SU decided to really check out the Knicks last night in a home game vs. Detroit.  Porzingis went off for 35 points – 25 in the first half alone.  He scored from deep, on alley-oops, step back jumpers, and follow-up dunks on offensive rebounds.  The guy is 21 years old and his game is still forming.  He is clearly the real deal.  Coach Hornacek made a smart move and put him in with the 2nd unit which really allowed him to get more touches and shots which no doubt made long-time SU subscriber B. Levine happy who has been pushing for this all year.  On top of all of this, he is a good guy, doesn’t seem to travel with a “posse” (see Phil Jackson and his latest poor choice of words), smiles on the court and doesn’t argue with the refs.  The fans are totally behind him – even chanting “MVP, MVP” late in the game.

Carmelo and Derrick Rose are both saying the right things – for now.  But here’s the thing.  The Knicks had a comfortable lead all game and the ball was really moving – 24 team assists and even Carmelo had 3 which could be a season high for him.  But late in the game, between Rose and Melo, they reverted to isolation ball and just running down the shot clock.  SU says: why deviate from the style of play that got you the lead all game?  And while deviating now late in the game, why do you freeze out Porzingis on these possessions when anyone guarding him is always going to be a mis-match?  Let me answer that one for you: Porzingis is only 21 and it’s not his team yet.  That is the next step for this team’s evolution.  Let him take some big shots down the stretch and please, please, please, stop with the Rose or Melo isolation offensive sets.  I mean, how many playoff series wins has this produced in the past?  It’s also why long-term, Melo needs to be moved.  He is helpful now if he plays the right way as it keeps the defense honest and allows Porzingis more opportunities but not long term.

Meanwhile, the Lakers are off to a 7-5 start and enjoying life after Kobe.  There is a good article in today’s New York Times on how the young players are thrilled to have Kobe gone along with his enabler Byron Scott.  New Coach Luke Walton insists on a minimum of 300 passes a game and his assistants track this.  He talks about how the isolation style of play doesn’t work and he won’t allow it.  I guess he skimmed through the Mike Woodson offensive playbook and decided a 1-page pamphlet was not the way to go.  SU says that is a great way to encourage team ball and sharing in each others’ success.  This is a team that I will start to follow on the NBA Season Pass until Jeremy Lin returns from his injury.

Help me out here.  SU watches its share of NFL and college football games.  What is the attraction of the corner fade route when you are down near the goal line or on the 2-point conversion?

Last night, the Pats are 1st and goal on the 1-yard line.  Two failed quarterback sneaks and a run up the middle later, it’s 4th down.  Brady throws a corner pass to Gronkowski who is locked in hand to hand battle with Chancellor on the Seahawks.  No call, incomplete pass.  In the Dallas – Pittsburgh game, Prescott threw 2 similar passes to Dez Bryant for their 2-point conversion attempts – both incomplete.

I get the theory.  Your best receiver is usually taller and stronger than the defender and the betting is that he will out-fight him for the ball.  But it never works.  The other version is from the 5-yard line or so where the QB lofts the ball to the corner and the receiver is supposed to catch it over his shoulder.  Really?  This play works perhaps 10% of the time.

Given how detailed and meticulous NFL and college coaches are, do they really have stats that show these plays work?  SU is happy to be proven wrong but I am not seeing it.

Saturday showed why college football is great.  The #2, 3 and 4-ranked teams all went down in the same day.  The Michigan loss to Iowa was especially painful but they still control their own destiny if they can win out and beat Ohio State.  Of course, that is a tall order especially with the game in Columbus this year.  Ohio State is peaking and their roster is like Alabama’s in terms of top recruits.  It feels like an Ohio State – Alabama final for the championship (but I hope I am wrong there).

Finally, for the 7 people who watch the Tennis Channel globally along with SU, the men’s ATP Tour finals are taking place in London this week with a round-robin format.  While Federer and Nadal are missing due to injury, it’s still a lot of fun and Djokovic and Murray are battling for the overall #1 ranking.  SU says worth a look.

Many thanks to long-time SU subscriber, S. Brett, who passed along this “interview” with Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick.  Although conducted in Spanish, the subtitles will help you follow along.

