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Team USA Better Assemble the Next Dream Team After This Disaster at the FIBA World Cup

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ESPN – The U.S. will leave the World Cup with its worst finish in a major international tournament, assured of finishing no better than seventh after falling to Serbia 94-89 in a consolation playoff game Thursday night.

The previous worst finish for a U.S. men’s team in 45 tournament appearances was sixth at the 2002 world championships. The Americans — the top-ranked team in the world — will be either seventh or eighth in China, depending on the outcome of their consolation finale Saturday.

Just a couple of days after getting bounced by France in the FIBA World Cup (Team USA’s first loss in 13 years, snapping a 58 game winning streak), they were officially embarrassed today, losing to Serbia in the consolation game. So no gold medal, no bronze medal, now not even a 5th place finish for the most disappointing Team USA in my lifetime.

I understand its just FIBA, I really shouldn’t care. Maybe I care more because half the team is made up of Celtics and it reflects poorly on my hometown team’s chances this season. Sure. Or maybe its just embarrassing for the US to send a team of kids and scrubs to represent the country before getting their teeth kicked in. This ain’t the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team.

This team was in trouble from the second that Turkey game ended last week and we all knew it.

I also get that its become more and more popular for NBA stars today to obsess over their bodies and to manage their workload. The NBA season is long and LeBron can’t lead Team USA every single year, but where was James Harden or Anthony Davis? Steph Curry? Kawhi Leonard? Russell Westbrook? Kyrie Irving? Paul George? Klay Thompson?

Even guys like Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Damian Lillard could’ve carried this team to gold. So its a tough spot to be in because the US is expected to win gold every single year, but we invented the damn game and have more than 90% of the best players in the world. I don’t think being the best is asking all that much.

USA Basketball better look at this as more than just a down year; its am embarrassment to the sport. I have enough embarrassment to go around from the US Mens Soccer Team, but at least they’re just not very good. The basketball team can and should dominate. So bring me the next Dream Team. Bring me an outrageous collection of talent and just run other teams out of the gym. Its time for the USA to re-establish its dominance on the hardwood.

The Patriots Just Traded Demaryius Thomas…to the Jets!

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This *never* happens. Seriously, when was the last time the Pats and the Jets made a trade? Belichick to the Pats was technically a trade, but as Felger just put it, when was the last time these two teams made a trade that wasn’t “court ordered?” So despite all the animosity between the two sides they got a deal done after Demaryius Thomas was made expendable by the addition of Antonio Brown. We hardly knew ye.

I though Thomas looked great in the last pre-season game, but that was against 3rd and 4th stringers and soon to be insurance salesmen so who knows. But how about Belichick getting anything, let alone a 6th round pick for a guy that was a street free agent coming off a torn achilles? Thats what we in the business like to call strong asset management.

Now a 6th round pick could be a bum the Pats cut before Labor Day next summer or it could be Tom Brady or it could be another asset in a long line of assets that Belichick is continuously flipping year after year. Belichick is basically that guy who started with one red paper clip and traded with people on Craigslist until he ultimately got a house out of it.

Brooks Koepka Crushes New “This is SportsCenter” Commercial

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What can’t this man do? Dominate every major tournament he plays in, rocks banana hammocks while on vacation with his super model girlfriend, makes me feel some kind of way with his ESPN The Body Issue photo shoot, and now deadpan acting in his This is SportsCenter debut.

True story: one time Mattes and I completely punted on studying for our final exams in college because the night before the exam ESPN dropped a 2 hour long Best of This is SportsCenter Commercials special on us. The choice was out of my hands. Hey, I got a C so it was well worth it.

Whats your favorite SportsCenter commercial?

Face/Off is Getting a Reboot. Wait What?

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Hollywood Reporter – Paramount is bringing back Face/Off. The high-concept action film is getting a reboot via 22 Jump Street scribe Oren Uziel, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed…Fast and Furious creative Neal Moritz will produce for Paramount, with David Permut serving as executive producer. Uziel’s other credits include The Cloverfield Paradox and Paramount’s upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie. He also was tapped to pen the second Detective Pikachu movie for Legendary and Warner Bros.

