🔥 Choking hazard

🏈 Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby got let off the hook for gambling on his own games. A judge in Texas ordered an injunction against an NCAA ruling banning Sorsby from playing, making the college quarterback the first known athlete in a major sport to admit to gambling on his own team and still be allowed to continue playing that sport. His lawyer was somehow able to convince the judge that the NCAA was harming a recovering gambling addict’s welfare by banning him from playing.

• Every other player who was caught betting on their own games, like Pete Rose and Jontay Porter, has been banned from that league for life. A former Iowa football player, Noah Shannon, was exiled from the NCAA because he placed one legal bet on his school’s women’s basketball team for less than $100. For comparison, Sorsby bet $90,000 on 40 games, including his own. 

• This just shows that the NCAA has no control over its players anymore. If it can’t uphold even one of its most basic rules (don’t bet on your own games), then its “rulebook” doesn’t exist. Now, teams are threatening to boycott the season and not play Texas Tech until the ruling is reversed. I honestly hope they do. 

🏀 The Knicks pulled off the greatest comeback in NBA history. It was a monumental collapse from the Spurs, who once led Game 4 by 29 points. The Knicks trailed by 20 in the 4th quarter and staged an impossible comeback that was capped off with this OG Anunoby Superman tip-in to win it. New York is now one win away from its first ring in 52 years. 

• The Spurs are the only team in NBA history (regular season or playoffs) to have 76 or more points in the first half and 30 or fewer points in the second half. Possibly worst of all, a video went viral of Wemby blatantly trying to break Anunoby’s leg. Not sure how you can explain this one.
  

• Knicks fans obviously took the historic win with class. There were only 56 people arrested in the post-game antics, and only one fan threw an egg at Wemby as he was heading into the hotel. Pretty well-behaved by New York standards. 

⚾️ Major League Baseball had 21 home runs in one night this week. 11 of them were in the A’s-Brewers game. We got one of the games of the year in Vegas. Trailing by three runs and down to their final out, the A’s hit back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the 10th inning to keep the game alive (they still ended up losing). 

• Just for fun, who doesn’t want to watch 21 baseballs get annihilated? 

💰 Kawhi Leonard’s Aspiration scandal could be catching up to him. Clippers owner Steve Balmer, Kawhi, and his uncle/business adviser Dennis Robertson were all interviewed by NBA investigators who are looking into whether the team circumvented the salary cap to pay Leonard under the table. Employees have already gotten jail time for similar fraud, so Kawhi might get off easy if he only ends up with a league suspension. 

• According to former employees of the now-bankrupt environmental startup, Kawhi signed a fake $28 million endorsement deal for the tree-planting company in 2022 that was designed to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap.
  

• If you haven’t listened to Pablo Torre’s investigation on this whole saga, it’s well worth the time. 

🌽 It looks like the Bears are officially moving to Indiana. The Bears' board of directors have voted to advance their stadium development in scenic Hammond, Indiana (famous for being the riverboat casino capital of the Midwest). Even if they’re still called the Chicago Bears, this feels sacrilegious. It’s like sending the Yankees to suburban Boston and still calling it New York’s team. 

• If this goes through, the state of Indiana will have as many NFL teams as Florida, New York, and Texas. 

👽 After three MVPs, Shohei Ohtani is somehow still the most underrated player in baseball. Ohtani currently has the highest OPS and the lowest ERA in the National League. Let that sink in for a second. He is, statistically, the best pitcher and hitter in the same league. I know it's easy to get Ohtani fatigue (especially when the Dodgers spend $400 billion and win everything), but what this guy is doing right now is truly absurd. He needs to be studied in a lab. 

🏒 Mitch Marner is making Leafs fans pull their hair out. The former Leaf is putting his current team, the Vegas Golden Knights, on his back in the playoffs, netting a hat trick in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals in a single period. Marner now has 8 points in his first four Stanley Cup Final games. Only three other players have done that since 1968. 

• For comparison, that’s more points than he’s scored in games 5, 6, and 7 across five postseasons with Toronto, where Marner played 16 games and scored zero goals, with just 5 points.
  

• It’s gonna be hilarious if Vegas wins the cup and Marner (who is from Toronto) brings it back home to parade in front of all the fans that ran him out of town. Poetic justice. 

🎇 White Sox rookie Braden Montgomery hit a walk-off home run in his first MLB game. Facing one of the best closers in baseball, the top prospect hit a walk-off, two-run bomb in extra innings to give Chicago a 6-5 win. Not a bad way to start your big league career. Unfortunately, it can only go downhill from there. 

🪑 The Cavaliers are auctioning off the seat Taylor Swift sat in during the Eastern Conference Finals. This is desperate even by the Cavs’ standards. Funny enough, Taylor was sitting courtside for Game 4 of the NBA Finals, cheering on the Knicks (the same team she was rooting against in that Cavs series a week ago). Loyalty is a fickle thing. Be careful, Travis.

Alright, that’s enough for one Friday.

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