The Sacramento Kings coaching search may be over in very short order. According to News 10’s Sean Cunningham, the Kings May finalize their hiring of Luke Walton as quickly as this weekend.
The Sacramento Kings could have a new head coach by the end of this weekend & that coach will be Luke Walton - according to sources.
This coaching search moving quicker than the one that led to Dave Joerger is because Vlade Divac is hiring Walton, who he wanted back in 2016
Before hiring Dave Joerger the Kings interviewed over a dozen candidates. The search lasted weeks. The Kings getting their top choice this quickly would say something about how the perception of the Kings has changed. With a solid foundation of players, the Kings job is viewed as desirable for the first time in a long time.
We’ll continue to update as this develops.
Update: Sam Amick has chimed in to confirm.
As @SeanCunningham reported, it would be stunning at this point if Luke Walton didn't become the next Kings coach. Source tells @TheAthleticNBA that Kings GM Vlade Divac is meeting with Walton in person today. And again, Walton is his top choice.
Update 2: Adrian Wojnarowski has chimed in to say Vlade will be offering Walton the job.
Sacramento GM Vlade Divac is offering Luke Walton his franchise’s coaching job and there’s confidence on both sides that a deal can be reached quickly, league sources tell ESPN. Divac and Walton are meeting this weekend.
Update 3: Sam Amick says this is Luke Walton’s job as long as the sides agree on terms. Other candidates are being put on hold.
Source also tells @TheAthleticNBA that other candidates in this Kings coaching search have been told that they are zeroing in on Luke Walton for the position and that, in essence, there would only be an opportunity if that deal doesn't get done.
Update 4: Aaaaaaand it sounds like this is already a done deal.
Update: Source tells @TheAthleticNBA that Kings GM Vlade Divac and Luke Walton have already met today and are in the late stages of finalizing a multi-year deal.
Well hello there, casual basketball fan! Welcome back... to the crucible of champions. The NBA playoffs are upon us once again, probably within minutes or possibly even before I actually finish writing this very long (and good) blog. Oh crap!
Who are the teams? Who does the stuff on them? Who will hoist the [checks Wikipedia] “Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy”? What can you say about all of this in the company of possibly basketball-knowing acquaintances and fellow bar-goers that will not mark you as a clueless doofus? Buddy, I have got you covered. It’s fine to print this blog out and carry it with you to the bar and consult it for conversational nuggets.
Let’s check out the first-round series, in the chronological order they’ll start and/or have started already while I was working on this. Saturday’s first, and then Sunday’s tomorrow.
Philadelphia 76ers (3) vs. Brooklyn Nets (6)
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When does this shit start? Saturday, 2:30 ET, on ESPN.
Who are these groups? It’s weird to consider that, even with the big moves they made this season (swinging blockbuster trades for both Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris), and even with the air of triumphal inevitability that’s been swirling around the team’s homegrown young stars since Ben Simmons made his debut last season, this season, so far, seems like it’s been a sideways step for the 76ers at best, if not a small step backward. LeBron James’s departure from the East opened a power vacuum at the top of the conference; last summer the 76ers (along with the Boston Celtics, more on them in a sec) seemed like the team best positioned to fill it. But not only did the Sixers wind up with the same playoff seed they had last year—and with a record one loss worse—they’ve also been leapfrogged, decisively, by the Milwaukee Bucks. They still haven’t figured out any kind of productive, complementary fit between their two homegrown young stars. Even with the additions of Butler and Harris (and Mike Scott, who’s been great), they still have a troubling tendency to look completely lost whenever the deadly Joel Embiid-J.J. Redick pair isn’t on the court.
Of course, the real test of the changes they’ve made since last spring isn’t the regular season; that power vacuum at the top of the East won’t really be filled until somebody makes it out of the conference finals. The Sixers absolutely can represent the East in the Finals. They’ve got the top-end talent to do it. It might be time to worry if they don’t. The moves they made—including trading catastrophic former first overall pick Markelle Fultz in February for a 29-year-old role player and a pair of nothing-special draft picks—have made them into a team that isn’t really young or developing anymore. If anything, they fit more closely the profile of a slightly bloated contender nearing the end of its window, with a top-heavy roster and big names set to hit free-agency after the playoffs and an uncertain future. The time kinda seems like it might be now!