Face/Off is peak 90s: just unapologetic, over the top, and most of all nonsensical. Just a preposterous plot that its better if we just accept it and move on.

John Travolta and Nicolas Cage starred in the 1997 action-thriller from John Woo, which centers on two arch enemies exchanging each other’s identities (and faces). The story follows FBI agent Sean Archer (Travolta), who is tracking down terrorist Castor Troy (Cage). When Troy boards a plane in Los Angeles that crashes and is severely injured, Archer undergoes surgery to remove his face and replace it with Troy’s in order to go undercover as the criminal. In a twist, Troy then awakes from a coma and forces the doctor who performed the surgery give him Archer’s face.

This movie only worked because of one reason: Nicholas Cage. Just an absolute psychotic, eccentric evil villain in Castor Troy who also happens to carry matching gold plated Desert Eagles. So godspeed rebooting that.

Granted I’m not exactly Ari Gold so I don’t know who’s hot in the producer streets, but this is a mixed bag of credits for the guys tapped to helm the reboot. 22 Jump Street? Good! Fast and Furious? Good! Cloverfield Paradox? …OK. The upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Oh my this is going to be a disaster.

While I love the idea of bringing back something that I enjoyed from the 90s, I also remember what an abortion the Point Break reboot was. Sometimes its best to just let things remain in the past.

Unless they can get Nick Cage and John Travolta to reprise their exact roles, just 20 years older. Then I’m in.

Antonio Brown Posted a Call He Had With Jon Gruden, Asks for His Release After Raiders Void His Guaranteed Money

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This story just gets weirder and weirder man. When I first started writing this blog I was going to talk about California’s “two party consent” law and how AB could be in hot water for illegally recording and posting a phone call. Welp, threw that draft in the trash because in the last hour Antonio Brown has taken to the Gram to ask the Raiders for his RELEASE. It would seem the Raiders have now had enough of Antonio Brown’s shit.

You thought AB’s “emotional” apology in front of the team on Friday morning was the end of the story right?

Brown is in the 1% of the 1% of athletes in the world so he wants it his way all the time, but even top performers in any workplace can only push the boundaries so far before you get fired. And it seems like Antonio Brown is indeed about to get fired.

AB then thought it would be a neat idea to record a call he had with his coach, who basically is telling him to cut the shit, and turn it into some (very well produced) hype video. It looks like a Nike commercial, but it just makes AB sound like a moron. He’s trying to depict himself as a guy fighting against all the odds and all the haters to come out stronger on top when all he’s doing is shining a light on how petulant he’s been.

Gruden straight up asks Brown “do you want to be a Raider or not?” He’s been Brown’s biggest supporter through all the nonsense this offseason, but even Gruden pleads with him, “Please stop this shit and just play football.”

AB shot his way out of Pittsburgh, got PAID by Oakland, then injured himself, then threw a tantrum over a helmet, then aired his dirty laundry with his bosses over his fine, then called his boss a “cracker,” then posted a recorded phone call with his coach on YouTube and is now paying the consequences with his wallet. Not exactly a sympathetic figure here.

It seems like Gruden understands AB is an absolute lunatic but just does not care. Get the man on the field on Sundays and just laugh through all the rest.

And that is totally fine, I almost respect Gruden’s blinders in the sake of talent, but holy hell does it make the team look bad and it cannot have a great affect on that locker room culture.

A lot of people have started to become legitimately worried about Antonio Brown and where his head is at mentally. Rich Eisen literally asked Drew Rosenhaus if Antonio is alright. Even Michael Irvin is concerned and he played on the 90s Cowboys.

Some are saying he’s unraveling in front of our eyes stemming from the absolutely vicious hit he took from Vontaze Burfict a couple of years ago.

