Month: August 2020

Stars Screw the Pooch, Again. We’re in Trouble

Wilbanks, 1 Comment

The Stars fucked up big time on Friday night in a game where everything was set up our way. We had a back to back coming off a night where we physically beat the shit out of the Flames to the point where Tkachuk couldn’t play. We also had a rested goalie on top of the fact that our squad is superior to Calgary in every way.

The advanced stats say we dominated. Corsi was an obscene 70% in our favor, and that doesn’t include power plays that we had more of. Expected goals indicate the score should’ve been the opposite of the actual result.

70 total shot attempts. 22 of them were blocked, 35 of them were saved by Cam freaking Talbot, and the rest hit air. Like this one from John Klingberg…

I don’t feel too great about singling out Klingberg because everyone sucked at shooting the other night, but Klingberg was especially poor. He was a staple and a budding superstar five years ago when we were a 1 seed, but now at only age 28 he doesn’t seem good at all anymore. It’s concerning.

We gave up a shorthanded goal, AGAIN, and then a second off a very lazy icing violation. We get shut out 2-0 and now we have to grind against freaking Calgary. Series price is +179. Might as well triple down on that, but my confidence in going all the way to party like it’s 1999 is officially dwindling.

Stars Screw the Pooch, Again. We’re in Trouble

It’s Time for Avery Johnson to Save the Pelicans

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The Pelicans fired Alvin Gentry today and it’s hard to tell whether or not to feel surprised or unsurprised. He did have orders to treat Zion like a china doll and it’s almost a given that the front office preferred lottery balls over a playoff appearance this year. But even before this year, his tenure was hard to argue as anything more than disappointing.

Good dude great guy, big supporter of weed and social justice, used to work for the Warriors etc. But at no point in the past five years did he ever show any qualities that surpassed those of his predecessor, the legendary Monty Williams who just ran the table with the Suns.

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It’s very obvious by now the Williams firing was the wrong move, but you can’t blame New Orleans for taking risks in their AD window. It was impossible to know at the time that AD was the problem and not Williams, but hindsight is 20/20 especially this year.

It’s a tough pill to swallow regardless. Maybe the Pels hire some sick young wizard assistant we don’t know of, but chances are slim that there’s anyone out there who can hold a candle to Monty Williams.

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Well, actually I can think of someone. A very intriguing local legend who’s out of a job right now…

A lot of people forget that the Mavericks were on the brink of a dynasty before blatant rigging by David Stern and his (hopefully) deceased cronies in the NBA. It was absolute bullshit and it’s made history a lot worse than it should be for a lot of people, especially for Avery Johnson.

Things have gone south for Avery since that time yes. Baron Davis turned into God and spoiled one of the greatest seasons a team has ever had. The Nets got all Nets-y. The NCAA had a bribing crackdown that brought his burgeoning Bama project to a halt.

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But make no mistake, that Finals run in 2006 would 100% never have happened without Avery Johnson. Before him, we had years of the worst defense you could possibly imagine. He took over and orchestrated a complete 180 that took us to The Finals in just his first full season..

Dirk is not the legend he is today without Avery Johnson, and that is a fact. The Mavs would have had a dynasty even before Carlisle if the 2006 Finals were not rigged, and that is a fact too.

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There will always be legend in the Little General. I know it and I’ve seen it. What better place than home (and with Zion!) to reclaim that legend.

Make it happen Gayle

It’s Time for Avery Johnson to Save the Pelicans

How Barca’s Beatdown Fuels the Rise of Inter Miami

Wilbanks, ,

There’s a lot of soul searching going on after this Barca blowout. Me for actually believing in them and betting on them, but most importantly Suarez for his open offer to make history for Inter Miami.

When I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, Suarez was telling media that he still wanted to stay in Barcelona. There’s one year left on his deal, but there’s a clause in his contract to automatically renew if he plays for 60% or more of Barca’s minutes next season.

