Odds on the Indiana Pacers winning the NBA championship have dropped precipitously in the past 19 days, going from 80-1 on June 15 to 12 1/2-1 today. Why? Because the Hoosier state is home to a professional basketball team that has improved significantly through free agency, along with a prospective Supreme Court nominee who may end up forcing us all to start brushing up People of Praise.
First, the basketball part.
Tyreke Evans has agreed to terms, which gives the team that took LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to a Game 7 in the opening round of the playoffs a former Rookie of the Year who has consistently make every team he has played for a little bit better, with the exception of last season’s Memphis Grizzlies, who had a bit of a dysfunction issue involving Marc Gasol and Dave Fizdale.
New profile photo for @TyrekeEvans, the newest Pacer. pic.twitter.com/tlD4zapmxa
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) July 4, 2018
Evans, who agreed to a one-year, $12 million deal, will be joined by free agent Doug McDermott, who split last season with the New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder. He got three years at $22 million. Also coming aboard is Kyle O’Quinn, who was Enes Kanter’s backup in New York. They join a nucleus that includes Daren Collison, Victor Oladipo, Myles Turner, Thaddeus Young, Domatis Sabonis, Bojan Bogdanovic and rookie Aaron Holiday (point guard, UCLA, picked 23rd overall in the 2018 draft), and their only significant roster departure was Lance Stephenson, who will be teaming up with former nemesis LeBron James in Los Angeles.
And with LeBron now in the Western Conference, the East is even more wide-open that it already was. As we await the next moves made by the Philadelphia 76ers, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, all of whom should be considered in the running for Kawhi Leonard, the Pacers are one of the few teams that appear to have their roster more or less set for the upcoming season.
So there is some stability, and some value, In Indiana.
Which brings us to Judge Barrett, who sits on the Seventh Circuit. One year ago, she was relaxing with her family (seven children) after finishing her final term as a law professor at Notre Dame. By December, after being appointed by President Trump, she was wielding a gavel as a Federalist Society Federal Court judge. Seven months later, she is the favorite to be the pick by Trump to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
According to Frank Bruni in today’s New York Times, she belongs to a mostly Catholic Group, People of Praise, who make an especially intense commitment to their faith.
The last time there was this much commotion about a public figure’s Catholicism, John F. Kennedy was running against Richard Nixon, and Mayor Richard Daley was registering voters from every tombstone in Cook County. Those votes from dead people ended up swinging the election, 40 years before Bush vs. Gore.
People who cover this Supreme Court are of the belief that Brett Cavanaugh, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is running neck-and-neck with Barrett. Of course, all of those people know that President Trump can change his mind on a moment’s notice, and my partners down in Costa Rica have kept this in mind in listing Kanye West at 10,000-1 to be nominated.
Whoever ultimately gets confirmed will likely still be a sitting justice by the time the U.S. sports gambling industry has a national standard, and the over/under on Congress getting anything done on that front is the year 2030. (My guess). So we are going to have something in the neighborhood of 12 years of every state making its own set of sports gambling rules, and adjusting as neighboring states make and adjust their own rules. So far, only Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey are open for business (I have covered sports gambling from Dover Downs and from Monmouth Park for this site), but a whole bunch more states are gearing up for NFL season, having already passed legislative bills.
So sports gambling is going to be the new normal, which everyone should remember is not always “normal.”
By the time 2030 rolls around, LeBron James Jr. will be on Decision II of his own, and his dad will be 51 and averaging 20 ppg for Shanghai, Dubai or the Cavs. (Did you read about Decision IV?).
Yes, the world changes as the decades fly by, but the changes in Indiana for the upcoming season look more or less complete. If you like ’em, bet ’em. But as always, do not bet the mortgage. If the Pacers somehow win the title against whatever behemoth survives the West, you can buy yourself a $23 million in Brentwood and renovate it, just like LeBron did.
LeBron always seems to have all the answers.
He probably would have been a better federal judge candidate than Matthew Petersen:
