No Off Days? Why..does..that..sound..so..familiar?
Oh thats right, its because Bill Belichick made it the biggest Patriots rallying cry since Do Your Job and The Patriot Way. But here come the Jets like some shitty t-shirt vendor just switching a couple words around and passing it off as their own. Embarrassing. Not even worth the ink it would cost to print the cease and desist letter.
I don’t think I’ve ever needed something as badly as I need these video game sneakers. So FreakerSneaks makes all these custom Jordans and they are so choice. They got all the classics like NBA Jam, Super Mario, Duck Hunt, and Sonic. There’s stunting on people and then there’s stunting on people in totally custom NBA Jam Jordans. $1,200? Swipe swipe. So slap these on my Christmas list today mom and dad. Just look at the details though, they even have the championship screen shot on the tongue.
But lets not forget some of the other beauties like the Jordan Sonic: Marble Zone 1. If these kicks don’t take you right back to the glory days of playing Sega in the basement then I don’t even want to know you.
And of course you can’t forget the true classics, the godfather of modern video games, the plumber himself; Super Mario.
On to the best of the rest:
Somebody get me a goddamn sneaker deal!
PS – If I were to design my own pair of these I would 100% have to call them the Jordan Super Nintendo Chalmers 1.
So you know how whenever a pitcher has a no-hitter going and the TV cameras show him by himself on the bench? None of his teammates will talk to him because they’re afraid of jinxing the no-no. Hell they even say fans and broadcasters shouldn’t talk about it because you’ll jinx it. Welp, I fired off a tweet about his no-hitter last night and 47 seconds later Hill gave up a walk-off home run in the 10th inning. So that ones on me, sorry Rich. I’ll strive to be better next time.
Man time flies. Three years since the Red Sox dumped a 7-year $72.5 million contract in Rusney Castillo’s lap on a whim. And this is why you do not get hyped about a player over a goddamn YouTube video.
Did we learn nothing from Yi Jianlian AKA “The Chairman“? Rusney Castillo looked like he was gonna be a 5-tool stud that the Sox plucked out of Cuba. We’d pair him with Yoenis Cespedes, Hanley Ramirez (and maybe even Giancarlo Stanton?) to form the Cuban Missile Crisis. Right? Well actually not a single one of those guys plays OF for the Red Sox today. Rusney turned out to be a complete bum and has taken up residence as the highest paid player in Minor League Baseball (I chose not to fact check this).
Over parts of 3 seasons in the big leagues Castillo is a career .262 hitter in 317 at bats with 7 HR, 35 RBI and 7 Stolen Bases with a .301 OBP. As a potential 5-tool player, Castillo proved to actually not have a single one of those tools.
Baseball Reference pegs his 162 game average season at .262/.301/.379 with 11 HR 57 RBI 74 Runs and 11 SB. All of that for the cool price of $72.5 Million. And he’s still got THREE YEARS left on his contract at $11M, $11M and $14M. At least Pablo Sandoval made a few DL trips as an excuse. What. A. Disaster.
PS – Rusney Castillo has a .286 career batting average in the minors over 800+ at bats. The $72 Million player can’t even hit .300 playing against kids in Rhode Island.
Wow. Last night the Celtics traded Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic and the 2018 Nets pick for Kyrie Irving. As I said at 7:30 last night, I go off the grid to workout for ONE hour and I come back to find Trader Danny has fundamentally changed the structure of the Celtics with another blockbuster trade. Seriously, sleep with one eye open around this guy.
First things first, it sucks to see Isaiah Thomas go as he was absolutely integral in putting the Celtics back on the map the past couple of years and vice versa. Celtics went from a middling team to the No. 1 seed in the East. Isaiah went from a third string point guard in Phoenix to Boston finishing in the Top 5 for MVP. He had 40 and 50 point games while getting his teeth knocked out and even putting on dazzling performances after suffering tragic family losses. IT seemed like a genuinely good dude with a massive chip on his shoulder who just wanted to prove the world wrong. And he’s done that. IT, the last pick in the 2011 NBA Draft just got traded for Kyrie, the first overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.
While IT has been hands down my favorite Celtics player since KG and it sucks to see him go, Kyrie is so, so, so good that its hard to not like this deal. The Celtics upgraded at PG getting one of the best scorers in the entire NBA. Kyrie isn’t exactly a defensive savant either but he’s 6 inches taller than IT, which alone will allow him to more effectively cover the positon defensively. Kyrie is also going to create even more space for the Celtics on offense, especially in the playoffs, as other teams won’t be able to smother and trap Kyrie as they were prone to do with IT. Teams will have to account for his one-on-on play and continuously have help defenders and double teams waiting for Kyrie, which will open up even more opportunities for guys like Al Horford and Gordon Hayward.
