Forbes releases an annual list of NBA team valuations, and the Sixers remain a bit lower than I think most people would expect.
This year, they’ve got your team, your town listed as the 12th most valuable NBA franchise at $1.65 billion dollars.
Here’s a video clip with all 30 teams:
Forbes released their annual NBA franchise valuations. They estimate that the New York Knicks are worth $4 billion, which makes them the most valuable team in the league. Check out each team's valuation here: pic.twitter.com/7Z4VaXdROO
— Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) February 19, 2019
For what it’s worth, Forbes does value the Sixers much higher than it did last year, up from $1.18 billion. I’m a bit surprised to see the Bulls and Mavericks listed as high as they are.
For the full list, with an explanation of their methodology, click here.
Earlier today Matt Breen cited a source in reporting that the Phillies are “confident they will sign Bryce Harper” and have ramped up discussions with the free agent superstar.
Now we’ve got NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury dropping a piece titled “Despite rumors, Bryce Harper has no issues playing in Philly.“
Salisbury writes this:
Are the rumors true?
“No,” a person close to the free-agent slugger told us this week.
Harper, the person said, has no aversion to playing in Philadelphia. He is familiar with the city after visiting it three times a year with the Washington Nationals over the last seven seasons and he likes hitting in Citizens Bank Park where he has a .930 OPS, 14 homers and 32 RBIs in 50 career games.
Now, if Harper were able to write his own storybook script, he may lean toward signing with a California-based club like the Dodgers. He is from Las Vegas and would value playing close to home. In glitzy Los Angeles, he could also be the LeBron James of baseball.
It’s interesting to see two local guys drop separate pieces only two hours apart. Breen cites a “source” while Salisbury uses “a person close to” Harper, so if you’re a conspiracy theorist, you could believe that this is the work of his agent, Scott Boras, putting his grimy fingerprints where they don’t belong. Both stories work from positive premises, so there’s also that commonality.
Continues Salisbury, after the jump:
Sports Betting Updates
Philadelphia Eagles social media team with a 10/10 on this one.
They even tagged Jon Heyman:
All of Philadelphia watching MLB Twitter…
(We're talking to you, @JonHeyman) pic.twitter.com/zuX1qMii02
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) February 21, 2019
Here’s what they are really trying to say to Heyman:
“Alright dude, cut the shit. No more vague tweets about front runners and mystery teams. Just tell us when Bryce Harper is a Phillie. Tell us what the dollar amounts look like. Until then, shut your mouth.”
I mean, I assume that’s what they’re really suggesting here, and if so, I agree wholeheartedly.
From New York Post sports media columnist Andrew Marchand:
Former Phillie great, Ryan Howard, is joining ESPN, The Post has learned.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) February 21, 2019
Howard will be on ESPN studio shows, including Baseball Tonight, Get Up! and SportsCenter
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) February 21, 2019
We reported in late October that ESPN had interest in Howard. At that point, it was considering adding more baseball studio shows. They are not, but they wanted Howard anyway.
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) February 21, 2019
I dig it.
I will “Get Up” with ESPN in order to listen to the Big Piece talk baseball.
You know what?
It’s nice to get some Bryce Harper tidbits from somebody who is not Jon Heyman, Bob Nightengale, or Jon Morosi.
Today we’ve got the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Breen chipping in with a story titled “Phillies confident they will sign Bryce Harper as negotiations pick up.”
Writes Breen:
The Phillies, according to a source, are confident they will sign Bryce Harper as they have ramped up their negotiations with the outfielder after being motivated by losing out on Manny Machado.
The Phillies began the offseason with the expectation that they would sign either Harper or Machado. That expectation, according to the source, has not changed.
Alright. Let’s get it done.
I kind of feel like we’re at a stage now which mirrors one of my favorite scenes from the movie Half Baked. Thurgood, Brian, and Scarface visit Kenny in jail and tell him of their plan to sell marijuana to free him. As the guys celebrate their idea, Kenny says, “okay.. go do it! go sell weed! no more window love!”
That’s how I feel about Bryce Harper and the Phillies. No more rumors, no more tweets, just go do it. Go sign Bryce Harper.
