This story originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2017.
The Fordham men’s golf team completed the fall portion of their season by finishing third at the Lehigh Invitational this past Friday and Saturday in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Rams finished near the top of the leaderboard in a tournament that also included Bucknell University, Colgate University, Fairfield University, Hofstra University, Iona College, Lafayette University, Lehigh University, Monmouth University, Rider University, Siena College and St. John’s University.
Leading the way for the Rams were seniors Matt Schiller and Joseph Trim, who shot 144 and 145, respectively, over both rounds of the tournament. Schiller’s rounds were 73 and 71 while Trim responded to an opening-round 76 with a three-under 69 in Saturday’s final round. “The first round was a little disappointing because I expected more from myself, but as a whole, I was happy with how I bounced back. I hit the ball extremely solid and made a decent amount of putts,” Trim said. The Tampa, Florida native’s second round was tied for the lowest round at the Saucon Valley course on Saturday. Regarding the course, Trim added, “I absolutely love Saucon Valley. It is my favorite course that we play all season and I have good memories from winning the individual tournament last season.”
Besides Schiller and Trim, Pennsylvania native Josh Madarang completed play with rounds of 79 and 75 to finish at ten-over after 36 holes. Sophomore Tomas Nieves competed individually and shot an 83 on Friday but shot a 76 upon entering the team competition on Saturday. Senior James Mongey shot two rounds of 80, with the second one coming as an individual.
Fordham found itself in eighth place on the 12-team leaderboard after the completion of play on Saturday. Instead of sliding even further down the leaderboard, however, the Rams responded with the second-best team round on Saturday. The team finished a combined three-over-par, which allowed them to bypass Hofstra, Rider, St. John’s, Iona, Monmouth and Siena on the leaderboard in just 18 holes. Lehigh defended their home turf and finished in first by 16 strokes over Bucknell University.
This is the final tournament on the Rams’ fall schedule, as the team’s season will resume in March after a five-month respite. The aforementioned Trim believes the break can be beneficial to the team.
“The next couple months will be mostly rest while we stay in the gym and get ready for next semester,” Trim said. “We will look back on the fall season, assess what we did well and what we struggled with so we can perform at our highest abilities in the spring.” Trim also believes that the winter recess is coming at just the right time for a Rams team that has played virtually non-stop since the beginning of September: “Playing six tournaments over the last seven weeks, it is easy to get a little burned out. I think we were successful in keeping the fire alive though, ending the fall campaign with two top-three finishes.”
The Rams will look to pick up right where they left off when the spring rolls around. f they can replicate their performance from this past weekend in March, they should be in good shape.
This story originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2017.
For the second week in a row, Fordham men’s golf finished near the bottom of the leaderboard in a team tournament.
The team finished 12th out of 14 teams this past weekend at the MacDonald Cup, which was hosted by Yale University and took place at the school’s nearly 100-year-old golf course. Officially, round one of the tournament was 36 holes while Sunday’s final round was just 18. The hosts of the tournament, the Yale Bulldogs, finished in first place at +12. Fordham finished play at +57, ahead of only St. John’s University and Fairfield University. Also competing in the tournament were Brown University, Bucknell University, Central Connecticut State University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, St. Edward’s University and Stirling University, a school located in the Central Belt of Scotland. Additionally, Yale fielded a second team in the MacDonald Cup known as it’s “B-Team.” This squad finished at 44-over, good for sole possession of fourth place.
For the Rams, senior Joseph Trim led the charge and finished tied for ninth on the individual leaderboard with a six-over 216 over three rounds; his fine effort culminated in a one-under 69 in Sunday’s final round. For the senior from Tampa, Florida, a major key was his putting ability against The Course at Yale’s treacherous greens.
“The Course at Yale’s greens are tricky and have a lot of subtle breaks to them,” said Trim. “Having played it as many times as I’ve had over the last three years, I found myself very comfortable with what I was reading and felt confident on the greens. I saw a couple mid-range putts go in over the first nine holes on Saturday and it jumpstarted me for the rest of the tournament.”
Indeed, Trim sat at one-under-par after the first nine holes of the tournament, setting the stage for his outstanding performance the rest of the weekend. Trim’s six-over finish is especially impressive when you consider that only three players, all representing Stirling University, finished at par or lower.