The Detractors:
“Kyrie is not that much of an upgrade over Isaiah.”
He’s 3 years younger, healthier, bigger and has one more year left on his contract than Isaiah. At just 25 years old Kyrie can grow with the Celtics core of Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum and be right in his prime as the other two are coming into theirs. As much as I love Isaiah, the core probably would not have been good enough quick enough as he and Horford would be in their 30s by the time Brown and Tatum enter their prime.
“The Celtics have just wrecked their team chemistry.”
This I admit could be an issue as the Celtics now only return 4 players from the 2016 team that reached the Eastern Conference Finals and only 1 out of 5 starters. That is CRAZY. However, one of the reason’s I’m not higher on the NBA in general is because, more than any other sport, talent wins above all else. It doesn’t matter how great your chemistry is if you don’t have 2 or 3 of the best players in the league. The NBA is built around a core of hypertalented superstars and if you don’t have at least a couple of them you’re porked.
“I hate to trade Jae Crowder and Ante Zizic.”
Always loved Crowder and he was a key guy off the bench. Again this is why I’m not a GM, but if we’re going to look at this emotionlessly, thats what Crowder was; a guy off the bench. You do not turn down trades for 25-year old 4x All-Stars over bench players. And for anyone crying about trading Ante Zizic I ask you this; Have you ever even seen Zizic play? Granted I’m not a scout, but this is a guy who was so good that he couldn’t get on an NBA roster and got stashed overseas his rookie year. I’m not sweating over trading a guy with exactly 0 minutes played in the NBA. Plus, we still have the Dancing Bear.
“Who is going to rebound for us?”
WHO HAS REBOUNDED FOR US THE LAST FOUR YEARS?! The Celtics as an organization have effectively punted on rebounding. Last year the Celtics were 22nd in Offensive Rebounds per game and 22nd in Defensive Rebounds per game. Not exactly world beaters to begin with.
“I hate trading the 2018 Nets pick.”
It sucks to trade one of our treasured assets, but thats exactly why Danny got them. He’s been trying to trade these things for years, he just has never found a deal he wanted to pull the trigger on. Plus how many of these things are you going to keep? The Celtics have already drafted No. 3 overall the past 2 years and still have a potential Top 5 pick next year (more on that below.)
How about Danny Ainge though? This guy has effectively turned a 36-year old Paul Pierce and a 37-year old Kevin Garnett directly or indirectly into: Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, Al Horford, Gordon Hayward and the 2018 Lakers potential No. 2-5 pick.
And if Kyrie re-signs with the Celtics then Danny looks like an even bigger genius for the Jayson Tatum move, trading down from the No. 1 overall pick to No. 3 while also scooping up the 2018 Lakers pick from Philly. This is HUGE looking back because without that Lakers pick in his back pocket I highly doubt Danny makes the Kyrie trade, having to surrender the Nets pick. He basically, as many said at the time, got the guy he wanted in Tatum while also picking up an additional draft pick. And while many people laughed at Danny for trading the No. 1 overall pick for another one of his coveted draft picks, the fact of the matter is he got a great player while also adding a back up lottery pick, which allowed him to more aggressively shop the Nets 2018 pick.
For those of you that are mourning the end of the “Pierce/KG Nets Trade” well fear not, because its not over, not really. The Celtics got that 2018 Lakers pick by trading the No. 1 overall pick, which was the Nets pick. So we still have one more year to live off of the Nets misery if we’re getting technical. One more asset/player to build off of, while the Nets continue to send Billy King hate mail.
PS – This Isaiah trade just reinforces my longstanding personal policy of never buying a player’s jersey unless they’ve recently signed a contract extension. I’ll never forget buying a Sergei Samsonov jersey in 2006, only to see the Bruins trade him A WEEK LATER. Which is why the next Bruins jersey I bought was a Patrice Bergeron jersey, fresh off his 8-year contract extension.
This is why I’m a fan and not a GM. I couldn’t have traded Isaiah Thomas. Objectively, I know Kyrie Irving is the better player, but IT is my guy. 5’9″ and the King in the Fourth. Isaiah made the Celtics fun to watch again, night in and night out and I’m bummed to see him go. We’ll have a full breakdown of the trade later this AM, but first we gotta show Isaiah the respect he deserves. Cue the highlights.
