Latest / The PNW Podcast / Dante Moore, USC Controversy & Damian Lillard Returns to Portland

Transcript

Dante Moore, USC Controversy & Damian Lillard Returns to Portland · The PNW Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was this was Bush League in every uh sense of the word.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't seen the Ducks versus them cinematic video, you know, Ducks put them out after every single game, win, lose, or draw, uh, you'll learn some things about USC as a program there that I think are very eye-opening.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that goes from the players to the fans to the radio broadcast crew who sat there and called it, no, that was a that was not a slide.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: He actually said the words, he dove headfirst into that tackle, with two of his colleagues looking at the camera that wasn't there for anything other than maybe a live stream and shaking their head at it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a microcosm of what we're dealing with with Lincoln Riley.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That Ashcroft guy has been there for so long as the lead play-by-play guy that neither one of his on-air colleagues wanted to tr wanted to challenge him on what he was saying, which was completely wrong.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just like none of the assistant coaches would challenge Lincoln Riley by telling that guy to get his ass in the locker room and get off the TV.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It never happened because apparently USC's okay with that type of stuff.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Bush League.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's even an hourly setup here.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanna, uh you just have to come in and you gotta get on computer and you gotta look professional and dress it up for a day, but your kid throws applesauce and boogers at you at your place.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Got you covered here.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a real great rate in a nice quiet environment.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not hearing me through the wall, and you can always come down here and tell me to hunt you.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Marcus is here, back from uh doing a little hunting.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Out in his where he grew up, um, in Enterprise, Oregon, or nearby, you probably went hunting.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how did the hunt go?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Really well, man.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we we were only on a cow hunt this year.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we had damage tags because the herds are getting a little out of control out there in Farmers Land, and uh we had a couple of really happy farmers that we were able to uh thin the herd just a little bit.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: The elk are out there eating all the alfalfa, and they need that to finish the beef that we buy at the stores, Drew.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um it was uh a win all the way around.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Caught my nephew's uh junior high football game, celebrated a birthday for one of those nephews.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't have been a better weekend.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can't beat that, especially when you get the get the job done early.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can check all the other boxes, and uh, you know, it's a long drive for you to get there from where you live in Eugene.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: How far of a drive is it uh to go home and see the family?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's about seven hours, uh, give or take, on how many stops you make.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, something that many people that are listening to this might have seen the day that I was headed home, which was Thursday, there was a massive semi-truck accident on Interstate 84 that actually closed all four lanes at Arlington because a semi-truck driver who was pulling triples Drew was drunk at 6 45 in the morning and veered into the oncoming lane, flipped a car, almost put it in the Columbia River.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was crazy, but the road was closed for eight hours, and it just so happened that Ashley and I just came right at the end of it and got to go right through.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Oh, well, that's good news.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I thought for a second the way last week went that it was, and it was a triple chicken truck.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, no chickens on that truck, but uh one guy in jail and a couple of people recovering in the hospital, thankfully.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So uh uh crazy stuff out there, man.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what's gonna happen when there's seven hours between you and your destination and you're on four wheels.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, absolutely.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that seven hours, you've I've always said this about you, but for people who don't know Marcus, he's made that trip countless times and he does it without whining about it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would need, I would need more caffeine than my heart is currently approved to have in order to make that trip.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like sleeping at rest stop.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh hats off to you for getting it done two ways.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, my wife, ever since I first took her on that road trip some 15 years ago, has she's a very healthy person, but it's only salty snacks with her because she knows that I don't like to make potty stops.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so she tries to dry out all of the fluid in her system with nothing but potato chips.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she's a trooper, man.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you made great time, but you put her health in peril.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Next time you work in work in a water and let her have a stop.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now I didn't get a chance.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, I'm I'm kind of glad that I didn't send you any text messages during the Oregon USC game, which you and I both described and the world described as a pivotal game for both programs, and really could send one into the dark ages and could bring the other one back to where they like to be.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't think any of us thought the game would play out the way that it did, with Dante Moore getting targeted, getting his head drilled into the ground, and then taking the fencing stance is what I've learned more about this week, which is that thing where your arms come out extended like a fencing sword, but it's unintentional.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: It says your brain is in a traumatic state.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And while that happened, of course, Desmond Stevens II, the guy who hit Dante Moore, danced and partied on the sideline, like uh to take a quote from Dan Lanning himself, like he was at a Chris Brown concert.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was disgusting.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it made me extremely angry.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was watching that part of the game, waiting for people to come over to uh have dinner, but not everybody was getting the memo that this thing kicks at 4:30.