We begin Odds & Ends with something I’m actually for, fans not voting for starting line-ups in All-Star games.

We saw the uproar last year with the Major League Baseball All-Star Game where we almost had an American League starting line-up with nothing but Kansas City Royals in it (Thank GOD we didn’t,by the way) and now we have controversy with the NBA All-Star Game voting.

Look,I get why Kobe Bryant got the starting nod,it’s his last year and the fans want to see him start. But how in the hell did Zaza Pachulia get more votes than DeMarcus Cousins and Draymond Green and nearly make it into the starting lineup (Kawhi Leonard got the nod)? More importantly,how did Cousins and Green miss the starting cut?
Cousins came out on recently with some comments and thoughts of his own regarding the voting process for the midseason exhibition game.

“There definitely wouldn’t be fan voting,” Cousins told Yahoo!, “You can’t base it off of who is on TNT and ESPN every night. Of course, it’s going to be most winning teams’ [players], the most popular players [selected]. The other guys that play for the Milwaukee Bucks, and in our case the Sacramento Kings, who are playing just as good basketball, will never be seen. I don’t think it’s fair.”

While I disagree that voting altogether should be gone,I think voting for starters should be,in any All-Star game. I do feel that this is a game for the fans,but I also feel that the coach of the All-Star team should be the one to make the starting line-up.

As for the NBA All-Star Game, let’s bring back the option to vote for a center. It’s an outrage to have “three frontcourt players” be voted in,it makes the center position irrelevant,which to me is still a vital position in a league that prides itself on shooting threes.

Keeping with the NBA and the lack of class the Portland Trail Blazers’ social media team showed last night when they made fun of a play where DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo were slow to get up in the form of a tweet. Cousins was actually shaken up from the play and was not the same player the rest of the night that he played. The Kings lost 112-97.

Kings fans and Twitter were in an uproar over what the Trail Blazers posted and as of press time,the tweet is still there and there has been no apology from the team or it’s social media staff nor has any administrative action been taken regarding it.

I don’t care who you are,you don’t make fun of potential injury like the Trail Blazers did. What if those two stayed on the ground? Would they have posted and laughed about that? What if it were the other way around and the Kings posted a tweet showing Noah Vonleh and Damian Lillard falling down and slowm to get up? Would the Blazers and their fans be as outraged? I would hope so.

I guess it’s only funny when your guys don’t get hurt.

What happens when you have 39 different offensive line combinations that pull you to the conference championship game? You lose your job. At least that’s what happens in New England when the team fired offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo after Tom Brady was hit 19 times in the team’s 20-18 loss to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game.

The team’s offensive line woes were far from a secret as guys like Nate Solder went down for the year and Sebastian Vollmer missed significant time before returning for the playoffs,resulting in using guys who were inexperienced and outmatched by the opposition.

DeGuglielmo’s dismissal raised some eyebrows because of earlier praise for his work despite all the injuries the line took this season.

I hate to see anyone lose their job in the fashion that DeGuglielmo did, but when your star player and the face of the league is getting knocked on his ass time and time again and you can’t find the answer for it and a trip to the Super Bowl is on the line,something’s gotta give.

All I can say is I hope the Patriots spend every last draft pick they even have on offensive linemen because apparently you can never have too many of them. Ask the Patriots.

The Milwaukee Brewers made a smart move in bringing back to prominence one of the best logos in sports history. The team will sport caps with their famous MB glove logo on them as well as away alternate jerseys with the logo on the sleeves next season.

The jerseys and caps will be worn on Sundays,either at home or away. It will replace the team’s away navy jersey as well as the team’s gold alternate jersey.

This is a smart move made by the Brewers because this logo was and is so popular and fans have been wanting the team to go back to it entirely. While they’ve stopped short of that,I commend the team for recognizing its continued popularity and love that they’re bringing it back to one of their uniform sets. I thought at first it clashed with the current script that the jersey has,but it does compliment it as it blends the past with the present. Well done,Brewers!