by Paul Teetor
Nearly 200 players from the South Bay (and a few other more distant spots) gathered this past weekend for the annual Manhattan Beach Open Tennis Tournament.
The Men’s Open Division, the marquee event with $1,500 going to the winner, is usually won by some touring pro ranked in the top 1,000 in the world with no friends or family in attendance.
Not this year.
This year it was won by 18-year-old Dylan Charlap of Palos Verdes Estates, who had plenty of friends and family rooting him on to an upset victory over top seeded Gianluca Brunkow, who plays for UC Santa Barbara. Charlap dominated Brunkow in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. He will leave PVE to play for Vanderbilt University this fall.
Brunkow teamed up with his brother Lorenzo Brunkow to win the Men’s Open Double crown over yet another pair of brothers, Michael and Jayson Blando from Poway.
In the Women’s Open Division, top-seeded Megan McCray of Oceanside beat the second seeded Leyden Games of Irvine, by a score of 6-3, 7-6. It was a thriller of a match, with McCray pulling out the second set tiebreaker 9-7.
In the Women’s Open Doubles second seeded Haily Huynh of Redondo teamed up with Carolyna Fowler of San Diego to beat the top seeded team of Marissa Markey of Torrance and Iris Berman of Los Angeles by a score of 6-4, 6-2. ER
Happy Trails to Russell Westbrook
He was supposed to be the Lakers third star.
Then he was supposed to be the Clippers fourth star.
He was neither.
Instead, he was a team wrecker, a coach killer and a general pain in the ass.
So now it’s happened again to Russell Westbrook.
Sayanora. Vaya con Dios. See ya later alligator. Good riddance to a bad teammate
For the second and hopefully the last time Westbrick (sorry, couldn’t help it) has been banished from Los Angeles.
This time it will stick, if there is any justice in this world. We can only hope he won’t return to LA until it’s time for him to retire for good and he can’t do any more damage to the local teams.
Yep, the guy who destroyed the Lakers two years ago with his petulant, selfish attitude and wild, reckless play has done it again. This time he drove the Clippers – who had legit championship dreams – to a first-round playoff loss back in May. And this week the Clippers, like the Lakers before them, said they had had enough of his worn-out act.
Two and a half years ago the Lakers were forced to trade him to Utah just to remove the one player who was screwing everything up on and off the court. They went on a long hot streak after Westbrook left and eventually made it to the Western Conference Finals without him and his toxic game and personality.
Utah was smart enough to never actually play him in a game and cut him loose within a week of the trade.
Incredibly, a few weeks later Westbrook ended up back in LA, this time as a free agent signed by the Clippers. But on Thursday the Clippers traded him to Utah – apparently a toxic waste dump for discarded players — because of his petulant, selfish attitude and wild, reckless play.
Unlike Joe Biden in presidential politics, he refused to see that he no longer could play the way he used to in the big time. Refused to see that he could not defy the ravages of time, and refused to tailor his game to fit his diminished skills. He shot 27 percent on three pointers – the league average is 39 percent — led the league in turnovers per minute played, and made it clear every single day that he was not happy as the backup point guard to James Harden.
He averaged 11 points, 5 rebounds and 4.5 assists – all career lows – but never once did anything to modify his approach to the game.
In addition, Paul George, as mild-mannered as a star can be, quietly let it be known that he didn’t like playing with a ball-dominant, selfish, bad shooting teammate like Westbrook. Team insiders cited that as one reason PG left the Clippers two weeks ago to sign a 4-year, $212 million contract with Philly. If only he could have waited a couple of weeks to make a decision, he wouldn’t have had to dread the prospect of playing another season with Westbrick.
Now they’re both gone, and the Clippers “Big Four” has been reduced to a Big Two of Kawhi Leonard and James Harden.
And once again Utah – led by the clever Danny Ainge, who built the Boston Celtics team that won this year’s NBA championship – wanted nothing to do with him. They cut him loose Saturday, after which he is expected to sign with the Denver Nuggets.
Denver star Nicola Jokic reportedly signed off on bringing Westbrook to the Nuggets, so he apparently doesn’t have League Pass – the NBA TV package that shows every regular season game — and doesn’t watch many games.
If he had, he would know that the 35-year-old Westbrook doesn’t realize that eight years have passed since he was voted the MVP of the league. He doesn’t understand that his game is particularly vulnerable to the ravages of time because it is dependent on what used to be his other-worldly athleticism and not on his superior shooting skills – because he never had any superior shooting skills. The 6-foot-3 Westbrook simply overpowered people with his incredible quickness and leaping ability.
But whereas someone like LeBron James has been able to survive and adapt to the passing of time – he will turn 40 next season and is still an All-Star — by improving his skill level every season, Westbrook never bothered with that self-improvement crap.
Westbrook started out right here in the South Bay. He stared at Lawndale Leuzinger High School. He went on to two years at UCLA, and then was drafted fourth overall by the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he became an All Star and League MVP in the 2016-17 season.
But that was a long time ago, and the stubborn belief in his own talents that made him such a star in his prime has now prevented him from ever having a productive role with the Lakers or the Clippers.
See ya – wouldn’t want to be ya.
Jellybean Joins Kobe in Hoops Heaven
It had all the makings of a basketball fairytale – but it turned into an LA nightmare.
The final chapter was written this week when Joe “Jellybean” Bryant died at the age of 69, four and a half years after his son, Kobe Bryant, died in a Calabasas helicopter crash along with eight other people, including Kobe’s daughter Gianna – Jellybean’s granddaughter.
Jellybean was a Philadelphia high school legend – just like Kobe – and went on to be a star at La Salle in Philadelphia before an eight-year career in the NBA.
He then played in Italy and France for another dozen years, before returning to the States in time for Kobe to enter high school.
He continued to coach Kobe through four years of high school, and he and his family moved to Pacific Palisades when Kobe joined the Lakers as a 17-year-old.
It worked the first three years, but then Kobe met and married Vanessa Laine, who was dancing in a video Kobe appeared in.
His parents did not approve of the marriage and did not attend the wedding. That started a long estrangement that never really healed. At one point Kobe sued his mother Pam for trying to sell some of his high school memorabilia, and it just kept going downhill from there.
It reached a sudden tragic end when Kobe was killed, and Jellybean – nicknamed because he had so many moves – never really reconciled with the son he had coached to greatness.
Now it’s all over way too soon — for both father and son.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
