Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - NBA Gambling Scandal Breakdown + Wemby’s MVP Level & Other Wild Performances

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss the impact around the league following the news of the arrests made in connection to the FBI's gambling inquiries involving Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones. Then, the guys tackle Victor Wembanyama’s sensational season opener for the Spurs before talking an underrated aspect of San Antonio's victory. Plus, a sensational night for the 76ers’ guards, Embiid’s health concerns, the Knicks strong start and much reaction to the biggest moments to the start of the NBA season. 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. Who Pellective podcast, we talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon slash evening, joining me from New York City, where his day began at an FBI-led press conference in the Eastern District of New York's attorney's offices or somewhere over there. Tim Bondhams.

My day I actually began when I woke up at 845 to a text from Bobby Marks and said, somebody should wake Baxter up. I called Bobby Marks and I said, well, you just woke me up. So what happened? Then he told me what happened. Next thing you know, you were in front of Cash Patel, which I don't think you had in your bingo card. I did not have that on my bingo card today or any day, frankly. Joining us from Dallas, where he's seen two of the more interesting games this week.

He was in Oklahoma City for Ring Night. And then last night for what was supposed to be the Cooper Flag debut, but it was the Victor Wimbunyama Show is Ben McMahon. Howdy, partners, a slightly old. overshadowed by the Victor Wiminyam performance was Cooper Flagg. He had a double double. That was a good performance. He had 10 and 10. Didn't get an assist as a starting point guard. We'll get into it all a little bit later. I'm tempted to give a band sleep update off my

back-to-back to begin the season. But Bontas is at a rough day? I don't think wants to hear it all. I don't think he does either. Well, no, listen, everybody's, it's been a busy week for everybody. Did you, did you venture over to the Tiki this week? No. No, there was not. It was, you know how I do with single digit AM flights. I definitely have one of those to get back to shoot around to get, you know, two full days of TV, two very intriguing games, one very good game, one fascinating game last night in Dallas for sure, for a variety of reasons. All right.

So we'll talk about that in a minute. I do want to talk about that. But obviously, Bontemps, you ended up into the story of the day, potentially long. in the NBA with the FBI podcast, with the Eastern District of New York and various other folks, even the police commissioner of New York City was there, to announce the two indictments that included John C. Billups, Damon and Damon Jones, and a whole bunch of other people. This is a complex thing. I understand the average fan is probably wondering, what does it mean for the NBA? What does it really mean? Also, Terry Rozier.

So can you, since you've been talking about it all day, you don't have to give us the nuts and bolts because the nuts and bolts will have been covered by folks. But as you've had a bunch of conversations today and digested this, what do you think is most important for MBA fans to realize coming out of these indictments that have affected the league? I mean, I would say a couple of things. I would say first, from an on-court perspective, I think the one thing that's truly relevant is that Chauncey Billups will not be coaching the Blazers now and maybe. ever, but certainly not anytime soon. And look, I was on my way home from Cavs Nix Wednesday night, and I was watching Blazers' Wolves. It was a great game.

Blazers only, Blazers were up most of the game. Minnesota ends up winning thanks, Anthony Edwards, hitting a couple dagger shots down the stretch, including one ridiculous shot over Tomani Kumar late in the game. But we've talked a lot about Portland being an interesting team this year. They have all these various, you know, they trade for Drew. holiday this summer. They just extended Shaden Sharpton Tomadi Kumar. Like, Chaucer got extended along with Joe Cronin this spring. Like, they're

trying to ascend in the Western Conference and make some noise. And last night, I was thinking, man, like, could be a pretty good season for Portland. Like, you know, and that obviously completely flips around this morning when you have this news come out about Chaucerbillips. Your incoming owner, Tom Dundan, actually came

to the game last night, sat alongside Jody Allen, who's selling the team in the coming weeks and months. And you know, I actually ran into members of the Timberwolves. It's actually kind of a weird situation here in L.A. The hotel where I stay at, a lot of teams are always staying here. The Brewers were staying here when I was here last week. The Vikings and the Timberwolves are staying in this hotel right now, which is sort of a dream for a Minnesota sports fan, and some of their fans are at the hotel.

Saw J.J. McCarthy as a Cavs fan. I'm sorry, as Ohio State fan. I was very tempted to say something to him out of respect, out of respect. But I ran into Chris Finch and some other wolves personnel. They were in Portland last night. And it was a great game for Ann Edwards. He put up 40, had a couple of great plays down the stretch, including a absolute dagger jumper that won the game in the closing seconds. Unfortunately, that's not what anybody wanted to talk about. But that was one of the things that Finchie said, Bontemps, was the Blazers got some stuff going for him. Like, that's going to be a team that nobody wants to see. And of course, playing up in Portland when they're good is always a tough place to play.

But that's pushed to the back burner now. I will say that from the NBA perspective, the poker stuff involved in this is fascinating. And I'm sure if you consume media. It reads like Ocean's 11. It does. When you read the indictment, like the sports betting indictment is pretty bland and straightforward. It's like this game, you know, this conversation about this game, et cetera. the other one has got like laser technology and all kinds of crazy technological stuff.

It's super interesting. By the way, McMahon, have you seen the FBI put out some of the stuff that they use in these poker? Yeah. Have you seen that stuff? Yeah, I saw like the glasses and like the card, like the show the numbers on the cards and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I tell you what. Man, this makes me sick.

Like I think we all like Chauncey. have enjoyed our interactions with Chauncey, you know, innocent until proven guilty, blah, blah, blah. But if this is what they say it is, what an awful way to throw away dozens of millions of dollars and potentially your freedom. Well, we don't know. Let's just take a step back. We don't know about that.

