Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, welcome in.
Speaker 1: I sent Jason Temp from the volume Hoops tonight to
Speaker 1: the Summer League along with some other people. Live Moods
Speaker 1: was there, Nerd Sesh was there. I believe was Jenkins
Speaker 1: and Jones there. Some of the guys were we sent
Speaker 1: him to the Summer League. They'll be reporting back podcast
Speaker 1: tonight and tomorrow on the Summer League. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let Jason and I discuss it for about twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: My takeaway on Wemby, he was very nervous in the opener,
Speaker 1: totally expected. We've seen pros Greg Norman at the Masters.
Speaker 1: We've seen Alex Rodriguez deal with anxiety in a big
Speaker 1: baseball series. You know, we've seen quarterbacks. You know Tom
Speaker 1: Brady didn't have a first quarter touchdown in the Super Bowls.
Speaker 1: He was in until maybe his last one or second
Speaker 1: to last one, or did he ever? Like there's a
Speaker 1: feeling out process to sports, and especially in the biggest games.
Speaker 1: And for Wemby, who already played well against men in Europe,
Speaker 1: he's a big time talent. But I thought he was nervous.
Speaker 1: I thought, come to this country, the Summer League, the
Speaker 1: expectations and when you get nervous, you get drained and
Speaker 1: you get tired. So I mean the kid's nineteen year old,
Speaker 1: twenty year old kid, and so we've you know, as
Speaker 1: I watched some of the reactions. When I watched him play,
Speaker 1: I'm like, he looked a little tired, he looked a
Speaker 1: little drained, he looked a little apprehensive. He's not a
Speaker 1: great shooter yet. But then what did he look like
Speaker 1: in game two? Yeah, formidable. The nerves are gone. They
Speaker 1: put him in better situations to score, and he's going
Speaker 1: to be just fine. There'll be a weight issue. All
Speaker 1: these bigs come in, the young ones. They need weight,
Speaker 1: they need strength. He'll be fine. So I'll have more
Speaker 1: about that in five minutes with Jason temp So I
Speaker 1: went to the UFC card in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Speaker 1: I go to try to go to at least one,
Speaker 1: usually two. I think I'm going to another one in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City here in a couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: then I buy six or seven UFC cards. Daniel Cormier
Speaker 1: is part of the volume. So when I got out
Speaker 1: of college, I got a job in Las Vegas and
Speaker 1: boxing was very big, and UFC did not exist. In fact,
Speaker 1: the first time I'd seen UFC was in San Francisco
Speaker 1: over the weekend with friends, and it was very raw,
Speaker 1: you know. They were eye gouging and kneeing and it
Speaker 1: was it was just it was ugly. And then Dana
Speaker 1: White comes in and the Fetidas and they clean it up.
Speaker 1: Because you want to get major advertisers, there has to
Speaker 1: be a regulated level of violence, right like the NFL has.
Speaker 1: But to get advertisers, which Dana and the Fertitas did,
Speaker 1: they had to kind of clean up some of the stuff.
Speaker 1: And they've done it. It's still two very aggressive men
Speaker 1: or women fighting. There's going to be blood sometimes. Sometimes
Speaker 1: there's very quick knockouts. I've always argued UFC is much
Speaker 1: safer than boxing because the knockouts are cleaner and earlier.
Speaker 1: If you hit a guy, you hit a person, knock
Speaker 1: him out.
Speaker 3: It's fast.
Speaker 1: Two of the fight Saturday Night over within forty seconds.
Speaker 1: But one of the really brilliant things. Every time I
Speaker 1: go to a UFC event, I'm always struck by the
Speaker 1: win for the consumers. I loved boxing. I covered Hagler
Speaker 1: and Hearns and Young Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard best
Speaker 1: fight I ever went to was Iran Barkley and Nigel
Speaker 1: ben I think it was Bally's. It was a slugfest,
Speaker 1: but I always felt as a consumer it always left
Speaker 1: me wanting more. Promoters got rich and the occasional heavyweight
Speaker 1: fighter did, but so many fights I wanted to see
Speaker 1: were never scheduled, never made. The amount of content, the
Speaker 1: amount of quality and action you get on Saturday nights
Speaker 1: of the UFC, it is astounding. I went with friends.
Speaker 1: The fight started at three. We got into the arena
Speaker 1: by five point fifteen. We sat in the lounge early,
Speaker 1: had a couple of cocktails, went out there from five
Speaker 1: point fifteen to like ten, it was ten ten fifteen.
Speaker 1: It was NonStop, little breaks in between. You see some celebrities,
Speaker 1: but just the quality of the depth of quality fights.
Speaker 1: It was just remarkable. And it's so hard to keep
Speaker 1: sports fans engaged. Baseball, by the way, has done a
Speaker 1: good job this year. They've sped the game up. Why
Speaker 1: shorter game, more action, Right, That's why in Hollywood three
Speaker 1: hour movies become two hours and nine minutes. A higher
Speaker 1: percentage of the movie has action. You don't want long
Speaker 1: lulls in the action, and it's like I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: watching UFC and I took friends who'd never been to
Speaker 1: a UFC fight, three friends from Los Angeles, and as
Speaker 1: we're walking out, they're like, that's one of the greatest
Speaker 1: nights I've ever had involved with sports.
Speaker 2: And these were jockey people.
