The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 24: Team USA and U18 NBA Prospects With Tate Frazier and Jonathan Tjarks

Episode Date: July 25, 2016

The Ringer's Tate Frazier and Jonathan Tjarks discuss Team USA, Coach K's farewell tour, the 2016 FIBA Americas U18 Championship, and the promising prospects of the 2018 NBA draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get started, the ringer now has merch. Go to bitly.com slash ringer merch where you can find shirts and hoodies. A portion of the proceeds from each purchase will benefit charity water, a nonprofit organization that provides clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Again, go now to b-it-l-y-com slash ringer merch. Welcome to the ringer NBA show. I'm Tate Fraser and I'm joined by our writer. Texan and just the trailess one I know. Mr. Jonathan Charks, Charks, welcome.

Hey man, you can just say resident Texan. That covers, you know, everything else, I think. Yeah, that just holds it down. Bigger than Texas, we have Team USA, the entire country. We have fielded our best team, minus the two best players in the world, and we're going to send them down to Rio to compete in the Olympics. But last night, they played China in the exhibition game. At Staples Center, I was lucky enough to go down and watch them play last night. Charks, I know that you don't really mess around with these exhibition games, but just overall, what do you expect to see from this team USA? You know, this is the last time that Coach K will have these guys. This is his 10-year, 10-year mark on the program, but just overall,

like, what do you expect to see from those guys in Brazil? I guess we'll see, like, the Warriors B team, right? You know, do what they can without staff. that's kind of interesting to see. I don't know. I think at this point, I think we're all a little kind of played out and a little bored. That's probably why LeBron and Steph didn't come.

Yeah. Like it's been done a bunch of times now. They win every time. I guess I just want to see more small ball, see more Duran at the 5. There's no Anthony Davis here, some more Draymond Durant in the 5. Paul George, all the wings.

And I guess also maybe DeMarcus cousins how he fits with a smaller team. That'll be a change-up from the last Olympics. Yeah, just some, thoughts from last night from what I saw, when Boogie was out there, he was basically on a mission to do cleanup duty. Like, he was basically trying to prove the point of, like, you need a big man to get the rebounds of these miss shots, which was usually like Paul George or Harrison Barnes pulling up for three somewhere, but, you know, he would just put, he would just get in

buckets pretty easily. And also, Joe Chi, the 43rd overall pick for the Houston Rockets is team China's, you know, prodigy. He's supposed to be 18 years. years old. He's probably more around 24 or 25 years old. But last night, DeMarcus, Boogie Cousins, you know, welcome to him to the NBA with the rude block with the big dunk and was

basically like, you don't belong on the floor with me and it was beautiful. Yeah, I think he was like 7-1-215 or something, just like rail thin. He's one of those like new-aged big men. And then DeMarcus is like, I don't think so. Like, I'm just too big for you. I think they'll see a lot of that in this tournament. I guess I think they want to watch DeMarcus

cousins. The more boogie, the better. This is first time in a good team outside of the Air Team USA team since college. So that's fun to watch, just him getting dunks constantly on other good players. I don't know. What are you looking for? He was having a great time. I mean, kind of the dynamic

between, so I was watching a lot of, I was doing some deep dives into Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, Harrison Barnes, Clay Thompson interactions, you know? Because that's a little awkward at first for sure. Draymond and Harrison a couple times checked in.

At the same time, there was this one awkward moment where Harrison went to the free throw line because he thought he was going to stay in the game. And then Kevin Durant was like, nah, man, you're coming out, like caught him out. So that was pretty funny. Draymond and Harrison were pretty much far apart for the most part. They didn't really dab each other up too much or have too many words for each other. Harrison was sort of around D'Andre and Paul George a little bit more. So I just thought that was a pretty interesting dynamic.

