Musings:

- In his first year as Patriots HC, Mike Vrabel is 8-2. Vrabel replaced Belichick heir apparent Jerod Mayo. Mayo won his last game as Pats coach, cost them the first overall pick in the draft, and was fired two hours after the season ended. He finished the year 4-13 before the kicking to a South Boston curb. New England was the only franchise Mayo ever knew. After an 8 year playing career, Mayo spent another 6 years coaching in Foxborough. Now he’s watching Drake Maye charge to the playoffs.

- Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Kyle Schwarber, start familiarizing yourself with MLB Free Agents, J.T Realmuto, Pete Alonso, Pete Fairbanks?, Edwin Diaz, you have until December 8th’s Winter Meetings, Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, guys like that.

- Each week, the College Football Playoff Subcommittee releases a ranking of 12 teams that would theoretically be in the Playoffs if the season ended today. Did you spot South Florida as the 12 seed? Did you wonder why the 24th ranked team in the nation would squeeze into that spot? Me too. The Bulls have two losses already. Well, 5 conference champions are guaranteed a playoff spot. The Big 4 (SEC, BIG10, ACC, and Big 12) are all accounted for and South Florida would be the highest ranked from the Group of 5 conferences. Go ahead. Name em:

- Conference USA

- Mountain West

- MAC shoutout MACtion

- American (?)

- Sun Belt

Someone from that group gets to participate in the Playoffs. Of course, the skeleton burning ashes of the Pac-10 are loosely eligible as well. There ya go, college football playoff political representation lesson.

I’m going to make this quick because the reason Nico Harrison was fired today as GM of the Mavericks is actually because everyone got really fuckin tired of hearing about Nico Harrison. That’s it. That’s the reason. The Mavericks multi-verse was so tired of hearing the “Fire Nico” chants that he got the boot 11 games into the season. Surely, you don’t need me to tear him down any further. Walk away with this:

- Anthony Davis will earn and count against the cap a total of $62m in the 2027-2028 season. At that point, he’ll be 34 turning 35. In the same season, 27/28 year old Luka will count $53m against the Lakers’ cap sheet.

- Harrison famously convinced Mavs owner Patrick Dumont to trade Luka. His top lieutenant, Michael Finley, undoubtedly supported the decision and did little to convince his boss, Nico, against trading the team’s generational star. After Nico’s dismissal, Finley has been tapped to run the show.

- I got one name - Dennis Lindsey. Lindsey made his bones steering the Gordon Hayward era Jazz into the Donovan Mitchell/Rudy Gobert era. Both an astute evaluator of talent and nimble cap magician, Lindsey joined the Mavs staff prior to their 2022 NBA Finals run. Lindsey was tasked with guiding Nico through the League’s infrastructure. A keen advisor to a first-time GM. Nico had never worked in a franchise front office. He needed Lindsey’s experience (which began in San Antonio before Utah). From post-trade reports, Nico soured on Luka almost immediately following the Finals lost to Boston. Guess who left the organization shortly thereafter? Dennis Lindsey. Does the Luka trade go down if Lindsey was around to, again, convince Nico from not doing it?

Lindsey is now in Detroit. Detroit is 9-2 atop the Eastern Conference. He’s reportedly favored by Mark Cuban to replace Finley.

Patrick Dumont’s tenure as Mavs owner has been a cataclysmic failure, but he has Cooper Flagg to wave in front of potential GM candidates. Can he woo Lindsey back to Texas?