Boston.com – The Patriots quarterback insists that he is “never sore,” despite fending off hits from the defense and sometimes even blocking pads to the face from head coach Bill Belichick. “I could practice every day,” he said. “I could practice twice a day if they’d let us do that, but that’s not the way it goes anymore. It’s just fun being out here competing.”Brady’s recovery regimen, which includes his line of Under Armour sleepwear, will be one of the featured topics in his upcoming book, The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance.
A friend of mine said to me last night over a couple of exclusive craft beers known as Rolling Rocks about Tom Brady that “He is fully going to get busted for PEDs” and a cold shiver went down my spine as I laughed it off.
I mean I want to believe that a Plant Based Diet Presented by TB12 is the one true reason for Tom Brady’s success, but who the hell knows. Maybe its the food, maybe its the avocado ice cream, or the concussion water, the plyometrics work or the TB12 space pajamas. Its probably some combination of all the wacky shit Brady does to keep his body in optimal condition. Or maybe, maybe its something really cool that I don’t even know about.
That or he’s just a legitimate android sent back in time to wreak havoc on the NFL for reasons we cannot yet understand.
Either way, I for one welcome our new robotic overlords and will enjoy the shit out of this guy who should be in an over 40 beer league who somehow continues to play at an MVP level and dominate a league filled with guys half his age.
You’re goddamn right I squeezed a Simpsons reference in there somehow. Gotta keep grinding every day.
With the Patriots season just a couple of weeks away, so too is the Super Bowl Champions banner unveiling. Only problem is, theres no more room at Gillette for any more banners. This is such a amazingly arrogant problem to have I love it. “So when we built this stadium we didn’t anticipate having nearly half a dozen Super Bowl banners just 15 years later.” If you remember the layout of the 4x Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots banners it looked like this.
Needless to say a very arousing photograph with a whole bunch of Super Bowl Champions banners. But alas, there is no room for the newly minted 5th SB Champs banner. And I would rather burn the place down then put it where that ill advised 16-0 banner used to sit.
So how do you solve the best problem to have in the NFL? You literally redesign the entire goddamn thing to MAKE room for the 5th banner (as well as a couple more).
I thank the good lord every day he made me a Patriots fan. See you guys in Minneapolis.
NY Post – CC Sabathia didn’t like the Red Sox game plan in the first inning of Saturday night’s 4-3 Yankees win at Fenway Park. So, when he fielded Andrew Benintendi’s bunt toward the third base line and fired a hard strike to first base for the final out, the veteran lefty waved his pitching hand at the Red Sox dugout in a dismissive way. “To come out and that’s your strategy, that got me going a little bit,’’ Sabathia told The Post at his locker Sunday morning. “Literally, two of the hottest hitters in baseball bunting. If that was their strategy, I [handled] it.’’
CC, my man, you are infamous for losing weight because you made the slight change to your diet of not eating a BOX of Captain Crunch every day. And now you’re on a bum knee? Forgive the Red Sox if they think making the fat guy move around a bit might throw him off his game. More than 10 years later every single Red Sox fan still asks why DIDN’T the Yankees do the same thing in the 2004 ALCS against Curt Schilling. The guy was pitching on an ankle held together by bubble gum and blood magic in Game 6 and was DOMINATING. Yet, the Yanks never tested his mobility by bunting, which has always seemed odd. Some guys just aren’t capable of thinking outside of the box I guess.
In what has become an annual showcase for Game of Thrones, HBO proved once again the penultimate episode of each season is the one you don’t want to miss with last night’s “Beyond the Wall.” Every year the second to last episode of each season is an absolute gem. Here’s a quick refresher on how GOT never waits around until the finale to drop some bombs. Each season’s penultimate episode:
Season 1: “Baelor” (Ned Stark loses his head and Khal Drogo falls ill)
Season 2: “Blackwater” (Still arguably the best episode in the series as Stannis attacks Kings Landing on Blackwater Bay only to be defeted by Tyrion and co.
Season 3: “Rains of Castermere” (The goddamn Red Wedding, which IMDB synopsis describes as ‘Robb and Catelyn arrive at the Twins for the wedding’ in a horribly misleading fashion.)
Season 4: “The Watchers on the Wall” (Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch defend the Wall against Mance Rayder and the wildlings.)
Season 5: “The Dance of Dragons” (Stannis roasts his daughter, Jon Snow brings the wildlings through the Wall, Khaleesi rides Drogon to safety out of the Mereen fighting pits.)
Season 6: “Battle of the Bastards” (Not much to say here other than this could also be arguably the greatest GOT episode ever.)
