Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Impact Of Wemby Out For Season & Concern For Luka’s Slow Start With Lakers?

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to break down Victor Wembanyama being ruled out for the rest of the season in San Antonio including how this impacts the Spurs’ future. Plus, the guys talk if Luka’s slow start with the Lakers is cause for concern before talking how the suspension of Bobby Portis will impact the Bucks and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which you're doing on Thursday afternoon, joining us from the center, Philadelphia, where the, I don't even know who the Sixers are playing tonight, Bontems. Who are they playing?

They're playing the Boston Celtics, and everybody, a lot of the main characters on both sides are playing. So here we go. Well, that's sort of a referendum on where the Sixers are, that I, that's really a big game. It's sort of like coming out of the premium game coming out of the Gates. Is that, is that the first T&T game tonight? It is the first TNT game tonight, and I believe our guys at the second game. That's right. Well, that one I knew. Joining us from Austin, Texas, from the Moody Center, where the Spurs are playing the Sons

tonight, but it's a somber day in Austin and all Spurs Nation is Ban McMahon. Howdy. Partners and Hook them. You're not banned from there. You're hanging out with all the Longhorns. He's helping fun, the Longhorn Nation. Hanging out with two last night, my daughter and a new boyfriend, very polite, man. Oh, I'll bet that was interesting.

That'll be for the post pod discussion. All right. Rough news today, McMahon. You were there when it went down. Yeah, really unfortunate, obviously. Yesterday, Victor Wiminyama announced his doubtful with an illness. And you're like, wow, that's a bummer. Him and KD.

Those are the featured attractions here. Word started percolating as I arrived for shoot around. Like, hey, this is not just an illness. It's something significant. The Spurs before their shoot-around opened. announced that he will miss the rest of the regular season. It is deep vein thrombosis. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly, essentially a blood clot in his right shoulder. Now, this is something that they believe is an isolated situation and they are very optimistic that Wimby will be fully

recovered by the beginning of next season. But, you know, his brilliant sophomore season is going to be, it's over. It's cut short now. He played in 46 games. You know, obviously the runaway favorite for defense player of the year will not be eligible for that. He will not be eligible for all NBA. You know, certainly the most important thing is they are confident and very optimistic that this isn't something that is going to be a long-term issue just for his general health, especially, but also for his basketball career. But, you know, one of the rising stories, stars in the NBA, you know, a likely face of the next generation in this league is unfortunately not going to be able to play basketball after the All-Star break this season.

Yeah, I mean, my, probably the thing, the moment that probably stood out to me the most from being in San Francisco over the weekend, so we haven't potted since I was there, was Saturday afternoon, being back at Oracle for the first time since game six in 2019, which was a trip down memory lane for a lot of reasons. But in the media room Saturday afternoon, and Anthony Edwards strolls in with sunglasses on and very carefree attitude per usual. And as he's going through his media session, he gets asked, well, do you think you could be the future face of the league? And he immediately says, no, not really. And the reporter says,

why don't you think that? He said, well, that's what Wemby's. And obviously, it's just a little moment during sort of a nothing media availability. But we all know he had a pretty confident guy. And the fact that he just like basically has said, yeah, like this guy is going to be the guy. I'm sure he thinks he's going to win games on the court. It sort of just spoke to the overall theme of the weekend, which is that LeBron James, who didn't play in the game, is on his way out, and Victor Wembeyanma, who is, you know, trying to break the rules of Chris Paul on Saturday and the stupid skills challenge and cause a silliness with that. That didn't rise to the level of being discussed in the podcast, but it was a fascinating little

corner of that whole thing was crazy. And then, you know, he's out there blocking shots. There was a, you know, one crazy sequence in the game where he blocks a shot at one end, dunks it at the other, sets up a fast break at the other end. Like, you know, it was really a coming out party for him. Obviously, he's already a huge. star. But it was sort of an announcement of him as being on the level of these other guys at the true top of the sport. It was a moment. It was a moment for him. It was his first all star appearance. And we all have seen, you know, Wendy Bean and Paris both for the Olympics and for the, you know, the games over there this year. Like when you put Wendy on a stage, he almost always responds.

And that's part of being a quote unquote face in the league, you know, kind of the polish and, you know, the willingness to be insightful. I think when Ants says that's what Wimby's four. Ant's also saying they keep fining me for being myself. You know, if I can't cuss. But, but it's, but, but, but when he has, he has the game, he has the personality. He has kind of the, the polish already at, uh, at 21 years old, you know, and we all think this guy is going to be the most dominant player in the league in the not too distant future,

but we won't be able to watch him try to leave the Spurs into the playing next this season because he's not going to be on the floor. And unfortunately, I don't think that the Spurs are going to be a challenger for that playing spot. And 35 and a half is the over is in a bit of jeopardy. First off, I want to talk about blood clots are scary. I had a blood clot about 15 years ago. No situation is the same.

And I don't have any insight other than what the Spurs announced, which was it was in his shoulder. There's several different ways you can deal with the blood clot, but almost always you're going to instantaneously be on blood thinners. Yeah. The fancy term for it is anticoagulants. It doesn't actually thin your blood. You have they call it blunt thinners. It just means that your blood can't clot as well.

