Speaker 1: So I want to give the Houston Rockets the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubts, but I just can't. I just cannot.
Speaker 1: They are a dumpster fire. They continue to surprise me
Speaker 1: in the most awful way humanly possible. Last time we
Speaker 1: checked out on the Rockets, Steven Silence was throwing his
Speaker 1: team under the bus. Remember he was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not playing on the defensive end, they don't get
Speaker 1: after it, where Eric Gordon was saying things about how
Speaker 1: they're not improving, they're not getting into their man, they're
Speaker 1: fighting over things and not helping each other, not doing
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do. Pretty much an indictment of
Speaker 1: this entire team not being on the same page. And
Speaker 1: then Rockets are awful. They're the worst team in the league.
Speaker 1: They're thirteen and forty five, and that's the worst worst
Speaker 1: record in the NBA by a long shot. They are
Speaker 1: one and nine in the last ten. This is not
Speaker 1: a good team, right, But there's a lot of not
Speaker 1: good teams. This is like a infested organization though, And
Speaker 1: the more you look into it, the more you say
Speaker 1: to yourself, what is happening there? How do you fix it?
Speaker 1: Because it is really off the rails. So now we've
Speaker 1: got some new news on some more things that apparently
Speaker 1: are disturbing as it relates to their third overall pick
Speaker 1: from last year's draft, Jabari Smith Junior. Yeah, he's an
Speaker 1: absolute mess. They've broke him. I'm gonna say it again,
Speaker 1: Houston Rockets have broken Jabari Smith. According to Mark Spear
Speaker 1: at Andscape, apparently the Thunder, which has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the Rockets, but the Thunder promised Jabari that they
Speaker 1: would draft him at number two overall, a belief that
Speaker 1: they extended all the way through draft night, which, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, they probably also said that the Thunder probably
Speaker 1: also said that the chat they knew Jabari, or at
Speaker 1: least assumed that Jabari wouldn't be available, so they were
Speaker 1: just trying to kind of like, I don't know, he's him.
Speaker 1: His dad then told Mark Spears, when they called chet
Speaker 1: Holgren's name, he lost it, leg went to shaking. I
Speaker 1: looked at him. He's in tears, almost in tears, and
Speaker 1: I forgot that he told me, okay, see, promised to
Speaker 1: draft him, So I kept my mouth closed about that.
Speaker 1: I talked to him and I'm like, well, hey, what
Speaker 1: are you doing straight in your face. Man, you good,
Speaker 1: you good? You good? You know the camera was right
Speaker 1: at our table, bro, Can you blame him? He thought
Speaker 1: he was gonna play for Mark Dagneil who probably did
Speaker 1: not know, and Sam Presty and Oka See with a
Speaker 1: bunch of bucket getters that also passed the ball around
Speaker 1: to going to Houston post James Harden Houston gross I
Speaker 1: would be in tears too, and this year has been
Speaker 1: a disaster. They have broken him. He is the worst
Speaker 1: he's maybe ever been in his career right now, just
Speaker 1: off the radar. The fact that he's in the Rising
Speaker 1: Stars Challenge is really sort of a loose interpretation of
Speaker 1: rising star. Right like, right now he is a falling star,
Speaker 1: and eventually he will rise again like a phoenix out
Speaker 1: of the ashes when he gets the fuck out of
Speaker 1: Houston or they sell the team or get rid of
Speaker 1: stylists or something. But right now he is not a
Speaker 1: rising star. Jabari Smith is a falling star. He is
Speaker 1: averaging twelve seven and one, which is like fine, but
Speaker 1: he's shooting thirty percent from three thirty nine percent from
Speaker 1: the field as a whole. This is a guy. If
Speaker 1: you remember that everyone said largely was the best pure
Speaker 1: shooter in the league or best peer shooter in the draft.
