In the for-profit universe of attention-whoring, there’s no such thing as bad press. Saying anything to get your name trending and increasing your social-media following is the name of the game. To have others spend time and energy either agreeing with or lambasting at your takes is the ultimate addiction for those sickos. And in the sports world, one of the biggest and fringe attention pleasure-seekers is Jason Whitlock, who’s latest sermon on finding whatever is trending and inserting his name into the discussion in some awful way veered into antisemitism on Wednesday.

Whitlock quotes scripture Revelation 2:9 and ends his tweet with #Kanye. Name-dropping that antisemitic rapper represents a wedge of society which only deranged or don’t-give-a-fuck people are entering willingly these days. The passage reads to me as the former ESPN and FOX Sports commentator equating the Jewish people as the devil, setting the world back at least 80 years to target the Jewish community in a similar fashion to the Nazis. It’s really heavy, heart-wrenching content.

The only logical way to digest anti-semitism is as bigoted comments. Therefore Whitlock can’t possibly see this attention as negative. He craves being part of the general discussion when it comes to anything sports related, since his draw in name recognition alone doesn’t cut it. Anyone with a brain would know how ridiculous they sound spewing blind hate against Jewish people. I’d believe Whitlock falls in the empty-cranium category. Let me also break the fourth wall — if his intention was to get people pissed off enough to write stories about him, congrats Jason. Also congrats on being a lunatic. And for the crowd that says we shouldn’t write about this at all, letting his comments be without holding Whitlock accountable is worse than showing you the egregious error of his ways.

Which is worse, Jason? Actually believing the bigotry you type or knowing the falsehoods and damage that could be caused by your words and actively participating in antisemitism to further the attention-seeking goals you’ve set for your career? Neither is good. Both are potentially destructive. You have nearly 600,000 followers on Twitter alone. Knowing you have a responsibility to tread carefully with an audience that wide, where truly every message of yours goes viral, is paramount and comes at a time as antisemitism is on the rise. The Anti-Defamation League, whose mission is to stop the mistreatment of Jewish people and provide equal treatment for all, found 2,717 antisemitism events in 2021, a 34 percent increase from 2020. That averages to more than seven such incidents per day. But by all means, tweet about Jews and Satan being equal.

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Calling out bigotry and racism in any form is the right move. Jewish people standing up for themselves against easily disproved lies and unprovoked attacks from famous people shouldn’t be controversial. Whitlock’s moved further from reality as his career has gone on, as the one-time Colin Cowherd fill-in now has been relegated to FOX News’ airwaves. He’s a rotating guest of Tucker Carlson’s, who’s embodied right-wing politics and all of its misinformation in recent years, to talk sports. Little by little, the news division at FOX News has left, opening the door for unvetted guests like Whitlock to spew whatever conspiracy he chooses. As the network’s Black conservative voice, Whitlock has become a shield to excuse the bigotry aired daily. The Jewish people have been accused of trying to control the media or society at-large, but I can’t remember any Jew making government policy based on Judaism’s teachings. And our Second Gentlemen, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.

Ye and Whitlock are connected through their bigotted remarks. How much personal beliefs and clout intersect in saying disparaging things about Jewish people is unknown, and shouldn’t matter, because both of their messages never should’ve reached the public. Hateful comments that Jewish institutions deal with because of instances like West’s comments and Whitlock’s tweet spread instantly. The Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles offered Kanye a private tour earlier this month, which he rejected, leading to the museum being the target of plenty of antisemitic messages. I could have a common ending to this story, clamoring for Whitlock to do better, but should we expect that, especially when it’d hurt his brand? And that’s all that matters to him now, right? No apology will be forthcoming. And that’s exactly the cycle an attention whore wants, this time at the expense of the Jewish community. And it’s disgusting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World Series kicks off tomorrow night between two teams with wildly different expectations heading into the postseason. On one hand, the Astros were the top seed in the American League. Houston reached the World Series in three of the last five seasons and reached the ALCS in all five. Everyone and their mothers could’ve predicted another ‘Stros appearance in the World Series.

The Phillies, however, were an entirely different story. For most of the season, the Phillies were on the outside of the playoff bubble looking in. If it weren’t for the Milwaukee Brewers actively trying to miss the playoffs, Philadelphia might not have gotten in at all. The club won just seven of its last 20 heading into the playoffs, and Bryce Harper had put up pretty subpar power numbers since his return from the IL — just three home runs and an OPS of .676 in Philly’s final 35 games.

Most people — myself included — expected the Cardinals to do away with the Phillies in the first round, but lo and behold, here we are nearly three weeks later, and Philly is still kicking like an ill-tempered zebra with serious back spasms. It shouldn’t be a shock that a majority of experts believe Houston holds a massive advantage in this matchup. The Astros earned the right to be considered one of the best teams in the league, but just because a team didn’t have the greatest regular season doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the tools to win it all. (Shoutout 2021 Atlanta Braves!) If Philadelphia does pull off a championship run, it would become the third-worst team — regular season record-wise — to win the World Series, ahead of only the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals and 1987 Minnesota Twins. That said, there have been four teams since 2000 to win the World Series while recording fewer than 90 regular season wins — so why can’t the Phillies continue that trend?