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As for the Nets, shit, man, this season’s already been a fabulous success. They played fun, smart, competitive basketball all season, improved their record over last season by 14 wins, and sent D’Angelo Russell to the all-star game; the return to the playoffs has already vindicated ten times over the choice to focus on developing the young players they had under coach Kenny Atkinson, rather than bottoming out for a shot at some hypothetical future generational talent. They’re good and young and their future is bright, and I love them. I’m already very concerned about how long this blog is getting.
Tell me about some of their persons. Let’s start with the Sixers. Embiid continued his staggering growth into one of the NBA’s absolute topmost handful of players this season; if the Sixers had improved much, he’d have been a serious MVP candidate, and he will be every season for the rest of his career so long as he’s healthy. But Simmons, pretty much across the board, is the exact same guy as last year. He still can’t and won’t shoot, and he’s still broadly a less important or valuable pairing with Embiid (and the key question for every Sixer for these playoffs and for the next half decade at least will be how well they fit with Embiid) than J.J. Redick is. Meanwhile, adding Butler theoretically gave the Sixers somebody suited to occupy the “closer” role in fourth quarters—and they’re still, overall, a pretty crappy fourth-quarter team. They haven’t yet quite figured out how to make the most out of having Harris on the team. But all of those players are good as hell, and that’s a lot of good-as-hell players for one team to have.
The Nets do not have quite as many good-as-hell players. But they have a lot of good players! Russell became the star of the team over the course of the season; a ballhandling guard who can shoot and create shots and cook in the pick-and-roll game is an extremely nice thing to have in a playoff series, and the Nets, in Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie, have two of them. Possibly three, if I decide to call Caris LeVert a guard instead of a wing for the sake of crediting the Nets with three of those types of players. They can throw size at Embiid with large shot-spiking goof Jarrett Allen and Ed Davis, and they’ve got a glut of useful, vaguely switchable wing/forward types—DeMarre Carroll, Rodions Kurucs, Joe Harris, Jared Dudley—for lineup flexibility.
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That’s too many Nets players to have mentioned, isn’t it? Just focus on Russell, Dinwiddie, LeVert, and Allen. Those are the cool guys who will be doing the fun stuff.
Is this series good or puke? This series is good! It’s these young Nets’ first visit to the postseason, so probably don’t expect too much of them, but they’re ballsy and fun and under no pressure. They split the regular-season series between the teams. They can throw a scare into these 76ers, or at the very least bring the best out of them—especially if Embiid, who is still dealing with the balky knee that has caused him to miss 14 of 24 Sixers games since the break, sits out any part of the series.
How can I sound knowledgeable about the NBA when this series is on? When Ben Simmons has the ball out near the three-point arc, lean over to the person standing nearest and whisper, “The famously stubborn and jumpshot-averse Ben Simmons will not be shooting a jump-shot right now.” This will make you sound like a real brain genius.
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Who’s gonna win? The Sixers, with far less firepower at the top of the rotation, beat a tough, experienced Miami Heat team in last spring’s first round despite Embiid missing the first two games of the series. The safe bet is they’ll escape these green Nets without too much trouble.
Toronto Raptors (2) vs. Orlando Magic (7)
Pictured: Real action from a Raptors-Magic game.Photo: Shutterstock
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When does this shit start? Saturday, 5:00 ET, on ESPN.
Who are these groups? There’s always one series that is like this, just painfully uninteresting and anonymous, and it’s always in the East, and in recent years it almost always seems to involve the Toronto Raptors and somebody from the NBA’s utterly fucking miserable Southeast Division. This year it’s the Orlando Magic’s turn. Who’s excited for some Evan Fournier floaters? The answer is no one.
