Mayor ‘excited’ about MLB in Las Vegas, despite viral A’s comments
LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman went viral on Tuesday after comments she made during a media interview suggesting that she wished the Oakland Athletics could work out a deal to stay in the Bay Area and not relocate to Southern Nevada.
In an interview with Front Office Sports, Goodman said the A’s planned Las Vegas ballpark at the site of the Tropicana doesn’t make sense because it is located on the Strip, where there’s often heavy traffic. She said that while noting that the A’s turned down potentially building a ballpark in downtown Las Vegas at the Cashman Complex.
After the comments blew up online, Goodman issued a statement noting that she is not against the A’s relocating to Las Vegas.
“I want to be clear that I am excited about the prospect of Major League Baseball in Las Vegas, and it very well may be that the Las Vegas A’s will become a reality that we will welcome to our city,” Goodman said in a statement.
Goodman and her husband, former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, have long been trying to lure a major professional sports team to downtown Las Vegas, with the most recent pushes involving the Cashman site. The Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators, under former team names, played at Cashman Field for decades, before moving to Downtown Summerlin into the $150 million Las Vegas Ballpark.
Goodman said her comments were more based around her believing that the A’s would rather have struck a deal with Oakland politicians on a plan that included a mixed-use complex built around a $1 billion ballpark. The idea ultimately
ter, we kind of fell off the wagon a little bit because they were just so good offensively that it took the wind out of us and we only scored 18 points, but I tell you what. You give those guys a lot of credit. They’re a really, really good team and they’re playing at a high level.”
Sabonis said he was pleased with the way his team played during the trip.
“We’re playing great basketball,” he said. “It’s good. We went 5-2. It could have gone the other way, so we maintained our position in the standings and we’ve got to take advantage of that.”
The Kings were playing their third game in four nights and the final game of a 13-day road trip. The Kings made stops in seven states to face the Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls and, finally, the Cavaliers.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily physical fatigue, but mentally we could have obviously been a lot better tonight,” Barnes said. “When you look at their shooters all down the line — Donovan, Caris, Darius (Garland), Dean (Wade), Max — all their guys were able to get clean looks, consistent looks, all night. I think we just have to do a better job these last few games going into the AllStar break just staying focused and making sure we continue to do the little things defensively.”
The Cavaliers came in ranked second in the NBA in defensive rating (110.5). The Kings were fifth in defensive rating (110.0) over their previous five games.
This game started as a defensive struggle with the Kings going 3 of 11 from the field while the Cavaliers went 4 of 12, but eventually the shots started to fall as the teams combined to make 18 of their next 22 field-goal attempts. Cleveland led 39-34 at the end of the first period after making 15 of 25 (.600) from the field and 8 of 12 (.667) from 3-point range.
The Cavaliers carried their hot shooting into the second quarter while the Kings cooled off. The Kings were only down by four following a threepoint play by Trey Lyles with 6:21 to play in the half, but the Cavaliers staged a 17-4 run to go up 65-50 on a 3-pointer by Mitchell. Cleveland led by as many as 17 and carried a 74-59 lead into the halftime break.