The Phils have spent a lot of money in recent years hoping to claim at least one title. They’d failed to win more than 82 games in any of their last four seasons (since signing Bryce Harper), thus they can’t afford to pass up this golden opportunity that has been thrust upon them. You’d like to think Philadelphia will be back, but of the seven teams to have won a World Series while winning 90 or fewer games in the regular season, only one went on to win another World Series within the next five years (the 2010 San Francisco Giants). There’s also the 2021 Braves, but their five-season outlook has obviously yet to be revealed.

The Astros need this World Series for a different reason. Having won only one title since 2017, Houston hasn’t yet rid itself of the “cheaters” moniker that baseball fans have placed upon it for taking the 2017 championship through dubious methods. While another World Series title wouldn’t absolve them of their crimes, it would show the baseball world that perhaps the Astros never needed to cheat in order to win. Maybe they really were just that good. I, personally, disagree. If they never needed to cheat, why do it at all? I can see that argument though.

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Both teams clearly have a lot at stake in this series, so here’s who needs to step up for both teams in order to give their team a chance at winning it all.

Houston Astros: Martín Maldonado & Kyle Tucker

The Astros’ pitching staff matches up incredibly well with the Phillies’ lineup. Philadelphia’s biggest strength is hitting against fastballs (fifth-highest wOBA against that pitch in 2022). Houston hurlers throw a lot of fastballs (third-highest rate in MLB). Furthermore, the Phils were especially good against fastballs with an Intended Vertical Break of 18 inches or more in 2022, ranking third in MLB in that category. The Astros have a few members of their staff with those very types of fastballs. You’d think this would bode well for the Phillies, but both the Yankees and Mariners were also elite fastball-hitting teams — ranking fifth and seventh, respectively — in wOBA against fastballs with 18 or more inches of Intended Vertical Break. Neither of those teams won a single game against Houston, and their average runs per game were just 2.57. That’s almost a full run lower than the Detroit Tigers averaged in 2022 (3.44) and they scored the fewest runs of any team.

Basically, as long as the Astros’ pitchers keep doing what they’re doing, they’ll be just fine. It comes down to hitting for Houston and whether or not the likes of Martín Maldonado and Kyle Tucker can pick up the pace.

Despite going 16-8 with Christian Vázquez starting, the ‘Stros will more than likely rely on Maldonado’s superior power numbers to propel them to a title from the catcher position. He’s started all but one game for the Astros during this postseason run but has recorded only three hits and seven strikeouts in his fourteen at-bats. In 2022, the Astros were practically unbeatable when Maldonado recorded an extra-base hit. He only did so in 24 games, but the Astros went 18-6 while scoring 5.67 runs per game, over a full run more than their average from the season as a whole.

In his career, Maldonado has five extra-base hits against the Phillies across four games. His team at the time — Brewers, Angeles, and Astros — won all four of those games by a combined score of 32-3. Across all other games that Maldonado has played against Philadelphia, his teams have gone 7-10. Specifically, with Houston, the Astros have gone 1-1, with both games happening in the final series of the 2022 regular season. The Astros won that series two games to one, but in the games where Maldonado didn’t record an extra-base hit, the Phillies outscored the Astros 5-3.

As for Kyle Tucker, despite being a solid playoff performer in years past, Tucker has struggled mightily through the 2022 ALDS and CS, recording a triple-slash of .214/.313/.321 through Houston’s seven games. The World Series could be even more difficult for Tucker. He’s struggled against southpaws for most of his career. In 2022, he hit arguably new lows against them, slashing .228/.279/.456, good for a .736 OPS and 103 OPS-plus, which doesn’t sound too bad, but when compared to his 140 OPS-plus against righties, you realize just how poor he was comparatively.

The Astros haven’t had to face too many lefties so far in their 2022 postseason run. In fact, Tucker, despite playing the entirety of all seven games, has only had five plate appearances against southpaws (Matthew Boyd, Robbie Ray, Wandy Peralta twice, and Nestor Cortes). He’s gone 1-for-3 with two walks, which is actually pretty good, but too small a sample size to assume he’s dug himself out of his southpaw rut.

