Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
• Luka Doncic is Emmitt Smith. I’m not saying the Mavericks’ sophomore guard will wind up as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, but in watching his 34-point performance in Wednesday night’s season-opening win over the Wizards I was reminded of this unique ability: He always gets where he needs to go. Not the fastest. Not the flashiest. But with a combo of footwork and savvy and desire, Luka – like Emmitt – always puts himself in a position to score. In his first NBA game in 624 days, Kristaps Porzingis wasn’t bad either with 23 points. One game in, Dallas’ Dynamic Duo delivered.
• Took some supplies to friends whose neighborhood in Northwest Dallas was virtually destroyed by last Sunday’s tornado. Just bewildering to see what kind of devastation wind can author. Their crumpled car, for example, wound up two blocks from their house. And to think, the National Weather Service labeled the tornado as an EF-3, with winds of 140 mph. Imagine an EF-5, with a power of 200 mph+. (EF, for what it’s worth, stands for Enhanced Fujita, which makes EF-0 sense.) Not that there’s a “good” place for a tornado to hit, but can I dare add a tiny shred of levity to the event? As you know, Preston Hollow is one of the toniest neighborhoods in Dallas. To wit, I heard a woman bemoaning that the storm is preventing a company’s truck from delivering to her doorstep frozen, customized food … for her dogs.
• TCU’s once-promising season is on the line Saturday when Texas comes to Amon Carter. The hype. The #beatUT hashtags on social media. The … red? TCU produced a very slick video unveiling Saturday’s special uniforms that feature prominent red accents, even on the facemasks. My only guess is that it symbolizes, um, blood?
• Other tornado thoughts: I’ll say it again – and likely down the road, again and again – luck is the most underrated aspect of life. Houses were destroyed by the twister while just three blocks from the path quarter-full red Solo cups sat on backyard patio tables, wholly unaffected. The difference in continuing daily life as you know it and totally rebuilding life from the ground up wasn’t skill or preparation or money or being a good person. Just luck. Pure, dumb luck … Very cool that SMU – the feel-good story of college football’s season – wore its vintage “Dallas” uniforms Thursday night against Houston as a tribute to tornado victims … In the ’70s I saw Kyle Rote Jr. and Dallas’ professional outdoor soccer team play at old P.C. Cobb Stadium (on land these days occupied by the Infomart across from the Anatole Hotel). The team’s nickname? Yup, the Tornado. … Best/worst illustration of the tornado is the home of Stars forward Tyler Seguin. One minute a pristine mansion, the next a pile of mess.
• No team – maybe other than the offending Rockets, courtesy of GM Daryl Morey – is affected more by China’s unfriending of the NBA than the Mavericks. GM Donnie Nelson is the father of international scouting. He coached Lithuania in the Olympics, discovered Dirk Nowitzki and made Wang Zhizhi the first Chinese player drafted in the NBA. That 1999 transaction paved the way for two more Chinese players – Yi Jianlian and Ding Yanyuhang – to play in Dallas. The relationship led the Mavs to host the Beijing Ducks in a preseason game last season and later fly to Shanghai and Shenzhen to play the 76ers. The connections, which make the Mavs unofficially the third second-most popular NBA team in China behind only the Rockets (thank you, Yao Ming) and Lakers (think Kobe Bryant), extend beyond the court in the form of them producing custom content for Chinese fans and creating a staff position to connect exclusively with fans though Weibo (China’s version of Twitter). One tweet by Morey – seemingly innocently pro-democracy for Hong Kong – imploded that relationship. But Donnie told me this week that – at least I think that’s what he’s saying – the bond can be repaired. “I’ll just say this: We build bridges,” Nelson said on our Press Box DFW Live! vodcast. “That’s what we do in the NBA. We’re honored to be able to experience different cultures, bring folks together. It’s what is unique and great about the sport that we’re passionate about. So I think we’ll find a way to keep this thing going.” No one is hoping NBA commish Adam Silver can salvage the league’s relationship with China more than the Mavs.
• I repeat: Jason Garrett isn’t on any hot seat. But if the Cowboys don’t make it to at least the NFC Championship Game, put Lincoln Riley and Urban Meyer atop the list of successors. Riley, OU’s quarterback whisperer, is a close friend of Cowboys VP Stephen Jones. And Meyer, the former college championship coach, raised eyebrows last week by saying he’d be interested in coaching the Cowboys. Said Meyer on Fox Sports 1, “That’s the one job in professional football that you say, ‘I gotta do that’.” Asked by Colin Cowherd if he’d talk with the Cowboys about being their next head coach, Meyer answered, “Absolutely. Absolutely. That one? Yes.” Jerry Jones took the flirtation, of course, as flattery. “The job is a great job,” Jones said. “It’s just the place to be.” Garrett’s seat isn’t hot, but no doubt his job is on the line in the next two months. As it should be.