Like, another note was, like, if D'Andre Jordan had gone to Dallas and Harrison and D'Andre were on Dallas this year, and, like, who knows, maybe Mike Conley went because they had both those guys, how different this whole, like, outlook of this team would be, rather than D'Andre, like, giving a speech to the Clippers crowd and all this other stuff. So that was just, like, a few interesting wrinkles. But other than that, I mean, it's just more of the same. They mean, they killed China. They beat him by, like, 60 points. So it was a pointless exhibition. I mean, I do want to see Future Mavs Superstar Harrison Ball. I guess you only see him in the role he's destined for, taking 25 shots a game for the Mavs next year.

But any glimpse of that is always great, a superstar like him. He had some great garbage time plays, and they were off the dribble too. It was pretty funny. There were a couple times, like, DeMar Rosen and Harrison Barnes were out there as, like, primary ball handlers one time. And it was just like, these are the two worst guys you want to run the break. Like, both, like, D'Andre Jordan had a better time running the break than those guys. Yeah, I'll let's see some more Demar de Rosen isolation. plays. That's really, you know, it brings the fans out to the seats. It was, uh, it was pretty funny.

Also, Derek Rose was there at the game last night, uh, just like giving the death stare to probably everyone on the team. Like, you took my spot, you know, Jimmy, but he's just looking at Jimmy Butler, like, you took my spot on this team, you know. So that was pretty funny. He's got a super team now in New York, so it's all good for him. Yeah, he's fine. He's fine. Hortacheck was there last night. It was a big Knicks contingent there for Team USA. So maybe the Knicks are America's team. Maybe it's the team we deserve. Definitely. I think that's fair to say. Let's put the Knicks first this team. We'll see some real action. Well, speaking of this team USA team is not just messing around and playing China for fun. They're trying to get ready for the Olympics, which starts officially

August 6th. Their first game is actually against China. So we've kind of decided that, you know, obviously Team USA is the more dominant team, the team that everyone will be looking out for. But just speaking overall for the Olympics, are there any teams that you see as like sleeper, Dark Horse teams for the Team USA to watch out for in this tournament? Well, I think you've got like two dynamics going on. You've got the older generation of teams like France, Spain, Argentina, and those are the guys we've all watched a million times play Team USA. Tony Parker, Nick Batum, Borstielo team, the Palisal, Rudy Fernandez team.

and then, of course, the Genoblee Scola team. And I think this is kind of their last run of it. And then you have the next generation of young teams coming up. And that's who I really want to watch. Yeah. Like, I want to watch Super Mario and Dario Sarich Xavier Philadelphia on Croatia. You've got, like, Jokic on the Serbian team. And then you've got all the guys in Australia,

though I guess they don't have Dante Exum and Ben Simmons. Yeah, but they got Delhi. That's true. Delhi Dova, Team Delhi. That should be fun to watch. Yeah, I mean, the amount of, like, I honestly, I'm excited for Australia. That's one of my teams to look out for just because, first of all, it's not like their team Australia. They call themselves the boomers, which is a great name.

I love teams that go by nicknames. You got Delvedova, who's going to hustle and outwork everybody on the floor. You got Andrew Bogot, who like probably definitely should not be playing basketball at this point, given the fact that he just suffered a pretty serious injury and the Dallas Mavericks have to pay him a contract next season. but he's like, you know what, I'm going for my country, I'm going to go out there and get some buckets. You got Patty Meals. And Patty Mills isn't even Patty Mills is an international play. He's just Pat Mills.

You know, he matures, plays at a different level. And then Cameron Barstow, I mean, there's, and Air Baines. There's guys to watch on Team I'll show you. I don't know. Now that I think about it, without X-Men Simmons there, that was not a very inspiring list of names you just gave me. It was just white guys that might get done. I'm looking at the list, like, I want to see Lithuania. They got Valenciunis and DeMontas Sabonis.

That'll be kind of a fun little front court. Yep. And then you got like the next generation of Spanish players. You got like the older Hernan Gomez, future Nick superstar, Rookie Rubio, Muradich, all those kind of players too. And even Mark, right? Mark will be there. Markesol is not going to be there. Oh, he's not going to be there. Because he got hurt last year.