Okay. So when you are on blood thinners, you're all, first off, they, and maybe the drugs are better now than they were 15 years ago, but they interact with everything. It make you feel terrible, frankly. I mean, I hated when I was on it. Again, maybe the, I think the drugs are maybe a little better now. But and if you get to get a cut or something, you know, or you have any sort of, you know, you have to tell everybody that you get treated or touched by that's going on. And you can't do any physical activity. I mean, you can do physical activity. You just can't really play contact sports because the last thing you want is to get hit, you know, hit your head or something and yeah, internal bleeding. Okay. So that's why as soon as you have a blood clot, you see people ruled out for like months. Usually it's at least six months. Does not always ironclad. Depends on the type of clock. that you have, you might be able to have a procedure to remove the clot. That was the case with

Brandon Ingram, who had a clot in his upper arm and his shoulder six years ago. Almost the exact same announcement, by the way, DeVane thrombosis in his shoulder, came back at the start around the same time of the year, came back to start of the next season, absolutely no issues going forward. So if you are Spurs fan or NBA fan, that's certainly the optimistic view is that this is a one-time thing. He comes back. He's fine, and he has an incredible career. Right. And so that's a That's what we're all hoping for. By the way, you remember, Michael Jordan missed his whole second season at the broken foot. Turned out okay. Yes. So while this is a bummer, it is not the end of the world, hopefully. You go back at Spurs history, right? It's a different stage of his career. But David Robinson missed virtually an entire season, I believe, because of a back injury, right? And that allowed the Spurs to get the number one pick in the draft.

A back injury that really lingered. Well, that's fine. But the point is they, they, won the lottery with a generational talent in the lottery and compared David Robinson and Tim Duncan together. And they won two titles and Tim Duncan ended up being with them for almost another 20 years. Right. And if the Spurs, if you're being the absolutely most optimistic scenario, yeah, Tim, you're probably not winning your bet now. But if the Spurs struggle down the stretch and jump into the top three or lo and behold, end up with the number one pick in the draft. That was a humble break. Vinyama and Cooper Flag playing together for the next decade, that's going to be pretty nice. Well, first off, hold on. Let me just cover one more thing. In the event of Chris Bosch, because I know

that's what people may be thinking about. Chris Bosch is, so one of the things is if, if you get a, like, I've had a blood clot. I was on treatment for six months. The blood clot cleared. I was off treatment. I can still remember where I was when they called and told me that I could dump the pills. I was in Denver for covering a game. I was so excited because I hated those pills. If you get another blood clot, there's a decent chance that you will be on the blood thinners the rest of your life. Again, not everybody is that case, but that is generally the case. Also, when a blood clot, they can tie it to something. I remember Serena Williams had a blood clot and it got into her lung and what they call pulmonary embolism when it gets into your lung. She stepped on glass or something. She was in Germany, I think, and she stepped on glass and she cut her foot. And long story short, that injury led to her having a blood clot that went to her chest. Sometimes you have blood clots after surgery, okay?

If they identify, sometimes what happens with young athletes, Stefania Bell, our medical specialist of ESPN, was talking about this, people who do things over their head, you see it in pitchers, you know, repetitive motion where they're throwing basketball over the head motion. Sometimes with young athletes especially, there's some action with the rib and the movement there that can cause clots in your shoulder. So that is probably why probably, I don't know for sure, but that is probably why the spurs are so optimistic because they know an exact cause of it. They can tie it to that.

It's not a chronic condition, which in the case of Chris Bosch, the medical people thought that it was, which meant he would have to be on medication. Okay. I just want to cover that. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Now, as far as the Spurs getting Cooper flag, Bontems, I'm not sure they're really in position to tank very much. They still have Deer and Fox. They still have Chris Paul. They still have Devin Vassell.

They still have Harrison Barnes. Well, hold on. I mean, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This is some silly talk.

I mean, the Spurs right now, I believe, are in the, what, 10th spot in the lottery? Oh, in the lottery. Okay. Yeah. I'm just talking about the lottery. Like right now, they are, they've got what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Yeah, they're in the tenth spot in the lottery right now.

And now we're going to play. Atlanta's ahead of them by several games. I mean, they're, they've got the, I mean, they, my point is, I'm not saying they're going to end up in the top three, but if they go from, like, they might have made the playoffs. They're not making the playoffs now. I mean, I agree. I don't think it was likely they're making the playoffs. But they could have gotten to play in one, two games.

Wouldn't have been out of the question. It was pretty unlikely. Unlikely, but not impossible. They just traded for Darren Fox. They're three games out of 10th. Like, they could have got into 10th and won two games. Sure. Now, it's much more likely they finish seventh in the lottery than 13th in the lottery,

and they could very easily jump up and get lucky. I'm not saying they're going to be in the top three, but it improves their lottery situation by a lot. And then, you know, the hawks misfortune also helps the spurs odds. They have that hawks pick. Unfortunately, Jalen Johnson's also out for the year. You know, the hawks are likely to fade down the stretch. So right now, I think the hawks are not. they're holding on to a spot, right?

