"The Stack" 1-31-17
Los Angeles Lakers forward Luol Deng is one of the NBA players that could be impacted by the new immigration travel ban enacted by the U.S. He is also one of the many NBA faces that has come out against the executive order.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The Stack is back on this Tuesday with just a short blog today. Trying to stay away from the political talk as much as I can though some is bound to make its way into the blog at some point, because I am so enraged at what is happening to what used to be the greatest country in the world, but enough of that talk. Let’s get right to it and see what’s in “the stack” for today, Tuesday, January 31st:
Cardinals docked two draft picks in Astros hacking scandal
While it’s not quite as big as Russia hacking the U.S. during the election, the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros in Major League Baseball had their own little hacking drama going on and Monday, MLB put an end to it with their investigation, ordering the Cardinals to give the Houston Astros their first two picks in this year’s draft as well as pay $2 million. The Astros’ baseball operations database was hacked into by former Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa. Perhaps the Cardinals got off easy. It seems like they did to a degree, but at least MLB came down on them for the crime they committed. Correa is currently serving time in federal prison for his crimes as he should be. I’m sure Cardinals fans won’t like this though and will say their team got hosed. They’re just lucky it wasn’t worse. This does though give me a chance to tell you all to follow @BestFansStLouis on Twitter. Tremendous follow.
New travel ban a potential problem for NBA
I swear I am not trying to get too much into politics here even though I am so angered by what is going on with what the so-called “leader” of the United States is doing, but the recent immigration ban on non-American citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries has raised the ire of quite a few people in the NBA. On these sorts of things I stand by the NBA and applaud them for using their platform to express their opinion. Folks like Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr and Stan Van Gundy are all wonderful voices to hear talk about what is going in this country. They have expressed their own dismay over what has happened with Van Gundy saying that this is getting dangerously close to Hitler registering the Jews. There are some NBA players from the banned countries like Los Angeles Lakers forward Luol Deng who was born in South Sudan and Milwaukee Bucks forward Thon Maker who is from Sudan. Deng came out Monday decrying the ban and saying he was a #ProudRefugee. Deng has done nothing wrong to deserve a ban yet teams will be a little scared when traveling for fear that players like Deng might be singled out. Hopefully something positive happens soon and this law becomes no more.
Super Bowl storylines
As we get closer to Super Bowl LI between the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots the storylines for this Super Bowl are quite numerous. We’ll briefly go through a few of them as the week progresses.
Kyle Shanahan quieted those who thought that maybe the distraction of the looming San Francisco 49ers head coaching position he is going to get would be too much for him, but with the way he handled the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game, I think it is safe to say that he will be focused on beating the New England Patriots. Shanahan is a brilliant offensive mind and that is a big reason why the 49ers are being so patient in waiting to hire him. The way Shanahan has helped lead the Falcons offense this season to the highest scoring team in the league and the most dangerous offensive team with all of their weapons like Julio Jones, Mohammed Sanu, Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman and of course Matt Ryan running the show, it’s not hard to think that Shanahan is destined to do great things. Can he outsmart Bill Belichick though? That remains to be seen.
Speaking of Matt Ryan, if he wins will he be considered an elite NFL quarterback? We must ask ourselves if that means Joe Flacco is elite (I kid, he’s not elite, but people keep insisting that it be discussed). Ryan should win NFL MVP for the season he had with 38 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He has been on fire this postseason. A Super Bowl win would certainly put him up as one of the five best quarterbacks currently in the league in my estimation and would without question make him the best quarterback, maybe even the best player in Atlanta Falcons history. There are those out there who will still say Michael Vick was a better quarterback, but Ryan appears to have won over the majority of Falcons fans and he will no doubt be number one with just about all of them if the Falcons find a way to win this game.
After Tom Brady and the Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl a couple of years ago over the Seattle Seahawks the debate arose whether or not Brady is the best quarterback of all-time. At the time, I said Brady is the best quarterback of all-time. A win on Sunday would make this a slam dunk case. That would be five Super Bowl victories. I think it is safe to say that Brady and Belichick would be the greatest quarterback-coach duo of all-time and the Lombardi Trophy should effectively be named the Belichick Trophy after Bill retires from coaching.
Coming up Wednesday: Reaction to top stories in the sports world plus more Super Bowl storylines