Oh, that's right. That's right. He did the... Unlike Bogot, he actually cares about his NBA team, so he's going to take the summer off. Yeah, I think Bogot is given the big middle finger. the NBA for what they did to him. Yeah, I'm sure he's super pumped to buildplay for Dallas. I'm getting sidetracked about, I don't know, about the Mavs.

I think there's a lot of good young players to watch, and I think that'll be fun. Even if USA dominates everybody, he's watching this next generation. Maybe like teams in 2020 you could possibly compete with the U.S. Yeah, so one of those teams, I mean, I pretty much am Team Croatia. It's sponsored by Michael Jordan. Tony Kooch and Michael Jordan are pretty much the biggest influences in basketball. basketball in the country. They're the ones that they look up to. That's why you have greats like Mario Hizonia on the rise. I mean, that team, I mean, you got Bogdanovich, you got

Sarech, you got Hizonia. I mean, those are three guys that are worth watching across the board. For Hizonia, like, what do you need to see from him if you're, you know, Vogel this summer and you're watching international play and you're like, oh, okay, I can see Super Mario can handle a scoring responsibility. I can see Super Mario can get other people involved. Like, what does he need improve on in his game to get, you know, next season, you know, to kind of get out of his freshman year slump. Well, probably play defense, I would assume. Like, just get better at that and, like, try on defense.

I mean, that's just a young player, young shooting guard. Most of those guys don't guard very much. And Croatia's fun because they have, like, two or three big men who just got drafted this year. Zizich, Zubach. Yeah. So they'll have a really nice young squad for 2018 and 2020. So this is, like, a good building block year for them.

Yeah, Zizis is, uh, uh, Yeah, obviously drafted by the Celtics. Another guy that I look for is Venezuela's coach, Nestor Che Garcia. Venezuela has won two world events in the Americas, which is like the first time they've ever done that in the history of basketball. It's like a team on the rise. And like Che is just a wild coach. Like that guy goes crazy and like he looks like Gary Williams,

but he's like the Venezuelan Gary Williams with how much he sweats and yells and like veins popping out of his neck. Now that's a solid. There's something to look forward to. You got the great Grievous Vasquez on this team. Exactly. Like, Che and Grievous, like, those are two guys that care a lot about basketball and are going to act a fool.

And, you know, like, I need entertainment. If you're not going to win games or challenge, you know, you might as well be entertaining and go for it 100%. Absolutely. Here's an Easter egg for college basketball fans. The great Gregory Echinique, who I believe was Doug McDermott's Center at Creighton is on this team. He was like a big, I think he wears Rex Spex, like 6-9-270 kind of guy. Yes.

And he just out here just. bruising on people. Absolutely. That's incredible. That's a great nugget. I had no idea he was on that team. What's another team? I guess Argentina is the team to talk about when you have Manu. I mean, what's Manu looking forward to? I mean, he's going to come back and

playing the NBA next year. Do you think he's going to give it off for Argentina? Maybe pull him messy. Just carry him to the finals? This is his last go-round. I mean, that was the great Argentinian team. It's kind of crazy. This is the same team that played in 2004. They're just like stuck outside of time. You've got Scola,

Genobli, Delphino, Nosioni, like all these guys just playing forever. I mean, they're all in their late 30s now, so this is their last run of things. I'm really banking on Boris Dio to have

an epic run. I don't know what that means or what that'll end up working out to be, but I just feel like Boris Dio needs to have a big tournament. Well, he was great in the 2014 euros. That was the ones where they kind of stunned Spain. That was in Madrid. It was going to be like Spain versus U.S.

and Boris Diaz just dominated the Spanish team. He just killed Pow and Mark and carried him to victory. So maybe the Spurs trade has kind of shocked him into getting in shape for this, but we'll see if that actually happens. Yeah, he's got a good team that he's going to. He's going to get some events. And he's got Rudy Gobert, a future... I'd be a fun thing to watch, a future Jazz connection, Di Outa Gobert.

You've got Geoffrey Laverne, I mean, Batum, Tony Parker. I would think France is probably a second best team here. Yeah, I mean, they pretty much work out. Two Payne's not on the team, right? Axel's not on the team. No, your boy Axel does not make the list. Huge loss. We got Michael Petrus's younger brother, Florence. Non-Lacolo.

