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I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more made of the Florida Panthers upsetting the Boston Bruins in the first round of the National Hockey League playoffs.

The Bruins set records for wins (65) and points (135) in a season, but ended up losing in seven games to the Panthers.

It’s possible that there wasn’t a bigger deal made about the outcome of this playoff series because this kind of thing happens in the NHL most often than in any other sport.

The Panthers were the very last team to make it into the playoffs in the Eastern conference, but they’re into the second round of the playoffs. The Panthers won their first game in their second round series last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2.

Maybe there wasn’t such a overwhelming reaction to the Bruins being eliminated because we’ve seen 8th seeded teams go all the way and win the Stanley Cup, but I thought it was a pretty big deal that a team that set records in wins and points went out in the first round of the playoffs.

What was your reaction to the Bruins being eliminated by the Panthers in the first round?

So the National Football League draft is in the books and I heard something really interesting or maybe humorous depending on how you look at it.

There are quite a few people who do multiple mock draft before the NFL draft. Now two of the best-known people who do these mock drafts are Mel Kiper and Todd McShay who both work for ESPN. They’re both well known for their reports on the draft and all of the players eligible to be draft not just the top names.

I don’t know the exact number of mock drafts that Kiper and McShay released before the draft, but they both had multiple mock drafts out there. Out of the 32 1st round draft picks Kiper got 1 right while McShay didn’t do much better hitting on just 4 of his 32 projections.

Now I’m one of those people who like to read mock drafts, but after looking at how well they actually predicted the draft I’m not going to be putting very much stock into what anyone has to say about which team will draft which player.

Are you a mock draft reader? How do you feel about two of the top guys getting so few of their picks right? Even better maybe next year we should put our own mock draft together and see how we do.

Now the ratings in the National Basketball Association have been down for a few years not only during the regular season, but for the playoffs as well. I haven’t heard any reports on how they’re doing this year ratings wise, but I’d like to know if the NBA has done anything to draw your attention to the playoffs.

Now the NBA did get a match up they wanted with the Los Angeles Lakers facing the Golden State Warriors, but I’m sure they would’ve rather had them meet up in the Western conference finals. Of course, they’ll take what they can get, and this series will get more publicity than any other conference semi-final series.

The Lakers were able to win Game 1 of the series last night 117-112, so will see if Golden State can bounce back in Game 2 on Thursday.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

There are a lot of sports on at this time of the year. There’s Major League Baseball as well as the playoffs in the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association. The National Football League just had it’s annual draft while the startup XFL is headed for it’s championship game and the other start up football league the USFL is just a few weeks into its season. There’s also sports like NASCAR as well as the PGA and LPGA tour’s going on and I’m sure there is plenty of soccer to watch as well.

That’s a lot of sports to try and watch and what I’m wondering is how do you do it? I’m sure there are sports that you prefer to watch live and I’d like to know what they are, but what about the other ones. I’ve tried recording different sports, but I always end up finding out the final score and then I don’t watch what I’ve recorded.

As for me I prefer to watch baseball live and I’ll watch as much of it as I can no matter what teams are playing. I also watch the NASCAR races live, but they’re once a week and it’s not to difficult to work those into my TV viewing schedule.

I’ve been really enjoying the NHL playoffs and that’s where I seem to run into an issue. With my work schedule I generally start right around 4:00 a.m. That’s makes it difficult to watch the end of some of the NHL playoff games and I don’t get to see the ones that are in the Western conference do to their later start times. I thought I’d just try to record them onto my DVR, but I work with someone who’s a huge hockey fan and even though he doesn’t mean to do it he ends up telling who won what game.

I’m interested to know what you’ve been interested in watching and how you go about doing it. Are you able to watch everything you enjoy live? Or do you have to try and record other events and watch them that way. Maybe you’re just not into too many sports and can get by watching just a few sports.

In the NBA playoffs there were a couple of upsets in the 1st round, but I’m not sure they were as big of a deal as they would’ve been a few years ago.

The #8 seeded Miami Heat eliminated the #1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern conference while the 7th seeded Los Angeles Lakers knocked the #2 seed Memphis Grizzlies out of the playoffs.

It is a bit of a surprise that the 58-win Bucks were knocked out of the playoffs, but once Giannis Antetokounmpo was injured the entire series changed. Don’t forget that the Heat were actually the 7th seed coming into the playoffs, but they lost the first play-in game and the best seeding they could get after that loss was the 8th seed.

