Latest / Small Ball with Kenny Beecham / The In-Season Tournament Is A W, Summer League, Damian Lillard

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The In-Season Tournament Is A W, Summer League, Damian Lillard · Small Ball with Kenny Beecham

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Alright, check it out, check it out, check it out.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely not a podcast hosted by uh Kenny Beecher.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't ask me what this is.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Some sometimes the brother get bored.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're talking about the NBA offseason now.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Free AC is basically over.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: The only dominoes we have are Damian Lillard slash James Harden, and James Harden might still be there next season.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And the brother get bored.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I just be having a ton of thoughts.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know back in the day I used to have that ramble series during the pandemic where I would sit in front of a camera and just talk hoops for 15 minutes straight, snow cut.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of y'all kind of love that series, and this is kind of similar to that, where it's not a lot of notes.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just me rambling.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's just gonna be longer form.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's just in a world world where sometimes a brother don't want the camera on, all the lighting.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know how hot it gets in those rooms when I'm filming those videos.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: So keep it undercover, man.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: This is definitely, definitely, definitely not an NBA podcast.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And anybody that tells you that it is is strictly deliberately lying to you.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Lying directly into your face.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about some stuff, man.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: That's where, like, if this was professionally produced, right after I say, let's talk about some stuff.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: That's where like some music will come in, boom, boom, boom, vibes, vibes, and then maybe an ad.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: But we ain't got none of that around here.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, the NBA play-in tournament, your NBA in season tournament, sorry, the play-in is happening at the end of the season, was officially announced a couple days ago, and I got some opinions that's maybe different than the general consensus.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, they told us that this is gonna happen, right?
1:18
SPEAKER_00: They told us that they were working on something to try to incentivize NBA players and incentivize fans to care about the season.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Because let's be real, unless you're a super diehard fan like me, you're not caring about November 28th NBA games.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
1:32
SPEAKER_00: A game on a random Tuesday night.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: You don't really care.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Most people are probably watching highlights, or most people just will look at the box going and say, hey, uh Damian Lillard had 50 points for his team, and they still lost the game.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, like the NBA has been trying to get people to care about the season deeper, deeper than just the playoffs.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And when you really think about it, trying to get that to happen is super, super hard.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: The only league that I can think of off the top of my head, I mean, I'm just talking about American sports.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Don't hit me with the football from across the pond, even though I'm kind of locked in, I'm not completely locked in.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: The only sport that you're incentivized for watching every single game is football.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Because football is on a weekly basis, you get one single game to prep for, you get one singular outcome in what is it, 18 weeks in the season.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't watch football.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: 18 games, 17 games, whatever it may be.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: So every single one of those games matter.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: In baseball, you have 162 goddamn games.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And unless you're a diehard fan, you probably watch none of listen, you probably watch none of the regular season unless you're a diehard fan in baseball.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's be real.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: You might watch the wild car and the actual playoffs and a World Series, but it takes a sick motherfucker that really cares about baseball to watch every single game.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: I have not missed a White Sox game this season.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: That is mental illness at its finest.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And when I say I haven't missed, that don't mean I'm tuned in watching every single game.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: But I might be listening if I'm in the car.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: I might be just keeping up with the updates on my phone, checking score.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean by not missing a game.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: It comes in many, many forms.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, the NBA with its 82 games, I almost said 62 games, when it's 82 game season, it's hard to convince the casual fan to care.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And this has been years in the making, man.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: I remember Adam Silver talking about this back in like 2017 or something.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm exaggerating, but you get me, where he was saying, like, man, we like what we see over the pond with with football, and they got some really cool stuff that make people care about the regular season, the in-season stuff.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if the NBA had an in-season tournament with incentives?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And now it's finally been announced, and I've heard a lot of people disliking the idea.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And I just don't, I genuinely don't understand why.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: But that is why you that's why you do it now, right?
3:53
SPEAKER_00: As of 2023, when these games are gonna be going on at the end of the end of the uh calendar year, raising the what is it, the NBA Cup, whatever the hell they're gonna call it, is not gonna mean much.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But if we keep this tradition, my grandkids might be like Pops.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm I want them to call me Pops, because I call my grandfather Pops.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Pops, the Chicago Bulls is in the in-season championship because the Bulls ain't won a real championship since '98, '99.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So this might be our Super Bowl.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: This cup might start to hold value eventually as we try to flesh these things out.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when the play-in tournament was announced, nobody gave a damn about it.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Most people thought it was a bad idea.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: LeBron James thought it was a bad idea, and LeBron James' teams have benefited from the play-in almost every single season since it's been adopted.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: So he said whoever came up with that idea need to be fired.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, Bron, it's helped a lot.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Because last season, y'all were the seven seed, right?
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And regardless of the play-in, I mean, you didn't need the play-in if you're the seventh seed.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: But you get what I'm saying.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: His team's been in the play-in.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: He hit the shots where he saw three different baskets, he shot at the one in the middle.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: What regardless, uh, he has benefited, and then they made the conversation.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Either way, people hated that idea, and then they saw the practice, and we figured out, hey, this ain't as bad as we originally thought.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm hoping that the fan that hates the idea of the in-season tournament comes to the realization of, because this is this is not much different than the games you was gonna be watching anyway, right?