There's some players. Isn't Florent? No, Florent, isn't Petrus, Mikkel Petrus is the younger brother of, like, Florence, the older brother, right? Yeah, I guess you're right. He's 35, so McEl isn't that. Yeah, that's not right. My favorite part of the French team is that, like, I was looking at the roster, and I was like, man, I really wish McClellan.

Cal Petrus was, like, you know, young enough to play on this team. That'd be great. I love Petrus's game, great Defender. And then I looked at the roster. I'm like, oh, Florent Petrus, that's great. His younger brothers on the team. And then I figured out it was his older brother. And it was like, that makes zero sense, but I love it.

And he might be my favorite player in the tournament. Florent Petrus? Yeah. Just a guy to watch on the perimeter. Great Defender. Obviously works hard, you know. Loves the game. If he even gets minutes, they got Jellaball, former Spurs, Sonics, Draft Pick.

I mean, they got a lot of players in the squad for France. I think the team, the game to watch will be France for Spain because that's an old school rivalry. They've been beefing for years. Yeah, especially after 2014, like you were saying. And that was, I think that was in 2012. Batum and Calderon got in something. Like, they were fouling late in the game

and Batum just like karate-chop Calderon and the nuts. And that was a big thing that happened. Yeah. So there's a lot of bad blood in that one. You can't come back from that, but I'm going to defend Batum because he's a great Charlotte Hornet. Yeah. I mean, that'll be a fun one to watch.

I guess what I'll be watching for is, like, can any of these young teams get into the medals? Or is it going to be US-1, France, Spain, 2, and 3? Or can you get, like, Croatia? Can you get a team going for 2020 to get into the 2016 range? Yeah. I'm not sure anybody's going to beat the U.S. I mean, that seems unlikely, obviously. Yeah, and I mean, I don't think the U.S., like, this is the B squad of Team USA,

and they still seem invincible in this field, which is a testament to Coach K. who's been with Team USA since 2006. He's sort of like on his own personal Kobe farewell tour. Calangelo has passed on the torch to Greg Popovich. He will officially take over in 2017. But I just wanted to reflect back on the 10 years of Coach K. Obviously Larry Brown was there in Athens when they got the bronze medal when Larry Brown basically just picked his favorite players and took them over there.

And then the whole USA basketball infrastructure changed. and they actually started scouting these international teams, and Coach K, you know, implemented some sort of professionalism in the program. So just 10 years of Coach K, what do you think looking back on this for him? I mean, at the highest levels, I wonder how much of it was Coach K and how much just a better generation of players. Yeah. You look at those teams in 2002 and 04.

You had like Richard Jefferson and Michael Finley and Jermaine O'Neill and Brad Miller. And I don't know. Maybe it was that one. wake and call for the best players to come in to really move this team forward. But I think what Coach K deserves credit for and it was probably fairly self-serving is the way he's built up the pipeline

of younger teams. So you have like the under 18 team, the under 20 team, and that's really stepped up under his reign. And it's really like there's much more of a pipeline now which directly helps Duke University. You had like Jaliel and Tyos Jones playing together internationally

and they play for Duke. Oh yeah. You had like Harry Jason Tatum and all those guys, Harry Giles, teaming up on Team USA, now they're playing for Duke too. I'll, I mean, look at, so if you were to go back to the U-18, like national team,

since Coach K took over in 2006, right? So in 2006, you have Kyle Singler, Duke, you have Austin Rivers, Duke, you have Rashid Suleiman, 2012, Duke, you have Justice Winslow, 2014, Duke, Kyrie Irvin, 2010, Duke. I mean, Coach Kay, created a complete pipeline for these Duke guys. I mean, and granted, you have to give some sort of credit

to it because, I mean, I guess Grant Hill was like the first superstar in 1990 to play U18 basketball for Team USA. So that was like an original Duky to do that. But Coach K is like, it's been a funnel. I mean, for as much credit as he gets for putting these teams together and like, you know, getting, like putting aside egos for all these big NBA stars. It's like, this has been nothing but great for Duke basketball. I mean, they've just, it was basically like a funneling system. I mean, it pretty much turned the whole program around Like his relationships with all these top NBA players Because there was that big stretch in the middle of 2000s