With Memphis between Dillion Brooks mouth and everything going on in Ja Morant’s life it’s no surprise at all that a veteran team like the Lakers was able to beat them in a playoff series. It always seems to take a young team a few playoff series before they can advance past a veteran team for some reason.

There is still one series still going on, but that will wrap up this afternoon. The Sacramento Kings host the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of their opening round series this afternoon. The Kings won the first two game before Golden State ran off three straight wins. Sacramento won Game 6 to force this game seven and with them being at home they should be the favorite to advance in this series.

Last night the Denver Nuggets won Game 1 of their semi-final series against the Phoenix Suns 125-107. The Eastern conference series between the New York Knicks and the Heat starts this afternoon. The other Eastern conference semi-final series starts tomorrow night with the Boston Celtics hosting the Philadelphia 76ers.

As I’ve mentioned many times here, I’m not a big fan of the NBA, but I will check in on a game from time to time to get a score. I wish that the NBA would find a way to streamline the end of their games to make them more watchable, but with all of the timeouts and stoppages in play it makes it very difficult to watch.

I’d like to see the NBA limit the number of timeouts a team can use at the game of games, and I’d like to see the length of the timeouts shorten, but sadly I don’t think that will happen. Like everything now games are based around television, and they need that time to get the commercials in, so it’s doubtful any changes will be made. The NBA playoff ratings have been going down for quite a few years now and the only change they’ve made is the play-in tournament, so I don’t see them changing the way the games end.

Would you like to see the NBA make changes to the end of their game? If so let me know what you think they should do. Or maybe you like the set up the way it is.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m at Burketime.

The 1st round of the National Football League draft starts tomorrow and fortunately the New York Jets and the Green Bay Packers were finally able to agree on a deal that sends Rodgers to New York.

Here’s how the trade breaks down. The Packers send Rodgers along with the 15th and 170th pick which are 1st and 5th rounder to the Jets. I return Green Bay receives the 13th, 42nd and 207th pick of this draft. That’s a 1st, a 2nd and a 6th round pick. Green Bay also receives a conditional draft pick in 2024. Right now, that conditional pick is a 2nd round pick, but if Rodgers plays 65% of snaps for the Jets this coming season, then the pick becomes a 1st round pick.

It doesn’t appear as the Packers got as much as a lot of people thought they would for Rodgers, but you have to look at the fact that he’s talked about retirement the past couple of off seasons, and he is 39 years old. Rodgers is actually signed through the 2026 season, but with the way he’s acted the past few off seasons you have to wonder if he’ll fulfill his contract.

Yesterday I heard this deal compared to Tom Brady joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and when Matthew Stafford was traded to the Los Angeles Rams. Both Tampa Bay and Los Angeles won the Super Bowl the first year that they brought in a new veteran quarterback. Are the Jets a legitimate Super Bowl contender with Rodgers under center?

The Jets had the 4th best defense according to the rankings last season, so that side of the football should continue to be solid coming into this season. The offense however was ranked 25th overall last season. They were also 29th in points per game scoring just 17.4 points per game.

Now almost all of the blame for the Jets offensive struggles was placed on Zach Wilson which is the biggest reason the trade for Rodgers happened. I guess the question now becomes, is just making a quarterback change enough?

The Jets did add wide receivers Allen Lazard and Mecole Hardman as free agents. They’ve also signed two new offensive linemen as well as bringing back two from last season. According to the experts’ offensive line is were the Jets need to improve the most and obviously they want to protect Rodgers to the best of their ability. You have to wonder if that 15th overall draft pick will be use to try to plug what might be a hole in the offensive line or would they be more likely to try and add another weapon for Rodgers.

So, after months of speculation and mock draft after mock draft there seems to be a change at the top of the draft board. I’m sure you’ve heard over and over again that there would be three quarterbacks drafted within the first four picks of the draft. Well just this week there has been a lot of talk that the Houston Texans who have the 2nd overall pick in the draft might go another way.

All of a sudden, the people who have been saying quarterback after quarterback would be pick now think that the Texans will select Will Anderson the defensive end/linebacker from Alabama.

This doesn’t seem like it would be a bad pick for the Texans as Anderson is considered one of if not the best defensive player in the draft. Anderson also doesn’t have the baggage that the other top defensive player in this draft Jalen Carter has.