So let's get to the other part of the question, right? So obviously there's the on-court part, Portland, you know, Therreger's a bit player at best for the heat at this point. At this point, but he wasn't when this happened. No, no, no, I'm saying. But from a current on-court basketball perspective, Terry Rozier is not really a relevant NBA player. Damon Jones is obviously not a relevant NBA player.

He's not employed by an NBA team right now. That's what I mean. Well, yes, but he's just not relevant for any of this stuff going forward from a basketball perspective. Chauncey Billups is the one component of this that has really significant, immediate on-court basketball ramifications. Tiago Splitter, former Spurs Center, has bounced around, been an assistant coach with the Nets. He just was the coach of Paris basketball in the Euro League a couple of years ago.

He's been with the Blazers. He's now taking over to the interim head coach. Maybe it's an audition for him. Again, this is a team that's got some chances to do stuff. You mentioned they just were sold. Like, there's a lot of stuff going on with Portland. But then from an off-court perspective, you and, I mean, I've tried to help David Purdam a little bit. our colleague David Purdam, our betting experts,

on an unbelievable job at this stuff for years. Brian, I know you've spent time working with him. Tim, I don't know if you ever dealt with David, but he's been all over this stuff going back to 2023 when most of the games in these complaints were taking place. The one everybody immediately knew about was Terry Rozier. You know, you, I believe, wrote the story with David at the time, Brian, about Terry Rozier playing a few minutes in a game,

sitting out the rest of the game. There was a spike in bets around Taylor, Terry Rozier underse in that game. That then led to an investigation. Terry Rozier was cleared and allowed to come back and play by the NBA over the past couple of years. I think it's safe to say at some point. The NBA will have to address sort of that sequence of events and how they got from

investigating Terrier to allowing him to be cleared to play to then this happening now. But like you said, without getting into all the intricacies of the other games involved here and different players involved and all that stuff. I think the interesting thing to monitor from an off-court standpoint going forward for the NBA is how much more stringent are they going to be regarding injury reporting timelines and injury reporting in general. I was just at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night where the Knicks have all kinds of obfuscation going on about their players.

Carl Anthony Town status was changing multiple times during the day. It was unclear right up until half an hour before Tip whether he was going to to play in the game. He never worked out. Nobody could, I mean, I had a reporter come up to me two minutes before he was ruled in and say, credible reporter, say, this guy never showed up out here. There's no way he's playing. I had heard he was playing. Other people had heard he wasn't playing. It turned out he did end up playing. But, like, that was just one player. Mitchell Robinson status has been up in the air for weeks. Josh Hart's status has been up in the air for weeks. You know, that's just one team with the Knicks and with some guys that are dealing with

back and foot issues in Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart's case, right? So I think that is going to be interesting to watch. And the other thing is, I think two days ago, Adam Silver went and gave an interview where he said, I would like to see prop bets curtailed or regulated or reduced from where they are. And given pretty much all of these things, some of them involved just players not playing, but a good number of them have involved prop bets. I expect that the conversation around prop betting and what the impact of that is going to be and how much of that's going to exist is going to also continue for the league because that has been a big part of all of these various things that have gone on. Let me just have a few bullet points and then we'll move on because I want

to talk about Victor Wymaniam. There's been a lot of fun basketball this week that has suddenly been overshadowed. Yeah, we're just getting a couple of bullet points. We're going to move on. First off, the unders investigations are not new. We obviously, John T. T. Port has already pled guilty. Terry Rozier, literally the day of the Terry Rozier thing, the sports books caught it and flagged it. It's been a struggle to prove it. The NBA doesn't have the subpoena power that the FBI has. Having said that, I do think they have the ability to seize Terry Rozier's phone, but I'm not sure exactly how their investigation went. So let's just see what comes out about that. But obviously, the NBA does have a little bit of egg on their face when it comes to

clearing Terry Rozier, which is what his attorney essentially said to this. He goes, you cleared my client. My client moves on and now this happens. Okay. The third thing is for decades in the NBA, there has been this soft spot. The soft spot is because of strategy, the NBA teams don't reveal what's happening, particularly with star players. Very often, not all of the time, but very often, before a game is played, when a player

is questionable or game time decision, the team actually. knows he's either going to play or not because they have a shoot around in the morning. And it's that soft period in between when the decision's been made and when the decision has been made public that all of this is operated in. You and I, all of us, have had people reach out to us and say, hey, is so-and-so playing tonight? Because there's, Shams operates in this world. Shams comes on to NBA today and reports in the afternoon because he's like, yep, the players were told this morning that so-and-so is going to play. It's not all. All the time, though, obviously there are sometimes when a player is truly a game time decision.

And he's got to go out there and see how the calf feels or the wrist feels or whatever. It's not an ironclad thing. But that soft spot in there about when a decision is made and when the decision is public is where the conspiracy can happen. And that is where the conspiracy happened in this. Yes, there's betting about unders. But what's been accused in this case by the FBI, I don't know if it's true, is that Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones and an unnamed Orlando Magic player, because it was also an Orlando Magic thing spoke to somebody who made a bet

and they told other people who made a bet. Just to back up, you said Chauncey Billups is named in this indictment. Well, he's not. You're correct. You roll your eyes, but he is not. He's not. The details make it clear to him.

Well, the details on these things do matter. I agree. He is a, there is a co-conspirator in the indictment that was an, an NBA player from 1997 to 2014, who lives in Oregon, who's been a coach this 2021, and who informed people who are indicted about a player on the Blazers on his team, not playing in a game against the Bulls a couple years ago. Now again, about the Blazers going into full tank mode.