The Phillies don’t have too many southpaws to speak fondly of — Ranger Suárez, Brad Hand, José Alvarado, and maybe Bailey Falter. Still, the four of them have thrown a combined 21.1 innings in the postseason thus far, 20 of which have come in the NLDS or NLCS, meaning when the going gets tough, the Phillies turn to these men (particularly Hand and Alvarado late in games). Tucker has primarily hit out of the fifth slot in the Astros’ lineup, which usually slots him in between Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel or Yuli Gurriel and Jeremy Peña, all three of whom are right-handed hitters (although Yordan Alvarez has occasionally slotted in front of Tucker as well). This usually keeps Tucker from having to face lefties often, but the Phillies have shown a dependence on Alvarado and Hand. The pair had the lowest and third-lowest ERAs of anyone in the Phillies’ bullpen with at least 30 innings pitched, so the righty-lefty matchup may not matter too much to Phillies’ manager Rob Thomson. If that’s the case, Tucker is really going to have to step up. Otherwise, he could be a non-factor in this World Series.

Philadelphia Phillies: Aaron Nola & Alec Bohm

Unlike the pair of Astros I listed above, these two sort of go in tandem with one another. I’m sure every Phillies fan alive is sick of hearing about their team’s poor defense, but it must be noted that third baseman Alec Bohm was responsible for more than a few runs going to Philadelphia’s opponents in 2022. Why does he matter specifically? Because the top of the Astros’ lineup consists of three right-handed hitters (Jeremy Peña, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman) who love to smash inside pitches. The Astros ranked sixth in MLB in wOBA against inside pitches, and the Phillies threw inside pitches at the second-highest rate in MLB.

The Astros only have three legitimate left-handed bats on their roster, meaning a lot of right-handers are going to come up to the plate. The Astros pulled the ball at the fourth-highest rate in MLB and hit either a line drive or grounder on over 60 percent of their batted balls. Bohm ranked 130th in Defensive WAR among third basemen this season and he could get a lot of work in this World Series. I wouldn’t be shocked if a few Houston runs are determined by Bohm’s ability or inability to flash the leather in key situations.

The only Phillies’ starting pitcher who didn’t throw inside pitches at an above-average rate this year was ace Aaron Nola (yeah, I consider him to be a tad better than Zack Wheeler). Nola is an innings-eater, has the highest strikeout rate of anyone on the Phillies’ starting staff, and held right-handed hitters to an astonishingly low 80 OPS-plus this year. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Phillies used him in the same way the 2014 Giants used Madison Bumgarner; that is, “Hey, it’s the end of the season so let’s just use this man’s arm as much as we can because he’ll have the whole offseason to recover.”

Through three series, Nola has only pitched 17.1 innings. His arm definitely hasn’t been overworked and although his last outing against the Padres wasn’t great, he had gone 12.2 innings with zero earned runs allowed prior. I’d be willing to bet he bounces back.

Tom Brady made his name in the NFL as a pocket passer, handing the ball off to a teammate or staying behind his offensive line and trying to connect with his receivers downfield. His on-the-fly decision making has made him one of the greatest of all-time on the gridiron. That isn’t the scenario Brady faces in the real world however, as reported marital problems with wife and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen have come to a climax. According to Us Weekly, Bündchen gave Brady a recent ultimatum: Leave football for good, or she’s gone for good.

The couple have allegedly been living separately since last month and have also hired divorce lawyers. Both have also been spotted over the last few weeks without their wedding rings on in public. The couple married in 2009 and have two children. They’ve reportedly suffered marital strife since Brady ended his retirement after nearly six weeks to return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who’ve been one of the NFL’s biggest disappointments this season.

It’s unclear whether Bündchen means immediately returning to retirement and leaving Blaine Gabbert to quarterback Tampa Bay, or after the season. Us Weekly reported this from close confidants of the couple: “Gisele and Tom’s friends are upset at Tom for going back on his word and coming out of retirement. They hate the way Tom is refusing to bend for Gisele.”

Bündchen cites the barbarism of the NFL and being around to enjoy time with his kids as her reasoning for wanting Brady to permanently end his playing career. She also understands how much joy the NFL has brought to her now-husband. No longer being a participant in the NFL won’t mean Brady has to leave football completely, as he allegedly holds a 10-year, $375 million offer from Fox Sports to become a commentator when he hangs up his cleats. The Buccaneers play at home tonight as part of Thursday Night Football. It’d be a shock to see Brady not play against the Ravens because Bündchen told him so hours after the information became public. He’ll have more than a week until Tampa Bay’s following game on Nov. 6 against the Rams. 

I love umpires. I don’t love to hate them like other baseball fans do though. I’ve always leaned in the direction of leniency. I know that officiating in any sport is difficult, thankless, and downright hazardous to your health in some situations. Umpires get it the worst though, perhaps because they’re involved in every play, or perhaps because they’ve been the subject of much debate over the last several years in determining whether or not MLB should rid themselves of umpires altogether.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has claimed he wants to implement a fully automated balls and strikes (ABS) system by the 2024 season. I have nothing against that. What I do have a problem with is the New York Times making it seem like umpiring is easy work. It’s not. It’s unfathomably hard and while after years and years of umpires working their way up to the MLB level, you’d expect better accuracy and consistency from them, I doubt any of us normal, average, everyday city folk, could do any better.