They're in the play in right now. The Hawks are currently an eighth in the east, and I believe overall it would be 13th or 14th. But still, look, they could fall off. Again, they've got multiple bites at the apple here. I'm just saying, as of right now, San Antonio, assuming the Hawks finish eighth, if it froze right now,

they have a 3% chance at the top pick, which is their own pick going first. If they were... Sorry, go ahead. They are three games ahead of Portland, who are ahead of, you know, ahead. Portland has three more losses than them, but they're tied in the wind column. So they could control it.

And there are four losses, quote, unquote, ahead of Chicago and five losses ahead of Brooklyn. It's not out in Philadelphia. It's not of the wrong possibility if they try. They could get to like sixth, which would increase their chances to 8% and 34% to be in the top four. Which it makes sense to do. The reason that we were talking about. talking about, ooh, tanking last year for the Spurs, like Victor really wants to win, Victor's competitive. Victor, unfortunately, is not part of this for the rest of the season. It makes sense

to ease up on the gas pedal now for the Spurs for the final, whatever third of the season. I mean, to me, it's not even about easing up on the gas pedal. It's just that the team is just not going to be very good. I mean, I had Dean Oliver and Stats Williams run our BPI projections after this to see where the spurs would land. I'll bet you did. I was just curious because of this very question. And they were projected to win 37 games by BPI as of this morning. And after running the numbers again,

they're projected to win 32 and a half and be seventh in the lottery. So I don't know if you saw the fine print on our bet, but the stipulation was Wimby plays 50 games minimum. Yes. There is no stipulations on Cesar. Let's deal with this right now. I had a friend of mine who said to me a couple days ago, he goes, hey, what was the bet number? He was like, very interested in it.

And I was like, I don't know where they left it. He's like, how do you not know? Like, he was very angry. 35 and a half after a lot of attempts by McMahon to lower it. All right. So 35 and half. It's okay. So they have 30 games remaining.

They are 23 and 29. They need to go what? They need to go 14 and 16. I don't know, McMahon. That's not accurate. No, they have 13 and 16. 17, which they no longer have any motivation to do that. Over 35 and a half.

But the bet's all, there was the wimby 50 game minimum that was implied in a bet. They have 23 wins. I did the math of my head wrong. Correct. 13. 13. So they have the 11th hardest schedule left. And by the way, they're eight points per 100.

They're negative eight on the season with Victor off the court. And they're 10 and a half points worse with him off the court than on the court naturally because he's awesome. but like they're going to be a really bad team now, which like in the long run is totally fine. Even if they end up with the seventh pick in a loaded draft instead of the 13th pick. Like that's a win for them.

Assuming Victor is fine. Here's the thing, McMahon. They got two games. They haven't played the calves yet at all. They got two games left with the Cavs. They got a game left with the Thunder. They got a game left with the Celtics. A game left with the Grizzies.

A game left with the Knicks. It's a good thing that the bets off the board. Okay. And just for context sake, by the way, a plus. two and a half net rating, which is what they are with Victor. That would be 12th in the league where Houston is. Minus 7.9 would be 28th just ahead of the nets at minus eight.

Okay. So now, as you know, games now. Yes. As you know, when you have a situation, when you're like holding a ticket in Vegas or any sports book that's likely to lose, sometimes they'll negotiate trying to buy their way out of the bet. Is there any negotiation now? Like, McMahon, if I were you, what I would try to do is I would surrender the bet,

but I would try to get the terms of the meal agreed to because the terms of the meal were not really agreed to and he could get you on this. 50 game minimum, that's all. I don't, first of all, I'm not really concerned about this meal anyway, but it's going to be, it was just a fun bet anyway to me. Okay, if that's the case, McMahon, now is your time to negotiate. Do I have to do it for you?

He agreed to the 50 game minimum for Wendy. It's over. Like, it was a fun bet, unfortunately. the terms weren't reached to make it an actual wager. Look, the amount of squirling around you've done on this when this began with you declaring that the spurs are going to be over 500 and then sprinted away from that faster than you was saying bolt and it turned into you dropping it farther and farther down as it went and then tried to lower it below 35 several times.

That last part is true. I said I thought they had 40 win potential. And they were disappointed. The other thing is whimpy and in all seriousness, real. quick. The spurs had started to really struggle, like for, I don't know, the month or so leading in the All-Star break. And, like, people have been noticed like, man, Wimby looks fatigued. Wendby looks tired. And there were times where he was a lagging behind the action and kind of run up the cord. You can tell when he's tired because it's like his limbs kind of start flailing everywhere

as he's, you know, 10 feet behind the action. I thought he looked really tired the second game in Paris, but then again. Well, he got sick. Didn't he get sick there and was dealing with that for a while? He got sick in Memphis, right? Well, he was, I felt he was under the weather. And, I mean, he sounded under the weather to me. But then this person was like, no, no, he's fine. Right. But now all these signs of fatigue makes sense.

Well, maybe you don't. I mean, who knows how long he's, I don't really want to turn it to the doctor thing on that. I mean, the one thing that's disappointing that we haven't taught. I went to college for eight years, dude. Yes, you certainly did. The one thing that we haven't talked about with this whole thing that I think is the one disappointing part of this for the sport.

