FOOTBALL

All sporting events this weekend were overshadowed by President Trump’s comments Friday night in Alabama where he criticized any player who kneels for the National Anthem. He said he wants fans to boycott and owners to respond by saying, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired!” Trump’s comments caused an eruption this weekend, with many NFL players linking arms, kneeling or sitting during the anthem. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks went even further by choosing not to even take the field during the anthem. It wasn’t just NFL either, a high school football team in Seattle took a knee and singer Stevie Wonder sank to two knees at a music festival in New York.  And, in a first in baseball, Bruce Maxwell, the Oakland A’s catcher took a knee.

Many fans expressed their disappointment in how the players are expressing their anger. One fan, Derek Zumbahlem, told CNN, “(It’s a) show of disrespect, not only for those who have fought and died for our country but for those serving,”

Trump didn’t just upset the football world, he took on one of the most popular basketball players in the world right now, Steph Curry. In response to Curry’s deliberations on whether or not to attend a White House ceremony celebrating their championship win, Trump rescinded the invite and caused a firestorm of players to respond including LeBron James who said, “U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!”

In other NFL news, one particular game talked about this weekend was the controversial “unsportsmanlike” call against Denver Broncos’ Von Miller. With 8 minutes left to play, Von Miller playfully taunted his friend Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor on a big defensive play. Both players were laughing, but the official called a very costly “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty on Von Miller costing the Broncos the game. Bills 26, Broncos 16.

For wrap-ups on all games, click here.

BASEKBALL

Dwayne Wade is on his way out of Chicago after the Bulls bought him out of his contract. Wade and LeBron are buddies, so many think the Cleveland Cavaliers are favorites to pick him up.

After months of speculation, Carmelo Anthony is finally leaving the NY Knicks and heading to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

BASKETBALL

After some very heated and public disputes the New York Knicks and team President Phil Jackson decided to part ways. Much of the friction between Jackson and team owner, James Dolan, had to do with whether or not the team would buy-out Carmelo Anthony’s remaining 2 year $54 million contract and whether they would trade their star Kristaps Porzingis. The team was clearly in disarray, so Jackson leaving could be a good thing to get the Knicks back on track.

Free agency begins on July 1st and rumors are flying. One of the biggest targets seems to be the Warriors Andre Iguodala. According to ESPN’s Chris Hayes, there are at  least 7  teams interested in him.

“Andre Iguodala has become the foremost target in an attempt to weaken the Golden State Warriors’ chokehold on the NBA, league sources have told ESPN. The Minnesota Timberwolves, San Antonio Spurs, LA Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets and Utah Jazz are among the teams interested in the 2015 NBA Finals MVP. It is not yet known if Iguodala will take meetings.”

BASKETBALL

The NBA regular season ended Wednesday night the and the playoff seeds are set. The Boston Celtics secured the #1 seed while the Cleveland Cavaliers fell to the #2 seed in the East. The Golden State Warriors had the #1 seed wrapped up in the West for awhile now with the San Antonia Spurs grabbing the #2 seed. The post-season begins this weekend. For more on the matchups, click here.

Now that the New York Knicks season is over, rumors continue to fly on whether the organization will trade Carmelo Anthony. Anthony has two years left on his $124 million 5 year contract. Carmelo will meet with coach Phil Jackson to discuss options, but admitted it was “hard to trust” Jackson because he was openly critical of him this season. He said, “If somebody was talking bad about you indirectly at your job, what would you do? You would feel a certain way. You would want that person to come straightforward with you.”

FOOTBALL

Everyone knows of the United Airlines fiasco this past week, but Marshawn Lynch had his own airport pr disaster when he slapped a phone out of a teenagers hand trying to get an autograph from him. To make matters even worse, he walked back to the teenagers and spit at them. For a guy trying to end his retirement and get hired by a new team (the Oakland Raiders), disrespecting fans is not exactly the best way to ingratiate yourself to management.

BASEBALL

Jeffrey Loria, the current owner of the Miami Marlins, looks like he’ll be nominated as the next US Ambassador to France. Loria is interested in selling the team,  and one of the rumored buyers was the Kushner family. According to reports, the Kushners have now bowed out expressing a conflict of interest (Jared Kushner is married to Ivanka and is the Senior advisor to Trump).

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NBA Commish Adam Silver tried to mediate and put an end to the Charles Oakley vs James Dolan feud, but the Warriors Draymond Green brought the topic front and center again. Green, on his podcast, called Dolan’s treatment of Oakley a “slave master mentality”. He said, “It was all fine and dandy when he was laying people out, taking fines, and all this stuff for your organization.But now all of a sudden, when he say something that he feels, it’s a problem. I disagree with that. I definitely think, like I said, that that’s a slave master mentality.”

