The Sport Superlatives - Issue No. 17

April 26, 2024

🏆 The Superlatives 🏆

The Most Fed Up Official: Hunter Wendelstedt

During Monday night’s NY Yankees game against the Oakland A’s, MLB umpire Hunter Wendelstedt was fed up with the foolishness. Wendelstedt told Yankees Manager Aaron Boone that if he said one more word, he would be thrown out of the game, which apparently meant if he heard any words from anybody at all. A passionate fan sitting near the Yankees dugout yelled a few choice words, leading the umpire to throw Boone out of the game. Boone was quick to defend himself and attempted to clarify that the yelling came from the stands, but Wendelsteldt stood by his ejection of the coach. The MLB did not necessarily agree and said it was a “bad ejection.”

Seeing as how this was Boone’s 35th career and second ejection of the current season, the assumption was not super far off-base. Haven’t we all seen a parent yell at the wrong sibling once or twice?

The Most Fed Up with Officials: The Philadelphia 76ers

In basketball, the Philadelphia 76ers plan to file a formal complaint with the NBA over poor officiating in the Playoffs. This comes after the 76ers lost the first two games in their current series with the NY Knicks at Madison Square Garden. After their buzzer-beater of a loss in Game 2 on Monday, April 22nd, the Sixers were not thrilled that coach Nick Nurse’s multiple attempts to call a timeout were ignored before the Knicks’ final three-point shot gave the Knicks a victory of 104-101. 

During a post-game interview, Joel Embiid was pretty direct about the teams’ desire to file a formal complaint. The 76ers aren’t the only ones complaining about the injustices of the NBA officials this playoff season. LeBron and the Lakers also had a few things to say, too (but we’ll talk about that later).

🏀…And We’re Off: The first round of the NBA playoffs are in full swing. Many games have been blowouts, but some games had people on the edges of their worn-down couch cushions.

• Nuggets vs. Lakers Game 2: The Nuggets made a 4th quarter comeback and sealed the deal with a Jamal Murray buzzer beater. They had the Lakers so frazzled that Bron Bron stomped out of his post-game press conference with a clear desire to write a strongly worded letter regarding the refs. 

@yahoosports

#LeBron really walked out of the post-game press conference 👀 #nbaplayoffs #Lebronjames #lakers #nuggets #jamalmurray

• Thunder vs. Pelicans Game 1: The prepubescent OKC team found a way to play ugly and still hang on for a W. They are young enough that they don’t know when they’re supposed to lose, and are also wildly talented. Gotta love that baby pup energy. 

• Knicks vs. Sixers Game 2: This game gave the NY Knickerbocker fans a bit of chest tightness (as if those big a** NY pizza slices needed more help) cuz their team was down by five points with less than 1 minute left in the game. Yet and still, they managed to win the game after clutch shots from Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo, both of whom played an otherwise fairly…eh.. ‘mid’ game. But hey, it’s like the church folk and Ashanti fans say: they’re not always there for the first three quarters, but they’re always on time… or something like that.

• Mavericks vs. Clippers Game 2: where Kawhi Leonard made his return after being away on commercial break since March 31st. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving combined for 55 points and basically told Kawhi that he would’ve done better to continue to stay on the sidelines.

And if you’re wondering if anything shocking happened to throw sports bettors into a frenzy (and maybe a bit of debt), the answer is, of course. The Boston Celtics decided to lose at home to a half-baked Miami Heat team in Game 2 of the series.

Now, there is definitely a bit of history between these two teams, who have battled in the Eastern Conference Finals three times in the last four years. But this year, the Celtics are heavily favored to win it all, and without Jimmy Butler or Terry Rozier, the Heatless were not supposed to win a game against the Celtics IN Boston. But that’s exactly what happened. And to add fuel to the fire, the Heat set a franchise playoff record by making a whopping 23 three-pointers.

And if ya wanna pour on a bit more gasolina, Jimmy Butler took to social media to troll the Celtics with a recall to Jaylen Brown’s [infamous] words from last year’s playoff meeting: “Don’t let us get one.” The chaos is ensuing. We’ll see what happens as the Celtics head down to Miami. 

Want to keep up with the NBA playoffs? Check out the schedule here. 

