Thrice is Nice!

1. Good for Willie Cauley-Stein. The Kentucky sophomore big man tweeted yesterday that he will be staying in school for his Junior season as opposed to jumping to the NBA. Over the recent years, players have been making jumps to the NBA way to early and never panning out because they are forced to mature and learn to play at a physical level while already in the NBA.  This one and done era, which works fine for a select few players (John Wall, Kyrie Irving) but fails for many others (Michael Kidd Gilchrist, Omar Cook, and Byron Mullens) is a new aspect to college recruiting that coaches must learn to deal with. Whether it was Cauley-Stein recognizing he wasn't ready or Coach Cal offering advice to stay, all that really matters in this situation is a kid who has the potential to be good in the NBA down the road decided to wait and give himself a better chance to succeed at the next level by staying in school. Well done.

2.The return of Great American Small Park. Remember the first week of the season when the Reds and Cardinals split 1-0 games? Or last weekend when the Reds and Rays played a 2-1 and 1-0 game? Well, things changed a bit last night and made it feel like we were watching the 2005 Reds all over again. The game, currently tied 7-7 in the 7th, was suspended until this afternoon due to rain but not before the teams combined for 10 home runs and 3 sets of back to back home runs. This was truly one of the craziest games played at Great American, where neither team could maintain a lead for more than what seemed like half an inning. The 10 home runs sets a new ballpark record and there are still 2+ innings to play. The game will resume this afternoon at 5:30pm. It would only seem fitting for the Reds to be down 1 going into the 9th and hit a walk-off to win.

3. Who knew Adidas had so much money? Damian Lilliard signed a deal with Adidas yesterday for a reported 100 million dollars for the shoe company to produce his shoes. Yes, he is getting paid 1/10 of a billion dollars in order for his name to appear on a shoe! I get paying LeBron or Kobe or DWade that kind of money, but Damian Lilliard? The thought that a kid would be badgering his parents to take him to the store to get the "New Lilliards" seems improbable at best, and yet Adidas apparently believes it will makes them multiple hundreds of millions of dollars. Seems crazy.