Trim was the top finisher for Fordham, but he wasn’t the only individual to fare well. Senior Matt Schiller finished at nine-over to tie for 17th among all individual competitors. Senior James Mongey and sophomore Tomas Nieves both completed play at 23-over while junior Josh Madarang finished at 24-over. Representing Fordham but competing as an individual was junior Kyle Morris; he struggled to find his footing over the weekend, finishing at 44-over and last among qualifiers on the individual leaderboard.
The 12th-place finish was the second straight disappointing showing for the Rams.
“We had early success in the beginning of the season and I think our expectations might have been a little lofty over the last couple events,” said Trim. “I think we need to stay patient and stick to the game plans that worked very well for us at CCSU [Central Connecticut State University] and Hartford.”
There is hope, however, for the Rams. The team finished with a 14-over 294 on Sunday, which was third among all teams in the final round behind Yale and Stirling, who finished first and second, respectively, in the tournament.
The Rams have two tournaments remaining on their fall schedule: the Bucknell Invitational this weekend, and the Lehigh Invitational the weekend of Oct. 20. The team would assuredly like to right the ship before heading into its approximately five-month winter break.
This article originally appeared in a September 2017 issue of The Fordham Ram.
The Fordham men’s golf team struggled to replicate its early-season form this past weekend, finishing 11th in the Quechee Invitational, which was held in Quechee, Vermont and hosted by Dartmouth University.
The team finished near the bottom of the leaderboard in the 14-team tournament that included Brown University, Bucknell University, Central Connecticut State University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Drexel University, University of Hartford, Harvard University, College of the Holy Cross, Princeton University, Rhode Island University, Siena College and Temple University.
Senior Matt Schiller paced the Rams with an even-par 72 on Sunday to go along with his three-over round of 75 on Saturday. Fellow senior and Sept. 13 Male Athlete of the Week James Mongey finished at eight over par with rounds of 74 and 78. Sophomore Tomas Nieves was impressive on Saturday, posting a two-over 74; he followed that up with a 79 in the tournament’s final round. Josh Madarang, a junior from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, shot a 76 and a 78 to finish his weekend at 10-over, while senior Joseph Trim finished at 17-over with rounds of 78 and 83. Also representing the Rams on an individual basis was freshman Anthony Wells, who fired rounds of 91 and 82 on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Fordham finished ahead of only Siena, Brown and Holy Cross. The team was 14 strokes off the lead after Saturday’s first round, one in which it combined to shoot an 11-over 299. While other teams made up ground and moved up the leaderboard on Sunday, Fordham fell further off the pace with a 19-over 307; Schiller was the only Ram to finish with a round at or below par. The senior finished in a tie with eight other players for 15th on the tournament’s individual leaderboard with a three-over finish over 36 holes.
Drexel ultimately came out on top of the tournament on Sunday, besting Princeton by just one stroke in large part due to a 12-under team score in the final round. Drexel’s Aaron Fricke and Princeton’s Evan Quinn tied for first on the individual leaderboard, while eight other players finished at even or one-under. Fordham finished eighth in the team standings on Saturday before slipping to 11th at the tournament’s conclusion. This is Fordham’s worst tournament finish of the season, following a victory at the Ryan T. Lee Invitational and an eighth-place finish at the Hartford Hawks Invitational.
Next up for the Fordham is the MacDonald Invitational at Yale University the weekend of Sept. 30-Oct. 1. After that, the team will go to Pennsylvania to participate in the Bucknell Fall Invitational before completing the fall portion of its season on Oct. 20-21 at the Lehigh Invitational.
This article initially appeared in The Fordham Ramin September of 2017.
The Fordham men’s golf team came in eighth place at the Hartford Hawks Invitational at Bull’s Bridge Golf Club in South Kent, Connecticut this past Monday and Tuesday. The team shot a nine-over 873 over the course of 54 holes.
This finish comes off the heels of the team’s season-opening victory at the Ryan Lee Invitational in Simsbury, Connecticut the weekend of Sept. 9-10. While Monday’s golf was supposed to consist of the teams playing 36 holes, play was suspended due to darkness after one 18-hole round. Rounds two and three of the tournament were played on Tuesday with an 8:00 a.m. start to accommodate the amount of time it would take for the 20 participating universities to finish play.