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just standing there pacing around like Scrooge McDuck at my house when this happens, and I was physically angry, which is wild.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sporting event.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know Dante more personally, but it hit on so many levels to me, Marcus, from how it should be handled by your coaches, how it should be handled by you as an individual.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: If the guy had gotten a targeting penalty and it's a bang bang play and he takes a knee immediately and is in apology mode, we're probably not even talking about it this far into the week.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: But when you act that way, for me, I'm a parent three times over.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know that my parents hold themselves responsible.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: If I acted in a manner that this man did, it would fall directly on my family.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: On how were you raised?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is that allowed in your house?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that was, I mean, I was chanting that through my home.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you you saw it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I know you had to watch it on a delay because you were being a good uncle and you had to you had to finish the hunt, but when you did get a chance to circle back, what was going through your head?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the the celebration, Drew, was what absolutely uh it kind of pushed it over the edge for me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple different aspects here that I I've I've heard them mentioned in the internet sphere, but I have not necessarily heard it talked about enough.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And one big part of that, look, I know that you don't want to have your television broadcast cameras zoomed in on the guy that's laying on the ground twitching.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I was disgusted by NBC's coverage in more ways than one.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The first being the camera seemed to not want to get off of Desmond Stevens the second after that hit.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: We saw the entire celebration, and there would be momentary cuts to Dan Lanning, momentary cuts to Lincoln Riley, maybe a uh a deep shot of the uh medical service that was going on on the field, but they kept going back to this guy with a big shit eating grin on his face, dapping up all of his teammates, still on the sideline after he's been ejected, which I didn't know was a thing until this week.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that those guys had to get to the locker room.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then, even furthermore, you've got Chris Sims dumbass on at halftime immediately coming out and saying that this is a Dante problem.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the guy that tried to take his head off's fault.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Sims has issued an apology for that.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, just about every media personality that had that garbage take has issued an apology since because the entire world saw it, and nobody in their right mind could misconstrue that hit as anything that should happen in a football game.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that there wasn't a full scale team brawl, I think shows a couple of things.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: One, the restraint that Dan Lanning and the coaching staff at Oregon have put onto their players.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And two, the fact that you just have some institutional loss of control at USC.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like they're a disciplined team.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like what you did after you make that hit will kind of stay with you for the rest of your life.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it also paints a stripe down the program at USC that I think we all knew was there.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: We just hadn't seen because of the relevance of the program over the last decade.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll tell you, Drew, I know that our our brothers up at Oregon State love to uh call themselves giant killers.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a cool nickname that the Beavers have um have lived up to over some of the uh past you know 20, 25 years.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Oregon right now, after this year, coupled with last year, is a program killer because we took the wind out of Penn State's sales and cost James Franklin a job.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: We uh exposed all sorts of things that were going on at Penn State that were not up to snuff.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And now, just one short year later, we've done the exact same thing to USC.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would not be surprised to see Lincoln Riley on the employment line uh by the end of the season.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I don't want anybody to lose their job, but if that's the type of program you're running, and you get asked by a reporter after the game why was he still on the field, because he's part of the team.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: You want that guy on your team?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like you want that guy on your team.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it also sounds like your discipline in this one game suspension was merely a slap on the wrist and probably will not change the behavior moving forward.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, the the the discipline only came down after the world came down on him, after the LA Times chastised him.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln Riley should be ashamed of himself.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of people have just egregious heirs.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: All those assistant coaches who are going over there and and high-fiving him and doing funky handshakes, Lincoln Riley should have sent that man to the shower straight away, if you have any respect for your opponents.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then after the game, well, let's let's go to halftime.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: You brought him back out in the second half of the game when you actually had the knowledge of the situation.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: In the moment, you could always argue that, well, I didn't see this or I didn't hear that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Your intel by halftime had to have been ringing into your head that we've got a problem here.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if for nothing else as a program, save face and tell him he's not coming back out there.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But no, they do it.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then he doubles down during the press conference to say, he's part of this team.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he said it like a ding-dong, like a shovel-smacked moron, is how he said it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and he said it like he wasn't expecting the question.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: You should have used that moment to apologize and say, I'm a human being, I made a mistake, and I'm sorry about that, and I'll be better.