I don’t know, but it seems like AB is dead set on burning bridges and the Raiders may be ready to let that bridge go up in flames. All I know is I spent a 3rd round pick on Brown in my fantasy draft last week so I am taking this entire situation personally.

The Latest News on Dustin Pedroia is the Darkest Yet

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ESPN – His name was written in pen on a sign over his locker. His Boston jerseys neatly dangled inside on hangers. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia was back with the Red Sox — if only for a quick visit. He hobbled through the clubhouse Tuesday on crutches, his surgically repaired left knee on the mend.

Pedroia really doesn’t think about hitting so much these days as simply not hurting. He’s hoping the latest surgery on his troublesome knee allows him to throw batting practice with his kids pain-free one day. That’s really the extent of the plans for the 36-year-old Pedroia, who has been limited to nine games over the past two seasons.

Still, he wanted to drop by just to chat with his teammates as they opened a two-game interleague series at Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies. Earlier this month, doctors removed bone spurs and performed a knee joint preservation procedure in Vail, Colorado.

Taking the field again? For now, that’s down the priority list.

“It would be nice to not hurt first,” said Pedroia, who has fond memories of Coors Field given that’s where the Red Sox clinched the 2007 World Series. “One step at a time. Hopefully, it works out.”

Before we get into the blog its my responsibility to remind everyone that Manny Machado is a dirtbag whenever discussing Dustin Pedroia. Moving on.

I don’t think many of us necessarily *expected* Dustin Pedroia to play baseball again, but this is probably the nail in the coffin. It sounds like he’s accepted the fact that he’s done and its probably time, but it doesn’t make it any less sad. I’ve held out hope that Pedroia would be able to return to at least a part-time role with the team. That is until I heard Jerry Remy (11 knee surgeries) talking earlier this year about a conversation he had with Pedroia and their shared knee issues.

He asked me, ‘Are there certain surfaces you have problems walking on?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, some hard surfaces.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a floor in my house that I have to have changed because it bothers me.’

Remy added, “At the end of my career, I couldn’t move any more. I knew going to spring training I was done.

‘’I haven’t seen that much of Pedroia in the field this year. I saw him dive for a ball the other day and he wasn’t even close to it. But he turned some double plays. So you can’t make that judgement yet.

“But this is discouraging. Mentally, it’s very difficult to go through. It’s all you think about.’’

Dave Dombrowski basically told us Pedroia was done way back in 2017 when he said this knee injury was something Pedroia would have to monitor “for the rest of his career.” Pedroia then got a knee surgery he was pretty hesitant to get and the Red Sox publicly said the second baseman would be back in 7 months. Pedey returned in May 2018 before going back on the DL in June after just 3 games. Then in July 2018 Pedroia started dropping some pretty startling quotes about how he simply cannot risk coming back too early. Here’s what I wrote at the time.

That is scary. That sounds like a guy who is seriously concerned about his ability to recover from an injury. Forget returning to previous form, that is a guy who sounds like he might be done entirely…the days of Dustin Pedroia as your starting second baseman may be gone. Because when healthy, Pedroia can still absolutely mash and is one of the toughest outs in baseball, but therein lies the problem; Pedroia is rarely healthy anymore.

Pedroia was back for Spring Training and we were all pretty excited here at The 300s as No. 15 was ready to go for Opening Day…but only played 6 games before going back on the IL. He publicly stated that his knee “will never heal” back in May and shut down his rehab in an emotional press conference. I was convinced he was going to announce his retirement, but it seems like he wanted to take some time off and give it one more go.

Things sound a lot more myopic now though as this pretty dark update on Pedey dropped the other day. Despite playing in just 9 games in his last 2 seasons, he’s due to make $13M in 2020 and $12M in 2021 before becoming a free agent at 37-years-old. Here’s to hoping Pedroia can at the very least get healthy enough to enjoy his life and then maybe think about playing some ball again, but it seems like that goal is a distant second at this point.