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So let me try my best to break it down um for the people that have not really been keeping up.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: And when I say break it down, I'm about to read it verbatim from the NBA website.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: The inaugural end-season tournament will tip off Friday, November 3rd, and Q oh damn, maybe I shouldn't be reading verbatim verbatim.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: These words are kind of crazy.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, culminate, that's not a tough word.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: I went to college with the championship on Saturday, December 3rd, the semifinals, Thursday, December 7th, and the championship will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, I will say this, I will be stopping while I'm reading this to tell you the things I like in this.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Like having a neutral site basketball game, I love it.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: That's why March Madness is well, one of the reasons why March Madness is so cool to me.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: The bubble, though people might uh talk about it being the easiest championship, the hardest championship, your perspective is different across the board.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I really like the idea of no home court advantage.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: It's pure ball.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, even with that, I mean, yeah, you're gonna have some home court advantage because if the Lakers are in the finals in Las Vegas with the Lakers being the biggest fan base in the world, it's probably gonna sound like a Lakers game or close to it, right?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, if we have the OKC Thunder versus Orlando Magic to small ish markets or up and coming teams, it might genuinely be a neutral location with just hoop heads come to play ball.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of is a pre preface, prefacer, whatever you want to call it, for the NBA.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: When they're starting to think about this expansion, you know, Vegas Summer League is always on and popping, but we don't know how many of those people are imports.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: I came in for Chicago from it.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: I met people that was there from Indonesia.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: I met people that came in for Washington.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: But when you have something like this, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of locals, and now we try to figure out exactly, hmm, the Las Vegas could sustain an NBA team.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you see the the NHL team is doing pretty good.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: They were rumored to get Oakland, uh, the Oakland Athletics.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, all 30 teams have been randomly drawn into five groups within their conference based on their win-loss record from the 2022-2023 regular season.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Beginning November 3rd and continuing throughout Tuesday, November 28th, each team will play four designated group plays games on tournament night.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: They got that in quotation marks, and tournament night sounds amazing.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: One game against each opponent in the group with two games at home and two games on the road.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Tournament nights sound amazing.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Because before they announced these details, one of the questions I had, because they they did tell us that it will be in the flow of the season, literally in the flow of the season, right?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Where there's no real additional games other than the NBA or the championship of this tournament.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: So my question was how do we diff differentiate from the 6 o'clock game being a regular regular season game and then the 8 30 game being an end-season tournament game, and they are saying that it is exclusively tournament nights on these Tuesdays, and what is it, one more Tuesdays and whatever day.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: I love that part because you know now, since you know that this Tuesday from November 3rd to the 28th is dedicated to the in-season tournament.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Hell, let's go above and beyond.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's get a patch on the jerseys, just so people that don't got a calendar and don't know it's Tuesday and it's tournament night, can look at the jersey and be like, oh yeah, it is.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: We are playing for this tournament championship.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Just like once we get to the NBA finals, they have the patch.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: This year they had the patch on the back of the jersey, which I didn't really love opposed to where it normally is, but I understand they had the you know the Bill Russell six and then the other sponsorship that is now a thing in the NBA.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Either way, tournament nights are gonna be on Tuesdays, and it's cool.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: So every single one of the games that are played in the in-season tournament counts towards the actual standings, which is of course how we get to the NBA championship.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I remember when this was originally announced, like the idea of it, a lot of fans were saying, how do we get players to care?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: How do we get it so that LeBron is not tanking because he's here for the regular season and not for this in-season tournament?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is part of the regular season.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: So that incentivize the players to just play because as we've seen over the last couple seasons, one game difference can be the difference between being the fourth C versus being the sixth seed or being the sixth seed versus being a play-in team.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: So I don't expect players to sit out the actual games other than maybe the championship.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Because once we get to the championship, the only thing that these players are playing for is the money, and the money pool is half a million dollars per player.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And let's be real, for LeBron James, half a million dollars ain't nothing.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: He he got rich of Millies that cost more than that.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: But for Max Christie, that half a million looking kind of good.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: For Cole Schwindler, or however the hell you pronounce his name, that half a million is kind of important.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So, Braun, I know that it don't matter to you, but take one for the team, for your teammates.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Half a million.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: If you can go out there and draw 40 points in this game and we win, brother, I would give you a percentage of my half a million because that's how much it is important to me.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And the incentive, it's not awful, it's not great either.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, I saw some people speculating that there was going to be something uh dealing with uh lottery odds, which feels kind of iffy.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, some people talking about just an additional first round pick, which is way too far, if you ask me.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Half a million dollars feels like a very good start.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And as people have noted, this tournament is not sponsored by anybody yet.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: But we know it is a national uh sporting event.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Everything eventually ends up getting a sponsor, and I'm assuming that by year three of this thing, it's gonna be the Kia end season tournament or the NBA 2K25 end season tournament, just like the play-in, or I'm sorry, just like summer league.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: So uh right now it's half a million dollars, but I can guarantee you that as time goes on and if the fans really take to this, the half a million dollars can go up substantially.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess I was kind of intrigued with the idea of like a height end lottery odds, even if it's just by one percentage.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine uh that a team like, nah, nah, nah, nah.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Forget the heightened lottery odds.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's say just in the lottery in general.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's just say that.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, that makes it a lot tougher because if you have a juggernaut team, let's say the Denver Nuggets say, hey, we just won a championship, we're gonna get the regular season one, two, or the in-season one, two, and now we got lottery odds and we could draft the first overall pick.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: But can you imagine a team that does not own their own first round pick for the season?