The show picks up right where we left off last week with Magnificent Seven venturing beyond the wall.
Jon Snow and Jorah have a heart to heart for the first time and its a refreshing moment of growth. Remember Jorah should rightfully hate Jon Snow. Jon’s father Ned labeled Jorah a traitor and essentially forced him to leave his family and his homeland forever. Jon also effectively became Jeor Mormont’s surrogate son whom he passed Longclaw down to after the shame Jorah brought to House Mormont. To top it all off, no Jon’s moving in on his girl Khaleesi. But Jorah doesn’t hate Jon. He respects him for everything he’s accomplished, including earning his father’s respect and earning Longclaw, regardless of what his name is.
In an instance of foreshadowing we see the first animal wight in the form of a zombie polar bear. “Do bears have blue eyes?” one of the Magnificent Seven asks before it all goes down. Thoros of Myr ends up getting ragdolled by a goddamn zombie bear and a few nameless wildlings got axed too. We also learn that The Hound is going to have a hard time serving the Lord of Light and fighting wights since the one thing that kills them most effectively (ya know, fire) paralyzes him with fear.
The group heads further north until The Hound sees the same thing he saw in his vision in the fire, a mountain shaped like an arrowhead. Not long after they stumble upon a lone White Walker and a group of wights like a dead ranging party. Time to initiate the ill advised plan to try and capture a wight and bring it back south.
Of course they all nearly die because this moronic plan shockingly does not go well. They do take out the group of wights with Jon destroying the White Walker with the Valyrian steel sword he nearly gave away minutes before (WTF Jon). Except their POW wight lets out a scream that acts as a bat signal for every other dead soldier in the north and now our heroes are screwed.
The gang gets marooned on an ice island as the White Walkers and their army surrounded them. The only reason they aren’t immediately killed is because the thin ice breaks and the dead aren’t exactly fond of swimming. So now we play the waiting game. Just waiting for death to come, figuratively and literally.
Jon opts to use one of his 3 lifelines and sends Gendry to phone a friend.
Tyrion tries to advise Khaleesi on a number of things in this episode such as what’s the plan of succession if she were to die? Khaleesi is not a fan of the conversation and says they’ll discuss it when she wears the crown, which could be a bit of grim foreshadowing we all look back on. But specifically he once again advises Khaleesi again risking her own life to rescue Jon Snow, Jorah and the others. In a direct response to the recent failures she’s experienced following Tyrion’s advice while simultaneously directly heeding the late Olenna’s advice (“Be a dragon”) Khaleesi says enough is enough and rides north on the back of Drogon.
Enter Khaleesi (if you can accept White Walkers but you can’t accept faster than normal travel I don’t want to be your friend) and her 3 gigantic dragons who just start flame throwing the entire place. It seems like the dragons really are the end all be all of weapons in the 7 Kingdoms, but similar to the Loot Train scene from a couple of weeks ago we once again see just how powerful yet vulnerable the dragons are at the same time.
The Night King takes his ice spear and just rifles it into the sky as Viserion gets tagged and falls from the sky while bleeding uncontrollably. I think this was the saddest I’ve been watching a TV show since Jack had a nervous breakdown about leaving the island on LOST.
The look Jon Snow gives the Night King had me thinking this is it for our boy, he’s going to go out in a blaze of glory trying to take out the head White Walker. As he tells Khaleesi to go he battles a few more wights before falling through the ice, which is the second time in three episodes the show runners have teased a major character drowning.
Shockingly, Jon does not in fact drown, but there is still an army of dead 50 feet away. This would be a pretty anti-climactic way to die so suddenly half-dead Uncle Benjen rides in out of nowhere on his horse to save Jon Snow’s ass and then sacrifices himself. Why couldn’t Benjen get on the horse and ride away with Jon too? As Michael Bay once said to Ben Affleck after Ben asked wouldn’t it be easier to just teach astronauts how to drill rather than the reverse? Shutup, Ben.
After surviving and making it back to the wall the team loads Jon up on the ship back to Dragonstone and we have a real moment between Khaleesi and Jon. Her dragons are not just pets to her, one of Khaleesi’s children just died, which is what makes it all the worse that they died helping Jon. So we see Khaleesi have the first real crack in her armor in years as she nearly breaks down sobbing mourning her dragon.
In a show of faith in her as a true leader and probably also a vague marriage proposal Jon tells her “You are my queen.” Jon bends the knee, well figuratively, since he’s on his deathbed once again.
