1)
The 1st round of the NFL draft was last night in Tennessee and, like the first Sunday in August, it is the only time of the year when every team has hope and optimism for the future has in store for their team. However, while some fans left the night with plenty of optimism, not everyone was so fortunate. Cardinals fans can celebrate Kyler Murray and the 49ers have their pass rusher in Nick Bosa. However, on the other side of the scale, Giants’ fans are frustrated with their GM, Redskins fans are confused about whether Dwayne Haskins wants to play for them, and the Raiders picked a player no one had in any of their top 10 mock drafts.
With that being said, some teams made some great selections. I love the Pats' pick of N’Keal Harry with the last pick in Round 1. He is a great, athletic, play-making receiver who can win 50/50 balls for Tom Brady downfield just like Flash Gordon and Rob Gronkowski did for him last season. Harry has all the talent to be a great receiver in the NFL, whether he can learn the Pat’s offensive system well enough and stay on the field as a result is a whole different question.
My personal favorite pick was the Vikings selection of C Garrett Bradbury from NC State. He’s a quick blocker off the ball, he can pull well, and he blocks really well on run plays specifically. The Vikings struggled to run the ball last year and Bradbury immediately helps to solve that problem. He is a guy who will be a first-year starter and could end up being one of the best overall players in the draft once his career is all said and done
So some teams made some good picks. Who made some weird picks? First up for weird picks was the Raiders. They picked Clelin Ferrell with the 4th overall pick and by every metric, this pick was a stretch. He wasn’t invited to the draft, did not have a 40 time, and in every mock draft was a late first round pick. The Raiders could have certainly waited for him since they had three first rounds picks. As a team with three first round picks you need to control the draft and dictate how the night is going to go.
You can’t reach for a DE who was available to you at any point this round. I would have taken Josh Allen there because he’s also a great outside rusher and is by all accounts a top 5 pick. With all that being said, Ferrell is from Clemson so he will probably be a good pick since everyone from Clemson is. Ferrell also addresses their DE rusher needs since they traded away Khalil Mack last season.
To stay on the topic of the Raiders, picking Josh Jacobs (RB) from Alabama is good pick for a good player but I think the Raiders should waited until the second round to take him. I thought the consensus from last season was that we should never pay running backs because they have a very replaceable position.
Now onto the Giants. The Giants shocked everyone by taking Daniel Jones with the 6th overall pick. I think this was the weirdest pick in the draft for a couple reasons. One, the Giants have other needs besides QB that they need to address. They should have grabbed a player that can help them now because we don’t know how good Daniel Jones until probably 3 to 5 years from now. Second, Jones would have been available at 17 for them. The Redskins were set on Dwayne Haskins and the Falcons have Matt Ryan to start for them. The Giants could have waited and picked a top 10 position player then pick Jones later on.
With all those criticisms on the table, I still understand why the Giants did what they did. Maybe the Giants had information that let them know Jones would be gone by 17 so they had to pick him at 6 if they wanted him.
I am of the thought that if you know which QB you want and you are convinced that you found your guy who will lead your franchise for 10 years then take them. If the Giants found all the intangibles and skills, they were looking for in Daniel Jones then maybe it takes sense to take him.
2) It’s finally time. Just like the old NBA, I like to make my announcements for NBA award winners just before the second round of the playoffs start. I like having separation from the regular season so that I am not caught up in all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the end of the regular season. I like to think about who the best player is to win each of the awards from this season. I won’t pick every award winner like Executive of the Year and Service player of the Year because I just don’t know enough about each of the possible candidates to pick one. The awards I will pick are Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, Coach of the Year, 6th Man of the Year, and Most Valuable Player. I also will include the two runners up (except for MVP – I will have a top 5) from each category with an explanation of why I pick who I picked.
