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Speaker 2: So I have more thoughts on the Summer League in
Speaker 2: the coming weeks. We're gonna probably talk about rookies. I
Speaker 2: did a little deep dive into some rookies I thought,
Speaker 2: are gonna be really good ones that you haven't heard
Speaker 2: of before. I was there the entire time. And let
Speaker 2: me just say this, I love basketball. I always will,
Speaker 2: I always have. It was a lot of basketball. It
Speaker 2: was two gyms. One was tiny, one was big too.
Speaker 2: Literally two full gyms of basketball from noon to like
Speaker 2: eleven PM. So you're talking, I mean twenty hours of
Speaker 2: basketball day. If you see it all like on TV
Speaker 2: and in person, I mean, it's just impossible to keep
Speaker 2: up with. You're trying to strategically choose what games you
Speaker 2: go to based on what executives are going to be there,
Speaker 2: what stars are probably going to be there, and of
Speaker 2: course what rookies are still playing in it. You're strategically
Speaker 2: making sure that the first round, early first round picks,
Speaker 2: you got to watch them early because they're probably not
Speaker 2: going to play after the second game, which is exactly
Speaker 2: what happened with Paolo, which is what happened to Chet
Speaker 2: after the third game, which is what happened to Jay
Speaker 2: n Ivy after the first game, Shade and Sharp after
Speaker 2: the first game. So you really want to front load
Speaker 2: the early rookies and watching them wall to wall hoops.
Speaker 2: I heard a lot of NBA TV commentators say that
Speaker 2: the Summer League was the plevalent of summer vacation for
Speaker 2: the league, and I think that's sort of true. Everyone
Speaker 2: who's anyone shows up in the NBA space, anyone that
Speaker 2: you would want to see besides Luca, because I don't
Speaker 2: know what he's doing. He wasn't there. I think he
Speaker 2: was with Shack. I saw a video with him. I
Speaker 2: saw a video with Luca and Shack at a DJ club,
Speaker 2: DJ Shack that was I thought that was in Vegas,
Speaker 2: but I don't think that it was. It's very informal,
Speaker 2: but it's changed a lot. All the rookies are on
Speaker 2: the floor trying to make a name for themselves. Guys
Speaker 2: are switching teams midway through the summer league so that
Speaker 2: they can go from my man Mac McClung, who at
Speaker 2: one point I thought was Matt McClung. Nope, Mac mac daddy.
Speaker 2: He switched teams from the Lakers to the Golden State
Speaker 2: Warriors midway through the Summer League. He was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, I already know what team I want to
Speaker 2: align with, and it's not LA. He's gonna mess around
Speaker 2: and probably be a rotation player. He really balled out
Speaker 2: from Summer League. So you see that a lot. We
Speaker 2: have plenty of time to break down the rookies and sophomores,
Speaker 2: but now I just kind of want to like talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about Summer League and the experience itself
Speaker 2: if you haven't been there. So it was created in
Speaker 2: a long ass time ago from a guy named Warren
Speaker 2: le Gary and his partner Albert Hall. They went to
Speaker 2: David Stern and asked if they could create essentially a
Speaker 2: rookie camp for guys to showcase their talents, for guys
Speaker 2: to get picked up on two way deals. And after
Speaker 2: some conversations, they allowed Warren to do that. It was
Speaker 2: never televised, It was never something that was a fan spectacular.
Speaker 2: It was a way in a sense to extend the
Speaker 2: combine atmosphere and get gms and coaches and players all
Speaker 2: in our room. The players would come to support their
Speaker 2: teammates and it was like a convention. It was like
Speaker 2: inside the NBA convention. And it was the second event
Speaker 2: as media I had ever been to. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: Damian Lillard's first year, Damian Lillard won Summer League MVP
Speaker 2: that year. He was electric. So from then on, it
Speaker 2: slowly but surely started to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2: So I went in twenty twelve. There was no almost
Speaker 2: no fans at all. You could go up to gms
Speaker 2: and they were just sitting in the bleachers by themselves,
Speaker 2: no one anywhere close. You're like, oh, yeah, is that
Speaker 2: a is that pat Riley? No, Just go up sit
Speaker 2: next to him, watch some hoops, Say hi, no problem,
Speaker 2: you could see Doc Rivers at the Starbucks. Hey, what's up,
Speaker 2: big fan? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now
Speaker 2: there's it's like kind of a scene. You have to
Speaker 2: go through the NBA in order to get credentials. It's
Speaker 2: sixty dollars a day if you're a fan to go,
Speaker 2: which if you want to go for the whole time,
Speaker 2: it's like almost seven hundred dollars to go, which is
Speaker 2: kind of bananalantomy and also maybe not even expensive enough
Speaker 2: considering how fucking packed it was. I have all kinds
Speaker 2: of ideas on how to fix it. I think every
Speaker 2: one of those ideas people would say as elitist, so
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say them out loud. But it includes
Speaker 2: limiting fans, and it includes limiting where they can go
Speaker 2: and win. Uh, because it's meant for us, right, it's
Speaker 2: meant for media. I'm very happy that it's televised, that
Speaker 2: you can see it on TV. But you don't need
Speaker 2: to be that close to Palo Ban, Carol, you don't
Speaker 2: like you just see them see him in Orlando on
Speaker 2: a random Tuesday in January. This is this is like
Speaker 2: the combine we're trying to get business done here. Uh,
Speaker 2: every single game now is televised, every single one. They
Speaker 2: have some games on NBA TV and the other half
Speaker 2: games on ESPN. The games, I think the games in
Speaker 2: the big gym are on ESPN, the small games are
Speaker 2: on NBA TV, or maybe they rotated in and out,
Speaker 2: but it is now wild. It's to the point where
Speaker 2: that you've got to security telling where you can it's
Speaker 2: telling you where you can sit and where you can stand.