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you didn't.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: You made it seem like that person was an idiot for asking the obvious question that anybody who has somebody, I mean, I'll take it back to children because this is a man acting like a baby on the sideline.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: You send them to their room, and you don't get to be like, well, he's part of this family.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Go to your room.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's at this point, that's the only thing.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And Lincoln Riley, I really believe only has a job.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, excuse me, it makes me want to throw up.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: He only has a job because of his 70 plus million dollar buyout.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be it's gonna be 70 million dollars.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that the Board of Trustees or whoever put that together ever thought that five years into this that it would be anything like it is?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: They thought they'd be chasing titles, that they stole him away from Oklahoma, who was the reason that Bob Stoops retired in the first place.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he has not lived up to the hype like a series of these guys since Pete Carroll.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has lived up to the hype for that team.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that guy's wearing grilling new balances.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's how long it's been.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: With a couple of super or with a Super Bowl title under his belt since, you know.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot's happened.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're right, Drew.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's crazy about this tenure of Lincoln Riley's, he was supposed to be the saving grace for USC.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: He has the same record as it sits right now today that his predecessor Clay Helton had, and that got Clay Helton run the hell out of town.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um Clay Helton performed better against ranked teams than Lincoln Riley has at USC.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's and listen,$70 million, a lot of money, but uh, if any institution has the deep pockets to cover it, it's the private institution at USC.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've got a lot of big donors down there.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: They've got a lot of celebrities that love, I mean, yeah, Will Farrell could go make a bad uh, you know, sequel to one of his movies and pay for Lincoln Riley's buyout if he really wanted to.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're gonna see that.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think some people are gonna come out of the woodwork and say, this is not what we want our program to look like.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the last thing I will say about it is that when when somebody gets hurt, especially on the level of what happened to Dante Moore, it becomes more than sports.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's no longer should be we're USC and you're Oregon.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: It should be we're all human beings and that person's hurt, and whether you have a God to pray to or you just are trying to think good thoughts or whatever your thing is to care about others.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is your time and your responsibility.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll drive it all the way back to my oldest daughter's 11.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: They play on a classic soccer team, and you grind and you fight, and I want them going as hard as they can within the rules to be aggressive.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they get hurt, people get hurt.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: But when somebody goes down, what all of those girls do, every kid on the field who plays for our team, they take a knee and they wait on a knee until that person is up and moving towards the sideline.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they do it out of respect, and they do it as a courtesy to them that that they're a human being too, and there should be no high five for a collision or or when somebody's you bring the stretcher out, it's not funny.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like people are you've got a hundred men praying next to next to an ambulance, and you've got them over there acting like it's a music video.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, looking up at the stands and trying to get the people to get a little bit more fired up.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'll tell you, you talk about this from the family angle, Drew.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm uh Desmond Stevens the second's father, I'm calling him and telling him to drop the PH and spell it with an F and get rid of the two because I don't claim you anymore as the second of my name.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um this was this was Bush League in every uh sense of the word.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't seen the Ducks versus them cinematic video, you know, Ducks put them out after every single game, win, lose, or draw, uh, you'll learn some things about USC as a program there that I think are very eye-opening.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that goes from the players to the fans to the radio broadcast crew who sat there and called it, no, that was a that was not a slide.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: He actually said the words, he dove headfirst into that tackle, uh, with two of his colleagues looking at the camera that wasn't there for anything other than maybe a live stream and shaking their head at it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a microcosm of what we're dealing with with Lincoln Riley.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: That Ashcroft guy has been there for so long as the lead play-by-play guy that neither one of his on-air colleagues wanted to try to challenge him on what he was saying, which was completely wrong.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just like none of the assistant coaches would challenge Lincoln Riley by telling that guy to get his ass in the locker room and get off the TV acting like an asshole.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It never happened because apparently USC's okay with that type of stuff.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Bush League.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe that that announcer he calls it wrong and he c says that he dove head first, which is so far from the truth.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're like, okay, and even his other announcers, like, no, that's not his feet are out in front of me.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, it's because they spun him around.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what they do.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what they do after head injuries.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: We spin you around like we're playing Twister, you jackwagon.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they rolled him over, checked his backside, you know, just checking the real integrity, structural integrity of that spine.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just uh garbage all the way around.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And see you later, USC.