Barca doesn’t want that to happen because they’re old as shit. Suarez (33), Pique (33), Vidal (33), Messi (33), Rakitic (32), Busquets (32), Alba (31). Almost all of their starting XI is aging out and they need to clear the wage bill for younger players.

Suarez himself should also be rethinking his future at Barca after yesterday’s debacle. They’re not getting any better and he’s already won everything there is to win there. Why stick around as an old man on a declining squad when you have a chance to be the first icon on the future most famous team in the world?

And make no mistake, this is an opportunity of a lifetime for Suarez. Everyone who lives in Europe dreams of living in Miami. How could any famous soccer player not dream of being the first famous Miami soccer player? One person I know agrees with me is superstar midfielder Blaise Matuidi, who just signed last week…

Siiiiiiiiicckk

Matuidi was a starter for team France, who won the World Cup, and for Juventus, who have won the past nine Serie A titles. He’s really fucking good, but if you don’t believe me I can prove it to you right here…

An 84 rated FIFA player can start for any team in the world. The best player in MLS is (was) LAFC striker Carlos Vela with an 83 rating. Matuidi is the new best player in MLS. A lockdown defensive midfielder with world class distribution skills, AKA the perfect teammate for any attacking player like Suarez.

Apparently Matuidi and David Beckham were boys together at PSG in 2013, which is one of the reasons he’s taking a giant pay cut for a salary of only $1.5M a year. That’s huge, because MLS only allows a team to have three ‘Designated Players’ without salary cap restrictions. Miami has one DP slot left, and it’s open right now for Suarez. He’d be dumb as shit to turn it down.

World domination is coming sooner than you think.

How Barca’s Beatdown Fuels the Rise of Inter Miami

Champions League Gambling Lock: Bayern vs Barca

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Both of the games so far have been awesome even though my picks have sucked. That will partially continue today – this matchup is the best of the entire tournament and will probably decide the champion, while the theory of third time’s a charm means I’m probably due for a win.

I’ll be dead honest in saying that Bayern looks like the best team in the world right now and is stacked from top to bottom, but with the odds in place I have to go with Barca. People are sleeping on them because they sleepwalked through La Liga restart and choked away the title, but I have a feeling they’ll take Champions League a bit more seriously…

On paper, Barcelona’s starting XI can be the best in the world on any given day. Don’t forget that last year, they had a commanding 3-0 lead on Liverpool after the first legs of the semis. Yes that Liverpool. Lack of depth and focus keeps leading to occasional fuckups at Barca, and that’s why they haven’t won Europe in a whopping five years now.

This year is different though. Single elimination changes everything and Barca are built perfect for it. They can put goals in the net no matter what the format is, but single games help out a defense that needs to contain a team for only 90 minutes instead of 180. It’s also advantage to older teams.

Is Messi in form?

https://twitter.com/suhailkazmi7/status/1292781932493725697?s=21

Yes. I think he is in quite good form. This is the year we finally put to rest the tired argument of Messi vs Ronaldo. Love both of them to death, but Messi is the goat and it’s not even close. Give me the dude who singlehandedly carried Argentina to the World Cup final over the dude who won a Euro Cup from the sidelines. Give me the dude who just pulled off that wonder goal vs Napoli over the dude who just got bounced by Lyon.

Give me half units on Barca ML (+242) and Barca to advance (+160) on top of the previously posted full unit future on Barca to win Champions League (+800).

Champions League Gambling Lock: Bayern vs Barca

Can Tkachump the Coward Ice Up Enough to Play Tonight?

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The first order of business last night was putting that coward Matthew Tkachump in the training room, and our captain got to work as soon as a face-off opportunity presented itself. This is how you spear a bitch…

Tkachump left the game, but came back hobbled and had his head hunted for the rest of the night. It was awesome to watch. Vintage stuff just like we used to do in Edmonton rd1 in the glory days. Maybe next year Tkachump will hold off on diving until a little longer than the very first period of a playoff series.