Well, I mean, be honest. him having an issue, but they just make this Deerran Fox trade. Yeah. And I mean, the other parallel of Chris Bosch, which hopefully is the only parallel of the Chris Bosch thing was I remember also being at that All-Star game in 2016 and talking to Chris and being around some people in the heat. And they were really excited to see what the Dway, Goran Dragich, Chris Bosch team was going to look like.

And I remember correctly, Brian, I don't think Goran Dragha and Chris Bosch ever played one game together because right after that, he was going to be without forever. He might have played one or two, but it was like, It was the same kind of thing. They made the trade right at the deadline. Then they go into the All-Star break and right before the deadline. Then they go into the All-Star break and it was like they wanted to see what this is going to look like. And now the Aird Fox and Chris Bosch, or Chris Bosch, the Air and Fox and Victor Winiamma play three or four games together.

And now that growth process is on hold. And the next couple months for the Spurs are really going to be about watching that partnership form and start to see how they fit together, having Stefan Castle play with those. guys, seeing where they all fit together, figuring out the kind of pieces you want to have around those guys going forward. And I mean, you could still talk about that stuff and think about that stuff. But that is the one real negative on court downside is that you lose a couple months of, I think, really important time to assess your roster going into what could be a pretty interesting offseason for San Antonio to figure out exactly the kind of players you want to have around those guys. Now you have a big chunk of that missing. And it's, you know, the spurs are obviously going to play

far differently without Victor than they will when they hopefully have them back in the fall. Well, Chris Paul, as CP3 said, you can't replace Vic. He said, I can't stand on somebody's shoulders and block every shot in pain. By the way, Chris could do that. He would have done that. Very problematic season for the Spurs. Pop has a stroke, which no one's really talked about. Pop had the stroke at the arena before a game.

You know, it was not a good day, all right? Thankfully, he's okay in recovering. This is a difficult situation. I'm not comparing the Deer and Fox trade to a medical situation, but that, you know, the Spurs don't typically make major trades in season. That was a, you know, destabilized them. They've had some other stuff happen that I'm not going to go into that I won't publicize, but they had some other stuff happen.

It's not important to the basketball team, but it happened to the Spurs family. And so it's just been, it's been a rough year for, for what was such to be such a celebratory year, they make the trip to Paris. it's a huge success and, you know, this was a year they thought maybe they could make the playoffs to go get Chris Paul. Some years things go really well and some years they don't. And fortunately, everybody is going to be okay after this. But, you know, it's just, it's been a traumatic year. And talking to people with the Spurs today, that was what they referred to. Like, man, this has been a rough year. Yeah. And Chris Paul, who's the lone member of the organization who spoke after the shoot around. You know, he's the guy who they said, okay, hey, this is going to be our essentially.

spokesman. You know, he mentioned that. And obviously, the pop situation, everybody hopes that he that he recovers fully. But, you know, that is, I mean, a legend in this league who suddenly is just gone. There's just tremendous uncertainty around that. And then Wimby is the guy that the entire franchises being reconstructed around. Now, much more optimism. It's a very scary thing, a blood clot, but they are very optimistic that this is, again, isolated for recovery, but still a very scary thing. And the guy you're building everything around is now just gone for the rest of the season. And a guy who, like, as CP3 mentioned, just, I mean, this dude cares. This dude competes. This guy lives and breathes this stuff. And basketball is being yanked away from him.

So just, you know, like there's, CP3 said he knows that, that Wendy will attack everything in the best possible way, but just from kind of a middle and psychological standpoint, this sort of a situation is a massive challenge for a young guy. You know, I was watching the Court of Gold documentary on Netflix, which I have been told that we have a cameo in, the hoopoeuvre. I have been told also. I haven't seen it yet, though. I hope, I hope we were properly, you know, I hope Bontemps was cut out of it. Is that aggregated? I was told, I was told it was a perfectly on-brand pod moment in a positive way. So I think we came off well.

I think maybe it was when I was in the the rage room or whatever, the seven deadly sin room. It was about, it was going into a part about the turmoil around the French national team. And I believe it was when we were discussing are the French,

is the French national team any good at the Olympics, I believe is the part that was in there. Well, anyway, clearly we were wrong because they made the final. But seeing Pop, you know, give interview, in that. You know, it's like, you know, I haven't heard from him in a while.

You miss them. You know, even when the spurs are irrelevant as a team, which obviously they are not now, Pop always made his presence in the league felt. So, you know, you miss them. I mean, some part of the league are entire adult lives. For sure. So quite a, quite a long time too. God, it's starting to feel it.

I've never been one. That's true. All right. Well, best of luck to, I bet this is, you know, obviously I have a lot. talk to him, but knowing Victor a little bit, I'll bet this is absolutely devastating to him. Yeah. It's driving. I mean, it would be devastating to anyone, Brian.

Right. All right. Now we're going to pivot to the Wonder Boy, which is a book coming out. Luca Donchitz in the Curse of Greatness. Damn it, I don't have my copy to hold up right now. You should do a signing in Austin. That would be, you should arrange for that, the Hachette book group. I've actually have some hard a couple copies that were delivered.