Speaker 1: The staff is amazing with UFC, the security, it's really seamless,
Speaker 1: really just a well oiled machine. But I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is why boxing died. And we were talking about that
Speaker 1: driving back to the hotel. I'm like, this is exactly
Speaker 1: why boxing died. Boxing could give you an occasional great performance,
Speaker 1: but it was just it was sporadic, it was inconsistent.
Speaker 1: And I'll always be a fan of the UFC because
Speaker 1: I like fights, but it's a bit of a marvel
Speaker 1: how well constructed it is and the winner not just
Speaker 1: the fighters, the fans pay their money and just get
Speaker 1: four If you want to get there at three till ten,
Speaker 1: you get seven hours of unbelievable content. And I'm as
Speaker 1: a sportscaster, I'm blown away by it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: look at all the new sports we've had in thirty
Speaker 1: forty years, Like what's the one NFL, NBA, Baseball, MLS, UFC.
Speaker 1: It is no coincidence. It's not surprising if you go
Speaker 1: to the events. It is a machine and it is wildly,
Speaker 1: wildly entertaining. Summer is heating up in so is pro baseball.
Speaker 1: You can certainly watch your favorite baseball team on television,
Speaker 1: but there is nothing like being at the ballpark to
Speaker 1: watch your favorite team. For last minute amazing deals. To
Speaker 1: see your favorite baseball team live. Check out game Time,
Speaker 1: the fastest growing ticket app in the United States, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't stop in sports. July means huge summer concerts
Speaker 1: and huge comedy shows all over the country, and game
Speaker 1: Time is the place they have all your tickets. Download
Speaker 1: the game Time app and the redeem code Colin that's me,
Speaker 1: COLN for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply
Speaker 1: and with it.
Speaker 4: You get twenty bucks off bucks no matter where you live, wherever,
Speaker 4: go out and have some fun this week. Download game
Speaker 4: Time today.
Speaker 2: It's so easy.
Speaker 1: Last minute tickets, concerts, Major League Baseball, lowest prices guaranteed.
Speaker 1: All right, we sent him to the Summer League, and
Speaker 1: as usual, he crushed it. Jason Timp hoops tonight. I
Speaker 1: thought Wemby's first performance was a lot of jitters. I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea at nineteen of going into a foreign country
Speaker 1: and be the star attraction against you know, guys who
Speaker 1: are literally trying to make the league and are fighting
Speaker 1: for their survival and roster spot. You know, he knows
Speaker 1: he's already going to make the team, so I thought
Speaker 1: it was kind of predictable that he would struggle. It
Speaker 1: was choppy, I gotta tell you, though, when I watched
Speaker 1: them today, you know, his size is just so impactful.
Speaker 1: There's just there's just no way around it. He's gonna
Speaker 1: he's gonna have twenty five point nights. So let's let's
Speaker 1: start with the difference. You saw Jason game one, game two?
Speaker 1: What jumped out to you?
Speaker 3: This is so funny to me, that news cycle was
Speaker 3: objectively hilarious. It's like, Okay, here's this guy who already
Speaker 3: has been good against pros in France, who already was
Speaker 3: great against the G League Night team, like destroyed them
Speaker 3: in two games in America a few months back, and
Speaker 3: like one game in Summer League, and everyone was rewriting
Speaker 3: whether or not this prospect was worth all of the hype,
Speaker 3: and then big shock, he comes out with twenty seven
Speaker 3: and twelve or three blocks today. The big thing that
Speaker 3: stot out to me was just process. Like, honestly, I
Speaker 3: looked over at Carson and Logan our nerd Sesh guys
Speaker 3: right before the game, and I'm like, I wonder if
Speaker 3: they're gonna play basketball or just throw him the bat
Speaker 3: or just throwing the ball and let him play ISO
Speaker 3: pickup ball. And that's what they did in that first game.
Speaker 3: For several possessions, He's just standing on the wing dribbling
Speaker 3: like he's Kevin Durant against Kai Jones. And that's literally
Speaker 3: the hardest way to play basketball. And you know, I
Speaker 3: kind of did a little thing on my show today.
Speaker 3: Every young player has a floor in a ceiling, and
Speaker 3: their floor is mainly based on what they're already great at,
Speaker 3: and then their ceiling is based on whether or not
Speaker 3: they can address their weaknesses. He has things that he's
Speaker 3: great at. He's the greatest combination of height and length
Speaker 3: and coordination of any center that we've ever seen. He's
Speaker 3: already got great defensive instincts and a good amount of
Speaker 3: offensive polish. So if you play easy basketball with him,
Speaker 3: he will excel. There was a sequence at the end
Speaker 3: of this game where he set a ball screen, there
Speaker 3: was a switch. He flashed to the middle of the floor.
Speaker 3: They threw him the ball and he just quick shot
Speaker 3: a little turnaround fade away over his right shoulder to
Speaker 3: make it to get it back to four. Very next possession,
Speaker 3: guy drives along the left side, the rim protector gets occupied.
Speaker 3: He just relocates to the left wing and takes a
Speaker 3: wide open catch and shoot three, and he makes it
Speaker 3: to get it back to one. I'm like, this is
Speaker 3: what it's gonna look like in San Antonio, know, real basketball,
Speaker 3: where he has an opportunity to demonstrate what he's great at.
Speaker 3: And I'm not surprised at all that he popped in
Speaker 3: that setting. I thought all of the reaction to Game
Speaker 3: one was really misplays, disrespectful to what he's already accomplished
Speaker 3: as a pro, and just it was predictable that he
Speaker 3: would it bounce back the way he did today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the game one. In Game two, there was
Speaker 1: a moment where somebody ripped the ball out of his hands.
