EL BARRIO, EL FALLS – Happy Monday. The scheduled bye for the NFL Playoffs is now in the rear-view mirror. Since less is more there mantra, I’ll adopt i… Here is today’s slate: NHL All-Star Game, NFL Pro Bowl, Kyrie Irving Trade.
All-Star games are a truly American concept because usually your national team is your countries All-Stars. However, in America every league tries to imitate the MLB version, as they were the first to have it. But the Major League Baseball version was also the first to show cracks. They have added World Series home-field-advantage to assure players play to win.
NHL All-Star Game
This spin by the NHL had some kind of zany skills competitions which were… blah! What they did do right was have the league pick 3/4 of the All-Stars based on all manner stats for this half of the season. They then let fan voting pick the remainder. They also broke it down by the 4 divisions instead of 2 conferences. From there it was 3-3 vs for 20 minutes. So the two divisions faced their intra conference rival as Central played Pacific and Atlantic took on Metropolitain. The formers beat the latters, so the final was Atlantic versus the Central with the Atlantic winning. Listen, they need to work on their games and competitions. What in the world is Tendy Tandem? YET… the ASG format was entertaining and somewhat competitive. There was a big pot of cash for the winners, which was a very good call.
NFL Pro Bowl
This game has sufferred the most in the new “I cant afford to get hurt” era. With “no-tackling” scores were like 62-60, or something insane like that. So they created all new competitions, like dodgeball and best catch while on the zip-line. As for the real game, they made it flag football, mic’d up the players, and had the Manning bros coach against each other. It appears from reviews Peyton’s aww shucks act dies when a game is competitive. Peyton always gave the look of a guy that would bet in a game of Go Fish, as he was that competitive. The winner was the NFC. Again, the competitions need tweaking, but the flag football game has potential. Back to the drawing board for the office guys.
Kyrie Irving Trade
The Brooklyn Nets agreed to trade Kyrie Irving to the Mavericks. The official trade goes as follows:
-Mavericks receive: Kyrie Irving, Markieff Morris
-Nets receive: Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, 2029 first-round pick, 2027 second-round pick, 2029 second-round pick
The Nets get rid of a distraction and a player they couldnt re-sign. They get a solid pro in Dinwiddie, and someone who will let Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons free to be themselves… The Mavs are betting big on Irving taking over at PG and allowing all world guard Luka Doncic to move to SG. Doncic needed some big time help and partner in crime. The Mavs will have until the end of the season to decide if Irving is worth bringing back.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below. Check out Ben Whitney, who will give you his thoughts on the two All Star Games.
