The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 66: All-Star Snubs, Rondo vs. Wade, and More Melo

Episode Date: January 27, 2017

The Ringer's Chris Vernon is joined by Zach Harper of FanRag Sports to discuss the All-Star lineups (2:05), Rajon Rondo and the Bulls (13:33), and the Knicks' continuing Carmelo Anthony saga (22:13). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The people have spoken, and Jeff Ross has returned for Roast Battle 2. The four-night event features top comedians getting verbally violent until just one is left standing. Featuring a star-studded lineup of judges, including Snoop Dog, Sarah Silverman, and Jason Sedakis, this is a battle you don't want to miss. The four-night event began last night at 9 o'clock on Comedy Central. It's still going on. Make sure you don't miss that live finale on Sunday, January 29th at 10-9 Central to see who gets crowned the king or queen of, cruelty. Welcome to the Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Joining me today is Zach Harbury. You can find

him on Twitter at Tall Coops. You can also find him at his new job at fanragsports.com. Hey, Zach. Hey, Verna. How are you doing? Good man. So, hey, congratulations on the new job. Thank you. I feel like I owe you 10%. I won't collect. I also have seen you recently on social media at talking about filming some type of TV thing? Is this going to be Zach Harper the TV star? Amazingly, not about me. I'm just helping out on the show. It's a pilot for Comedy Central with a comedian Ian Carmel, huge blazers.

And so I'm one of the writers on the show. Hopefully it gets picked up. I don't know. I guess just tweet Comedy Central and tell them they should pick it up, even though we haven't finished it yet. I know, Ian. What's the show about? It's like a sports comedy.

show. So we're, you know, like a little bit of, you know, do a sketch, do a, you know, a monologue, do a panel, like stuff like that. Like, it's kind of a, but I mean, I can't say a ton about it, but we, we shot our sketch the other day and it's crazy funny. So I'm very proud of it so far. Crazy funny. All right. Well, good luck with all that. Last night, the All-Stars were announced. And I know that you, uh, you rode hard for the Utah Jazz. They did get Gordon Hayward in. They did not get Gobert in. Do you consider Gobert the biggest snub in your mind's eye? Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think that with him, he's just been better than DeAndre. I think DeAndre's job has been tough because, you know, Blake hasn't been there. Now Chris is out. You know, he's kind of trying to hold down the fort. He's become an excellent defender. Like, remember how Doc Rivers talked about DeAndre's a defender a couple years ago? Like, he's actually that defender now. He wasn't back then, but he is now.

He's become a very impressive player. I just think Gobert's better. I think Gobert's been a better defender. He's a, you know, as good of a rebounder. He's been the best pick and roll big man in the NBA this year. Like, he's just been so good. He's stabilized that jazz team when Hayward was out early, when George Hill goes out, like he's just the reason they are,

they're able to be their identity on defense. But I think he got snubbed. I also think Mike Connolly should have made it over Clay Thompson. I don't think Clay Thompson's had an all-star year. I was kind of surprised that Clay Thompson made it, But you always get into that scenario where it's hard to argue against a team that never loses, right? And so like, oh, yeah. I mean, there was 30 games over 500.

Like, yeah, they're probably deserving of four, I guess. Right. Right. Like, when you're trying to make the argument, you're making an argument against a team that wins every single night. So that's a tough spot. I will say, I wondered if D'Andre made it. I thought Paul should have made it. He hasn't been injured that long.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you throw an injury replacement in there, but the fact that he wasn't named at all, I would shock that. Don't you think that's why DeAndre did? They gave it to DeAndre because they needed a clipper and they weren't going to have Paul in there.

Also, here's a theory. Here's a conspiracy theory. With Zach Levine not doing the dunk contest, Aaron Gordon needs some competition. Yondre Jordan did always say if he was an all-star, he'd be in the dunk contest. So maybe they're trying to go to him into that Saturday night action, too. You think he'd be good in the dunk contest?

I mean, I'm always hesitant with big men. Like drumming was just a snore, right? And not a lot drumming could have done against those two. But I don't know. Like, with Amar, like, Amari was pretty good, right? Like, I don't think DeAndre is going to be like Chris Anderson. I don't think you're going to need 30 attempts to, you know, to pull off a dunk. But I think he could do some crazy stuff.