Speaker 1: And I do think like if somebody said to me, like,
Speaker 1: what's the one glaring weakness, I would say weakness. He's nineteen, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, are you know he put the ball
Speaker 1: up a couple of times and guys just grabbed it
Speaker 1: and pulled it out of his hands. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can tell he need. You know, when you start
Speaker 1: looking at these veteran NBA guys, they look like they've
Speaker 1: been in a professional weight room for seven years. Like
Speaker 1: it's just a different definition. So if you told me like,
Speaker 1: I could see them building a schedule and saying and
Speaker 1: I thought I said this with Oka, See they should
Speaker 1: do it for chet Holmgroun fifty eight games. Just take
Speaker 1: some road trips off, stay home, lift weights for four
Speaker 1: days instead of that two team road trip to say,
Speaker 1: you know, Houston, Orlando, stay home, eat, work out, try
Speaker 1: to make as many home games as you can, right
Speaker 1: and have a limited road schedule. Not that you don't
Speaker 1: need to go on the road, but there'll be times
Speaker 1: I just want him to stay home, sleep, eat, lift
Speaker 1: and play fifty eight games. And I feel that way
Speaker 1: with Wemby. It's like obviously he has his motors running.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you know, when you were nineteen, you
Speaker 1: could polish off two turkey sandwiches, glass of milk, two cookies.
Speaker 1: Hour later you're starving, right, Like that's who he is
Speaker 1: he's nineteen, He's going to burn seven thousand calories, and
Speaker 1: it's like the only thing I look at.
Speaker 2: I think he just needs to get stronger.
Speaker 1: He just needs he needs just nights off, because you know,
Speaker 1: I've talked to NBA guys about this. You start burning
Speaker 1: calories when you're nineteen, twenty twenty one to twenty two.
Speaker 1: It's hard to keep wait on if you're playing forty
Speaker 1: a night in this because these guys, a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys Jason, especially college guys. He didn't play any
Speaker 1: defense in college matchup zones, and you kind of guard
Speaker 1: a space the first time you've had to guard a guy,
Speaker 1: so like it is a whole different ballgame. So I
Speaker 1: just think, I think he's just gonna get a little
Speaker 1: bit stronger. But there were a couple when he need
Speaker 1: goes back to back dunks. There are these moments of
Speaker 1: like he's just gonna get some Like there's you could
Speaker 1: you know what a player is great when you perfectly
Speaker 1: defend them and they score like length is undefeated, Like
Speaker 1: it just wins all the time. If Durant's six 's eight,
Speaker 1: he's not the same player. He's just really really good.
Speaker 1: So and I thought I will tell you this, he's
Speaker 1: a really gracious kid. Like I think he's really grateful
Speaker 1: for it, and I think it matters, like I don't
Speaker 1: see any I th he's just really, you know, very
Speaker 1: grateful for it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think he's got the perfect you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw a theory really quickly. So Popovich got Lucky Robinson,
Speaker 1: Duncan like the nice guys in the world, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: then he gets Kawhi, who's difficult, right, and he leaves
Speaker 1: and he says to himself, I'm not doing that. Wemby
Speaker 1: has got an old school grateful personality a little bit
Speaker 1: the old school, right, And the foreign players, as we've discussed,
Speaker 1: come into the country and they're very appreciative.
Speaker 2: It's new.
Speaker 1: All visitors are more polite, right you go overseas I do,
Speaker 1: or more polite. I think he's been waiting for the
Speaker 1: next you know, just happened to be an international player.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to do really well. I think
Speaker 1: this is going to be Popovich's third run.
Speaker 3: To you absolutely. I mean the beauty of having a
Speaker 3: personality like that at a position like that, if you
Speaker 3: think about Duncan, is it makes it really easy to
Speaker 3: bring different types of volatile ball handlers around him, because
Speaker 3: not only is he unassuming, he is your foundational piece.
Speaker 3: He's the guy that you build your entire defense around.
Speaker 3: On offense, he's the guy that's gonna pick and pop
Speaker 3: to the top of the to the key, or to
Speaker 3: beat switches with smaller guys, he'll bury him in the post.
Speaker 3: But he actually needs a primary ball handler. And so
Speaker 3: when you have a guy like that who also has
Speaker 3: a great attitude, it's gonna make it really easy to
Speaker 3: find players that want to play with him. I really
Speaker 3: like the point you made about putting on weight, because
Speaker 3: the I've never thought of it thought about it that
Speaker 3: way in terms of cutting back his playing time as
Speaker 3: a vehicle with which to put on muscle, because it
Speaker 3: is so difficult to maintain weight, let alone gain weight
Speaker 3: during a basketball season. Every year I'd play, I'd go
Speaker 3: into the season at like two twenty seven and twenty nine,
Speaker 3: and I'd come out of the season like two seventeen
Speaker 3: to nineteen, because, like you, just all you're doing is
Speaker 3: playing and playing and sweating and playing and working out
Speaker 3: and going to class, and you just don't ever have
Speaker 3: an opportunity to do what it takes to keep the
Speaker 3: weight on until you get to the offseason. So I
Speaker 3: like that idea of kind of like minimizing his workload
Speaker 3: as an opportunity to put on weight and to help
Speaker 3: avoid injuries. But you know, it's because the ceiling with
Speaker 3: him is completely ridiculous, right, The crazy high level shot making,
Speaker 3: the one legged three point shot that he takes from
Speaker 3: the top of the key that he actually made quite
Speaker 3: a bit when he was in Europe, all the stuff
Speaker 3: that he can do defensively. But overnight he's gonna be
Speaker 3: really good in ways that impact winning. In terms of
Speaker 3: rim protection. He closed out a ton of possessions at
Speaker 3: the end of that game, just snatching defensive rebounds over
Speaker 3: the top of everybody getting to the foul and he
Speaker 3: shot twelve free throws tonight just because when he reaches
Speaker 3: to shoot over the top of people, they go for
Speaker 3: the ball and they get four armed because they're just
Speaker 3: not close to where he is. Right. But here's the thing.