I don’t know if you saw these remarks from San Antonio Spurs Coach Greg Popovich about the recent election results.  SU makes a point of avoiding any political content in the blog as you can always go to other sources for that type of conversation (see Mike Francesa on WFAN who is a long-time strident Donald Trump supporter).  But in an era where most sports figures and especially coaches are generally neutral on these topics, SU was struck by Popovich’s remarks.  See below from http://www.espn.com:

“Spurs coach Gregg Popovich spoke openly Friday about his frustration with Tuesday’s election of Donald Trump as the country’s 45th president.

“I’m still sick to my stomach, and not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor, tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic,” he said before the Spurs’ home game against the Detroit Pistons. “And I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of [the] whole thing to me.

“It’s got nothing to do with the environment, Obamacare and all the other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all those values that we would hold our kids accountable for.”

“Everybody wants him to be successful. It’s our country; we don’t want it to go down the drain,” he said. “Any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but it does not take away the fact that he used that fear-mongering and all the comments from day one. The race-baiting with trying to make Barack Obama, our first black president, illegitimate. It leaves me to wonder where I’ve been living and with whom I’m living.”

Popovich also expressed empathy for minority groups that might be adversely affected by Trump’s remarks during his campaign.

“What gets lost in the process are African-Americans, Hispanics, women and the gay population, not to mention the eighth-grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person,” he said. “I mean, come on. That’s what an eighth-grade bully does, and he was elected president of the United States. We would have scolded our kids. We would have had discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things. And he is in charge of our country. That’s disgusting.”

Popovich emphasized that his problem with Trump has nothing to do with politics.

“Values to me are more important than anybody’s skill in business or anything else because it tells who we are, how we want to live and what kind of people we are,” he said. “That’s why I have great respect for people like Lindsey Graham, John McCain, John Kasich, who I disagree with on a lot of political things. But they had enough fiber and respect for humanity and tolerance for all groups to say what they said about the man.”

When a reporter interrupted to start a new line of questioning, Popovich cut him off.

“I’m not done,” he said. “One could go on and on. We didn’t make this stuff up. He’s angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. It’s ironic to me. It just makes no sense. So that’s my real fear. And that’s what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly, that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that’s necessary to understand other groups’ situations.

“I’m a rich, white guy. And I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I couldn’t imagine being a Muslim right now or a woman or an African-American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person, and how disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignored all that.”

As his remarks ended, Popovich said he was concerned that the U.S. is on the same path as the Roman Empire.

“My final conclusion is, my big fear is, we are Rome,” he said.”

To be clear, SU is not looking to cover the political landscape (note: we will not be providing equal space for Curt Schilling who is one scary dude).  But this was quite noteworthy coming from someone who hates talking at all with the media.

College basketball is ready to tip off tonight and not a moment too soon.  Let’s face it: the NBA is down to a handful of teams that qualify as watchable right now: Golden State; San Antonio; Atlanta; Cleveland; and that’s about it.  Once Jeremy Lin returns, SU will at least have the Nets to watch on a more regular basis.  But right now, my NBA Season Pass is being under-utilized.

I tuned in for some of the Browns – Ravens game last night (only for Fantasy Football purposes).  Awful.  And the Sunday games are not much better.  SU is not a hockey fan until playoff time and we are done with baseball.  Check out tonight’s college hoops match-ups:

• Arizona – Michigan State
• Kansas – Indiana

The games are more important, the players have to listen to the coaches and they play team ball.  What a concept!  Combine that with end of season college football rivalry games and you have something here.  SU will be off to MSG next week to check out Michigan’s squad in an early season tournament.

SU needs the distraction.  Believe me.

I am feeling better about the Carlos Beltran free agency picture – feels like he will land elsewhere.  I know from the comments that not all of you agree.  RA Dickey will be in Atlanta in 2017 – sorry Jeff.  SU is a little concerned Brian Cashman may stray a bit from the youth movement and will look to compete too much in 2017.  I am targeting 2018 and don’t need to be in the hunt necessarily this year.  But I do want to be entertained and interested.  Impress me.

SU turned on the Knick game last night in the 3rd quarter on ESPN.  At that point, Melo was 3 for 10 with his shooting.  The Knicks then broke out the triangle offense.  Melo shot the next 6 times up the court (made them all) and then was fouled on the next 3 possessions.  I believe it was literally 9 offensive possessions in a row.  Even Jeff Van Gundy said on the broadcast that while you may want to go to the isolation offense and feed the hot hand, at some point you risk totally freezing the other players out.  SU has done the analysis and research and at 9 possessions it gets very very cold for the other players.  He finished the night 9 for 22 from the field which means he must have missed his last 6 shots.