I caught an evaluation of Anderson yesterday and the person who was doing the evaluations thinks that he could get 10 sacks a year for 10 plus seasons as an NFL player. That would be the type of player that the Texans and their new head coach DeMeco Ryans could build a defense around.

Luckily for all of us we’re not that far away from finding out what these teams are going to do with these picks. The 1st round of the NFL draft is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. It’s available on ABC, ESPN and the NFL network and I believe there are some streaming options as well. The 2nd and 3rd round of the NFL draft will air on the same networks Friday and they are scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. The 3rd through 7th rounds of the NFL draft also airs on the same three networks and it is scheduled to start Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

Let me know what your draft watching habitats are. Do you sit through the entire clock when your favorite teams is picking? Or do you flip back and forth waiting for them to make a pick? I have a difficult time sitting through the 15-minute clock waiting for a pick to be made, so I do a lot of channel flipping during the draft. Fortunately, whatever way you end up watching the NFL draft you can always catch up since every station that shows it runs a crawler with the draft picks somewhere on the screen.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

On the weekends for me I’m lucky enough to watch multiple Major League Baseball games. In general, I don’t get to see the entire game, but I get to watch the majority of it. This is a good thing for me as baseball is my favorite sport to watch.

Yesterday was no different for me. After I finished watch the New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 on the MLB Network. After that game I was able to flip over and watch quite a few innings of the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-4 win over the Chicago Cubs. I then went over to Fox to watch their Saturday game of the week which in my area was the Chicago White Sox at the Tampa Bay Rays.

When Fox airs these games they usually used an announcer from one of the teams that are playing. In this case Jason Benetti was doing play by play. Benetti is the White Sox regular play by play announcer along with Stev Stone. I’m not 100% sure who the color commentator for the game was, but I’m pretty sure it was Tom Verducci. I believe that Verducci is still a sportswriter, but I don’t know who he currently writes for. I know that Verducci has done color commentary on baseball games for both Fox and the MLB Network, so I’m pretty sure he was on the call yesterday.

As the game moved along it was inevitable that the announcers would start to discuss the rule changes that Major Lague Baseball instituted this past off season. Nothing really came of this conversation until the game went into extra innings.

Now in general I don’t watch extra innings of a baseball game because I still believe that starting an inning with a runner on 2nd base is one of the stupidest rules in any sport. Yesterday for one reason or another I had the game on as they went into extra innings and Verducci suggested a rule change that was even stupider than starting an inning with a runner on 2nd base.

Verducci suggested that in extra innings of a baseball game that the team that’s at bat should start at the top of their batting order no matter where they left off in the 9th inning. Now he didn’t go into any detail on his idea which meant to me he hadn’t thought it through and just threw it out there to have something to say and it was quite easy to tell that this idea wasn’t thought threw very well.

Now this is sort of done at the lower minor league levels when a major league player is there on a rehab assignment. I those cases the player on the rehab assignment will lead off every inning to get extra at bats, but like I said that’s at the lower minor league levels not in the major leagues.

After the suggestion Verducci tried to compare it to an NBA or NFL overtime game, but it didn’t make sense. I don’t see the National Basketball Association adding extra fouls to their rules to allow a star player to come back into an overtime game if he’s fouled out. The comparison to the National Football League made even less sense as he tried to explain that the best players are always on the field in overtime. Of course, that couldn’t be the case as some of a team’s best players play offense while some of their best players play defense and they’re not on the field at the same time.

Since this wasn’t a clearly thought-out idea by Verducci so it’s unclear if he meant that at the start of every extra inning a team would go back to the top of its batting order. If that was the case the batters at the top of a team’s order could get five, six or possible in some case seven at bats while the hitters at the bottom of the order would get four at bats. I’m not sure about you, but that doesn’t seem like baseball to me.

Of course, Verducci and Benetti then tried to play to what would be considered the casual fan as they went on to explain that people pay good money to see the star players. It was clear at this point that they were just pandering to try and make this idea sound decent.

Jump in here and let me know what you think of this extra inning idea. Would you like to see a team start at the top of their batting order in extra innings?

As for the other rule changes MLB put in for this season, I haven’t had any real issues with them. I actually enjoy the game moving along faster because of the pitch clock, but to be fair I would still be watching even if they did put that rule in. I understand that MLB wanted more offense, so they banned defensive shifts. I’m not sure if it’s produced more offense and I’ve always been under the belief that if MLB players are the best at what they do they should be able to make the adjustments necessary to hit against a shift. I’m currently undecided on MLB making the bases larger. I know they said that they were doing it for safety reason, but I believe that they made this rule change to not only bring back the stolen base, but to also add more offense to the game.