Speaker 3: He's not gonna win Rookie of the Year most likely
Speaker 3: because it's gonna be someone like Scoot Henderson, someone that's
Speaker 3: gonna put up a ton of numbers that's gonna pop
Speaker 3: earlier in their career with the way that their skill
Speaker 3: set goes, He's gonna be the kind of guy that
Speaker 3: all your long people are gonna be looking for opportunities
Speaker 3: to minimize what he's doing. This is the dude that
Speaker 3: five to ten years from now has the potential to
Speaker 3: be both the best offensive player in the league and
Speaker 3: the best defensive player in the league. That is the
Speaker 3: ultimate ceiling there, but that will take time. He's not
Speaker 3: someone that's necessarily going to pop statistically early on, and
Speaker 3: so I hope, I hope people treat him with that
Speaker 3: level of fairness. But as far as Popovich goes, and
Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw, there's kind of a
Speaker 3: caveat there where like he may not actually stay on
Speaker 3: and coach that whole time because he's also the president
Speaker 3: of basketball operations. So they might work something out where
Speaker 3: they phase him out, but then maybe he can pick
Speaker 3: the successor at that point. But because of his specific
Speaker 3: personality and his skill set, they're going to be able
Speaker 3: to find pieces to surround him with. People are going
Speaker 3: to want to play with this guy. I think the
Speaker 3: Spurs are gonna be relevant for the next decade.
Speaker 2: Well, they did a study years ago.
Speaker 1: I think it was the University of Copenhagen, and they
Speaker 1: had people work out ninety minutes a day and thirty
Speaker 1: minutes a day, and what they found is the people
Speaker 1: that worked out only thirty minutes today lost more weight.
Speaker 1: How because they weren't as tired, they would take the steps,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't nap later, they wouldn't eat as much. So
Speaker 1: what happens is think about so moderate exercise is actually
Speaker 1: can be very very healthy, especially as you age. Think
Speaker 1: about two and a half hours of an NBA game,
Speaker 1: you burn nine thousand calories. Wenby gets off the court,
Speaker 1: Powershake sleeps on the plane. So you think to yourself,
Speaker 1: just just think about what that what that physical beating
Speaker 1: does to you. It really eliminates the chance to put
Speaker 1: weight on because you're resting constantly, you're exhausted, and instead
Speaker 1: of you know, like I always say this about college guys.
Speaker 1: They play thirty six games, regional, travel, eighty two national,
Speaker 1: they're sleeping all day and it's just like, well they
Speaker 1: can't put weight on. Well, they play, they do smoothies
Speaker 1: and they fall asleep, like there's no they're not eating
Speaker 1: full meals, and so I think it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: And also Yannis embiid early when you're seven to two,
Speaker 1: you're thin. It's Ralph Sampson because some guys have never
Speaker 1: been able to put weight on. Ben Simmons is still,
Speaker 1: you know, just like you wish he put you know
Speaker 1: at times. So I think with Wemby, it's just like
Speaker 1: I think you put him on a game limit. Keep
Speaker 1: him home sometimes, double down on stuff, give him more rest,
Speaker 1: give him an opportunity. You know, there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: just sitting home, card loading, watching the game breaking down film.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I want to go to this. So the uh,
Speaker 2: it's really been something.
Speaker 1: And I like Damian Lillard a lot, but he's not
Speaker 1: a villain and he'll play hard anywhere he goes. I
Speaker 1: do bristle, and I just don't think it's good for
Speaker 1: the NBA. I bristle at I'm only going to play
Speaker 1: at Miami because wherever Dame goes, he's going to be
Speaker 1: the first or second best player. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you went to Philadelphia and he was great, it's not
Speaker 1: like he wouldn't play hard. And I do think it's
Speaker 1: good for the league when franchises get the most they
Speaker 1: can when they lose a star. It creates some sort
Speaker 1: of competitive balance. You don't want people like stars and
Speaker 1: they go into the tank. You want stars leaving and
Speaker 1: the other team get to get somewhat fortified so they
Speaker 1: remain viable. So where do you fall off? I mean again,
Speaker 1: I'm an NBA guy. I've always understood the NBA and
Speaker 1: international soccer are star leagues. They're not driven by coach
Speaker 1: coaches you think. I mean people say the NBA just
Speaker 1: runs through coaches. Go watch international soccer. Look at our
Speaker 1: United States men's national team. We're just running through coaches.