I signed one for my daughter. like, oh, my roommate might be interested in this. And I gave one to old Michael Corley- What about her boyfriend? The guy wears cowboy boots. I don't think he's a big basketball fans. Good. That might be good for you, actually.

All right. So I watch this game that the Lakers played against the Hornets on Wednesday. It was the only game in the NBA. McMahon, Luca just is not himself. No, this is the Luca that the Mavericks had for the five and eight start this season. And, you know, it's very similar.

That time he was coming back off a 25-day absence for what we later found. That was not just a calf contusion, but also a calf-spraying. This one, I don't know how many days it was, but it was, whatever, six weeks. This is the longest absence, injury absence of his career. Now, it does not appear that the weight is an issue like it was early in the season, but he doesn't have his legs. Like when Nuka doesn't have his legs, he's a really poor three-point shooter, you know. And we're seeing that. He's shooting 20-point-something percent for the Lakers.

He doesn't have his rhythm. You know, the guy's got 11 turnovers over the last two games, which are, by the way, losses to Charlotte Hornetson, Utah Jazz. You know, like Luca so far for the Lakers has been a poor offensive player. That's not going to continue. I mean, come on. No, I mean, the man can score 35 without even, you know. Well, I'll say about Luca, is that when I watch Luca games where I watch it, and it's like,

okay, he lumbered around out there for 35 minutes. Yeah, I remember him throwing in a few shots. Yeah, I remember him having a couple of assists. Let me see what is. Oh, he had 37, 12, and 9. Oh, I guess he played pretty good. Like, this is a guy who, you know, he's had a 60 point triple double. You know, just right before he got hurt, he had a 45 point triple double against the Warriors.

You know, he's had 50.15 assist performances. he will get back into that form, but he's not there now. He's going to probably need some time. He's sitting out tonight in, what are they playing in Portland, I believe, correct? So he's resting on a back-to-back. This is essentially a second pre-season for Lukage just because of the circumstances. Now, he's, you know, it's a new system. It's new teammates, it's new surroundings, you know, the emotional devastation.

frankly, of him basically getting dumped very publicly by the Mavericks and kind of the shock. So there's a lot going on. And I think it'll be a little bit before he's the Luca that people are used to seeing. Although I would not be shocked if we got a glimpse of that next week when the Mavericks are in town. I actually think it could be the best thing for him. I mean, you don't want him to overdo it. Because one of the things I'm seeing, absolutely his legs are not under him. No doubt about that.

he's deferring, which is the most predictable thing ever, which of course he's deferring. He's coming into this team. LeBron James is on it. Austin Reeves, the 10 games before Luca got there, Austin Reeves is averaging like 26, 27 points. Not that Luca doesn't see himself as higher on the food chain than Austin Reeves,

but I watch it. He throws the ball to Austin Reeves and stands on the wing, okay? That's not how it's going to go. It's going to go. Luca, take the ball, dominate the usage, and be yourself. That's what eventually is going to need to happen. I don't know what it's going to happen, but it's going to happen on Tuesday in L.A. Yeah, I would, I think that we might see, we'll definitely see full-blown sneering Luca on Tuesday in L.A.

Now, listen, I will point out, playing with Luca is a major adjustment, right? And the one time that a co-star was brought in and plugged right in the lineup at the trade deadline, the Mavericks ended up tanking down the stretch of that season. And I'm talking about, obviously, when Kyrie came. in. And honestly, if you looked at their numbers as a duo, the Maverick stunk defensively was the biggest problem. Like, they were still scoring a lot of points. Like, their offense and all that was actually very good with those guys on the floor. They were just such a bad defensive team. They had such a bad supporting cast. But there was a lot of that. And they

couldn't win clutch games. And a big factor of them not being able to win clutch games was it was kind of that deferring and, you know, man, I really respect, you know, kind of the, too much mutual respect. Not want to step on each other's toes. There was that, the, that moment, I don't know if you guys remember, but it was Kyrie's first home game. Kyrie goes, they're down against the wolves. Kyrie has an unbelievable fourth quarter.

I mean, just one of the best, like, shot making, scoring quarters that I've, I've ever seen to bring him back in it. And then down to stretch, with the game on the line, Luke and Kyrie kind of bounced, you know, past the ball back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and until, you know, it becomes a turnover because Kyrie costs it up. And so now Luke has to go through that same kind of adjustment period with LeBron while coming back off of a long injury absence and trying to, you know,

he's still got to try to play his way into normal regular season condition. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. I'd certainly agree with all that. I mean, the other thing that was just amusing about that game in the last, you know, a couple of weeks is this ongoing saga involving Mark Williams, Mark Williams, who played started and played in the game Wednesday night without incident, was on the court down the stretch as the Hornets won in crunch time and beat the Lakers on their home court. And then we had, I would say, a fairly interesting statement from,

Jeff Schwartz disseminated to the media this afternoon. Brian, we talked about that earlier. Yeah, Jeff Schwartz is one of the top agents, longstanding agent. Jeff Schwartz does not BS. You know, he is, you know, he can be a pleasant guy, but I certainly wouldn't want to negotiate against him. And so he put out a statement kind of, kind of out of nowhere. I don't know why now. This was his statement. The overwhelming sentiment after conferring with multiple nationally recognized doctors is that the Los Angeles Lakers should not have failed Mark Williams on his physical. And you might say, well, what's the point of that? The point of it is to send a message to the entire league that Mark Williams is not damaged goods because that's the

premise that comes out of it. And, you know, the truth is Mark Williams is in his third season. At the conclusion of this season, he can negotiate a contract extension with the Hornets. Or maybe they trade them. I mean, they already traded them once. Maybe they'll trade them again. I don't know. But, you know, basically what's happened, whether the Lakers, you know, were correct or incorrect, and passing a physical isn't binary. It's not yes or no.