Its the first time we have the North truly following a Targaryen since the Mad King. Jon doesn’t care what his people will say, he knows Khaleesi is the Queen they need. Now whether, Jon will be her King or not remains to be seen. But for now, they are allies at the very least.
Also, in addition to the Jon’s knife wounds on his chest courtesy of the Night’s Watch, he suddenly has blue marks on his chest. Is this just the frostbite and remnants of nearly drowning in ice cold water or is it something more? If you look at Benjen (RIP) closely, his face has the same blueish hue after he apparently fought off death and a transition to a wight. We don’t really ever learn a ton around Benjen’s story and what really happened (and we probably never will now) but has Jon been touched by something? Or is this just me looking too deeply into a show that has prided itself on deep, deep world building? I digress.
In the Den of Geek breakdown they also pointed out something interesting about this scene as well as everyone’s transportation home.
“It’s a moment so romantic that Dany even finds the scars that prove he was stabbed in the heart endearing. Jon appears to truly be hers, and hey he still tellingly didn’t ride Drogon with the rest of his comrades… he has his father’s namesake, Rhaegal, to look forward to mounting.”
So that is an interesting bit I thought. We still have yet to see Jon Snow on a dragon, even though all his crew has now been on one. And Khaleesi has only ever ridden on the back of Drogon. So is Rhaegal keeping his back for the one true king, Jon Snow?
The whole Sansa/Arya sister rivalry just took a dark twist as Sansa stumbles upon Arya’s bag of faces and realizes her little sister might be an even bigger psychopath than she thought. Arya all but threatens Sansa’s life and now we have the strangest power struggle I can remember on this show. It seems a little convenient writing as I would like to think after years of surviving older, more experienced foes and politicking all through the 7 Kingdowns (and Essos) that these two would be able to understand whats going on here. Imagine taking the transcript of an AIM chat you had when you were 14 and using that as hardcore, stone cold evidence of your character as a person years later?
Either way, Sansa is spooked about Arya either killing her or actually convincing the other northern lords that the words a 14 year old girl wrote, under durress, prove she is a traitor. Sansa fears losing her head as well as her role as ruler of the North.
So naturally she sends her sworn protector Brienne of Tarth to Kings Landing, which reeks of Littlefingers, well, finger prints. Was there actually a raven summoning her to Kings Landing or does Sansa just want to get Brienne out of Winterfell in case she needs to off Arya? Brienne is after all sworn to protect both of Catlyn Tully’s daughters, so if Sansa needs to axe Arya she doesn’t want anyone there to stop her. My question is though, as Sansa, the one without a single day of combat training, wouldn’t you be more worried about Arya killing you? Wouldn’t you want a bodyguard with you now more than ever? This story line just gets odder and odder.
At the end of the episode we see the army of the dead pulling Viserion up from his icy grave to be resurrected. Enter the ice dragon. The Night King’s wight dragon. Something else that Den of Geek speculated on is that maybe the reason the Night King and the White Walkers were simply waiting for the ice to freeze so they can attack Jon and his gang wasn’t just exposition allowing Khaleesi enough time to get there. Maybe the Night King knew Khaleesi was coming with her dragons and he was legitimately waiting for her. Waiting for her to come into his arena so he can down one and claim a dragon of his own. A much more satisfying and chilling explanation to that entire scene. Because we all know the White Walkers and the wights can’t break through the Wall. But what if the Night King had his own damn dragon to simply fly over the towering ice monstrosity of a wall? Or maybe they make good on the Season 7 opening credits and simply walk around the wall over the frozen ice. Either way the big baddie now has a dragon of his own which is downright frightening.
Next week we have the most tense meeting of the UN ever created. What traps and tricks can we expect in the 90 minute season finale? Did we really risk so much, getting Viserion (and Thoros!) killed just for one wight?
That whole sequence better actually have been worth it, but I’m not too optimistic. I don’t expect Cersei to suddenly care about some existential threat (real or not) because she is so single-mindedly focused on keeping the Iron Throne she will do whatever it takes to stay there. Even if it means her own demise. We’re running out of time though for everyone to be fighting two battles at the same time, so someone is gonna have to either shit or get off the pot. Next week could be the last we see of Cersei.
One more episode guys and then the Long Night truly does begin because god knows how long it’ll be until the 8th and final season of Game of Thrones.
Either way, Sansa is spooked about Arya either killing her or actually convincing the other northern lords that the words a 14 year old girl wrote, under durress, prove she is a traitor. Sansa fears losing her head as well as her role as ruler of the North.
The 300s 