Speaker 1: It's star driven. One player can tip the scale. I mean,
Speaker 1: if Mahomes had a battle line or a bad coach,
Speaker 1: he'd be a five hundred quarterback, like you need even
Speaker 1: a great quarterback basketball. Ron was going to get to
Speaker 1: the playoffs regardless of who the teammates were. I just
Speaker 1: don't love the optics of it. For Dame in the league,
Speaker 1: what say you?
Speaker 3: The optics are awful. And I really blame the agents
Speaker 3: for this because it's like everyone knows Dame wants to
Speaker 3: go to Miami, and so do the other twenty eight teams.
Speaker 3: So like making a phone call and being like, by
Speaker 3: the way, he's not going to show up the training camp.
Speaker 3: All these guys know Dame, they know he's a professional,
Speaker 3: they know he'd show up to camp. It's like the
Speaker 3: Kawhi Leonard thing in twenty nineteen, exact same situation. I'm
Speaker 3: going to LA reports coming out that he might not
Speaker 3: report to training camp, and then Toronto bravely steps in
Speaker 3: and takes a risk and they end up getting him
Speaker 3: and winning a championship. How I played some of his
Speaker 3: best basketball for Project. Actually, I did a whole thing today.
Speaker 3: I really want the Oklahoma City Thunder to put their
Speaker 3: name in the Dame the Dame hat. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: if you saw it, but WOD reported yesterday they have
Speaker 3: thirty five draft picks in the next seven years, fifteen
Speaker 3: first round draft picks. I worked it out. They'd have
Speaker 3: to wait a couple months because of some CBA rules,
Speaker 3: but they can basically take a bunch of their salary
Speaker 3: filler that they picked up in random deals this summer
Speaker 3: not have to send out a single young player. Put
Speaker 3: you know, four or five of those draft picks on
Speaker 3: the table and go get Dame and run out Damian Lillard,
Speaker 3: Shag Gildas, Alexander lou Dort with Jalen Williams and chet
Speaker 3: Holmgren and instantly be one of the most talented teams
Speaker 3: in the league. I'd love to see something like that.
Speaker 3: But the point is is all these teams already know,
Speaker 3: like ok C knows Dame wants to be in Miami,
Speaker 3: so it's a risk we would have to bring dam
Speaker 3: in and effectively be like, hey man, we're a good organization.
Speaker 3: Let us show you how we do things around here.
Speaker 3: Give us an opportunity to show you how we do things.
Speaker 3: We can help you reach your basketball seiling. That's what
Speaker 3: Toronto did with Kawhi. That's always been the game. The
Speaker 3: problem I have with it is the agents have gotten
Speaker 3: involved and they've made it nasty. Now you're throwing out
Speaker 3: these empty threats that no one believes. That makes Dame
Speaker 3: look like he's a jerk when he's not. And as
Speaker 3: far as the whole asking for a trade thing, even
Speaker 3: Portland knew when Dame signed that extension that he was
Speaker 3: likely going to sign to ask for a trade. These
Speaker 3: players have to take the financial security. You're a free agent,
Speaker 3: you're committed to that team at least for the next
Speaker 3: year or two. But you're not going to pass on
Speaker 3: five years. You're not going to because you take a
Speaker 3: two year deal, you land awkwardly and tear your ACL
Speaker 3: that can cost you one hundred million dollars. So like
Speaker 3: they get, these guys have to take the money they
Speaker 3: to as long as least they're requesting the trade in
Speaker 3: the offseason and not in the middle of the season
Speaker 3: the way Kyrie did. I don't really have a problem
Speaker 3: with it, but it looks really bad with the agents,
Speaker 3: and honestly, Colin, I don't know what the answer is
Speaker 3: because the agents are doing their jobs, so to speak,
Speaker 3: by mucking things up and making it nasty, and they're
Speaker 3: they're they're they're obligated to their clients to try to
Speaker 3: get them where they need to go. The NBA doesn't
Speaker 3: have any leverage over those guys. I don't know how
Speaker 3: they can stop it, but it definitely is a bad look.
Speaker 3: I'm okay with players requesting trades. I'm okay with them
Speaker 3: saying they want to go to one place. There's a
Speaker 3: risk another team might jump in and trade for you anyway.
Speaker 3: But there's no doubt that this looks bad. It's going
Speaker 3: to start turning off regional fan bases. It's going to
Speaker 3: start hurting that regional television audience, and I don't think
Speaker 3: it's good for the long term health of the league,
Speaker 3: even if it's morally correct, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Pivot back to the summer league.
Speaker 1: Scoot Henderson got hurt in Game one.
Speaker 2: He's going to be really good. You know. We I've always.
Speaker 1: Tried to defense and NBA gms and scouts you have
Speaker 1: sometimes it's almost all the international players now are easier
Speaker 1: to scout than college players because at least they play
Speaker 1: against men, so it's like it's easier.
Speaker 2: It feels like.
Speaker 1: The international guys in the last four or five years
Speaker 1: there's been like no major whiffs, Like yeah, if they
Speaker 1: can score against men, they can score in the college game.
Speaker 1: You watch a big ten player and you're like, on,
Speaker 1: he's scoring against a non NBA player, I mean Jade
Speaker 1: and Ivy. To me, you could see he was dynamic.
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, that's going to work in the NBA.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be a good player. So in the brief
Speaker 1: time you saw Scoot Henderson, your interpretation of what you.
Speaker 3: Saw spitting image of Russell Westbrook. He's built like a truck.
