A sincere greeting to all who are taking a quick break from an exciting World Cup tournament. We are halfway through the year and about to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary (whether you think America is doing worse than it has recently been is a matter of opinion…an opinion shared by many…). This is also the time to check in on how Los Angeles’ local sports teams are doing. We have teams that gunning for a championship, some teams gearing up for the season, and some teams…that could be doing better.
WORLD CUP UPDATE
Of course we must start with the big topic: the 2026 FIFA World Cup. There have been critiques about the price and even more so about the leadership of Gianni Infantino, but the action has been there for most of the tournament. Going into this World Cup, we had many countries in Europe heavily favored to challenge Lionel Messi and Argentina for the title. What we’ve been getting instead is the equivalent of what we in America call “March Madness” (the term given for the NCAA annual basketball tournament). We’ve had nine teams from Africa breaking into the knockout rounds, and one even beat Germany!
Of course, the host nations of Canada, Mexico, and the US are thriving in the chaos. All three countries made it into the knockout rounds with a legitimate chance to possibly go far. The home crowd advantage has been paying off for all three and all three have fans who are super excited. I spoke to one Mexico fan who said she was “super excited and proud” of how the Mexico team was doing. However, the smart money is still on reigning champion Argentina, as well as powerhouses England, France, and Spain. But with Canada, Mexico, and the US all advancing to the Round of 16, the host nations look to make a statement to the rest of the soccer world.
Now let’s get to the LA Teams. Since we started the article with soccer, we might as well stay there and cover the LA soccer teams. As always, ladies first:
ANGEL CITY FC
What started so promising for Angel City FC has quickly become more of the same. Hard to see how a team that won its first three games went to dropping all but one of their next eight games. Well, it was too much for the front office to bear as they fired head coach Alexander Straus before the World Cup break. Senior assistant coach Leif Gunnar Smerud will act as interim coach while Angel City searches for a full-time replacement, the club said in a statement to the press. In a city of champions, Angel City fans grow restless as to when their team will finally thrive.
LA GALAXY
Things aren’t much different for the LA Galaxy. They currently sit at 9th in the western conference with 20 points. That is enough to qualify for a wild card match to crack into the MLS Cup Playoffs. However, they’re barely treading water at this point. Right now, their goal differential is at 0. What does that mean? In layman’s terms: they’ve scored the same number of goals they’ve allowed. Basically, they’re defending the net, but that only gets you so far if you can’t score. Bottom line is something needs to change or the Galaxy are going nowhere fast.
LAFC
Out of the three soccer teams, LAFC is the team doing the best…but that’s not saying too much. They currently sit in fifth place in the western conference with 24 points and a goal differential of +7. It’s respectable, but a far cry from the leader at the top of the table, the Vancouver Whitecaps (with a whopping 32 points and a goal differential of +22). It’ll be interesting to see how LAFC comes back after the World Cup break, especially South Korean star Son Heung-min. Son has admitted that South Korea’s shock exit from the World Cup has left him “indescribably hurt” and eager to “win the hearts” of the nation once again. LAFC fans hope that this will give him extra drive to lead LAFC to an MLS Cup.
LA KINGS
We move from the soccer pitch to the ice with the LA Kings. The Kings have a tall order to fill. Can they find a top-six center? Can they find a top-six center that can help them score goals, create goals for others and prevent opponents from doing so? Can they add forwards they can trust to score goals in the regular season and the playoffs? Can finding the personnel who can answer those questions be enough for the Kings to return to the playoffs and get beyond the first round for the first time since 2014? That’s a lot of questions that would make anyone interviewing for a job to just end up screaming in terror in the interviewer’s face. The Kings have signed several players already as of the writing of this article. Whether or not it will help remains to be seen. The Kings did a pretty good job at the draft, especially with their first two picks, Elton Hermansson and Liam Lefebvre, two players with exciting scoring profiles will give a big boost to a team that needs offense desperately.