Yeah, correct. Now, again, you can draw a line to that being Chaunty Billis very easily, but he is named as an indicted person in one thing, and he's not in the other. It's just worth That's right. You're absolutely right. But let me just also point out that this sort of soft target of whether a player is going to play or not, obviously the NBA knows about it. And obviously they have taken steps to try to address it in recent years since sports gambling became more legalized across the country, including much more high-level, high-layered injury reporting, which now gets updated throughout the day. And if they believe that a player, that a team was not being, you know, truthful or in a timely matter following their protocols, they find them. They have fined many teams for this. But it is still not perfect. And that's what, and, and, and let me just say, I suspect, I don't know, I suspect the reason that Chauncee was not named, but only described as a co-conspirate, or although they basically give his resume in the indictment. There's no way you can conclude that it's anybody other than Chauncee.

They practically give his birthday. The reason that Damon Jones was, was is because according to the indictment, Damon Jones directly sold the information. He said, you guys should bet on this game tonight because somebody's not going to play, which looks like was LeBron. They don't say LeBron, and they don't accuse LeBron of wrongdoing, but it looks like it was LeBron in the game. He got money for that. And actually, he did it twice according to this.

He probably, well, I just said it. He did it twice. And the second time, LeBron and AD did play, played their normal minutes, and the Lakers won. the betters lost their money and they were pissed off. And wanted a refund. Yes. And look, I've known Damon for 20 years. Damon is a character. It is what it is.

I've also known Chauncey for many years. It was a co-worker here at ESPN. And it's just, it's very unfortunate this is happening. So we do this. But the league has addressed this. My speculation is that they're going to have to address it more coming out of this. Well, at some point are going to have to talk about the timeline of events at some level on the Terry Ruggier thing.

nothing else. I agree. They're going to have to explain that. And I just think that in general, they're going to have to put it to teams more. I know that it's going to cost you strategy, but you just got to say, you got to say what a player is going to play or not when you made the decision. If you have made the decision, fine. But if everybody walks out a shoot around, knowing the player's not playing, and then you don't report it until 530 at night, and there's dozens of people that know. It's a big, it's a big window. And that's been the case for decades. And inside information has reigned for decades. And so, you know, this is not a situation that I think is going to shake the NBA to its core because the NBA has operated like this for decades.

But it is another reminder that in the current situation with the current microscope and the current, you know, proliferation of sports betting that there is going to be more rules and everything required. And the teams aren't going to like it, but it is what it is. And it is worth pointing out that. it was repeatedly said this morning at the press conference in Brooklyn that the investigation is still ongoing. So it doesn't mean there's definitely going to be more names that come out or more stuff that happens or whatever. But there's, you know, there's a co-conspirate in here who is at quote, who's said

to be at quote, at times an NBA player. So there's at least another at some level NBA player involved. So there's, you know, there certainly could be more things that come out in the future that change the scope of this beyond what we know today. also. Yeah. And one thing I also will say, Malik Beasley was not involved in today's indictments at all. Right. But the Eastern District of New York, which is who put this out, is the entity that has been investigating Malik Beasley. And so if the NBA just saw a player that it cleared, again, get indicted, you can believe that Malik Beasley situation will be carried very, very carefully going forward because because the FBI has been invested.

And the Attorney General of Eastern District in New York has been More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. You know, investigating. Okay. Now, McMahon, Victor Wimbunyama. I don't know that I've ever witnessed in person a more physically dominant performance than Wimby's Open. I mean, the stats are ridiculous.

40 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks, 70 plus percent from the floor, no turnovers in 30 minutes. But when I say physically dominant, he's obviously always been seven foot several. You know, they say seven foot four and change officially. So I'm going to say seven foot several inches tall. Ridicously athletic for that size. Dude, this guy is added such an element of power to his game. he's still wiry, but he is filling out. He reminds me, he's taller, obviously, but he reminds me of Janus early in his career.

Remember, Janus came in the league of string beam and worked his way into becoming just this muscular monster. And Wimby's in the midst of making that sort of transformation. You know, J. Kidd talked about the core strength that you can tell Wemby has really focused on and developed. And you can't knock this guy off balance. I was talking to AD after the game. And he was talking about just how you take all that.

And then he's really developed an understanding of angles. And man, if Wimby gets just a little inch on you, just a tiny little angle, he's so long and athletic. The launch points on some of these dunks, it really does look like a dude who's playing on a nerve hoop. I mean, it was, he had seven dunks. He had like four in the first, however many minutes. And it was like each one was more ridiculous than the last one. I mean, the one that really stands out is when he pump fakes, takes one dribble from the wing,

gets PJ Washington in the air. Cooper Flax doubles him was completely irrelevant. One dribble takes off from one side of the hoop, gets fouled by AD and reverse dunks it on the other side of the hoop. There were at least eight or ten times during last night's game that I'm sitting there watching on Press Row. And I just stole my hands up and shake my head. Like I've never seen anything like the, I mean, the crowd is just the loudest gasps that you could possibly imagine. And then the skill, the freaking skill. There was one sequence.

Derek Lively's seven foot one, right? Seven foot one guys don't really get their jump pox blocked. And when they do, it's like a, it's, you know, you get a piece of it. Wimpy smacked it down. Mike Wright calls these dad blocks, and I think that's the best way to describe them. I'm out playing. That's a good line by Corle Young.

And my boys are 12, so they're even growing out of this a little bit. Like when they were eight or nine, and I decided I want to swap their stuff, that's what Wimby, some of Wemies blocks look like. Well, he does that. Then he ends up with a ball at the top of the arc, and he's getting in his bag.

He's getting his bag. This is one of only two threes that he attempted. This guy goes between the legs, crossover, back between the legs, behind the back, step back, three, swish, and one. We've never seen anything like this. Never. All that stuff is great, right? And it was incredible to watch him do the stuff last night. But what did, you guys would make fun of me last year, but what, what for the last two years have I harped on Victor Wemma and Yama about doing?

