Jiji

You know, I think Rodgers is a fine manager and should be given another season but this is just crying out "sack plz!" I'm all the way back at 1-0 on my DVR but god damn, man. Stevie deserves a better send-off.

That was an excellent night of fights from what I caught. I was thinking of all the future matches of Rumble's long championship reign including a big money fight with Jones if/when Bones should return. Then he gassed and it was all over. Disappointing but good on DC for surviving the blows when they landed. Edit: also, LOL.

Wooo! Vermette atones for his turnover in the turd period. Man, fuck the Canucks for being so bad that I feel the urge to back Chicago.

Did Draymond defend LeBron in the regular season games?

We need Chicago to win this bitch to make it a deep series though. They looked done near the end of that period.

Right? WHY ARE YOU TAINTING OUR SPORT, COMMISSIONS AND UFC ADMIN?!

You bitter, dawg.

Commentators/analysts complaining about overtime playoff hockey should be fired on the spot. Like, make it a clause in their contracts. FREE HOCKEY THAT MATTERS. Get fucked.

Holy shit, that was hilarious. Travis Browne's legs were buckling for the majority of the fight.

As fascinating as a GSW/LeBron final will be, I think we missed out on something special with the possible ATL/GSW final. Their regular season games were a blast and they play similar styles that are so easy on the eye. Could've been an all-time classic, and hey, Cleveland/GSW may be one in itself but damn... Has there been any articles on the Hawks' fall-off in the second half of the season? As an outsider, I wonder what happened to them because there doesn't seem to be an easy, surface level answer like with the Grizz.

Wasn't this board claiming Memphis king shit of fuck mountain following their game 3 victory over the Warriors? Now they're just a nothing team depleted by injuries? Before Allen's injury, tactical adjustments had rendered him pretty much a liability as he fucked the team's half-court sets (they gave him the Noah treatment) and Memphis is all about a half-court, slow paced offense.

I thought Rafa was all but confirmed to take over in Madrid? I could see him winning the treble next year (or flaming out and getting sacked by January - but the less likelier of the two options). He has the best players in the world at his disposal, can rotate with their ridiculous depth and his tactical nous is made for deep runs in Europe.

lol, I said Harden played better. I think you're looking for moral victories after a frustrating loss.

To quote Hubie Brown, "come on now." Harden had a marginally better game and his team lost.

Pretty much. I mark out so hard for this show but Vamp just kills me every time. He'll contradict himself more times than Charles Barkley and it will somehow make sense in the end. Also, Cisco/Hans Moleman doing the dive back out of the office was such a great visual. I felt overall like the matches kind of lacked when held up to the show's recent incredibly lofty standard but had some really fun spots so were completely worthwhile. The angles all ruled though. As does Dario in everything he does.

Montell Jordan!

How does Toronto not outbid Buffalo?

I score free tickets all the time. The atmosphere is fine, I just don't enjoy the games. It didn't help that the Whitecaps were pretty negative under their old manager. I enjoyed the Div 2 team and their games at Swanguard in Burnaby back in the day. It was really low key but their dedicated fanbase was pretty hilarious.

Yeah, didn't Nelson do really good things in OKC?

Yeah, the UAE/Qatar/other well to do Arab nations are pretty much made for the extremely wealthy. Pirlo et al. will be living it up in style. He's won the championships and got the glory. Now it's time to make that bank so his grandchildren's children never need work should they figure it's not for them. The MLS is okay but I have a really hard time getting into it because if I want to watch sawkur, I'll watch the better leagues and teams (and Liverpool), as DFA said. You just see some embarrassingly bad touches and goal mouth action in the MLS that's really jarring after watching the world's best (and Liverpool) play. A good number of friends are all fully into it, getting season tickets, joining a supporters' group and making a ritual of it all. I just can't do it. I'd rather watch the NBA or NHL in the evening from the comfort of my home. I know the world is full of atrocities and such but is anybody figuring on not watching the World Cup in Qatar because of their treatment of migrant workers who are dying building the stadiums (and can't really leave the country)? And, yeah, it's a pandora's box because every country has its own major issues like the host prior to Qatar, but in 2014 alone Nepalese workers were dying at a rate of 1 every other day. This is directly linked to the game and not a political or social issue such as Russia's homophobic laws. I can't support that shit.

