Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
• Just when I was struggling with which NBA team to most root against in 2020, the Rockets played their trump card. By acquiring Russell Westbrook and teaming him with James Harden, Houston now has two of the most selfish, careless, ball-hoggish, unlikable players in the league. In the same backcourt! They both demand the ball. Combined, they have the five highest turnover seasons in NBA history. Oh, and yes, they are damn good. But good together? Delicious. Let the dysfunction begin. Good news: Despite their free-agency whiff, the Mavs are officially now better than the Thunder. Bad news: It makes them only the ninth-best team in the Western Conference.
• If there was any doubt that NBA offseason was more interesting than baseball’s “hot stove,” ponder this: Of this year’s 15 players to make All-NBA, six of them changed teams in the last two weeks. The 21-year/1-team legendary loyalty of Dirk Nowitzki grows with each star-studded transaction.
• Raise your hand if you thought baseball’s first 12-game winner this season would be the Rangers’ Lance Lynn. Liar. But he did indeed, by shutting out the Astros Thursday night.
• I’m not for equal pay for women’s golf, because they play considerably shorter courses than the men. Same for women’s tennis, because they play 2 of 3 sets while the men play 3 of 5 at the majors such as Wimbledon. But in soccer – where the field and the clock and the number of games in the World Cup are identical – absolutely the U.S. women deserve equal pay to the men. No brainer.
• Been saying for years that one day – in our lifetime – there will be a time when we look back and scoff at the fact our sports were erroneously officiated by inherently imperfect humans. Latest example: In the women’s World Cup there were 33 video reviews, 29 of which led to a changed decision. Humans make errors. We’re getting closer to where robots won’t. A computer officially called balls and strikes for the first time in a minor-league All-Star Game, with no complaints. The “Trackman,” long used by golfers to assess height, distance, spin rate, etc., served as the plate umpire in The Atlantic League’s game. It’s the future, and it’s fantastic. Baseball should have a uniformed, computerized strike zone, not a strike zone customized to the whims and moods of multiple umpires. Sorry “purists,” the end is near.
• RIP, Ross Perot. A true Dallas icon. To young Texans, he’ll just be the name on Dallas’ cool museum. But the buzz-cut, self-made billionaire’s most impressive feat was – in an era before social media – his grass-roots campaign that pushed him to qualify as an independent for the 1992 Presidential election in all 50 states. Today, that’s unfathomable.
• Perot’s son, Jr., wasn’t quite as impressive. At his introductory press conference when he bought the Mavericks from Don Carter in 1996, he had to ask how many players were on the court at the same time. He thought six. Yes, for real.
• Hot.
• Not.
• Rafael Nadal plays Roger Federer today in the Wimbledon semifinals. They are the two greatest players of all-time. Sit back and soak it in, same as you would if you got the chance to watch Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods go at it for 18 holes with The Masters on the line.
• Folks are agog over the latest installment of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Hard pass. I watched a couple episodes of Season 1, but bailed when Winona Ryder got into a fistfight with some sort of “monster” that evolved out of a wall – and won.
• Baseball is on pace for a record number of homers this season and commissioner Rob Manfred blames it on “less drag” on baseballs. I don’t even know what that means, but I vehemently disagree, nonetheless. Home runs are good for the sport. Period. (Wink.)
• When a Labrador mates with a Poodle, why is it called a Labradoodle and not a Labrapoodle?
• Congrats to Cowboys’ Executive Vice President & Chief Brand Officer Charlotte Jones Anderson, named to Adweek’s “30 Most Powerful Women in Sports.”
• There is a business in East Dallas called “Bad Axe Throwing.” Apparently, it’s a gun range, using axes. Percentage of men in there wearing beards: 100. Chance of me ever entering: 0.
• Took the I-35 joy ride south Thursday for a weekend tennis tournament in San Antonio. At the risk of offending my statehood, things I passed that are overrated: Czech Stop, Snake Farm and Bill Miller’s BBQ.
• Smell that? Mmmmm. Two weeks from tomorrow we’ll be watching the Cowboys in pads in Oxnard. Football is in the air.
• This weekend? In San Antonio to beat the heat in a tennis tournament. Packed a light jacket for my 8 a.m. match, just in case. Sunday will be for restorative spectating on the couch with Wimbledon. As always, don’t be a stranger.