The shot. Floating around, floating around on the perimeter and not being a enormous dude and dunking the ball, right? Of them last night. Right. So I, during the preseason, I actually looked this up last week because we were talking about the Spursorith.

And we didn't ever get to it. And obviously became wildly relevant last night. The last year, he shot half his shots basically from three. And he shot way more threes than free throws a game. Yeah. The preseason, it was obviously in limited minutes. He took 10, 3.

pointers in five preseason games. He took 25 free throws. Last night, he took 11 free throws. He took two threes. He had seven dunks. He had no turnovers. By the way, those two threes, that's fewer than any game last year that he played in. That's right. So with Victor Webbenyama, and this is the line I've used about him since last year, I understand. I'm not saying we're putting a ceiling on him to use your line, Brian. There's clearly no ceiling on him. But if he is focused on being a play finisher, and not a play creator. He is virtually unstoppable because he is so athletic

and so big. Like these lobs last night, they're just flinging the ball up near the rim and he's grabbing it from jumping from outside the free throw line. He's making these, these did that reverse dunk when it looked like he was standing on the ground

and it was like an AI generated image. I mean, he, when he is around the rim and aggressive and with the extra strength, I think he feels confident to be able to get to the rim against anybody.

He is like, you just can't, can't do anything with him. And I thought, frankly, it was shocking to see how awful he made Anthony Davis look. Like Anthony Davis has been one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, or interior defenders in the league, one of the best defenders in the league for a decade. And he made Anthony Davis look like he might as well and not even been on the court. It was shocking. Yeah, there was the drive. And a lot of this stuff was, was, was kind of your traditional play finishing, but he also did

a lot of creating off the dribble, dominate off the dribble. And one in particular on AD, he just goes by him, lefty. And it was one of those, again, where he didn't have a whole lot of an angle, but he had him on his hip a little bit and just took off and that go-go gadget

left arm. He was on his hip and then he was in his rear room mirror in about a millisecond. And that arm stretched out, stretched out, and boom, just throws it down with his left hand. But then he's doing he's doing stuff like that. And then he's like doing stuff like going left and kissing it softly off the glass on a runner.

I mean, he's putting the ball between his legs in traffic and hitting turn around. But to your point, he is an inside out player now. And he is a dominant big man who can shoot threes, not a seven foot several guard that he's kind of played as. I just want to say one other thing really quick, too. I thought it was fascinating that he and the starters were in that game till three, four, five minutes left on the clock last night when they were up 30. I felt like, and man, you were there. So maybe you disagree or you agree.

But I felt like that entire game was a very clear statement of intent from Victor especially that, yeah, you know what? I know I had to leave last season because of this blood clot. And I, you know, wasn't around in the summer. but I am back and I am coming for all the stuff that I've been talking about for years. And somebody around Victor alerted me to a quote that I had missed earlier in the preseason when he said that his training regimen this summer was world class and that he went into the summer doing it that way to come back and be ready to do whatever he needed to do this year.

And it was another example of him saying things that are wildly arrogant when you read them. But if you hear him say them, it is just him saying stated facts because it's just stuff no one else what he can do. He was saying because he had all those things that happened. You saw him all over the world playing soccer with the Shaolin monks. But he was basically saying nobody worked harder in the whole league than I did this. And basically I'm going to show you. You know, going back to, you know, meeting his coaches when he was 12, 13, 14 years old, Bontem's they used to say the same thing you did, which is stop floating around the outside, please, the closer you get to the basket, the more your size matters. But Victor always views himself as a basketball who's tall, not a tall person who plays basketball.

Well, it's not, again, it's not like the diet of 11 to 2 is perfect. Like, doesn't have to be two, but get free throws, get dunks and then also take some shots from the perimeter. So they have to guard you. And then like you said, Big Man, then you get AD out there on the perimeter. I'm just going to go right by the one dribble for a dunk. He did the Cooper flag, too. Go on with you. So even, I always knew, I always knew that there would be a day where Victor would sort of

realize that this is what he had to do. You know, Janus, for example, he averaged his most threes per game in his seventh season. Right. Which he also won the MVP. It wasn't like he had a dog gear. But Janus was still trying to shoot three-pointers midway through his career. And now, Janus, by the way, is relentless going to the basket. In fact, last night, in his first game of the season, he took 21 shots in the paint.

He had 30 paint points. 30 paint point. Right. He had 15 shots in the paint in his first game. So Victor... Unbelievable. You know, and so in the preseason, the scouts started noticing this. So last year, 40% of Victor's shots were in the paint.

And in the preseason, I realize it was small sample size, but in the preseason, 75% of his shots were in the paint. And the scouts started flagging. that. In their reports, they were like, hey, pay attention to this. I talked to someone in San Antonio last night, and they said that Victor is relishing being the bully. Yes. Hey, the guy takes a lot of pride in his work ethic, and that certainly is seen in the weight room. And yeah, he's taking pride in the fact that he can overpower people, not just be taller than them, but there were multiple times, including against Anthony Davis, where he gave a bump to create space before going

up. Yeah, I mean, if he plays with that level of aggression, the reason the three pointers was so frustrating was you're giving the other team the outs, right? Like, if Victor's shooting eight, nine, three's a game, like, he could easily go two for nine or one for nine. Like, yeah, he might go five for nine in a game, but like, you're seven, five and insanely athletic and can do all these things, like, take advantage of it. And that's where you watch this game. last night against the team that we talked all preseason is big and long and athletic. They're starting basically all six, nine or bigger dudes. They're starting Cooper Flagg's a good defender at point guard.