I’d be interested to know how you’re feeling about the new rule baseball out in for this season now that you’ve seen them in action. I know that it’s just a small sample size since each team has only played about 20 games, but I think it’s enough games for you to be leaning one way or another on these new rules.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Yesterday the Los Angeles Angels opened three game series against the New York Yankees in New York. What really confused me about this series was the way it was being promoted by MLB Network. For whatever reason they decided to focus the promotion of these games as Shohei Ohtani vs. Aaron Judge week. Now I get that they’re two of the best players in baseball, but they’re not actually facing off against each other their teams are.

When I started seeing the promotions for this game, I immediately thought that Ohtani was going to pitch one of the games in this series and that way he’d actually face Judge. That turned out not to be the case as Ohtani pitched Monday against the Boston Red Sox in their yearly Patriots Day game. Ohtani only pitched two innings in that game, so I thought there might be a chance that the Angels would find a start for him against the Yankees, but with Ohtani’s injury history it’s doubtful that the Angels would bring him back on short rest for any reason.

So, the promotion of this game completely lost me. With the exception of pitcher vs. hitter there really isn’t a match up in baseball that makes it one player against another. I’m hoping that there’s someone out there that can explain this to me.

I understand that you want to push the best players in the game, but there might be some people who don’t even think that Ohtani is the best player on his team. Don’t forget that Ohtani’s teammate is a player by the name of Mike Trout.

I guess by throwing Ohtani and Judge’s names out there with this game the MLB Network was hoping to get the casual baseball fan or possible some people who might tune in just for one of those two players. I’m not sure that type of person would’ve actually stayed around to watch the game once they realized that Ohtani wasn’t pitching and him and Judge wouldn’t really be facing off against each other.

I don’t think I’ve seen the MLB Network go to these lengths to sell a game as a player vs. player game. They will always mention star players in promos for whatever game they’re showing, but they’ve never done it like this before. For this series they’ve specifically mentioned it as Ohtani vs. Judge.

Oddly this is a promotion that the National Basketball Association has used quite a bit and I think it’s caused a separation with their fans. If there isn’t a true star player in a game, there’s no reason for fans to watch unless it’s a team that you actively root for.

As for the actual game, well the Angels took the first game in the series. 5-2. Ohtani went 1 for 3 with a home run and he also scored 2 runs and had a stolen a base. Judge went 0 for 3 but did drive in 1 of the Yankees runs.

Game 2 of this series has a scheduled 6:05 p.m. start time and the MLB Network will be showing it live. Griffin Canning gets the start for the Angels while Jhony Brito will be the Yankees starter.

The series wraps up on Thursday with an afternoon affair. The game has a 3:05 p.m. start time on Thursday. The Angels have Patrick Sandoval listed as their scheduled starter while the Yankees have Nestor Cortes listed as their starter.

So now besides just trying to explain to me the promotion of this game I’d like to know if you’ll be watching this series and if the way it was promoted actually made you interested in watching.

Coming into this season Major League Baseball made some rule changes that looked as though it would add offense to the game. Now I’m sure in a lot of cases it has, but last night there were actually six shutouts thrown.

The Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Los Angels Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox all shutout their opponents. The White Six shutout came in the second game of a doubleheader.

Now while there were six shutouts in this new age of baseball none of the shutouts had a pitcher throw a complete game, but that shouldn’t be a surprise.

So, what do you think of the new rules so far that MLB is using. Games are being played faster, but are you seeing more offense? I’m interested to know what your opinion of these are.

As always don’t forget that you can also find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Earlier this week the Chicago Cubs signed Ian Happ to a three-year contract extension and while terms of the deal weren’t disclosed it was reported that the deal was for $61 million dollars. Happ’s new deal doesn’t kick in until next season and it will keep him under contract with the Cubs through the 2026 season.

When Happ’s name came up for some reason a memory came back about something that was going to be the new wave in Major League Baseball and it just never happened like it was predicted it would.

Happ was the Cubs 1st round pick in 2015 and quickly made his way through their minor league system and debut during the 2017 season. When Happ was brought up Theo Epstein was still the Cubs President of Baseball Operations. Epstein coined the term “super-utility” when it came to Happ. What the term was supposed to mean was that Happ would play multiple position and grow into a star.

At first that was the case with Happ as he logged inning at all three-outfield position, 3rd base, 1st base and 2nd base, but Happ never did and still hasn’t developed into that top player that Epstein promised.

Happ did win his first Gold Glove last season, but he won that Gold Glove as a full-time leftfielder for the Cubs not some “super-utility” player who played multiple positions.

Now Epstein wasn’t the only baseball executive who was talking about “super-utility” players and there were even people on the MLB Network that discussed it happened, but it never did.

The question then becomes why didn’t teams ever develop these types of players after they all seem set on doing it. Obviously, baseball is a difficult game to play when you’re playing every day at just one position. Imagine what it would be like to know you’re in the lineup every day, but you don’t know what position you’ll be playing. I believe that this would be very difficult for players to handle mentally.

Now every team has a player or two on their roster that can play multiple positions, but that player is generally on the roster to fill for a starter who’s being given the day off. That utility player normally isn’t in the lineup every day and they aren’t considered superstars.

I think the most recent player who got close to being what Epstein described as a “super-utility” player may have been Ben Zobrist.

Epstein actually signed Zobrist as a free agent in the off season before the start of the 2016 season and Zobrist spent the next four seasons with the Cubs. You’d have to think that this is where Epstein came up with the “super-utility” distinction for Happ.

Zobrist spent 14 years in the majors. He spent most of his career with the Tampa Bay Rays before playing for both the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland A’s during the 2015 season before joining the Cubs for his final four seasons.

In his career Zobrist played 911 games at 2nd base, 466 games in rightfield, 236 games at shortstop, 223 games in leftfield, 34 games in centerfield, 27 games at 1st base, 8 games at 3rd base and he even pitched 1 time. Zobrist did appear in 28 games as a DH, but that really doesn’t factor in to what a utility player does.

Looking at those numbers Zobrist fits the mold of what a “super-utility” player would be, but would you classify him as a superstar? Zobrist played for two World Series winners and was the Most Valuable Player of the 2016 World Series when he was with the Cubs, but I don’t think of him as a superstar. He was a very talented player to be able to move around and play all those different positions, but do you consider him to be a superstar?

So, when you start looking at baseball today is there anyone that could be a superstar as a “super-utility” player? I don’t mean an outfielder who can play all three outfield spots. Also, Shohei Ohtani isn’t a utility player because the only time he actually plays defense now is when he pitches.

A couple of seasons back there looked like there was a player that might’ve been able to pull off the ‘super-utility” spot. Kris Bryant started his career as a full-time 3rd baseman, but he has also played some 1st base, all three outfield positions and spent a little bit of time at shortstop. Bryant is a former Rookie of the Year and he’s also won a Most Valuable Player award as well as playing for a World Series winner the 2016 Cubs.

Injuries really slowed down Bryant’s career, but he’s off to a hot start this season as a member of the Colorado Rockies, but it appears as though he no longer fits into that “super-utility” category as he’s only played in the outfield the last two season with Colorado.

So let me know what you think. Is there a player out there that can handle playing multiple positions while being one of the best players in the game? There are plenty of guys that do and can play multiple positions. Do you ever see one of them breaking through and becoming one of the top players in baseball?

And yes, it is a little weird that the Happ contract extension brought back this memory for me, but for some reason it did and that’s not a knock-on Ian Happ.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Well, the National Basketball Association got their wish as the Los Angeles Lakers have made the playoffs. It took an overtime win against a shorthanded Minnesota Timberwolves team, but the Lakers pulled off a 108-102 win.

With last night’s win the Lakers become the 7th seed in the Western conference, and they’ll face the Memphis Grizzlies in the actual first round of the playoffs.

Lebron James and Anthony Davis both posted double-doubles for the Lakers last night. James had 30 points and 10 rebounds while Davis scored 24 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Both James and Davis played a lot of minutes against the Timberwolves last night. James logged 45 minutes while Davis was on the court for 43 minutes. The Lakers don’t open there playoff series against Memphis until Sunday, so the large number of minutes played by James and Davis shouldn’t affect them with three full days off.

Even with the loss last night Minnesota still has a chance to grab the 8th seed in the Western conference. The Timberwolves will face the winner of tonight’s play-in game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans.

In the first Eastern conference play-in game last night the Atlanta Hawks pulled off an upset as they beat the Miami Heat 116-105. The win moves Atlanta into the 7th seed in the Eastern conference and they get a 1st round playoff match up against the Boston Celtics.

