Dots: A Special Day in Seattle

Eddie Murphy once said “when you are starving and somebody throws you a cracker ... you are going to all be like ‘damn, that was the best cracker I ever ate in my whole life’”.

That, my friends, is how I best describe Husky Dots in July. Enjoy your crackers.

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Show me the money!

This is a topic deserving a more thorough editorial analysis. For the sake of timeliness, I’ll post the link here now.

Jon Wilner has been all over the business of managing the PAC 12 and the PAC 12 Network since the expansion. One of his hot button issues has been the revenue shares that come from each conference’s respective media contracts.

On the heels of the huge news that the B1G will be paying out a whopping $51M per school (windfall for Maryland!) in 2018, Wilner did the hard work of forecasting each Power 5 conference’s payout and comparing it to how the PAC 12 stands. It’s good work and worth reviewing if you haven’t done so already.

The bigger question hinted at but not directly addressed is what, exactly, are the ramifications of losing a revenue arm’s race to the likes of the B1G and the SEC? We’ll hit on that on another day.

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Don’t touch our Dawg.

This is free agent season in the NBA. One of the big stories (we’ll get to the biggest one in a moment) involves the impasse that San Antonio has reached with star Kawhi Leonard. The 76ers, an interested trading partner, has let the Spurs know that Fultz, in fact, is off limits in any trade proposal.

Interesting to see how much faith Philly still has in last year’s #1 overall pick.

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I missed you, man.

The King ... and I am speaking specifically about LeBron James ... is taking his talents to Los Angeles in what amounts to not only the blockbuster sports news of the day but the most important news in the entire cycle of the day.

One interesting sidebar to the news of LeBron going to the Lakers is the reunification that he will have with Husky great Isaiah Thomas ... assuming IT resigns with the Lakers. IT is an unrestricted free agent.

You might recall that the two men played together briefly in Cleveland. I would emphasize the word “briefly” given that, if reports are to be believed, LeBron didn’t much care for playing alongside IT.

But this is the NBA. Bygones and all that. For his part, IT has had no reaction on Twitter (as of the drafting of this update). I would emphasize, however, that he has been silent on Twitter for quite a while.

Speaking of IT, I saw this post of his from Father’s Day and it made me chuckle.

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Stanford wants to win the North again ... and UW stands in their way.

Our friends from Rule of Tree have identified UW as their biggest threat to winning the North division for a second straight season. That is not a shocker. But it does raise a bigger question: is the North really a two team race?

I’m still processing my offseason research as part of my ongoing Gekko Files preview series. While my instinct is to say “yes, of course it is a two team race”, I think we all need to be wary of recency bias. The truth is that 2018 is a really unique year given how young the PAC was in 2017 and all of the returning starters that are littered across PAC 12 rosters. The South is for sure an “anybody’s guess” affair. I suspect the North may be closer to that situation than not, as well.

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He’s so good, he hired himself.

Did Chris Petersen hire himself at UW?

In detailing the story behind the story on how Texas A&M was able to hire away Jimbo Fisher, SI’s Andy Staples was able to get on the record some previously unconfirmed facts about how former UW AD Scott Woodward was actually able to procure the services of Chris Petersen.

You have to dig a little into the article to get the direct quote, but it is worth the read. I won’t spoil it here.

I will say this, whether by hook or by crook Scott Woodward now has two pretty significant hires at two different programs next to his name. That is no small feat.

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A Husky Stadium Dot.

It isn’t often that we link to Husky Stadium news. But, hey, when the home of the Dawgs is going to be the host of the Special Olympics USA Games, we take notice.

The opening ceremony was held yesterday and it looked glorious.

Shaquem Griffin, the inspirational rookie linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, is going to be the co-Grand Marshall of the event. That deserves a big WOOF!

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Number 58 on “The Best” list for 2018.

A certain Husky offensive lineman is getting some recognition among the best players in the country going into 2018. And it may not be who you think it is.

Or maybe it is and I’m just out of touch with you and all of your weird emotions.

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What would you ask another team’s coach?

The boys over at Cal Golden Blogs have a little roundtable going about what they’d like to ask opposing coaches at the PAC 12 Media Day. There is some fun banter there and it got me thinking about what I’d do in such an opportunity.

There are a couple of options here. You could get all serious about football and ask Mario Cristobal to describe exactly what is different between the offense that Oregon has essentially run since Mike Belotti was coach and what he is going to install in his first year at the helm.

You could get sentimental and ask Justin Wilcox about how special it is to get compared to the venerable Jeff Tedford ... a coach so great and so far ahead of his time that he had to go to Canada to find a job after leaving Cal.

Or you could go completely off football and throw in some random questions. For instance, you could ask Mike Leach what he thought of the latest episode of Queer Eye on Netflix. Or you could ask Herm Edwards to name his top 5 favorite motivational speakers (not counting himself). Or you could ask Chris Petersen to what third world nation he intends to donate all of that old Nike UW gear in his closet and why.

That could be fun.

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The New UW Dawg Pound.

That’s about all I’ve got for Dots today. If you are unsatisfied, I would take this moment to remind you that I’ve stepped down from my post as the Managing Editor of the ‘Pound (in case you hadn’t heard). Ryan Priest is now in charge and will be teaming with Max Vrooman to administer the site. I’m sure either of them would be more than happy to hear your complaints about me.

Cheers.

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And some parting Tweets for your Husky fix.