They're starting Anthony Davis and Derek lively, like two real legit defensive bigs. Who got in foul trouble like that, by the way. And he's getting them all in foul trouble. He's getting to the rim with ease. Like you said, he's dunking the ball. It gets a Nerf ball. Like I was watching the game after Cavs Nix just going like there was just four or five times. I was saying they're going, oh my God, I can't believe he did that.

And, you know, they completely demolished Dallas. Oh. And they win, they win by 30. You've got go Spurs, Go's Chance in the arena. Not only have a Go! No, no, his go chance, but Wimby gets up from the bench, turns around to the crowd, and says, go, Spurs, go! And waves his hand.

And then those chants broke out big time. Well, and this has been the thing, to go back to the thing about his arrogance, arrogance being like the way he can come off in terms of how he says things. Like the thing that's always been so exciting about Victor, and we've talked about it since Brian has started going over and discovered him in France. He is nobody knew. This guy has spent a decade probably, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, thinking about being the best player on the planet.

Like his whole singular focus is to be the most dominant basketball player on the planet, maybe the most dominant basketball player ever, right? It's all of his life choices are all centered around. How can I be as good at this as possible? And the guy's still a puppy in basketball years. He's like 21 or two years old. And he's scratching the surface of what he can do. And you watch this kind of game and you watch what he's doing.

And it's like, at the end of day, all of us are big basketball fans. You watch this game. It's just like, what is next for this guy? like anything is truly possible for this guy, in part because you know he's going to be driven to do everything possible to get even better going forward. And the first year and a half for him in the NBA, unfortunately that second year, cut short by the blood clot issue, the first year and a half was exploration for him. You know, don't put me in a box.

Let me spread my wings. Let me, you know, let me explore. It's gone from exploration to that's a sign that this is going to be just domination. Now, do it every single night, right? He needs to be a consistently dominant force. He's obviously that talented. He's put in the work. He's a top five player in the league right now.

That is a top five, no question talent. Well, our editor Adam Reisinger texted me last night and said, you know, we had Victor at five an NBA rank and it already feels too low. And I said, right, certainly does. last year the top five in the MVP there was only one American I think was Tatum right yeah and uh so Luca wasn't in there because he was injured but uh you know Lucas was off to a great start he looked great that his team didn't but he looked great um a great start but then he got going once he came back go on whatever he had 40 and 12 or nine I think he did okay oh you're talking about the other night yeah my bad I thought he came in last year no yeah sorry the um but you know

who knows what happened but like it's certainly reasonable thing that Luca could be a top five MVP candidate. Maybe Victor will continue this and he'll be a top five MVP candidate. Janus has been there for a decade basically. And, you know, Yokic has won three of them and Shea is a defender. And I mean, we're going to talk about Shay in a second here. I don't know if we're going to have an American in the top five, gents. It might be a while. Listen, when we forget that? When's the next American is, I mean, I mean, once the next American is winning MVP? When I, I don't know. It'll be a decade. Listen, when's the next non-Frenchman? I don't want to overreact to one game,

but it's one game that, like, that's what we thought he was capable of. Is this ever been one game to overreact to? That's the game to overreact to, to the seven-foot whatever phenom looking like having the Neo moment and figuring it out. I love the Neo moment. Do you think Jackson...

That was like the bullets falling. Jackson, does Jackson know the Neo moment? No. Yeah. So, yeah, I, yeah, Neo, I was, Jackson, when I say Neo, do you know what I'm talking about? I'm familiar. It's a Matrix reference, correct?

Yeah, I was talked about, you know, LeBron had this moment. Yonis had the, oh, Jay Jackson knows it. Janus had the moment in the 21 finals in game six where he just, you know, he realizes that he can control everything. Yeah. You know, I think Luca will have that moment at some point. He has the ability to do it. It takes you out of, Neo didn't complain to the referees.

he didn't complain. So Luca has to focus on Mr. Anderson. Yeah. But Victor is the type of guy you could do it. Maybe this was it. I was thinking about what Brutwick Man said before. I think that's probably the answer for me on the physically dominant player one. It's either that 50-20 piece for Janus in game six.

Or you remember the game against the nets, Brian, heat nets. 2014 in the second round in Brooklyn when he had a run at 50. He had he had I think it was I think it was 49 of a 41 and he hit Chris Bosch for that three in the corner to win the game but it was like LeBron just was like okay I'm just going to win this game by myself basically and just like that was when he was a peak human the game six the game six in Boston when he had 46 in a game that was an incredible. performance, but I just meant from like physical

like brute domination over the game because he was just like steamrolling the nets that whole game and they just had no prayer of doing anything. And that that is the mentality shift and the you know the shot diet shift from Wimby where again there was still a ton of skill on display. The handle the touch like some of the shot making but I'm just the dominant overpowering and just used the size, the strength in the paint. And as you said, this is something, this is not like it just happened last night. It's been all preseason long. And I'm talking to one of the Spurs

coaches after shoot around. And I'm like, I know he's very proud of his perimeter skills and, you know, kind of being the world's biggest guard. Like, does he want to be, you know, primarily a paint player or at least an inside out player? And I was told he wants to be great. That's the thing that's so exciting. He just, he wants to, he wants to be the best. Like, not that other guys don't. I don't mean it that way. But like he, he's so openly focused on, he is so openly focused on being the best and has been for years.

And it's just, that's what makes the whole package of him so exciting because it's, I mean, it's like LeBron and it's like Corrine. They're really, to me, the only two guys you could compare him to in terms of walking into the league with both the physical gifts and the wherewithal all to achieve that kind of level. And those are, and Will, sure, that's the other one, right? Those are the three guys. And those are three of what, the six best players of all time, right? So like, okay, like that that's the kind of realm we're talking about with this guy. It's awesome to want it.