Maybe that’s too uncharitable. In truth, the Magic aren’t a totally un-fun team, and the franchise’s return to competitiveness and the playoffs after six years wandering the outermost outer darkness has been one of the season’s pleasant surpraaaaahhhhhhhh I can’t do it, I can’t lie to you, this series sucks, I can’t imagine why anyone who doesn’t live in Toronto or Orlando would want to watch it, and the NBA should relegate it to friggin’ TruTV.
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Tell me about some of their persons. Literally the only fun player in this series is Toronto’s Pascal Siakam, who this season made an implausible leap from gangly developmental-project doofus to, broadly, a member of whatever the hell nightmare basketball species also gave the world Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo. He’s large, he’s skilled, his arms go on forever, and he flies around and does cool shit. He’s not Toronto’s best player but he’s the only Raptor who’s good to watch. It will be fun to check up on him in a couple of weeks, when they move on to the second round.
Is this series good or puke? This series is vile green ass-mud from the dumpsters of hell.
How can I sound knowledgeable about the NBA when this series is on? You can ask someone to change the channel.
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Who’s gonna win? The Raptors are gonna win.
Golden State Warriors (1) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (8)
When the team cohesion is incredibly strong and you’re all very thrilled to be here togetherPhoto: Ezra Shaw (Getty)
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When does this shit start? Saturday, 8:00 ET, on ABC.
Who are these groups? You know the Warriors. They’re the defending-defending champions, winners of three of the past four titles, the defining power of the NBA’s modern era and, at their best, the best team in league history. They’re also unhappily trudging their way to the end of what’s so far been an awkward and joyless season—one that looks likely to be punctuated by some kind of dissolution of the core of their team. Ratto got into it better than I will; go read him for the specifics. It’s enough to know that the Warriors were bored of their own greatness by the beginning of last season; at this point, the only real intrigue facing them as a team isn’t whether they have what it takes to win their third straight championship (they do), but whether the prospect of doing so can hold their attention for two months, and who’ll leave them in free agency afterward.
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Then there’s the Clippers. It looked like they were bailing out of the playoff hunt when they traded away Tobias Harris (and Boban Marjanovic and Mike Scott) back in February, but instead they kept right on winning, with an ever weirder and more delightful assembly of random ornery competitors for a roster. For a while there, they had a real shot at a top-five playoff seed in the West; this crazy team genuinely could have beaten somebody, and it would have ruled. Instead, they skidded to eighth, where the best they can hope to do is push the Warriors hard enough for the latter team to register a detectable pulse for the first time since Kevin Durant and Draymond Green had their shouting match back in November. That’s a bummer.
Tell me about some of their persons. For the Warriors, it’s the same guys—Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala—you know and love from the previous two cruise-control championships, plus DeMarcus Cousins. Offseason fears (or hopes) that Boogie would turn the Warriors into an even more absurdly invulnerable juggernaut seem misplaced, at least so far; mostly he has tended to make them slightly worse, and not even really in a fun way. A handful of times per game they all stand around and watch him maul his way into a low-post bucket. That’s about it.
The Clippers, like the Nets, have too many fun oddballs to give fair treatment to in a blog that, let’s face it, is already too frickin’ long! There’s Danilo Gallinari and Lou Williams and Patrick Beverley and Montrezl Harrell, and and and. Too many. Pay attention to Williams and Harrell, one of the league’s most fun and potent pick-and-roll combinations. Harrell is a feisty dunk-beast; Williams is the most enjoyably irresponsible pickup-ball hustler doing it in these playoffs. (Jamal Crawford couldn’t make it.)
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Is this series good or puke? I don’t think any team in the West is capable of giving the Warriors a non-puke series this season. Maybe the Nuggets, if they survive long enough to meet the Warriors in the conference finals.
What should I root for? You should root for the Clippers to win the first game of the series, in Oakland. If we’re lucky, it might wake the Warriors up and turn them into, y’know, the Warriors. If we’re even luckier, it will shatter their already fractious team chemistry and lead to an open civil war in the locker room. (They’ll still win the series.)
Who’s gonna win? Take a frickin’ guess!
Denver Nuggets (2) vs. San Antonio Spurs (7)
Get a load of this doughy lad.Photo: Maddie Meyer (Getty)
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When does this shit start? Saturday, 10:30 ET, on ESPN.