The New York Times’ umpiring game throws seven pitches at you, all of which were called incorrectly during the 2022 MLB season. It’s your job to watch a diagram of the pitch and determine whether or not each one was a ball or strike. There’s no visible strike zone, no pitcher, and no point on the diagram showing you where the ball crossed the plate, just a quick re-play and two options labeled “Ball” or “Strike.” I’m not trying to brag, but I went 7-for-7 with only the last pitch giving me a tough time. It’s not even really worth boasting about considering the success that other people have had.

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At least the last guy has some sense. It’s not just way more difficult in real time where you need to make a decision moments after the ball hits the catcher’s glove, it’s also the angle at which the umpire sits. For this game, we have the luxury of sitting right behind the plate at an even eye-level with the strike zone. There’s no catcher obstructing our view, and we don’t need to worry about taking the hitters’ height into account, because the hitter isn’t in our peripherals, he’s in our direct line of sight. That’s not going to be the case for most umpires. The catcher can obstruct their view to balls low in the zone, hence why most of the pitches in the game were down low.

I loved playing this game, and I hope the NYT realizes how cool it is and turns it into a full-fledged website with consistent updates so I can spend my off hours convincing myself I could do better than Ángel Hernández. That said, this game also propels the notion that umpires aren’t good at their job, which frankly, isn’t true at all. They deserve more respect. I doubt they’ll get it after so many people got so many of their incorrect calls right.

A decade after Oklahoma City traded James Harden on the eve of the 2012-13 regular season, it still stands as an atrocity upon the art of dynasty-building. As the central players involved in that deal wind down their Hall of Fame careers in bleak situations, there is no more denying it, Oklahoma City trading Harden was the most detrimental trade an organization has made in NBA history.

Fresh off their 2012 NBA Finals loss to the Miami Heat, Thunder executives were encouraged by their progress. Each of their four headliners was 24 or younger, including their defensive plug Serge Ibaka. However, Harden’s poor performance in the Finals series against Miami and the financial status of the Thunder left the organization sheepish on offering a massive extension to him. After General Manager Sam Presti offered a four-year $48 million deal to Serge Ibaka, Harden rejected a team-friendly four-year, $52 million extension knowing that in 2013 he could demand a max contract as a restricted free agent.

Instead of embarking on another title chase with Harden, Presti took drastic measures. On Oct. 27, Presti pulled the trigger on a trade that sent Harden and roster flotsam to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two first-round picks, and a second-round pick. Oklahoma City has been dealing with the consequences ever since. The Thunder remained contenders in the West, but once Harden was traded, the Thunder’s ceiling was considerably lower. Juggernaut potential was gone.

Harden existed as a buffer between the pro-Westbrook and pro-Durant camps. With him gone, Westbrook morphed into a live wire within the offense. He repeatedly led the league in turnovers, attempted more shots per game than Durant and performed the distribution duties that are expected of point guards. That dynamic allowed the “Whose team is it?” debates to take off. The uneasiness between Westbrook and Durant continued until the latter departed Oklahoma City for Golden State.

In the decade since Harden was traded, it’s become apparent that they were in each other’s way. Harden, Westbrook, and Durant have each been named league MVP, but they weren’t built to share the limelight together. Durant was awarded the 2013 MVP during a season in which Westbrook was only healthy enough for 46 games, while Westbrook’s lone MVP arrived in Oklahoma City’s inaugural post-KD season.

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Few posited that the Thunder’s Sixth Man of the Year would end up as the preeminent guard of the decade, though. Three years into his career, Harden’s resume was more similar to Kevin Huerter than Michael Jordan. On his own, Harden blossomed into one of the most complete offensive guards in league history. Unfortunately, Harden spent his entire Houston tenure experimenting with a variety of different partners to give them a leg up on the competition in the postseason.

None would ever appease him. In 2013, Morey acquired Dwight Howard to be the ideal pick-and-roll partner with Harden and a one-man paint protector. Unfortunately, Howard was quickly becoming a relic as pace and space offenses turned him into a liability.

Once the Harden-Howard partnership collapsed, Morey searched for synergy with Chris Paul and Harden. On the hardwood, Paul and Harden excelled. Unfortunately, Harden’s personality struggled to co-exist with another superstar. After two years and coming one game short of the NBA Finals, Paul was shipped off to Oklahoma City for Westbrook. Once again, Harden butt heads with anoooother teammate.

Once he touched down in Brooklyn, Harden, Kyrie Irving and Durant formed an offensive Volton. However, Harden’s hamstring injury allowed the Bucks to sneak past Brooklyn. Midway through the next season, Harden forced a trade out of Brooklyn to Philadelphia. Now 34, Harden has produced fireworks on the stat sheet, but has never been able to mesh with another co-star.

