Look at that, I’m actually writing somewhat regularly. I’d like to stay in this sort of writing groove moving forward since I think a 2021 goal will be writing - either code or normal English - for 30 minutes a day. I have not written near as much code as I’d hoped or expected this year, but you have to start somewhere. Maybe complaining here about not writing enough code will get me to write more code.
Anyway, on to sports, which has continued to overload my days, though that has lead me to contemplate trying to do a month without sports or something. The NBA Finals are over. Well, they aren’t technically over, but they were basically over as soon as Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic got hurt in game 1. It would have taken a herculean effort from the team to win even with those two players, but without them the Heat are stretched too thin and too much responsibility and minutes falls to players like Tyler Herro, Kendrick Nunn, Kelly Olynyk, and Solomon Hill. They did get a herculean effort from Jimmy Butler to win game 3, but it really won’t make much of a difference in the end result.
The WNBA Finals are over and the Seattle Storm won again. It’s not too surprising, though Breanna Stewart’s recovery from an Achilles injury is remarkable, Jewell Loyd is still super solid, and Sue Bird is timeless. It was great seeing Bird end her career on top.
In baseball, the A’s finally won both a series and a winner-take-all game (they had lost their last nine of those) to move on to the ALDS against the Astros. MLB rewarded them with more day games, which really sucks for both fans and players. The Astros took the first two games of the series, while the A’s battled and got an incredible Liam Hendriks performance to win game 3 earlier today. The ball is absolutely flying out of Dodger Stadium thanks to the heat and dry air, which makes no lead feel safe. After going down 2-0, I’m just happy not to get swept, but would love to knock the Astros out of the playoffs for a multitude of reasons.
Last week was wild in the Premier League as both Liverpool and Manchester United got embarrassed, and Chelsea played a great game and beat Crystal Palace 4-0. Ben Chilwell and Edouard Mendy played their first PL games for the Blues, and while Mendy wasn’t challenged much, Chilwell was phenomenal. It was really great to see the defense play as well as they did, and the game was capped off with Christian Pulisic returning to the pitch in the 83rd minute.
Not all is well in Bluesland, though, as Marcos Alonso is apparently in Lampard’s doghouse and the club wasn’t able to offload nearly as many players as they would’ve liked. Now there are around 30 players technically on Chelsea’s first squad and Lampard will have to juggle all of their roles to keep the club’s happiness as high as possible. TBD on how that turns out.
I’ve turned things around a bit in fantasy football and have a 3-5 record heading into Week 5, though I’m still not scoring enough points overall. I’m trying to make more trades to shore up my team, but struggling to get much traction. Thought I had a chance at something for David Montgomery, but the other guy’s counteroffer was completely lopsided. It’s certainly an issue in our league - teams are so worried about getting fleeced in trades that the only ones they offer are them fleecing you. I’m trying to move AJ Green for anything useful, but I don’t think that’s going to happen and will probably have to straight drop him.
My biggest learning so far this year in fantasy football is to value role clarity. Guys who have a clear role on an offense are going to be more dependable week to week and thus be less of a headache to me. I traded for Darrell Henderson over Antonio Gibson despite Gibson having a more stable role because I was worried about having two players in a blah Washington offense, nevermind that those two players would have been their two most talented players. I kept Mo Alie-Cox over Dalton Schultz because I figured there was no way Schultz would keep getting targets in an offense with so many other weapons, ignoring that he was easily the Cowboys’ TE1 and that Alie-Cox was already competing with Jack Doyle and forgetting Trey Burton was about to return.
Also, I will definitely try to trade out of a top 2 pick if I ever have one again since there’s just too much riding on that one player staying healthy and performing for a whole season.
What I’m reading:
- State of USMNT - It feels like the USMNT is finally catching up to the hype
- Uncommon Contributions - How to contribute to open source beyond adding more code features
- 20020 by Jon Bois - Fun and wacky look at college football in the year 20020
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