🏒 Ice Capades - NHL Style: As most of the teams finish up Game 3 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the weakest links are quickly being identified. The teams that are dominating thus far are: 

• The Boston Bruins lead their series 2-1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs

• The Carolina Hurricanes lead 3-0 against the NY Islanders

• The Florida Panthers are leading their series 3-0 against the Tampa Bay Lightning

• The Dallas Stars head into Game 3 leading 2-0 in the series against the Las Vegas Golden Knights

• The NY Rangers are also going into Game 3 ahead in their series against the Washington Capitals, 2-0

The other teams are all heading into Game 3 on an even playing field being tied in their series 1-1:

• Winnipeg Jets vs. Colorado Avalanches

• Edmonton Oilers vs. LA Kings

• Vancouver Canucks vs. Nashville Predators (no Diddy)

🏈 It’s a Little Drafty in Here: It’s NFL draft time, and we’ve got you covered on the deets! The 2024 NFL draft is taking place in downtown Detroit, Michigan, and if there’s one thing Detroit does well, it’s putting on a good show. Round 1 began Thursday, April 25th, and continues through Saturday, April 27th, with rounds 4-7.

Out of the 257 picks in this year’s draft, the Chicago Bears held the No.1 pick and selected USC quarterback Caleb Williams. Let’s see if this first-round QB pick is a better fit for the team than first-rounder, Justin Fields, who they just traded to the Steelers. 

There were a few other notable picks in this first round, including the surprising turn of events when the Atlanta Falcons chose QB Michael Penix Jr with their no. 8 pick. Apparently, the Falcons got moneyyyyyy seeing as they just inked a 4-year $180M contract for Kirk Cousins to be the starting QB. According to Cousin’s agent, he was just as shocked as the rest of us by the move. 

Another confusing pick of the night was No. 12 pick by the Denver Broncos, deciding to go steady with QB Bo Nix. This is the fourth QB the Broncos have attained after adding former NY Jets’ Zach Wilson to their current QB roster of Jarret Stidham and Ben DiNucci. I mean… how many QBs does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Not sure? Don’t worry, the front office of the Broncos doesn’t appear to know either. 

This first-round draft was expected to be pretty heavy on offense picks, and it certainly met that expectation. There were 6 QBs drafted in total for the first round, seven wide receivers, a number of offensive tackles, and a host of other critical offensive positions.  

Although this draft class was strong, talk around the town is that this year’s draft class was heavily impacted by several college athletes who were more inclined to return to school rather than enter the draft. Now, we could believe that suddenly they all believe that school is cool or… that they see the benefits now that NIL has entered the chat.  

Want to tune into the draft? Catch the latest updates on ESPN and ABC.

🏀 Sister Wives - NBA Edition: So check this out. Apparently, Damian Lillard’s divorce needed another chapter. Enter Glolillard and the Sister Wives. From what we’ve gathered, rapper Gloria Hallelujah, aka GloRilla was quite bold in letting the internet know that she was looking to snatch Damian Lillard off of whoever, whatever, whenever during NBA All-Star Weekend. Glo polled the internet asking who Lillard belonged to because she had a whole crush.

Well, his estranged wife was apparently lying in wait, and she thought she got her payback this weekend by posting Glo’s mugshot and captioning it  “Free GloLillard #sisterwife.” 

But Glo clearly said, “If you wanna be funny, then I can be hilarious,” because then she posted a picture of herself in a custom Damian Lillard jersey with the name GloLillard on the back. Petty is as petty does, and Dame doesn't want anything to do with any of it. He just wants to score 35 points in a half and go home... alone.

🏀 It’s about to be a what? Bro Fight: So, short story short, Denver Nuggets’ star and 2x MVP Nikola Jokic has embarrassing family members… how relatable..like Beyoncé’s hair (did you see it?)… Sorry, we got off track. Anywho, Jokic’s big-backed brothers were caught fighting fans in the stands during Game 2. The NBA is allegedly investigating, but what’s there to investigate? It’s all there in HD. See for yourself.

🏀 Let it Burn: WNBA Las Vegas Aces player Kelsey Plum files for divorce from NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders’ Darren Waller. But sometimes, what happens in Vegas… doesn’t work. Kelsey took to Instagram earlier this week to share that she has filed for divorce after being wed for a little more than one year. 

Plum’s IG post said, "I'm devastated. I walked through fire for that man, but now I see it's time to go. God has given me such an incredible life, and I'm truly so grateful for the profound love from my family and friends. One day, I'll share my story. Today is not that day."

Like walking through fire (we assume we’ve never tried it), we all know that marriage is not easy. Hopefully, the two will have an amicable split. If not, guess you’ll read about it here. 

Your sports term of the week is: triple-double.

IRL Example: Idk, how can that possibly translate? It barely makes sense in basketball. 

The Kids’ Got Style: We are slightly more than impressed by the fashion statements made by this year’s draft class. We think the number one pick has the number one look this week.

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But we loved these looks as well!

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