I like the McLellan hiring for Edmonton. He's done well with San Jose's younger players, comes off as a good modern teacher of the game in that he doesn't just yell at dudes when they fuck up, and his teams were almost always in the top 10 for the power play.

The only saving grace with him is that he didn't cost 30 million like the last massive forward dud. I wouldn't be surprised if he was sold for a pittance back to Italy within the month. Lambert's likely gone and I can't imagine Borini would turn down another move this year. That would leave us with Sturridge (hopefully this surgery works and he's not broken...?), 18yo Jerome Sinclair, and Divock Origi, who didn't exactly light it up in France. So, yeah, we need a striker.

Yeah, he's been saying all year that the Saints would falter and they've done exactly that. Only problem is Liverpool have faltered even more so. LFC last summer did what Spuds did when they sold Bale, replaced quality with quantity. Spurs brought in Soldado, Lamela, Eriksen, Paulinho, Chadli, Capoue, and Chiricheș that summer. Soldado and Capoue are clear flops. Lamela, Chadli, and Paulinho have shown flashes of extreme talent but struggled for consistency. Eriksen has been the massive success story for them. Chiricheș is still young for a CB but overall I don't think we'd qualify him as a success. So, two clear failures, one clear success, three inbetweeners. You'd have to think Lamela will come good and he's been improving from what I've seen. Liverpool sold Suarez and purchased Markovic, Balotelli, Lambert, Lallana, Lovren, Can, Origi (loaned back to Lille), and Moreno. Complete and utter failures: Balotelli, Lambert, Lovren. Inbetweeners: Lallana, Markovic, Moreno. Clear succes: Can. I have a hard time seeing Lovren and Lallana having as bad of years as they had this time around either due to injury or poor form. Markovic is 20 and Moreno 22 and showed glimpses of high talent levels but were overall incredibly inconsistent. So that's 3 failures, 3 inbetweeners, and 1 success. Southampton did an incredible job bringing in depth but a lot of those guys have come back to reality after a super hot start. Small sample size, but clubs would be lucky to have a 50% success rate in the transfer market. The three clubs above have to live with their mistakes, whereas City, Chelsea, and United can just go plunk another £100m the next summer to fix their squads. Even spending massive amounts on one player that seems like a no-brainer (Falcao) doesn't work. United will replace Falcao with another expensive, world class striker this summer.

Yeah, you should just skip to the good parts starting at "The Model isn't Perfect..." I would do a hatchet job trying to condense it into a few sentences. So here goes! Basically, roughly 50% of transfers work. Rich clubs can outspend their mistakes while not-so-rich clubs cannot. The gulf between the top three and then Arsenal and then Liverpool/Tottenham then Spurs are all huge but particularly the gap between the top 3 and Arsenal/Liverpool. Since Chelsea was financially doped up by Abramovich in 2004, it's been United/Chelsea and everybody else in terms of both finances and the title (until City followed Chelsea's path). The discrepancy in money after 6th is much smaller than the brackets within the top 7, so small teams with good managers can improve their lot in life. But it's pretty much impossible for teams outside the top 6 to breach that because of the massive amount of money those top six teams spend in comparison with the also rans. Management, tactics, and so on will only work in short periods before the quality that money buys returns us to the status quo. Liverpool's two recent title challenges were blips and should be appreciated because of how fucking ridiculous it is to break into the top 3 as there's roughly a £100m difference in the cost of the squad. In one sentence: football, at the top, is all about financial doping so give up hope. Also, this chart paints a pretty good picture of the change in economics since Chelsea's spending spree and Mourinho's arrival: Liverpool's realistic goal should be to usurp Arsenal for 4th.

Interesting. I'm glad there's more new blood in the coaching circle of the NHL rather than retreading through the same old guys. Saying that, Guy Boucher needs to be in the NHL.