NFL draft
Yep, we're close. Really close.
How much do we love the draft? We're taping it friends.
Couple of draft enjoyment points:
One, TV folks and NFL bigwigs are trying to get reporters and NFL news hounds not to Tweet out picks before they are announced on TV.
Hogwash. You can't control the news folks. And if people do not want to know and want to watch it live, then turn the Twitter off. Or do not check it as the clock gets close to the buzzer.
Two, we have said this before, splitting the second and third round into day two has only added to the fun that is the draft. It gives a full extra day of trades while seeing who is on the board. Could be the best QB on the board. Could be a prospect that everyone thought was a first-rounder who dropped for whatever reason (think Derris Guice, maybe).
Two final points and each deals with the Browns.
We kicked around the Browns looking to move down, and it's something that could behoove them if they can move out of 4 and get multiple first-rounders for it. (Buffalo could make that happen this year.)
But if the Brown fanbase is skittish about trading down, well, that's understandable, considering the players the Browns have passed on - Carson Wentz, Julio Jones, DeShaun Watson, Khalil Mack, Haloti Ngata to name but a few - and some of the decisions they made (three picks to move top one spot to No. 3 to take Trent Richardson) are heartburn worthy.
The other is that Adam Scheffer reported that Sam Darnold has picked out a brown tie to go with the suit he is planning to wear to the draft.
Coincidence? Not during draft week.
The Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna watches his two-run home run during a March 2 spring-training game against the New York Yankees in Tampa, Fla. He will start the 2018 season at Class AAA Gwinnett but likely will be called up early to the big-league team.Acuna, ah now
We have had Dave O'Brien, AJC Braves beat ace, on Press Row before. His sense of humor is not for everyone.
His Tweet after the Braves' setback against the hapless Reds, however, is just about perfect: "The #Braves lost tonight but shall never lose again, for Ronald Acuna has been summoned to the big leagues. Let the pigeons loose!"
The excitement has been difficult to contain for a fan base that has limited reasons to be excited over the last few seasons.
Acura, of course, is the No. 1 prospect in baseball. He was the best player in the Grapefruit League during March. He is a five-tool stud, and if there were six tools, he'd have that one as well.
Acuna was sent to AAA for business reasons rather than baseball reasons. He got off to a terrible start but is 12-for-40 (.300) in his last 10 games, and the skill set has never been questioned.
So the Braves add another piece, and there is no reason to think that Acuna is being called to the bigs for anything short of being an everyday player.
And now the Braves will have the two youngest everyday players in baseball with the 20-year-old Acuna and 21-year-old second baseman Ozzie Albies.
More importantly, the Braves have something they have not had since the glory days of a starting rotation that was 60 percent Hall of Famers.
The Braves have a must-see player, and starting tonight we all get the chance to watch Ronald Acuna for real.
Rapper Meek Mill comes out to ring a Liberty Bell replica before the first half in Game 5 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series between the Miami Heat and the Philadelphia 76ers, Tuesday, April 24, 2018, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)NBA contenders
The story lines from the first round of the NBA playoffs are particularly eye-popping.
There is Philadelphia, which was the worst team in the NBA as short as two years ago. Now the 76ers are the latest Philly story and the most recent tanking example of turning the corner.
Let's stay with that for a moment. It's understandable that commissioners and league bigwigs are fining owners (Hi Mark Cuban) for openly discussing tanking, but why is anyone doubting tanking as anything other than a very real and savvy rebuilding plan?
Maybe if we called it gutting rather than tanking, since tanking gives the feeling that the players are not trying, which is not true.
It's not even true to say the organizations are not trying. They are most definitely trying. They are trying very hard to be very bad.
Look at the teams in the hunt for a title.
There are the mad scientists in Houston who have crafted a mathematical equation based on shooting more 3s than everyone and making 40 percent of them is as simple a formula as 3 > 2. That deserves a tip of the visor for structure.
There are the lucky and scientific geniuses in Golden State who also embrace the analytics of the math but also were fortunate enough to have Steph Curry (No. 7 overall pick behind busts like Jonny Flynn, Jordan Hill and Hasheem Thabeet), Klay Thompson (No. 11 overall pick behind some amazing busts like Mismack Biyombo, Jimmer Fredette and Derrick Williams) and Draymond Green (who was the fifth pick of round two behind too many busts to even start naming). Still, the Warriors had to be in the lottery to get Curry and Thompson, and until the light clicked, they were riding something like a 20-year-playoff drought.
There are the teams that made the most of a draft chance - Cleveland, San Antonio, which built its dynasty around Tim Duncan, who was drafted after the disastrous season in which David Robinson missed the whole year, and Milwaukee, who got the Greek Freak with the 15th pick in 2013 - and got franchise-changing players.
Then there are the Celtics, Raptors and 76ers. Each made moves for the future, be it the traditional tanking or front office tanking.
Toronto, before the recent run with Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan started, had lottery picks, including one No. 1 overall selection, in eight of 10 seasons from 2003-2012.
The 76ers' tanking has become so famous it has its own nickname. (And sweet buckets, if Markelle Fultz pans out, that's a downright scary nucleus that, dare we say, does not need to add LeBron during free agency.)
The Celtics, you can recall, waved the white flag all the way back in 2014 and fleeced the Brooklyn Nets, who were trying to put a winner on the floor to open their new arena.
Boston sent Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Jason Terry and D.J. White to the Nets for five players as well as the Nets' first-round picks in 2014, 2016 and 2018.
Those draft picks have become Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Kyrie Irving.
In basketball, when one player can completely change the course of a franchise, tanking makes sense. (Never mind that the last two World Series champions also went through the gutting process and became the best in large part because they embraced being the worst.)
New England Patriots' Rob Gronkowski (87) makes a touchdown reception against Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Ronald Darby (41), during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl 52 football game, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2018, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)This and that
- As we are typing this this morning, Condoleezza Rice is announcing her committee's findings to help fix college basketball. Here's a primer story and the big question is not the magnitude of the changes as much as if the NCAA will embrace those changes.
- Speaking of the NBA, so long Spurs. That dynasty feels like it's about to be done, right?
- Rob Gronkowski has informed the Patriots he will play. And somewhere, some way and some how, amid all the head-scratching stuff that never happens around the Patriots that is happening around the Patriots, come January, is there anyone betting against the road to the Super Bowl going through Foxboro?
Today's question
Well, how about that.
Which way Wednesday:
Tanking, friend or foe.
Ronald Acuna, rookie of the year or struggles.
Spurs dynasty, done or hanging on.
Some fun birthdays today. Tim Duncan is 41. Adam Silver is 56. Hank Azaria 54. Joe Buck is 49.
Edward R. Murrow would have been 110. Meadowlark Lemmon would have been 86.
Al Pacino is 78. Pacino Rushmore, non-Godfather edition. Go.