Speaker 3: He's way stronger even than Russ was at that phase
Speaker 3: of his career. The rim pressure is insane. When he
Speaker 3: just gets going in transition, you can see the entire
Speaker 3: defense kind of collapse around the basket. He's especially good
Speaker 3: at hitting guys out of the dunker spot. That's a
Speaker 3: Russ thing. You got to put him with a big
Speaker 3: man that can catch and finish on the basket. He
Speaker 3: actually did hit some nice pull up jump shots early
Speaker 3: in the game, but there is a little bit of
Speaker 3: that lack of the change up, and that's always going
Speaker 3: to be the thing that kind of that could derail
Speaker 3: him again. Scoot has a chance to be the guy
Speaker 3: that breaks the mold, but he has to pay attention
Speaker 3: to the roadmap where some of his contemporaries went off
Speaker 3: the tracks. It's you've got to have a change up.
Speaker 3: You can't play the same style all the time. You
Speaker 3: have to commit to the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 3: He is capable of being an outstanding defensive player with
Speaker 3: his strength and his and his like physical build. And then,
Speaker 3: last but not least, you've got to get in the gym.
Speaker 3: Don't be that guy who when your athleticism starts to
Speaker 3: tail off, you start to tail off because you don't
Speaker 3: have the skill set to make up for it, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I really was, his competitiveness popped when I was
Speaker 3: watching him. You can see the way he interacts with
Speaker 3: his teammates, the way he interacts with the people he's
Speaker 3: competing against. He's John at the other team. He's got
Speaker 3: the fire, he's got the competitiveness, but he has to
Speaker 3: follow that roadmap because, as we've said, that's a specific
Speaker 3: archetype of player that has had really hot starts and
Speaker 3: then flared out, flamed out pretty consistently, and I don't
Speaker 3: want that to happen for him.
Speaker 1: That's something you pointed out. It's really smart, and it
Speaker 1: even matters in my business. I have said this before.
Speaker 1: If you're a talk radio host, you can't just be
Speaker 1: a flamethrower. You've got to be it sometimes funny. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you've got to be inquisitive, curious, sometimes you can throw
Speaker 1: a fastball. Sometimes you have to be self deprecating. And
Speaker 1: I think I think John Wall to me had one speed,
Speaker 1: like it was just out of control, and Westbrook at
Speaker 1: times kind of one speed.
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 1: I really do think with Scoot I see a little
Speaker 1: bit of the same thing. Now some of it is
Speaker 1: he can develop that, but I think it's really hard
Speaker 1: when you're very successful at something and you blow past
Speaker 1: everybody for people to say, hey, slow down, we want
Speaker 1: you to play with more pacing. It's like Tyson, like,
Speaker 1: why do I need a jab? I'm knocking everybody out
Speaker 1: in the second round? Like what what's a jab for? So?
Speaker 1: I think what happens to Dyna And we've seen this
Speaker 1: pattern that they dominate people, And it's like the running
Speaker 1: quarterback high school college.
Speaker 2: He runs around.
Speaker 1: First two years in the NFL, Josh Allen runs around
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden he gets hit and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I got to stay in the pocket.
Speaker 1: And so I think what Scoot is so dynamic? You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes your gift is your curse. That he's so dynamic
Speaker 1: that it's hopefully he's super coachable. And I think Westbrook,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's not coachable, but nobody could stand
Speaker 1: in front of us for ten years like you see
Speaker 1: why guy. I mean, it's not a shock that many
Speaker 1: of the great shooters are not super twitchy and fast,
Speaker 1: because at some point, pulling up was what they That's
Speaker 1: how they scored, right.
Speaker 2: Like for you.
Speaker 1: You're obviously very athletic guy, but if I would have
Speaker 1: told you, if I'd added eight inches to your vertical,
Speaker 1: your jumper wouldn't be as good.
Speaker 2: You were like, guys, I'm going to the basket again.
Speaker 1: And also, there's an alpha to scoring at the rim
Speaker 1: that is just like adrenaline, So I hope he develops it.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a really good point by you
Speaker 1: that it is hard when you succeed something, and these
Speaker 1: dynamic guards with no handcheck can't stand.
Speaker 2: In front of him at all.
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan could not have stayed in front of any
Speaker 1: of these guys, none of them. So was there anybody
Speaker 1: else in summer League that you looked at and went, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So a couple things. Brandy Miller had some moments. The
Speaker 3: Polish is there that Charlotte Summer League roster played some
Speaker 3: of the ugliest basketball I've ever seen, so I want
Speaker 3: to see him play in a different type of environment.
Speaker 3: Both the Thompson twins really popped with their playmaking. They
Speaker 3: were both in roles where they were playing with a
Speaker 3: lot of other ball handlers, so that didn't get much
Speaker 3: opportunity to show what they can do. I thought. The
Speaker 3: most impressive guy I saw this weekend was Jabari Smith Junior. Now,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you noticed this, but last year
Speaker 3: there was hype over whether or not Jabari Smith was
Speaker 3: going to go first. Now Paolo went number one and
Speaker 3: he's been great. Obviously, Chet went number two. Chet looked
Speaker 3: awesome on Saturday, by the way, but Jabari Smith Junior
Speaker 3: went number three, and a big reason why is he
Speaker 3: could not dribble to save his life, and he couldn't
Speaker 3: make a shot anywhere outside of a catch and shoot situation.
Speaker 3: He destroyed the Pistons today and hit that game winner.
