Latest / Fear the 'Fro: A Cleveland Cavaliers Podcast / Mo Wagner Doesn't Return Shopping Carts (Cavs Lose To Magic)

Transcript

Mo Wagner Doesn't Return Shopping Carts (Cavs Lose To Magic) · Fear the 'Fro: A Cleveland Cavaliers Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Fear the Fro. Shot blocked by Mobley. Holy Mobley. Down to the Mitchell is eight
0:07
for eight from downtown. There is Garland. Hit it from Euclid. Laudale is pow. Whoa, that
0:17
was gorgeous! A Cleveland Cavalier podcast. What do we need to add? What do we need to
0:21
give the coach? The game has come down to space and opportunity. We address that... Hosted
0:26
by the voice of Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, his name is Bob Schmidt. Bob Schmidt. Spectacular
0:31
talent. That guy is a legend. Get out of the buzzer! Welcome to the Fear the 'Fro podcast.
0:38
We're back from All-Star Break, not the way that I wanted to return. I laid out for an
0:42
entire week. I sat out through all the bitching and the moaning about All-Star Break and the
0:48
meaningless exhibition that is that. I said no, I'm going to come back when the games come
0:52
back and the Cavaliers keep this momentum going after the break, a break which saw them in
0:57
second place and while they still maintained second place, lost a little ground tonight
1:03
as the New York Knicks gave a pretty good pummeling to the Philadelphia 76ers and we dropped this
1:10
game 116-109.
1:14
to the Orlando Magic. Now there's a lot of stuff we can discuss but I think the first thing
1:18
I should acknowledge is that I did a very long podcast with Mack Perry of the It's Cavalier
1:24
podcast. If you haven't heard that you should check it out. It will be probably a much more
1:29
enjoyable listen because we recorded it prior to the game tonight but I did not want to wait
1:34
any longer to come back so let's get into what transpired tonight despite the fact that it
1:39
wasn't necessarily positive. Let's get to the elephant in the room right out of the gate.
1:46
Darius Garland. I feel like that has been the majority of the conversation as he's been re-acclimated
1:53
to the rotation here in Cleveland and with Donovan Mitchell out of the game due to illness tonight.
1:59
Certainly, you saw the impact of a guy and you saw how meaningful he is to everything that
2:03
the Cavaliers are doing out here. Darius Garland had a chance to put together a game that would
2:09
halt. a lot of the criticisms that he's taken. You could make the argument that, okay, yeah,
2:14
Darius, his stats aren't great, but he's in a situation where not as much as being asked
2:18
of him. He's being asked to fill a certain style of play. He's trying to do that, and we shouldn't
2:23
get fixed. I've made all those arguments myself. Tonight was a game, though, where he could
2:26
not afford to sit back because we did not have option 1A Donovan Mitchell. And 18 and 10,
2:33
not bad on the surface, but ultimately not enough. And certainly not enough in the first half.
2:38
There's... No way to sugarcoat it. It wasn't Darius Garland's best effort. We also had a
2:43
lot of turnovers. Now some of that you need to credit to the Magic. They are a very good
2:47
defensive team. They were very physical, a lot of slapping, a lot of grabbing. JB alluded
2:52
to that in the post game. In fact, let me play you that now. I mean, obviously that's a strength
2:56
of theirs. Give them credit, they use it well. I think it forced us into some of our turnovers.
3:04
Hard to win. You turn it over 19 times. but they have great size, great length that was
3:10
supposed to make them a really good defensive team. And, you know, it's on us to, you know,
3:14
move them around a little bit more, make them chase us a little bit more, get the ball from
3:19
side to side, and then be strong with the ball. I thought they did a good job of fouling us
3:24
and helping create some of those turnovers, but being physical, slapping, reaching, grabbing,
3:29
holding, you know, that helped them create some of those turnovers. So clearly, I think you
3:34
hear some frustration with JB, despite the fact that we won the free throw battle. I don't
3:39
think he particularly enjoyed how physical the Magic were able to play. But to their credit,
3:46
if you always push the envelope, it's a little bit like the Draymond Green thing. Mo Wagner
3:52
plays a certain way. And yeah, they're going to call him for plenty of fouls. It's not as
3:56
if he escaped unscathed today. He had four personal fouls, but it felt like he could have easily
4:02
fouled out. He's effective and he knows his game and knows... exactly who he is and knows
4:07
how to play on that gray line. Again, there was a lot of offensive fouls when he had the
4:13
ball in his hand. I don't know how our guys are supposed to defend when they're in legal
4:18
guarding position and he's allowed to launch himself through their body over and over and
4:23
over and over again. So again, I'm not taking anything away from him. He understands what
4:31
they allow him to get away with. He's an extremely effective player and he impacts winning. I
4:36
mean, you're taking a little away from him. Over and
5:05
Now other people would like credit for predicting, you know, breakout teams before it happened.
