The NBA trade deadline came and went, and the Warriors did nothing -– as they should have.
The rest of the player movement ranged from the mildly intriguing (Phoenix dumped both Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas in hopes of swiftly being eliminated from the playoffs, Portland getting Arron Afflalo, and Oklahoma City getting Enes Kanter, Steve Novak, Kyle Singler and D.J. Augustine to transform its bench) to the meaningless (Kevin Garnett goes back to Minnesota to retire as a Woofie). But the biggest news was JaVale McGee, the odd but intriguing Denver Nugget, who has been detected having done something wrong in a previous life and being sent to Philadelphia.
I mean, there’s hell, and then there’s this. And then there’s the next thing general manager Sam Hinkle does.
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Jim Tomsula finally did what he should have done weeks ago, and gotten out in the public (well, the combine) and gotten a few more interviews under his belt. After all, he works for an owner who won’t be seen and a general manager who doesn’t want to be seen, so he’d better get good at shooting “the bologna,” as he said.
I mean, you can yammer all you want about winning solving everything, but there are six months before that can even start, and someone has to present this operation in a light more favorable than “Get off my lawn.” If Tomsula is the swell guy his players say he is, the less coaching he gets about the media and the more reps just being that guy, the better.
Right? Yes. Right.
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Re: The Great And Ever-Changing New England Disappearing Ball mystery. Would anyone have a problem with all the Patriots, Colts and league officials thrown into jail, and make them prove they don’t deserve to stay there?
Just checking.
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Good news from Saturday’s Kings-Sharks outdoor game at The House That Tomsula Built: Statistics from Stephen Pettigrew of Regressing suggest that the Kings and Sharks probably won’t play any differently, but that the officials might blow more whistles (offsides, stuff like that). So, slower. Which is what a crowd is really after these days -– more faceoffs that are too far away to actually see.
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But the fans, while struggling to see the puck, will almost surely be better behaved than either the revolting Chelsea fans who prevented a black man from boarding a train in his home city of Paris and chanting, “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it,” or the Feyenoord (Dutch) fans who fought with police for the better part of the day in Rome before their side’s match with AS Roma, which ended 1-1.
I mean, we THINK they’ll be better behaved. It probably depends on how well the parking works.
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And finally, the idea of the Raiders, Rams and Chargers in the same town at the same time is the second-sweetest thing the new developments from the Los Angeles Times portend.
The best thing, of course, is that they find out that L.A. liked life better with three fewer teams and decline the opportunity to throw down seat license money like drunken Marines in a World War II movie.
Anyone who doesn’t think that vision is a thigh-slapping, sink-hugging good time simply hates fun.