The final blow came early in the third, when Benn and Oleksiak sandwiched that little turd and took him off the ice for good

Oleksiak also delivered the final blow on the scoresheet by netting the game winner with just 39 seconds(!) left. It came off a very nifty cross-ice feed by Corey Perry. That’s right.. THAT Corey Perry. He also had a goal! He sucked way less, and we don’t have to keep hating him as much as we did when he was on the Ducks.

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I hope everyone followed my advice and doubled down on Stars +189 for the series price. If you didn’t, you might as well just throw it all on -110 now because that line is still a joke.

That’s not to say we wouldn’t have issues against a better team like the Avs. We gave up the first goal just 19 seconds into the game, which makes ten straight games of giving up the first goal. Gotta stop that shit. We also collapsed in the third period by giving up a shorthanded goal and then a power play goal that came from a stupid Radulov o-zone penalty. Nevertheless, we’re still light years better than Calgary and we can breeze through them with a half effort.

OTHER NOTES:

-Heiskanen had two goals over 25 very dominant minutes. He is the best defenseman in the league. I wouldn’t trade him for anybody right now. Thank god we have him instead of Karlsson.

-Gurianov drew two penalties and was a beast on the puck all night, but he only played 10 minutes. We were leading for most of the game so that is a possible reason, but he needs to play more.

-Bishop showed flashes of his god mode but isn’t quite up to that full status yet. That’s fine. Until he gets there, we can rotate Dobby and keep our goalies rested but not rusty. It’s worked very well the past two regular seasons, and could be huge for us in a compressed playoff schedule.

-Next game is tonight! Gotta love the playoff back to backs, especially when you have two goalies and your opponent is hurting bad. Hey Tkachump…

Can Tkachump the Coward Ice Up Enough to Play Tonight?

Rafael Montero Is the Coolest Closer in the League

Wilbanks, , 2 Comments

Are the Rangers any good? No. Are they in playoff position regardless? You bet your ass they are!

One of the reasons for that is our new shut down closer Rafael Montero. He got his first save a week ago and has been 4/4 since. Four innings, four strikeouts, four saves, and ZERO baserunners allowed.

Another diamond in the rough discovered by our lord and savior Jon Daniels. He signed a minor league contract last year while recovering from Tommy John, and now he is a bonafide badass closer. At WORST, he could net us some sick prospects in a trade for the price of… nothing!

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Earlier in his career (2016-2017), Montero was a big time prospect for the Mets. I spoke with some Mets fans and they both said that Montero starts were appointment viewing for a time, but injuries and poor organizational development fucked him over. At any rate, he’s 10x the closer that Ed-lose Diaz is.

One of the reasons he might be working out better here than Queens is the switch from rotation to the bullpen. He’s been throwing 97% fastball and changeups, but his fastballs move slickly and paint black. It’s a closer’s repertoire.

Montero also has the perfect demeanor for the role. He checks off all three C’s of closer intangibles perfectly – cool hair, confidence, composure. 

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When José Leclerc comes back from injury, he can share setup duties with rookie phenom Jonathan Hernández. Then we have Kluber possibly coming back as the best middle reliever of all time, and all of a sudden our bullpen is the best it’s been since 2011.

‘Minor, Lynn, and what then?’ is now ‘Minor, Lynn, and our badass bullpen’. Thanks Jon Daniels!

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Series win at Seattle. We are now officially in mid-August with meaningful Rangers baseball. If the bats suck a little bit less, we’ll be in the playoffs with one of the best pitching staffs in the majors. Can’t ask for anything more in a rebuild year.

Let’s get after it

Rafael Montero Is the Coolest Closer in the League

Champions League Gambling Lock: Atletico vs RB Leipzig

Wilbanks1 Comment

Atletico Madrid vs RB Leipzig in the quarterfinals today. I’m obviously going Spaniards after writing yesterday that Atletico +850 was a future to get on.

They always goes far in this tournament and were one PK away from beating peak Madrid for a title. They’re made for tournaments like this and they’ve already proven that this season by beating Liverpool last round. Yes that Liverpool. And now Atletico has Diego Costa up front, and he’s a dirty mother fucker who’s perfect for them.