Speaker 3: In the game on Friday he hit, He had thirty
Speaker 3: eight points, hit a bunch of pull up jump shots,
Speaker 3: he was talking shit to James Wiseman and just putting
Speaker 3: on a show in front of the crowd. It's been
Speaker 3: the most remarkable improvement in scoring polish from a player
Speaker 3: I've seen in one year in my entire time covering basketball.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it. He was literally the most uncomfortable
Speaker 3: guy last year that I saw in Vegas. He's been
Speaker 3: the most comfortable guy on the floor this season. He's
Speaker 3: six foot ten with the seven to one wingspan, projects
Speaker 3: to be an excellent defensive player. He's put on a
Speaker 3: ton of muscle. He was bullying Jaden Ivy today. He's
Speaker 3: got all the pull up jump shot stuff going. Houston
Speaker 3: is going to be a really interesting team this year
Speaker 3: because they brought in some veteran presences with Fred van Vliet.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have Jalen Green there, Dylan Brooks there. Between
Speaker 3: Dylan Brooks and Jabari Smith and their ability to guard
Speaker 3: Houston like Overnight's going to be become a really entertaining
Speaker 3: team to watch. But Jabari Smith Junior was by far
Speaker 3: the most impressive guy that I saw this weekend.
Speaker 1: So the NBA has this in season tournament, and basically
Speaker 1: what they're doing is designating Tuesday and like Friday games.
Speaker 1: They want them to be more urgent and more important,
Speaker 1: so fewer players will sit out and they'll have like
Speaker 1: it won't affect the standings. They'll be like a separate
Speaker 1: standings from as far as I can tell, and if
Speaker 1: you do well in those games, you will eventually get
Speaker 1: into this December early mid December tournament. It's I think
Speaker 1: the simpler you make things the easier it is for
Speaker 1: sports fans. Right, do you think it matters. I mean,
Speaker 1: it'd be great if you didn't have to ask players
Speaker 1: to play, but that's the that's the reality. You know,
Speaker 1: the analytics and basketball are telling you to give guys,
Speaker 1: veteran players more time off. Do you think it's instructive,
Speaker 1: do you think it benefits, do you think it pops?
Speaker 2: Your takeaway on it.
Speaker 3: I'm trying really hard to keep an open mind, to
Speaker 3: be clear, but I was here. I heard your podcast
Speaker 3: with Nick right the other day. I listened to it
Speaker 3: on the plane, and you said something I thought was
Speaker 3: really interesting. You're like, you need two things to be
Speaker 3: successful as a professional sports league. You need stars and
Speaker 3: you need urgency. And the NFL crushes everybody because they
Speaker 3: have both. And the NBA has stars and that allows
Speaker 3: them to overcome their lack of urgency. But the only problem,
Speaker 3: I'd say, there's a mild problem with officiating. They got
Speaker 3: to work out. There's a mild problem we were talking
Speaker 3: about with the star trade request and some of the
Speaker 3: behavior of these agents, But the main problem is urgency.
Speaker 3: And this looks like a move in the direction away
Speaker 3: from that. And you know, I was watching Ted Lasso
Speaker 3: this summer with my wife and they you know, I've
Speaker 3: been learning about the English Premier League as a result,
Speaker 3: they have this thing called the FA Cup, and it's
Speaker 3: like this tournament that they play in the middle of
Speaker 3: their season. But there's a prestige that has been built
Speaker 3: around that tournament over many, many years, and so I
Speaker 3: don't see how that prestige exists right away over something
Speaker 3: called the FA Cup. Now there is the NBA Cup.
Speaker 3: Now there is an undisclosed benefit to the players. But
Speaker 3: when stars determine the outcomes of games and stars are
Speaker 3: making fifty million, I'm not sure there's a monetary value
Speaker 3: there that's going to really get people interested in competing.
Speaker 3: But I'm trying really hard to keep an open mind.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, though, if someone asked
Speaker 3: me what needed to happen with the NBA an overhaul
Speaker 3: with officiating and then shorten the season to sixty six
Speaker 3: games so that you can stretch the games out so
Speaker 3: that players aren't resting on back to backs. There would
Speaker 3: be an increase in viewership due to urgency and star participation,
Speaker 3: and then from there that would make up for the
Speaker 3: drop in games. That's the direction the league needs to go,
Speaker 3: and they're just never going to do it. And this
Speaker 3: to me just feels like a strange measure in that direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always appreciate Adam Silver's willingness to be aggressive
Speaker 1: and you know, move the ball ahead. You know, David
Speaker 1: Stern did it on occasion, had a couple of whiffs.
Speaker 1: The drafts dress code was sort of insulting the new
Speaker 1: ball with just a complete miss. You may want to
Speaker 1: tell the players you're coming out with that, but I've
Speaker 1: always thought, you know that there's the old saying. The
Speaker 1: NBA thinks of it first, the NFL gets it right,
Speaker 1: and baseball makes the most money on it. The NBA
Speaker 1: always comes up with new ideas and I totally appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And I do think we live in a distracted society.
Speaker 1: NBA fans are young, they're on their phones. It's a
Speaker 1: highlight culture. Always has been a bit in the NBA.
Speaker 1: So I'm not against it. I want to see it.