ANAHEIM DUCKS
Just up the highway from LA is the city of Anaheim, home of the Ducks. The good news is that their rebuild has finally bore fruit: the Ducks looked pretty good in the playoffs even though they came up short. However, Ducks GM Pat Verbeek is learning what so many executives before him have come to discover: it’s great to have a young, promising team…until it comes time for all of them to get paid within years of one another. The Ducks have the cap space to pay, but that will make it difficult to bring in a veteran that can anchor this team. Most importantly, and I can’t emphasize this enough, their defense needs to get A LOT better, or they will get bounced from the playoffs next year…again. The Ducks also did amazingly well in the draft. They entered the Draft with zero first round picks and ended up with several amazing players. The Ducks got tremendous value with Nikita Klepov at No. 15 and took a big swing on elite skill with Marcus Nordmark. They were then gift-wrapped Mathis Preston in the second round and I’m still wondering HOW Preston fell to them at the No. 50 pick.
LA SPARKS
From the ice rink to the court, we go to basketball. Looking at the LA Sparks…it’s not much better than Angel City’s position. The Sparks are currently at 8-10, and they’ve lost the number one scorer in the league in Kelsey Plum for at least four weeks due to injury. With Cameron Brink also out for at least a week or two, the Sparks are limping toward the All-Star Break. At this point, the Sparks might miss the playoffs…again. If it makes things any better, if they tank, they could get a good lottery pick…and rising star JuJu Watkins of USC would look good in the purple and gold and playing in the “House that Kobe Built” if the Sparks get the chance.
LA CLIPPERS
Speaking of going downhill, that brings us to a team that makes Angel City and the Sparks look good: the Clippers. The Clippers have quietly been stuck in the middle even more than Toronto. They haven’t won a playoff series since 2021, and in all five seasons since, they’ve finished with a winning record but lost in the play-in round twice and the first round of the proper playoffs thrice. In response to all that mediocrity, the front office has actively disassembled the team’s core over the past couple of years. The Clippers’ top 16 scorers from the 2022-23 team that won 51 games have all cycled off the roster. That exodus includes some departures via free agency (most notably Paul George), but mostly a succession of trades: of Russell Westbrook, then Norman Powell, then James Harden, then Ivica Zubac and now Kawhi Leonard. The LA Clippers have agreed to trade All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2027 first-round pick swap and two second-round picks, sources told ESPN on Tuesday. The only question will be how the Clippers move on from Leonard.
LA LAKERS
No team in Los Angeles is going through more changes than the Los Angeles Lakers. The big news is that Lebron James will be moving on and playing elsewhere. Some of my family members who are Lakers fans (aka the sane ones) had no opinion, or they knew that James wouldn’t stay in LA another season, but I’m sure some Lakers fans will miss him. The Lakers’ new front office wasted no time now that the time had come: when Luka Dončić took over as the face of the franchise. The Lakers made a big deal for center Walker Kessler to finally get the rim protector they’ve needed for years since they traded Anthony Davis. Then in the span of a half hour, they signed free agents Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, and Collin Sexton. What boggles my mind is how the “experts” rated the Kessler trade. These supposed “experts” have been saying for the Lakers to make a big trade like this…and now that they have…they only look at the downside and that the Lakers are out of first round picks. I look at the Leonard trade between the Clippers and Raptors and here is how they graded it:
Toronto Raptors get: F Kawhi Leonard
LA Clippers get: F Brandon Ingram, G Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, one pick swap, two second-round picks
Grade for Toronto: A-
Grade for Clippers: B
Now let’s look at what the grade was for the Lakers’ trade for Kessler:
Los Angeles Lakers get: C Walker Kessler
Utah Jazz get: Two unprotected first-round picks (2031, 2033), two first-round swaps (2028, 2030)
Grade for Utah: A+
Grade for Lakers: C-
First off, ESPN got the wording of it WRONG when they wrote this (see image)
and second…I am baffled by their logic here. The bias against Los Angeles teams, the Lakers in particular, is truly painful.