Jayson Tatum Just Got Injured at the FIBA World Cup

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So Team USA narrowly avoided disaster and escaped with a first round W over Turkey, but it took some pretty fortuitous bounces, going to overtime, oh and the Celtics best young player getting hurt for that to happen.

Its too early to tell whether its a serious injury or not, but Tatum needing help to get off the court is not a good sign. Hopefully its just a tweaked ankle and he’ll be fine in a couple of days, but until then we panic.

Red Sox Ticket Prices Are Now Comically Low

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Catch the fever! Tickets to September Red Sox games are going for $6 bucks online right now. That is mental. You can get in tonight for $6, tomorrow for $7 and you can even get into Red Sox Yankees Sunday Night Baseball for $18.

I remember being a kid in the early 2000s and you couldn’t get into a Sox Yanks game for less than a bill. The first thing I did every April was sign up for the Red Sox/Yankees ticket lottery just to get a shot at those tickets for a decent price. Granted the Red Sox are 15 games out of first place in the AL East and 5.5 back of the second Wild Card spot. So as I said to a couple New Yorkers busting my balls over the weekend, we’re getting to the point in the Red Sox season where its almost Patriots season.

What a difference a year makes. Last September the Sox were just crushing teams en route to the World Series and I had no problem staying up til 3 am watching a 7 hour 18-inning game. Hell, I was in freaking Buffalo for work during the ALDS so I had to watch the Sox-Yankees in some Buffalo dive bar and I was more than happy to do it. Now? I’m not exactly racing home to watch David Price give up 5 runs in 5 innings and then opine about how his stuff felt good.

But, if I’m being a glass half full guy, which I know so many of you look to me for my optimism, I could at least expand my bobblehead collection two-fold for less than $20 in the next week.

Just shut everyone down, punt on 2019, make some moves in the winter, and come back with your heads screwed on in 2020. We’re done here.

What Would Your Walk Out Music Be?

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There is nothing cooler in sports than the walk out music for a defending champ as the lights are off or when the music blasts as a closer jogs in from the pen to save the game. Whether its something grave diggers would listen to like Mariano Rivera’s “Enter Sandman” that ruined so many nights of my childhood or an A+ inside joke like Christian Yelich using “Roxanne.”

So the question I posed to The 300s staff was what would your walk out/walk up music be?

Dom: Walk up song is “Electric Avenue,” no doubt. Been my ring tone since senior year of college and still haven’t gotten sick of it. It’s one of the catchiest tunes of all time.

Big Z: Payphone – Maroon 5

“All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I’ll be sick”

Perfect song for an unexpected hero who saves the day in the bottom of the 14th. I know if I’m in the big leagues I’m probably coming off the bench in an emergency situation. It’s not the movies. I’m a dirtdog who doesn’t get all the opportunities, but delivers in the clutch when it matters most.

Papa Giorgio: It’s a toss up between The Used – Pretty Handsome Awkward and The J Geils Band – Love Stinks if I was on any of the 29 teams that aren’t the Mets. If I was on the Mets it’d be the Somebody Kill Me please song from the Wedding Singer.

Lippa: I have always thought “Eminence Front” by The Who would be a great entrance for a closer. That song has such a great intro that keeps ramping up as the pitcher reaches the mound.

Joey B: I’m giving you three because Abraham Lincoln didn’t swoop down onto the battlefield on the back of a bald eagle and turn away the Mongolian hoards just for me to keep quiet.

1.) 2pac – “Hail Mary”
Just a true blue pump up song with an always riveting biblical reference. “I aint a killer but don’t push me/revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin pussy” might be the best opening line in terms of introducing yourself to an opponent.

2.) Lynyrd Skynyrd/Shinedown – “Simple Man”
Either version works and will make the hairs on everyone’s necks stand up.A moving explanation of the fact that the violence that you are about to inflict isn’t personal, just a basic instinct of a simple person.