Speaker 1: People bang on the play in tournament, but I've kind
Speaker 1: of liked it. Miami was a playing team that was
Speaker 1: trailing in their second playing game, so you know, people
Speaker 1: like to complain about new stuff, like I think the
Speaker 1: playing works. I like the play in tournament. Agree, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it. It's more good. It's more urgent games
Speaker 1: that I have to way. I mean, those were Tuesday
Speaker 1: night games, and I'm like, Warriors could be out or
Speaker 1: the Heat could be out of the playoffs. So I
Speaker 1: am willing to give the mid season tournament, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's not really mid season, that's kind of the name,
Speaker 1: but I'm willing to give.
Speaker 2: It a shot.
Speaker 3: It's early season, early season.
Speaker 1: So I said this that there was a story this
Speaker 1: week the Knicks had talked to the Clippers about Paul
Speaker 1: George and they bailed on it. And I said, five
Speaker 1: years ago they would have done it. Ten years ago,
Speaker 1: they would have panicked. They panicked on Carmelo. They could
Speaker 1: have traded him after the season. They did in season,
Speaker 1: and Denver got a boatload, right because in season trades
Speaker 1: mellows like I want to play for the Knicks. Nicks caved.
Speaker 1: Stodhommeier from Phoenix had bad knees. Everybody in the league
Speaker 1: knew it. They needed a star that never worked out.
Speaker 1: Paul George is a really good two way player. But
Speaker 1: Steve Balmer, I've been told by a source in that building,
Speaker 1: is not going to extend him, does not want to.
Speaker 1: There's no reason for you to give him a four
Speaker 1: or five year deal. I do think he would be
Speaker 1: a two or a one on that team. And my
Speaker 1: takeaway was it's really an encouraging sign. The Knicks are
Speaker 1: a good team. They're not very good, but they're good.
Speaker 1: One smart move they can get to very good. Two
Speaker 1: they could be special. So let's not demand they make
Speaker 1: two in one off season. Let's go from good to
Speaker 1: very good. Brunson's still young, A lot of their players
Speaker 1: are young. Even Julius Randall's not old. So if there's
Speaker 1: Zion rumors, Karl Anthony Towns, if I said, and they're
Speaker 1: very lucky. They have eleven first round picks in seven years.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of guys I like Josh hart
Speaker 1: r J. Barrett, I don't love. I like their movable
Speaker 1: They have length Randall's contract and Runson's contract. Jalen shrinks
Speaker 1: year to year like it's one of the better contracts
Speaker 1: in the league.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: So if I said to you, Zion, Karl Anthony Towns,
Speaker 1: if there was a move to be made, Jason, what
Speaker 1: would you do.
Speaker 3: Again? It can't just be a start. Has to be
Speaker 3: the right star. I mean, this is the problem that
Speaker 3: Dallas could find themselves running into we need to get
Speaker 3: a start. We need to get start. Okay, we got Kyrie.
Speaker 3: Well everything hinges on that. Now, if Kyrie has a
Speaker 3: change of heart and demands out, you're screwed because you
Speaker 3: have nothing left. And now Luke is gonna want out right,
Speaker 3: And that's the key is like you pull the trigger
Speaker 3: on a Paul George trade and he gets hurt. Everything
Speaker 3: is messed up. So you got to wait for the
Speaker 3: right guy. I'd be keeping an eye out for like
Speaker 3: a brandon Ingram over the course of the next couple
Speaker 3: of years. If New Orleans decides that they want to
Speaker 3: stick with Zion, but they want to re you know,
Speaker 3: flip their timeline a little bit, and oh, they think
Speaker 3: Trey Murphy's gonna play some of those minutes alongside Herb
Speaker 3: Jones or whatever. I keep an eye out for a
Speaker 3: guy like let's say, ok see wants to pay all
Speaker 3: these guys and they pay Shay and they pay Ched
Speaker 3: and they pay Josh Giddy, and they're like, Jalen Williams
Speaker 3: is the guy we're gonna let go. Maybe New York
Speaker 3: jumps on a guy like that, It's got to be
Speaker 3: the right guy. I like Paul George. But the best
Speaker 3: syndicator of future performance is past performance, and the dude
Speaker 3: is hurt all the time, and so there's there's a
Speaker 3: huge risk there, and so if you put all your
Speaker 3: chips in that basket, it could backfire on you. Actually,
Speaker 3: my sneaky favorite Paul George team right now is the
Speaker 3: Calves because I hate their whole two guard build. I
Speaker 3: would look to flip Darius Garland for Paul George because
Speaker 3: then you're bringing in a player that kind of fits
Speaker 3: alongside that Donovan Mitchell timeline. It kind of addresses a
Speaker 3: specific need on the roster. Max Strus kind of slots
Speaker 3: in at the two. I really love that fit. And
Speaker 3: then Darius Garland is a foundational piece for the Clippers,
Speaker 3: who have desperately needed a point guard ever since Chris
Speaker 3: Paul left. But for a team like New York, if
Speaker 3: you look at Jalen Brunson where he's at in his career,
Speaker 3: Julius Randall clearly is the guy they'll inevitably move. You've
Speaker 3: got some solid role players, You've got a good center
Speaker 3: in Mitchell Robinson that you can build around. It just
Speaker 3: has to be the right guy. And to your point,
Speaker 3: that's a sign of competency that they're not just jumping
Speaker 3: on the next thing that comes around. They're being patient,
Speaker 3: and I do like to hear that.
Speaker 1: Jason Timp hoops tonight we send him to the Summer League.
Speaker 1: Listen to his podcast as always, my man, good seeing you.
Speaker 3: It's good to see you too. Goin the volume