Originally I planned on taking this week off. We have family coming in on Wednesday, holiday activities the rest of the week, and a busy two days before all that. But plenty happened over the weekend and I have a couple other posts nearly ready to go, so looks like we’ll slide into the holiday on a nearly normal schedule.

NBA Draft

What a weird-ass year. L had a workout Wednesday night so I wasn’t able to watch much of the first round live. I did sit through most of the second round Thursday to track the two Jayhawks.

I say it was a weird draft because in the various NBA podcasts I listen to, there were wild swings in opinion on what the analysts thought of almost every picks and trade. One person would love Houston taking Reid Shepherd at #3. Another couldn’t believe the pick and sees Shepherd, at best, as a backup for the next 10 years. Same for Memphis taking Zach Edey. One guy thought it was an amazing, possibly season-changing, pick. Another isn’t convinced Edey can play in the NBA for more than five minutes a half. Select just about any first round pick and you can find the same range in opinion.

Super bummed that Johnny Furphy had to to sit through the first round. He allegedly got good intel that he would go in the first 30 picks. The NBA thought that, too, thus extending the invitation to the green room Wednesday. By all accounts he likely would have returned to KU had he known he was not going to be a first rounder, which is the true bummer because I think he would have been a fantastic college player in year two.

Now it is cool that he ended up with the Pacers. As of this moment I’m not sure where he fits in, both because of his youth and need to get stronger, and the Pacers current roster construction. He has G-League For A Year written all over him, then maybe he can carve out a role with the big club in the ’25–26 season. Unless Kevin Pritchard has some more moves ahead which will open up an opportunity to play in Indy this year.

I also felt bad for Kevin McCullar. New York might be the ideal franchise for him, if/once he gets healthy, as Coach Tibbs loves guys who are dogs on defense. But this is a player who was generally regarded as one of the best in college basketball and a top 10 pick back in December. Then a stupid injury, and then injuries, derailed his season, KU’s season, and his draft hopes. Because of his size and defensive prowess, he will catch on somewhere. It will take a lot longer to make the money he seemed to have already banked six months ago, though.

I laughed at how like 90% of the guys interviewed after they were drafted mentioned how they were versatile. Saying it doesn’t always make it so, but it’s clear their agents got that buzzword in their heads before they started the draft prep process.

Bronny…I’m so torn on all of it. I don’t think he’s an NBA player right now, and believe there’s a 0% chance he would have been drafted this year were he not LeBron’s son. If the Lakers are smart, he won’t spend a day in the NBA this year – unless they get eliminated from playoff contention and call him up for the last game or something – and he can work on his game without the full spotlight on him. But the Lakers aren’t always a smart organization, at least when it comes to giving LeBron what he desires. I think LBJ legitimately wants Bronny to earn a spot on his own. But if the team is struggling in February, there’s going to be pressure to add Bronny over an established trade target. I hope it all works out for Bronny. He seems like a good kid and has handled the process well. There’s just an enormous amount of pressure on him to succeed.

I do think it is kind of garbage that agent Rich Paul was allegedly calling other teams and telling them not to draft Bronny, threatening that he would play in Australia if they did. Mostly because I don’t think anyone else really wanted to draft him. There were much better guys to take second round flyers on, and LBJ has expressed no interest in playing anywhere other than LA. I thought it was less about nepotism or entitlement than making Bronny seem better than he actually is.

I still think not drafting dudes because they are 22–23–24 years old is dumb. Sure, they may not have the ceilings that 19–20 year olds have. But you can also often plug them into roles a lot easier than those kids that are still learning. Teams that want to win now should never pass on a guy that can step in from day one and be a rotational player.

Kid Hoops

2–2 week last week to end the summer for CHS, leaving them at 13–7 for June. Which isn’t bad considering their roster.

It was a tough week for L. She got beat up physically in games and verbally by her coach and a couple teammates. This is moratorium week in Indiana. The time off comes at the perfect moment.

There were clear lessons for her from a month of varsity-level ball. She needs to get tougher and not shy away from contact. Improve her ball handling and passing a lot. Keep working on her shot. Not let her coach yelling at her get inside her head.

In reality just about all of her teammates have glaring holes in their games. Everyone needs the two-to-three more inches in height she could really use. Everyone could stand to shoot better. She’s a 5’6”-ish sophomore who will play a lot of minutes some games, and likely really struggle in some other games. That’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Between Thursday night’s games there was a little break and she was out shooting with teammates, having fun, and she kept drilling shots. I told her on the way home she needs to find a way to translate that freeness from the moments when she’s messing around into games. If she can do that, it covers up for a lot of flaws.

She had two, one-hour private lessons last week, and a two-hour practice with her travel team Sunday. I’m sure she’ll want to get up early and shoot at least a couple days over the week off. The grind never ends.

Euro Sport

Man, what an embarrassing Euro 24 for the Italians. Can’t score, not talented enough to muddy up the games and hope for a 1–0 win anymore. Almost as embarrassing for the English, who are extraordinarily lucky to be moving on to the quarterfinals. Spain looks phenomenal. Such a shame they will face Germany in Friday’s quarterfinal.

I bought a Peacock subscription Friday night and was up early Saturday to start watching this year’s Tour de France. A completely amazing first stage, which featured the most total climbs ever in an opening day.

The winner of the last two tours, Jonas Vingegaard, suffered a horrific crash in April and almost didn’t enter this year’s Tour. But he’s looked totally healthy through two days. We’ll see if he can keep it up over another 19 days of racing.

Tadej Pogacar, the winner in ’20 and ’21, is the heavy favorite and was in yellow to start today’s race, but four other riders, including Vingegaard, were tied with him for overall time.

Keep checking this space for Tour updates I’m sure you are all very interested in.