It's another thing to do the things required to get it, which again, it's a weight room. It's, you know, Mike Wright had the story about his summer and like the monk stuff is kind of interesting and fun. This guy got in the gym with Corrine, or I'm sorry, with the king. And you can see that too, by the way. Also, hey, he's not the only recent rookie of the year on that Spurge roster that was dominant last night. Well, that's the other thing. The stuff in Castle and Dylan Harper looked really good last night.

Dylan Harper looked better than Cooper? If that fair, I mean, he had a better debut. He also didn't have to be guarded by Stefan Castle. Okay. Cooper flag was. And he's not playing point guard too. Like that's another factor. Which we all agree will be good long term, but short term, it's going to be some growing pains.

And the Mavericks have some offensive issues. I don't want to overreact to one game. I want to let that breathe a little bit. Spurs might have the best defensive duo in the league in Winby and Castle. But the fact that Cooper Flagg only got two shots in the first half, and one of those was a lot, but he wasn't able to finish in the first possession of the game in transition. Let me tell you, Stefan Castle had a lot to do with that. And one, like, look, Cooper 5 has never played point guard, right?

That's a transition he's making. He didn't have a single assist last night. He only had one potential assist, according to NBA.com's track. Is that right? Yeah, he only had one potential assist. The ball was very sticky. It was an awful offense performance. But, man, Stefan Castle had a lot to do with Cooper struggles.

There was twice that he just picked him, just picked him on the program. By the way, speaking of lockdown defenders, the game you were at the night before, There was a lot that went on in that game in Oklahoma City, where they double overtime. I mean, amazing first night, first game out of the gate. Shea Gildesis Alexander, who had a very mediocre first three quarters, like, was just had several just jaw-dropping plays, a lot going on. Lou Dort and what he did to Kevin Durant down the stretch of that game. You know, there's defenders, Kaysen Wallace is an example, certainly Kasson. as an example. There's defenders that

Dyson Daniels is the primary example. There's these perimeter defenders that you just notice all the time because it's deflections. It steals. They're creating chaos. Caruso is a guy like that. Dort, you notice because the other team's best player doesn't get to touch the ball. That's the thing. People were like, why isn't

Durant shooting? I think he had three shots in the last 25 minutes. Because Lou Dort is in his chest. I know. Durant was having trouble getting open. Yeah. And, you know, one of the debate, you know, McMahon and I, well, I don't know, I don't want to assume where McMahon is, but Bon Temps and I are kind of on opposite sides of this. I think the rockets are eventually going to need to get a veteran

point guard. He doesn't have to be a star because I think they're just going to need some of them to get organization. But Bon Temps thinks that Amend Thompson can do it. And you may be right. I'm not like pounding the table on that. But they have to let that breathe a little bit because of the apron issues. They literally don't have to. Well, I mean, they don't, you know, you're allowed to make a tray. You don't have to sign a player. Yes. I'm saying. Let's see how they look when they're not playing the Thunder. Yeah. And I think they want to let that breathe. They want to give them in Thompson. Yeah, they want to give Reed Shepard a chance too. I tell you, Reed Shepard, and, you know, he's going to be able to score. Oklahoma City can't really shudge a score and performance against

OKC. It's a little different. Man, he's got to get better defensive. Lou Dort. I know. They attacked him. Like, come on. I mean, again, I would be better defensively. Reed did not play great in that game. I would just say that was pretty much the first ever game, Ritch Eppard has played. And it felt on TV like it was game A to the conference finals.

And it was, that was one of the most fun games I've ever sat and watched from start to finish. It was awesome. I was so jealous of McMahon and our buddy Manix sitting at the court side. McMahon had a great seat. McMahon was. I saw Joe Varden last night at Cavs Nix. He was there with you too.

I was very jealous of you guys sitting watching the game. So again, that game, I'm going to see where we're at Reed Shepard in a month. I'm going to see where we're at with a man, Thompson who I thought had a very good game in a month. Like, a parent Shangoon looked amazing in that game. If the shooting is real for him, that's a game changer. I'll tell you one thing. The next time they play, they can't put Alex Caruso on Shingun. Shangoon just shot over them repeatedly.

I mean, they had to at the end of the game because, Hartnstein had fouled out. Well, and they decide, they went small to start the second half, which they do fairly off. They put Caruso in the starting lineup instead of Hartnstein. Basically, they said, hey, big versus big, they're kicking our butts. Let's go size versus speed and see how they fare. And that, you know, that was part of Shea getting going. She had five points in the first half. I think it was only four or five shot attempts. It was just lower scoring than any first half he had all last season. Two overtimes, but he ends up with.

30. Turned it up. Turned it up from there. Yeah, cranking it up and opening the floor and cranking up the tempo. Got that going. I'll say this, seeing Thompson up close, that's another guy who's spent some time in the wait room, man. And he's still a kid. Like, he still has a baby face. You know, he's still got some. I'm not sure how much he's shaving. No. And but dude, he looks like he could, like if the Texan signed him, I think you could get him 12 sacks a season. He's looks like a freaking pass rusher. I mean, his shoulders are, you know, jacked up. His calves, and they were cramping up, you know, because there's a lot on them, but

his calves are massive. And there is a lot on him because not only is he running point for them and dealing with that, obviously, major increasing responsibilities, he's still guarding the best player. And that's a big, big deal. It's a big ask. That's Shay. that's Luca.

You know, that's Steph. Like, we can go on down the list. It's Job Moran. We can go on down the list on a nightly basis in the Western Conference. He's got that on his plate still. And not to get too far into Rocket stuff, Stephen Adams played 37 minutes. 37 minutes. Yeah, that's not the way it's going to go.