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't even know if this is true about the Minnesota Tim Wolves.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Like I said at the top of the show, this is not, I'm not doing no research.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let's say the Minnesota Tim Wolves, because they gave up a lot for Rico Bear, do not have their own first-round pick this season.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So they say, hell, we gotta win this in-season tournament.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: We gotta do it because if we do, we get a 1.4% chance at the first overall pick.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: We get an extra lottery chance.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: So, Anthony Edwards, suit up.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: You're playing 44 minutes tonight.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Car Anthony Town, suit up.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: You're playing 26 because you're gonna foul out if I try to give you more.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Jalen McDaniels, lock up.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: You got Kevin tonight.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine they do that?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: They win that, and they also get a high, they jump up in the lottery odds, and boom, they got a top four pick just because they won this in-season tournament.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: That would be amazing for Adam Silver, but also terrible for Adam Silver because the other teams that are in the lottery are gonna be pissed.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Either way, um, I thought it was kind of intriguing, but it does make sense for it just to be a money pool for now, and we try to work some things out.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go over who's in what draw.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Like uh, there's three different groups A, B, C across each conference.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: One thing I wish they did was make it so that it was interleague play, um, deeper than just get into the championship.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: I think it would have been cool if we had uh two West teams and two East Teams, I mean two West teams and three East teams, whatever it may be, and just kind of mix it up.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh just because it would it would be fun.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you think about it, these East teams we go against each other all the time.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see each other in the playoffs.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: So what if we get a winner-go-home game, not literally, between the Raptors and the Pelicans?
13:06
SPEAKER_00: I think that can just be cool, and that can be a way to start rivalries that normally wouldn't have the opportunity to start.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Because East versus West rivalries are only made through the NBA finals traditionally, unless you got, I don't know, um, Nikola Jokic pushing the hell out of Markeith Morris, and now they hate the Nuggets and oh snap, we're about to see each other in the finals, even though Markeith Morris is not here anymore.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: That would be a way that, man, we keep drawing the Pelicans every year.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: We bust their ass in the group one.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: We be getting at it.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, that just will be cool.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But instead, we got the same teams, and I guess rivalries in general don't exist too much in the league.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm looking at, okay, group C for the East.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It's the Celtics, the Nets, the Raptors, the Magic, and the Bulls.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that on purpose.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't pick the Bulls thing on purpose.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: It just so happened to end up that way.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: There's not a real rivalry there.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Like some of those teams are in the same division, right?
13:55
SPEAKER_00: The Celtics, the Nets and the Raptors are in the same division.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Shout out to um NBA Wordle.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: What the hell is that?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Perdle?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the only reason I remember divisions nowadays.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't even say inherently they have a rivalry.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, some of these teams may have seen each other in the playoffs before, but I don't see them as rivals.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of can say the same about a lot of these things.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, these rivalries don't really exist in 2023, but we have an opportunity to try to make it start.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I know we tan we're going on tangents and stuff, but the rivalry thing is mostly because, well, players be switching teams all the time.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Y'all might have had a little two-year rivalry, but uh-oh, we decided we want to bottom out and we don't look good anymore.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And now this 19-year-old that we just drafted, why would he be a part of a rivalry from two years ago?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's another subject for another day.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: I did wonder about like ties, because again, you play against every other team in your group once, which means what is that, four games?
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing my math right?
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Four games.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And obviously with four games, there's a lot of opportunity to get ties.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: But if there are ties, you get you go to the head-to-head record, you go to point differential, you go to total points scored in that stage.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So there are ways to get through this group play um without ties determining things.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: But some other stuff.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we scored a hell of a lot more points than that team who grinded out every one of their games, so we look like the better team.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm going back to one of my original points about the people that are, I won't say pressed, but don't really love the idea.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: This does not change your viewing experience whatsoever, other than adding a potential one more game that you it for the championship, which is like you maybe you don't care, maybe you do, but this is all in the Florida season, so it does not hurt the league whatsoever.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: You know?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: The only thing I'm I'm thinking about is you know, when the play-in happens, those play-in stats kind of don't exist anywhere.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: I think basketball reference just started putting them up, but for the first couple years, if you had a crazy playing game, there is no way to look at that on your basketball reference or your NBA.com page.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm assuming that these in-season tournaments, at least the championship, is gonna go the same way because hypothetically, if somebody drops 82 games or 82 points in this championship game, they didn't break Kobe's 81-point game record because it wasn't a regular season, wasn't a regular season uh appearance.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: I would be hot, absolutely hot if I did that.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: But of course, I struggle to make layups, so that's not something that I necessarily have to worry about.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna talk about some Summer League though, because Summer League, I just got back from it a couple hours ago.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, a day or so ago.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: And man, I absolutely love Summer League to an extent.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I do recommend that a lot of people go out there and go go visit Vegas when you get an opportunity to.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I specifically recommend that you go through the first weekend because that's when it matters the most.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: As you can see, like when Ben Yama shut down, School Henderson got injured, or the Thompson twin got injured, so they might not play another game.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: But if you were there for the first week, you got to see glimpses of that, and that's all that really matters.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: There has been years when my employer, shout out to them, uh, sent us to uh Summer League for the championship game.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And then you look at the championship roster, you're like, damn, Denzel Valentine is the best player on the court right now.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Where's the actual players?