Speaker 2: You've got it's just a scene and something that I
Speaker 2: feel like is only going to get bigger and bigger,
Speaker 2: and I think now that it's huge, there needs to
Speaker 2: be a second event. There's also these little gyms off
Speaker 2: to the side that nobody even knows about. Secret practice
Speaker 2: is going on. John Morant, Jim Usher, Raymond and his
Speaker 2: son hooping it up, Carmelo Anthony and his son hooping
Speaker 2: it up. P Diddy, just random celebrities coming through to
Speaker 2: this gym called Impact, which even I myself cannot get
Speaker 2: an invite to. So that's the next step is to
Speaker 2: get inside Impact, give you guys the full experience there,
Speaker 2: maybe take some videos, but that's happening every day. In addition,
Speaker 2: also on top of Summer League. There's a thing called
Speaker 2: Sports Business Classroom where young people and old people are
Speaker 2: like are coming to learn about the business of the NBA.
Speaker 2: They learn from scouts, they learned from gms, they learn
Speaker 2: from other talent evaluators and coaches. Basically the business of basketball.
Speaker 2: How do trades get done, what's up with the CBA,
Speaker 2: how do salary caps work? What are the rules of
Speaker 2: the NBA, how do you scout players? How do you
Speaker 2: build a franchise off of the lolo price of I
Speaker 2: think ten g's And you come away with interesting contacts.
Speaker 2: They give you your meals, they put you up, you
Speaker 2: know how that whole thing is. That's how I got
Speaker 2: in the business. I paid to be in the camp
Speaker 2: for the Adida's Nations. I think I paid like two
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for three days, which was wild that I
Speaker 2: did not have. And I came away with a little
Speaker 2: mixtape that I could give people to see what I
Speaker 2: look like sort of on camera. So that's happening. They
Speaker 2: also have coaches clinics that are going on almost like
Speaker 2: sloan business, where it's like changing technology in the NBA,
Speaker 2: almost trying to find ways to extend careers of NBA players.
Speaker 2: I have a friend who's a sleep doctor who gives
Speaker 2: talks on is see paps and surgeries that athletes have
Speaker 2: on their body in order to extend their careers, increase
Speaker 2: their ability to lift more all the stamina stuff that
Speaker 2: goes on inside. You know, games of an eighty two
Speaker 2: game season, so a lot of extracurricular activities that are
Speaker 2: business and then obviously there's a lot of extracurricular activities
Speaker 2: that are going on with playtime as well, a lot
Speaker 2: of people going out, a lot of people hitting the clubs,
Speaker 2: a lot of people ending up going to these long,
Speaker 2: fancy dinners at pretty much every restaurant under the sun
Speaker 2: in Vegas that you can find and experience. Definitely something
Speaker 2: that I recommend. But if you're a fan, I would
Speaker 2: recommend you go for like the first two three days
Speaker 2: and then leave. Just go. Just don't stay. It's not
Speaker 2: worth it. There's no one there for you to see.
Speaker 2: There's no players playing in it that you know that
Speaker 2: you've ever heard of. By like day eight, you're talking
Speaker 2: about guys I need to look up on the internet.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of him. It's like him and Sharif
Speaker 2: O'Neil and Mac McClung and like Namias Keita and Namias
Speaker 2: Keda is actually gonna be maybe be a star. But
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that another time. So that's my advice.
Speaker 2: Go first three days, go like Wednesday through Saturday and leave. Also,
Speaker 2: never seen Starbucks prices like that in my life. Iced tea,
Speaker 2: iced tea and a kind bar sixteen bucks. I said,
Speaker 2: what I did you ring me up wrong? Did you?
Speaker 2: I didn't get ten kind bars. I was like Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: I spent money on things I didn't even know cost
Speaker 2: that much. It was like one hundred percent increase and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, it's only a ten percent increase. I
Speaker 2: was like, no, I don't think it's sixteen bucks for
Speaker 2: a nice tea and a caim bar at the Starbucks.
Speaker 2: But you do run into legends there. I ran into
Speaker 2: Baron Davis at the Starbucks. I ran into Kevin Porter Junior.
Speaker 2: He's a bucket. He's a bucket. He's a bucket, very sweet,
Speaker 2: soft energy. He gives off. In real life, Floyd Mayweather,
Speaker 2: we got to see Floyd Money Mayweather. So the celebrity
Speaker 2: sighting's got to meet wal A my hero gave me
Speaker 2: a big hug. So the celebrity sidings are definitely something
Speaker 2: that happened in the front end. Those are my overall
Speaker 2: impressions of Summer League in terms of the sites and sounds.
Speaker 2: Maybe next year I can convince MGM to bring my
Speaker 2: producer Brock with me and we can get some shit done.
Speaker 2: That's my next plan, so we can get some video
Speaker 2: for you. Big interviews coming, definitely make sure to stick
Speaker 2: around for those. This is the off season, so the
Speaker 2: schedule will be more phrenetic and erratic. That is all
Speaker 2: the time that we have for the heat Check. We
Speaker 2: will be back Monday, I think, with a new episode
Speaker 2: to recap what's popping. Follow us, subscribe, download, tell your friends,
Speaker 2: review on Spotify, review on the podcast of Apple. I've
Speaker 2: got some haters in my apples podcast, and if you're
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Speaker 2: this heat check and at Tristan Crick