Welcome to Tuesday's Morning Mashup. For the latest news, start at our WEEI.com home page or click here for the top stories from our news wire.
TUESDAY'S BROADCAST HIGHLIGHTS:NBA: New Orleans at Boston, 7:30 p.m. (NBATV, NBCSB)NBA: Phoenix at Portland, 10 p.m. (NBATV)NHL: Philadelphia at NY Rangers, 7 p.m. (NBCSN)
AROUND THE WEB:
-- The NBA honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday and many around the league reflected on and paid tribute to King's legacy.
Steve Kerr and LeBron James praised the NBA for honoring King but also took the opportunity to voice their opinions on Donald Trump.
"The guy in control has given people and racism, and negative racism, an opportunity to be out and outspoken without fear," James said. "And that's the fearful thing for us because it's with you, and it's around every day, but he's allowed people to come out and just feel confident about doing negative things."
"We're trying to be divided right now by somebody. Today is a great day for people to realize how America was built and how we all have to stand united in order to be at one."LeBron James reflects on the importance of #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/PkdjQKhXNK
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) January 15, 2018"[King> would be less than inspired by the leadership in country, no doubt about that," Kerr said. "There's a book to be written, the title is 'How we Got Here.' And there's a lot of chapters."
Steve Kerr on the importance of MLK Day in the current climate: "He'd be less than inspired by our current leadership" pic.twitter.com/MBgfWx0qoh
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) January 15, 2018On the day itself, James said, "I think it's unbelievable what the NBA has done. To be able to have this many games, a lot of great games today, on such a great day. For a man who stood for more than himself. You always hear people saying, 'risking their life.' [King> actually gave up his life for the betterment of all of us to be able to live in a free world and for us to be able to have a voice, for us to go out and be free no matter your skin color, no matter who you are, no matter the height and size and the weight or whatever the case may be, wherever you are, he had a vision and he took a bullet for all of us. Literally. In the rawest form that you could say that. He literally took a bullet for us."
"I love Martin Luther King Day in terms of what it means to the NBA, what it means to the country," Kerr said. "It's become a great day for the NBA because we celebrate basketball, but what we're really celebrating is equality and inclusion, which is what the NBA represents. We have players from all over the world, all different backgrounds. We've got players who are really socially active, trying to promote peace and understanding and these are all ideals that Dr. King felt so strongly about."
-- A Houston sports reporter who was found safe after she briefly went missing over a week ago tweeted a statement on Monday addressing her disappearance.
Courtney Roland explained the incident was caused by an "adverse reaction" to prescription medication. She said she underwent "five days of extensive testing" at Houston Methodist Medical Center and is now "doing much better."
Thank you all for your prayers! pic.twitter.com/wbFA68BBfK
— Courtney Faye Roland (@CourtneyRivals) January 15, 2018The Rivals.com Texas A&M reporter was reported missing on Jan. 8 after her roommate recieved a text from her saying she was being followed by a suspicious man. Her belongings were later found in the Galleria mall and her Jeep and cell phone were found across the street. She was found at a Chick-fil-A the next day.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Yeah, I am really just in the same place as I was last week. I went through the process that the NFL allows us to go through and during the bye week I was able to have the opportunity to talk to a couple of teams, which I did, and quickly turned my focus to a very good Tennessee team and now I am onto a very dangerous Jacksonville team." -- Matt Patricia, on reports he will be named the next head coach of the Lions