Who are these groups? Winning the West’s top playoff seed away from the Golden State Warriors doesn’t mean quite what it did, say, two years ago, before they began treating regular seasons like the dull, sleepy-eyed commute to an unpleasant job. Still, for a while there it looked like these Nuggets might just do it, and that would have been wild. They didn’t even make the playoffs last season! Moreover, they didn’t even make any big, dramatic changes to their rotation from last season to this one. They just... got better... from the continued improvement... of the players they already had. Like real fuckin’ weirdos!
Then there’s the Spurs, whom frankly I don’t really want to discuss. But discuss them we must! This postseason marks the Spurs’ 22nd straight playoff appearance, and their 29th in the past 30 years. Only eight times, in those 30 frickin’ years, have they made the playoffs and failed to win a series. As a fan of the Washington Wizards, I find that track record absolutely disgusting. It makes me sick.
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Anyway here they are, again, in the frickin’ playoffs. Once again, circumstances conspired to deprive them of a vitally important young building-block player for the entire season—this time, limby guard Dejounte Murray tore his ACL in the preseason; last time, Kawhi Leonard just kinda decided he didn’t want to be a Spur anymore—and they just plugged the next dude into the rotation and kept it moving. The Spurs have used one—one—top-20 draft pick since 1998. The active roster they will bring to tonight’s game will include a grand total of two players the Spurs selected in the draft, ever. Disgusting! Outrageous in fact!
Style-wise, the Nuggets and the Spurs are the two weirdest, most heterodox offensive teams that made the playoffs in either conference, and it’s a shame they can’t both advance. The Nuggets run their offense through the high post and use their guards as the cutters and finishers, rather than as pick-and-roll facilitators or shot creators. The Spurs proudly practice a style that would have been considered out of date by the turn of the millennium, mostly eschewing the three-point arc in favor of a combination of long two-point jumpshots and low-post back-to-the-basket isolations—basically the two worst kinds of shots for any team but them. Neither team is exactly “great” on defense, but they’re both smart and flexible.
Tell me about some of their persons. The Nuggets have lots of good, fun guys, Jamal Murray and Gary Harris and Will Barton and Monte Morris and so on. But the only Denver person you really need to know about is round-cornered Serbian oaf Nikola Jokić, the slickest and most creative passer doing it in the NBA right now and also, oh by the way, a seven-foot center.
Look at this doughy lad go! Many of the very coolest passes anybody threw this season are in this video. I urge you to watch it.
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Everything that works about the Nuggets works because they drafted and then had the vision to stick with and patiently build around this unprecedented space alien of a player: Since drafting him—41st overall! He wasn’t even a first-rounder!—in 2014, they’ve won 30, then 33, then 40, then 46, and now 54 games, and now they’re in the playoffs for the first time since 2013. James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo sucked all the air out of the MVP discussion months ago, but Jokić has a strong claim to the third spot on the ballot.
(Frankly—I’m just gonna say it! I’m just gonna frickin’ say it!—I think if you magically replaced both of them with league-average starters at their positions, the Bucks would’ve been in the running for a playoff seed without Giannis, and the Nuggets would’ve been in the running for the first pick in the 2019 draft.)
The Spurs’ main guys are LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan, but in typical Spurs-y fashion they’ll get quality contributions from a whole host of dudes, from Rudy Gay and Derrick White right on down the brain-meme chart to Bryn Forbes and Dāvis Bertāns and Jakob Poeltl. Pretty much any of them will just straight-up pop a 19-footer in your face! Like true madmen.
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Is this series good or puke? This series is good, and a lot less certain than your average 2-versus-7 matchup. By the numbers, the Nuggets are better at both ends of the floor, with more firepower at the top of the rotation and greater depth, but the Spurs are bringing the NBA’s deepest body of institutional experience to this series, and Denver’s key players and coaches have never been here before. Denver will probably win. But if you can’t picture the Spurs throwing the Nuggets into full-blown crisis by the middle of the coming week, well, I sure as hell can.
“Dāvis Bertāns”? Dāvis Bertāns!
(That is not actually how to pronounce his name. It’s DAH-vis Burr-TAHNS.)
Who’s gonna win? I don’t know! Probably the Nuggets. But the last time the Spurs went two consecutive seasons without winning at least one playoff series was NINETEEN FRICKIN’ EIGHTY NINE. Now they are facing an opponent whose key players have never been to the playoffs before, and whose coach has never been the head coach of a playoff team before. I don’t know!
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Okay, that’s it for today, dammit. Come back tomorrow for a preview of the other half of the first-round series.
Baltimore Orioles' Chris Davis watches his two-run single in front of Boston Red Sox's Christian Vazquez during the first inning of a baseball game in Boston, Saturday, April 13, 2019.
(AP)
Baltimore Orioles’ Chris Davis finally broke his historic hitless streak Saturday afternoon after hitting a two-run single off Boston Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello.
Davis, who signed a $161 million contract in 2016, came up to bat in the top of the first inning at Fenway Park when he smacked the ball to right field allowing Trey Mancini and Dwight Smith Jr. to score. The crowd cheered for Davis as well as his teammates in the dugout. The first baseman kept the ball he hit as well, Mass Live reported.
Now that Davis got his hit, many Baltimore bars will have to make well on their promise and give out the free drinks they promised to customers after the first baseman finally got his hit. This week, a few Baltimore bars, including Lee’s Pint & Shell, announced they would give out free drinks to customers when Davis broke his slump, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Davis, 33, had extended his hitless streak 0 for 54 Friday night against the Red Sox after he lined out. The Orioles fell 6-4 against the Red Sox. The former home run champion’s drought is the longest ever by a position player. His last hit was on Sept. 14, 2018. He had 62 straight plate appearances with no hit.
The new mark breaks the previously hitless record set by Tony Bernazard, who went hitless in 57 straight plate appearances in 1984. The stat was noted by MASN’s Steve Melewski.
In Davis' second at-bat, he ground out. The Orioles' lead was short-lived, with the Red Sox tying things up in the 4th.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Orioles first baseman Chris Davis finally has a hit to his name this year, delivering a two-run single against Red Sox right-hander Rick Porcello in the first inning on Saturday to end his streak at 62 straight plate appearances without a hit.
Orioles first baseman Chris Davis finally has a hit to his name this year, delivering a two-run single against Red Sox right-hander Rick Porcello in the first inning on Saturday to end his streak at 62 straight plate appearances without a hit.
Chris Davis got a hit! And through the teeth of the shift! The 0-for-54 is over. RIP. pic.twitter.com/73mpqxjDYC
Friday night, the New York Yankees lost their fourth game in a row, this one a rain-shortened 6 1/2-inning loss to the rebuilding White Sox at Yankee Stadium (CWS 9, NYY 6). The Yankees have lost eight of their first 13 games for only the third time this century (2005, 2016, 2019). They'll look to right the ship Saturday afternoon (stream the game regionally via fuboTV -- try for free).
For the Yankees, the story of the season thus far has been injuries. They have 11 players on the injured list -- it was 12 before CC Sabathia was activated Saturday morning -- the most in baseball. The Yankees are missing five starting position players and several important pitchers. Here is the injury list:
"It's our reality right now. The bottom line is we feel like -- unlike any other team, maybe -- we are equipped to be able to still have success through this," manager Aaron Boone said Friday. "That's our expectations. It is next guy up. ... Even though we're in a little bit of a storm right now and have some adversity with these injuries, the expectation doesn't change because the guys we still have in that room are capable of getting it done. That's our focus."
Friday's loss was New York's sixth in the last nine games -- the Yankees swept three games from the Orioles last weekend and haven't done much else recently -- and the game showed the Yankees have problems that run deeper than their injuries. Several healthy core players are not performing as expected. Let's dig through the things going wrong for the 2019 Yankees on the field.
The 'Super Bullpen' isn't so super
Setup man Chad Green has had a rough start to 2019.