The Rams’ eighth-place finish trailed only Central Florida, Seton Hall, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Army, Towson and Boston College. Central Florida ran away with the tournament, winning it by an astronomical 25 strokes.
The Rams responded to the schedule change admirably, as the team followed its first-round 291 with a second-round 290 and a final round 292. Senior Joseph Trim led the way for the Rams after round one, with a four-under 68 after 18 holes; Trim’s Monday round tied with senior James Mongey for the lowest individual round by a Rams player this season. Sophomore and Miami native Tomas Nieves answered his Tuesday round of 77 with a two-under 70 round on Tuesday morning and a three-over 75 on Tuesday afternoon. Senior Matt Schiller fired a seven-over 223 while junior Josh Madarang finished at nineteen-over. The freshman from Sandwich, Massachusetts native Mithran Denbow competed individually and finished at 32 strokes over par, but there was light at the end of the tunnel for him, as he finished the tournament with a final-round 77. The aforementioned Mongey finished at just one over par following his stellar performance at the Lee Invitational, which was the Rams’ first competition of the 2017-18 season. For his exploits at that tournament, Mongey was named Fordham’s Male Athlete of the Week for the week of Sept. 12; Mongey was also crowned the Atlantic 10 Golfer of the Week, which accounted for tournaments taking place through Sept. 13.
The real star for Fordham, though, was Trim; the Fordham senior, originally from Tampa, Florida, shot a five-under 211 over 54 holes and tied for fourth on the individual leaderboard with Central Florida’s Donnie Trosper.
Fordham placed eighth in a tournament that included the University of Central Florida, Seton Hall University, Connecticut University, Boston College, Towson University, Army, Rhode Island, Rider University, Weber State University, Bryant University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hofstra University, Long Island University-Brooklyn, Sacred Heart University, Hartford University, Fairfield University, St. Francis University (Pennsylvania), St. John’s University, and College of the Holy Cross. The best individual round of the tournament came courtesy of Boston College’s Tyler Kertson, who shot an eight-under 64 on day one. Central Florida’s Juuso Kahlos led all players in the individual standings with a nine-under 207 over three rounds.
Next up for the Fordham men’s golf team is the Quechee Invite, which will be hosted by Dartmouth University and take place this Saturday and Sunday in Quechee, Vermont. After that, the team closes the month of September at the MacDonald Invitational in New Haven, Connecticut.
This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ramin September of 2017.
Before last weekend, James Mongey had never shot a collegiate round below 70 or attained a two-round score below 144. At the Ryan T. Lee Memorial, however, the Fordham junior did both.
The Morristown, New Jersey native led the way for the Rams with a 140 (-4) performance over two days as the team came out on top in the Lee Memorial, which took place last Saturday and Sunday at Hop Meadow Golf Club in Simsbury, Connecticut. Mongey’s Saturday round was of particular note, as he shot a four-under 68 with eight birdies. In fact, Mongey was one of just two players in an 83-man field to finish the 36-hole Invitational under par, with the other, Yale’s Paul Stankey, finishing at -1.
“The main reason for my individual success was that I putted well from mid-range,” said Mongey. “I gave myself a lot of chances and was fortunate to make a bunch.”
The Rams were leading the tournament by four strokes over Yale and seven strokes over Bentley after day one. But while both of the latter schools faded down the stretch on Sunday, the Rams continued to apply pressure, with three players shooting at or below par. Senior Joseph Trim was incredibly consistent over both days of the weekend, shooting a 73 and a 72 to finish just one-over for the tournament. Senior and Cincinnati native Matt Schiller also finished at one-over for the tournament by shooting 70 (-2) on Sunday. Junior Josh Madarang finished at +4 with a 70 and a 78, while freshman Mithran Denbow finished with a five-over 149. The team finished with a two-under 574 over the weekend and won the Invitational by a comfortable margin of eleven strokes. The team was so consistent, in fact, that it shot the lowest team score on both days of the weekend, with a four-under 284 on Saturday and a two-over 290 on Sunday.
The win marks the Rams’ first team tournament victory in 19 months, with its last team triumph coming at the Coca-Cola Lehigh Valley Invitational in April 2016.