17:05
SPEAKER_00: But in reality, nobody cares about those type nobody cares about those type of things.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta go that first week.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: But even all that said, Vegas is one of those places, man, that I have to be there for no more than 72 hours, or I'm going to pull my own hair out.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: It is so overstimulating, it is loud, it is hot, it is everything in between.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: The only reason that makes it worth it for me is the pure basketball in the basketball community.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: I think it was my boy Jacob, aka Rusty Buckets, who tweeted like the summer league fans are a lot different than just a regular NBA game fans, and that is that is true.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: For people that go out of their way to go to summer league, that is as close to die hard fandom as you can imagine.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: These games mean literally nothing.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: For the most part, there's no star players involved, and yet these people are pulling up to watch.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It is it is it is great in that sense for the basketball aspect.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: But this year, man, this year was a lot different than any other year.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Wimby had things completely different than I have ever seen it before.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I had the opportunity to go to some pretty highly touted young players' first summer league appearances in this Wimby game.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Had I mean those games had nothing on this Wimby game because everybody was in attendance.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people that take this time off as far as like sports journalism and people on TV and yada yada yada, they take this time off because, brother, this is the dead time.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: We got through the summer of uh free agency and yada yada yada, and the NBA is typically always on.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: This is the one time where people can go on vacations.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Nope, everybody's going on vacation after Wemby.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: People were there that I haven't seen in summer league ever, even though I know that they were attached to the NBA through their employers or whatever, because that's how important Wimbayama is to the league, potentially.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And again, shout out to my employer.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Every single season we get these media passes, and the media passes give you pretty much all access to the arena.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: No matter where I want to go in the arena, I can do that, which is fire.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: So the first day we get there, um, the the game that we got there first for, because we landed and had to go get food, yada yada yada.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: It was the Rockets versus uh the Treblins, right?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: It was Scoot versus Thompson Twin, right?
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Am I making that up?
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I think that's about right because that was the game that Jabbar Swim Jr.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: hit the game winning.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: He had 33 points, sorry, Eason Ligger, and all of that.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And we walked onto the court immediately.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: We just go straight down, we walk into the court, we getting like TikTok footage or all of that stuff, and everything was cool.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: It was smooth.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: If there was a timeout, brother, I could have walked to the center of the court if I wanted to.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Now I ain't no asshole or like a center of attention type dude, but I had I'm just telling you the type of access we were allowed to have, right?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: So we did that, and then the whimby game is about to start.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: And this is the one time security put his hand in front.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, not this game, not this game.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: We cannot have you on the court.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: We need you to get into a seat because this is mayhem.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And again, that has never happened before.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's just a little bit of perspective on how ridiculous this was, right?
20:11
SPEAKER_00: So I'm we like, okay, no problem, security, we're gonna have to find a seat.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never been to Summer League, there are no assigned seats.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: If you buy a Summer League ticket, hell, you could be in the first row or you could be all the way at the top, like Sting was.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Was that Sting?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: You could be all the way at the top, depending on how it is.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: So even my media pass, there is no assigned seat.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: So I have to go into the crowd.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't know if y'all saw this.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time Summer League has ever, ever, ever been sold out.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, okay, let's go find a seat.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking in the 100 section, there's not an empty seat in sight.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Actually, that's Cap.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: There's one.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: And I asked the dude, anybody sitting here?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: He said, yeah.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, bet, no problem.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep going, keep going.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: 200 sections.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: No empty seats.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Brother, I was in the almost black back row to see Wimby's first game, and I ain't complaining.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: That's just showing how crazy it was.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
20:59
SPEAKER_00: The guy that I asked earlier, I kept my eye on him.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever came to that seat.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: So, so he was just being a jackass because he didn't want me sitting next to him.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Not me specifically, but anybody sitting next to him.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's rude.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, that's just rude.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: This is a packed house, my boy.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: You in row seven.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I had to go up to row, I don't know, 54.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Because you ain't want me sitting there.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I ain't I know it was hot outside.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't sweating, I wasn't stinky or nothing.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: So just let me sit and enjoy the game.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Either way, um, all of the energy was there.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: He gets onto the court, the crowd is going wild.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: He touched the ball the first time, the crowd is going wild, and that lasted about I don't know, four minutes of actual gameplay until it got to like this game, this this is all so very ugly.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of summer league, and then sometimes is a lot better than summer league in the actuality.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Because you have to remember we are we are watching a few pro players and then playing.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Players that are trying to become pro players.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And these players have maybe had two to three practices together so far.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: So it can be ugly.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And the Wimbenyama Brandon Miller first game was the definition of ugly.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: It was, bro, I ain't gonna cap.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: I am not gonna cap.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Because it was so much pandemonium.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: There were so many people, so many.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And me and the guys said, hey, y'all just want to go back to the telly right now, try to beat this traffic.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: That's how bad the game was, y'all.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: So we did.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we didn't even beat the traffic because everybody was thinking the same goddamn thing.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And my mind was like, I already know that he was, you know what I'm saying?