USATSI
On paper, the Yankees did not just have the best bullpen in baseball coming into the season, they had maybe the best bullpen in baseball history. Last year's bullpen was the second best ever by WAR, and this offseason the Yankees added Adam Ottavino and a full season of Zack Britton to their core bullpen group (they did lose David Robertson to free agency). It was not crazy to think this year's relief crew would be better than last year's.
Instead, 13 games into the new season, the bullpen has not been the overwhelming strength the Yankees and pretty much everyone else expected. In fact, it's been more of a liability. Here are the team's bullpen rankings in various categories going into Saturday's action:
ERA: 4.34 (15th)
WHIP: 1.43 (17th)
Strikeout rate: 10.0 K/9 (9th)
Win probability added: minus-1.22 (27th)
Shutdowns: 10 (21st)
Meltdowns: 13 (28th)
(Shutdowns are relief appearances that increase win probability at least six percent. Meltdowns are the opposite. They are relief appearances that decrease win probability at least six percent.)
According to YES Network researcher James Smyth, the Yankees have already lost seven games this season in which they held a lead. That includes two seventh-inning blown leads against the Astros earlier this week. Last season the Yankees did not suffer their seventh blown lead loss until June 13th, in their 64th game. Those blown leads aren't all on the bullpen, but yikes.
Ottavino has been nails while replacing Betances as Boone's high-leverage reliever of choice (one run and 11 strikeouts in seven innings), and long man Luis Cessa has been solid in low-leverage mop-up duty, otherwise the core Yankees relievers have all had some issues early this season. A partial list:
Aroldis Chapman's fastball velocity is at its lowest point in his career and he has a 10.8 H/9.
Zack Britton has more baserunners allowed (12) than swings and misses (10), which seems impossible.
Chad Green has allowed seven runs in 5 1/3 innings and has struck out only one of the last 21 batters he's faced.
Tommy Kahnle has not fully regained his 2017 velocity and has walked four in four innings.
Betances is not coming back to save the day anytime soon, and, really, no one player can fix a collectively struggling bullpen. For the Yankees to dig themselves out of this early season hole, they need Britton and Green to turn things around, Ottavino to stay razor sharp, and a young arm or two to come up from minors and give the team a shot in the arm. New York's vaunted bullpen has been a real weakness 13 games into 2019.
Paxton and especially Happ have struggled
Prized offseason pickup James Paxton is sitting on a 6.00 ERA through three starts and 15 innings. He's had one good start, one OK start, and one bad start. J.A. Happ has an 8.76 ERA and three bad starts in three tries to his name. That includes allowing six runs in four innings plus two batters against the White Sox on Friday.
Happ, who pitched to a 2.69 ERA in 11 starts with the Yankees after coming over in a trade deadline deal with the Blue Jays last year, has yet to complete even five innings in any of his three starts this season, and his opponents have been the Orioles (twice) and White Sox. He's been getting beat up by rebuilding teams. The underlying Statcast numbers suggest this isn't bad luck either. Happ's exit velocity and launch angle allowed point to bad results:
Masahiro Tanaka has been excellent in all three starts this year. He has a 1.47 ERA in 18 1/3 innings. Yankees starters other than Tanaka have a 5.36 ERA and are averaging under 4 2/3 innings per start. Happ is the primary culprit, but Paxton has been OK at best and fill-in fifth starter Jonathan Loaisiga managed to throw only seven total innings in his two starts.
Getting Sabathia back Saturday should help -- he has a 3.67 ERA the last two seasons and is replacing the largely overmatched Loaisiga -- but, similar to the bullpen, the Yankees need their current players to perform better. Happ is healthy and Paxton is healthy; injuries are not an excuse for those two. They were brought in to solidify the rotation -- Paxton was brought in to be a co-ace alongside Severino, really -- and have done anything but.
Bird is blowing another opportunity
The Hicks injury opened the door for Greg Bird to make the Opening Day roster. He was likely ticketed for Triple-A coming out of spring training, but then Hicks went down, forcing Stanton to play the outfield and freeing up DH at-bats for Bird. The results have not been good.