In retrospect, Harden was always going to burn out playing alongside Westbrook and Durant. Watching the 2011-12 Thunder in hindsight is akin to The Supremes singing backup to the Temptations early in their careers. Their ball-dominant styles served as the counter to Golden State’s egalitarian, ball-has-energy, motion offense. Their egos made them cautionary tales.

All three all wanted the ball in his hand and they flourished once allowed to run their respective offenses with no guardrails. That was never going to happen with Durant, Harden, and Westbrook in the lineup. The 2012 Thunder tallied the fewest passes in the league.

Westbrook, 34, has sunk like a boulder as his explosiveness has declined. Westbrook’s bull-in-a-china shop mentality and shot selection off of line-drive jumpers has cratered his impact. He’s always been an inefficient scorer, but now that he can’t compensate athletically, he’s nearly a leper.

Conversely, Durant is wasting his talents on a Nets team that he purposely marooned himself on. The path not taken should have resulted in the Thunder’s big three winning a championship or three. The 2016 Conference Finals series would have played out differently in NBA annals if Harden were another offensive option for the Thunder when Durant and Westbrook’s shots stopped falling during the final three games of that collapse. With a ring in 2016, Durant probably remains in Oklahoma City until at least 2019.

Meanwhile, after going ringless in the OKC Big 3 era, Presti is still on a mission to redeem himself by replicating that draft artistry. Ultimately, the Thunder chose Westbrook and a bargain deal on Ibaka over Harden’s demands. Today, Oklahoma City is still facing a reckoning for those choices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RussRussell Westbrook was out Wednesday night with a hamstring injury as the Lakers were soundly defeated on the road against a Denver Nuggets squad missing Michael Porter Jr. and featuring a sub-100 percent Jamal Murray. Truthfully, the Lakers could have used Westbrook’s energy. Someone needed to stand up to Nikola Jokić late in that game when James went on a run to try and close the deficit at the top of the fourth quarter. Instead, the two-time MVP scored eight points and bothered Davis with pressure defense. Davis attempted two field goals in the fourth quarter and no free throws.

It has been clear who Davis is since last season when James missed time early. While he can be a major contributor, and possibly even a leader in the box score, he can’t be relied on to create offense when his team needs it. Davis’ teammates need to make scoring easier for him, not the other way around.

At least Westbrook has the ability to apply significant pressure to a defense. While not as quick as he used to be, he can still blow past opposing defenders and finish at the rim, or tally an assist when he gets cut off. If it wasn’t for his tendency to fire up ill-timed shots he would be a better offensive player than Davis. The other side of the ball ,however, Davis is stellar while Westbrook would be better off intentionally steal-hunting on every defensive possession than attempting to play within a scheme.

The Lakers need to trade Westbrook for many reasons. He doesn’t fit next James the way that another ball-dominant guard did — Kyrie Irving . Westbrook needs the volume to get into rhythm and be effective while Irving was able to maximize every time the ball was in his hands. Also, Westbrook has appeared disengaged many times this season. However, the reason the Lakers need to trade him the most is that their roster is so shallow their toes are getting scraped on the bottom of the pool, and Westbrook’s expiring contract has as much value as almost any player on the team.

Bringing in Westbrook cost the Lakers several key rotation players on a team that, in 2020-21, went into freefall when both James and Davis got hurt during the second half of the regular season. The Lakers needed another creator on offense, and they got literally that when they acquired Westbrook. He can create at a moment’s notice. Will his creations help? That varies from possession to possession.

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This past offseason, the Lakers didn’t bring back Carmelo Anthony. They traded Stanley Johnson and Talen Horton-Tucker for Patrick Beverley. Malik Monk walked in free agency. And the team brought back key bubble contributor Dennis Schröder, whom they hope will be ready to play some time in November.

The only move the Lakers have left — that they would be willing to make — is packaging Westbrook’s $47 million contract and hoping they can get 60 cents on the dollar for it. That package, however, is only mildly appealing because the Lakers do not have a first-round selection to pair it with until 2027.

Personally, I would try to unload Davis and Westbrook at the deadline to maybe pull a miracle and try to get back in the lottery this season, or at least get a couple of those picks back in the future. The Lakers still are the NBA’s glamor franchise, and with those big contracts off of the books they’d have a load of cap space in 2023 and have something to build with in the future with a small bit of draft capital. James and Rich Paul would just have to be unhappy in the short run.

That is a move that Rob Pelinka, the Ramseys, nor Jeanie Buss would ever make, but they most certainly need to be willing to make their 2027 first-rounder untouchable unless they can bring in Tyrese Haliburton, Collin Sexton, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. If not, their standing offer should be their 2029 first-rounder, Westbrook, and any other two players on the roster not named James or Davis.

As badly as the Lakers need to get rid of Westbrook, it’s not solely because of his play. If a “Most Disappointing Laker” award existed, Davis should get it by a unanimous vote. The Lakers have a roster that is in desperate need of a talent infusion if they want to be competitive this season. Westbrook’s $47 million price tag just happens to be the best way to get it done.

Kanye West has been in the Tom Cruise Bat-shit Crazy Celebrity Zone for so long that it’s been renamed the Ye Bat-shit Crazy Celebrity Zone. I’m assuming you’ve read the anti-semitic statements by now, and saw that Jaylen Brown and Aaron Donald — like most every other sane person/company — cut ties with Donda Sports. Some would say “too little, too late,” while Carron J. Phillips would say “never should have,” but there are still livelihoods at stake because they were sold snake oil at $15,000 a year for tuition.

The Donda Academy was closed for the school year, effective immediately, for like two seconds Wednesday, but announced it’s reopening “with a vengeance” around midnight. Who the hell knows what that means. Regardless, the futures of high school athletes who signed on to chase hopes of a pro hoops career at the “school” are now in flux. The New York Times reported that two tournaments scheduled to host the high-profile “academy” dropped the team from its list of participants, and now the students’ parents are considering options not associated with West.

Before I continue, I put “academy” in quotation marks because normally you’d like your school to be accredited — and have a campus. This line from the NYT story had me fucking dying.

“[Ye] used his star power — and promises of jetting players around the country for high-profile games — to lure elite talent throughout the nation to an apartment complex that served as their base for basketball and a nonaccredited curriculum that was built around online learning.”

So, the Donda Academy is as much of a school as Jay-Z’s School of Hard Knocks? Got it. Well at least transferring shouldn’t be a problem for the two highest-ranked prospects in Robert Dillingham and A.J. Johnson. Overtime Elite, the basketball development group with big-name backers like Drake, Jeff Bezos, and a couple dozen NBA players, is expected to pursue Dillingham, who’s currently committed to Kentucky, and the undeclared Johnson.

The future might be far murkier for the less heralded players though. Diana Cooper and Vantik Loury, mothers of Donda enrollees J.J. Taylor, the 45th-ranked basketball prospect in 2023, and Davius Loury, No. 145 on Rivals.com, expressed concerns to the Times over Ye, but had yet to speak to their children. (My guess is that’s changed since the news came out.) Both J.J. and Davius relocated from Chicago to attend the Simi Valley campus/apartment complex in California, and now classes are oscillating between continuing and being canceled as much as its founder.

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An email was sent to parents of the school’s students Thursday saying “Donda Academy will close for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year effective immediately … THERE IS NO SCHOOL TOMORROW.”

If that isn’t the most depressing school cancellation announcement I’ve ever read. Be that as it may, the never-ending snow day was cut short after an announcement overruling the previous one was sent out at about midnight Wednesday, per TMZ.

The email read in part:

“Dear Parents and Staff,

Join us tomorrow morning in worship for the return of Donda Academy. With the help of our parents and community, we are back with a vengeance!

The children of Donda are going to change the world.

Apologies for the late email!

See you bright and early!”

I fear to think of what online curriculum these kids are learning/exposed to considering the whole thing sounds like Trump University mixed with Camp Nowhere. Only instead of unsympathetic yokels and spoiled kids getting bilked out of money, opportunity, and growth, it’s real life kids with (hopefully still) bright futures left wondering what to do next. And they should be wondering that, because dropping out is the only logical next step.

We’d all like to believe we’d be immune to Ye’s recruiting pitch, but his immense popularity and cultural status was (and, unfortunately, might still be) incredibly attractive to impressionable youth, so it’s easy to see why they’d sign on the dotted line. (I retain the right to change my mind if it comes out that the head of Donda Sports and problematic fuck wit, Antonio Brown, tagged along on the in-home recruiting visits.)

A large portion of America’s population was unable to separate the man from his music while he was flirting with being canceled. Ye was enabled to continue on as an icon even after a litany of dangerous outbursts and opinions, and it’s gotten to the point where he was given the benefit of the doubt despite the entire control panel flashing warning signs.

There are like 1,700 morals to this story, but I’m not going to tell a bunch of kids “I told you so” (I might say it to their parents), so I’ll just leave it at, “Please, fuck off, Kanye.”

If styles make fights, then this World Series is for you. While the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies have their similarities (like green mascots), they also occupy opposing poles in a lot of ways. And also the perception of them is actually opposite to reality in some ways as well. There are plenty of currents running in opposition to each other for this Fall Classic.

At the very top, the Astros are basically MLB royalty now. Their fourth World Series appearance, after yet another 100+ win season, has become their territory even more so than the Dodgers. They have been a fixture for seven seasons. Meanwhile, the Phillies are the party-crashers, the last one into the whole thing who have then fucked everyone’s shit up upon arrival, sticking their fingers in the Cardinals’ drink, sneezing on the Braves’ food, peeing on the Padres’ seat (you can easily picture Kyle Schwarber doing all of this). It’s hard to know if MLB truly wanted a wildcard team in the first year of its expanded playoffs to get this far or not. It is likely the owners did, for nefarious reasons.