Carmelo Anthony will play in his 10th All Star Game on Sunday. He was offered the injured Kevin Love’s spot in the Eastern Conference. The ironic part of this swap is that there has been talk the last few weeks of a Anthony/Love trade before the NBA trade deadline. The All-Star swap, however, was not exactly the big trade people were talking about.

TENNIS

It will be a Williams Sister Final in the Australian Open. Serena and Venus Williams will play each other in the final on Saturday. This will be Venus’ first grand slam final since 2009 and their ninth playing each other in a Grand Slam. Serena has the edge with 6 wins to 2. If Serena wins on Saturday she’ll regain her #1 ranking. For Venus, a win would be a testament to her hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity. Since 2011 Venus has been battling an auto-immune disease called Sjogren’s which causes fatigue and join pain.  Venus fought back and didn’t let the disease define her. As Serena stated, “After everything Venus has been through with her illness and everything, it’s a win-win situation”. Venus went on to say it best, “This is a golden time, a golden time. I couldn’t ask for anything more.” If you’re up, you can watch in real time 3:30 am ET Saturday morning.

BASKETBALL

Even though the Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony has a no-trade clause in his contract, it’s been reported the team has approached the Cleveland Cavaliers to waive the clause and trade him to for the Cavs Kevin Love. Carmelo and LeBron are friends and have communicated how much they’d like to play together. LeBron also hasn’t been shy about complaining his team needs another star player, but the Cavs aren’t letting on to what their plans are prior to the February 23rd trade deadline.

BASKETBALL

In the NBA, the New York Knicks are the worst performing team in the league.  They have a number of young players who all think they will be traded or cut, and thus seem to be playing with no team chemistry.  Of course they will get a good draft pick, but it’s not exactly fun when they have a superstar like Carmelo Anthony on their team who wants to win.  Because of this, many are speculating that Carmelo will be “shutting it down” for this season.  He doesn’t want to risk injury and would prefer to preserve his health to play on a better Knicks’ team next year or any contender in general.  Sad news for Knicks fan to watch your team give up by “shutting down” your star.

And in college basketball, there is a proposition floating around to officially change the shot clock from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.  This would make the game slightly more challenging both for the players and the coaches, but considering that practically every league in the world uses a 24 second shot clock, yet college basketball still has an additional 11 seconds doesn’t exactly make much sense.  One would have to assume that even if they do reduce the shot clock to 30 seconds, a 24-second change isn’t that far behind.

FOOTBALL

Finally, in a controversial  story out of college football, star senior Vernon Adams is transferring from the small school Eastern Washington to Oregon next season.  This does happen from time to time, but Eastern Washington’s coach Beau Baldwin has an issue with the transfer.  He says that Adams shouldn’t even be allowed to work out in the Eastern Washington gym.  The coach now considers Adams a competitor, as Eastern Washington will actually be playing Oregon in the opening game of the season.  And it looks like Baldwin will get his way, and Adams will be barred from all athletic facilities at Eastern Washington.

BASKETBALL

In the NBA, everybody knows that the Cleveland Cavaliers have been struggling lately, but on Monday it looked like they were back in decent form.  They took on a Chicago Bulls’ team that is having their own woes, and the Cavs played like a solid unit.  They got Kevin Love more into the mix, and their new big man addition, Timofey Mozgov, gave them some solid rebounding.  The Cavs easily topped the Bulls, and look to be getting back on track.  Cleveland 108, Chicago 94.

Elsewhere in the NBA, the Knicks have been arguably the worst team in the NBA this season, but on Monday they showed marked improvement and did their best to try and grab the home win against the New Orleans Pelicans.  The Pelicans were without their star big man Anthony Davis, and the Knicks took advantage.  The game came down to the wire, but an unselfish Carmelo Anthony hit Jose Calderon in the corner for the game winning three-pointer.  This was a great win for the Knicks in front of their fans in a packed Madison Square Garden.  NY Knicks 99, New Orleans 92.

FOOTBALL

Finally, the NFL is investigating the Patriots for something very strange.  It’s being reported that the Pats MAY HAVE, emphasis on MAY because this sounds pretty ridiculous, used slightly less-inflated balls.  It’s hard to know why they would do this or how it would adversely affect the Colts, but the Colts are sounding some alarms.  All the Pats players have been laughing this off in media interviews, but if the NFL finds out this was true, then the Pats could lose draft picks.  The Pats highly covet their draft picks and this would be a huge blow for them.  We shall see shortly what the NFL discovers.

