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“This-That-Some of Other”

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Time out from talking about local things here in town….

You know the tired topics…..

Hate watching for Chargers games….Philip Rivers interceptions…Padres stuck with Will Myers…Why no one comes to see a good Aztecs football team….USD football-great quarterback-not so great fan turnout.

On to storylines around the nation…

USC…Coach Clay Helton gets the chance to finish the season (8-4) with his 3rd  string  quarterback throwing for 400-yard games and his 4th string tailback piling up 100-yard games.  Not so sure why he has to be fired at this point.

UCLA…Chip Kelly surely has not been what we thought the Bruins would be, after we assumed it would become like the Oregon Duck days…Either he has changed or the academic entrance requirements make it harder to get Oregon type players onto the Westwood campus.

LAKERS…Very impressive start for   Anthony Davis-LeBron James….Do believe Kyle Kozma becomes the legitimate third wheel in the offense…Still waiting to get a feel for the highs and lows of Danny Green shooting the rock…..Dwight Howard, role player, likely a 4th wheel in LA scheme and who would have thought his underachieving career would end up like this.

CLIPPERS…Some real flashes with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, though they have hardly played together…Worried about the wear and tear factor on Kawhi’s career catching up to him…The quad…the bruised bone in the knee etc….What a bench Doc Rivers has to rely on-very explosive.

RAMS….Jared Goff has come back down to earth, with all the injuries to his skill position players and the fact  his offensive line now is not what his offensive line used to be.

KINGS….Long season coming, stuck with a lot of aging players with big contracts….Interesting to see what they do with this Ilya Kovalchuk contract mess….Still owed 6.2M this year and 6.2M next year, and not suiting up any longer.

DUCKS….Dallas Eakins got them roaring out of the gate, but now they have drifted back to .500 (10-10-2), and scoring goals continues to be the issue….Unless some of the young high draft picks start to score goals, they probably won’t be a playoff team.

HOUSTON ASTROS….Sounds like a death sentence is coming if you read between the lines of the Commissioner’s office about this probe for electronic sign stealing in World Series games….Oh the hour of it all, now that it has leaked out….This is the same MLB office that ignored the steroid issues thinking it was just Mark McGwuire back in the day, till it turned out to  be virtually every big bat in baseball.  To think the Astros are the only ones cheating is absurd, but there could be some real blood-letting on all this.

FREE AGENCY….Agent Scott Boras holds all the cards, and all the big name free agents in baseball….History has him always holding his clients back for a longtime in the winter, but you wonder if Gerritt Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Hyun Jin-Ryu, Anthony Rendon sign contracts early, or if Boras tries to squeeze every last cent out of clubs before his guys ink the deal.  Baseball could generate so much off season Hot Stove interest if there was a specific window for signing, but Boras doesn’t care about the overall health of the game, just dollars for his clients.

CARMELO ANTHONY….Let’s see-his career has careened down from hero worship status in Denver, to going home to the Knicks, to being dealt away to places like Memphis-Atlanta-Oklahoma City…..Now with the battered Trailblazers, interesting to see if he can become a team player this late in his career.

MYLES GARRETT…..Now we see how quickly the NFL responded to the indefinite suspension for the helmet shining fight with Steelers QB-Mason Rudolph….Does he deserve more than the 12-games repeat offender Vontaze Burfict got for violent helmet hits?….I think 6-games is sufficient for now, but if there is ever a repeat offense, then Garrett could be gone a long time.

MASON RUDOLPH….Not sure how the victim, the Steelers QB, deserves a 35,000-fine for getting up off the ground and defending himself after Garrett ripped his helmet off…and all that led to the assault with the helmet on the Steelers QB….Why does he pay?

NFL…The rule says random HGH-testing in season for players, all nearly 1800 of them…anyone care to explain how Jets RB-Le’Veon Bell gets called to give blood 5-times in 10-weeks for HGH?

LOVE ME-LOVE ME NOT….Basket case WR-Antonio Brown now apologizes for the tweet about Pats owner Robert Kraft’s prostitution arrest in the off season….This is the same Brown who said “F” the NFL multiple times…and that he was done with pro football…and that he wanted to play again….and is now suing he woman who sued him for rape, saying it’s her fault he is now out of the NFL…..It goes and on and on and on.

TORONTO….Thought the Maple Leafs had moved beyond ‘stupid’ when Brendan Shanahan took over the franchise and brought in Stanely Cup winning coach Mike Babcock to fix all that ails the iconic franchise….Now Babcock gets fired after 4-winning seasons and 4-playoff appearances, because his team had lost 6-in a row.

BAD DAYS-BAD SEASONS….NBA fans have come to expect this disaster that is the NY Knicks, so the (4-11) ragged start under David Fizdale and the mounting criticism he should be fired seems the norm. …Golden State, (3-14) getting buried by everyone with all their star players either hurt or on other teams…What a quick fall from grace and some payback now around the NBA.

GOOD BYE-GOOD GUY…Jimmie Johnson is leaving NASCAR after a 2020 farewell tour…Great person…great driver…great charitable causes in El Cajon and back in Charlotte…Stunning to see him go 94-races now without a win….Sometimes it’s the team falling apart…sometime its the cars-engines no longer competing…sometimes the driver loses the edge….Hard to see such a classy guy go out this way…But it happens in that sport….remembering Dale Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, Bill Elliott.

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