Which is where the perception of these teams also diverges in strange ways. Yes, the Phils are only an 87-win team and the lowest seed in the National League. While most fans know better, you can be sure there will be ownership groups pointing their front office at that 87-win total and asking for no more because hey, look where it got the Phightins. This was always the drawback of the expanded playoffs, combined with its inherent randomness and variance.

And yet the Phillies are built to be much more. They are a wildly collected group of mercenaries, as it were, with Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos all either expensive free-agent signings or trade acquisitions that were then paid appropriately. This is a Dave Dombrowski team after all, and there is no waiting around in Dombrowski’s world, nor ever keeping the financial powder dry. 162 games showed the roster’s overall wonkiness — horrible defense, strikeout-heavy tendencies, especially top-heavy when Harper was hurt — and yet it was built to be right here, if not via the path they took. They aimed big and got it, just through the side door.

And while the Astros are seen as the big behemoth in the entire league, making themselves at home in the World Series now, they are a bit… thrifty? Outside of Justin Verlander they are basically entirely homegrown, and have let Carlos Correa, George Springer, and Gerrit Cole walk in preference to younger, cheaper replacements. Their payroll comes in some $63 million less than the Phillies. They are a marvel of player development, and you could argue are actually a bigger plague for baseball, as more team owners question why their front offices can’t come up with the record the Astros have for the past seven seasons while basically eschewing being in any big free agent rumbles during the winter. It will certainly confound a lot of MLB hierarchies which model to chase to both win and, more importantly to them, be profitable as possible — the highly expensive wildcard team that snuck in and got here anyway or the 100-win machine that is always here and is close to a complete inside job.

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On the field, the juxtapositions continue. The Phillies are seen as the big hairy mash-monsters, an all-or-nothing offense that can pop at any time or strike out 19 times in a game. Whereas the Astros are mostly described as the intelligent, make-a-pitcher-work, exhausting types that are much better at putting the ball in play. Which they are… but they also hit more homers than the Phillies during the regular season. They do strike out a lot less than Philly (19.5 percent during the season vs. the Phillies’ 22.4) and one can’t help but think that somewhere a game will turn on the Astros putting a ball in play that will cause the Phillies’ defensive Benny Hill-ness to kick in. Especially in Houston, where the sizable right field will probably cause Castellanos to think he’s a glass of orange juice.

The quirks in this series run rampant too. The Padres and manager Bob Melvin certainly heard all about not bringing in Josh Hader to face Bryce Harper in that fateful 8th inning. Dusty Baker won’t have such conundrums, because he doesn’t have a left-handed reliever to call on. Ryan Pressly, Bryan Abreu, and Hector Neris were especially gruesome to lefties this year, though Harper and Schwarber will probably be happy to take their chances late in games.

Those two will be especially needed in Verlander’s and McCullers’ starts, as the Phillies lineup wasn’t too swift against breaking pitches from righties, which we know they’ll get a ton of from those two. They’re the only two regulars to slug over .400 against those offerings. Meanwhile, this lineup obliterated left-handed pitching, with seven of their starters managing a 110+ wRC+ this season. But not every lefty is Framber Valdez.

Though that’s no different on the other side, where the Astros sport six regulars who had a 115 wRC+ or better against lefties during the season, and the Phllies will start two of them instead of the Astros’ one, and will feature two out of the pen as well. The Astros especially murder fastballs and sinkers from lefties, kind of Ranger Suarez’s specialty, and only four teams hit the ball on the ground less than the Astros, which is really Suarez’s wheelhouse.

This is the third time the Astros will see a team in the World Series that didn’t crack 95 wins in the NL East, losing the previous two, and their only World Series win coming against the super-charged Dodgers of 2017. Of course, there were mitigating reasons for that.

It’s beautifully set, and almost certainly will be decided on exactly nothing that’s been covered here. That’s the fun, and when you crash opposing forces like these into each other, you’re probably going to get a mess of some sort.

The Philadelphia Eagles don’t have a lot of flaws, and if they do, we haven’t seen them. The only undefeated team in the NFL has barely trailed at all this season, with first-quarter deficits to the Lions and Jaguars being the only times thus far that they’ve been on the wrong side of the scoreline.

So with Philly constantly being frontrunners, you’d think their sack total would be higher. In addition to a top-five scoring defense, the Eagles have one of the better pass rushes in the league, boasting top-10 marks in hurry and pressure rates. However, for whatever reason, the Eagles haven’t been able to get the quarterback on the ground as much as you’d expect with their opponents always playing catchup. Philly is tied for 10th as a team in sacks at 17, but that may rise with the organization acquiring Robert Quinn from the Bears.

