Chet Holmgren broke his foot. Well, he has what’s been announced as a Lisfranc injury. Whether it’s a break or not, the second overall pick in this summer’s draft is out for the entirety of his first professional season after rolling his ankle defending LeBron James in a Seattle pro-am that was eventually shut down due to a slippery court. Bad news for the Thunder, who drafted him (unless he comes back 100% and this helps their lottery position in next summer’s draft, in which case this is great for the Thunder).
There are two sides to the pro-am debate within this: The first is that basketball players roll their ankles all the time, that this could have happened anywhere, and that basketball players need to play basketball in the offseason to stay sharp. The second is that the court was slippery, and that allowing players to play these informal games on potentially slippery courts is risky for teams. Meanwhile, the NBA is exploring an in-season tournament because they’re concerned about how boring their regular season is but they get too much revenue from their bloated playoff structure to ever consider trimming the fat.
The solution is fairly obvious.
You don’t need a formal offseason tournament with any sort of meaningful prize. In fact, you probably don’t want that. What you want is exactly what was going on in Seattle, minus the slippery court: You want intriguing matchups of compilation teams in local venues with low stakes. Something that draws a crowd, something that generates interest, something that’s fun. And if you’re the NBA, you want to do this yourself, so that the revenue flows through you. If players want to stay sharp, and if teams want players to stay sharp, but everyone wants to avoid having that happen in a way that jeopardizes player health, why not create a little offseason tour?
There are probably obstacles I’m not seeing, but the fact that professional basketball players are playing in these pro-am’s in the first place demonstrates the market space for this kind of thing. If the market demands it, the market’s going to get it. And it won’t fix the regular season (that’s a bigger problem), but it might be a positive outlet for basketball’s addiction to gimmicks.
Pat Beverley: Laker
The Jazz traded Pat Beverley to the Lakers last night for a package highlighted by Talen Horton-Tucker (go ‘Clones), giving Los Angeles a short-term upgrade in the backcourt while helping Utah start its rebuild. Beverley and Russell Westbrook have a memorable ongoing feud, but while this could be seen as pointing to a Westbrook trade, by giving the Lakers more depth at the point, it seemed pretty clear a few weeks ago that nobody wants Westbrook, who isn’t purely in a salary dump situation but definitely isn’t desirable. This gives the Lakers better leverage, but leverage is only worthwhile if you have an asset your negotiation partner wants. Overall, a weird situation just got a little more spicy.
The Guardians: Better than the Padres
With the culmination of the two-game sweep yesterday, Cleveland officially has a better win percentage than San Diego entering play today, and while the Padres were only projected to win 90 games by FanGraphs to enter the year (good, not world-beating), the Guardians were projected to win 77 and were given less than a one-in-six chance of making even this year’s twelve-team playoff field.
What happened? A very simple way to look at it is to observe that the Padres have gotten 0.0 WAR out of Fernando Tatís Jr. while the Guardians have gotten 4.6 fWAR out of Andrés Giménez. That isn’t the whole story, but it’s indicative of the whole story, which is pretty simple: The Guardians’ young talent has performed well, the Padres haven’t gotten the contributions they expected from their stars, even with Manny Machado holding a realistic path to winning the NL MVP.
Around the game:
AL Central
The White Sox beat the Orioles, and the Twins lost again to the Astros, and that creates an effective tie for second in the division, with the pair now each four games back of Cleveland, four games back of Seattle for the last playoff spot, and one and a half back of Baltimore in between there.
AL Wild Card
In the Wild Card race, Toronto and Tampa Bay each won in extra innings, the Blue Jays getting a scoreless frame from Jordan Romero in the tenth and the Rays getting a key double from Harold Ramírez in the eleventh. With the Mariners disappointing against the Nationals (after tying the game on a Julio Rodríguez home run in the eighth, Seattle lost on an Ildemaro Vargas a two-run dinger in the ninth), Tampa Bay now leads Toronto by a win and Seattle by a game and a half in the race for Wild Card Series home field advantage. The Rays and Jays remain seven losses back of the Yankees in the East.
Speaking of the Yankees: Nestor Cortes is going on the injured list with what’s reported to be a groin injury. This leaves the Yankees’ rotation as follows: Gerrit Cole, Frankie Montas, Jameson Taillon, Domingo Germán…? It’s unclear who comes after Germán here. Thin crew, and definitely some great arms there but nobody in the top twenty in FIP among pitchers with one hundred or more innings, which is not what you want in a rotation. It’d be one thing if Cole was his 2018-2021 self right now, but he’s not, and it’d be one thing if the Yankees hadn’t traded Jordan Montgomery for what’s essentially an investment in the future outfield, but they did. Maybe they really believe in Clarke Schmidt? Or maybe they thought they had the division wrapped up and could afford bullpen days should a starter get hurt. Either way, here they are.
