Happy Tuesday everyone, and welcome to the best sports month of the year.
Let's get right to it.
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Good morning to everyone but especially to...
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
OK, hear me out. There's no deal done yet, but there's also no games canceled... yet. And when it comes to the current battle between the MLB and MLBPA, at this point we'll take no canceled games as good news.
After a long, long negotiation session that started Monday morning and bled into the early hours of this morning, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players' Association still don't have an agreement -- but the owners did extend their self-imposed Feb. 28 "deadline" that was supposed to be the last day before games would be canceled. The new deadline is today at 5 p.m.
Here's what happened during the negotiations:
The two sides ended up agreeing on a 12-team playoff format. The matter of the competitive balance tax (a.k.a. the luxury tax) threshold -- and the relating penalties for exceeding said threshold -- discussions are ongoing. More trivial matters such as defensive shifting restrictions were also reportedly part of discussions. Back to the deadline: it was never official, but it was more a goal date. While this can't really drag on much longer before games are impacted, we're not there quite yet.If you want a full timeline of the lockout as it creeps toward the three-month mark, you can check it out here.While it's not good that this "deadline" wasn't met, I can't stress enough how good it is that we haven't canceled games yet, something commissioner Rob Manfred himself said would be "disastrous" a few weeks ago. The long negotiations last night seem like the first time there's been hope that we may in fact get a normal, 162-game season. That still remains to be seen, but we may finally get an answer by 5 p.m. today.
Our MLB experts provided live updates to the lockout overnight and will be doing the same today,so follow along here. Make sure you have those live updates up as you cross your fingers, put on your lucky socks or do whatever else you need to do as we all hope today is the day this lockout finally, mercifully ends.
And also a very good morning to...
JA MORANT
On Saturday, Ja Morant broke the Grizzlies record for most points in a game. On Tuesday, Ja Morant broke the Grizzlies record for most points in a game.
No, it's not a typo. Yes, it is amazing. After racking up 46 points Saturday in a strong win over the Bulls, Morant scored a jaw-dropping 52 points last night in a victory over the Spurs. Prior to Saturday, the Grizzlies had played 2,126 games, and no Grizzlies player had ever scored more than 45 points in a game. Morant's now done it twice... in the last two games.
Here's the list of players 22 or younger to score at least 45 points in back-to-back games his team won:
Ja MorantLeBron JamesKobe BryantRick BarryThat's some pretty incredible company for a pretty incredible player. Morant's absurd highlights last night -- a huge dunk and a ridiculous buzzer-beater chief among them -- are the latest evidence that he is must-see TV, writes our NBA guru Brad Botkin:
Botkin: "If you're a League Pass subscriber and you're not checking out Grizzlies games on the regular, you're making a mistake. If you're not a League Pass subscriber, you may want to reconsider. Morant is worth the cost by himself. ... Honestly, there are no words that can do proper justice to the show this guy has become."