On Friday night Bird went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts and was booed after each at-bat. It's not hard to understand why fans are unhappy with him. The Yankees love Bird and have given him opportunity after opportunity, yet over the last three seasons he's authored a .196/.290/.391 batting line in 518 plate appearances around various injuries. That's terrible for a light-hitting defense-first middle infielder. It is untenable for a bat-only first baseman.
The Yankees were very short on left-handed lineup punch coming into 2019. Gregorius is hurt and Brett Gardner doesn't contribute much offensively these days, so Hicks, a switch-hitter, was far and away the team's best threat from the left side of the plate. Bird's lefty swing is seemingly tailor-made for Yankee Stadium's short right field porch. Instead, he is striking out a ton (40.5 percent of his plate appearances) and making very poor contact when he does get the bat on the ball.
The injuries have thinned New York's lineup considerably, so even though he has not played well at all this season, Bird has been a staple in the middle of the order, usually hitting fifth. He's done nothing to justify a lineup spot that prominent in three years now, but injuries are forcing the team's hand. Of all the injury replacements in the lineup, Bird is the one with the best chance to have an impact, and he's instead fallen flat again.
They've played very sloppy baseball
It can be difficult to quantify something as vague as "sloppy" play, but you know it when you see it. Consider Gleyber Torres on this DJ LeMahieu two-run single Friday night. For some reason Torres froze between second and third bases rather than continue to third to force the White Sox to make the perfect set of relay throws for the inning-ending out.
The Yankees have made 12 errors this season, fourth most in baseball, and they've made seven outs on the bases, sixth most in baseball. They rank 24th in defensive efficiency (68.6 percent) and 20th in baserunning (minus-1.4 runs). Their margin for error has been reduced by injuries, and the players on the roster are compounding things with careless mistakes in the field and on the bases.
"It's got to be better, especially when you're playing a really good team, and you're up against a really good pitcher. You've got to do the little things that allow you to win ballgames," said the perpetually optimistic Boone said following an especially sloppy game earlier this week. "The bottom line is, we're really close to playing a good brand and a complete game."
We have yet to see evidence the Yankees are "really close to playing a good brand and a complete game," but hey, this is something that could turn around in an instant, like Britton and Green getting outs, Happ and Paxton pitching effectively, and Bird getting locked in at the plate. Right now, the Yankees are decimated by injuries, and many of the healthy players on the roster aren't pulling their weight either.
Golden State Warriors superstar forward Kevin Durant said he knew there would be backlash for signing with the Dubs as a free agent in 2016, but the upside of joining an already loaded roster alongside Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green far outweighed the potential negatives.
On Saturday, Michael Lee of The Athletic provided comments from Durant as the Warriors prepare to begin their playoff quest toward a third consecutive NBA championship.
"I came here knowing for a fact, that every media member, every fan was going to call me every name in the book for however long I was here and I was going to take the brunt of everything. I knew coming here," he said. "But I wanted to be a part of this so bad, I didn't give a f--k. Same with LeBron [James]. He took all of that heat, no matter what."
The 30-year-old University of Texas product added the decision to join Golden State said the "spirit of the game" played a much bigger role in his choice than the potential for individual accolades.
"Not the spotlight or the fame that comes from being the best player. Not the legacy. I swear on my life, that don't mean nothing to me," Durant told Lee. "How I build myself up in this NBA life, it doesn't mean anything to me. I just want to play great basketball every second I'm on the court, and that was a perfect opportunity for me to do so."