Speaker 1: He has the best jumper in the draft class. So
Speaker 1: then when amazingly so they asked Steven Silas about all
Speaker 1: this right for the article, and you would assume that
Speaker 1: Steven Silas would say positive things about Jabari right, protect
Speaker 1: this guy, make him feel good, knowing that it's gonna
Speaker 1: get published. I don't know something, do something Steven like
Speaker 1: figure it out, know that your your player's confidence is
Speaker 1: at an all time low, and maybe figure out a
Speaker 1: way in print for him to boost it. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he didn't he said this. Jabari is young in trying
Speaker 1: to find his way. He has grit and toughness and
Speaker 1: tries defensively, and he's not given much at all. I
Speaker 1: don't run any plays for Jabbari Smith. You don't run
Speaker 1: any place for Jabari Smith, your number three overall pick,
Speaker 1: the guy that everyone thought was a consensus number one
Speaker 1: overall pick. You don't run any designed place for him. None.
Speaker 1: You don't feel like that's maybe something you should reconsider.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like you don't think that's maybe something
Speaker 1: to evaluate about you. No wonder Jabari is upset. He's
Speaker 1: probably in tears on a regular basis. Honestly, Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: If I was stuck in Houston, that is a jail
Speaker 1: sentence in the NBA. All you have to do while
Speaker 1: you're biding your time before a free agency read books,
Speaker 1: try to figure out, maybe become like a lawyer like
Speaker 1: they do in jail. You know, they just figure out
Speaker 1: a new craft, a new hobby, a PhD program. Jabari,
Speaker 1: do something with your time because you're locked up like
Speaker 1: Akon right now, and there's really no point for you
Speaker 1: to focus on your relationship with Houston Rockets because they
Speaker 1: clearly don't focus on the relationship with you. Jabari said
Speaker 1: this in terms of how his rookie year is gone.
Speaker 1: Probably you would imagine it's not going well for him.
Speaker 1: Let's check in on him though. He says, yes, it's
Speaker 1: been tough, honestly, because I feel like I've been winning
Speaker 1: all the way up to this point. So it's just
Speaker 1: knowing it'll get brighter down the road and just trusting
Speaker 1: the process and staying with it. It will not get
Speaker 1: brighter down the road, I hate to say it. Until
Speaker 1: you get out out of Houston, maybe you end up
Speaker 1: going to Philadelphia because James Harden wants to end up
Speaker 1: back in Houston. Maybe strippers and foi gras infused lobster
Speaker 1: hamburgers that James Harden loves so much. Maybe hookah is
Speaker 1: your way out. Maybe somehow, some way you can get
Speaker 1: a reprieve. But there is no bright days coming for
Speaker 1: you when you are in Houston. I promise you that
Speaker 1: all of this is an example that the spot you
Speaker 1: land is everything. So much of the draft is where
Speaker 1: you go. And let's face facts, there is no worse
Speaker 1: spot for a young three point shooting big man to
Speaker 1: go than the Houston Rockets. You have Jalen Green, you
Speaker 1: have Kevin Porter Junior, you have Josh Christopher, you have
Speaker 1: Alpera and Shanngoon, and they all want that ball and
Speaker 1: they don't want you to have it. And that is
Speaker 1: the truth. Even if you're wide open, jumping up and
Speaker 1: down out of the basket, they are not giving you
Speaker 1: the ball. We can only imagine what Jabari would be
Speaker 1: in Okay. See, we could only imagine what Jabari would
Speaker 1: be in Orlando even but I promise you this is
Speaker 1: the worst spot for him for his confidence. And he's
Speaker 1: a nice kid. He's a little too nice for Houston.
Speaker 1: If you know what I'm saying. He's the kind of
Speaker 1: kid that gets sucked into thinking that if you go
Speaker 1: upstairs to the champagne room, you only have to pay
Speaker 1: for the one song. You just doesn't know that every
Speaker 1: new song that she plays you have to pay more
Speaker 1: money for. And you come out you're like a, oh,
Speaker 1: twenty seven thousand dollars to Cayenne, right, Like that's Jabbari Smith.