Atlanta was led by Trae Young who scored 25 points. All four of the Atlanta players that came off the bench last night scored in double figures. Clint Capela may have only scored 4 points in last night’s game, but he contributed 21 rebounds for the Hawks.

Just like the Timberwolves, Miami isn’t out of the playoffs just yet. They’ll have a chance to get the 8th and final playoff spot in the Eastern conference as they’ll face the winner of tonight’s game between the Chicago Bulls and the Toronto Raptors on Friday.

You’d think by now that people would stop overlooking the Tampa Bays Rays, but I guess when you’re in the same division as a big market teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox as well as the up-and-coming Toronto Blue Jays it’s bound to happen.

So while nobody may have been paying attention the Rays have gotten off to an 11-0 start as they picked up their 11th win last night by beating the Red Sox 7-2.

When Tampa Bay got out the gate on such a roll immediately everyone wanted to point out they had had played the Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals and the Oakland A’s before this series against the Red Sox. No matter who they’ve beaten 11 straight wins to start a season is a great start and there’s nothing that the Rays can do about the schedule they just have to play the games how they were laid out for them. Don’t forget that this season the schedule is balanced, so you face every team the same number of times unlike in years past where you played the teams in your division more than the other teams in the league.

Now the Rays may have just hit their first bit of adversity this season as their big off season signing Zac Eflin was placed on the IL with Back tightness. Eflin had was off to a 2-0 start with an ERA of 3.27 in the 11 innings he had pitched this season. Tampa Bay signed Eflin as a free agent this past off season. Eflin received the biggest deal in Tampa Bay history as he signed a 3-year $40 million dollar deal.

Tampa bay hasn’t announced who will take Eflin’s spot in the starting rotation, but top prospect Taj Bradley was called up from Triple-A Durham to fill Eflin’s roster spot.

Bradley who is ranked anywhere from 20th to 44th overall as a prospect had made 2 starts for the Durham Bulls. He pitched just 7 innings and was 1-0 with an ERA of 5.14.

It would appear as though Bradley will be the pitcher to move into Eflin’s spot in the starting rotation, but you never know with the Rays as they’ve been very creative with who’s going to start games. I guess will just have to wait and see when what would be Eflin’s spot in the rotation comes up.

Before we wrap the blog up for the day let me know how long you think that Tampa Bay’s winning streak will continue. They have two more games at home against Boston before they head out on a six-game road trip. The first three games of that road trip are in Toronto against the Blue Jays and then they head to Cincinnati to face the Reds for three games.

Remember that you can find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

If you’ve been a sports fan for even a short period of time, I’m sure you’ve heard the term “tanking”. If this is a new term for you “tanking” is when a team plays a less than optimal lineup in hopes of losing a game. Teams generally do this to improve their draft position, but last Friday night there might’ve been another reason for a team “tanking”.

“Tanking” is a term commonly used in the National Basketball Association, but when it comes to Major League Baseball teams or teams in the National Football League, they use the term rebuilding.

On Friday night the Dallas Mavericks still had an outside chance to make the play-in tournament. Dallas needed to win it’s last two games which was a decent possibility because they faced the Chicago Bulls on Friday before wrapping up their regular season today against the San Antonio Spurs. Now just winning these two games wouldn’t have been enough for the Mavericks to get into the play-in tournament as they’d need some help, but at least there was a chance.

Before Friday’s game against the Bulls the Mavericks announced that Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr, Max Kleber, Josh Green and Christian Wood wouldn’t play against the Bulls. Then not only were the Mavericks shorthanded due to these players been held out, but Luka Doncic played just 13 minutes against the Bulls on Friday Night.

Even with the deck stacked against them the Mavericks almost found a way to win the game. Dallas ended up losing 115-112 to the Bulls. This loss eliminated the Mavericks from being able to get the 10th seed in the Western conference.

Now in the NBA it’s very rare that a lower seeded team beats a higher seeded team in the playoffs, especially in the early rounds so even if the Mavericks had gotten that 10th seed it’s doubtful that they would’ve had much of a chance to win the NBA title but why tank.

By not making the playoffs the Mavericks fall into the NBA’s draft lottery were they’ll have a chance to get the #1 overall pick, but that’s probably not why they tanked.

See when the Mavericks traded Kristaps Porzingis to the New York Knicks the Knicks also received a 2024 1st round pick in that deal. The 1st round pick that went to the Knicks is lottery protected meaning if the Mavericks are in the draft lottery, they’ll keep that 1st round pick.