5:12
I was in early on the Oklahoma City Thunder. I don't care if you ever give me credit for
5:16
correct predictions that I make. What I do want you to recognize is when I'm first to the,
5:21
I hate this guy and you should all hate him two party. And I believe I was with Moe Wagner
5:25
because I've been saying it for multiple years now. I might, in fact, I might've been the
5:29
very first person to say Mo Wagner. You piece of shit. Yes. Basically, since he's been a
5:36
member of the Orlando Magic, I have hated this man. So if you're there with me, well then
5:41
you have exquisite taste. Exquisite. It's exquisite. You and I are kindred spirits of asshole identification.
5:48
Look at that huge German asshole. Mo Wagner has now eclipsed, in my mind, Marcus Morris
5:55
and Jae Crowder. And that's not to say that I still don't have an excessive amount of disdain
5:59
for them, but they are not effective basketball players anymore. In the case of Marcus Morris,
6:04
He's all but irrelevant. Jake Crowder is out there logging trash minutes. George Yang lit
6:09
up that fat bitch for 33 points. You fat piece of shit. My hate for them, it doesn't burn
6:16
as bright as watching a guy who not only hands us a loss, but leads the way for the magic
6:21
in doing it. So he has eclipsed them. Now, he has not eclipsed players. I was asked by Darlene
6:26
on Twitter, what about a Draymond Green or a Joel Embiid or a Dillon? Well, she asked me
6:31
Dillon Brooks. And then. The Duke of Sports asked me, well, what about Dramat? No, those
6:35
guys are on their own level. Mo is just recklessly aggressive. So far, to this point, he hasn't
6:41
hurt anyone. He did not punch Donovan Mitchell in the penis. Dong. But this isn't a magic
6:47
podcast, okay? You wanna hear the fifth year anniversary of that? Go to the Six Man Show.
6:52
Let's get back to Darius Garland. Darius Garland did not have a good first half. There's really...
6:59
No way around it. We kind of things unraveled a lot in the middle of the second quarter.
7:03
Thanks to mostly Jared Allen in that final stretch and an eight Oh run to close out the second
7:08
quarter. The Cavaliers did cut the lead to four points, but that was largely on the heels of
7:13
the big man. I thought Darius Garland struggled mightily. I thought Caris LaVert struggled
7:18
mightily in the first half collectively. Those two guys were three for 12 and we had nine
7:24
turnovers at halftime. So that's. It's unacceptable. 6 points from Garland isn't enough. Now obviously,
7:30
being that he finished with 18, he did do a lot of scoring and fairly efficiently in the
7:35
second half. Now just in a 1 minute span in the third quarter, Darius Garland ripped off
7:40
6 points of his own and had a steal that put the Cavaliers back in the lead finally. After
7:45
digging a hole in the second quarter, they clawed back in the third quarter. Their first and
7:49
third quarter was very good tonight. Second and fourth, that's where they lost the game.
7:53
And a lot of that directly overlaps with when those guys on the Orlando bench murdered us.
7:58
Now I spent a huge portion of my conversation with Mac Perry talking about the luxury of
8:03
being able to play through some peak and valley performances from a Struce and a Darius Garland
8:08
because of how well the rest of the team was playing. With Donovan Mitchell out of the lineup,
8:12
it becomes a lot more difficult. So in the absence of your best player, if the bench only scores
8:17
24 points, probably an uphill battle. Every single one of the Cavalier starters shot better
8:23
than 50% from the floor. Isaac Okoro, probably him or maybe even Max Struz, one of those guys
8:30
I would say were the bright points for tonight. I thought it was probably, I would give the
8:35
nod to Isaac. Outside of incredibly efficient offensive production, I thought he did a good
8:41
job taking Franz Wagner out of the game. Now, Mobley drew the toughest assignment in theory.
8:46
in Paulo Banquero, although I thought Banquero settled for a lot of jumpers and he was just
8:51
not hitting them tonight. This Orlando Magic team, it's interesting to watch them and see
8:56
what we've seen this season because earlier in the year we got just a transcendent career
9:01
night from Paulo Banquero where he went for over 40 points and tonight it could not have
9:05
been more the opposite. He started the game 0-6, didn't even score till midway through
9:10
the second quarter and at the end of the evening he was an abysmal 4-15. What really carried
9:17
the day was the bench, as I said. Now, just to put this into some context, statistically
9:22
speaking, we have given up four 60-point bench outings this season, but none since late November.