Speaker 1: One thing is for sure, Jabbari's rookie year has gone
Speaker 1: far worse than any pundit or any draft expert could
Speaker 1: have ever ever predicted. Well he ever become a star.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Time will tell, but he's gonna need
Speaker 1: to get out of h Town in order for us
Speaker 1: to find out. So we talked last episode about the
Speaker 1: Warriors and how they were upset with my Portland Trailblazers
Speaker 1: and for not disclosing the seriousness the severity of Gary
Speaker 1: Payton's injury. The derailed almost a four team trade that
Speaker 1: sent out Sadeek Bay, James Wiseman, Kevin Knox, and about
Speaker 1: a gajillion and second round picks. Right, So they're upset
Speaker 1: with the Gary Payton trade. Golden State ended up taking
Speaker 1: on Gary Payton. But to say that they are pissed
Speaker 1: is an understatement. They've already had the League look into it,
Speaker 1: they've already launched a formal investigation. But now there's more. Yep,
Speaker 1: I just looked. I googled it today and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's up with the Warriors? Are they over it? Have
Speaker 1: they calmed things down? Are they chill? No, they are
Speaker 1: not chill. According to Chris Haynes, the Warriors are now
Speaker 1: encouraging the league front office to investigate all of Portland's
Speaker 1: trades over the last few years. Hey, I think they're
Speaker 1: fucked up in general. I think you guys need to
Speaker 1: look into some stuff like it kind of looks like
Speaker 1: they're not just selling dimes and Nichols, they're pushing major weights.
Speaker 1: I think that they are full fledged shady. Why why
Speaker 1: do they want the front office to look into the Blazers. Well,
Speaker 1: they assert that the Blazers just as a matter of course,
Speaker 1: keep screwing teams over by hiding injuries. Can't you just
Speaker 1: leave well enough alone Golden State? No, they cannot. Apparently
Speaker 1: it's not just the Peyton trade. As Haynes reported, I
Speaker 1: was told that they've urged the league to look into
Speaker 1: Portland's dealing with New Orleans last year when it was
Speaker 1: the CJ. McCollum Larry Nance trade. They've urged the league
Speaker 1: to look into that, particularly Larry Nants junior, because they
Speaker 1: believe that a similar incident happened in that deal, and
Speaker 1: they feel like the Blazers may have a pattern of
Speaker 1: doing something where they're either withholding information or presenting misleading information.
Speaker 1: And so without having all the details, what I do
Speaker 1: know is the Warriors have made it clear to the
Speaker 1: league that they need to look into that trade from
Speaker 1: last year. Snitch, snitch, snitch. What are the Warriors doing?
Speaker 1: They had nothing to do with them. The optics are
Speaker 1: not good at the moment. Right after Nance was traded
Speaker 1: to New Orleans, he had surgery on his right knee
Speaker 1: and missed more than ten weeks. Whoopsie. They didn't see
Speaker 1: that either. He was healthy. He was healthy. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is how I know that the Warriors are pissed because
Speaker 1: if Adam Silver finds that they've done shit wrong, they're
Speaker 1: gonna lose draft picks, they're gonna get fined and the kicker.
Speaker 1: There's pretty much nothing at the stage that would actually
Speaker 1: benefit the Warriors beyond just snitching. They get nothing from this.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that's why they couldn't find a
Speaker 1: buyer for NRK at the deadline because he had his
Speaker 1: calf injury. I don't know if Portland is guilty at all,
Speaker 1: but what I do know is the Warriors have it
Speaker 1: out for Portland and they do have a little bit
Speaker 1: of history. That's all the time that we have for
Speaker 1: the heat Check. Check back Monday for an all new episode.
Speaker 1: Do not forget to watch that feed for past episodes, interviews,
Speaker 1: bonus episodes that drop unexpectedly throughout the week. Please follow
Speaker 1: us on every single social channel at this heat Check
Speaker 1: on TikTok at Trista Crik on Twitter, Instagram, Trista Crick
Speaker 1: on TikTok as well. Tell all your friends please please
Speaker 1: download the pod, Please subscribe to the pod. Please write
Speaker 1: nice things about the pod. We still have people who
Speaker 1: are hating being trollers and trolling in the comments, so
Speaker 1: help me out. And also, by the way, the Heat
Speaker 1: Check never sleeps even after the trade deadline, but hopefully
Speaker 1: at some point I can't talk to you guys soon
Speaker 1: much