folks presented me with a reasonable candidate or two, I would approve and tell them to “get on with it”.  That has not happened and that tells me one of two things:

1. The ”basketball people” had no master plan going forward.
2. The Owner is the guy whose knee jerked and now the “basketball people” are scrambling.

Switching gears …  Once again, I want to take a peek at the MLB standings this morning specifically to gaze one more time at the pathetic Colorado Rockies.

• The record today is 13-55 (win percentage = .191)
• In 68 games, they have been outscored by 201 runs.
• Their projected record is now 31-131.

Now, brace yourself because one of the sad sacks from that team is going to be a National League All-Star on July 15^th, 2025.

• Memo to Rob Manfred:  The idea that every team needs to have at least one player on the All-Star roster needs examination.  Once examined, it needs to be expunged.

Finally, I’ll close with this:

“If you need to get out of doing something today, just say, “I don’t think so, it’s Friday the 13^th.’”

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