22:42
SPEAKER_00: This is just the first game of his NBA career, he'll be back, and he did exactly that.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But this is this is gonna throw me into my point.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Or one of my points, I guess.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Summer League doesn't matter.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: It's just fun for us fans, it's just players getting their feet wet.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Players that were undrafted or don't have a guaranteed spot, have any opportunity to showcase what they can do, and even deeper than that, some of the players, most of the players that are playing in summer league right now won't make an NBA roster, but best believe there are teams overseas that are watching this or scouting it, that they are gonna may get an opportunity to play professional basketball, but just not in the NBA yet.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: So when you have a guy like Victor Webanyama, like Brandon Miller, um, like some of these dudes that may have struggled in their first or second summer league game, I have never been a guy that's gonna look at that and overreact.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: The Summer League is one of those places where you have to look at the positives more than the negatives because there are so many players throughout history.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: We're talking great players that struggle.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting a quotation marks.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: You can't see it because it's audio.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: I almost said podcast.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: It's not a podcast, it's an audio taping.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: There's so many people that struggled for their own likeness.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: You struggled for being the first overall pick, second overall pick, third overall pick, and then went into the league and lit the league on fire.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: One of the prime examples, and listen, I ain't gonna latch on you and act like I was here for this.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, technically I was, but I don't remember.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Derrick Rose sucked in the summer league.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: He sucked.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't ask me what his stats were.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: He was awful.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And in the same year, Michael Beasley was the goddamn dog in the summer league.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: One of them walked out as a league MVP just a few years later, and the other dude didn't.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm saying.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: When I say that when players are struggling at this level with these first couple NBA games, do not overreact because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: I've seen the opposite.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Who the hell was it?
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Randolph.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And do y'all remember the name?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Randolph.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Anthony Randolph against my Bulls had like 50 on my.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know the exact name.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: It felt like 50.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And he had a he was in the league for a minute, but he won't drop in 50s, right?
25:05
SPEAKER_00: So it's about looking at the things and kind of taking it with a grain of salt.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not telling you not to get excited if your your guy that your team drafted with the 30th overall pick looks like a stud in summer league.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: But I will say, if he doesn't, if it doesn't necessarily translate to the NBA immediately, it's that's just the way it is.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I try to look at the the things that might not show up in the box score.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't really care that he shot three or fifteen today.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: His playmaking was was pretty good.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Kenny, he ended up with two assists.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: Did you see the passing though?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you gotta genuinely use your eyes instead of watching the box score.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like a lot, not not necessarily I'm not talking about Vic or Scoot or Brandon Miller.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying in general, I'm just saying, because everybody's watching Victor Meam.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Everybody saw his pass, it was good.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: But I'm saying in general, when you're doing something like this, you gotta look at the other things.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, um, I remember who we were talking about.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: God damn.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many NBA people at these events.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: That's another thing.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to get into the NBA world or you're trying to network, Summer League is the absolute perfect place.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are so many people that I met just this weekend alone that could have opened some doors for the future, and maybe we'll talk about that someday.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: But I remember talking to somebody whose name I would not say.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh my god, I got another story to say.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Sources.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, a guy's name that I will not say, and we were talking about a player, and he kept talking about his hips, his the way his hips move.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, damn, bro.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I think I told him you too deep into it.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: You too deep into it.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: You too deep into it.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about how fluid his hips are.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And I now, of course, that's um undoubtedly an like an important part of basketball, but I wouldn't even think it like that.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: But guess what I did for day number two?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, that dude in the hips is kind of nice.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, but you get what I'm saying.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, d d other thing, other thing, other thing.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: I've also had the opportunity, uh, because of I don't know, the platform that I've been able to grow over these last couple years, to kind of have ties to certain organizations.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's not, it's not like I know the general manager of the rap.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't know those dudes, but like I these NBA teams or just sports teams in general have so many employees.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: You got people that do oddly specific stuff.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: You're like, damn, that's an actual job.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: It is, right?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: One of those jobs is actually a super important job and can help you in the future, as you see from Eric's poster.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I I know a guy for um one of the 30 teams, he's in their film room.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: He's in their film room, right?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Where his job is to cut clips and watch footage and talk through things and yada yada yada.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: He was also a part of the scouting team.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: He was also part of the scouting team of said particular team that he he works for, um, which is something I guess that doesn't happen often.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how this shit works.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: So I asked him, because I knew that he was a part of the scouting team, what made y'all, because of course he's not the determinant factor guy, what about the prospect that you drafted put him high on your board?
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if he was capping to me to make them feel a lot, make me feel better about his pick.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: He said the guy that we drafted was number four on our big board.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, the the guy was not drafted in the top 10, I'll tell you that much.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he was saying that it was Vic, it was Scoot.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Brandon Miller.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Brandon Miller was not third, it was another player who I don't remember off the top of my head.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: So they and then they got the their guy, you know.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: And again, this is not a highly touted guy, but the guy has looked good in summer leagues so far, right?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So I was asking, like, what about his play?