• Props to Hunter Pence being named the AL Comeback Player of the Year. A year ago at this time the baseball world figured he was done, retired. But Pence checked his ego, retooled his swing in the Dominican Republic over the Winter and resurrected into the brightest spot of an otherwise dull season for the Rangers.
• Not that Jon Daniels needed reminding, but good pitching beats good hitting. The World Series features teams ranked 2nd (Nationals, 3.53) and 3rd (Astros, 3.61) in starting rotation ERA this season. Baseball really isn’t that complicated. … The stats geeks and analytics freaks will chirp about WAR–this and exit velocity–that, but then the Cubs go out and hire David Ross, a manager without one inning of managerial experience.
• Wanna make money watching the NFL? Simple. Just bet the road team. If you disregarded records and point spreads and trends and quarterbacks and history andweather and simply said “give me $1,000 on the road team”, you’d be up $22,100 this season. Road teams against the spread: 65-39-2.
• Hot.
• Not.
• If the Cowboys are America’s Team, are the Longhorns America’s College Team? Lots of schools – led by Notre Dame – would fight for that moniker. But of the three most-watched games this season, Texas (vs. LSU and vs. OU) has played in two of them. No. 1 is the Irish’s loss at Georgia.
• Bumped into old friend and former forever Channel 8 sportscaster George Riba this week at On-Air Media. (Chest-puffing aside: Our little podcast production company is assembling quite a stable of media talent with the likes of Ron Corning, Alexa Conomos, Jeff Brady, Jasmine Sadry, Riba, etc.) The man who played second fiddle to the likes of Verne Lundquist and Dale Hansen these days is a dang talented painter and an avid runner gearing up for his 34th Dallas White Rock Marathon. … Another former Channel 8 reporter was up at OAM Thursday: Janet St. James. Sad to report that the award-winning health reporter has been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer that has spread to her lymph nodes, lungs and bones. “I don’t have an expiration date,” St. James said as a guest on the Morning After podcast. “But it’s a terminal diagnosis. I’ve already written my obituary.”
• First the Rockets’ Morey and China, then Astros assistant GM Brandon Taubman shouting in favor of a wife-beating pitcher at a columnist who consistently tweets about domestic violence any time the wife-beating pitcher entered the game. Not a good week for Houston decision makers. If I’m the Texans, I give my GM the week off. Just to be safe.
• It’s long been a horrible sign that Americans desire to be entertained more than informed. We pay actors more than teachers, etc. Latest nail in our coffin comes from ESPN, which is downgrading the investigative journalism show, Outside the Lines, from daily to weekly. This is the same network, mind you, which daily airs a show called Highly Questionable, featuring three people sitting around watching videos and one who speaks broken English and often raises his shirt to expose a rotund, 70-something belly. I weep for you, sports journalism.
• Mavs owner Mark Cuban on this year’s team: “We’re gonna be able to create a lot of space and jack up a lot of threes.” So far, so good. Mavs were 11 of 36 in the opener.
• Game 1 of the NBA regular season > Game 1 of the World Series.
• Hate to give the Patriots credit, but these days they deserve it. New England has a +175 point differential, the largest in NFL history through seven games. Other than cornerback Devin McCourty (who has more interceptions (5) than the Cowboys (3)), not sure I can name a Patriots defensive player. Nonetheless, their defense has allowed only 48 points in seven games. And to think, Bill Belichick has lost his defensive coordinator to head coaching gigs (Matt Patricia to the Lions in 2017, Brian Flores to the Dolphins in 2018) after each of the previous two seasons.
• Heard a genius philosophy I’m going to borrow next time I’m negotiating a freelance writing gig: “If I do a job well in 30 minutes, it’s not because it was an easy job. It’s because I spent 30 years learning how to do that job in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes.” This is why I include “Established, 1986” on all my stories. (I don’t, but maybe I should?)
• Asked Nelson about Dirk’s role in the organization these days. Official? Unofficial? Part-time? “His business card says ‘Anything I Want To Be’. We’ll take as much or as little as he wants to give.” Weird that Nowitzki wasn’t in the building for a season opener for the first time since 1999.
• This weekend? With no Cowboys game let’s get crazy. Or … on Saturday let’s do another Tough Mudder during the day and crash a Halloween party at night. Sunday there’s gotta be some sort of event somewhere in the city to help tornado victims, right? As always, don’t be a stranger.