Also competing in the tournament for the Rams were sophomore Tomas Nieves, who shot back-to-back rounds of 74, and junior Kyle Morris, who finished the weekend at +10. Fordham came out on top of the tournament which included Bentley University, Bryant University, Central Connecticut State University, College of the Holy Cross, Fairfield University, Laval University, Long Island University, Manhattan College, Monmouth University, St. Francis University, St. Peter’s University, Wagner College and Yale University.
The Rams competed in the same Invitational last season and finished fifth, with Schiller tying for second place among individual players.
The next event for the Fordham Golf Team takes place on Sept. 18th and 19th, as the team will travel to South Kent, Connecticut to play in the Hartford Hawks Invite. The first round of that Tournament will be 36 holes, instead of the usual 18.
As for sustaining its hot start this year, Mongey says that he and the team are trying to keep things simple. “With five tournaments left this fall, we will always be able to draw on the team success we had in this first tournament,” Mongey said. “It is fun when guys are playing well, so the biggest thing is staying loose and patient and trying to enjoy the ride.”
So far, the team is off to a very good start. A career-best individual performance over two days certainly did not hurt.
The College Football Playoff celebrated its fifth year in 2018. There have been ten semifinal games in its history. Only two have been decided by one possession.
Continuing college football’s annual tradition of being exactly what we thought it would be, Alabama and Clemson waltzed to easy victories in their semifinal matchups with Oklahoma and Notre Dame, respectively. The Tigers won their game 30-3 while the Tide beat Oklahoma 45-34 in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Now, Clemson and Alabama will meet in the College Football Playoff for the fourth consecutive season, and if you want a sense of their total domination over the sport, consider this: 10 of the last 11 College Football Playoff games have ended with either Clemson or Alabama on top.
And with this domination, the cries for an eight-team playoff to decide a champion are building, and they aren’t coming from the outside. In fact, some of the most powerful people inside college football seem to be willing to advance the discussion for playoff expansion as soon as 2020. The logistics are still being worked out, but it seems like this is going to happen, so let’s start off by looking at what that eight-team playoff would potentially look like.
In this scenario, it’s likely that there would be six automatic bids to the Playoff. Five of them would go to each Power 5 conference champion (including the Pac-12) and the sixth would go to the highest-ranked Group of Five team (UCF). The other two bids would be at-large berths, so you would almost certainly have a bracket that looks something like this:
Alabama (SEC champion) vs 8. Washington (Pac-12 champion)
Clemson (ACC champion) vs 7. UCF (highest-ranked Group of 5 team)
Notre Dame (at-large) vs. 6. Ohio State (Big 10 Champion)
Oklahoma (Big 12 Champion) vs. 5. Georgia (at-large)
The main critique of the four-team version of the Playoff is that it isn’t competitive enough. That is perfectly fair, and making the Playoff more competitive at this stage is a very difficult—if not impossible—task. And there are several fundamental problems with expanding it to eight teams that would suggest that doing so would not accomplish what we all want, which is competitive balance.
For one thing, Washington is not one of the eight best teams in the country, but they would get in as a result of winning the Pac-12. I think it’s pretty obvious that they would get annihilated by Alabama. Clemson would likely do the same to UCF, which isn’t an entirely fair judgment of the defending national champions because of the absence of star quarterback McKenzie Milton. In my view, Georgia would likely take down Oklahoma, which would set up a fascinating rematch of last year’s national title game. The only toss-up quarterfinal game, then, would probably be the Notre Dame-OSU tilt, but my gut says the Irish would come out on top.
But beyond looking at what it would look like this year, the big-picture question when it comes to an expanded Playoff is this:
Does it make the college football season more exciting while still rewarding the best teams in the sport? I would answer no on both counts.
First of all, I truly believe that even with an eight-team championship, you would still have the same national title game we have in real life. But that’s beside the point. The real problem with doubling the size of the Playoff would be that it would greatly diminish the importance of the regular season. College football may have the most important regular season because it is almost certain that if you want to contend for a national championship, you can only afford to lose one game. Even a 12-1 record does not guarantee a berth in the playoff (just ask this year’s Ohio State team).
Moreover, adding four more teams to the Playoff wouldn’t remove disputes over who should get the last spot in it. Currently, the argument is over who should be the fourth team in, but there will be seasons where two of the at-large spots will be disputed. It may be slightly less convoluted, but arguments will still exist in years where the two at-large teams are not nearly as obvious as they were this season.