Where UNC all the best players And Duke was like, oh, we're going to get up like the Plumlies We're going with a bunch of seniors And now there's a one-and-done factory Yeah, well, I mean, I'll tell you a funny story A one recruit in 2011 when he was on campus at Carolina He was getting recruited by Duke in North Carolina And I was just, you know, talking to him when he was on campus

And I asked him, I was like, what's the pitch? from K. Like what's K's pitch? I mean I know what Carolina's pitch is and and he was like coach K asked me to he was like who's your favorite NBA player and I you know the guy like was like I told him it was Kevin Durant and then coach K proceeded to text Kevin Durant was like I'm here with you know insert recruit name and he says your his favorite player and like Durant texted coach K back and was like love his game blah blah blah and I was like how like how does coach K have all these guys like you know on call like does he let them know the day before that I'm going to hit you with the text like need to watch them table, Markell Fultz or whatever, you know, like, so weird that, you know,

he was able to, like, use NBA talents to, like, manipulate kids, but, you know, it worked. Yeah, I think maybe they just talk all the time, right? That's what he's telling you. He develops these lifelong relationships in these two weeks, these month-long training camps. They connect on a very deep heart level. Yeah. And all these years later. They're on a group text, probably. Kay and Kobe and LeBron. Oh, my. Just chatting about their days, you know, no big deal. Kobe's like pitching movie ideas and Kay's like, I don't think so. You know. This whole thing keeps him young.

Like he's what, 60s? He's pops age, but he has jet black hair. So clearly this whole thing is just, you know, vampiring the young to stay relevant. He's had the same hair for going on 25 years. Do you have a theory on that? I guess you're getting sidetracked, but do you have a theory on his hair? On his hair? Yeah.

I have a theory that he paints it with tar every morning. That's my theory. But I don't know. I don't know. I haven't fact-checked that. There's something going on there. We need some hard-head to get an investigation of this. I remember one time there was a sign that was like, I love Coach K's toupee, and he was not happy about it.

So there. He didn't seem, he seems pretty prickly. He had some of the kind of guy who's going to just take that in stride. No. Call me crazy. That's not his game. Hey, guys, before we get into the real basketball that happened this weekend, the U.S. 18, Feeble World Championships.

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Speaking of the U-18 team, Charks, they won a championship against Canada in Chile. This past weekend, you watched those games. I watched a few of those games, including the championship game. But we just want to kind of run through some guys on that U-18 team to keep an eye on. And I'm going to start off with the MVP of the tournament, Markell Fultz, who is going to Washington to play for Lorenzo Romar and the Washington University basketball team who have not made five. They've gone five years without an NCAA tournament run.

Markell Fultz, though, he's a superstar. It might be the number one overall pick next year. What do you think about him? Man, Washington has been a tournament five years. Five years. They've had so much talent, too, in that time. That's crazy. Yeah, the last time that they were there was with Isaiah.

Isaiah Thomas. They had that Terrence Ross Rotin team, and, geez, the Marcus Chris team. And, wow, that's impressive. I think Fultz should be good enough to get them back to the tournament. He was awesome. the whole, he looked like, he looked like he was better than everybody else on the floor, basically. He was too good for the competition.

He had that dunk, right, to start the championship game. It was like a left-handed, like, off the dribble, rise-up dunk to, like, start the game off. It was incredible. Oh, yeah, he had three or four of those dunks where he would spin into the lane and dunk on people. And it was like, that's a point guard. I didn't expect him to be that athletic.