Bottom line: they won the game against an undermanned Nets team that couldn’t stop him or elected not to double team.  Why you don’t double team a shooter who is not looking to pass and is hot is beyond me but I am not an NBA coach (although I do play one on TV).  But the other bottom line is that this is unwatchable and not a winning formula.  It’s time for a new approach at MSG.

SU is decompressing from Election Night and what is a better distraction than some hot stove talk?  Long-time SU subscriber S. Goldman commented earlier today that he had heard that the Yankees were in pursuit of Carlos Beltran.  To quote S. Goldman, “Please tell me I read this wrong.”

SU would agree here.  They lucked out last year with Beltran and he produced big numbers.  But the guy is pushing 40 and you really risk his health and productivity at this point.  While there is some chatter that the Yankees like him, the Red Sox seem to be a more likely landing spot.  The Yankees are rumored to be going after Kendry Morales.  This does not excite SU.  Right now, they have Brian McCann as the full-time DH (he of the hard ground ball to 2nd base fame) but Cashman is looking to move him.

SU says get young and stay young.  A guy like Aaron Judge who is not a terrific fielder might be good as the DH or else just rotate younger players through this spot.  Do not overpay for the DH.  You can always pick up someone.  2017 is the year of the young players in Yankee Stadium.  Do not limit someone’s development and growth by getting an aging journeyman player.

The other hot rumor regarding the Yankees is Rich Hill.  I like that one as they could use another arm and he is enjoying late career success.

Ah, it feels good to talk about the Yankees again.  Now if you can trade Jacoby Ellsbury, it would fee really good.

Any Mets talk out there?

SU stumbled across this story line this morning.  I must admit it made me laugh out loud.  Duh.  Apparently, the statistics show that the major culprit is Derrick Rose who as the point guard (where the job description says you need to get others involved), he is rarely even passing the ball once he has it.  More alarming as long-time SU subscriber T. Potter has pointed out in recent comments is that he only has 10 assists in 4 games.  The stats show that the ball sticks when it goes to him – even more than when Melo touches it so you know we are in rarified territory here.

It’s still early and of course things will sort themselves out.  SU likes that Hornacek has gone public with the statement.  The game against the Bulls tonight will be a good test.  Rose back home will get booed and no doubt will try extra hard to score even more (and pass less).  As a fan, watching Melo and Rose take all the shots this year is unwatchable and of course another wasted season.  But time to be patient.  With Jeremy Lin out with a hamstring strain, SU needs to tune in to other games for a while.

SU says there is something to the Joe Torre style of managing where you sit back and let your players do their thing.  Last night in Game 7, Maddon was obsessed with getting Jon Lester into the game.  He had him warm up early and basically forced his own hand to put him in with 2 outs in the 5th inning.  Kyle Hendricks was cruising along and getting ground ball after ground ball with a low pitch count.  He walked a guy with 2 outs after being ahead  on the count 0-2 and then getting squeezed by the home plate umpire.  Incredibly, Maddon gave him the hook and while Lester had some bad luck in giving up the 2 runs there, he still needed to cover the last 4 innings of the game.  And as we saw, he only trusted Lester and Chapman to make that happen.

Chapman had been wasted in game 6 in a game that was well in hand.  And having been used heavily for 3 straight games finally took its toll in the 8th inning.  You view Maddon as a genius who knows what he’s doing and isn’t afraid of doing the unorthodox.  But you almost feel like he panicked there.  Even Andrew Miller was gassed in game 7 and gave up a couple of runs.  SU hopes none of these guys have any lingering effects next season from overuse.

It was a great game 7 and shows how baseball can really capture the nation’s interest just like in the old days.  The crowd seemed to be evenly split and so much was riding on every pitch.  Props to the Indians who didn’t quit there down 5-1 and 6-3.

Chicago was in full party form afterwards.  Long-time SU subscriber, S. Levine, was down at Wrigley Field enjoying the festivities and shared these photos.  Go Cubs Go!