I mean, ultimately, that's what it comes down to. But it's subjective, the doctors have to decide. You know, they, Jeff Schwartz obviously feels that the Lakers damaged Mark, Mark Williams' reputation and damaged his value. And he's trying to fight back to protect against his, you know, his value being. damaged and he's doing it by releasing a statement to everybody and he doesn't do that normally. You know, Jeff Swartz is not a not a guy who gets quoted very often. Well, and then there was, you know, last week the statement from the Hornets.

And basically the implication here is the Lakers had buyers remorse. They gave up a lot to make that deal, you know. I mean, Mark Williams himself pretty much said the, he didn't use those words, but he gave quotes in L.A. Wednesday night and he pretty much said that they, you know, they changed their mind. You could certainly say it was an overpay. Again, I think you had to look at it as kind of connected to the Luca trade, but they gave up everything that the Mazz allowed to believe, Nico Harrison allowed Polinka to keep in his pocket in the Luca trade, basically.

Look, the near universal opinion around the league was that the Hornets got a hell of a deal for Mark Williams. Not that Mark Williams can't be a very good player, and maybe this turns out to be the failed Tyson Chandler trade like we've talked about before, where the Thunder failed his physical on the tow issue, and he went on to have an incredible career, and it's one of the real sliding door, what if moments of the past 20 years? What if Tyson Chandler was on that Thunder team

with those young fellas? Like that would have been, they would have been the perfect center to play with those guys. But, you know, at the same time, Mark Williams has missed 60% of the games he could have played so far in his career, roughly. And he's enormous and could become a really good player and certainly would be a fun lob threat for Luca Donchich.

But it also was a lot to give up for a guy who's missed a ton of games and is certainly a far-from-finished product at both ends of the court. Like, that's, you know, it was a big bet on Mark Williams and won the Lakers for, you know, whatever reason, ultimately decided after the physical they weren't ready to make and has led to everything that's happened since. Yeah. By the way, looking forward again to the Mavericks visit to L.A. to face her old palouca next week. we did get an Anthony Davis update today, and it's, you know, not necessarily a definitive update,

but it's the first official update for the Mavericks since his diagnosis of a left-ded doctor strain. And that is he will be, he's making good progress, in quote, and will be re-evaluated in two weeks. So he's going to miss at least seven more games. By the way, also means he's not going to be all NBA eligible, defense to play of the year, all that. He will not play in the return to L.A. Now, Max Christie, old Super Max Christy, the only Super Max that Nico wants in Dallas. You know, he's, hey, I'm telling you, man, this guy has been a really, really, really good player in his brief Maverick's tenure. And I think there's a very real chance that he was going to be the primary defender on Luca.

My assumption is PJ Washington gets a LeBron assignment. And I think Max Christie. There's a PJ Washington update today, too, which was positive. He should be the primary option. on Luca. Jay practiced. They listened to his question. I think there's a pretty good chance

if he plays tomorrow and the Belicans today for the people listening to the podcast. But yeah, Super Max Christie defending, which is regular Max Luca, I think is an interesting little subplop there. Can I just say that,

you know, the last 10 or 12 games before the trade, as you know, the Lakers had gone 10 and 1. In that stretch, they were the number one defense in the league. Now, A.D. did miss some of those games, then they traded their two best defensive players. I don't know, maybe. Max Christie was really coming out. I think you were the two best defensive players. Max Christie had already become a very good player and had a great couple of months there and was

really emerging, has only continued that. I mean, my question, McMahon, just to shift back to the mask for a second, and we talked about at the time of the trade, when these guys are whole, I feel like he's going to be starting over Clay Thompson at. I don't. I don't. I think you can make a case for why that would make sense. But there's an understanding of how important that status as a starter is to Clay Thompson, especially after having it briefly taken away from him last year with the Warriors. Now, Clay Thompson's a 25-minute-per-game player. I think he will continue to do that as a starter.

And, you know, I think Max Christie will be closing games over him. You know, Clay might close games, but it's a very case-to-case basis, and it has been for a while. Now, AD's out at least two more weeks. You know, they say live than Gaff are going to get revalued in two weeks. Those guys are going to be out for a while longer after that. Yeah, I mean, this is when they have AB and PJ Washington and a center. So then it's like who's the fifth starter with Kyrie. Yeah, I believe that if they get to that point where they are, you know, relatively healthy

and they have the option of playing that big lineup, Clay will continue to start. Max Christie will continue to play a. a lot of minutes and likely close. Yeah, I mean, I guess my point is he should be starting, whether he is or not. And I think the fact that he'd likely be closing most, if not all games, would be a recognition that he's the better player at this point and should be the guy doing that, whether he starts or not. Like you said, there's other factors of potentially going to that.