I hate the fact that I’m writing this, because it seems like a topic a radio host would bark about, like a piece of manufactured outrage coming straight off the assembly line.
But let’s write it anyway, and I’ll start with a rhetorical question:
If the Sixers knew that Joel Embiid was dealing with knee soreness for a few weeks, then how can you justify allowing him to play in the All-Star Game?
.
.
.
You can’t. There’s no good explanation.
If your superstar player, the cornerstone of your franchise, and the most important guy on the team is dealing with knee soreness, then nothing about the All-Star Game helps you, the Philadelphia 76ers.
Embiid is now out for at least a week, and here’s what Brett Brown said about Joel’s knee and the ASG on Wednesday:
“We’d all be making a mistake, and it’s a natural dot connector, and it shouldn’t be, to think that had anything to do with it. In fact, when you speak to the medical people, one of the things that at times exacerbates it is time off. You know to keep your core, your quads, etc. strong, and just try to have some level of maintenance, is really in a prescribed area, their recommended area, and maybe time off actually did more harm than good.”
If that’s the case, he can do light maintenance work without playing in the All-Star Game, right? And if time off “exacerbates” the issue, then why is he being held out of game action for a full week? That doesn’t make sense to me. You are saying that the meaningless basketball game was not a problem, but now he is missing multiple games that actually do count.
More Brown:
“But the bottom line is, nobody needs to read into anything here. This is an NBA athlete that has some soreness in a knee, that has had an MRI, and we all should move on. We’ll miss him obviously, playing wise, but it’s not anything that isn’t completely pointed toward keeping him ready, and especially ready when it matters most at the end of the year.”
I tried to take measured approach on the most recent Crossing Broadcast, which Russ and I recorded last night, making the following points, after the jump:
The Alliance of American Football is not dead.
This week, the fledgling football league got a $250 million cash infusion from Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon, who now becomes AAF chairman.
And despite questions about whether or not the league was even going to be able to make payroll, the ratings were pretty solid for round two of the competition:
The AAF game on TNT Saturday afternoon averaged over a million viewers. https://t.co/WfAbOpNBKE pic.twitter.com/ixaIwygynw
— SportsTVRatings (@SportsTVRatings) February 20, 2019
Sure, those numbers are a drop from week one, when the CBS game beat the Rockets/Thunder number on ABC. Of course there’s going to be a decline when moving on from the league debut, but that week two TNT number is good. That’s more than a million people watching the AAF on cable television:
Saturday's AAF game between Salt Lake & Birmingham had a .37 rating on TNT (1,018,000 people watching) — the No. 8 cable show of the day. NFL Network's Arizona-Memphis game had a .13 share (424,000 people). Neither number is too bad. (HT: @showbuzzdaily)https://t.co/wuUqBRxjaq
— Michael Rothstein (@mikerothstein) February 20, 2019
Nope, not at all!
Here are some relevant and somewhat similar numbers via Show Buzz Daily:
- Sunday, 12:40 p.m., Rangers vs. Penguins on NBC: 1,093,000
- Sunday, 9:00 p.m., UFC Fight Night, Ngannou vs. Velasquez on ESPN: 1,463,000
- Tuesday, 8:00 pm., Celtic vs. Sixers on TNT: 1,803,000
- Saturday, 12:00 p.m., Michigan vs. Maryland on FOX: 1,093,000
So that first number is decent when you consider that some over the air college basketball and NHL games were pulling just above a million as well.
Breaking news this morning out of Syracuse, where Jim Boeheim reportedly struck and killed a pedestrian in an auto accident following last night’s game against Louisville in the Carrier Dome.
Here’s a portion of the write-up from Syracuse.com:
Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim struck and killed a man walking outside his vehicle on Interstate 690 around midnight, a source has confirmed for Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.
The victim, a man in his 30s, had been in a car with four others near Thompson Road in Syracuse when their vehicle crashed for unknown reasons, said a source familiar with the investigation.
The man at some point got out of his vehicle, the source said.
That’s when Boeheim drove by and struck the pedestrian, the source said.
The article goes on to say that Boeheim is cooperating with the investigation and that a police report is expected shortly.
Interstate 690 runs east/west through Syracuse and the intersection with Thompson Road is pictured below:
We’ll keep an eye out for the police report.