Ratings for NFL games this year are down.  Many theories abound:

• Presidential debates for a couple of the night games hurt ratings
• People are paying a lot of attention to the Presidential race (but on Sunday afternoon?  Come on)
• Games are taking too long – seem to average 3.5 hours these days
• Absence of quality QBs (see injury to Romo, retirement of Peyton Manning, Brady suspension)
• People are pissed off about players not standing up for the national anthem
• Games are just not that exciting
• Few really superior teams other than the Patriots

SU is a long-time fan and I must admit, the games are not as interesting.  3rd down and 8 yards to go feels like 3rd and 50.  Quarterbacks throw the ball 5 yards and you end up kicking.  There are so many mediocre quarterbacks out there or rookies who are learning on the job and are still not ready for prime time.  And what is up with the field goal kickers?  The best ones are all in their late 30s or early 40s.  Finally, I don’t know about you but there are so many injuries this year, and many seem to be the result of targeting by defensive backs.  A lot of cheap shots.  Whatever happened to not damaging someone’s ability to earn a living?  Hard hits are fine but it sure seems like there are more vicious ones this year.  Bottom line: is this a blip?  Or the start of a longer term trend?  SU subscribers: what do you think?

On the other hand, now that the NBA season is entering its 2nd week, they are also suffering from an absence of great teams.  The Cavs are already humming along but they had minimal disruption from off season moves.  Golden State has no bench other than Sean Livingston.  This will bear watching as the season moves along.  Expect some mid-year deals to get some role players.  But this is what happens when your total payroll is taken up by 4 players.  SU is enjoying watching Jeremy Lin and some of the Michigan alumni on various teams but they are mostly role players off the bench.  But I think it’s early and as teams get used to playing together, some will emerge to become must see tv.  The Knicks have that potential if they can stay healthy.  (Did I just say that??  Must be delirious).

Game 6 tonight.  You know this is going 7 games.  The Indians have been fortunate to keep these games low scoring.  That will be their challenge the last two games: anything over 4 runs will be hard for them to keep up.  It’s been a good series – a lot of passion in the stands as they both have terrific fan bases.  Terry Francona is a genius for the moment but SU says keep an eye on Andrew Miller’s arm in 2017.  Overuse sometimes doesn’t pop up until the following season.

SU did its due diligence last night and tuned in to catch some of the Knicks’ game against the defending champion Cavaliers.  SU, a life-long Knicks fan up until the Isiah Thomas era, really needs to be won back over to the orange and blue.  And truth be told, as long as Carmelo Anthony is here, it’s unlikely to happen unless he decides to change his game and become more team oriented.  SU’s early, early season thoughts:

• These guys have never played together before.  It’s a total makeover.  This is going to take some time.
• I really couldn’t tell exactly what the Jeff Hornacek style of play is.  There was some Mike Woodson in there (give it to Melo and have 4 players do their statue imitations) and some Mike D’Antoni (get the rebound and run).
• The problem is that Hornacek is supposed to be more like D’Antoni and if that’s the case, we all know that Carmelo does not like to play that way.  Something has to give there and if the team is smart, a trade could be in the offing.
• I thought Derek Rose looked good in spurts but as long-time SU subscriber T. Potter pointed out, he had 1 assist in 30 minutes (and he took 17 shots).  Not the formula for success.
• Porzingis had a few plays run for him but not enough for my taste.  SU cannot watch this team unless he is featured.
• I did like what I saw from the two new European players: Kuzminkas; and Hernangomez (we need Clyde Frazier to come up with some shortened nick names for these dudes and soon).  As a fan, I would much prefer to see them log more minutes – youngsters with upside who will probably even pass the ball.
• Noah beat the rush and is already hobbled with injuries.

Bottom line: you need to give it time but it’s hard to see where the scoring is going to come from.  If that is the case, then Melo will take it on his shoulders to score more which then creates a lot of other problems which in the end equals “unwatchability.”  But we won’t know until January what you have here.

Meanwhile, Golden State got blown out by the Spurs at home.  SU says too many All-Stars on one roster will ultimately turn into discontent.  Me thinks that team will also need some time to hit their stride but of course, that is just a matter of time.  But they will miss Andrew Bogut’s passing and the loss of some key role players.

Finally, Terry Francona is either really smart or he is now reading the Joe Torre handbook on how to mis-use your relief pitchers (see Tanyon Sturtze and Scott Proctor).  Andrew Miller threw about 45 pitches last night.  SU thinks he knows tonight’s game will be rained out and thus will have an extra day of rest before game 2.  If so, he’s a genius.  If not, it would be dangerous to put him out there again tonight.