NL East
Atlanta walloped the Pirates, pulling within one and a half games of the Mets. Washington is calling up top prospect Cade Cavalli to make his MLB debut tomorrow.
NL Wild Card
The Phillies took advantage of the Padres’ loss, beating the Reds to stretch their lead on the 5-seed to two games, with Bryce Harper expected to return to the lineup tomorrow. The Giants did not take advantage, losing to the Tigers. They, the Red Sox, and the Orioles are all now less than 1-in-25 likely to make the playoffs, per FanGraphs.
NL Central
The Dodgers blasted the Brewers (who got Adrian Houser back, only to see him be the guy who got blasted), but the Cubs beat the Cardinals 7-1 to keep that gap at five in the loss column. It was the Cardinals’ first time losing on consecutive days since July 13th and 14th, against the Dodgers. They still have yet to lose two straight since those games.
The Cubs
Other Cubs bits, in addition to the win:
- Willson Contreras still isn’t back to full strength after hurting his ankle in the Field of Dreams game. Wonder if we’ll see an IL stint for him or not. Nice to have two other capable catchers.
- Kyle Hendricks, as expected, was placed on the 60-day IL ahead of last night’s game, opening up a 40-man spot for Luke Farrell, who hung in there over four and a third, striking out three, walking none, and giving up just one home run. Anderson Espinoza was sent down in one corresponding move, and Steven Brault went on the IL with a shoulder strain in another, with Kervin Castro coming right back up after his demotion earlier this week.
Is Kurt Busch Ok?
NASCAR didn’t have to make any hard decision. Kurt Busch declined the playoff spot.
For those not following this situation, Kurt Busch earned one of NASCAR’s playoff spots but suffered a concussion and has been unable to race for more than a month now. First, the question was whether he’d be back in time for the playoffs. Then, the question became what would happen if we wasn’t in back. We’ve gotten our answer to both, and it’s that he’ll let someone else earn that spot, meaning two playoff places are available on Saturday night at Daytona rather than just one. At least one will go to the highest non-winner in the standings, either Ryan Blaney or Martin Truex Jr., and the other will either go to the race winner or, if the race winner is one of Blaney/Truex or a repeat winner, the other of Blaney/Truex.
With this settled, it’s a little easier to turn to the more important thing here, which is Kurt Busch. He’s been offering insight recently about his recovery: Evidently doctors have encouraged him to go out into public, especially at loud places, so he went to a Charlotte FC game and attended the Field of Dreams Game between the Cubs and the Reds. Still, he’s not well enough to drive in a race, and with concussions always scary, these sorts of lingering symptoms are especially concerning. You hope the guy ends up ok.
Taking this back to impact on the sport: If Busch retires prematurely because of this, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. did, it makes the path more clear for 23XI and Joe Gibbs Racing, two allied teams. As it stands, 23XI has two charters but has the door open to retaining three drivers for 2024, with Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace both under contract but a guarantee out to Kurt Busch that a car will be there if he wants it, effectively saying that the team will pay whatever price necessary to buy another team’s charter at that point should Kurt Busch still want to drive. Meanwhile, JGR has Kyle Busch still unsigned for next year and Ty Gibbs dominating at the Xfinity Series. Could Kurt Busch’s 45 car go to his brother or to Gibbs in the event he doesn’t drive in ’23? With Gibbs currently driving it in Cup races, the answer appears fairly straightforward: One of Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, and Ty Gibbs will drive the 45 in 2023. If it isn’t Kurt Busch, then whichever of Kyle and Gibbs doesn’t drive it will drive the 18 for JGR. We think.
One More Preseason Game
Last preseason game for the Packers tonight, playing in Kansas City. No starters playing, again, so not a ton to watch for beyond guys near the roster cut line, who are by nature unlikely to have significant impacts. Yes, they can be impactful, yes, if you enjoy it you should watch. There just isn’t much to say about it beyond that it’s happening.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
- 2:20 PM EDT: St. Louis @ Cubs, Hudson vs. Stroman (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Toronto @ Boston, Gausman vs. Crawford (MLB TV)
- 1:10 PM EDT: Anaheim @ Tampa Bay, Sandoval vs. Rasmussen (MLB TV/ESPN+)
- 4:10 PM EDT: Cleveland @ Seattle, McKenzie vs. Gonzales (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Baltimore, Lynn vs. Lyles (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ Philadelphia, Dunn vs. Nola (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Colorado @ New York (NL), Feltner vs. deGrom (MLB TV)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Packers @ Kansas City (NFL Network)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Minnesota @ Houston, Archer vs. Garcia (MLB TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: New York (AL) @ Oakland, Taillon vs. Kaprielian (MLB TV)