It was, it was ridiculous. Yeah, does, I mean, is there a guy that you see a comp for him in the NBA? I mean, I was trying to think. I mean, I like that he's left-handed, right? I like the way that he plays. Like, he seems to have good handles. He needs to have some athleticism. I mean, I don't want to give him, like, any sort of rose props,

but he's got, like, John Wall athleticism, it seems like. I don't know if he has that pure speed of a John Wall, but, like, I don't think anybody has that. No. I was just thinking, like, watching him play, like, that's what you want your modern point card to be. He's 4, 65. Yep.

He shoots threes. He's really complete player. Like, what they were doing for Team USA, say there were some parts the game where they had Fultz at point guard and the white guy shooting threes in a big lineup. Then they had lineups where Fultz was playing the three and they had two point guards next to him. So he was just sliding up and out of lineup

whatever the team needed from him. He was just such a versatile player. You reminded me as like a mix of DeAngelo and Emmanuel Moudier. Yeah. Like if you combine those two guys in a one player. That's sort of like I saw Moudier, especially like him being able to play off the ball. Like you know how Denver, you know, a few times this year

like they would put Moodya basically at the two guard. And I could see that with Fultz. Like you were saying, they were able to move him around from position to position because he's still a threat, like catching the ball and like just driving straight to the basket. Like he's got quick, he's got a quick first step every time.

So that's why he's valuable. Another guy who, you know, probably is going to go to Washington too, but in the 2017 class is your boy Mitchell Porter. Mitchell Porter, Jr., his dad, Mitchell Porter, actually just got hired to be an assistant coach at Washington. so that usually leads to good things as far as the recruiting process. That's a pretty sweet gig for him, I'm sure. Yeah, he definitely offered a lot to the program outside of his son.

I remember the best was Mario Chalmers' dad. I used like the rector of basketball ops with Kansas for three years. I really enjoyed that one. That's my favorite. I love patronage in the game of basketball. Hey, man, get money. Get money, whoever it takes. Yeah, hook it up for the family.

But what did you see from Mitchell Porter, Jr.? We talked a little bit and you said that you think he might. might be better than Harrison Barnes right now. Yeah, I'm on an anti-Harrison Barnes kick right now, but that's the here nor there. Porter's really good. I think he's got like the classic three-four combo forward game. Like he can play small, he played a lot of small ball four, but then they played him at three sometime next to the big men.

He's six, nine. Basically him and Fultz won the game, the championship game. They just took it over. They started like getting steals and just dunking on people in the open court. I think Porter, like he can handle the ball really well. he's a great athlete. He can get his own shot really easily. He can guard multiple positions. His main thing now is just getting more polished. He took a lot of really bad shots. And that's where I think you have between Fultz and Porter. Fultz has got a really good feel for the game already.

Like I think Fultz can play in the NBA right now, like really easily. You can play start a point guard for a couple teams. Yeah. So like if you're Fultz, right, and you go to Washington next year and you make the tournament and you lose in the second round, You mean, you obviously jump to the NBA if you're off at that top five spot. But if you know Mitchell Porter is going to come the next year, like, is there any way? Like, I'm still of the train of thought that if someone believes that they can win a championship, no matter what the money may bring, maybe there's just like maybe there's a little bit of hope that they come back and want to play for.

That's because you're from North Carolina and college basketball. No, he's getting money, man. That's not happening. I'm just, I have hope, man. Just give me two years of college. That's all I want. want. Maybe that'll change the next CBA. That might happen, I guess. They might move that back. That's the best part about, like, if there happens to be a lockout, which it seems like a bunch of the small teams, you know, a bunch of the small teams, maybe want to push for that after the super team era and after what happened with the Knicks, you know, that really is jarred some teams.

They're pretty set on maybe having a lockout. So that'd be great. I mean, I would love two years. I would love two and done. Two and done sounds better than one and done. I mean, Folson Porter is pretty awesome. So, like, they're playing the three and the four a lot for Team USA, and it was just, like, full court press. Because it was shock as smart as running the team. Yeah. So they're basically playing, like, his VCU system with a bunch of one-and-done guys. And they just pretty much just rolled everybody they played besides Canada and Chile.

