.It (troublingly) appears that the next Pistons head coach will be Cheeks, McMillan or Shaw. 

Surreptitious candidates aside, three former NBA guards with extensive coaching backgrounds in the league, two of them former head coaches, seem most likely to emerge as the Pistons' next coach: Maurice Cheeks, Nate McMillan and Brian Shaw.

The known candidates have come as little surprise, except for what appear to be courtesy interviews for figures with longtime ties with the Pistons and/or Dumars, and perhaps the J.B. Bickerstaff interview.

In a broad-based search, there always will be surprises.

Shaw is the only one that inspires me with any type of zeal. And it's still not much. I like his connections as a Phil Jackson understudy and what he's helped create beside Frank Vogel in Indiana.  

I've been mentioning the thought of Lionel Hollins - yes, the guy who has his team in the WCF - since rumblings of new Grizzlies management possibly desiring to go in a different direction after the season.

I'm still in favor of the Pistons hiring Hollins. As a Pistons fan, you can clamor for Josh Smith, or hoping Trey Burke last till 8. I think Hollins is the best addition the Pistons can make this offseason - barring a really inventive trade where Dumars swindles some other GM (pipe.dream.)

Even if it means fending off the advances of the Clippers and Nets. 

Hollins’ contract is up as coach of the end of this season, and while he and the Grizzlies management have plans to do a new deal a number of teams are looking to jump into that breech.

If Hollins' isn't retained, why would he choose to coach the Pistons over other teams yearning for his services? 

There may be some uncertainty with Joe Dumars continuing to remain with the organization after next year. That could be a red flag for anyone choosing the Pistons gig. Dumars fails, again, this summer, and he's surely(?) out, and a new GM could very well want his own choice coaching what he constructs.  

So where's the appeal with the Pistons for Hollins? There's current cap room, and possibly chunks more if Stuckey is cut and Villanueva is (finally) amnestied. Best of all, perhaps Hollins philosophies is best suited to replicate his bruising, old school strategy tandem of Gasol and Z-Bo in the form of Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.

And what else?

That Nets roster is aging and limited by their current payroll. Hollins could be the guy to get Deron Williams to play like an All Star for 82 games, but so far Jerry Sloan nor Avery Johnson have been able to accomplish that. Would Hollins want that challenge, or headache? We know players, stars specifically always win player-coach battles.

With the Clippers, yes you get Chris Paul, but does Hollins wants to mend any possible rift between Paul and the rest of his teammates? Oh, and the Clippers owner is notoriously CHEAP. 

If new Pistons owner, Tom Gores, wanted to truly endear himself to what's left of the team's fanbase, and re-energize those locally who've taken that franchise out of its sports consciousness, then using his Forbes ($2.6 BILLION WITH A B), Beverly Hills swag to write a sizeable check for a coach of Hollins' caliber would certainly do the trick. Forget Hollins caliber, just get Hollins. 

There's a cap and a punitive luxury tax on player salaries, but not on head coaches.

Gores has the capital and I'm pretty certain he's exhausted by owning one of the poorest products top to bottom in the NBA. If Hollins is a free agent after the WCF, without many exciting choices available in free agency, or the draft, the key acquisition the Pistons need to make this summer is the one at the very front end of the bench, by bringing in Lionel Hollins.  

.Love this article about the Grizzlies' John Hollinger. Yes, the one that worked for ESPN, who created the rather widely used PER. 

The very thing that makes his new job worthwhile could compromise his talent. What if the secret, all along, was not just his facility with math, but his impartiality? “A lot of time the emotion in this business is what gets people in trouble,” he told me, discussing the Gay trade. “I’m sure my lack of previous attachment made it easier for me to not become emotionally—what do you call it?—deceived on that decision. I worry about that. Becoming emotionally attached to decisions or players. You see it happen in the league.”

That's my style for what I do. I'll root for some teams or some players. But I'm not what I hope to be - I'm not true to my style - if I let emotion influence my opinions. 

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.This is pretty big Transoformers 4 news, HOWEVER, to be the old guy telling you to go transform and roll out on someone else's lawn, there's no way another TF movie was getting made without Dinobots. And Galvatron to boot. 

That's right, folks, our source has confirmed that TRANSFORMERS 4 will feature none other than the famed Dinobots, including fan favorite Grimlock. No word on whether he'll retain his neanderthal voice, but one can only hope he does as that's a true staple of the character. One of the villains of the film will be a character named Lockdown, who has a ship full of decommissioned Transformers, including the dinobots, which are somehow brought back to life by a captured Optimus Prime.

.The trajectories of Cabrera's homers on Sunday night are pretty incredible. 

Think back to how all three of Cabrera’s homers wound up in similar places. They were all hit to center, one off an inside fastball from a righty, one off a less-inside fastball from a lefty, and one off a changeup over the plate from a lefty. That says everything you need to know about Cabrera’s timing and his ability to square the baseball up when it’s anywhere hittable. There will be times that a pitcher makes Miguel Cabrera look bad, and each of those times is incredible.

I still say he's going to win the Triple Crown. Easily. 

.Right after I retweeted it I realized it was fake. Actually, I think I knew it was fake BEFORE I hit RT. I think in this case though, it was SO obvious, it was cooler to RT it, than not RT it. Got all that?

BREAKING: Kobe Bryant set to retire after 17 years later tonight, Sources tell Y!

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahoooNBA) May 20, 2013

Kobe's not retiring but...he should tell the Lakers to amnesty him, so they can Waste '14 for Wiggins! 

.Miguel Cabrera to break the hits record? I'd bet strongly against that. Cabrera's going to have to defy aging in the mostly post-PED era to cruise past 500 homeruns. I say cruise, because at 332 at 30 seems like a foregone conclusion. Please refer to Pujols, Albert when it comes to MLB stardom in your 30s. 

However, don't think I'm wacko when I say that I think Cabrera can EASILY win back to back Triple Crowns.

I'm serious. 

Equal to, or even more than that, you know I'd still like to see Cabrera get past 166 RBIs to join the immortals of the game on that single season list.

I don't buy into the 'on pace' stuff because that rules out the human factors of - hold your breath - injury, or fatigue, which will likely cause a few, relative, cold streaks for Miguel. But, if you care, he's on pace for 181 RBIs. So there's that. 

.I LOVE Cabrera. Nearly as much as I loved Bonds and Maddux growing up. But as I hinted at above, baseball, and other sports, are truly younger men's games now. There's a quiet cadre of 20 year old's creeping into the MLB conscious. 

One of them is 5th in MLB in WAR. It's not Trout or Harper. 

The latest to arrive is Jurickson Profar, who didn't have a position in Texas because of Andrus and Kinsler. IF Profar deserves to stay, expect Kinsler in the OF/DH/1B rotation or you can look for a Rangers trade. 

.The full trailer for October's Arkham Origins.