Stars Invest in Plant-Based Food as Vegetarianism Sweeps NBA
The NBA Got Some Wild Techs This Season
Jarrett Allen Is One of the NBA’s Hottest Rim Protectors
Wade's Jersey Swaps Created Epic Moments This Season
Westbrook Makes History While Honoring Nipsey Hussle
Devin Booker Makes History with Scoring Tear
29 Years Ago, Jordan Dropped Career-High 69 Points
Bosh Is Getting His Jersey Raised to the Rafters in Miami
Steph Returns to Houston for 1st Time Since His Moon Landing Troll
Lou Williams Is Coming for a Repeat of Sixth Man of the Year
Pat Beverley Has the Clippers Stealing the LA Shine
LeBron Keeps Shredding NBA Record Books
Young's Hot Streak Is Heating Up the ROY Race with Luka
LeBron and 2 Chainz Form a Superteam to Release a New Album
Wade's #OneLastDance Dominated February
Warriors Fans Go Wild After Unforgettable Moments with Steph
Eight Years Ago, the Nuggets Traded Melo to the Knicks
Two Years Ago, the Kings Shipped Boogie to the Pelicans
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Nevertheless, the two titles and a pair of NBA Finals MVP Awards have at least allowed Durant to move closer to entering the same realm as James in the conversation for best player of the current generation, and it could make him a factor in the "greatest of all time" discussion when his career ends.
The 10-time All-Star selection and 2014 regular-season MVP can utilize a player option in his contract to become an unrestricted free agent at season's end. There areenduring rumorshis time with the Warriors may conclude so he can head east to sign with the New York Knicks.
While Durant didn't directly discuss his future plans with Lee, he made it clear the success he found in Golden State made it worth the negative reaction.
"I'm from Washington, D.C. I went to Oklahoma City for eight years. Out of nowhere, I went to the Bay for three years," he said. "I've been roaming my whole life. I never had no stable environment. Ever. Ever. Since I woke up. I sacrificed a lot of s--t to be here and to change my game up to be with these guys. And it was worth it."
Although the summer will bring a new set of questions for Durant to answer, the short-term focus remains trying to chase down another championship with the Warriors. They are listed as the prohibitive favorite entering the playoffs, which comes as no surprise.
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Durant and the Dubs kick off their first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night at 8:15 p.m. ET on ABC.
Thirty-four years since New York Knicks great Dave DeBusschere pumped his fist on a podium after landing the No. 1 pick to select future Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, Ewing will now represent the franchise at the NBA draft lottery next month for a chance to draft Duke phenom Zion Williamson, the team announced Saturday.
"Patrick is a huge part of our team's history and we're thrilled to have number 33 represent the franchise at this year's draft lottery," said Knicks president Steve Mills. "Patrick's connection to the lottery is well documented, and we're proud to have one of the all-time Knicks greats sit on the dais on behalf of the team, the city and the fans."
The Knicks finished the season with the worst record in the NBA. New York, the Phoenix Suns and the Cleveland Cavaliers -- the teams that finished with the three worst records -- will all have a 14 percent chance at landing the top pick.
Ewing, a Hall of Fame center who starred for the Knicks in the 1980s and 1990s, was selected with the No. 1 overall pick by New York in the 1985 draft. The franchise obviously hopes that Ewing brings it the same kind of luck at this year's draft lottery, scheduled for May 14.
Because it finished with the league's worst record, New York will select no lower than fifth in June's draft.
The club hopes to use its lottery pick and the more than $70 million in cap space it will have this summer to vastly improve a roster that finished 17-65 this season, tying the worst record in franchise history.
That pursuit starts on the night of the draft lottery, when Ewing, the franchise's all-time leader in points, rebounds, blocks and games played, will sit on the dais for the club.
In recent seasons, Knicks legend Walt Frazier, Mills and GM Scott Perry have represented the franchise on the night of the lottery.
Knicks head coach David Fizdale had Ewing speak to his team earlier this season on a trip to Washington to play the Wizards.
Ewing, currently the head coach at Georgetown, said in an interview earlier this week that he is asked "all the time" about the Knicks' chances of landing Williamson and free agent Kevin Durant.
Williamson, who on Friday won the John R. Wooden Award as college basketball's best player, declined to say whether he would join Duke teammates RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish in declaring for the draft, drawing laughter from the crowd when he said, "Umm, who knows?"
Ewing's Knicks career ended awkwardly.
He reportedly requested a trade in 2000 because the club declined to extend his contract. The resulting trade, which sent Ewing to Seattle in his 16th season, saddled the Knicks with long-term salary commitments to players with middling talent. It also started a rocky period for the club. New York has won just one playoff series since Ewing, an 11-time All-Star, was traded.