And they both just shot really well on the three-point line of keeping the game. Yeah, Canada. But it was really fun to watch. Canada shot, I mean, incredible from the three-point line. It was pretty crazy. I feel like that's a smart move for them, like, as a program. to just be like, look, we're going to just embrace the three-point line and spread the floor and, like, that'll be our stick. Because we're not going to beat you with strictly athleticism trying to go body-to-body.

Well, they got, I mean, they've got quite a few players in the pipeline now, but probably still spread, pick and roll, shoot threes. Yeah. Well, thanks to Vince Carter for giving him the blueprint. Another guy, speaking of Shaka Smart, who is the coach of the team, he has Jared Allen, who is going to be a freshman. He's 6-11 guy. He had a pretty good tournament. I think he led Team USA in Blocks, 6-11, just a stud. And then he has James Banks coming with him to Texas.

So good things for Shaka smart. But what do you think it does for those guys to have Shaka coach them before they even get into Texas and have this whole Team USA experience? Well, I mean, it's great for Texas. I'm a Texas guy, so I love it. It's great for Shaka. It installs with some early with these guys, build a bond. It's helped good with recruiting, obviously, too.

Yeah. I mean, that's the main thing. I think Banks is one of those guys Where he could have made the team He could have not Obviously it helps your coach is to coach the team Yeah he doesn't make the team without Shaka Yeah he didn't play much at all

So I mean it's great experience for him anyways You know to become BFS for these guys I think for Allen really saw like how well he fits With Shaka system Like if you wanted a big man to run that VCU press You'd want Jared Allen as your five He's like 220 pounds He's a 7 to 5, 7.5, 7 of 6 wing span

He's really fast He's a really smart basketball player Like he's not a great shooter or a great post score But he can just play basketball And not many big men can just play basketball In a system like that He can dribble a little bit He can roll the rim

He moves the ball really well He's just a really good player who's 611 Yes So I think he'll have a good year to share Texas for sure What do you think about Jared Allen Watching Larry Sanders VCU tape I don't think he's quite as athletic as Larry Sanders Well not many people are

But I just like that. I feel like that's what Shaka wants out of him. I feel like that's all I should do is watch those VCU games. Because when Larry was doing that, I mean, he was like in control. I mean, they would put him up at the elbow. He would have a just, like, I mean, he was incredible. Yeah, I mean, the guy who's got the Larry Sanders potential is Muhammad Bomba. That was the other big man at this tournament.

He has got a 7 foot 9 wingspan. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. Like I was telling Danny is like, watching a guy with two broomsticks play basketball for arms. Like, he's blocking him. everything. It's unreal. And he rolls to run the ball, you can do the ball like 12 feet

in there and you can still catch and dunk it. Yeah, I mean, he's in New York, New York, like, I mean, he's probably the best, like, New York basketball prospect, just raw talent, I mean, in a few years for sure. Since Lance Stevenson? Exactly. I mean, I don't know if he's in Lance Stevenson's category, because who is, but.

Yeah, not many people can get to that level of just raw natural talent, but yeah, he's right up there. But I mean, 611, like you was saying, 7-9 weekspan, class of 2017. He's probably like a Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas type kid. But, I mean, he's unreal. He had some big dunks.

He had some big blocks. And you could tell that teams are just going to salivate over trying to convince this guy to come to their school. And what's cool about him is he shot free throws pretty well at like 74%. He's fluid. Yeah, I mean, he's not a great offensive player yet. He's mostly catching dunk. But if you foul him, he'll make free throws.

And that's pretty rare for a guy with his kind of skill set. So he's definitely going to be an interesting player. to watch. I was talking about him with the NBA teams in Vegas this summer. They were already talking about him. So people are, he's in the redis, he's in the register everywhere. So obviously there's been a lot of hype about next year's draft with like Fultz and those guys. But if you look ahead to 2018 and you have Bomba and you have Porter Jr. and you start. DeAndre Aiton. Yeah, DeAndre Aiton, probably seventh woods. Just kidding. That's a, that's a shameless plug. But, uh, but you get all those guys in that 2018 class and then you start looking at, you know, teams that have good top first

round picks in those two drafts. And it's like, you might as well just hold on to those and just bank on, you know, getting a top talent and the drafts coming up. We're thinking of our boss right now, right? And then his Boston Celtics. Yeah, I guess. That's why I didn't want to like jump into, like, wow, the Celtics are really smart to have picks for both these draft. It seems like good years to have top picks. Like, this is the year I want the Mavericks to be bad and get a good point guard in this draft. But I think they're well on their way to do that, but I guess that's either here nor there. Yeah. Is there anyone

else from this? I guess Diallo is another one, who's another athletic freak. Yeah, he was probably the best athlete at the tournament I felt like. He's like 6'6. I heard someone call him a 6-6-Oledipo. Just by the way he moves, I can see that. He's just a freaking jet of an

athlete. And he was huge in the championship game. He was a massive force on the board. It was because it was like Fulton Porter, and he was the third guy on the primitive stepped up. I think he'll have to be, he didn't make a single three poor in this tournament. He's only a rising senior though, so that'll be a thing for him. He's more of a college guy to watch.

Maybe in two, three years, if he's a jumper, he'll be an elite NBA player. But for now, he's, he's a guy college fans should know pretty well. Yeah, I mean, he's the one that pretty much like, he had a couple of interviews where he broke the story to the world that, you know, you know, didn't really quite tune in to, like, what UK and Duke sort of like what their pitches were. and he was the one that started the drama with Calapari calling out K. Oh, that was Diallo? Yeah, yeah.

He was the one that started that whole beef. So he's got the right teams look at him as far as like Blue Bloods and college basketball. So he'll be fun. Yeah, I mean, it was just fun to watch a tournament because, like, it was good to see the way basketball's going. Like, probably a generation ago, you'd play Faults at the one, Porter at the three, island at the four. And now it's like fours or fives, threes are fours, ones or twos. and we're just playing master and small order position.

And that was really like, especially with Shaka's system. There was no post-scoring. There was no slowing it down. It was run, run, run constantly. Move the ball. Get your threes up. Spread the floor. Yeah.

I enjoyed watching that team. I enjoyed, I love Kevin Ali. I love Shaka Smart. I enjoyed seeing those guys have, you know, a role to play with these young kids. And I feel like that's the only good things for Yukon, Intech. Texas and even Mark Turgeon with Maryland. I don't know how much Turgeon actually talked to the kids, but, you know, pretty good start. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not a big Turgeon guy. You know, Royal Williams Disciple, man. Not pretty many of those guys hanging around the NCAA. It's kind of surprising, actually. There's a guy at, what, UAB, and there's Turgeon. Well, Jared Hass is at Stanford now. Oh, he moved up. Did they fire Johnny Dawkins?

Yeah, yeah. It's a UNC for Duke swap right there. Oh, wow. There's some blood, bad blood right there. Yeah. I think Johnny Dawkins is at Florida International now. Oh, the Isaiah Thomas School. Yeah.

It's a great place to be where you can just get, like, the kids from Miami that didn't want to, well, not only did they not want to go to the U of Miami, but they probably couldn't get them in there. Couldn't qualify it. Yeah, yeah. And then you just get a bunch of studs and see what happens. Isaiah laid the blueprint, man. Always. Always.

All right, Charks. Any last predictions for Team USA? looking forward to the Olympics, other than a gold medal? Harrison Barnes takeover? I think that's fair to say. He's going to assert his dominance over Kevin Durant in this tournament. I think he's going to prove his worth, you know? I think it's time.

He's going to play like eight minutes a game, you know, average four points a game. It's like, yes, this is the future of the Mavericks. I feel like Coach Kay is going to just sit him on the end of the bitch. Oh, he'll probably bury the heck out of Harrison. Yeah, I thought he was going to do it yesterday, but he got him some minutes and garbage time. that was nice of him to do. Coach K wrapping up a 10-year career at the reins of Team USA

and we're looking forward to the Olympics. Tarks. Thanks man. Thanks, man. Have a good one.