9:28
This was the first one of this calendar year, and this was the first one in basically three
9:33
months. The Cavs themselves have scored over 60 points with their bench unit five times,
9:38
and they have won every single one of those games. Some of them have been their more impressive
9:42
outings. We did it to this Orlando Magic team. in late January in that game we won going away.
9:48
We failed on multiple fronts. Physicality, their bench exploded, they had an outlier shooting
9:55
night. I didn't love all the rotations. Lots of things to improve upon, Darius's play included.
10:00
But the second half, we got a good game out of Acora, we got a good game out of Struce,
10:04
we got a good second half out of Darius Garland. Jared Allen, I thought, had some huge possessions
10:09
during the course of this game when we needed buckets to keep it competitive. and Evan Mobley
10:14
came out of the gates quick. With a back-to-back in front of us against Philadelphia, if you
10:18
told me I could only have one of the two games, of course I would pick Philly, and they got
10:22
handled tonight by the Knicks. So I'm hopeful that Donovan is back in the second half of
10:28
this set, and that the Cavaliers give us something that can quickly wipe away the memories of
10:33
this game. But let's keep it moving, because we have an update on the enemy of the pod front.
10:39
Tim Bontemps stopped ducking the smoke, so even though he's technically not the enemy of the
10:44
pod. Let's just fire up a past enemy of the pod update, shall we? Enemy, enemy,
10:55
enemy of the pod. Fuck him! So today I received a tweet from BP and Pepper Pike, one of the
11:01
listeners of the podcast, friend of the podcast, telling me, making me aware that an appearance
11:07
by Tim Bontemps on 92.3 The Fan was coming. And that if I tuned in, in what was five minutes
11:15
from the point I was made aware that Tim Bontemps would be doing an interview. So I did. I tuned
11:20
in, I rolled tape, I recorded the whole 12 minute interview, and yes, finally, finally we got
11:27
Tim Bontemps addressing his slanderous, unnecessarily harsh critique of Evan Mobley from just a month
11:34
ago. Now I will set it up again. I know most of you heard this, but could be new listeners.
11:38
At any point, I'll give you the concise summary of what Tim Bontemps said previously. It goes
11:44
as follows. I mean, to me, Evan Mobley's been one of the more disappointing players in the
11:48
league. He has not improved on offense at all. If you're a non-shooting four, which is what
11:53
Evan Mobley is, that's probably the least valuable player in the league. Now, we don't need to
11:59
rehash my feelings or your feelings on that. I think they generally go as follows. You piece
12:04
of shit! But ever since Evan Mobley knocked down those three triples, I was waiting to
12:10
hear how he would couch. or walk back his comments when he had to acknowledge that Evan Mobley
12:15
perhaps isn't the lost cause that he presented him as. Now just to support how good Evan Mobley
12:21
has been in the month of February, I alluded to this on the It's Cavalier podcast, but he's
12:26
second in the league with players who have over 20% usage in 25 minutes per game in true shooting
12:33
percentage. The only guy who's outperforming him in this stretch during February is Danny
12:38
Avdya. His box plus minus. for the month of February coming into the evening was a 7.3.
12:44
And to put that in some perspective for you, typically guys who get a six or more over the
12:50
course of a season, that's an all NBA season. Dudes who get up around an eight. So Evan's
12:55
splitting the difference and he's, in fact, he's leaning more towards the plus eight. That
12:59
would be an MVP season level. What he's doing this month, it's truly the worst confluence
13:06
of events for the Timbontemps anti-mobile development agenda. that could possibly play out. Now at
13:13
some point he was going to have to address it. People have been tweeting him. He hasn't been
13:17
on the podcast where it came up on the low post or the hoop collective but it was only a matter
13:22
of time and today was that day. Today on Cleveland radio, as is to be expected, you got a much
13:28
more conciliatory, measured version. What was this? He has not improved on offense at all.
13:34
Became this. And obviously since coming back from... the knee surgery, he's hit some shots.
13:43
What was this? There's not a real logical path for this team making any kind of run in the
13:47
playoffs. Is suddenly this? I think they could make the conference finals now, especially
13:53
if they get matchups to fall a certain way. That's a win, right? It's at least a half win.
13:59
Some Cavs fans took an exception to what you said about Evan and his development in year
14:05
three. Are you buying into this, even though it's a small sample size, that this could be
14:10
the turning point for him in terms of what he does offensively? I mean, again, I'm not trying
14:16
to parse words at all, right? But like, I just need to see a lot more than a handful of games
14:21
where he took a couple threes. Now that's kind of the approach that I would think that he
14:25
would take. I will say, this interview was 12 minutes. It didn't even make me angry. I'm
14:29
not mad, Tim. I'm just... I'm just disappointed. The easiest way to avoid having to acknowledge...