There will also be years where the best eight teams don’t get in. One example of this would have been 2012, where an eight-team Playoff would have been, um, catastrophically bad:
Hypothetical 8-team CFP in 2012 with 5 P5 auto bids, 1 G5 auto bid and 2 at-large bids
IN 1. Notre Dame 2. Alabama 3. Florida 5. Kansas State 6. Stanford 12. Florida State 15. Northern Illinois Unranked: Wisconsin
OUT 4. Oregon 7. Georgia 8. LSU 9. Texas A&M 10. South Carolina
My final qualm with going to an eight-team Playoff would be that it would prioritize automatic bids and “getting in” over being the best team that season. While the current Playoff does that to an extent, going to eight teams would not ensure that the nation’s best team is hoisting the trophy at the end of the season. In fact, it would turn the odds in the opposite direction. While everyone loves the NCAA Tournament (68 teams, chaotic first weekend, etc.), it is a fundamentally insane way to crown the “best team in the sport”, and more often than not, it fails in that regard. We would be heading in the wrong direction with the addition of more teams.
At that point, what do you say when you shell out nine figures to three bullpen arms but your best reliever is in the final season of a three-year, $10.4 million deal? None of the pitchers who were supposed to be good for the Rockies this season have lived up to expectations, but the staff has been buoyed by starter Kyle Freeland and reliever Adam Ottavino. Freeland’s numbers suggest that he’s in for a regression sooner rather than later, but to this point in the season, he has saved a Colorado pitching staff that has the eighth-highest ERA in the league.
But let’s get back to the question at the beginning of the article: are the Rockies good enough, as they currently stand, to win the NL West?
Let’s start by looking at their schedule the rest of the way. The Rockies have 17 remaining games with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers, the two teams they’re chasing in the division. They’re only two games back as it stands, so either way, the outcome of these games may very well decide who wins the NL West. To make matters even better, 11 of these games will be at home.
There is another escape hatch for the Rockies if they can’t take their division. In addition to only being two games back of Arizona, they are also just two games back of the Braves for the second and last National League Wild Card spot. Luckily for Colorado, they have a four-game series in Atlanta from August 16-19, and depending on how things develop over the next nine days, the Rockies could set themselves up to leapfrog Atlanta if they take three out of four.
The rest of their schedule, though, is periodically challenging. After home series this week against Pittsburgh and the Dodgers, Bud Black’s team has a two-game set in Houston and the aforementioned Braves series. An easy week follows with San Diego and St. Louis coming to Coors Field, and the Rockies end August and vault into September with road series against the Angels and Padres. The Rockies also have six September games with the Giants, who should be firmly out of playoff contention by the time they face Colorado. The last week of the season, which could decide the Rockies’ fate, will see them host the Phillies for four games and the Nationals for three. Both of those teams could also be fighting for playoffs spot at that point.
If their performance to this point in the season is any indication, however, Colorado is playing in over its head. They have a run differential of -8, and Pythagorean W-L suggests that they should be 10.5 games back in the NL West right now instead of just two. The last team to make the playoffs with a negative run differential was the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks, and they met their demise in the NLCS at the hands of, you guessed it, the Colorado Rockies. Both Colorado and Seattle are making playoff runs this season with negative run differentials. Seattle is 11-17 in its last 28 games, and if I were a gambling man, I would guess that Colorado would underperform the rest of the way, in spite of the fact that they have overperformed to this point in the year.
There’s also the matter of what the Rockies did, or, more accurately, didn’t do, at the trade deadline. For a team that has multiple needs, particularly with their pitching, making one trade (acquiring Seunghwan Oh from the Blue Jays) probably won’t cut it. Granted, the 36-year-old from South Korea is having an excellent year (2.38 ERA, 2.98 FIP, 9.8 K/9), but he alone may not be enough for the Rockies, especially when you don’t know how he’ll perform at Coors Field (Oh has pitched six scoreless innings for the Rockies since his acquisition). The Diamondbacks got Eduardo Escobar and two solid bullpen arms at the deadline. The Dodgers picked up Brian Dozier and one of the game’s best players in Manny Machado. Comparatively, Colorado got a rock. Pun completely intended.