And also, Josh Okoji played a lot more minutes than normal. Obviously, that's going to be Doreen Phine Smith at some point. Mid November is the proof. Oh, that's interesting. It was a very rough Tarisian game, too. But again, that was, that was, like it was so much fun, super high level. Let's check back and see where these teams are at down the road. So lost in how great Victor was, maybe, maybe.

Chet had a terrific game as well. Chet had a terrific, he had a terrific offensive first half when they really needed it because Shay couldn't get going. He kept him afloat. You know, he did struggle some with the Rockets size and physical. I think everybody in the league is going to struggle with the rocket size of physicality. Yeah, I'm just, I'm telling you watching. Victor might even struggle a little bit with their size of physicality. Watching that game and then watching some of the other games on opening night,

it wasn't quite the same level. No. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Before we go, and a lot of times has got two real quick, Luca related updates. Yeah, of course. Wait, wait, hold on. Let me ask the bosses.

SPN. Excuse me. Are we allowed to put something in about the lake? Oh, we are? Okay. I just got the approval. We can talk about the Lakers. All right.

First thing, you guys know, I like to see what kind of kicks everybody's wearing. Something I monitor. So walk in the Spurs shoot around. And our old pal, Sean Sweening, the Spurs new associate head coach is in there. A longtime right-hand man for J-Kid, including the last four years in Dallas. And lo and behold, what Sweeney, wearing on his feet? Oh, a pair of Luca twos. Ah, a little... Why would he do that? Why would he do that? Just in case you were wondering where he

stood on that specific deal. On a related note, just in case you're wondering where the maps fan base, or at least certain pockets of that fan base continued to stand, there was a gentleman who had a large Fire Nico banner in the crowd. There's video circulating online, of him departing after a brief conversation with a security guard. I can't say for certain that he was tossed, but that's what the video showed. And there were, I would say they were scattered fire Nico chance late in that game. Now, they weren't nearly as loud as the Wembe MVP chance or the Wimby induced Go Spurs Go chance, but there were scattered fire Niko chance from the fans who watched the Maverick score 92 points,

all really lacking any sort of creation or shopmaking. That's all. All right. Well, Bonn's Hemp's was at Madison Square Garden, as you mentioned earlier. You got to see the Nix totally pound calves corner, especially on the boards. And that's something to monitor, especially as the calves have been accused of not having the most intent when it comes to intestinal fortitude at times in the past. There was a good win for the NICs.

The calves are going to struggle a little bit offensively, I think, with some of their guys out. they will not be the same offensive power that they were last year while they're in this state. But I want to go up farther up Boston way. We thought this was going to kind of be an Embedged story. Obviously, Bontem's was a lot of excitement coming out of the 76ers themselves about VGA Edgecom. And he dropped my jaw several times when I saw him play the first two exhibition games. I certainly knew he was going to have some highlight plays early and often. But 14 points or 17 points out of the gate in the first quarter.

Talk about not having stage fright in a road game, in a road tough environment, and then putting up 34 alongside Tyrese Maxie. Embed had nothing. He didn't even make a shot from inside the paint for the first time in his career. He didn't take a shot inside the paint. Oh, he didn't take a shot. He was one of nine. They were all outside the paint. I was going to watch this game this morning.

I watched the last 40 seconds of the game or minute of the game last night and saw BJ Edgecom make two free throws to put the six was up three, then missed two when they were up one and looked like he might be the goat after an incredible game, only for Peyton Pritchard to miss a couple shots in the final 10 seconds to give the Sixers a win. Several scouts were at the game last Friday. I was at the game last Friday, the final preseason game. And B. Embedde looked pretty good in that game. I would not say he was back to like point in mid in Bede, but scouts were generally like, yeah, guy looks pretty good. Like, if he plays like this, they'll be okay. Both Pirates Max and Vigieg were excellent in that game also. So I have to plead the fifth a bit on Philly's performance

because some other things happened starting this morning. And I have not had to time to sit and watch Sixers Celtics and see how bad Embed looked in the game. I am going to be at Sixers Hornets on Saturday. I am very curious to see what Joelle looks like in that game. But I think the overall takeaway for me from preseason and from this opening game is that for the first time in several years for the Sixers, there's the, there's the, the Joel Embed has been the center of the universe in Philly. And while he's obviously still an important piece and they would love for him to get back to where he was before. I'm not so sure he's the center of the universe anymore.

And I think you're going to see with Tyrese Maxie and Vijay Hedgcombe and Quentin Grimes and Kelly Ubrae. And when they get him back, Jared McCain, Don Barlow, a two-way who I believe started at the four last night and has shown some things in preseason for them. They have a lot of young athletes and they're going to fly up and down the court. And even in that preseason game last week, and Bede was just sort of flinging passes halfway down the court and having guys run under him like, wide receivers. And I think what you're going to see is, you know, the Sixers for so long have been

kind of, well, if Joel is going to play or is he not, and what is he going to do if we're not? It feels like now, the way they're going into this season, it's, hey, we've got this young athletic, pretty small team. We're going to lean into that. We're going to fly up and down the court and wreak havoc and cause turnovers. And then we get in the half court. We have Joel and Bede. They shut up Paul George back pretty soon. We can have those guys try to score some points for us there. But it feels like they're trying to set an identity of being young and athletic and quick. And when you see VJ Edgecom have the game he had against Boston, when you see these young guys flying around and playing for them,

it looks like a formula that it could at least lead to a decent season for the Sixers if those guys could play anything like they did in game one. Well, there's not a lot of Eastern Conference teams that are like, wow, that looks great. You know, I think the Magic fans are the Magic fans. You know what they look pretty good Wednesday night? Oh, those Toronto rappers. I tried telling you boys about them. Hey, we're pretty good.