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to tell you, the hole in your balloon is too big to plug up at this point in time.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're exposed, and uh, we'll see how the rest of the season plays out for you.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's right.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: The ducks do have a bye coming up this week where they will get a chance to rest.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Dante's gonna need a couple of weeks.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: They did release a statement saying that it was just a concussion.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna take his time, but he says he will be back, drops a go ducks.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there will also be two games in between then UCLA and Nebraska with giving them some time to kind of breathe before all of this happens.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe by the time Ohio State gets here, we're looking at a top 10 matchup as the Ducks are now up to number 15 overall.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take a break, but an honorable mention also to the Beavers who put UTEP in their plays, correct, Marcus?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: 33-7 on the road over the miners, Drew, and some really good performances from these guys that we've been mentioning on this podcast since the season uh kind of kicked off and got running for the Beaves.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Braden Atkinson throws uh for 301 yards, three touchdowns, only one interception.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: AJ Newberry, 11 carries for 111 on the ground, one touchdown to go with that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this standout freshman receiver, Jesse Legree, six catches, 109 yards, two visits to the promised land with two touchdowns.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Beavers got a lot of reasons at two and two right now to be excited, and uh, I'm loving it, man.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this this Shepard guy, uh, he's winning hearts and minds all over the state, and uh more power to him for it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a lot of excitement here in the Northwest with the Ducks, the Beaves.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Tough week for the Huskies, but uh, we'll touch on that later.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But also the Blazers back in action, practice officially starting.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about the team and a little update on the future of the Motor Center.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: The podcast is brought to you by Motorsport Hillsboro, where they have you dialed in.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not only do they have incredible selection when it comes to everything from bikes, both road and dirt bikes, but also you've got the eAssist mountain bikes there.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've got uh side-by-sides, sea-do's, all your watercraft you can imagine.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: They've got it dialed for you right there at Motorsport Hillsboro.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And really, the thing that makes it all work is they've got the greatest financing around.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Northwest's best, and nobody works harder to make sure they get you dialed in and you leave feeling comfortable and happy when you walk out of Motorsport Hillsboro.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: You got to check out their full inventory at MotorsportHillsboro.com and you will love it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a mini museum down there.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Look up in the rafters, spend some time.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just come in for a dip and go.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of place where uh there is no price at admission, but it feels like there should be because it is incredible in there, and Scott and the gang will take care of you and get you out riding in no time.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Also brought to you by Axiom Plumbing, Sewer, and Septic, all things water and waste.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: They've got you covered right there.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And my buddy Bruce over at Axiom is locally raised, and he is not part of some big private equity form firm.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: He is live and local right here in the Northwest, and they will dial you in.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if you tell them Drew sent you 10% off your first service, and it is starting to get into those colder months, it's right there on the horizon.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: So don't forget$500 off a new water heater if you're running into that.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was just dealing with that recently, and Bruce and the gang are the perfect people to take care of you.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just tell them that I sent you all the details about what they can do for you at axiompdx.com.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And brought to you by the Stafford Hills Club, which is the premier place in the Portland area to work out, relax, and just kind of take care of yourself.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sense of community around here, and they hold the door for you.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: They do all the things they want to see you at Stafford Hills.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: They have top-end tennis, a salt water pool, great workout facilities, and all the greatest classes you could imagine.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, high rocks training, the premier cutting edge stuff, and it's all happening right here at Stafford Hills.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Check out all the details on what's going down at staffordhills.com.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right, it's a big day for the Portland Trailblazers as Media Day has gone down.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: They did the photo shoots, which are always a little bit awkward, Marcus.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a one big glamour shot, and it's like, pretend you're throwing the ball at me.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was Ja Morant and Dame, two guys who look like they're too small to be here, but we know uh they are both have that mighty mouse.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: kind of factor to them.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of excitement there because before we kind of get into what individual players were saying about the season, Dwayne Haskins, the Blazer president, came out and said that a long-term deal is in the works and they're hoping to get the job done to put all of this arena drama behind us, Marcus, and focus on basketball.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You think we'll get the job done, we can move on?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm always full of hope, Drew.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think to be a true Blazer fan, you have to have 65% hope and 35% whatever else you want to fill it with.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I am very hopeful.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love to hear that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it's not just lip service given that it's media day and that whole uh lot, but um you got to take people at their word when they come out and put something into the media like that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: So fingers crossed man I like I said I'm hopeful.