The Rockies went into this season trying to prove that last year’s Wild Card berth wasn’t a one-off. The jury is still out on that, but Colorado is only two games back on August 7 with 50 games left in the season. That’s a lot of time left for things to go haywire, but it’s also a lot of time for the team to make up a minuscule deficit in their division.
With 17 games left against teams ahead of them in the race, the Rockies will have every chance to compete for a division title. Their underlying numbers suggest that they’re lucky to still be in the race, though.
The Warriors’ basketball monolith may have just gotten a lot more frightening.
Golden State’s latest may-God-have-mercy-on-your-soul maneuver is to add DeMarcus Cousins to a roster that already features four of the top 25 players in the world today. Cousins signed with the Warriors for the $5.3 million Mid-Level Exception, which is significantly less than what he is worth. The Warriors are a team that could legitimately give the Eastern Conference All-Stars a fight, and Cousins’ arrival has led many to rightfully decry the competitive balance issues a move like this presents while also giving people another excuse to vent about how the Warriors are too good.
But while hating the Warriors is one of America’s favorite sports, there is a fundamental problem with the argument that they are the ones ruining the NBA.
For starters, let’s remember how Golden State’s unbeatable monster was formed. In 2015, the Players’ Union rejected a proposal that would have smoothed the salary cap over a number of years. The cap was set to increase from $70 million to $94 million before the 2016-17 season (due to the league’s TV rights deal with ESPN/ABC), and the NBA wanted to spread out this hike over a number of years. The Players’ Union could not have been less interested in this, because it would have prevented that year’s free agents from getting massive pay raises. The unintended consequence of it, however, was that it gave the Warriors, who were coming off a 73-win season, the additional cap room necessary to snag Durant and not have to give up any of their key players. The NBA’s worst nightmare played out in real life.
This is a classic example of needing to hate the game over the player. The other problem we’re dealing with here is that, in this scenario, other teams inadvertently helped Golden State sign yet another one of the best players our world has to offer.
Cousins suffered an Achilles injury in January of last year and will miss part of this season because of it. Because he was hurt, though, his value to teams is dramatically lower than it would have been otherwise. With that thought, several teams that would not have been able to afford Cousins could try to sign him for less than what he would have been worth. Of course, this didn’t happen, and according to the New York Times’ Marc Stein, one of the teams that passed on Cousins will catch your eye, particularly when you see what his services would have cost:
Word also reached us Monday night that LeBron’s Lakers, after signing Rajon Rondo away from New Orleans and then losing Randle to the Pelicans, had an opportunity to sign Cousins at a one-year price point similar to the one that landed him in Golden State. But I’m told the Lakers passed, clearing the way for the Warriors to infuriate the basketball public yet again.
Whoops.
There are 29 teams in the NBA who could have had DeMarcus Cousins for less than half of what he’s really worth. There is no explanation, then, as to why Cousins got zero offers in the opening hours of free agency. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to be mad that the Warriors signed Cousins and, if he’s healthy, will be better than they were the past two seasons.
But if you’re just mad at Golden State for picking him up when no else wanted to, you’re misplacing your anger.
The NBA Draft featured some surprises this year. Luka Doncic was traded from the Hawks to the Mavericks for Trae Young, the Knicks took Kentucky’s Kevin Knox with the 9th pick, and Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr. fell to the Nuggets with the 14th pick. But, as always, there were winners and losers from Thursday night. Let’s tell some of their stories.
Winner: Phoenix Suns
The Suns are a pretty obvious choice here. They took DeAndre Ayton, the best player in this draft and an uber-talented 7’1″ big man who can play like a guard, with the first pick in the draft. Without doing anything else, the Suns would have had a good night. Instead, they decided to do more when they traded their 16th pick, Zhaire Smith, to Philadelphia in exchange for Mikal Bridges, the 76ers’ 10th pick.
Granted, while Bridges has several areas of his game to clean up, he is a versatile player who can shoot and defend. He’ll find a role with the Suns while Ayton is tasked with becoming one of the faces of a franchise that has won 68 games in the past three seasons. It remains to be seen what a young core of Devin Booker, T.J. Warren, Bridges, Josh Jackson, and Ayton can accomplish together, but the Suns can use anything they can get at this point.