Rookie of the Year
1) Luka Doncic
2) Trae Young
3) Collin Sexton
Ultimately, what made me pick Luka over Trae was all of the advanced and defensive numbers in favor of Luka. Their offensive stats were basically equal to end the year, and, while Trae was the better player from February to March, Luka was consistently the best or second-best rookie all year long. He also has a maturity and handle that is rare to see in players so young. This decision was really close for me. If the Hawks had won more games and Trae’s defensive numbers were not among the worst in NBA history, then I could have justified to myself the case to pick Trae Young as the ROY.
Collin Sexton made a strong case for himself in the post All-Star break as he averaged over 20 points per game and shot 40% from three. He was the most overlooked rookie this year and deserved more attention because he was truly great for being in such a bad situation.
Defensive Player of the Year
1) Rudy Gobert
2) Giannis Antetokounmpo
3) Paul George
This award was a two-man race for me. Ultimately, I decided on Gobert because he is the heart and soul of a fantastic Utah defense. Plus I needed to give Gobert and award because Giannis in contention for another big won that he has a great chance of winning.
Most Improved Player
1) Pascal Siakam
2) D’Angelo Russell
3) De’Aaron Fox
This race was really close for a while and I even had Russell in the lead for a while (since I picked him before the season began) but Siakam is just so good on defense and he is doing basically 80% of what Kawhi Leonard does for the Raptors. For a while when D’Angelo was not getting as many minutes, I thought about making the case for D’Lo to win because he is doing more with less minutes. However, to end the year they are both at about 31 minutes per game. They are both shooting the same percentage from 3 (36%) and Siakam separates himself on offensive with his ability to get to the rim where he is shooting 72% and 60% from 2 in general. Russell didn’t get to the line as much as I would have liked this season and only shoot 48% from 2-point range.
De’Aaron Fox made great strides this year both in terms of shooting and offensive IQ but it was a really tough year for awards so that is why he is third.
Coach of the Year
1) Doc Rivers
2) Coach Bud
3) Nate McMillan
Basically my criteria for this award is “how successful are you with the talent you had and the adversity you faced?” Doc Rivers was the ultimate candidate to win the award because of this. He had a below average team to start the year and was the 8th seed for most of the year. He then lost his star player in a trade and the team got even better. Rivers was the one who decided to give Lou Williams the keys on offense and he has gotten the most out of SGA. Rivers historically is not a coach who plays younger talent so the fact that he trusted SGA to play big minutes shows his development as a coach and his ability to recognize talent. Because of those main reasons, I voted Doc COY.
Coach Bud took a team that got the 8th seed last year and made them far and away the best offensive team in the league. They took full advantage of Gianni’s talent, created an incredibly efficient offense, and coached a team who consistently beat the doors of their competition. The Bucks were 4th in offensive rating and 1st in defensive rating while finishing the season with a net 8.9 plus/minus which was far and away the best in the league. Bud doesn’t necessarily fit into my criteria, but he was so successful this year as a coach that I couldn’t ignore what he was doing with this team.
Nate McMillan has a strong case because of his ability to keep the Pacers competitive after they lost Oladipo for the season. However, once you look at their schedule to end the year it was not that strong, so their wins aren’t as significant as the ones the Clippers were putting up to end the season. The Pacers finished the year with the 4th easiest schedule on the year according to Powerrankingsguru and the Clippers had the 12th hardest.
6th Man of the Year
1) Sweet Lou
2) Montrezl Harrell
3) Andre Igoudala
Lou Williams is by far and away the winner in this category. He set the record for most points off the bench in an NBA career and he mastered the pick n’ roll with Harrell this year which is why Montrezl is second. The NBA just needs to go ahead and name the award for 6th Man of the Year after Lou Williams. Or better yet, just have Lou Williams play Jamal Crawford one-on-one to 21 for the title.
MVP
1) Giannis Antetokounmpo
2) James Harden
3) Nikola Jokic
4) Damian Lillard
5) Paul George
This was the hardest I have ever had to think about the MVP award. When I pick MVP, I go for the best all-around player on one of the best teams in the league. I believe that if you are an MVP candidate then you should be putting your team in contention to win a title while on your MVP campaign. The bottom three on this list are because I felt the need to fill out a top 5 for an MVP award like the NBA does.