LA RAMS
I could go on and on about how wrong the “experts” are, but let’s move to the football field. The Los Angeles Rams were busy this offseason addressing their defense. They made big splashes trading for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie and signing Jaylen Watson. We haven’t seen a Rams defense this scary since Aaron Donald retired. The Rams look primed for another Super Bowl run. However, let’s address the elephant in the room. I still don’t like how high they drafted Ty Simpson. They could have traded down from the No. 13 pick in the Draft and STILL gotten the guy. It felt like a wasted pick then…and it’s still a wasted pick now with Matthew Stafford coming off an MVP season.
LA CHARGERS
As for the Chargers, their need was to upgrade the offense and better protect star quarterback Justin Herbert. They accomplished one of those goals by investing in, not a player, but in a coach. Bringing in Mike McDaniel as the new offensive coordinator might be what the Chargers need to propel Herbert as he reaches his prime years. It was a pretty good offseason for the Chargers, but I still wish they upgraded the offensive line a little bit more. I would also have liked to have seen the Chargers upgrade the wide receiver corps as well. I’m not saying Ladd McConkey is a bad receiver, however…he’s not “the guy.” What do I mean by that? Well, look at receivers like Puka Nacua, Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb, and kingpin Justin Jefferson. Now all these players are “the guy” that any offense can rely on…McConkey is not.
LA (ANAHEIM) ANGELS
Our last stop is the baseball diamond. Going back up the freeway to Anaheim, we have the Angels. (And I apologize, but I hate calling them the LA Angels of Anaheim, they are not an LA team…give it up, Arte.) The Los Angeles Angels (ugh that name again), barreling toward their 11th consecutive losing season, fired general manager Perry Minasian last month. Let’s be perfectly honest though: all of this is not entirely his fault. Minasian was often handcuffed. Given the influence of longtime owner Arte Moreno — on a payroll that has become more restrictive and a continued reluctance to institute a proper rebuild — Minasian’s tenure has long been difficult for people on the outside to truly understand. For Dodgers fans, Moreno is a reminder of that painful Frank McCourt era of the Dodgers’ history. Believe me, Angels fans: Dodgers fans know what you are going through. Now, Angels fans are calling for Moreno’s head just as Dodgers fans called for McCourt’s head. This will be a true test to see how much power the fans have in modern sports.
LA DODGERS
Now let’s get to the main event. All of the teams I mentioned above that are in the LA area are chasing the golden standard, to become the top of the sport. That’s because of the dominance of the top team in LA right now: the two-time World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. There’s a good reason to be like the Dodgers: they sit at the top of MLB with the best record and best run differential at +163. They are heading for another playoff bid and another West Division title with their remaining rivals such as the San Francisco Giants falling back and failing to mount any kind of challenge. It hasn’t been without some bumps. The Dodgers have had quite a few injuries such as Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, and Edwin Diaz. The good news is that they have been getting healthier. Kyle Tucker has had an underwhelming first season for the Dodgers. He had accumulated just six home runs in 75 games, while slashing an underwhelming .234/.333/.374. Tucker is getting paid a whopping $55 million this year, the type of money lavished on someone who anchors a franchise. Most teams would not be able to survive subpar production from a player like that. However, in this giant monster of a machine the Dodgers have built…it’s a bump in the road that feels more like running over a marshmallow. Now that Mark Walter owns the majority share of the Lakers…it makes you wonder if the Lakers will look like the Dodgers in less than 10 years from now.
We also need to celebrate the manager responsible for these back-to-back World Series titles. Manager Dave Roberts became the 69th manager to reach 1,000 wins, and the fastest in MLB history to reach that threshold. Roberts’ record as manager stands at 1,000-606, which is truly a remarkable achievement. Here’s to hoping “Doc” can lead the Dodgers to the first “Three-peat” for the city of LA since the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal era of the Lakers.