While their general manager, Ryan McDonough, has an up-and-down draft record (he took Dragan Bender the year after drafting Devin Booker), the Suns should be very happy with what they did on Thursday. Now comes the part that has been much easier said than done in Phoenix: winning.
Loser: Michael Porter, Jr.
Before the 2017-18 college basketball season, Michael Porter, Jr. was widely considered the top prospect in this year’s draft. He had the size and athleticism to play in the NBA, as well as tangible skills that he would get to show off in his one year at Missouri… or so we all thought.
Porter was sidelined for much of the season with a back injury and even though he came back for the team’s conference and NCAA tournament games, he was clearly not at full strength, as he shot just 9-29 in those two games. He was bypassed on draft boards by other healthy college players, like Ayton, Marvin Bagley III, Trae Young, and others. Despite these concerns, though, there are not many current concerns with Porter’s health.
So why would this combination of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant still be on the board for the Nuggets with the 14th pick? The answer is simple: teams are worried about his potential back problems, both now and down the road, and don’t want to deal with that. Of course, the things that had people excited about Porter in the first place are still there, but it’s fair to ask questions about how his back will affect his overall health moving forward. After all, there’s a reason why someone who is this talented would fall all the way to the end of the lottery, and it has nothing to do with him putting his own name in the same conversation with two of the league’s ten best players.
Winner: Orlando Magic
This may come as a surprise because you probably haven’t seen “Orlando Magic” and “winner” in the same sentence since 2009.
The Magic didn’t do anything particularly special on Thursday; there were no trades up or down the board and they didn’t reach when they made the 6th pick. However, they did something they haven’t been very good at recently: take the best player available with their selection.
That person happened to be Texas’ Mo Bamba.
As you’ve heard from about 732 different outlets, Bamba has a 7’10” wingspan, which is relevant because it’s longer than those of Rudy Gobert (7’9″) and Anthony Davis (7’5″). Let’s remember that Orlando’s GM is former Bucks general manager John Hammond, who drafted some incredibly long players in Milwaukee without the stipulation that they all fit together. That being said, Bamba may have the highest upside of anyone in this year’s draft, and even though it may not seem like a lot, Orlando should be happy that they took someone like him with their first-round pick.
Loser: Washington Wizards
What, exactly, were the Wizards doing the other night?
Washington is a team that, without a word alive, can be competitive with anyone in the Eastern Conference at any time. They’ve had many a near-miss in the playoffs the past few seasons, and they always seem to be one of those teams that can never quite live up to the talent they have on the roster. It would seem, then, that they would need to take a game-changer with the 15th pick, or at the very least, someone who is ready to contribute to the roster right away. Zhaire Smith, Donte DiVincenzo, Lonnie Walker, or Grayson Allen all could have fit this bill.
Instead, Washington took Oregon freshman Troy Brown.
Granted, Brown could be a very good player down the line. But the Wizards are trying to build for right now (we think) and probably should’ve taken someone who would have been more impactful this season. It’s not just me saying this, either; Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld has been reluctant to declare that Brown can crack the rotation. Part of that has to do with a Washington roster that will bring back ten of its players, but a significant portion of that has to do with Brown himself.
Nobody knows where the Wizards are going. The Wizards may not know, either.
Winner: Adrian Wojnarowski
Let’s be real; you just came here for the Woj Bombs.
Wojnarowski is ESPN’s best NBA insider; think of him as the sport’s Adam Schefter. One of his recent specialties has been tipping picks on draft night before commissioner Adam Silver announces them live on ESPN. In a surprise to no one, the NBA didn’t exactly love reporters like Wojnarowski revealing these picks before their official broadcast could. So, as a result of a direct appeal from the NBA, the four-letter network announced that its insiders (mainly Wojnarowski, who was lured to ESPN from Yahoo last summer) would not be tipping picks this year. This was an edict that caused some controversy.
It was also one that our guy Woj raised a defiant middle finger to:
Source: Cleveland prefers Collin Sexton with the No. 8 pick.
Woj is the best reporter in the NBA, and there’s a reason he’s so popular. Wouldn’t you like to go to work, have your boss tell you not to do something, find catchy euphemisms for the thing you’re not supposed to be doing, and get away with said thing?
We all would love to do that, but there’s a reason we can’t all be Woj.
