THE PALLILOG
Sports return in less than two weeks, and Justin Verlander looks great
Jul 10, 2020, 9:53 am
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
As sports fans we're in the midst of a big game of "hold your breath." We're less than two weeks from the start of a truncated Major League Baseball season, inside three weeks from the resumption of a trimmed down NBA season, and as this posts two months to the day from the scheduled start of the NFL regular season. They'll all likely get going. College football, shakier. What is the likelihood of successful finishes? Major League Soccer resumed play this week in a so-called bubble in Orlando, and already two teams have been eliminated before ever playing because of multiple positive COVID-19 tests. In the spirit of hope let's address the locals preparing for play.
Not saying I'm desperate for MLB (yes I am!), but with no sound via the Astros' Twitter feed I watched about three innings of the Astros Thursday intrasquad scrimmage, their first scrimmage since regathering at Minute Maid Park. Worked for me. While Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and George Springer (twice) might disagree, it was great to watch Justin Verlander strike out all of them. With no coronavirus Verlander would have missed the first two months of the season recovering from injuries. A healthy Verlander for the full 60 game sprint season obviously greatly enhances the Astros' chances of getting back to the postseason, regardless of how anyone values the season.
You can watch the highlights from Verlander's performance below.
How the 2020 MLB season plays out is a very open question. Nevertheless, having to plan ahead MLB Thursday released the 2021 regular season schedule. Opening Day, April Fool's Day! The Astros are slated to be in Oakland.
Rocket launch
The Rockets settle at Disney World for a second training camp ahead of starting the eight game finish to the regular season. General Manager Daryl Morey has asserted that the Rockets "should win this thing," this thing being the NBA championship. As assertions go that is ridiculous. They certainly belong in the second tier of contenders behind the Bucks, Lakers, and Clippers. That does not translate to "should win this thing." Given the variables of top seeds no longer having homecourt advantage, players choosing to not play because of COVID concerns, players who get sidelined by COVID, and the Rockets having a good team, of course they have a shot. That is much different from "should win this thing." Getting a look at "Slim Jim" Harden will be interesting. He's reportedly trimmed down 15 to 20 pounds. How will Harden's game be impacted at each end of the court?
Big deal coming for Deshaun?
The Texans are slated to gather for training camp in a couple weeks to begin the run up to their season opener at Kansas City. The talk of the NFL this week was Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes getting about 140 million dollars guaranteed as part of his whopping 10 year 450 million dollar contract extension. Among those delighted for Mahomes is Texans' quarterback Deshaun Watson. Mahomes was the 10th pick in the 2017 draft, Watson went two selections later. Mahomes has obviously been much better in his two seasons as a starter winning an NFL Most Valuable Player Award and the following season leading KC to its first Super Bowl win in 50 years. Still, the Mahomes deal sets some parameters for what Watson can command from the Texans.
There has been scuttlebutt about Watson preferring a shorter term extension. If so that would clearly indicate uncertainty about believing in the long term potential for consistent legitimate Super Bowl contention for the franchise. That's reasonable since the Texans have never been a legitimate Super Bowl contender. Watson is under contract for this coming season and 2021. If necessary the Texans could then easily use the franchise tag on him for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, but hammering out an extension makes sense for both parties. Even though no deal would not mean Watson could leave any time soon, it would be a bad look for the Texans. Watson has avoided calamitous injuries the last two seasons but given his ACL history securing generational wealth in one form or another makes sense. So, there are two positive viable outcomes. In a shorter extension Watson would have to get basically all the money guaranteed, say, three years 115 million dollars. Or in a longer extension even more money guaranteed at a sub-Mahomes level, say, 7 years 275 million? Teams should not be compelled to match questionable to stupid deals other teams commit to, but in Watson's case there would seem no way he takes less than the nearly 108 million guaranteed dollars the Eagles gave Carson Wentz in his extension or the 110 million the Rams laughably lavished upon Jared Goff.
Buzzer Beaters:
1. How come hand sanitizer is now easily found, but not wipes?
2. UFC "Fight Island" seems impressively constructed, I'm just not into it.
3. Biggest losses if non-conference college football games are wiped out for 2020: Bronze-Ohio St. at Oregon Silver-Clemson at Notre Dame Gold-Texas at LSU
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They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”