Is this the reason that the Mavericks tanked the Friday night game against the Bulls and Dallas has already announced that those same five players and Doncic won’t play in today’s regular season finale against San Antonio.

It appears as though the NBA will be looking into this situation. NBA spokesman Mike Bass said on Saturday afternoon that “The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Dallas Mavericks’ roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night’s Chicago Bulls-Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions.”

Back in 2018 Mavericks owner Mark Cuban paid a $600,000 fine when he publicly admitting the Mavs were tanking. You’d have to guess that Cuban will be paying another fine for this situation.

What do you think if the Mavericks decision to sit their players out against the Bulls on Friday night and attempt to tank that game. I’d also be interested to know what you think that the NBA will do about this situation. Do you think that the NBA would go so far as to take that 1st round draft pick away from the Mavericks.

With the NBA regular season finales today, you realize how much of a joke the actual regular season is. Think about it teams play 82 games just to eliminate 10 teams before starting the playoffs.

The play-in tournament was added just so the NBA could have a few more playoff games for the television networks to show. Don’t forget that television networks can charge more for their ad rates during playoff games. So the more playoff games there are the more the NBA can get for its television rights because the networks that show those games will have more games to show. While I understand that it’s just business, but let’s face it the early rounds of the playoffs as well as the play-in tournament are boring and uninteresting.

The play-in tournament starts on Tuesday with the Miami Heat hosting the Atlanta Hawks. There will also be a Western conference play-in game, but the teams that will be in that game haven’t officially been decided yet. What is known about the Western conference play-in tournaments is that the Oklahoma City Thunder will play a road game Wednesday. The Eastern conference game on Wednesday will have the Raptors hosting the Bulls.

The winners of these games on Tuesday and Wednesday will meet on Friday for the right to advance into the actual NBA playoffs. The Eastern conference play-in winner will face the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1st round of the playoffs while the winner of the Western conference play-in gets to go up against the Denver Nuggets in the 1st round.

Would you give the winner of the play-in tournament in either conference a chance even win a game against the #1 seed in their respective conference.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

We’re coming to the end of the regular season in the National Basketball Association and I’m sure that the league has let out a sigh of relief as the Los Angeles Lakers are currently in 7th place in the Western conference and should make the playoffs.

The Lakers are on a 4-game winning streak which is currently the second longest winning streak in the Westen conference behind only the Phoenix Suns who have won 6 in a row.

Now, the Lakers actually have a chance to get out of the play-in portion of the NBA playoffs as they are tied with the Los Angeles Clippers with a record of 41-38.

Each team has three games left in their regular season and they’ll actually face each other tonight, so the winner of tonight’s game will probably have the inside track to that 6th place finish. The lakers other two games are on the road against the Phoenix Suns and the Utah Jazz while the Clippers will a road game against the Portland Trailblazers before wrapping up their regular season at home against the Suns.

If you remember when Lebron James got hurt, I wrote that if the Lakers were going to get into the playoffs that Anthony Davis would need to step up and he has lately. In 7 of the Lakers 13 March games Davis scored 30 points or more. In the Lakers first April game he put up 40 points against the Houston Rockets. Davis did have a tough shooting night last night going 7 for 16 from the field in the Lakers 135-133 overtime victory over the Jazz. Even though he didn’t shoot very well Davis still posted a double-double with 21 points and 14 rebounds while also handing out 6 assists.

If you don’t remember Davis was once thought of as a Top 10 or even Top 5 player in the NBA, but injuries really sidelined his career. If Davis can continue to produce like he has in March and so far in April could the Lakers actually be a lower seeded team that could upset a top seed?

While 5th through 10th place in the Western conference is still up for grabs over in the Eastern conference the 10 playoff teams are set. Now it’s just a matter of finding out who ends up where place wise.

It does appear as that the majority of the playoff positions are set, but there are a couple that could change. The Brooklyn Nets hold a one game lead over the Miami Heat for 6th place while the Atlanta Hawks and the Toronto Raptors are tied with a record of 40-39. Atlanta currently holds the tiebreaker over Toronto and therefore would be the 8th place team if they finished tied at the end of the regular season.

Generally, the NBA playoffs don’t provide a lot of upset, but is it possible that this year could be different? We’ve discussed the Lakers, but there are teams like the Golden State Warriors and the Suns that are going to finish a little farther down in the Western conference standings. Could these teams get on a roll and find their way into the NBA Finals?

