Popovich - A living legend. Popovich announced he won’t be returning to the sideline after suffering a mild stroke in November. The breakdowns of his career will come out this week and we’ll dedicate space here as well. He leaves behind a massive legacy, a hole in the League’s leadership, and unfortunately won’t be Victor Wembanyama’s coach next year.

Clippers - James Harden only cares about getting a head start on summer vacation. Changing teams, playing with super stars, signing huge contracts suggests that Harden wants to win a championship. Just playing the game is supposed to mean you care about winning. James Harden doesn’t. He’s actually not a KMARK reader (yet) and I’m certain he doesn’t listen to the media. The message of “please score more than 7 points in a game 7” isn’t going to reach him. Harden has a player option for next season.

Warriors - the level of basketball in this series didn’t match any of the other first round matchups. The Thunder should beat the Warriors 4-1. Still, Steph in round 2 is fantastic. We don’t get that much more Steph. He’s a talented golfer and won’t play to 40 like Lebron.

Pacers - Big W. Without Darius Garland, the Cavs lacked organization in the 4th.

PGA - what an absolute waste of time. Scottie Scheffler shredded TPC Craig Ranch and ties the 72 hole scoring recored (-31). The Television Product was trash. Listening to the announcers trying to defend this golf course was pointless. This weekend exposed Golf’s crisis. Bryson is beating Charles Howell (why?) in Korea, while Scottie and the rest of the field are destroying a course even I could shoot 88 on. Not good. Ain’t nobody need to see that (the PGA, not my 88).

Two weeks ago we tipped you off to Kyle Stowers. That young man has continued to crush the ball including a walk-off grand slam Saturday night. He’s good (for sure), but golly, have you heard of this Aaron Judge guy!

Judge is slashing .423/.510/.777. Dimensionally, he breaks the batter’s box. To throw Aaron Judge a strike at the bottom of his zone is to throw a pitch that would be dangerously elevated for any normal sized batter. Pitchers aren’t good at that! Similarly Large Human Shohei Ohtani is Shaq, but Judge is Yao Ming. He’s cut his strikeout rate by 4% since last year and 10% since his early career. His walk rate is down as well. Why? Because he’s smashing the ball early in the count. Judge’s contact skills have grown to match his generational power.

Where can he go from here? If you’re saying to yourself “KMARK - it’s May. Chill bro. He had one good month. It’s a small sample size”, then you’re an astute Baseball Knower. You are a man that understands Regression to the Mean and I too respect Regression. That said, teams and pitchers gameplan based on data. Judge has been in the Bigs for almost 4500 plate appearances. If data on how to get him out persisted, the League would know it. For him to take his game to this level suggests no empirical strategy exists against him. He’s actually done this for the last year and a half. Judge has transcended mathematics? Can people do that? Woah - this is getting radical.

Put the numbers aside. Give this one more month. I will be on Judge Watch so you can enjoy the NBA playoffs. Still, if we’re writing this again in June, we could be on the verge of a Bondsian season. Of course we’re not going to root for the Yankees, but we are gunna have to tune in.