14:35
that perhaps your criticisms were unfounded, don't take the L, just say, okay, best two
14:40
out of three, and then say, okay, best of five. Well, let's make it best of seven. Just keep
14:45
extending the sample size. Now, eventually there may be just a mountain of unimpeachable evidence
14:51
that contradicts your first most emphatic take, but hopefully by that point, people have forgotten
14:56
all about it and moved on. I mean, I ran out of steam on the enemy of the pod within a month.
15:02
If I have to keep this thing going for six months, I don't know if I can do it. I'm not that creative.
15:07
The Cavs from last year's team took Lowry Markkinen, not a very good player. Replace him. He's fine,
15:13
he's a rotation player. He's not a very good player. A average or below average player.
15:18
What about Donovan Mitchell? He's not below average, he's an average player. I mean, whatever,
15:22
he's not very good. But let's go back to the comments. Give me everything you got for this
15:27
wet ass P word. Where'd that come from? That's not the comments. The reason I've harped on
15:32
his situation so much is because it is really the critical question about the Cavs going
15:38
forward. I of course disagree with that. I think the very clear first concern, critical question
15:46
of the Cavaliers going forward is where is Donovan Mitchell in that future? His situation has
15:53
to be addressed first. He has the most potential to have the ability to leave. Evan Mobley to
15:59
me might be the third most pressing concern for this Cavalier team because even in a situation
16:06
where you decide either him or Darius Garland isn't a long-term fit with the construction
16:13
of the roster, Darius is already on a max contract. You don't have that problem yet with Evan Mobley.
16:19
And even if you didn't think he was gonna be a long-term fit alongside Jared Allen, in all
16:23
likelihood, you would just extend him and deal with that later. when you're absolutely confident
16:28
that doesn't happen. But I think he's far from the most pressing concern for the Cavaliers.
16:33
However, I know that there's that group of people who believe that the Cavaliers will never be
16:37
a championship contender until he's our best player. I will tell you, I'm not of the belief
16:42
that so long as Donovan Mitchell is on this roster, Evan Mobley will ever be the best player.
16:46
Donovan Mitchell is, period. A night like tonight should illustrate to you just the impact he
16:51
can have on a game with the way that he plays. And... I don't think that that's the type of
16:55
player that Evan Mobley is. I think he can be an elite player in this league. I don't think
17:00
he can be option 1A on a team, both offensively and defensively. And in my mind, I'm not sure
17:06
if that's what Bontemps believes, but he puts an immense amount of focus on a guy who I think
17:12
has a very high floor already. I would have far more concern with a guy who, when he plays
17:18
bad... by his standard can have a much more detrimental effect on the whole roster. And
17:23
that's a guy like Adarious Garland. But let's go to the, let's leave this behind though.
17:28
To wrap this up, no, I'm not going to make Timbontemps the enemy twice because quite frankly I think
17:33
he's slowly walking this back. And if I was to institute one person a second time, well
17:40
then the grievance should be worse. It should be like I let you off for a slap on the wrist
17:45
because you stole some candy from the grocery store. and then you still came back to the
17:50
same grocery store and you put your penis in one of the donuts. I love apple fritters. I
17:56
need to see a ramp up of tensions. This is not that, this is working in the opposite order.
18:02
So no, Tim Bontemps is not the enemy of the pod. I will wait till I feel more aggrieved.
18:07
And right now, I will tell you what bothers me more, quite frankly, it's when I hear people
18:12
use the phrase. It's like it's the worst kept secret in the NBA. worst kept secret in basketball
18:17
to talk about their belief that it's just a known fact that Donovan Mitchell is gonna walk
18:22
away. People who do that, they're getting under my skin vastly more than simply listening to
18:28
Bon Temps scale back his criticism until eventually he's praising Evan and he's done a complete
18:33
180 and he's gaslighting all of us about how we didn't hear what we heard. Okay, let's do
18:40
one more thing here before we wrap up this episode of the Fear the Frol podcast. Many of you have
18:45
participated in the audio mailbag. It is a feature I rolled out somewhere in the middle of this
18:50
season, where you can go to CavsPod.com, the website of the Fear the Frol podcast, and there's
18:55
a button on the website that says, Talk to Bob. It allows you to just record a voice memo,
19:00
essentially, and it sends it to my email account, and I can include it here as a way for your
19:04
voice to be heard, but also for us to interact in a little bit more personal way than me just
19:09
reading emails that you've sent to me. So... I got an audio mailbag submission. Let's hit
19:14
that. Please leave a message. And now a message recorded and submitted to me at calvespod.com.