The Denver Nuggets are just one win away from clinching the #1 seed in the Western conference. The Nuggets had a chance to wrap things up last night but lost to the Western conference last place team the Houston Rockets 124-103.

After the loss to the Nuggets head coach didn’t mince words about his team. “If that’s how we’re going to play, we’ll be out in the first round,” Malone said. “When we don’t do our jobs, there’s accountability. And I speak the truth. I just called our team ‘soft,’ and I dared someone to challenge me. No one did, because we as a group were soft tonight. I’m not saying we are soft, but tonight, we were.”

It’s very, very rare that an 8th seed beats a #1 seed in the NBA playoffs but is it possible that this is the year that it could happen. Denver has a couple of games to right thei ship, but if they don’t is it possible that they could go out in the 1st round?

Denver has two road games before they wrap up their season at home. The Nuggets will face the Suns and then the Jazz on the road before they return home for their final regular season games against the Sacramento Kings.

The Nuggets biggest playoff hurdle may be the health of MVP candidate Nikola Jokic who returned last night against the Rockets from a back injury. Jokic played 25 minutes and scored 14 points while grabbing 10 rebounds. With three regular season games left Jokic should have enough time to be ready to go full speed into the playoffs, but if he’s not the Nuggets could be a very vulnerable #1 seed.

With the NBA season winding down are you looking forward to the playoffs? Do you think will see any major upsets in the NBA playoffs? And finally, how much of the NBA playoffs will you watch?

Don’t forget that you can also find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

It’s a very interesting time if you’re a sports fan. There is a lot of stuff going on and it has too be hard to decide what you’re going to watch. I guess on one hand it’s exciting, but on the other hand it can be tough to keep up with everything.

We have the NHL and the NBA regular seasons winding down, and they’ll be headed into the playoffs. Both the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are headed into the championship games. Of course, we had the start of the Major League Baseball season. There’s also the XFL going on right now and the USFL is getting ready to start their season. Plus, The Masters golf tournament is right around the corner. Even though they’re not currently playing any games the NFL always seems to be in the news.

That’s a ton of sports for fans to try and keep up with, so I’m wondering what you’re watching live and if you’re recording or trying to keep up with all or most of what’s going on.

As for me, well I’m a baseball guy, so I’m all in on the start of a new season. I’ve managed to keep up with both the men’s and woman’s NCAA Tournaments even though my brackets were a disaster like a lot of people’s. As I’ve mentioned here few times before I’m not a fan of the current NBA, so while I try to keep up with who’s going to make the playoffs it’s not of great importance to me. As for the NHL I actually haven’t watched as much hockey as I usually do, but once the playoffs start, I’ll end up watching more games. As for the XFL, I’ve checked out bits and pieces of games, but I haven’t watched a game from start to finish and I doubt I will. I’ll probably do the same with the USFL when it gets started. I have actually found myself watching more golf than I normally do and I’m not sure why that is.

With opening day on Thursday and every major league team in action for a change baseball became my focus. It also helps that I have multiple fantasy teams that I have to keep track of.

Of course, with every opening day there are overreaction after just one game being played and that’s always humorous to me. I get that people are very excited for regular season baseball to be back, but it’s just one game and people can get carried away very easily.

I just watched the first episode of the All-Access show that AEW is airing on Wednesday nights after their wrestling show AEW Dynamite.

It’s a very interesting look at some of the behind-the-scenes things that go on in professional wrestling that a lot of people either don’t know about or maybe haven’t even thought about.

The first episode spent quite a bit of time on Adam Cole whose real name is Austin Jenkins and how he’s dealing with his concussion issues. Now obviously this was filmed while Cole was out injured, and he just had his first match in I believe nine months on this past Wednesday episode of AEW Dynamite.

Cole actually suffered two concussions over three matches and that’s why he was out. As of the airing of this first episode he was still in recovery and there’s a very serious vibe to the fact that his wrestling career could be over. Fortunately, Cole has recovered and resumed his in-ring career this past Wednesday night.

I found the show very interesting and there was more than just the Cole storyline that they featured. I think if you’re a wrestling fan and you’d like to get a little peek behind the curtain as they say you should check this show out.

If you watched the first episode of the AEW All Access show let me know what you thought about it. If you haven’t seen the first episode let me know if you have any plans on watching the show.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.