It’s time for another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about in the news this week:
Good education pays dividends
The Fighting Illini men’s basketball team is considered to be on the rise by the standard metrics of success — top rankings, championships, wins in the NCAA post-season tournaments.
But it’s nowhere to be seen in the category would-be NBA players consider the most important — high earnings.
Information-gathering firm fadeawayworld.net reports that players from 20 schools made the list of the 150 highest earners for the 2023-24 season. UI players were not among them.
It will surprise few to learn that basketball powerhouse Duke “has produced the most high-earning NBA players in the league, with 13 of the 150 highest-earning players.”
Coming in second was Kentucky with 12 players, and UCLA and Gonzaga at five each. The other schools on the list had four and three players on the list.
The only Big Ten schools included were Michigan (4) and Michigan State (3). Other well-known schools on the list of 20 include Kansas (4), Villanova (4), University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill (3) and Iowa State (3).
The study reports that of the 13 Duke players on the list, “Kyrie Irving receives $37 million a year. Former Dukies Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram are paid $34,005,250 and $33,833,400, respectively.” The Duke players among the top 150 receive an average of $20 million a year.
Among the 12 University of Kentucky players in the top 150 are Chicagoan Anthony Davis, a center for the Los Angeles Lakers who earns $40 million. Former Wildcats Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns and Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves are currently earning $36 million.
Despite being second on the list, the report said “players who went to Kentucky have the highest annual salaries out of all American colleges on average, at a mammoth $28,922,782.”
Republicans for Democrats
As the Democratic National Convention draws near, at least four Illinois Republicans have turned their backs on GOP nominee Donald Trump and are publicly supporting Democrat Kamala Harris.
They are former Gov. Jim Edgar, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and former U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Joe Walsh.
Edgar said he fears a “lot of negative ramifications” if Trump wins.
“You have to put the country ahead of partisan politics, and to me there’s no choice but to vote for somebody other than Trump,” he said
Edgar has long been a Trump critic, and 2024 will mark the third time he has not supported Trump as a GOP presidential nominee.
Will he or won’t he?
If people aren’t already sick of the politics of 2024, here’s a tidbit for 2026.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin won’t say whether he’ll run for re-election to another six-year term in 2026.
Speaking to reporters in Springfield, Durbin said he has “not made a final decision on that” question.
Politicos watching Durbin from afar have suggested that what he’ll do about 2026 depends on what happens in 2024.
For instance, if Republicans win a Senate majority in November, Durbin might not have the appetite to remain in the 100-member body as a minority Democrat. On the other hand, if Dems retain their Senate majority and/or take the White House and the U.S. House, Durbin might be energized enough to run again.
Durbin, who is pushing 80, is the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and chairman of that body’s Judiciary Committee.
This is a huge decision for the career politician. Running for public office or planning to do so is all he’s ever known.
If he does run, Durbin is a sure winner. No Democrat would challenge him for the party’s nomination, and Illinois Republicans long ago ceased to be an effective political party on a statewide basis.
If he doesn’t run, however, multiple Democrats can be expected to either consider a run or formally announce their candidacies.
Fire the bums!
Unhappy fans and sportswriters who follow the Chicago White Sox have been screaming for blood during this record-setting awful year.
They got it last week when the Sox dismissed team manager Pedro Gifol, as if it’s his fault that the team upper management put together is so bad that it stands to set the Major League record for season losses.
Few could — plausibly — blame him. Players win and lose games.
But everyone knows the cliches. Managers are hired to be fired. You can’t fire the team. Sox management needed to shake things up.
The question is what changes, if any, will come next.
Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Morrissey has a suggestion. He wants to fire everybody, including an unlikely target — first-year team broadcaster John Schiffren. He describes Schiffren’s broadcasting style as “weirdly boosterish.” Maybe the guy is just trying to keep Sox fans from slitting their wrists.
“You might think a TV play-by-play man is low on the list of things that are bad about the Sox. I think (Schiffren’s) continued presence shows contempt for fans. It mocks their intelligence,” he wrote.
Morrissey took umbrage over Schiffren’s call when the Sox recently broke their 21-game losing streak by defeating the Oakland A’s.
“This could do it. Out to left field. Coming in, Benintendi — and the streak is over! After 21 ‘L’s’ in a row, the White Sox come to the West Coast and get their first win in a long time! Say it with me! South Side! Stand up!”
One can always quibble about individual calls of a game, and Schiffren was a little over the top. But celebrating a temporary end to futility hardly seems to be a crime against humanity.
Morrissey’s rhetoric, however, shows how restless the natives are. No one is safe. The bat-boy could be next on the hit list. After all, what’s that little punk done lately to help put a game in the win column?
D’s bulging bank account
Illinois Democrats have so much money, they’ve decided to throw some of it away.
That’s another way of saying that they’re spending money where it doesn’t need to be spent.
If anything is clear about U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski’s re-election effort, it’s that she’ll win in a walk.
Her district was drawn to assure a Democrat wins, and she’s astute enough to have established a reputation as a crafty politico. Republicans know it, and that’s why they’re offering only token competition to Budzinski in the name of John Loyd, an under-funded, unknown Republican from Virden.
The Springfield newspaper recently reported that Organize Illinois 2024 is going to pour “seven-figure investments into down-ballots campaigns” that include re-election efforts by Budzinski and U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen from the Quad Cities.
Sorensen faces semi-tough competition in retired Circuit Judge Joe McCraw, who actually has national GOP backing.
The Journal reported that Organize Illinois 2024 will be “providing communications and organizing staff assistance” to Budzinski and Sorensen.
But any money spent on Budzinski is a waste, because she doesn’t need it.
Naturally, she denies that, stating that “prior to being elected in 2022, this was a seat that flipped back and forth for a number of decades.”
But it’s completely irrelevant what constituted the district before Budzinski was elected in 2022.
Why? Because she was running in 2022 in a completely new 13th district that was drawn by her party friends to elect her to the U.S. House. The Washington Post has called Budzinski’s district the “most gerrymandered district” in the nation.
Budzinski won by 13 points in 2022 in her supposedly competitive district. She should win by even more this year.