3.) Thrice – “To Awake And Avenge The Dead”
This one is kind of out of left field. I can’t really categorize Thrice as a band. Sort of a melodic metal/punk/hardcore fusion. But the second that first chord rips you’ll be ready to run through a fucking wall.

Red: You can see the clear line of demarcation between the baseball guys and the UFC guys here as Joe and I are the only ones to pick music that makes you want to get suspended from high school. I went back and forth on this one with classics like “Til I Collapse,” and almost had to go with “Shook Ones Pt. 2,” but I had to go with one of the few songs from Eminem’s most recent album thats taken off; “Lucky You.” The subtle bells open the track followed by some bars from Joyer Lucas before that beat comes in HARD. Let me walk into that and get the hell out of my way.

Rob Gronkowski Launches a CBD Company

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WBZ – Rob Gronkowski’s “next chapter” involves a campaign to get professional sports leagues to loosen their restrictions on CBD products.

The retired former Patriots tight end announced at a press conference in New York City on Tuesday that he has partnered with Abacus Health to launch a line of CBD products, after Gronkowski said the products changed his life.

“I immediately made CBDMedic part of my recovery,” Gronkowski said of his post-retirement treatment. “And now for the first time in more than a decade, I am pain-free. And that is a big deal.”

Citing his countless injuries and his nine surgeries during his playing career, Gronkowski said he had no choice but to retire.

CBD is a tricky thing because it only became federally legalized in 2018 after the passing of the Farm Bill. Theres not a whole lot of government funded research to analyze and back up (or dispute) all of the claims of CBD benefits, which at this point in time are mostly anecdotal. Gronk is all in on CBD though and wants to make you a believer.

Right now there are two types of people in this country; CBD fanatics and people who think CBD is snake oil.

I wouldn’t blame people for thinking CBD is a bunch of bullshit because there are claims that it can help for everything from reducing pain and inflammation to improving sleep, reducing stress and anxiety etc. etc. Without a ton of studies available on CBD its easy to disbelieve if you aren’t a fan of it. However anyone that I’ve talked to who takes CBD swears by it. I’m personally a huge proponent of it. Could we all look back in 5 years and see it was basically a giant placebo effect? Sure, but if people at least believe its helping them then why not embrace it?

So we have a product that helps athletes with pain and recovery, is non-habit forming, and doesn’t get you high, yet its still banned by the NFL. Gronk is looking to change that.

CBD comes from cannabis which is derived from hemp, just without the THC, so its easy for people to circulate the “reefer madness” party line as to why you shouldn’t mess with it. But with more and more recreational marijuana shops opening up every day (seriously theres one right around the corner from my house that I didn’t even know about), its quickly becoming the norm.

Research and studies are coming and its not out of the goodness of their heart that the government will start funding it. No, its once they realize how much money there is to be made regulating it. CBD is in just about everything right now: oil, vapes, gummie bears, cookies, soda, coffee etc. So with regulation will come restrictions, but it will also weed out the people selling actual snake oil.

If you think this is just an athlete cashing an endorsement check then you need to watch the video below. Gronk nearly breaks down into tears discussing the pain he was in and how this product helped him get right.

Gronk did leave open the possibility for a return to football, but it sounds like he was so beat up that he couldn’t even enjoy winning the goddamn Super Bowl so I think a comeback is unlikely.

“I was in tears in my bed after a Super Bowl victory. … It didn’t make much sense to me,” Gronkowski said. “I couldn’t sleep for more than 20 minutes a night, after a Super Bowl win. And I was like damn, this sucks. It didn’t feel right.”

So heres to Gronk and the next chapter in his life. You gave us 9 seasons, 115 games, 79 touchdowns, 2 Super Bowls, and became arguably the greatest Tight End the NFL has ever seen all while beating the hell out of your body. Build a CBD empire, push for the NFL to legalize it, partner with Brady down the line on a TB12 CBD brand that will put GNC out of business. Sky’s the limit.