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and you know he could have been mum about it.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: They could have been cryptic and it's just nice for them to kind of put us at ease a little bit.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was so excited though to see Damian Lillard back in an actual jersey.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we'd seen him at the three-point contest and we know how that went bang bang.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: But we also haven't seen him in action action since he was a Milwaukee buck and tore that Achilles and kind of found himself in a position where he could come home.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about Dame.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited I think nobody's talking about the elephant in the room that's Danny Advia the guy is an all-star this past season and if he doesn't have to take all of the heat on defense when the defense is coming at him I think he's going to have another big year.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think Dame is going to have a resurgent year and Ja Moran is the wild card.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jaw said this Marcus he said I can get downhill and I can I can create for others.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we definitely need Damian Lillard as he gets deeper into his career is less of an all-purpose player and more of a sharpshooter.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not that he can't do the other things I know that he can but if he is allowed to kind of leak out and take open threes I've seen some of the practices where he hits 50 threes in a row or whatever it it could be dangerous.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are you thinking?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well you know I I go back to the playoffs last year Drew when we're watching the uh the Blazers take on the Spurs and that alien that they have in the middle and once the Spurs figured it out that Denny Advia was kind of the uh the the go-to for the Blazers he's a driver man he can create space and get to the rack but when you've got seven foot two or whatever that redwood checks in at as well as other guys that are as big or bigger than Denny they just started collapsing the entire court down into the key to get Denny from you keep Denny from making these easy layups contested layups getting to the line and what we were lacking was that automatic guy to dish to and when you've got an athlete like Ja Morant to add to that that's another guy you heard him say it.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can get downhill that doesn't mean he's waiting for uh a shot at the top of the key.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That means he's coming with his hair on fire towards the rack and I like Dame in the corner.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I like Dame on the elbow I like Dame out top I like him from the other side of the court uh just get him the ball and let him shoot when that defense collapses.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it brings an entire new element to this Blazers team that they did not have last year.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know he's he we've talked about it before on the show Drew he's one of those guys there's maybe a handful maybe a few more in Portland's history that you hope to God that he comes back when he leaves.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Brandon Roy was the same way.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I even had a little bit of that in my heart for Clyde Drexler when he went home to Houston.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I thought well maybe maybe he's got a second moonlight career where he comes back to Portland and gives us another look at it.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I I would I'm just so filled up with with the hope that we talk about Drew and it all uh I think starts with Damian Lillard as a guy who loves Portland who feels like Portland is his home and feels like the team should be there from what we heard at Media Day.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I will just add this little caveat in there.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of the weirdest things to me about NBA Media Day is that they make them dress up like there's a game.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like can these guys not just relax for a minute do you have to have them in their jersey at the podium?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know it looks cool, but like do we really have to fake it until we make it here?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't started playing yet.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Why is he out there in his jersey?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is kind of awkward and that goes back to the glamour shot of it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now Donovan Klingon is another thing to talk about.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's a seven foot plus man as well I think he's like seven three I saw Donovan Klingon who's supposed to be our starting center this year.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I saw him at Costco carrying out I think it was a 65 inch TV in his hands like he was holding a box lunch.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I thought you were going to say it was in his back pocket.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly no he he did not need a cart and it could have been it could have been a 55 but it was tiny like it was like just holding it out in front of him like dir d like his level of size is now granted I'm a little guy and it really shows up when you stand next to a guy like that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: But he was like all the way across at Costco I could tell it was him and he was just manhandling this massive television.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that if that guy can you know keep it together he is a national champion with Yukon.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of talent there and think about with all of those playmakers what's going to happen.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to be able to leak out for the for the alley oops he already is a block machine.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Kamara who is an epic defender one of the best in the NBA and can defend all of the superstars.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants him guarding them.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then Drew Holliday who is probably a Hall of Famer and he's a proven champion as well and he's coming off the bench he should be in the Journeyman Hall of Fame because the amount of teams that Drew Holiday's played for at this point in time is off the charts and every single team that's had him has been better for the privilege.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and one little anecdote Drew here that I think will help people really understand what type of box you're talking about that this giant human Donovan Klingon was walking out just manhandling from a Costco.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I bought a 65 inch TV at Costco once and I walked out to my Ford Focus hatchback and I tried to put it in there and the vehicle would not fit it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to call you who was my closest friend with an SUV to come and take my TV to my house.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he's walking out probably flipping it up in the air and playing with it a little bit with a TV that I could not fit in a Ford focus.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: That should tell you how big of a human we're talking about and he can kind of shoot a little bit too Drew that guy he's got a little bit of a stroke from downtown.