The 12th-year pro out of North Carolina was second in the league in sacks a year ago at 18.5 for a Chicago team that wasn’t very good. All the Eagles had to give up was a fourth-round pick, which is a tradeoff worth taking considering the wretched state of the NFC.

Pundits loved the Birds before the season, and this move only heightens the enthusiasm for a squad that’s surpassed at least my expectations. If we’ve learned anything about championship windows in the NFL, it’s that they don’t last long. Philly has a quarterback and a star receiver still on rookie contracts, and appears to be at the forefront of title contention. So why not add depth and talent wherever possible with the fates — and the salary cap — currently in your corner?

People also thought the Eagles were going to be a perennial powerhouse during Carson Wentz’s MVP season, and we know how that turned out. Injuries, bad luck, or both can strike relentlessly over the course of 17 games, and this is a smart, calculated risk by a front office that’s done a great job rebounding after Wentz’s ACL took a left turn.

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It doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s Philly, and it’s happening during a Brotherly Love sports renaissance. The only comfort the city’s many detractors have right now is a woeful Sixers franchise, who dropped to 1-4 in James Harden’s first full season on the team after a lethargic loss to the Raptors on Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Washington Wizards of the mid-aughts will always be remembered more for how their time together ended than the actual run itself — and for good reason. The team only won one playoff series, and that was the year before it traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler, who would make his only two all-star appearances as a Wizard.

That ending was so epic that it required media from far and wide to gather in early 2010 at the then-Verizon Center, the home of a squad that would go on to finish a second-consecutive season with fewer than 30 wins. During the 2009 holiday season, a gambling disagreement resulted in Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton bringing guns to the Wizards’ locker room. Both players would soon be suspended for the rest of the season. Crittenton never played again; he is currently serving a 23-year sentence for manslaughter.

Antawn Jamison was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers at the 2010 deadline, and Butler was sent away during the offseason. Arenas would play 21 more games for the Wizards the following season and then the Wizards would use the amnesty clause following the 2011 lockout.

Even though those Wizards swerved into a ditch and lost a tire at the end of the run, that is a memorable team in the history of the NBA. The franchise will honor it as such come Nov. 18 of this year. The Wizards announced that Arenas, Jamison, and Butler will be in attendance for a throwback night game against the Miami Heat and will be acknowledged at halftime.

While those three never won a playoff series together, the Washington basketball franchise — Bullets was deemed offensive a decade before the R-word was — hasn’t won 50 games in a season since Good Times was still on the air. Not every professional sports franchise’s history includes a championship ring. Does that mean Seattle Mariners fans aren’t fond of 2001 or that Barry Sanders’s 2,000-plus yard season means nothing to Detroit Lions fans?

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Getting to buy a championship t-shirt and hat is great, but those years are few and far between. Even when a franchise does pull off the ultimate victory, that win is likely not a harbinger of things to come. Many sports fans don’t have a championship season to remember, but having their team nationally relevant is worth taking that yearly ride that ends with an unsatisfied feeling.

Arenas, Jamison, and Butler’s Wizards were an actual rival to a young LeBron James. Those first-round matchups resulted in Jay-Z finding it necessary to make a diss track about DeShawn Stevenson after James made the analogy that equated a rivalry between the two players to if Soulja Boy had one with H.O.V. Nobody won more from this than Stevenson who had a song made about him by Jay-Z, Soulja Boy wore his jersey at the height of a short but memorable run as a pop star, and ended up winning an NBA Championship before James.

However, none of that fun happens without Arenas, Jamison, and Butler playing at an All-Star level. Sure the talent never fully meshed and the on-court product was some of the most unpleasant that the NBA age of iso-basketball had to offer. But still, those were recognizable names that made a franchise relevant that hadn’t made the playoffs in consecutive years since the 1980s.

For those who approach sports as a zero-sum game with champions and 29 other losers, that Wizards run of the mid-2000s isn’t for you. Those teams were never good enough to contend, and it showed by them never winning more than 45 games in a weak Eastern Conference. That most certainly could be viewed as a disappointment when noticing Arenas, Jamison, and Butler all made all-star teams when they played together — just never all three in the same year.

Sports isn’t all about championships. Sure fans want to see their teams win but it’s not like they get a replica ring in the mail if their favorite team goes all the way. What the fans remember is how they felt during the seasons when their squad consistently won more than they lost. Those Wizards teams were nationally recognized for the first time since their last season as the Bullets when Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, and Co. got manhandled by the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the 1997 NBA Playoffs.

It will be a fun night in Washington when Arenas, Jamison, and Butler appear together at mid-court. Now if only they can convince Soulja Boy to MC the evening and put back on the Stevenson jersey, that would be the perfect salute to this particular era of NBA basketball in the nation’s capital.