Greg Cote: Heat, Panthers two 8’s playing like aces, Jets overhyped & more in new Hot Button Top 10

GREG COTE’S HOT BUTTON TOP 10 (MAY 14): WHAT IN SPORTS HAS GRABBED US LATELY: Our Sunday Hot Button Top 10 feature had been blog-only but with our blog now retired it moved, re-imagined, to online-only. HB10 means what’s on our minds, locally and nationally, but from a Miami perspective and accentuating stuff that’s major, offbeat, damnable, funny or worth needling as the sports week just past pivots to the week ahead. Welcome to the Happy Mother’s Day sweet 16th edition of the new HB10:

1. NBA/NHL: Heat, Panthers making pair of 8’s look like aces: Two No. 8 seeds from the same community, both reaching their league’s Eastern Conference finals. It had never happened, until the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers just did it. Now it’s Cats vs. Carolina and Heat vs. the winner of today’s/Sunday’s Philly-Boston game. Panthers and Heat both will be underdogs in the ECF. Nothing new. Nationally, not a lot of glamour in the NHL’s surviving teams, while LeBron James still in it will dominate NBA chatter from here. No complaints from South Florida. Under-radar has worked fine so far.

2. NFL: Schedule release mania! Aaron is really a Jet mania!: NFL rolled out its regular season schedule. Three thoughts: 1) Nothing says the-NFL-is-god more than Your Friend the Media treating this like huge news even though the games aren’t for four more months. 2) Dolphins made some noise with three prime-time games, plus a game in Germany vs. Chiefs and the inaugural “Black Friday” game at the Jets. 3) The national media’s Aaron Rodgers/Jets love affair continues in full swoon. Jets have an NFL-high five prime-time games. Hype overload. A setup to disappoint.

3. WNBA: Griner returns to court after Russian detention: Would have been national news if it were a comparable (eight-time all star) NBA player doing this. But the WNBA is closer to ignored, so Brittney Griner’s return to the court Friday with the Phoenix Mercury got too-little attention. She scored 10 in 17 minutes in a preseason loss in her comeback from 10 months’ Russian detention. Mercury’s regular season opener is next Friday in L.A.

4. MEDIA: Pat McAfee leaving FanDuel for ESPN?: Pat McAfee, the first former NFL punter ever to become famous, may be punting on his four-year, $120 million deal with FanDuel to join ESPN, says the New York Post. McAfee tweeted a photo of him meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger. (Mickey Mouse, of course, owns ESPN.) McAfee teased on his eponymous podcast that he is “up to something.” The surprise here? That Disney, firing ESPN employees right and left plus all those legal fees fighting Ron DeSantis in Florida, has money left over for McAfee.

5. MLB: Marlins’ Eury Perez, welcome to pitchers’ hell: Top Marlins prospect Eury Pérez had an encouraging 4 2/3 innings MLB debut with seven strikeouts in a home loss to Cincy that drew 13,398 fans. (It’s Miami; that’s pretty good.) Perez just turned 20, the youngest pitcher in Marlins history and the first major league player born in 2003. Aside to Eury: Expecte some frustratrion. Ask Sandy Alcantara. The Marlins stink at hitting. TRied to improve that i the offseasson. Still third from the bottom of all teams in runs scored.

6. COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Huggins’ dumbspeak gets slap on wrist from WVU: West Virginia University -- henceforth known as Weak Virginia -- docked $1 million from men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins’ salary and suspended him three games for anti-LGBTQ comments on a Cincy radio stadion. The WVU president called Huggins’ language “abhorrent and inexcusable,” then excused it with mild punishment in lieu of a firing. Huggins, 69, has been a college head coach for 1,349 games across 41 season with zero national titles won. If you’re going to be a bigot, at least be a bigot who’s a great coach.

7. HORSE RACING: Mage will run Preakness. But does Triple Crown still matter?: Kentucky Derby winner Mage (terrible name for a racehorse, by the way) is entered in next Saturday’s Preakness and a small betting pick over First Mission. So the prospect of a Triple Crown winner is alive. But does anybody still care? For decades the mystique was that no horse had done the triple since Affirmed in 1978. But American Pharoah won it in 2015 and Justify in 2018, so the mystique is gone. Doesn’t help that both most recent TC winners were trained by Bob Baffert, who has had more than 30 horses fail drug tests.

8. SOCCER: Messi’s next club? What say you, Dad?: There are reports Lionel Messi has an agreement jn place to join Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal this summer when his Paris Saint-Germain contract expires. But the megastar’s father and agent, Jorge, denied those reports. “There is absolutely [no deal] with any club for next season,” said Dad. “The decision will never be taken before Lionel finishes the league campaign with PSG.” So Inter Miami fans should still be hopeful ... ish.

9. COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Let’s all enjoy as ‘Coach Prime’ & His Giant Ego take a hit, shall we?: Deion Sanders leaves the comfort of HBCU success at Jackson State for the Power 5 perfume of Colorado. What could possibly go wrong? I mean besides more than 50 players en masse scurrying into the transfer portal to force a makeover more immediate and extreme than Coach Prime might have imagined. The betting over/under on Buffaloes wins is 3.5. Ouch. Do we believe in Sanders as all that? Or do we wonder how long he can withstand the comeuppance awaiting him in Boulder? The finding out will be worth the price of admission the next year or two.

10. RUNNING: Your grand prize ? A small kitchen appliance!: The winner of the women’s 7-kilometer Carrera de la Mujer footrace in Madrid received a food processor as a prize. Organizers apologized after criticism that the prize was sexist. I’m not sure the prize was sexist, though leaning that way. I am pretty sure sure the prize was dog-ass cheap.

Other most recent stuff from me: In divisive times, Heat and Panthers playoff runs remind us of sports’ unifying power / Bam! Heat beats Knicks, avoid Game 7 in NY, reach East finals / KIng Bob, Florida Panthers oust Toronto, end 27-year East finals drought / Heat, Panthers both lose, fail to reach East finals -- but still lead series / Heat find ‘beauty in the struggle,’ take 3-1 lead over Knicks / Amazin’ Panthers roll on, win in OT, take 3-0 command over Toronto / Previous HB10 from last Sunday / And my latest podcast: