The Ringer NBA Show - Cavs Fire Ty Lue, Early-Season Drama, Bud's Bucks, and Overlooked Teams | Heat Check (Ep. 328)

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

The Ringer’s John Gonzalez is joined by Shea Serrano to discuss the Cleveland Cavaliers firing head coach Ty Lue (4:32) and all the drama going on in the NBA regular season through two weeks (11:30). Then, Jonathan Tjarks comes on to talk about the undefeated Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors (33:36) as well as oft-overlooked teams with intriguing narratives (37:01). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Want an edge over Vegas? Download BetQL, the app you need to get an advantage this season, discover value bets, line movement, and find out what bets the public backs with BetQL and the best part. BetQL is free to download from your mobile device. Head to bettql.co and use promo code NBA for your three-day trial. Give yourself an advantage over Vegas and download BetQL. That's bettql.com with promo code NBA. And now he checked. The heat check. You knew that was coming. It's heat check time. Welcome to the heat check podcast.

I'm your host, John Gonzalez, joined as I am every week. It's a very special podcast this week, folks, by my producer, Isaac Lee. Isaac Iceman Lee. It was a big day in Los Angeles yesterday. One Austin Rivers. And for those heat check listeners who don't know, Isaac's favorite player in Clippers history is Austin Rivers. In fact, for Halloween...

Such patent untrue information. last five years running, he's gone as Austin Rivers right now. So incorrect. He's wearing his Austin Rivers footy pajamas to work. I didn't even know that those existed, but he's got him on. He looks very handsome in them. So Austin Rivers came back to Los Angeles with the Wizards to play the Clippers. And the best part about it was, I was at the game.

And I looked up in the first quarter, I think it was the first quarter. I don't know. I blacked out. And the Clippers blessed their hearts. I mean this with all sincerity, because sometimes I think the Clippers think that I'm disingenuous, but I'm not. I mean this very, very sincerely. The Clippers ran an Austin Rivers tribute video, and I don't know, space and time started to warp,

and my brain was oozing out of my ear. It was fucking fantastic. I immediately texted Isaac, who was quite dismayed. Dismayed is probably kind. My brain just kind of short-circuited. I think a piece of my soul died. I think that's irreparable. And it was shocking because I had looked.

at the schedule earlier in that day and I was like, oh, the Clippers are playing the Wizards. Austin Rivers is coming for the first time. This will be great to see Austin Rivers not play for the Clippers. He was not necessarily my favorite player when he was on the Clippers. So I was very excited to watch that. And to hear that they actually honored him for doing so much, so much for being such an inaugural member of the franchise for being beloved in Los Angeles, for being a mess. I mean, like, he left and LeBron Kemp. came, and I think the juxtaposition theirs is pretty... It's fair trade, yeah, yeah, sure.

Like, from one king to the next, the king is dead, long live the king. It was really an amazing night at the Clippers. We're going to get into that a little bit later. Why? Are we, we are? I don't want to get into that later. Can we stop it here? We're going to run a paschae because it was just...

The Wizards are in free fall. That has to be brought up the drama with the Wizards, but also Austin Rivers' tribute, video. I mean, the NBA, every time I turn around and I think the NBA can't get in better, it does. It absolutely does. we've got lots of NBA stuff for you on the Heat Check podcast. I want to say first, thanks for listening.

If you don't mind, please rate and review us on all of our fantastic Ringer NBA shows and pods, if you don't mind. And then also, of course, we have great content on the ringer.com. KOC has a fantastic Clay Thompson profile up right now. Palo did a piece after Ty Lou got bounced on why the cabs should clear out the rest of the LeBron era. And Zach Cram and Mike Bauman did a whole bunch of World Series stuff. I don't remember who won the World Series. It's not really important, but read their content.

Don't worry about who won. Just read their stuff about the World Series. It's really good. Later in the show, we're going to have Jonathan Charks on the program to break down a whole bunch of teams that we rarely discuss. We're going to talk about the Hornets, the Hawks, the Mavs, the Suns, the Gris. This is for deep NBA heads. It's why you come to the heat check pot.

So Charks is going to break all that down for us. But first, there's been so much drama in the NBA. There's a ton of storylines, as we said, Tailu got fired. The Wizards are in free. free fall. Okay, C only has one win. There's a beef between the Warriors and an actor and a singer. We're going to get into all of the drama with our resident drama correspondent. Let's hit it. All right, joining me on the other line. He's a repeat offender. He's one of our favorites here at the Heat Check podcast. It's Shay Serrano. Shea, I feel like I need to apologize to you because you should. I don't know what you're going to say, but you need to apologize before we start.

I should probably just have a blanket apology out there for you. But so I'm going to pull back the curtain a little bit, let the heat check listeners in on how we play in the program. You and Charks were supposed to be on the program last week. We had this big show planned. We were going to do all 30 NBA teams. And then the Lakers and the Rockets rumbled. And I was at the game and I was there with Palo,

and I was there with Jason Gallagher, producer of NBA desktop and a number of other ringer concerns. I was also there with KOC. And I figured, frankly, it was a lot of, Isaac's call. And I was like, no, no, we shouldn't do this, but Isaac was like insistent that we must talk about Lakers and Rockets. So I decided to redo the show and overhaul the entire outline. And so you got bumped ostensibly for KOC. And I feel like this is going to create some friction between us. And if you want to yell at me now because of that, I don't know if I'm on your enemy's list

with KOC now. I feel terrible. You should feel terrible. I rearranged my whole day to be on the thing. And then you tell me 10 minutes before. You knew they got in a fight that. night before. But you wait until 10 minutes to tell me. So yes, I no longer like you. I've a long time not liked Kevin. Now I super not like him. It's coming into focus to me now that everybody at the ringer will eventually be my enemy. On your nemesis list. And Bunk for your Nemesis, KOC. It was a double indignity. I feel terrible about it. Create a lot of drama at the ringer. There's a lot of drama in the NBA right now, which is why you're on. We're going to break down all of the drama across the league, and there's so much of it, including the calves getting rid of

poor Tailu. This feels like a mercy killing. If I was Tailu, I'd be pretty thrilled about it, actually. He started 0 and 6, and now he doesn't have to deal with it. He doesn't have to deal with it, but it was also incredibly unfair. This to me seems like you gave somebody a whole bunch of pieces of cardboard and told them to build you a house, and then you were mad that your house didn't turn out so great. He didn't deserve to be fired. How do you lose the best player on the planet and then you're mad that they're not good anymore. It's just unfair to Ty Lou. I don't know if he feels happy about it. He gets paid still, so maybe there's that, but it's never fun to be fired. I don't imagine. No, no. I don't think it was fun to be fired. I think if they were going to replace him and

they knew that they were going to go in a different direction if they got off to a so start, they should have done it before the season started. It's kind of like with Ryan McDonough, where it's like, oh, wow, the timing on this is a little weird. My whole point is just like that situation with Kevin Love going to be out for, you know, we think like about a month now. They have a bunch of players who aren't really starters so much as their complementary pieces masquerading as starters. Like that was always going to be like a heavy lift regardless. It turned out to be a much worse start than I think like anybody anticipated. But if I'm Ty Lou, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm good. It was a good run. It was a lot of fun. It's, oh, you want Larry Drew to do it? That's great.

My favorite part about this is so they fire Tailu. Tailu goes off with his money. There's a report that Larry Drew was going to take over his interim head coach. And within a couple of minutes of that report coming out, Shams tweeted another report, which was that Larry Drew hasn't agreed to take the interim head coach title with Cleveland, but will quote, continue as voice of head coach as team could look to assess their options.

Nobody wants this thing. No, nobody. that's so funny to be like, no, I'm good. I don't want a coach an NBA team. I'll pretend to be your coach, but I don't want to be the coach. Like, that's wonderful. That's why the NBA to me is so much fun because stuff like that happens. It's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable that he's like, yeah, I'll do the voice of the head coach. I don't even know what that means. There's 30 coaching jobs in the NBA, and he's like, I don't think I want it either. Yeah, this is one of the most exclusive jobs on the planet. Yeah. and they're giving you one. And you are just like, I'm a chill.

I wonder how much of this has to do with Dan Gilbert. Like, because that organization... 100% of it. Yeah, yeah. Has to do with Dan Gilbert. Right. I mean, because, like, you look at the front office structure

in the way that it went down with David Griffin and that, you know, they bring in Kobe Alman because Kobe was in the organization already, but like they tried to hire other people externally and couldn't and the music stopped and there was plenty of chairs available. And Kobe was like, I'll sit down.

And now they're trying to do the same thing with the head coaching job and they can't get able to sit down in it. And I think that leads back to the top guy. Yeah, how can it not? You remember the movie, remember the Titans? Of course. How can you not remember that movie? And there's a great scene where Bertier and Julius are having it out. They're at camp.

They're arguing with each other. And Bertier is telling him, you know, you're not playing hard enough. You're not doing this. You're not doing that. Julius tells him, you're only yelling at black players, you're not yelling at your white friends who aren't blocking or rev. They're just going back and forth. And eventually Julius is like, you know what? I'm just going to go out there and I'm going to get mine.

And that's all I'm worried about. And then Bertier says in response to that, oh, that's a great attitude to have, very sarcastically. And Julius takes a beat and he looks off to the side and he looks back at him. And he says, and I'm going to remember this movie line for the rest of my life. He says, attitude reflects leadership. captain, and that's the end of the scene, and that's exactly what we're looking at here with the calves. It's all falling apart because you've got Dan Gilbert in charge who is built to have things fall apart in his hands with regards to basketball. That is good movie Callback

Knowledge. I want to do a quick aside. Didn't you just run into somebody at the airport from one of your favorite movies from Sandlot? I did. I ran into Ham. Amazing. Patrick. Yeah, it was wonderful. I was waiting at the airport from flying from Los Angeles to San Antonio. and the plane got delayed, whatever I'm wandering around. And I should have picked up on this sooner, but I was walking through the seats area, and I heard a, there was a mom and a son, I'm assuming she was his mom,

but I heard her tell this guy, hey, thanks for being so cool about all this as they walked away. And I didn't look back to see who the guy was, but I saw the back of his head. And I just assumed maybe he lent a charger to them or something, whatever. And then we're getting up to get on the plane, and that same guy was standing in front of me, and I caught like the edge of his face.

And he still looks exactly the same. He looks exactly like ham from the sandline. He's just got a slightly thicker mustache. And I couldn't figure it out, couldn't figure it out. And so I sent a tweet saying that, you know, I'm pretty sure that this is, that ham is on my airplane. And then a bunch of people tagged him in it. And then he tagged me in it.

And then now we're friends. Now you guys are best buddies. Now we're buds. You took a very handsome picture together. I encourage everybody to go and check it out. It was very good. All right. Other NBA drama, so this I know came across your radar because I saw you tweeting about it. Came across my radar. It was on everybody's radar. It was fucking fantastic. The Warriors versus Josh Duhmel and Fergie. Josh Dumel, ex-husband of Fergie got a little salty about, I don't even know how it came up and why it came up now. But last year, for those who don't remember, Fergie sang the National Anthem. And I'm using that very liberally in terms of singing, sang the National Anthem at the All-Star game. And it did.

not go over well, and there was much snickering and laughing, including Dremont, who, Draymond got kind of, like, caught up in this because I was at the arena, and what happened was they were showing people watching Fergie perform, and it created this sort of, like, snickering buzz where people were laughing, and Dremont was fine until that started to happen, and then they showed Dremont, and he was trying to keep his shit together, but he couldn't, and that's how Dremont got wrapped up in it. Anyway, Josh D'Mell did not like this, took umbrage with it, called out the Warriors, and the Warriors decided instead of issuing the

apology that Josh was looking for to remix Fergie's National Anthem, and they did a video of them in the locker room. It was fantastic. We're going to play a quick snippet of it now. That's so good. It's nuts. It's nuts.

It is nuts. It's nuts. The best part about the video is that they're in the locker room, and it's Draymond and Katie and Steph and Boogie and a bunch of the other guys. And they're like really getting into it. And the remix, way better than the original version. Yeah, for sure. So the Warriors didn't make that remix.

There's a guy who makes remixes of little clips like that. His name is, well, you hear him say it in there, Swade the Remix guy. And that's what he'll do. He'll take a viral clip. Like, I think the most famous one he did was of the boy who was yodeling in the store. Yeah, yeah. But he'll take it and then flip it into a thing like this.

He's really, really good at it. every time one of them pops up it's incredible he has an incredible ear for this sort of thing but they just grabbed his remix and they were dancing to it in the locker room yeah i don't understand why somebody didn't get in josh's ear and say like all right if you're gonna stand up for fergie in this moment the one guy you cannot call out is draymond yeah because he doesn't give a good goddamn about any anything there's nothing you can say in that moment where he's going to be like oh yeah my bad because he didn't do anything wrong he wasn't making a show of laughing at her. He was trying very clearly to not laugh. He couldn't hold it in.

Everybody else was having a good old time snickering about this. But you go after him and he's not going to be the one to let it just roll off its back. He's going to do something about it and he's going to do something about it bigger than what anybody expected. Like I was expecting a lot of things. I was not expecting for him to be able to convince several of the other warriors to dance on video to the remix and then they post it on the internet. Dancing. Unreal. Dancing to the remix. It was phenomenal.

The NBA, they spend all day on the internet making fun of each other on Twitter, on Instagram, on Snapchat. That's what they do. And you think you're just going to step into this and get everyone to calm down. Josh Dumas was like the substitute teacher who thinks he can get the class to behave by like appealing to their morality. or like some silly thing like that like oh excuse me this is not how

we behave as a class and then they all just fucking started dogging on them even more like that's what we watched happen and it was beautiful it was so much fun to watch he deserved every bit of that fucking firing spitballs out of him it was amazing Josh I think realized quickly

what a miscalculation this was because he tweeted out note to self think twice before you call out the champs but as you mentioned think twice before you call out Draymont he wanted to fight Tristan Thompson outside the bus at the finals Like, you picked the wrong dude. It was amazing.

Yeah, that's the wrong guy. Now, high five to Josh for having enough sense to, like, turn it into a joke on himself. That was the only play that he had right there. Yeah. And it turned everything fun. He could have doubled down on it and been like a super stickler. Doing that lets you know, okay, I understand. He understands what he did wrong in that situation.

You just can't show up on NBA Twitter. No. With a fucking pocket knife and everyone else is running around with bazookas and machine guns. It doesn't work. It's the deep end kid. You got to know how to swim before you get in there. It was fantastic. All right.

Other NBA drama, the wolves. Still the wolves. Still the wolves. Just the wolves. All of the wolves. All the wolves. I mean, we could have frankly led the drama section with the wolves, but I figured we'd give it a breather here. They're two and four.

They still got Jimmy Butler. Shea, Jimmy Butler got booed when he shot an airball the other night, and it was loud. And under normal circumstances, you'd think, okay, an NBA player getting booed for shooting an airball. no biggie, except for he was at home. He's the bad guy now. He is the bad guy. He's looking forward to being the bad guy, who knows how much longer he'll be the bad guy, probably in perpetuity. It doesn't look like he's going anywhere soon.

There was a report from Woj and others that the Rockets offered four first-round picks for Jimmy Butler, ostensibly in the deal would also be Marquise, Chris, and Brandon Knight to make the money match up. So far, Tibbs is not budging. I wonder if Glentow, the owner, is like, how many first-round picks did they offer? They're going to have to pry Tibbs out of the front office with like a hostage negotiation team. I can't imagine that you get offered four first round picks and he's barricaded in the front office going, nah, we're not going to do that.

That's crazy to me. Yeah, that is very crazy. Now, the one thing I'm wondering is at this point, are we so far into this muddy, muddy swamp that Tibbs is just not trading Jimmy because he doesn't like Jimmy anymore? He knows the worst possible thing he can do is keep Jimmy on the wolves. So I'm wondering if he's doing that on purpose now. Not that he loves him so much, he doesn't want to trade him or he thinks he can be a franchise cornerstone, but this is punishment now. I'm not going to let you leave.

You're going to sit at this dinner table with me and you don't have to eat your food. You're just going to sit here with me for the entire dinner and we're going to be miserable together. I wonder if that's what Tibbs is doing. Part of me feels like it has to be. You stare at those Brussels, sprouts and you think about what you did. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I think is happening, which would be fantastic. I hope that that's the case. I hope we find out eventually that that's the case. I hope that it's out of spite too. I think like probably, you know, misery and company is a

wonderful theory. I think probably if I'm Tibbs, I'm looking at it and going, well, shit. I mean, like, yeah, in theory, four first round picks sounds good. But if I take that deal, I'm not going to be a round up to pick those players. They're going to get rid of me. So I'm going to keep this together for as long as I can because I'm probably gone in the offseason anyway. It's really crazy, though,

especially with, like, regard to how it's affecting Carl Anthony Towns and Wiggins and the chemistry of the team. Chris Ryan, bless his heart, has been on the cat

needs to demand a trade corner for quite some time. And I think that's brilliant. If you are the Rockets, another team that is in quite a dramatic situation right now, they're one in four.

You've got Mike Dan Tony calling the Dee Awful. and saying that it needs a complete overhaul and this is a D that was like good last year. But you've got, you know, you don't know what you're doing with Carmel and Anthony and they're not off to a great start. Would you be,

I mean, is this a little bit of a panic thing by the rockets to be like, yeah, just take all of our first round picks and we'll take Jimmy Butler. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's a panic move. Jimmy's a very good defender.

And you plug him in and maybe it stops the bleeding there. But, yeah, the rockets are in a free fall right now. And they're just grabbing at any point. part of the space shuttle they can to keep from tumbling into space. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. For me, I always have faith in Darrell Mori.

I'm like, well, he's one of the smartest dudes in the NBA. He's got a clear track record. Yes, they haven't won a championship. But if you look at this period of Rockets basketball since he's been in the front office, it's been the most successful period in terms of win percentage in franchise history. I mean, he's obviously been able to identify margins that other general managers couldn't exploit. and to do that.

So when he comes up with a plan where they're going to offer four first round picks on the face I go, well, that's crazy. But then I have to couch it and it's still Darry. But I wonder though, yeah, at one and four,

I wonder if there is a little panic to it. And I also wonder, and this is a big thing, like you've already got mellow there and you're trying to incorporate him into the mix. Like adding Jimmy Butler to that team just from a chemistry standpoint

seems kind of volatile to me. Yeah, you're throwing dynamite in there is what you're. doing with Jimmy Butler. We've seen enough of Jimmy Butler to know it's probably not going to work out that great if he's in the locker room and everything isn't exactly perfect. So who knows what happens when he's sitting across from Chris Paul for six weeks. And Chris Paul is out here running around, Boston, everybody around. Chris Paul and James Hardin are perfect together. They match each other perfectly. And you've got all those other pieces from I'm

talking about last year's team. They just, it fit. And now we've got a bunch of triangles and we're trying to, you know, stick them where they might not go. I don't know what's going on there. I feel like, though, you didn't appreciate enough my analogy of the astronaut and the space shuttle and how it's tied to Houston and rockets and NASA. We should go back to that. It was bad. I just want to make sure that you caught all those pieces.

This is the part where the rapper is like, he says the line again to make sure that you got it, the battle wrapper. You already won the battle rap. I was letting it speak for itself. I think it was genius work by you. All right, other teams, other teams in dire, not so much dire straits, but straits that aren't great. Oklahoma City, they won a game.

They won, they squeaked one out against the Phoenix Suns. Nerlands-Nuel got the start for Stephen Adams, and Nerlands-Nuel, when he's not eating halftime hot dogs, not bad. But also, this is obviously not the start that the Thunder wanted to get off to. And they're still running everything through Russ, and Paul George has had efficiency issues so far. His counting stats has been really good,

but with the exception of this last game, is he hasn't been super efficient from the field. How do we feel about the Thunder? I mean, I think people had, like, you know, relatively high hopes for them in terms of being in that, like, middle of the Pack Western Conference playoff mix. Billy Donovan is still there?

I don't understand what's happening with the Thunder. I never do. Yeah, nobody does. I thought they were going to be probably the three seed this year. I still think they're going to be the, the three-seat. It's just going to take them a little while to get situated. I'm going to say that. I'm going to pretend like this is Paul George's first year and they're still filling each other

out. So I, like you, do not have an idea what's going on there if they're ever going to be successful if, if Russie can be the guy. I love Russ. I hope he is, but I don't know. Who knows, man? Who knows? It's all falling apart everywhere. It's all falling apart. The Thunder have one win. The Rockets have one win. The sun have one win. They're all at the bottom of the Western Conference. Who are you more concerned about between the Thunder, Wolves, and Rockets? Like, who's the number one on the Shea Serrano Concern Index? I think you have to put the rockets there, not because they're more troubling, but because they were, like, the team who was supposed to challenge the Warriors. They had a higher ceiling.

So the fact that they're still at the back is a little concerning to me. If we're just talking about, like who has the least likely chance to get it together. It's the wolves and then the thunder and then the rockets. The rockets will figure it out. The thunder will probably figure it out and end up somewhere around fourth in the west. The wolves, there's no hope there. They're all dead. They're all on a submarine trapped under the ocean and they're not coming back.

That's another good one. That was good like the space shuttle and now we've got a submarine one. This is good. I worry about them as well, especially because their point differential is super upside down. In the Western Conference, only the Suns have a worst point differential. And, like, as Dentone said, like, that defense that was really good last year has been really not this year. And you had mentioned, like, the perimeter players that they don't have anymore.

Luke Bamute is gone. And Ares is playing for Phoenix now. And, like, then you add in, like, Mello, who's never played defense. The next time he plays defense will be the first time. And it's like, ah, I wonder what they're going to do with that team. I think I'm probably more concerned, though, about the wolves, though, just because it's, like, It's such an untenable situation. At least with the Rockets, you've got a core where you go, all right, Chris and James are still

really good, and they've got Capella, and I think they'll probably course correct. With the Wolves, who knows what's going to happen? It's just like such a crazy situation. Also, unexpected. This doesn't quite fit the drama rubric, but I'm going to throw it in there just for heat check purposes and to throw a little shade at our Boston friends here at the Ringer. The Celtics kind of still fine in their way, right? Like, haven't looked like the Celtics, haven't scored.

There's been this offensive explosion in the NBA, and the Celtics, not part of it. Struggling to score 100 points, they're right about it at 100 points 101 per game. Brad Stevens had said he was asked multiple times, like, what's going on with your team, what's going on with Gordon Hayward, what's going on with Kyrie,

who's not looked like Kyrie. He hasn't really been driving as much. He's not getting to the foul line as much. You seem stuck in the corner quite a bit. And Brad Stevens was saying, you know, well, it looks like October basketball, which is fine, but we all, I think, expected the subjects to come out gangbusters and, you know, they're four and two. They've looked

fine-ish, I guess. Yeah, they look okay. They look okay. They have some issues, though, for sure. They've got all these young guys who are, they understand now that they're good. Jalen Brown knows he's good. Jason Tatum obviously knows that he's good. Like, if you've got a group of people who now they're trying to figure out where they belong in the pecking order on the totem pole, Jason Datum is probably at the top right now, and that's a little confusing because Kyrie and Gordo were supposed to be up there. So now who's two and who's three? Most concerning is who's six, seven or eight.

Nobody wants to be in that spot. Everybody feels like they belong in the top, and they probably do somewhere. Last year they were all young, and they were just excited to be playing well, and this year they're planting their flags. And that's always a tricky spot for a team to be in. this is why I put them in the drama section for exactly what you just outlined

because you would go, all right, well, they're so deep, right? They're going to be really good. They're going to figure it out, and they will. I mean, I believe that they will. Brad Stevens is an exceptional coach. He's got a ton of talent. They'll figure it out. However, I wonder about that dynamic with those guys where you go and you look and

you go, all right, it should have been Kyrie and Gordon Hayward as the top dogs. It was planned to be Kyrie and Gordon Hayward as the top dogs. However, they're coming off of injury. And, oh, by the way, while they were out, Jason Tatum was like, no, man, like I'm already the best player on this team. And in a couple years, I'm going to be one of the best players, like top five players in the NBA. And so you've got to fall in behind me. And I think like right now they're trying to figure that out.

And maybe the fit doesn't feel so good. Yeah. I want to say I read that quote Kyrie had the other day where he was talking about learning how to not need to be the guy who puts up 35 points every night or whatever. And I think that's what we're watching with Kyrie. And then, you know, Gordo is still working his way through his injury and all the mental parts that come along with that. But yeah, they're all, it's all up in the air right now. The only thing we know for certain is that Jason Tatum is not fucking around. That's all we know.

Nothing else is certain. And that's why that car vibrates a little bit when they're driving fast. Little rumble. I think what we've learned from this is that Brad Stevens is on the hot seat and Danny A. And Danny should blow it up. Blow it up, Danny. last one for you. I saved the best for last.

Shay, I went to, I've been kicking around with the Wizards while they were in Los Angeles and not good. I feel really bad for Joe House. We'll have to have him on the program. House was very excited about the Wizards this year.

I think he's probably decidedly less excited. They gave up 51 points in three quarters to Steph Curry last week. They went to the Kings and lost to the Kings in Sacramento. And then they got blue. load out by Isaac Lee's Clippers on Sunday. Total free-for-all.

They're backbiting. They're throwing shade at each other. A bunch of them called each other out in Sacramento. John Wall said, we've got guys that are worried about who's getting shots. You should never worry about that. Brad Beale said sometimes we're worried about the wrong shit. Markief Morris said,

we're all grown here and everybody should be looking in the mirror. And if you can't do that, I don't think you're going to be able to take criticism. Full free-for-all, even by wizard standards, an organization that is like pretty regularly, their default position is just dysfunction, their way ahead of schedule. Yeah.

The thing that's wild about the Wizards is they have all of this stuff going on and nobody cares. Like, not at all. When Isaac sent me a text, hey, we're going to talk about drama and the NBA. The last thing I thought about was I never even considered we would talk about the Wizards. There's no fun part of it with all the other stuff that is a little bit of fun. the Wizards just, it's just like, every time they do a thing, you go, who cares? Like, who cares? John Wall could score 60, and we still would have been talking about Josh Dumel before John Wall

in the NBA, which, like, that should tell you exactly all the things you need to know about the Washington Wizards and where they are in the NBA today. I have a slightly different take on this. I think, like, you're right in terms of, like, weekly drama, Josh Dumel, greater than symbol wizards. However, if we're talking about like long-term league leaders and drama, like we look at what's happening with the timber wolves and we talk about the timber wolves a lot and being like a complete mess and like being at each other's throats, they're new to this shit. The wizards have been like this for years. They know exactly what they're doing.

They're constantly going to be sniping at each other and you turn around and they've got another quote and somebody's saying this and we don't like that. And I think it's really kind of remarkable how consistent they've been. at like producing NBA drama. Like they've been, they've been the NBA champs at it for a while now. I give them respect. Ernie Grunfield, give him a lifetime contract.

Keep them all together. Yeah, but see, that's the point. Like, they're doing all of this stuff, but it's just not registering anymore. I can't even imagine what it would take

coming out of the locker room for them to be like the A1 story and a thing. Like if Towns, if Towns does what Chris Ryan's saying, and he's like, want to be traded. That becomes the number one story immediately. But if John Wall and Bradley Bill hit each other with cars, we're still not talking about it until like the third or fourth

thing on the podcast. You know what I'm saying? Poor wizards. Yeah, just poor wizards. That's all you can say, which is, which super sucks because when John Wall is playing really well, he's one of the most exciting players to watch. He had that great stretch in the playoffs, not last year but the year before. and you're like, holy shit, he made the leap. He's the guy now. And then now we're like, where are we? What are we doing? I think it's tough for John Wall right now

because he's overshadowed by a better guard on his team. And that is Isaac Lee's favorite player, Austin Rivers. Austin Rivers is on that team right now. Clearly, exactly what they've always needed. I wanted to run this last thing past you before I let you go. I know you're very busy. Austin Rivers-Shea was in Los Angeles for the first time since Daddy and his group traded his ass out of Los Angeles.

And the Clippers bless them. I can't say this enough. It was really amazing. They did a tribute video to Austin Rivers last night, Shea. They should have. I like Isaac. I'm a very pro-Austin Rivers guy. Yeah, Isaac loves him.

For no other reason in the series when the Clippers played the Rockets in the playoffs, and he hit like two shots, and then he started doing James Hardin's cooking celebration. I like that. I like that kind of player. I like that he had the whole dad thing going on and people were questioning whether he deserved to be

in the league or not. Like, he's a fighter. And he's going to do all the stuff you need to him to do. I love Austin Rivers. We should do a whole Austin Rivers podcast one day. We'd need to do an Austin Rivers podcast. I was saying to Isaac, Shay, that when the video came on, like the Clippers were nice about it, right?

They put like an actual Austin Rivers Tribute video together. But I was hoping that they would have been a little bit more trolly about it. Do you remember, have you ever seen the video of shortly after Austin Rivers landed with the Clippers, Blake Griffin did an Austin Rivers impersonation? Do you ever see that video? Yeah.

They should have just put that up as the tribute video. I encourage everybody who hasn't seen it to Google it because it's goddamn hilarious. Maybe next time when he comes back. Shea Serrano, you're excellent. Anything that you want to plug anything? What do you got coming up? No. Just everybody on Twitter unfollow John Gonzalez and Kevin

O'Connor. It was bound to happen. I've run a foul of Shea Serrano. I'm going to make it up to him. I'm going to get back into his good graces. Shea Serrano, thanks so much for doing this. All right. Thanks, Wes.

All right, man. All right, that was Shea Serrano. He's going to bring me back into the fold. It's going to be fine. That was him. And now we're going to go to another one of our favorites, Jonathan Charks. Joining me on the other line, a repeat offender for the Heat Check Podcast. He's a staff writer and also podcaster for, frankly,

hot name. Friday's NBA podcast. the corner three. It's Jonathan Charks. Thanks, man. How you doing? Good, homie. Listen to him on the Corner Three. It's very good show. Read his stuff. A lot of takes. A lot of takes. So many takes. That's a selling point. That's why we had you on. We have a lot of way. I need all your takes. All the Charks takes. We're going to blow through all the teams that people aren't really talking about in just a second.

But I would feel remiss if we didn't bring this up. I think when we were all like ordering our teams for the Eastern Conference and the NBA pecking order before the season, we had the bucks in there somewhere. I don't think any of us had the Bucks 6 and O and leading the Eastern Conference with the Raptors they are off to an absolutely gangbusters start with Bud they're spacing the floor they're playing out of their fucking heads I wrote one word down in my show notes it's wow the Bucks I don't know what to do

I mean this comparison it's almost too obvious but it really does feel like when Mark Jackson left Golden State and Steve Kerr came in and like Jason Kidd you got like this 90s point guard traditional style of play new coach comes in opens up the floor and they just start dominating. Yeah, I mean, like, Janus is Janus, and

we anticipated that he'd be dominant. For the rest of them, though, for the ancillary pieces, I think Chris Middleton has always been super underrated. He's nice, man. Chris Milton is real nice. Underrated. People don't talk about him enough. He plays both ends of the floor, but specifically on the offensive end in Bud's

system, it is perfect for him. Shoot as many three balls as you want. Get to the rack, get to the line, and it's like, it's like Taylor made for him. Yeah, he's taking seven-threes again. game. I had some stat and some article like over the summer about Middleton. It was like, there's like five guys in the league who can like get

20 points on like with six boards, three assists. He's a really unique player. He's up there with any of these really good wings, I think. Yeah, they lead the league in point differential. They've been just doing it both ends of the floor. It's really been impressive. Bigger surprise for you that the bucks are six and oh or that the Detroit Pistons are four and one. I was a big bucks guy

before this season. So like, I'd say pride the pistons, but they went like squeaking out games. I'm not sure how, like, how sustainable that really is in Detroit. Yeah, I wonder about that too. Blake's been killing it though, but in 82 games. And I think that, you know, every year we start out where we go,

oh yeah, Blake's really good, right? Like, because we forget, like, that he can, you know, he's got a little bit of a shot now. He's always been a really, really excellent passer. He still has some athleticism. Well, like you mentioned, like, how long is he going to be out there? Right? Like, he's always got issues with staying on the port of availability.

This is good. You know what their point differential is right now in Detroit? Yeah, it's minus. So, it doesn't need much advanced stats there to say. That might not hold up. Yeah, it might not hold up. They're squeaking them out. But it is interesting, though, because, like, with the Pistons,

like with that new arena and the new front office structure, and they got rid of SVG, and they get off to a four-on-one start, and yes, they are squeaking out. games, but they're trying to win so that they can get people to go and pay attention to them. And at the very least, they've been entertaining this year. Yeah, Casey's done a good job. It seems like he's learned the right lessons from his time in Toronto. He's gone to Detroit and kind of brought that formula with him.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if they can sustain it. All right. Other teams that people aren't talking about, let's get into these guys. We are talking about the Mavs, but basically because of Luca, the Mavs have been interesting this year. Dennis Smith Jr. looks better. He's had one good game.

He's been real struggling over the first couple weeks. He had efficiency issues. Yeah, absolutely. But this past game was a good one for him. But I think, like Dennis Smith, Jr. last year had efficiency issues,

and I just like him better next to Luca, which I didn't think I would. But Luca's been a lot of fun too. Yeah, I mean, the ones I'll say, they've already lost to the Sons and the Hawks. They've had a really easy schedule. So I'm not sure they're going to be a really good team this year. But they're very fun to watch, at least.

At least you can go to the arena now. have a good time. Yeah, you went out there. You wrote about them. Yeah, I went to the first two games, kind of talked to the players afterwards, and they just embraced in the new NBA. Carlisle was like, yeah,

we might take 53s a game now. It's like, wow, this is crazy. Coach in Indiana and Detroit played like 6560 basketball games. Yeah, I was going to say, like, for Rick Carlisle to be like, yeah, let's just, you know,

see how it goes and I'm going to play my young guys and they're going to shoot a bunch of threes. I'm like, who are you? Yeah, May, you catch and standing up at the times. You kind of have to stay around in the NBA these days. I mean, but how is he,

dealing with it, though, because, like, as a human being, I wouldn't have expected Rick Carlisle to, like, we saw the cracks last year where he was like, all right, Nerlands, you're not going to play. I'm not going to deal with this. You're going to eat halftime hot dogs. And, like, he was kind of white knuckling it a little bit. And now it feels like maybe he isn't. Well, the thing that's helping him is, like, he still has a lot of veterans. He's really only playing Dennis and Luca. And then Jalen Brunson, too, are than those guys. They're all older guys than mid-late 20s. So, like, they're a little older. And then he has those two young guys kind of lets loose. Everyone else that plays his older kind of system too. Yeah, they've got Wesley Matthews and DeAndre Jordan and Harrison Barnes is a human being who still exists. Hey, my man, Harry B., the senator. Best two-way player on the team, man. I got a love for you, Harry B.

When are we getting Dirk back? It might be a while. They haven't said anything. He had surgery like in April, and he's still not even on the practice court yet. So, I mean, the man's pretty old. There's no rush. With Luca Bacnaw, you can really take your time with Dirk

and let him kind of come back naturally. I love Derek. I would like him to be around for a long time. The Mavs played the Hawks, as you mentioned, and lost to the Hawks. And I don't know, where were you on Trey Young before the season began? I liked him. I figured just his style of play would fit with the way the league is now. I think with Trey, the issue is more in a playoff series in five years when he's like still five, ten or whatever. Can he hold up in defense? But for the right now, for the regular season, I think he'll be okay. They have him spread the floor and let him shoot three whenever he wants.

Yeah, he's going to run up those counting stats. I mean, he's going to be able to do it. like you said, do whatever he wants, just go out there and fuck around and take as many shots as you want and he's a good passer. KOC had a story you can read it on the ringer.com about maybe this might be

in terms of rookie of the year placement, the right spot for Trey Young. Like I think a lot of people are looking at Luca and D'Andre Aiden and rightfully so. But like handicap it for us. Like where would you put Trey Young in there?

I think whichever one of those guys team has the best season, I think that'll hold back trail ultimately in this kind of award. If they went on like 25 games and someone else will win like 35 in the West. I think that will really take them a long way with voters. I think like the Hawks are such a weird organization because obviously they're trying

to like, they're not trying to win this year. They've got Trey Young and they're sort of rebooting this whole thing. But did you see what the owner said? He gave a quote to the athletic. Yeah, I saw that. That was pretty a wild interview. Fucking amazing. So like for a long time, a lot of us have looked at the Hawks and been.

I never know who he was, but he's got, I got attention now. He's got our attention now. for a long time, a lot of us were looking at the hawks going, like what are the hawks doing? Do they know what they're doing? It doesn't feel like they know what they're doing. They had like a really messy front office situation

and Budenhauser had to come out and like sort of steward the front office for a while. And then, you know, obviously he wasn't good at that and he didn't want to be there. Now he's in a much better situation in Milwaukee. But the owner gave a quote to the athletic where he said, let's cut the bullshit.

I didn't know what I was doing. Always wise. Thank you for that. It's amazing. I didn't know what I was doing. doing, I can blame someone else. I can blame you. I can blame my wife. That's a bad idea. As a married man, never blame my wife. Ask Brian Clangelo about that. Never do that. Right. Yeah, exactly. But there was only one schmuck in the room and that was me. Tony Ressler, you're my new

favorite owner. Yeah, I kind of like what they're doing now. If you look at their team, it looks like they're just going to draft guys who shoot threes. And they have three more lottery picks next year possibly. So they just can draft a bunch of tall guys who shoot threes and see what happens. I mean, it's an interesting model. I think it might end up working for them. Yeah, I mean, you've got those picks and you've got Trey Young and we'll see what's going to happen there. And, I mean, yeah, it could be an interesting reboot for that franchise, especially because, like, they looked like they were going to be in the NBA. And they probably will be in the NBA wilderness for a minute here. But I think, like, just having some self-awareness and realizing that you fucked it up earlier and admitting to that.

Like, when was the last time you heard somebody who's that successful in, he's a billionaire, right? I mean, you don't become a billionaire by being the schmuck in the room. in this particular instance, he realized, like, I don't know what I'm doing in this arena. Yeah, and here's the thing, like, they're running a process in Atlanta, but they're in Atlanta, so nobody really cares. Yeah. So they can run the process for, like, three years, and won't be, like, that many news stories about it. It'll just kind of be the worst team in the league and let's be unnoticed.

And then if Lincoln had a bunch of all-stars in their team. And it won't be that different from, like, previous iterations of the Hawks. Like, there was that team that, you know, 160 games or whatever with Buddenhulls when he first got there, and they were fun and interesting and exciting. But, like, for a while, before the, before the, you know, that and certainly now after, the Hawks were the Hawks and like kind of ignored in the NBA. Yeah, and they had no

stars. And now like, Tray Young could be a star if he shoots a bunch, right? If they get the top pick in next year's draft, they can get a star again maybe. That's like the upside for Atlanta. They can actually get some people who peep guys in seats. Yeah, that would be nice for them. I always feel like the relationship between the Hawks

and like the city is sort of tenuous. You know, like that's like a college football town, right? I guess. I don't even know. Yeah. All right, another, another southern team that not a lot of people are talking about that we had on your list, the Hornets. What do you make in the Hornets so far? I had a story about them on Friday about MKG. I think it's an interesting idea they could do is using him like Draymond Green. And I think that could really add some excitement to their team and give them a chance to

be to surprise people this season. Yeah. So the MKG piece was really interesting. I think like coming out of college, obviously there were really, really high hopes for MKG. And then those hopes obviously went away. You can't shoot. It's tough. Can't shoot. So obviously a very poor man's Dremon comparison is interesting.

Here's something that blew me away too because I was like, I don't know. I feel like with MKG, if it was going to happen, it would have already happened by now. And like they don't really have anything there. It's already passed him by. He's 25.

How was he only 25 still? Isn't that crazy? I think he was 18 in the NBA as a rookie. He is three years younger than Dremont. He's been in the NBA forever. It's absolutely blew me away. Yeah, I mean, because he played with Anthony Davis that one year in Kentucky. And then it's pretty easy to play with Anthony Davis.

I'm going to say, oh, my God, it's going to be amazing to when they drafts them after one season. What about what the rest of the Hornets? I mean, like, periodically you see like Miles Bridges will do something or Malik Monk. I think that's exciting. Yeah, Monk and Bridges. There's some fun young players. Which one do you like better of those, too? I like Bridges because he's bigger.

I think he could end up being a pretty good defender. But they could both be like high-level three-point shooters. They can push the ball. get those two with Kemba Walker. I think you could have something. And MKG at the 5, a small ball lineup. They're just now giving minutes to bridges, too.

So I wonder if that will be something more regular now. Yeah, I mean, it's only been in week two of the season. He's earning some playing time as we see. I think he has the best that ring on the team. I want mid-season minutes immediately, sharks. Absolutely, I can't wait either. It's Halloween. We already went next season.

Let's come on. I need to get this movie. What about with Kemba? Like, obviously, Kamba is their best player. obviously if the hornets are going to do anything this season, it will be because of Kemba. But can he be enough to, like, I don't know,

squeak them into the playoffs? It'll be tough, but I think they have to go small. And they have to hope that either Monk or Bridges can be that second option. Because I think Nick Batum has really kind of fallen off over the last few seasons. They're paying a lot of guys,

he really aren't producing. There's any one of those two young guys to make a big step forward, I think. Because Cambo's getting like 30 points a game right now. It's not going to last. And it hurts me, too, because I love Batum. I've always loved him.

I've always loved his game. You know, because he can rebound. He's a really good passer. Play some defense, but like just efficiency-wise, shooting-wise, scoring-wise, he's really kind of falling off a little bit. He's lost a step. If he's your second best player, it's tough. He's kind of like Boris Dio.

Remember when he was in Charlotton's just terrible? Yeah. He went to San Antonio. Like, you got to be like your fifth best player. Yeah. So really what they need is Monk or Bridges or both to really like elevate their game to be that like 2A 2B option for Kemba, but it's like you said,

it's still early. Yeah, and it's just tough because they have Marvin Williams there too. So there isn't a lot of minutes unless they move MKG to the 5. Yeah, and like I look at their roster and I'm like, what is happening with this roster? Not much.

No, and like nothing's really changed with these guys. It changed the head coach and, you know, they move a couple pieces around, but it's ostensibly still the same group. And I don't know. The thing that I blew up when I was doing the story guns, I was looking at their draft history, and they've drafted, like, Frank Kaminsky,

Cody Zeller, Noah Von Lin, in the top 10. Like, they've really drafted poorly. Yeah, well, remember Danny wanted to give them a bunch of picks to move up, and they're like, no. We've got to keep Frank. Frank Kaczynski is our guy. He can't put his, his arms are so short, he can't put him in his pockets, but he's our guy.

All right, to the Sons. The Sons only have one victory. Against my Mavs. They are not playing for wins this year, however, interesting pieces. Devin Booker is recovering from Hamststststron. string injury. We're not sure when he's going to be back. Aiden, though. Aiden is out there doing Aiden's

stuff. He's looked pretty good offensively. Yeah. Well, the thing is like, if they're not playing for wins, why do they give Trevor Reza $15 million, you know? Great question. I think that's why McDonnell lost his job, because the owner's like, oh, the point guard's Isaiah Cannon and Shaq Harrison, like, that's just probably not going to get it done.

Where are you on their wing rotations? You mentioned Trevor Arisa, but they've got T.J. Warren there. They've got Josh Jackson. Like, eh. McHale Bridges, too. McHale Bridges, too. I mean, like, you need a good point card, right, for a bunch of wings. They just don't have a good point card.

I mean, I kind of like the idea of with Kukashkov's system, just like letting Devin Booker play in that, like, card and roll where you're just like, let him run out there. And it's like, we don't have like a technical point card, but he's pretty much the point card. Yeah, it's just like, that's an adjustment pro. I think he's getting like five turnovers a game right now. Like, he's only 22 still. So like, if he do that, that could work in two or three years.

But right now it's mean a lot of losses with him learning how to play point guard. What about like with that wing rotation with T.J. Warren and those guys, like, who do you like most out of that group? I think I might like Mikhail Bridges to most, honestly. Yeah? I think he's going to be really good, the Villanova kid, because he can really shoot the ball. Your pro bridges across the board. You like all the bridges. Pro bridges, pro tunnels. It's good. They have been fun, though. I mean, like, in a bad, like, I don't know where you were league pass ranking-wise, but for me, like preseason, I was like, I'm going to end up watching a lot of Sun's basketball. It's bad basketball, but it's like delightfully bad basketball. It's fun bad basketball. It's like, talented players for sure.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like as individual pieces, like you know it's not, it's like a good bad movie, right? Like, where you know the movie is going to be bad, but they're leaning into it. To me, T.J. Warren, like, if he goes to a good team, he's shooting three this year for the first time in his career. And he's behind like Josh Jackson and McHale Bridge, all these top ten picks. If they trade Warren to a good team, he can have a real, I think he'd have a breakout season. Yeah, I like him. I mean, he's a bigger body.

Yeah, he does. I mean, like, but yeah, you're right. Trying to find playing time for those guys is going to be interesting. All right. Last one for you. Verno's Memphis Grizzlies. Let's just start with Jaron Jackson Jr. My guy, man.

He was your guy. You planted the flag before the draft. You planted the flag after the draft. You told me he was going to be very good that he could play next to Gasaw. So far, you've been right. He's had a couple of games where he's looked less polished than other games, but serious flashes. He's starting to get a couple blocks. He can rebanks.

He can stretch out and shoot the three. Is this about what you expected from him? Yeah, Jamichael Green. I think he, did he break his jaw or something? Yeah, he's out for a second. Yeah, he got knocked out of the starting line up when that happened. Sharon Jackson has moved right in. And I think, yeah, he fits well with Gasol.

The thing about him is he's so young. He's a year and a half younger than DeAndre Aidan. Oh, wow. Isn't that crazy? I didn't know that. Like, he's just been so good. He's been advanced along in his career. And somehow MKG is still three years younger than him.

It's amazing. That's the thing about the one. air, it's really weird with like the ages and how long these guys have been in the league. I think Jackson's been advanced along his whole career because he's been so like talented for his age. Like he's only 19. He gets to be a 21. I think he could be a legitimate franchise player for Memphis. I think changed their whole timetable as a franchise. You think he could be a franchise player. Like what do you think like the seal? I mean, when you say franchise player, what's his ceiling? I think he could be one of the best seven footers in the league, like an all NBA seven footer who can

play on both sides of the ball. Yeah, he's athletic. He can run the floor. I mean, I really like his game. I've ended up because I'm an NBA junkie. I've ended up watching more Grizzlies than I anticipated because of him. Because I would like, you put it in my ear. He's their first good young player in like forever. Yeah. And they have two good older players, but

I wonder how much they have left. I mean like Mike Conley has, I think, enough left. Gasol though, I wonder. He's 34 now. Yeah. Yeah. Like what would you do with those two guys? I mean, like I look at this team and I'm like, if you're going to bottom out, really bottom out and like get what you can for Conley and Gasol something to a situation where maybe they could

win a little bit and get some assets back. And the thing too is I think their pick is like top 10 protected. It's going to the Celtics otherwise. Of course it is to keep. Yeah, right? They have all the picks somehow. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

If that King's pick doesn't end up as top one, if it ends up as top one, it goes to the Sixers. If it doesn't end up as top one, it goes to the fucking Celtics because the Celtics have to have more riches. It's crazy. Well, so that's what I'm saying, I think for the Grizzlies, it makes sense to try to move off one of Gasol or Connolly and build around Jackson. I got to trade for you, Gons.

What do you have to trade for? Oh, I love this. Tell me. How about Mark Asall for Otto Porter? I like that. Because they got to make a move in Washington, right? They got to do something. They definitely have to make a move in Washington. What are you doing with Dwight in that scenario?

You just park him on the bench? Yeah, whatever. He doesn't make a lot of money anymore, so it doesn't really matter. So you can be a backup center. I think backup center, Dwight, in Washington when they're one in five. What could go wrong? You can go home if he doesn't like it. It doesn't really matter.

I think you'd take it great. I do like Gassau on the Wizards in a vacuum. If I was Gassal, I would not want to be on the Wizards, though. They're a fucking mess. Yeah, but this team is probably isn't going anywhere either. It might be time. I don't know. Yeah.

I want better things for Mark Gassol, though. I want Mark Gassal to go to a situation where he could potentially influence a team or, you know, like get somewhere in like the 20 to 25 minute range for like a contender. What's what I'm saying in Washington with Wall and Beal that could at least be interesting. Like at the very least, they're more talented than Memphis. Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Isaac Lee's favorite player who has been mentioned several times on this podcast, Austin Rivers, was saying...

The prodigal son, literally. He's literally the prodigal son, by the way. He was saying that the Wizards are too talented to be one in five. And I mean, if Austin Rivers thinks that, then it's absolutely the truth. Jonathan Charks, what else do you have coming up this week? You want to plug something? Yeah, I'm doing some stuff for the college basketball preview. I got a big story about Duke, who's going to be so much fun to watch this year.

I haven't. I've been checked out on college basketball for quite some time because there's too much NBA for me to focus on. Oh, you've got to watch his Duke team, though, Gons. Zion Williamson, he's 6-7-285, yes. 45-inch vertical, and he might be the third best prospect on their team. Really? They have got an absolute. This could be one of the most talented college teams, and maybe in the London era, I think.

So Coach K is actually going to coach them this year and not take a sabbatical? I don't know. He'll just, hey, just go shoot the ball or something. Like, how much time how much coaching is going to do, but he'll be coaching. It's hard for me to appreciate Duke. I grew up as a UNLV fan, and I harbor serious ill will towards them ever since they beat the undefeated UNLV team back in the early 90s. Lots of deep cut guns. It hurts.

Way before my time. It still hurts. You probably weren't even born at that point. Read Jonathan Charks, listen to him on the corner three on Friday. He'll be back on the heat check regularly. I want to thank him. I want to thank Shea. I want to thank Isaac Lee.

I want to remind all of you to listen to the NBA show. We've got KOC Inverno on Tuesdays, the mismatch. We've got sources to say on Wednesdays. We've got group chat. We've got Corner 3 on Fridays, all kinds of NBA content on The Ringer podcast network and all kinds of NBA content on the ringer.com. Thanks so much for listening, gang. Remember to rate and review us on Apple if you don't mind.

Keycheck will be back next week. See you.