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Were y'all so excited about to have him as high as you had him when most people did not have him that high?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: And he said that the way they took their approach was looking for some of the smallest detailed things that could translate well to the NBA because the college game and the NBA game are completely different.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: The sport is the same, the objective is the same, but the way it is played is completely different.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And he says, like, our guy had six or seven different small things about his game that immediately is going to translate to the NBA, and then he had some other things that are lower on the list of his strengths, but we know for sure that we can flesh those things out.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And I had never really thought, I mean, again, my job is to just watch the game, and even then, like, there are so many people in the game of sports and fandom and and working within the game of basketball that are so much more knowledgeable to me.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't even really think about this type of stuff.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not a college basketball guy, a G League guy, uh overseas guy, OTE guy.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was Amin Thompson before Brandon Miller.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I just remember.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Amin Thompson was up there before Brandon Miller.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Then Brandon Miller was right after that.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I don't, I didn't really think about that part.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And it made me low-key excited about this next year because I'm gonna try, I'm gonna be a pseudo, a pseudo-scout for the 2024 NBA season.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is I'm gonna try to use those same exact practices that this scout and this team did to fight in the smallest, smallest detail to figure out who's my favorite draft prospect in every single year.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Because in 2023, my favorite draft prospect was Kasen Wallace.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And Kasen in his first game was on a heater.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I hate it that he couldn't play in the other summer league because of the trade and stuff.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: He was on a heater.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: And the reason, there's a few reasons why Casey was my favorite prospect.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: The first one being Kentucky guards, uh say what you want about them.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: More more than likely they're gonna translate to have a successful NBA career.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: To what scale?
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's uh Shea Gilders Alexander, John Wall, like all NBA type of dudes.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's not that, but serviceable NBA players at the guard position.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: So when I saw Casew was coming out, give me those.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: And when I watched this film and saw how tenacious he was defensively, I'm like, man, there's not a lot of guards specifically in the league as of right now, and in 2K, and I almost said 2K.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, in 2023 that play with that type of tenacity from the guard position.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of them, dog.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: It's Drew, it's Marcus, it's I guess uh Derek White at this point.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: DeJounte used to be there.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he showcases it, but it's not a lot of people that play with that type of fire that that's your loose ball.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: No, that's my loose ball.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Or you putting that ball in front of me because you're trying to start a play, you don't think I'm about to hound you for it?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: He had that, and I'm like, man, I just love at the end of the day, I love defense because I believe that if you can prevent the other team from scoring, it's a lot easier for you to win basketball games, believe it or not.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh teams that win championships know how to they know how to defend.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, spoiler alert, they just know how to defend.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: So I love that type of player.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And then I watched his pre-draft workout, and and these type of things are catered, they're created to try to convince you to fall in love with the player, you know, because we talk at open gym, no contests, straight catch and shoe stuff, and but that jump shot looked translatable.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And I know when he was in college, he had some ups and downs with the jump shot, and in that first summerly game, he showed that hey, again, I don't want to overreact to it, but the jumper could be good, and he was my favorite prospect.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Selfishly, too, he was cool as hell when I met him.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And I just when I meet people that are just cool, then they got they got my support strictly off that.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
32:15
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the way I feel about the Thompson twins.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, their story is just immaculate, like a 30 for 30 to be to be made soon, especially if they turn out to be studs.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Like their documentary is gonna be crazy from them putting out their goals at eight years old to make it to the league, and every single day since that moment, their parents put them in position so they can achieve that goal, and them watching Kenny Beachum videos to learn the NBA more than just playing to like it was a it's a lot of stuff.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so shout shout out to them, you know what I'm saying?
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, they end up being really, really good, and then they get their own documentary series, and we we go crazy with that.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: The weirdest and coolest things that happen right now with me being in the game for as long as I have, it's yes, seeing so many players and people who have grew up or watched my content before tell me that to my face.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, when we were going back to the game we were talking about between the Rockets and the Portland Trailblazers, when we we were just walking across the court, Tari Easton stopped Pierre, who's one of my co-hosts for the people that don't fuck the actual have actually have a podcast.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Actually have a podcast.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Much love, appreciate the support to Pierre.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't just to Pierre, it is to us as a show.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that is just the coolest and weirdest thing to have players in the league that I love, you know, be viewers or knowledgeable about who I am as much as I am about that.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Because again, it's my job to know who you are, Tari, but you you don't have to know who I am because I'm just at the end of the day, just another NBA fan, but yet you do, and I appreciate that.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: For a second, I kind of wanted to transition to talking about Damian Lillard, but I just don't have the willpower to do it.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: It's got to the point, I guess, well, I'm doing it, it's got to the point where I just I I felt the same way before he officially requested a trade that like talking about game trades and the future of the Portland Trailblazers felt like there was no reason to do it, and it was just exhausting because that's all people wanted to do and talk about.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And now that we've came to this stalemate uh with the trade with Cronin and Lillard, I just every day there's a new update for one to the other, and it's just such a broken relationship.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: I saw Ramona Shelburne this morning say uh that she wouldn't be surprised if this goes down the right of the route of Ben Simmons where he held out.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to break, I don't want to spoil it, but Damian Lillard's not that type of player.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Unless he's been catfishing me for 11 seasons, Damian Lillard is not the type of dude to just not show up to work.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: He's not the type of dude to not play ball.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You know?
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe there's a world where Damon's back on the team.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, it could exist, but I'm very confident that he will be traded.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: But if he isn't traded, I don't see him having a back injury all of a sudden and sitting out for the season until he is traded.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: That just and if he does do that, even though this matters none to Damian Lillard, I would be losing a lot of respect for him.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: I won't lie to you.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: I would be.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't think that's gonna happen.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: So this is just crazy hypothetical because I do believe that the trade is gonna happen eventually.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: But if it doesn't happen, he decides that he wants to just sit out until it does happen, I'm gonna be kind of sad as a damn supporter.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: I won't lie.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
35:32
SPEAKER_00: This is just one of the things.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: You sign the extension, which deserved.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: You're an amazing NBA player, one of the best in the league, uh, the second best point guard in the last couple seasons, if you ask me, you are worthy of that extension because even though you're coming off the abdominal injury, and even though you're 30 plus years old, you just had the best season of your career.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: You deserve the money, but it comes at a cost.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: When I get paid, it's because I went to work.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's it should be the same thing for Dame.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And it should have been the same thing for Ben.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Now again, what happened to Ben Simmons back?
