This is the quiet before the storm that is March Madness. Local sports have slowed to a crawl. The Sixers are petering out yet another season, while the Flyers have careened well off the path, both for this season and in their wayward rebuild, and need to be nudged back on the course with little rocks like Crash Bandicoot.

Let’s hit it!

 

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The roundup:

Rom Burke is headed to FOX Philly:

 

Draymond Green is a big baby man. From ESPN:

The Knicks elected to go without music for the first half of Sunday’s game against Golden State, and the decision did not sit well with Warriors forward Draymond Green.

“That was pathetic,” Green said after his team’s 112-105 win. “It was ridiculous. It changed the flow of the game. It changed everything. You get used to playing a certain way. It completely changed it. To me, I think it was completely disrespectful to everyone from [NBA senior VP of entertainment and player marketing] Michael Levine to [Warriors president and COO] Rick Welts and all these people who’ve done these things to change the game from an entertainment perspective.

[It] gives the game a great vibe. That’s complete disrespect. You advance things in the world to make it better. You don’t go back to what was bad. It’s like, computers can do anything for us. It’s like going back to paper. Why would you do that? So it was ridiculous.”

I didn’t see the game, but I’d move for ALL basketball games to be played without in-game music and timeout nonsense. Except college bands.

 

Chip Kelly’s house, which first hit the market a little over a year ago, appears to have been sold:

Chip paid $1.15 million and was asking $1.2 million, which would leave him slightly under water after realtor fees and such. The house is still listed for sale at the original listing price, so we’ll update to see how much of a bath he took on it. If the last 14 months or so are any indication, Chip sold it for $900k and will have to do a boatload of repairs following the inspection.

 

Wichita State’s coach is mad at Jerry Palm:

You know, the most successful coaches don’t bother themselves, or their teams, with what the pundits have to say.

 

Have you seen the sweet tits on SMU?

 

No, but I have seen these:

Old white man weighs in on breasts– more at 11. Fun fact: I started a sports blog in 2007 and made a PG joke about Hermione– my top search results then all came from some combination of “Hermione” and “naked” or “nude” or whatever. That was 10 years ago. I imagine today is a big day for the nerds… and that I just gained some new search queries.

 

A Trump spokesperson – I believe the first in 48 hours to speak officially about Trump’s wild accusations – says she can’t say where Trump got his info that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower because she hasn’t spoken to the president:

Again, this is the spokesperson for Trump.

 

About a month ago, I tweeted that the stock market was a Trump-blown bubble. People gave me shit – mostly because the fundamentals are relatively solid and there’s not a major systemic problem – but I pointed out that much of the increase was being driven by Trump’s promisies (infrastructure, ease of regulations, taxes, etc.). The New York Times, today:

Stocks have marched higher and higher — up 5 percent since President Trump took office six weeks ago — and the rally has become one of his favorite boasts. And there is plenty of economic data to justify the ebullience.

So why are some hedge fund managers bracing for a sell-off?

It’s all in the details.

The economic indicators are certainly heartening, the managers say, and Mr. Trump’s ambitious policy agenda — which includes a market-friendly triad of top priorities in rolling back regulations on businesses, overhauling corporate taxes and spending $1 trillion in infrastructure projects — looks encouraging, too.

That is, if the policies come to pass as they have been described.

If deep cuts to regulations and a tax overhaul are pushed off to next year, for instance, or if no clear plan emerges anytime soon to rebuild the nation’s physical structures, there is plenty of room for disappointment.

“The stock market may be currently expecting a best-case scenario for policy implementation,” Alan Fournier, the founder of the multibillion-dollar hedge fund Pennant Capital Management in Summit, N.J., said in an interview shortly before the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 21,000 for the first time, on Wednesday.

A closer examination of what it would take to put into effect Mr. Trump’s initiatives, like a proposal to impose new import taxes, suggests that market participants might be overly excited, Mr. Fournier added.

Some money managers are monitoring impeachment betting odds to influence their decision-making. And so, to be clear, the market has, at least in part, been reacting to the promises of a madman. But sure, that’s not a bubble.

 

Speaking of, it’s good to see someone is looking into that charlatan Phil Canella, who promotes his “crash proof” retirement system to poor old seniors. He is the subject of the lead story on Philly.com today, where Cannella, two N’s, two L’s, compared himself to Martin Luther King:

Some of his clients, Cannella said, are even worried that he’s putting himself in harm’s way for exposing “the atrocities on Wall Street.”

“If I get picked off for doing something great nationally, I’m OK with that,” he said. “Isn’t that how Martin Luther King died? They all died for a cause, and the cause still survives. … So, I’m not afraid to die.”

Do you trust this guy?

Yep, Right up there with I Have a Dream.

Philly.com cast much skepticism on Cannella’s practices, but ultimately drew a conclusion that was somewhere in a grey area, as they did find clients who were more than happy that they bought what Cannella is selling.

 

We could be in for a blast next week:

 

Russia wants to make fan violence a spectator sport.

 

T.J. McConnell’s autograph signing was canceled at the last minute:

Trust the process.

 

Eric Lindros is speaking about concussions:

 

Some study ranked Philly as the fifth-best college basketball city in the country. The rankings are highly murky, but me thinks NON-CITY SCHOOL Villanova had a little something to do with making Philly such a great college basketball city. God knows, it wasn’t because of St. Joe’s:

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Neat– they beat Duquesne and took Fordham to two overtimes.

 

Meanwhile, Villanova is just crushing it in all regards.

 

ESPN will reportedly undergo significant layoffs.

 

In a translation of a Croatian newspaper interview, Dario Saric gets it:

I don’t depend on my shot anymore. It wasn’t easy. I used to (in EU) celebrate every win and grieve on every loss, but that just doesn’t make sense here.

 

Jahlil Okafor missed the Sixers’ last game with soreness in his surgically repaired knee.

 

Jimmy Kempski thinks trading Jordan Matthews makes sense and isn’t totally insane, after rumors of the Eagles being “open” to dealing on him surface:

There are now two different coaching staffs who have determined that Matthews is just a slot receiver, and those guys don’t get paid like outside receivers.

Matthews’ camp will point to the production. For example, players like Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson, Kenny Stills, and Terrelle Pryor have all been mentioned as potentially cracking the $10 million per year barrier this offseason, with some players reportedly seeking as much as $15 million per season…

The Eagles have been the subject of trade rumors for the Saints’ Brandin Cooks, and have been linked to almost every prominent receiver that is about to become a free agent. They are going to add a receiver, or two, or three this offseason.

In other words, it’s not like if the Eagles traded Matthews, they’d be saying, “OK, it’s time to step up, Nelson Agholor.” No. There would obviously have to be a sound plan in place to add receiving upgrades.

 

Won’t this dude be cold? Also, protect your foot:

https://twitter.com/WCrill/status/838079532993142784

 

The Nats are psyched to have a No-Longer-Fat Joe Blanton on their team:

The Joe Blanton who officially joined the Nationals on Thursday is trim and appears to be in great physical shape. He spends his offseason in Napa Valley cultivating wine. And after a career spent mostly as a dime-a-dozen starting pitcher, he has refashioned himself as one of the most successful setup men in baseball.

 

There should be armed guards at every exit of this building. Protect those men:

 

Nothing will define this era of sports more than Twitter drama.

Podcast:

Airing of Grievances with Josh Innes:

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The Stepover Episode 26– discussing Dario and dumb hypotheticals:

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