Stanley Cup Is Complete + A Knicks Trade Before Draft Night

BOOM! We’ve got our 2024 Stanley Cup Winners and a ton more to talk about today.

Let’s not waste any time.

Florida Panthers Are Stanley Cup Champions

The Edmonton Oilers almost did the impossible by bringing the Stanley Cup Finals to game 7 after being down 0-3.

The Florida Panthers weren’t going to let game the 4th game in a row slip out of their hands, especially in front of their home fans.

Sergei Bobrovsky showed up in goal for the Panthers and had 23 saves, most of the happening with show for the spectacular.

Two of Florida’s star players, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart, scored both game 7 goals to give Florida the 2-1 win.

Obviously, Florida wanted to avoid an epic collapse in the finals that would be remembered by everyone, no matter who the franchise was. What was almost more important than Florida avoiding the collapse was their head coach, Paul Maurice, solidifying his spot as a legend in the game. He has been a head coach in the league for over 20 years and while he’s made two Cup finals before, he’s never won one. Good for him. He seems like a real gem.

p.s. Despite the Oilers falling just short of winning the cup, Connor McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy for being the MVP of the postseason.

NBA Draft + Trades

We’ve got the NBA Draft tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC. The Atlanta Hawks have the first pick, and things are already starting to heat up. You can find a little draft cheat sheet right here.

We’ve already seen trades go down, and possibly more will come later today. Let’s examine what’s happening.

The Nova Knicks

The Nets traded guard Mikal Bridges across town to the Knicks for four unprotected first-round picks, plus another protected first and other draft incentives. Brooklyn also got Bojan Bogdanović in the deal. Bridges is now joining up with 3 of his former Villanova teammates with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo all on the Knicks.

Could KD Land In Houston?

After Brooklyn got the draft picks from the Knicks, they turned around and swapped a bunch of picks with the Houston Rockets. These picks are all interconnected as some are picks from when the Rockets traded James Harden to the Nets and then when the Nets traded KD to the Suns….We can’t get into all that right now…. So, the Rockets now have some draft picks that they can use to get a star. They reportedly want Kevin Durant, but the Suns really want to keep him. The Rockets improved a ton last year, but is going in on KD the right move? Not sure! Will something heat up in the next few hours before draft night? Keep an eye out!

Lakers Extended LeBron

JJ Redick made a bang in his head coaching press debut after telling the media that he doesn’t give a f**k about what they think. The Lakers certainly care about what LeBron thinks, and now the Lakers look like they will give max money to LeBron for another three years. The Lakers have offered LeBron a 3-year deal worth $160 million, and he has until June 29 to accept. Bronny Jr. could get drafted by another team by then, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. This does seem like a lot of resources for a 39-year-old LeBron, even if he did average 25 points, 8 assists, and 7 rebounds last season.

Sorry Stephen A. Smith

College athletes can now get back ON THE WEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

That’s right; the NCAA has removed cannabinoids from its banned drugs list as much of the country is legalizing the use of marijuana. Not much more to report on here except the fact that schools can still determine their own drug policy.

Puff, puff, pass it on to the next topic!

The Jaguars Will Stay In Jacksonville

The Jacksonville Jaguars have been playing ¼ of their home games in London every year, it seems. The feeling was that the Jags owners didn’t want to stay in Jacksonville and there was likely going to be consideration that the Jaguars would be Europe’s first NFL teams. That would be wild if the Jags had to play on the West Coast. Anyways… the Jags aren’t going anywhere, baby, they belong in Florida, and they’ll stay there. The team and the city have agreed to a stadium deal of $1.4 billion, which will keep the Jags in town for another 30 years. The city will contribute $775 million (which they likely will not recoup because no city ever does), and the Jags will toss in $625 million for the stadium. Not a bad deal for the NFL!

The renderings are kind of dope too.

That’s about all you need to know for the next few days.

We won’t talk about how Gerrit Cole and the Yankees got rocked by the Mets last night in Cole’s 2nd start of the season. We definitely won’t mention that he gave up six runs, seven hits, and four homers in just four innings yesterday and didn’t strike anyone out.

Now we’re good.

See you Friday!

-The DB