19:23
Today our submission is from Zach. Hey Bob. Zach from Chicago. Zach, thank you for joining
19:31
me. What do you got? Absolutely loved the show. Look forward to new episodes each week. Appreciate
19:37
all the hard work. Over the past couple months, I feel like whenever Donovan gets interviewed
19:42
about the success of the team. He mentions players stepping up a lot. And I feel like top billing
19:52
usually goes to Sam Merrill. And it got me curious why. I mean, considering there's so many other
19:59
players that have been playing above their pay grade. Is Donovan lobbying for Sam in some
20:07
cryptic way amongst other players or am I reading too much into it? However, over the All-Star
20:14
weekend, it was never more clear about the promotion of Sam Merrill from Donovan than it's ever
20:21
been. So I thought there was something to it. But like I said, I might just be reading completely
20:26
too much into it. So curious your thoughts. Well, I'll tell you my thoughts, Zach. My gut
20:33
tells me you're probably reading a little bit too much into it. But then again. Who knows
20:38
what's going on inside Donovan Mitchell's mind. If we did, all of this drama around his impending
20:43
free agency would be much less dramatic. I will say this though. I think if you were to ask
20:49
me why Donovan Mitchell throws so much praise Sam Merrill's way, I think there's a few factors.
20:55
One would be recency, novelty. And by that, I mean there's a lot of other guys on the team
21:01
who were huge components alongside of him last year. Jared Allen. and Isaac Okoro. Those are
21:07
guys who occupied starting lineup positions or huge roles alongside of him during last
21:13
season, whereas Sam Merrill was essentially found money that didn't really work his way
21:17
into the rotation until December of this year. And we're still in the honeymoon stage of his
21:23
emergence. He hasn't been around long enough to take what he does for granted. He didn't
21:27
just work his way into the rotation, he exploded onto the scene. So for Donovan to praise him
21:34
as much as he does. Part of it, I think, is Sam Merrill has emerged in a way where he has
21:39
shown one skill that's extremely elite, and that tends to be something that the fans have
21:43
gravitated to. And in a three-point competition setting, of course that's the guy that he should
21:48
draw attention to, the elite three-point shooter who wasn't included in the competition. But
21:53
also, I think there's a certain element of it that when you're toiling away at your job,
21:58
let's say, sometimes the people who tend to get... praised all the time on the conference
22:04
calls and the manager meetings are the people who are working away the most for the least.
22:11
It's not necessarily the most valuable components of the team or of the corporate structure.
22:17
It's the ones who are working the hardest for the least monetary rewards and the kudos are
22:25
a way to make sure people feel appreciated regardless. of their stature on the team from a financial
22:31
or even solidified role perspective. Sam is on the fringe of having to fight for minutes.
22:36
I mean tonight, logging anywhere between 11 and 13 minutes, there may be a part of Donovan
22:42
that knows when they're back at full strength, the sacrifices are largely going to fall onto
22:48
Sam's shoulders to see his role dramatically reduced. So that praise may be a way of trying
22:55
to keep his morale. and spirits up and say, regardless of what you're doing out there on
22:59
the court, I want him to feel appreciated and loved and remain engaged in a way that he doesn't
23:05
have to do for an Isaac or an Allen because their roles are essentially solidified. That
23:11
would be my theory anyway. I don't think that Donovan is any more positive feeling towards
23:16
a Sam than he is towards an Isaac or towards a Jared Allen. I think he loves all his teammates.
23:22
I just think the three point competition was... the perfect storm, the perfect place for him
23:27
to give a shout out to Sam Merrill because Sam Merrill is so elite at that particular skill.
23:33
So that that's my feeling on it, but again, I don't know any better than you. Maybe there's
23:37
something to what you said. And nice belch by the way. You've done me proud. So thank you
23:44
for contributing to the audio mailbag. Let's wrap it up there. Shall we? Thank you to everybody
23:49
who participated, the reviews, the ratings. I appreciate them all. We'll be back, hopefully.
23:54
Following some more wins. Let's get back in the winning column. Shall we? I'm Bob Schmidt
24:00
voice of Fox Sports Radio and this is the Fear the Fro Podcast Okay, that's enough. Stop it
24:08
This has been another Fear the Fro. It's over. Podcast. That was pathetic. If you enjoyed
24:14
what you heard today Put another highlight reel, please consider subscribing. Check out fropod.com
24:20
for more Cavaliers and NBA coverage That's what's on display here Wet ass P word.