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Was he actually going through shit?
36:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But if we're living in this world that there was really nothing wrong with Ben, that he just wanted to be traded, I felt the same way.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Being paid to not go to work and something like that, it was kind of weird.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: For some reason I felt like I was going on a political tangent, and I promise you I was not.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: I promise you I was not.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Labor laws, all of that shit, I have no idea.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: I've been working this job for so long, I forgot what it felt like to punch a clock, which is sad, but it's the truth.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: So everybody wants to talk about Dame.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, everybody wants to talk about, I guess, James Harden.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: I think there is an opportunity or world where James Harden is a part of the 76ers next season.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: No offense or butts about it.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Like if that happened, then I wouldn't be surprised.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I thought Joel Embiid, in his interview recently, when he was asked about the Trey Request, I thought his answer was as good as it gets, saying that they're gonna be brothers regardless, and that he wants him to come back.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: But if he doesn't, completely understanding.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I do believe there's a world where, you know, this can be amended, like this could come together and work well.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't, I I've said this before, but I the 76's future is extremely, extremely grim.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: And I guess even with James, it is because we saw the ups and super downs of James Harden last year in the playoffs or this year in the playoffs, where he can drop you 40 40 points twice, but every other game, it's just not very good.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And now if you're trading him away, you think about the teams that would potentially want him, they're not giving you another all-star caliber player, Joel.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: They're not giving you another all-star caliber talent, Daryl.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, man, we might get some some role players back, and our team, our star team is Joel and Tyrese Maxie.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And I do believe that Tyrese Maxie has showed over the last couple years that every single season he has been getting better, and that's good.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's good, and he's probably in for another jump.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: But damn, bro, I wouldn't look at that team and say it's a contender.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: I I find it hard after what we just saw in that playoff series or the last playoff run that even if James does come back, it's hard for me to say that they're a contender, man.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: It's just hard.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: You have the MVP of the league, you have one of the top players in the league and one of the greatest passers of all time who, even though athletically he's not nearly the same, that vision and all of that is still a truth.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: I think he led the league in assist this year.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: I can't look at that roster if they bring it back and say, hey, they got that chance.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: There are teams that have got better.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Their teams that just got better.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: And they haven't.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Even if you bring James back, you they have not done anything to get better.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, Milwaukee, I was gonna say Milwaukee isn't a prove-vit year for me, but how can I say that when they just won a championship?
38:42
SPEAKER_00: I think once you win a championship, there is no such thing as a prove-vit year because you literally did it.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
38:47
SPEAKER_00: And those years ago, they did it.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, if they lose again in the conference finals, I'm not mad at him.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose in the first round, don't lose the first round again because now the conversation's gonna change.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: But once you do the thing that everybody wants to do, I can't question your core.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, I could quite I could question the age of it because Drew is X amount of years old and Chris Middleton's pushing 35, and Brick Lopez hit 35, and hell, he brought his brother to Milwaukee with him, a part of his contract.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, the core is aging significantly, but they did do the thing.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: They did do the thing.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: But with their core aging significantly, and maybe with that comes drop-off in production.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Giannis.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm not doing it.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing it.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: That's not me.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: That's not my character.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: That's not my character.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: I just got in front of this microphone and started to be a talker head.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: I refuse to do that.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: They're still a contender in my eyes.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: The Celtics are still a contender in my eyes, even though they did a lot of changes so far this offseason with bringing in Porzingis, lose the Marcus Smart.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: They do have a lot of question marks attached to them, like who the hell is playmaking for this team now that market is gone.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Marcus is gone.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna act like Marcus was his supreme playmaker, but he was the best they had at that role.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: They do have three big men that have injury history or just overall old disease, which is Al Warfer.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: That is a question.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you have the$300 million man soon to be in question as well.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's a lot around the Boston Celtics, but with another year under Missoula and him having a full, full, complete coaching staff that he likes and can trust, I still see them as a contender.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: The Miami Heat, hell, you were there two times in the last three years or whatever, maybe even though you'd 8C, I'm adding you to my contender list.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Like they're there, these are my teams out east that I feel that type of way.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: The Cavaliers who the 4C last year and had the highest point differential out east, I have to see a little bit more of them for me to add them to that list, and maybe a couple months into the season, I have my decision.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: But them shopping around Jared Allen is legitimately real.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Again, talking to some people that I know at Summer League, that is a real thing.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, it's not a lot of teams really interested at this exact moment, not because Jared Allen's a bad NBA player, but there's just not a ton of fits where you could get back adequate assets to help.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think that with that being said, they had a decent offseason, right?
41:02
SPEAKER_00: They brought in shooters.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Max Juice, George Niang, they brought in space, and because Isaac Crow wasn't doing that, um, Karis Levert is a streaky three-point shooter.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: They brought in players that can shoot.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think this gonna open up the game a lot.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: But as most people have decided, and it's to be true, Evan Mobley is a five.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, if it's very, I don't know, it's very current victory with Miyama, where player X comes into the league, thin as hell, amazing defender, though.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's one thing about Wimby.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: No matter what, he's going to be an amazing defender right off rip.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: You saw it in the first two games of Summer League, he's going to be ridiculous as a defender, right?