Did you guys hear that crazy stat that Bill McDonald was giving on the Lakers broadcast last night about Jackson Hayes? I know it's a bit of a non-sequitur, but I wanted to get it in there since I was talking about Laker stats before I was so rudely interrupted. Jackson Hayes has made his last 16 baskets. His last 16 attempts and all of them are dunks. I mean, again, Mark Williams is probably the best, one of the best dunkers in the league and you could see at least the theory of why they would trade for him because

Lucas sets up a lot of dunks. And Jackson Hayes getting passes from LeBron and Luca has gotten a lot of dunks. So I know. I'm not stunned by that stat, I guess, just from watching it a little bit. Yeah. So there was a lot of updates on players on Thursday. One of them was very, well, the Victor one was the most upsetting, but the one that was really the most, you know, lasting, I guess, was that Bobby Portis was suspended for 25 games for

violating the drug policy. And that's a, you know, he's, he's not a starter, but he's an incredibly important player to the Bucks. He's one of the best six men in the league. And he's just, you know, Brooke Lopez, his role is just smaller than it's been. They need, they need, they need. him. He was their third leading score. Before they traded for Kuzma, you know, he was their third leading score after Damon Yannis. And because Middleton and Lopez just have had deteriorated a little bit. And when you hear that it's a drug suspension, you're first, your mind goes, oh, it must be PEDs. But no, it's, it was for a painkiller. And from what I understand, you know, Mark Bartlestein, his agent was very proactive. I'm trying to explain what happened here, as was Bobby. It was over Thanksgiving.

and he was dealing with his elbow injury and he wasn't able to go he had been getting this treatment of a painkiller that was allowed and some he was like oh man i'm gonna i don't know if i'll be able to play tomorrow because i wasn't able to get this just treatment uh you know close for thanksgiving and his assistant said oh i've got i've got a pill like that and then the stories that that's was you know a similar but but banned medication so he takes some medication over thanksgiving that ends up getting caught in a drug screen. And now, you know, you look at the bucks, the bucks are in fifth place.

They've got some breathing space between them and the play-in. And I'm not saying that Luz and Bobby is going to cost them to plummet. But, you know, it just shrinks their margin for air, which is already not that big because they started the season two and 12. You start the season two and 12, you know, and then Janus tweaks his calf and misses six or seven games. It's hard to overcome. Then you got this happen.

It's not the kind of news that the bucks needed, Bontemps. No. I mean, and again, if we're just looking at, you know, where people are in the standings, I don't think that the Bucks are in a position to fall all the way out of the top six in the east. There are five losses ahead of the teams in seventh and eighth. I guess they're four loss out of Miami and ninth, but because of games played there, five ahead of Orlando and Atlanta who are tied for seventh, but in the loss column. But they are only two losses up on Detroit. And if you're Milwaukee, if you're looking at possibly playing Indy and Cleveland in the first two rounds of the playoffs, that is a, I'm not saying Cleveland is an appealing option, but having to play the Knicks and then in theory, Boston after that, that's definitely a harder path if they fall to sixth.

I don't know. Can they beat Indy? What's the season series this year? Last year they sure could. Indy owned them last year and the Cavs are three and no against them this year. Give me the bucks. I understand. I understand that.

I think the bucks, I think they've done better against the Pazes. The Cajito against the Bucks. Yes. They played two of those games or without significant players for. Okay, fine. I would just say that one time when the Caves Corner Alert, one time when,

you know, the same week that the Bucks beat the Thunder in the NBA Cup final and Yannis dominated in that game, like four days later they played the calves and the calves beat them. And Yonis was like, this is a harder team to play. Cab's corner. Obviously, the Thunder are different because they now have Holmgren back, but I'm just saying that I wouldn't necessarily agree with your premise there.

Well, the Bucks have beaten the Pacers both times they've played so far this year. I'm trying to see when they play again. Don't think they play again until March. Yeah, they play twice more in March. I think on the aggregate, you'd rather play Indiana and Cleveland and Boston and New York. Even if for no other reason, New York is, I think, pretty clearly seen as a pretty superior team. play the Cavs and the Celtics. That's just true. There's no question. You'd rather play the Paces and the Nix.

It's just it's a harder path. Like doesn't, again, not saying they're going to beat any of them the way their season is gone. But I don't know for the Bucks if I would, I don't know if that's an automatic yes. But. Okay. I think if you ask non-Cavs Corner residents, they would say the other two teams are a harder path. I'm in Pacer's Corner right now. I'm not so much in Caves Corner.