Ever since Kevin Durant joined the Warriors in the Summer of 2016, the team has had enough talent to toy with the NBA whenever it wants. This year has been slightly different, though; the Rockets pushed Golden State to the wall in the Western Conference Finals and very well might have eliminated them if they had a healthy Chris Paul. The Cavaliers pushed the Warriors to overtime in Game 1 of this year’s Finals behind 51 points from LeBron James. But besides these two examples, the Warriors can knock out their opponents and pick the round, too.
Last night, they decided to knock out the Cavs.
Behind 33 points and nine three-pointers from Steph Curry, 26 points on 10-14 shooting from Kevin Durant, and 20 more points from a hobbled Klay Thompson, the Warriors crushed the Cavaliers 122-103 in a game where Cleveland was only down by five before Curry and company took it over. Last night, we saw the closest thing to last year’s Warriors dominance that we have seen since, well, last year’s Warriors. Even though it appears as if Golden State lacks motivation at certain points in games, they are still far more talented than any other team in the NBA and when they put it all together, the rest of the league gets put on notice.
That’s what happened last night. Keep in mind that the Warriors are doing this without Andre Iguodala, who is recovering from a bone bruise in his knee and has not played since Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. While Iguodala may not necessarily seem like one of the most important figures in the Warriors’ dynasty, he absolutely is, and their occasionally absent-minded play without him should be proof of that. He one of the few people on Earth willing and able to consistently defend LeBron James, and if he returns in this series (which he might), the Warriors have a better chance of containing LeBron.
Until then, however, it will likely be either JaVale McGee or Kevon Looney occupying the final starting spot for the Warriors. Both men are capable bigs, but neither has the ability to guard James or space the floor on the offensive end. The Warriors, after starting Looney for the five previous games, decided to go with McGee in the starting lineup last night, and even though he had a +/- of 0, the move seemed to pay dividends; McGee had 12 points and most of his action came under the basket when the Cavaliers’ defenders were more preoccupied with Golden State’s three-point shooters. Whether you take McGee seriously or not, he is a live body who can cause havoc on the glass and makes the most of his opportunities in close. That’s all the Warriors need him to do until Iguodala returns from injury.
And think about the luxuries that Steve Kerr has with a team this versatile and talented. On the other side, Cavs coach Ty Lue doesn’t have nearly as many good options to go to off the bench (for instance, it’s more difficult for Lue to put Kyle Korver on the floor against a Warriors lineup looking to attack any defensive mismatch the Cavs have to offer). And, instead of having a steady presence like Shaun Livingston coming off the bench, Cleveland has Jordan Clarkson, who has shot 3-13 in the first two games of the series and makes multiple ill-fated attempts to take over the Cavs’ offense when he steps on the floor.
But instead of maligning all of the matchup problems the Cavaliers have in this series, it’s more important to look at what the Warriors have done right. That can be boiled down into one player: Steph Curry.
Last night, Curry broke an NBA Finals record last night by hitting nine three-pointers; he finished with 33 points but his impact goes beyond his scoring. The psychological impact of his hot shooting, particularly at Oracle Arena, cannot be quantified. And there is something to be said for the blow an opposing team takes when they play masterful defense for 23 or more seconds, only to have Curry drain a turnaround fadeaway from five feet behind the line. When you add that to the individual talents of Durant and Klay Thompson, the Warriors offense becomes virtually unstoppable when it’s clicking.
There should be at least a slight momentum shift when the series heads back to Cleveland for Game 3. But the Cavaliers will almost certainly need to win both games at Quicken Loans Arena to have a chance in this series; even though LeBron James and the Cavaliers have come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals before, there’s a reason it’s only happened once since 1947. Even with the greatest player in the history of the league on their side, Cleveland will have a very difficult time coming back against the most talented team the league has ever seen.
That team is the Golden State Warriors. Even though they’ve had their trials and tribulations throughout the season, we always knew that they could flip the switch and play to their dominant, ruthless potential whenever they wanted to. They did that last night, mainly with the help of their two-time league MVP. Oh, by the way, they may very well get the ex-Finals MVP they have lying around back before this series ends.
The Warriors have returned. Maybe they never really left. Either way, the NBA’s sleeping giant is awake, alive, and humming on all cylinders. That usually doesn’t end well for anyone in its way.
