Last day of peace
For a lot of states, tomorrow is the day college sports changes.
Tomorrow is July 1 and the Name, Images and Likeness legislation will go into effect.
And the games will forever be changed. They already have.
Take this tweet from Jonathan Givony, the ESPN NBA draft analyst who has spent the last week at the NBA Draft combine.
He posted: "People are going to be shocked when July 1st hits and they hear about the numbers that are being thrown around for All-American type players from the biggest schools in college basketball. I'm hearing these deals will rival Overtime/G League Ignite type money for top guys."
The G League Ignite numbers are well into six figures, especially now that Overtime is a direct competitor to Ignite in bidding for top high school players.
And you have to ask yourself, if the school and Nike and the boosters can pony up $8 million annually for John Calipari to dazzle in December and melt in March, then what would a couple of extra five-star pieces be worth, especially in a college hoops hotbed of hysteria like Lexington?
In truth, a lot of us worry about the balance of power in terms of football, but it's the basketball landscape that could change on a dime considering the impact one true superstar can have on any program.
Ask Davidson after the Steph years. Or what Carmelo meant to Syracuse in that one isolated season that the NCAA determined that dirtbag Jimmy Boeheim didn't cheat.
Maybe we should light a candle and enjoy the final day before we all see behind the cash curtain that is college hoops recruiting.
Hawks soar
Wow. The Atlanta Hawks, sans Trae Young, walloped Milwaukee in Game 4.
Call it gutty, because any playoff win with your no-doubt alpha dog in street clothes is gutty.
Call it emotional, because a bunch of dudes the national landscape is unfamiliar with delivering in a must-have moment with your must-have player out of the lineup is emotional. Call it monstrous, because the season was in the balance - Game 4 at home down 2-1 - and the balance was anything but level before Tuesday night.
Call it spirited, because as someone who has watched - and suffered through - more Atlanta sports than I care to recall, it's not since the Georgia Dome of the Dirty Birds' late 1990s run to the Super Bowl or the early 1990s when Fulton County became the original Chop House that I can remember an Atlanta crowd that into it.
Call it fortuitous, because even though the Hawks led from the start, the Bucks' run to start the second half was completely derailed when Giannis Antetokounmpo injured his left knee.
It was all of those things.
And that last thing leaves the Hawks at 2-2 with the expectation of getting their star back, while the Bucks are left wondering if Giannis is the latest high-profile NBA star to get derailed in these playoffs.
Million-dollar memories
Yes, Harris English had a monster weekend.
He relied on his training and countless hours of practice - have you seen how much his putter has improved? - to win a PGA event and more than $1.36 million.
Conversely, a London gambler used English's perseverance, some insane golf tournament foresight and some fortuitous soccer predictions to cash a monster parlay and make a smidge more money on the perfect picks than English made.
Check this from David Purdum, the ESPN betting guru. The London bettor put $15.50 on a six-leg parlay that had two soccer matches and correctly and amazingly nailed this weekend's four golf tournaments with Steve Stricker winning on the Champions Tour, Viktor Hovland on the European, Kelly Korda at the U.S. Women's Open and English at the Travelers.
Yes, picking all four golf winners in a single weekend seems like a million-to-one type of bet.
That said, as Harris English was mired in a tension-filled, eight-hole playoff to grab the W, imagine being the guy holding a ticket that was worth $1.37 million if Harris won and bagel if Harris lost.
Imagine the stress that bettor was feeling during that playoff? Never mind being in London, which means it was around 4 a.m. when the Travelers ended there.
This and that
> FYI, gang. The 5-at-10 clan is headed out for the Fourth and we are leaving pretty early Friday morning. Any mailbag question asked early - like by dinner tonight - will almost assuredly get answered. Deal? Deal.
> Shohei Ohtani hit two more homers Tuesday night. That's 28 homers right at the halfway point. Dude is a bonafide dude toiling away in Angels anonymity. Somewhere Mike Trout can commiserate.
> Just as predictable as Ohtani being a dude is AJ Minter, Braves reliever, being an anti-dude. He took the loss last night in a painful 4-3 Braves setback against the division-leading Mets that the Braves led 3-0 heading into the seventh. Minter has allowed multiple hits in five of his last eight appearances and allowed runs in four of those eight trips to the mound. Those stats are courtesy of Dave O'Brien of The Athletic.
> Wow, 50 years ago today, the original "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was released. That makes me feel old. Really old. Because think about this: All of the kids who found Golden Tickets in the original film other than Mike Teevee are eligible for Social Security.
> OK, I will be the first to call BS on this study done by the traffic engineers at Texas A&M gauging which city has the worst traffic in the U.S. There are two things that jump out. First, for the first time ever L.A. is not deemed to have the worst traffic. (Side note: Feel pretty sure L.A. will regain its title now that California has opened back up.) L.A. was passed by the New York-Newark area. OK, that's fine. That's not the BS part. Here's the BS part: Atlanta is not in the top five. The study is not worth the paper it's printed on, friends. (Side question: Chattanooga traffic has gotten way, Way, WAY worse in the last decade or so, no?)
> I hope we can remember this moment in years to come. For some reason, a white supremacist group adopted an inverted version of the traditional "OK" hand gesture and various folks have been accused of being racist for offering three fingers with palms turned inward. It happened again recently in Missouri, but the person who levied the racist allegations has apologized once it was realized that there were minorities in the picture, making it clearly counterintuitive that it's a white supremacist salute. In truth, it - completely understandably and completely innocent - was a mimic of Jordan's famous "3" sign after three-peating, which this high school intramural team just accomplished in an annual volleyball tournament. Please, let the world remember this moment moving forward.
> This is why I would have voted for Ben Benton in the Best of the Best area reporters/columnists. And I am 100% serious. My man Ben always, Always, ALWAYS gets the skinny on the stories in the outlying areas that are somewhere between "They did what?" and a "NCIS: Pikeville" episode. War Ben Benton.
> We'd be remiss not to include Weeds' fine column on UTC's Mike Royster, who is stepping down after 47 years.
> Holy BUCKETS. And, yes, the all-caps were needed. It's simply not possible to be any more in for "The Many Saints of Newark" - the prequel to "The Sopranos" - than I am. Yes, Fat Vader could be as all-in as I am, but there's no way to be more all-in.
> Saw this one late, but felt obliged to include it on this here album. The last verse goes like this here. The newly crowded Miss Nevada USA is transgender. Discuss.
Today's questions
Which was most important for the Hawks' win last night?
> Giannis getting hurt;
> Bogdan Bogdanovi shooting like a right-handed Drazen Petrovic; (Side question: If you go with Bogdan Bogdanovi as the name - which be like my folks going with Gree Greeson - you're not getting many points for creativity or style, no? Side question on the side question: Using the Bogdan Bogdanovi model, who would have the coolest name? Also, is Giannis' father's sister known as Auntie Antetokounmpo?)
> Lemon Pepper Lou Williams scoring like Lew Alcindor back in the day;
> The amazing energy from the best Atlanta sports crowd since the Chop came to Fulton County Stadium in the early 1990s.
Which makes you feel older, that the Willy Wonka kids are in their 60s or Michael Phelps is in the back half of his 30s?
Which price would you cash out that $1.37 million parlay ticket during Harris English's marathon playoff?
Which word did TV execs shout when Giannis rolled that knee last night, considering he was the biggest name left in an upset- and injury-filled playoffs?
As for today, June 30, let's review.
Superman made his comics debut on this day in 1938.
"The Johnny Carson Show" debuted on this day - on CBS, actually - in 1955.
Mike Tyson is 55 today.
Is Tyson far left of the self-destruction sports Rushmore?