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there's plenty of reasons to be excited especially coming off of a playoff berth that I don't think anybody saw coming last year.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now the team's a lot better than what they were over the offseason.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the fans are going to go ballistic and even if you're not excited about Donovan Klingon carrying a TV around like a pizza box, I am.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I I every guy that I named there, now Shaden Sharp got injured.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to lose him till about Christmas which is a total bummer because he's a human highlight reel as well.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: It has been so long since there's been a Portland team where I can just go down a list of people and I'm not acting like a homer right now.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of the people that I named are people with notoriety in the league and people that are I'm not alone in saying that they're good.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: When your team sucks and you're like oh yeah our third guy on the bench nobody knows him like it gets to that point.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: But in this scenario I think we're deep enough if we can stay healthy it could be big time.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know Danny Odvia lives about four blocks away from me.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had the guts to like ring a doorbell or anything but I've seen him on his boat.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: He does not want to he does not want to see you when he's on his boat um but I get I still get like a kid in the candy store.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like there's Danny there's Danny over there.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of the few guys that lives in Portland that can stand in the middle of Lake Oswego and touch the bottom Drew it's the you know it's a Portland Trailblazer if you see him out there wading through right it's uh it's it's so fun to see those guys in person.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know I I think I told you the story about walking by Dan Lanning when I was filming the commercial for uh before the Oregon football season actually kicked off and all I could stomach saying was like what's up coach like really quiet because I didn't want to be that guy uh but man it I love it when you see those guys out in public it just turns me into a kid again.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I saw so I was in Seattle at the iHeart media building doing a live broadcast one morning.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: We'd gone up there for a series of shows and after the show you know we were going back to the hotel so I walk out the front door and you're still a few floors up like in a locked area and I open the door and there's a guy coming in as I'm coming out and I walk by him and I take about three steps and I stop and I'm like oh and I realize that was that's Brandon Roy.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I turn around and I'm like Brandon and he's like hey and I'm like oh hey I just want to introduce myself and say uh love what love what you did.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't I had no line like it was because it just came out of nowhere but we get in the elevator and I'm like it was like a kid seeing their hero.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could not believe that I just walked by Brandon Roy and then just turn around I'm like Brandon Hey dude so yeah I wasn't I didn't look cool but God I'm glad I said something because how often do you just rub shoulders with a a guy who was a hero of yours.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: It never happens man uh I was in Vegas a few years back and we went to a way off the strip Tappas place really well reviewed great food just a tasting menu that just kept coming and uh all of a sudden the lead singer of No FX Fat Mike walks into this restaurant and sits like two tables away from us.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling all my guys, we're all big No FX fans, we were all planning on going to the tour the next year, which was going to be their last and I'm elbowing that's fat Mike over there.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my friends goes don't ruin his dinner.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go over there and say anything.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like I know I was I you know I've been around celebrities before in my career.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I understand how you should treat them but he gave me a real finger wag Drew and as we're paying and walking out I turn around to see this guy who drank like three bottles of sangria at that restaurant walk over to Fat Mike and pat him on the shoulder and say hey man just a big fan and I thought you SOB you told me I couldn't and then you wandered your drunk uh ass over there and you did.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ah yeah shit I missed a chance there missed a chance.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know those moments those moments are big you guys could have been best friends.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah we hey we did see Greg Odin if you'll remember this all the way back from uh from our early radio days we ran into Greg Odin out in Vegas as well at In N Out and uh totally ruined his day by asking for pictures.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I learned my lesson.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah Greg still owes us a little something for all the the missed opportunity out there.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even though he has come full circle I got to give Greg Odin some some credit and he no longer completely blames Portland for all of his problems.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I can appreciate that.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well I wish he would sign that picture for me to make the paper worth more than the five cents it currently is Drew but you know uh wish in one hand and do something else in the other and see which one fills up first is what my dad always says.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Greg, I told you to write I'm about to dunk a double double love you Marcus and you aren't writing it.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: In fact you're glaring at me.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you glaring at me oh there's exactly there's a line of 20 people behind me.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I will let you finish your meal.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah exactly uh well we did that whole trip animal style and that's not even the way we ordered at In N Out.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you check out the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and quite honestly it's highly um I don't know annoying's not the word it is exhausting.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: When people ask me well where could I find it?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't find it anywhere we own all the websites the PNW podcast.com and while we're at it the other one is called fitforradio.com I own them all so you just go there you can click them all the episodes are there the YouTube links are there Spotify Apple whatever you want certificate my my tax forms we've put it there for you please go see it yeah if you want to get a quick picture with Marcus's social security card it's all right there the PNW podcast dot com.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Love your face remember every Monday Wednesday Thursday new episodes for you get some and yeah like I said it's a PNW podcast.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time