THE LEFT TURN
NASCAR playoffs at Vegas: South Point 400 preview, picks
Oct 14, 2022, 1:04 pm
Joey Logano looks like a good bet this week. Photo via: Wiki Commons.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Sin City this week for the South Point 400. This is the first race of the Round of 8 also known as the semi-final round of the playoffs. A win here for advanced drivers will assure them a spot in the championship race at Phoenix. Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a mile-and-a-half track shaped like a bullring. This track is hell on tires, but luckily, the track temperature will be much cooler this time than it was in the spring.
Last week in dramatic fashion, Christopher Bell took the checkered flag at the Charlotte Roval to advance to the Round of 8. The race was pretty tame for most of the day as most drivers had an extremely hard time passing. It wasn’t till the final two laps when a caution came out for a sign on the racetrack, after this we would see absolute chaos. Christopher Bell would use his fresh tires to power past the first three cars to take the lead. The battle would be for the final transfer into the Round of 8 as Kyle Larson would have mechanical issues that would knock him out of the playoffs by Chase Briscoe. This wasn’t without controversy as Briscoe needed to pass two cars to move into the next round, one of those cars was his teammate Cole Custer. Going into the backstretch, Custer backed off the throttle enough to let his teammate go by and get the points he needed to move on.
After an investigation, NASCAR president Steve Phelps came to the conclusion that Stewart-Haas Racing manipulated the outcome of the race and leveled the #41 team with a massive penalty. The team was docked 50 points, a $200,000 fine, and an indefinite suspension for crew chief Mike Shiplett. Not surprisingly, car owner Tony Stewart is not happy about this, stating that “if he didn’t have any appearances he had to be at, he wouldn’t go to a single NASCAR race for the rest of the year.” While I can understand Tony’s frustration, this was fairly black and white, as it was blatantly obvious that the 41 helped his teammate. On the radio, Shiplett was heard saying “back er down it looks like you got a flat.” It was next to impossible for the crew chief to know if his driver had a flat, considering he was on the complete opposite end of the racetrack, and he couldn’t see the car.
Aside from all this, NASCAR and the race teams are further apart than they have ever been. The car owners are upset that the racetracks are making too much money, the cars are not safe enough, and the sanctioning body is disputing everything. According to reports, the racetracks (that are owned by NASCAR) are taking up 93 percent of the revenue that comes in from television and ticket sales. NASCAR’s retort was that the teams were only going off of how much the charters were worth, and that they are receiving much more money than being reported.
After all the turmoil, NASCAR made a peace offering to the race teams by announcing that they will cover all the costs of the new car upgrades for 2023. Let's hope the two sides can make an agreement, so we don’t miss any races after the media contract expires in 2025.
There is some news coming down this Saturday as 2004 champion Kurt Busch is expected to announce his retirement. This is something that we had all been fearing was the case, as he has not raced since Pocono in July. The road for Kurt was never easy, as he faced plenty of adversity over the course of his twenty-year career. Busch would be involved in multiple altercations with drivers like Jimmie Spencer and Greg Biffle. Throughout the 2010’s Busch would struggle as he would lose his ride at Penske after verbally berating ESPN Pit Reporter Jerry Punch in 2011 at Homestead and would have the most difficult year of his career in 2012 after driving for James Finch. He would then completely rebuild his career the next year driving for Furniture Row and making the chase for the cup and finding new employment at Stewart-Haas Racing, Ganassi and 23xill over the next 7 years. He would win in every car he drove in. There is no doubt that Kurt is a first-ballot NASCAR Hall of Famer, and he will be missed.
The driver that is expected to replace him at 23XI is Tyler Reddick. There was a lot of talk about him finishing out his contract at RCR in a third team, but Toyota has since bought out the remaining year in his contract and will bring him to their team a year earlier.
The driver I have winning this weekend is Joey Logano. No one has been as consistent as the 2018 championship in these playoffs, and now he’s going to one of his personal best racetracks. In his 18 starts here, Logano has won twice, 6 top-five finishes, and 11 top-tens. It’s clear that Joey has a championship-caliber pace and a win at Las Vegas will get him one step closer to that second title.
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Astros keep doing this, and it’s getting hard to ignore
Jun 25, 2025, 10:01 pm
While the rolling Astros have a week of possible World Series preview matchups against the Phillies and Cubs, it’s the Rockets who made the biggest local sports headline with their acquisition of Kevin Durant. What a move! Of course there is risk involved in trading for a guy soon to turn 37 years old and who carries an injury history, but balancing risk vs. reward is a part of the game. This is a fabulous move for the Rockets. It’s understood that there are dissenters to this view. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, including people with the wrong opinion! Let’s dig in.
The Rockets had a wonderful season in winning 52 games before their disappointing first-round playoff loss to the Warriors, but like everyone else in the Western Conference, they were nowhere close to Oklahoma City’s caliber. While they finished second in the West, the Rockets only finished four games ahead of the play-in. That letting the stew simmer with further growth among their young players would yield true championship contention was no given for 2025-26 or beyond.
Kevin Durant is one of the 10 greatest offensive players the NBA has ever seen. Among his current contemporaries only Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokic make that list. For instance, Durant offensively has clearly been better than the late and legendary Kobe Bryant. To view it from a Houston perspective, Durant has been an indisputably greater offensive force than the amazing Hakeem Olajuwon. But this is not a nostalgia trip in which the Rockets are trading for a guy based on what he used to be. While Durant could hit the wall at any point, living in fear that it’s about to happen is no way to live because KD, approaching his 18th NBA season, is still an elite offensive player.
As to the durability concern, Durant played more games (62) this past season than did Fred VanVleet, Jabari Smith, and Tari Eason. The season before he played more games (75) than did VanVleet, Dillon Brooks, and Alperen Sengun. In each of the last two seasons Durant averaged more minutes per game (36.9) than any Rocket. That was stupid and/or desperate of the Suns, the Rockets will be smarter. Not that the workload eroded Durant’s production or efficiency. Over the two seasons he averaged almost 27 points per game while shooting 52 percent from the floor, 42 percent from behind the three-point line, and 85 percent from the free throw line. Awesomeness. The Rockets made the leap to being a very good team despite a frankly crummy half-court offense. The Rockets ranked 21st among the 30 NBA teams in three-point percentage, and dead last in free throw percentage. Amen Thompson has an array of skills and looks poised to be a unique star. Alas, Thompson has no credible jump shot. VanVleet is not a creator, Smith has limited handle. Adding Durant directly addresses the Rockets’ most glaring weakness.
The price the Rockets paid was in the big picture, minimal, unless you think Jalen Green is going to become a bonafide star. Green is still just 23 years old and spectacular athletically, but nothing he has done over four pro seasons suggests he’s on the cusp of greatness. In no season has Green even shot the league average from the floor or from three. His defense has never been as good as it should be given his athleticism. Compared to some other two-guards who made the NBA move one year removed from high school, four seasons into his career Green is waaaaaay behind where Shae Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards, and Devin Booker were four seasons in, and now well behind his draft classmate Cade Cunningham. Dillon Brooks was a solid pro in two seasons here and shot a career-best from three in 2024-2025, but he’s being replaced by Kevin Durant! In terms of the draft pick capital sent to Phoenix, five second round picks are essentially meaningless. The Rockets have multiple extra first round picks in the coming years. As for the sole first-rounder dealt away, whichever player the Rockets would have taken 10th Wednesday night would have been rather unlikely to crack the playing rotation.
VanVleet signs extension
Re-signing Fred VanVleet to a two-year, 50 million dollar guarantee is sensible. In a vacuum, VanVleet was substantially overpaid at the over 40 mil he made per season the last two. He’s a middle-of-the-pack starting point guard. But his professionalism and headiness brought major value to the Rockets’ kiddie corps while their payroll was otherwise very low. Ideally, Reed Sheppard makes a leap to look like an NBA lead guard in his second season, after a pretty much zippo of a rookie campaign. Sheppard is supposed to be a lights-out shooter. For the Rockets to max out, they need two sharpshooters on the court to balance Thompson’s presence.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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