NFL
By: Greg Rector
Ja Dropping
NBA fans were treated to yet another amazing “Poster” dunk week for Ja Morant. From an excitement level, he has to be the league leader in the jump-out-of-your-seat moments. The Spurs Jakob Poetl might be in therapy after getting posterized for a second straight season by Morant.
Greener Grass
Hindsight is twenty/twenty as we all know. A case in point might be Bulls head coach Billy Donovan. He left the Oklahoma City Thunder as he wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of rebuilding the Thunder and went to Chicago. This week he witnessed his former team pull ahead of his Bulls in the wins and loss column. Of course, you have to consider if Donovan would have gotten the Thunder to this point if he was on their sideline as well. One has to wonder what ends up happening with Chicago which is definitely not meeting expectations.
Thunder Up
Speaking of the Thunder, they have recent wins over the Celtics (150-117) Mavericks (120-109) 76ers (133-114) the aforementioned Bulls (124-110), and granted a Nets team minus Kevin Durant last night (112-102) as much fun as watching Ja Morant is, Shai Gilgeous Alexander for OKC is playing at an unreal high-level. Josh Giddey as well continues to show that having a high basketball IQ is a thing of beauty. As you can see the Thunder have had their way with Eastern Conference heavyweights as of late. This is a team that is on the rise and fun to watch.
Under the Radar
Walker Kessler has more blocks this season than the former Utah Jazz center, Rudy Gobert. The rookie center is having a big impact on the Jazz and since he’s on a rookie deal comes a whole lot cheaper than the former DPOY. Now I often say this in this era, Gobert is playing well for the Timberwolves, but there were Jazz fans who were upset he was traded. Sometimes change is a good thing. The Jazz is only two games below .500 while Minnesota is exactly .500 on the season. Then there’s the draft pick haul that Jazz fans can also look forward to from the Gobert trade. Tough as it might be the reality in sports is the name on the front of a jersey will outlast all the names on the back. The timing was right to make the deal and Danny Ainge will be in the running for Executive of the year.
King James
Lebron James has reached the 38,000-point plateau. The record will be his soon enough but still, it’s an amazing achievement. Sadly there are so many who just attack James at every turn (A certain “sports journalist” y’all know I despise and I refuse to use his name) no matter where you fall on his love/hate meter, that number has only been reached twice and people of course just can’t stop themselves from being ignorant fools, especially on social media. This is really easy, “Congratulations LeBron” and when you have nothing nice to say, stay quiet.
Bucks Buckled
Giannis Antetokounmpo had a 9-point game against the Hornets in only 22 minutes. but the online experts really went after him for his 7-point effort against the Hawks in 35 minutes. Talk about overreactions? Suddenly he is no longer a contender for MVP and all kinds of attacks as folks love to do. He missed both games this weekend against the Miami Heat. It’s a marathon, not a sprint folks. Since the Bucks have only had Kris Middleton in eight games thus far the load has been carried pretty well I would say by the former MVP.
Schedule Solution
A lot of folks from fans, TV networks, and organizations are increasingly frustrated by the number of players designated as “resting” or being load managed and have been for a few seasons. The schedule is a big factor and today’s players have one constant complaint about back-to-back games especially. Teams love the revenue from an 82-game schedule. In this schedule for 2022-2023, the league tried to reduce those back-to-back games. Some teams have very few, but other teams have six or seven of them still. When you share arenas with NHL teams and other events this is no easy task. The only solution for me that I can see helping? Start the season earlier and spread out the games. There’s no perfect solution, but reducing the games played in any given week, allows coaches more practice time (they complain of this often) and you might reduce the number of players “resting” which all fans want.
That’s it for this week in the association. As always you can find me on Twitter @GregsCowboys here at teamnbsmedia.com various platforms for my “Greg’s Gripes” podcast and the “Press Conference” podcast with teamnbsmedia.com colleagues @_melowilliams and @MNSToday aka Brock Viera