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In the NBA, the New York Knicks are having a pretty awful season and it’s being reported that the organization is in total chaos.  Apparently, the players are yelling at each other after games, they all hate Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, and they think that Carmelo Anthony is a ball hog. It seems a lot of the fury is between Tim Hardaway Jr. and Carmelo Anthony.  This team is in disarray and will likely need to send some guys out of town if they want to rebuild.

FOOTBALL

Speaking of teams in disarray, we also have the Washington Redskins.  Their once lionized franchise quarterback, Robert Griffin III, is likely going to be shipped out of town after the season, and now players are getting into fights after practice.  On Wednesday, wide receiver Andre Roberts threw punches at cornerback teammate Bashaud Breeland.  This was all captured on camera, and made the national media, which is not good for team chemistry.  It will be interesting to see how they try to mend the fence.

Finally, in some shocking college football news, Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen is leaving the school after 2 years to take the head coaching vacancy at Oregon State.  Wisconsin is a larger program than Oregon State, which seems like a step down, so you have to conclude that there was something unsettling for Andersen behind the scenes to leave.  One potential reason was the academic standards of Wisconsin, as Andersen couldn’t target high quality junior college players because they had poor grades.  It seems as if this move will enhance the rivalry between Oregon and a newly re-vamped Oregon State.

SOCCER

In the World Cup, it was finally time for the nation to watch the USA in action again.  Everyone was pumped up after USA’s win over Ghana, that just about every sports bar in the country was packed to the brim with new soccer fans.  But Portugal boasts the world’s best player in Cristiano Ronaldo.  Would the US have an answer for him?  Well, Portugal got on the board early on account of a US defensive breakdown.  And they kept that 1-0 lead into the half.  

But early in the 2nd half, Jermaine Jones booted a beautiful hook shot from far out to tie the game at 1-1. Then, with the momentum, the US got another beautiful scoring attempt, that saw Clint Dempsey get one into the goal.  All they had to do was just hold the lead for 15 more minutes.  And it looked like they would.  Unfortunately, you can’t let the best player in the world, Ronaldo, be completely wide open.  Ronaldo kicked a gorgeous pass to a teammate, who knocked it in for the tie with just 20 SECONDS TO GO!!!  A heartbreaking tie for the US.  A tie is still a massive accomplishment against a strong team like Portugal, and the US are still in contention.  Although they need a win or tie against Germany to get to the knockout round.  USA 2, Portugal 2.

BASKETBALL

And in the NBA, this next week will answer a lot of questions on which stars will opt to sign with their current team or opt for free agency.  LeBron and D-Wade have to do it by June 30th, but on Sunday another superstar, Carmelo Anthony, has opted out of his contract with the Knicks.  He definitely wants to take a shot at a championship.  Likely suitors are the Lakers, Rockets, and Bulls.  We will see where he winds up.

Finally, with the NBA Draft this Thursday, some sad news for a Baylor prospect.  Isaiah Austin was projected to be a late first round pick.  A strong, muscular big man who could be a solid role player.  He already had vision problems, but after his physical, it turned out he was diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome, a serious heart condition.  Doctors said that he could no longer play competitive basketball.  This is tragic for a player who worked hard in college and just wanted to hear his name called at the draft.  Hopefully they mention his name in an honorary fashion at the draft. 

FOOTBALL

In the NFL, it looks like absolutely nobody is above the law.  Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was arrested on a DUI charge, and now faces 4 felony counts, including the possession of a controlled substance.  We’re used to seeing this kind of thing from a wayward player here and there, but not a team owner.  These people have an image to uphold.  So how will the NFL punish Irsay?  Likely a lengthy suspension — although it’s hard to understand how that applies to a team owner.

Elsewhere in the NFL, the Cowboys are sticking with quarterback Tony Romo this year as their guy.  They have decided, however, to get him a new back-up QB.  They have opted to give former Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden another chance.  Weeden basically floundered in Cleveland, however, was a superstar while playing at nearby Oklahoma State just a few years ago.  Perhaps he still has the talent to succeed, and maybe the fault was that of the Browns coaching staff.  This might just be a steal  by the Cowboys, taking a QB that everyone else has given up on.

BASKETBALL

Finally, in the small, quiet lull before the NCAA Tournament storm, all eyes are on the latest movie in the NBA from the New York Knicks.  The Knicks haven’t performed well this season, and appear to be a franchise falling apart. They are in danger of losing their only superstar, Carmelo Anthony,  and possibly facing a multi-year rebuilding project.  There is man who can cure those woes:  Phil Jackson, The Zen Master.  The Knicks and Jackson agreed to terms Monday that Jackson would be the new team president.  He used to play for the Knicks and has a penchant for winning.  He will turn the culture around in New York, and Carmelo’s attitude will most likely improve at lightning speed.