Jokic led his team to the second-best record in the west while his team fought off dozens of injuries all year. He deserves to be a candidate.
Damian Lillard averaged almost 26 points per game, led his team in 53 wins, and is the model point guard. He rallied his team after a disastrous collapse last year and kept them steady all year as they secured the 3rd seed in the west.
Paul George (before his apparent injury to start April) was the best two-way player in the west almost the entire year. Unfortunately, his shooting and his defense tailed off the end the year and so did his teams record. He’s still a top-5 candidate but he’s not in the same stratosphere as Giannis and Harden.
James Harden is the reason why the NBA needs an Offensive Player of the Year award. What did James did on offense this year was unreal. He put up historic numbers almost nightly. He had a 30-point streak that is the second longest in NBA history. During that streak he averaged 40 points per game while still dishing out seven assists. He actually had an even better year than his did last year during his MVP season. He also single-handedly saved his team from becoming a lottery team by going on an absurd scoring stretch in December. He also revolutionized how teams defend him. Teams when they guard him don’t shade him anymore. They just stand one his left side and hope that their help defense can force him to take a floater. He’s also the best one on one player in the league and made the step back 3 look easy.
However, despite all that, I still picked Giannis over him for a couple big reasons.
From day one of the NBA season, Giannis was the best player in the league for the best team. He averaged 27, 12, and 6 while leading the Bucks to the best league in the NBA. His offensive numbers are just insane as well. He is 3rd in field goals made, 1st in 2-point field goals, 3rd in free throws made, top 10 in rebounds, top 15 in blocks, top 11 in field goal percentage (4th in 2-point field goals), 8th in true shooting percentage, and top 20 in offensive rating. On defense he is a DPOY candidate, second in defensive rating (99.4), third in defensive win shares (5.5) and 3rd in offensive win shares (8.9). Stats don’t do enough justice for Giannis though. His ability to dunk on anyone at anytime is something I haven’t seen since Shaq was on the Lakers. In fact, Giannis is basically just Shaq with a handle. He swats away any attempt at a layup near the rim and can create on offense for his teammates. Because of this, Giannis is my MVP.
3) T-Swift 4.26 hype reactions!
Taylor Swift has been hyping something on her Instagram for about half a month now. Fans have been hypothesizing and theorizing what all her posts meant. Would it be a new album? A new song? I personally thought it would be an album cover because all of the photos looked like they could fit together to be a single photo. Late last night we found out what it was; it’s a new music video and song called “Me” featuring Brendon Urie (from Panic! at the Disco).
Overall the song was very catchy, and I am always a fan of any song Brendon Urie is in, so she is hitting my demographic by releasing this song. I was a big fan of both her and Brendon speaking French to begin the video because it made me feel like I was watching a French soap-opera. Also I was impressed they spoke French at all! I’m sure they probably just memorized French lines, but I like to think they actually both speak French and knew everything they were saying. Throughout the video Brendon Urie killed it. He was good in every part he sang and the whole song itself had a very Panic! vibe and sound to it which made him a perfect fit for the song (the horns in the song were a big plus as well). The song is very catchy and, even if you didn’t like it, you need to prepare to hear this song every day for the next three months because every radio station is going to play it. Stations have been obsessed with Panic! over the past couple months and adding T-Swift to the equation will only add more fuel to the Panic! fire.
The only part I thought was kind of weird was the part where Taylor said, “spelling is fun kids!” and they proceeded to spell awesome and me like they were on Sesame Street or another children’s show.
I personally haven't decided to figure out what the song is about yet. I figure I have plenty of time to figure it out as this song is beaten into our subconscious forever and ever until we never hear anything else but this song again.
Also the scene where T-Swift goes outside for the first team had a striking similarity to another great musical scene in the streets of Hollywood.
Here's the full video of the Goldmember intro so you can see for yourself. Also the opening to just phenomenal in general so I'd watch it even if the similarities weren't apparent.
This was a packed week but I felt like I needed to make up for missing last week. Hope you enjoyed!