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I tried being a Red Bull Leipzig fan a few months back during the Bundesliga blue balls days. It cost me money, and that was when their best player Timo Wermer was still playing for them. He’s already left for Chelsea, so I plan on winning that money back today.

RB Leipzig are an interesting story in that they’re the most hated team in Germany. The Red Bull company found some loopholes to circumvent Germany’s ’50-plus-one’ rule restriction on corporate ownership, which makes them evil in most Germans’ eyes. Well, West Germans that is, as East Germans usually come from cities too historically poor to have a great soccer team.

Leipzig was an example of one of those Eastern German cities until Red Bull bought the squad and over a period of ten years, they stormed up from the fifth division all the way to Champions League Quarterfinals. It’s a wild story and quite controversial. We should all take responsibility to learn up on it and follow them because Red Bull is an Austrian company, and we definitely need to keep an eye on any Austrians causing ruckuses up there.

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But while Leipzig is an interesting story, they’re not in the same stratosphere as Atletico yet. If the second leg of Leipzig-Tottenham was scheduled a week later (and subsequently postponed to last week because of covid), then this match would be Atletico vs Tottenham. Fact.

OFFICIAL PICKS: one unit Atletico (+130), one unit Atletico to win Champion’s League (+850)

Champions League Gambling Lock: Atletico vs RB Leipzig

Bunting Is Back in Baseball and It’s Beautiful to Behold

Wilbanks, , 1 Comment

The coolest thing about MLB’s new extra innings rule is that bunting is back. On Tuesday night when the Marlins went to extras vs the Buffalo BJ’s, we witnessed something that previously hadn’t existed since the Stone Age… A leadoff bunt!

Because it was sudden death given that Buffalo was at home, Mattingly reacted with a mad scramble on defense that was fun to watch. Five infielders. Shift after shift based on the swings of the next batter Cavan Biggio (son of Craig). We almost got a full count to make things interesting, but strike two was instead called as ball four because of bad pitch framing…

Marlins ended up losing, but it was thrilling as hell. We also can’t knock Cervelli’s pitch framing because one inning earlier he had a badass three run, game tying moon shot with two outs in the 9th.

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It took the Marlins less than 24 hours to exact revenge once last night’s game also went to extras…

What a bunt! The first baseman was charging, going for the lead runner instead of the out. And Berti, with that wizard brain of his, pushed it the other way. I never thought I’d see tactics like this again outside of co-rec kickball games, but here we are in 2020 seeing it in the MLB.

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This new baseball is objectively incredible. It should definitely be adopted for the postseason. Who cares about designated hitters anymore? This is more fun strategy than we ever could’ve dreamed.

In fact, they should bring this into the first 9 innings. Here’s the new rule proposal – if you strike out the side, you get a runner on 2nd for the next frame. Boom. Whole new awesome ballgame.

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The Marlins actually tried a safety squeeze with the next batter, but it went foul and we settled for a traditional rally to win. The record is now 8-4. Only the Cubs and Athletics have higher win percentages. Can you say… hunt for the 1 seed?

Bunting Is Back in Baseball and It’s Beautiful to Behold

Corey Perry Got His Ass Beat in the Worst Hockey Fight of All Time

Wilbanks, 3 Comments

Right from the gate in yesterday’s Stars opener we were met with a familiar scene – getting screwed by the refs.

Tkachuk’s bullshit dive there led to an opening power play goal and ultimately swung the game. This is now three playoff games in a row where the Stars have been screwed by the refs. It’s starting to look Saints-esque for us, but this specific call falls more in line with the Kyle Rudolph push off in that we’re too much better than the other team to allow the refs to be a factor.