I agree. You'd rather play the Caves and the Celtics. That's Pacer's Parkway. it. Regardless, that is to me the answer to the thing to watch is where it is Milwaukee. And look, Milwaukee's only one game back of Indiana right now. And home court could matter in that series too. And, you know, if the honest is dealing with this calf issue, they're going to basically have not if Bobby Ford is for the entire rest of the regular season. They don't have a lot of depth as it is. You know, it's just something to. Look, I don't know how this season is going to end up

for the bucks, but they've gotten pretty unlucky. They won the title on 21. In 22, I think they had 58 wins. No, the Celtics had the highest. Middleton got hurt against the Bulls. Middleton got hurt against the Bulls. They lose, were they, they couldn't have been the top seed because Boston had home court in game seven. They were the second and they were the, they were two and three seeds, I believe. Okay. Well, they were a great team and I, I think they would, I covered that series. I think you covered some of that series, Bont Temps. They would have won,

in my view, even though Jason Tatum had an iconic game six to force game seven, I think the Bucks win that series, and that would have maybe meant they went to the finals. They didn't,

they got to game seven and Chris Middleton, their second best player or third best player, depending on your rank, Tim and Drew Holiday, he didn't play the entire series. So, yes,

it's fair to say they would have been favorite to win if he was able to play. Then the following year, they were awesome, the number one overall seat, if I'm not mistaken. And Janus,

didn't win the MVP, but he probably could have. Easily could have. And then got hurt in the first round. He got hurt in the first round. So they won in 21. I don't know. Like I brought up this theory in front of Bob Myers recently, like in the green room at Countdown.

And Bob gave me the strongest side eye you could possibly give because I was, you know, implying that the Warriors might not have beaten the bucks because they beat the Celtics. So I don't know what would have happened, but I think they would have had a fighting chance in 22. In 23, they were the number one overall seed. you know, Denver was an absolute load. Maybe they don't beat Denver, but in either of those three years,

they arguably could have won two or three. And they got one. It's just a reminder that to win the title, you have to get lucky. And part of lucky is being healthy. Last year, I don't think anybody was beating the Celtics in the East. I don't think so. But we'll never know because Janus gets hurt right there at the end of the regular season. So they win in 21 and then 22, 23, 24, either Janus or Milton or hurt.

matters and now they're, you know, going to be struggling potentially to, you know, have to play without home court advantage in the first two rounds. Yep. Bob has a lot of rings. I wonder if that 2022 one was fitted for one of his middle fingers would have been appropriate response for him to show you it. Well, listen, I don't ever want to take anything away. As you know, winning a championship means ever saying you're sorry.

And winning four means telling you to go, and that one, you're right. And that one was especially meaningful. to the Warriors organization because they had gone to rock bottom and built themselves back up. And it was it was post-KD, you know? Let's just be real enough. There's bitterness from the Warriors to KD or anything, but it was that group at before and that group after KD. Steph could have night-nighted the Milwaukee crowd just as easily the night-nighted TD Garden.

So, but I'm just saying we'll never know. And I see I just, there's this ramping up of people saying, well, the Bucks block. blah, blah, blah, the seasons of failure, blah, blah, the Bucks had a, have been championship contenders for six or seven years. They had this three-year run where they were absolutely in the center of it. And they did get one. They raised a banner. Like, they did good, you know, and they've had some bad luck.

They could have had some good luck maybe and gotten another one. They had bad luck. It's very hard. Look, people sort of just, the people like to gloss over the fact that it's just incredibly hard to win and you have to get really lucky. and a huge part of that is just having your team available. Like, look, the Warriors, the Cavs needed a lot of breaks to win in 2016. They got them all.

Like, that's okay. Doesn't make anything less important. The, you know, certainly, you know, if you look at some of these other runs that teams have had, you know, last year, Boston played a bunch of teams that had guys injured. Their guys are relatively healthy. Doesn't mean any less. Same with when the Bucks won in 21. Like that's, again, that's part of it is just getting through the thing healthy and surviving.

And if you give your, that's why the whole goal is to try to give yourself as many chances as possible and to be in the mix as many times as you can. And it's a big part of why to go back to the LUCA stuff. Yes. It's why so many people in the league think the LUCA trade was insane because you automatically have dramatically your championship window for no other reason. then you traded a guy who's 25 for a guy who's about to be 32. And like you just, there's a reason that never happens. And Nico Harrison's own words, they're built to a noun in the future. And the future is a three to four year time frame.

Whereas, hey, maybe they end up being right about Lucas body breaking down and all that. But you look at a guy who's 25 years old and you think you got probably a decade long runway with him. Yeah. If you have a guy like Janice or Nicole Yokic, you're one of those guys, that's the kind of window you look at. still has runway left and that's why people are watching that because the the bucks organization is they've robbed peter to pay paul they've traded all the picks they're spending tens of millions of dollars they're losing all kinds of money they're way into the luxury tax so but that's either here nor there we'll see how that plays out we'll just keep an eye on that in the second half

they're out playing tonight against the clippers okay yannes is supposed to come back all right you guys got to go to work thank you mr bontem's thank you mr mcm thank you mr mcm thank you to Jackson, our producer. Last chance, McMahon to settle on a restaurant. We've settled. The Olive Garden. The bet, the bet is off. Is that a sponsor?

The bet is if... McMahon is going to get obliterated when people hear him... Dude, read the fine print on the bet ticket, buddy. So I'm going to say, I'm going to say. Read the fine print on the bet ticket. So I'm going to say, I'm going to say. People are going to just sprint, just laugh at you, just attempting to sprint to sprint a way again. Nobody will ever sprint to your defense. I can promise you that.

All right. Thank you. We'll talk to you later or actually next week. Dioos and Hocom.