41:40
SPEAKER_00: But he came into it maybe undersized as far as the total amount of weight, and we don't want him guarding the Jokices of the league.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't want him guarding Joel and beat of the league full-time right now.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: So let's give it a few seasons.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the way it is for Evan Mobley.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: We gave him a few seasons, or we gave him some seasons with Jared Allen, and eventually you want him to be the full-time center because as you saw in the playoffs versus the Knicks, the spacing or having two bigs that aren't plus shooters is dreadful.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: And when once you're trying to win a seven-game series and these teams can really scheme against that, it's going to be rough.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: So it makes sense that the Cavs are trying to move Jared Allen and eventually move Evan Mobley over to the five.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: But from my understanding, they're not in an extreme rush to make it happen.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: They want the right package to be to be there.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Because as of right now, the ceiling of the team, as you can see, that's a 50-win roster.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: It just was that.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's a 50-win roster.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: DG the PG's real.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh Donovan Mitchell's real.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's a real 50-win roster.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: But you've done that now.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: And the next thing is to get into contention.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think the next way you do that is getting good value for Jared Allen and allowing Evan Mobley to move over to the five and seeing what happens then.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I do, if this is a normal thing, I want to try to bring in people that are more in the know about a very specific team.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just because at the end of the day, I mean I'm a Bulls fan, obviously.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: But I'm trying I try to stay tapped into all 30 teams, which means that on Twitter I try to follow fans from all 30 teams, at least two to three like die hard fans, and then also some writers across different platforms because I ain't got all CNIs with this NBA stuff, man.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things that I miss.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that if I brought in team-specific players for this for 10-minute segments, 20-minute segments, it can go, it can go on really, really well and give other people a platform to talk about their favorite teams.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Because there is so much to be said, man.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: There's so much to be said.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: So right now, as I'm recording this day, I don't know what day, Tuesday, July 11th, is when I'm recording this, right?
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, so many people have already been shut down.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh Tari Eason.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't say shut down, but they're not he's not playing in his current Summer League game.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Jabara Smith Jr., I'm in Thompson.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm saying.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna go to Summer League, you better go to that first weekend because that's when it's bumping.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: But we do see Cam Whitmore still playing, and so far through the first five minutes, he's got seven points.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: So uh we got to interview Cam, and bro, Cam is so locked into proving the people wrong now.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: From my understanding, he didn't drop down because he's bad.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Like people, it's not because people didn't believe in him, but instead, it's because I guess there was an injury concern with him.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I we didn't get a chance to talk about that or ask him about that because let's be real, the podcast that I host is good vibes and having fun, and I think it would just kind of hinder that if we said, hey man, what what why why did you fall in the draft?
44:32
SPEAKER_00: What about your injuries are are people concerned about?
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Like it would it would have just felt weird, and especially from his perspective, because I don't know exactly how we pitched to his talent team to let him come onto the show, but I guarantee you they didn't say, hey, we're gonna talk about a potential injury that everybody's upset about or everybody's scared about.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: So we didn't get to ask him about that.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: But through the first couple summer games, he's looked pretty damn good.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: I was telling the homies that I was gonna do this, this not a podcast stuff, just to see what's up.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, Man, you you really just gonna be talking to yourself for that long?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to explain to them, bro, my whole job for the last six, seven years has been has been me just talking to myself when you really think about it.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Bro, when I'm recording videos, I'm looking at a camera and saying what's on my mind.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: That's the exact same thing, but now there's no camera involved.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is vibes, you know what I'm saying?
45:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm ch I'm chilling right now.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I could go on for 44 more minutes.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's talk about imagine I just start talking about baseball.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I wouldn't be, I would say that's probably gonna happen eventually though, because I am still tuning into the sport.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: I just don't have an outlet for me to talk about it.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: And what if I use the last 10 minutes of every uh not an NBA podcast to talk about some NBA stuff?
45:39
SPEAKER_00: I think that's that's cool.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: And I would hope that if you watch or listen to this long, you could just endure me for 10 minutes and maybe I could convince you to tune into a baseball game every once in a while.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: I can I can see why it's tough for most people.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
45:52
SPEAKER_00: The game is slow and it's a lot different than the pace of basketball.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: I feel you.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: But baseball is great.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm gonna say about baseball, it's just great.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: I do want to remind you that this is definitely, definitely not a podcast.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: I I have to make that very, very clear.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: This is not a podcast, but instead just a collection of thoughts that that happen to be the length of a typical podcast.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Simple as that.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Don't think too much about it.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: How often will these happen?
46:23
SPEAKER_00: There's no schedule.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: When do I have stuff to talk about?
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's every day.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not every day, maybe it's every week, maybe it's monthly.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: But if you listen, hit the get five stars or something.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's cool when you create a new podcast.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, not a podcast, when you create a new um uh uh damn.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: I need a synonym.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: When you create a new collection of thoughts on Spotify or Apple, if you can get a decent amount of downloads in that first episode, you fly up the ranking to be like the number one sports podcast.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: Number one sports sh uh collection of thoughts.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: And that would be cool if that happened today.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Will it?
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Your guess is as good as mine.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Did we say anything today?
47:13
SPEAKER_00: I genuinely don't remember where we started, but I know we finished it here.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.