This call was also early in the game, so unlike the St Louis and Vegas hack jobs, we actually had time to respond for this one. First item on the list (besides killing a penalty, which we failed at) was for someone to step up and bash Tkachuk’s face in. Corey Perry decided he was the man for the job, and this ensued…

Tkachuk’s bullshit dive there led to an opening power play goal and ultimately swung the game. This is now three playoff games in a row where the Stars have been screwed by the refs. It’s starting to look Saints-esque for us, but this specific call falls more in line with the Kyle Rudolph push off in that we’re too much better than the other team to allow the refs to be a factor.

This call was also early in the game, so unlike the St Louis and Vegas hack jobs, we actually had time to respond for this one. First item on the list (besides killing a penalty, which we failed at) was for someone to step up and bash Tkachuk’s face in. Corey Perry decided he was the man for the job, and this ensued…

This is no doubt the worst hockey fighting performance of all time. Old man Perry didn’t land ONE single punch. His fist never even came within a foot of Tkachuk’s face. The implications were huge; it was time set a tone for the series and our old man got his ass beat instead. Utterly embarrassing for Dallas.

I can’t do Corey Perry anymore. I hated him in Anaheim and I hate him just as much now. The dark arts had an expiration date and it was a long ass time ago. He should never step on the ice in a Stars uniform again. We have a badass winger prospect (Jason Robertson) who plays the same position and he needs to take Perry’s spot immediately.

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As for everything else with the team, I’m not concerned at all. The series price is now +189 and that’s an easy double down. We are loads better than Calgary and should still win this easily in five or six. We just need three very simple adjustments:

  • Start Bishop – it’s cute to have two good goalies with rest but playoff Dobby was not as elite as regular season Dobby
  • Play Hintz/Gurianov – the Euro forwards are getting third line minutes even though they are by far the most productive on offense. Save the gritty defense lines for after these kids secure a lead
  • Scratch Corey Perry – enough said
Corey Perry Got His Ass Beat in the Worst Hockey Fight of All Time

Champions League Gambling Lock: Atalanta vs PSG

Wilbanks, , , , 2 Comments

Champions league quarterfinals start today, and it’s single elimination format which is incredible. God we are truly in sports candy land right now. These games are way too cool and important to not gamble on, so I’m posting my locks here daily for each game. You’re welcome!

I advise two futures of one unit each – Barcelona +800 and Atletico +850. The Spanish teams are looking good. Atletico has the easy side of the bracket while Barca has Messi in a single elimination format. Give me those odds and hopefully one or both make the finals to lock in profit.

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Wednesday: Atalanta vs PSG

I’m going one unit on Atalanta +.5 (-127), one unit on over 3 (+113), and 1/4 unit on draw (+267).

Atalanta is the story of the season. Their first round home match against Valencia was basically the reason for Italy’s covid disaster in the same way that a 49ers Super Bowl parade would’ve crippled Santa Clara. However, unlike the Californians, the Italian Atalanta fans probably find this all worth it.

Atalanta, not to be confused with our own Atlanta, was basically unheard of until started getting Europa berths a few years ago. This year, specifically in the year 2020, they’ve taken off like a rocket and scored a fuck ton of goals. They go 3-4-3 and don’t care about defense, and it doesn’t matter because their offense is setting records. Basically a three goal per game average in 2020.

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PSG on the other side is basically all about Neymar. They have tons of other talent on the roster, but not necessarily on the field right now. Veratti is injured. Di Maria is suspended. Mbappe is supposedly healthy enough to play but will surely be crippled. It all comes down to whether Neymar can play like the talisman he’s paid to be.

Neymar’s had one of the most enigmatic careers of any athlete in the world. The Economist’s writeup on the geopolitical implications of his PSG transfer is easily the coolest sports article I’ve ever read. At the time of that article, Neymar’s resume boasted a magical 2014 World Cup run and some club titles from riding Messi’s jock. Since that time, he’s had a terrible 2018 World Cup, a ton of injuries, and nothing of import accomplished at PSG.

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I’m fading Neymar and riding Atalanta, but the talent discrepancy is real so I’m not overly confident. If Atalanta does go down, the game might get crazy and we’ll have the over.

Champions League Gambling Lock: Atalanta vs PSG