Listen to this. 86 points in the paint for the Raptors. 86. Yeah, a guy O'Me-Mogg himself had Trey Young, you know, pretty disgusted with his team's performance in game. I thought Chris was supposed to defend the rim. There's actually a lot of excitement about the Hawks, really rough to kill Alexander Walker game. I mean, I think Atlanta's probably going to be fine. That's an interesting example.

To go back to the Spurs really quick, Victor plays in all five preseason games, right? Clearly look ready to go. Trey Young talked about the fact they'd barely played at all and they hadn't been together. They have a bunch of new guys obviously, but their guys didn't really play a lot in the preseason. Something to monitor early on in the year as these teams try to get their legs under and get going. Like, you know, certainly look, I could add somewhat of an impact on Atlanta, but that's a good start for a Toronto team that's going to try to be competitive this year. Yeah, very good news also for Orlando because Jalen Suggs was able to make it back for the opener. And I think he had like 17 points or maybe 14.

points in 17 minutes, something like that. I think he was six or seven from the field. Certainly encouraging. It was, Jamal Mosley didn't say up until tip, whether he was going to play or start or anything. And, you know,

ultimately, ultimately he was able to go. And look, if Jaylen Suggs is on the court, Orlando's been pretty damn good the last couple of years. I hope all protocols were followed in letting the team, the player,

everybody know that the player was going to play. That's all I'm going to say. Protocols certainly followed by the grizzies with John Morant. They told him, I think they said a couple days before that he would be playing. He had ankle braces on, but 33 and, you know, hit the dagger against the pelican. So, you know, John is back and kind of start that he certainly wanted to have for the season. Back to Philly real quick, though, if there is a faster backcourt in the league, you're going to have to tell me who it is. Well, that's the thing.

I don't know what Philly's going to do, McMahon, because obviously if you got McBeed out there, you can't you can only play so fast. But how much is it going to be going to be out there? So they may just have two years, and that's not ideal, but that may be the way they have to play. Yeah, well, the future of that franchise is that back court for sure. Maxi's proved himself to be a star and has obviously the max contract. And it's the speed, it's the finishing. He's an incredible shotmaker. Edgecombe reminds me of young Dwayne Wade.

He's that type of, you know, he's kind of combo guard size with a shooting, more of a shooting guard game. He's a way better shooter than that's what I was getting to. He's such an explosive downhill attacking type of athlete. They'll take Dwayne Wade. That would go okay.

Well, he has a very thing. Always got to remember. When Wade came into the league, he was 22, 21 or 22, whereas, you know, these guys are 19. I will say this. I really, it's, I don't like how important the lottery is. It's,

it's no way to live. And it causes all these problems. by the way, some of this investigation was caused because of tanking. Yeah. Because of the lottery. But the way the lottery fell, like the Sixers have had a lot of bad stuff go against them. And some of it is they've put themselves, where they put their necks on the line a little bit. It's not all bad luck.

But they've had a fair helping of misfortune. Now, the way that lottery played out, they were on the edge having nothing. I've given on top. I'll give him the fifth overall pick. And now, like, look, we'll see what happens. Seventh, seven, yeah. We'll see what happens with Ace Bailey. Okay.

They're excited about them in Utah. Yeah, for sure. Ace Bailey might win Ricky the year for all I know. Whatever happens after that. If they get, if F.J. Edgargoe becomes a really good player, regardless of who's drafted after him. It comes. Well, I'm just saying that, I'm just saying they had a choice.

After the lottery, they then had a choice. Philly then had a choice. And they had, they elected to go with Vijay Edgecom. and if this ends up allowing them to totally change the direction of their franchise, like that could be remarkable. We'll see. And Phillies had great fortune in two cases recently. The maxi pick and what was the, Muscala was involved in that.

Well, it involved with the Thunder. Thunder didn't get to pick the first time and they are the second time. Yeah, the Thunder didn't get to pick the first time because Muscala hit the shot. And then they didn't get to pick the second time because the Sixers got lucky. a lotter. Man, if only anything went the thunder's way. I'll say they're okay. Hey, by the way, you know what thought I had last night as I was watching Stefan Castle? Af I'd watch Reed Shepard the previous night. What if the Rockets would have taken Castle? Nobody would have gotten the ball over half court with Thompson and Castle's back court together. The Rockets did take

Shengun with a Thunder pick, though. They did. And man, oh my goodness, if he's going to be knocking down threes. Holy moly. There's another foreign player who might be messing around on all-N-B-A. Listen, Joker is clearly the best center in the NBA, still the best player. We just ran out of time before we could talk

about the Clippers and Jazz. Oh, wait, wait. I'm sorry, I've got to go. Were you hyping up Zubots or Walker Kessler for all NBA this year? I don't recall, Senator. I don't recall. Congrats to the Jazz.

But man, it was a rough game for the clips. Congrats to the Jazz. And a friend of the podcast, Will Hardy. Will? Great first win. We'll get you on this podcast if you keep pulling off wins like that. We would have had them on today. Unfortunately, some other things came up.

We did have a guest plan for today that we had to cancel because I couldn't do it to him. I was just like, listen, we'll get to you later. I can't make you put you through this. Not today. He'd have been peppered with stuff. All right. Yes. Thank you to Bon Temps for, I think you got about

three hours of sleep and then has worked all day. Thank you to McMahon, who's coming off of a back-to-back. Thank you to Jackson, who's probably preparing for the Syracuse's game on Saturday. Thank you for listening and watching to the Hoop Collective. We will talk to you next week. Adios amigos.