Like, he might be Dwight Howard-esque in that dunk contest environment. Why is Levine not doing it? I think he's a little way, you know, you get into that thing of like, I'm more than a dunker, right? Oh, God. I kind of think that's the reason. Like, he can do, he can do a 360 from the free throw line. And we've seen the little vine of it.

I want to see it in a dunk contest. I want to see the two feet from the free throw line in the dunk contest. Like, we've got to see all that stuff. He needs to go through the entire repertoire before he's allowed to get out of there. Maybe he's going to try to do the three-point contest, but he should have done one more dunk contest, in my opinion. Okay, so if it was your choices for the All-Stars last night, you would have had Conley instead of Clay Thompson, you would have had

Rudy Gobert instead of DeAndre Jordan? Yep, absolutely. I think it speaks to how good the league is right now when we're talking about it. Because listen, you didn't even mention Damian Lillard. Like, I know their record stinks, but Damian Lillard is, Damian Lillard's awesome, right? And you can make an argument for C.J. McCollum, too, right?

Like, he's been incredible too. Yep. And we didn't even get to, you know, if we're talking bad records, obviously Towns, you know, he is hurt by his team's lack of success this year, but Carl Anthony Towns and then just watching him, I flipped on that game last night that they lost to the Pacers. And I mean, he's, he's nailing threes down the stretch like he's damn Larry Bird or something. Yeah, I mean, he's got stepbacks, he's dribbling into jumpers, he's driving past people. He's been ridiculous the last month and a half. He kind of struggled out of the gate

the first month of the season, especially defensively, but last month and a half, like they're not a lot of big men playing the way he's playing. Regarding the Eastern Conference, I think there was a perception that maybe there's so many awesome point guards that somebody was going to get left out. But instead, they all made it. Yeah, they all made it, which I'm happy for. I think Isaiah Thomas, I mean, obviously Isaiah Thomas is an all-star. I think John Wall should have been in there and he was. Like, Campbell Walker had an all-star season last year.

He's been even better this year. Like, he deserves to make it. I am annoyed that Joel and B. didn't get it. And this isn't a novelty pick. Like, I really think he's been that good. Is it his fault he's on a minute's restriction? Maybe, maybe he should stop breaking his foot, right? Like, maybe that's, maybe that's a way to punish him.

But he's not just like this guy who's scoring. Like, he's a defensive monster. If he's not an all-star, and, you know, no offense to guys like Paul Milstap, but if Embed's on an all-star, I don't really know what an all-star is. Yeah, well, and the crazy thing is, it is a, nobody else is saying, there's nobody else that anybody is replacing Embed with. I do kind of feel bad for Paul Millsap because he's always been the really good player that, let's be honest, nobody really cares about, right? Like, it's not like you ever see anybody in a Paul Millsap jersey.

He just is what he is. He's a really outstanding NBA basketball player that does not, you know, he keeps to himself. He is, you know, Atlanta fans obviously care about the guy. And people have a high level of respect for him, but he ain't fun. And that's the problem, right? if it's a popularity contest and it is who people want to see, everybody's in love with Embed. I mean, we haven't seen a character like him in the NBA in like a long time. I was trying to think if there's anybody that was like as consistently funny and likable as him.

And I think like the whole Agent Zero thing, before all the guns in the locker room and all that crap. Yeah. But I thought like it kind of feels a little arena-sy in the sense. that like arenas was if people could go back in time there's a lot of people that are listening to us or remember but he was the most fun guy in the NBA for a short period of time he was doing

all the antics he was agent zero everybody loved arenas and then it obviously went the way yeah yeah I mean what was it like 2005 2006 there wasn't a jumper in a park across America that wasn't yelling at Batchie after it right like that was a real thing

like he was the actual phenomenon and and with him Like, you know, with Embed, it's like it is a little like young Shaq, right? Like not as good, not as good as young Shaq, but it's that same kind of aura, that same kind of just gravity and attraction to watching him play basketball. And the personality is there too. I mean, if he was, if he was American born and didn't have an accent, I think he'd be even, even more accepted, which is, which is kind of a crazy thing to say,

is that, you know, the way he talks probably pulls him back a little bit from just being this giant megastar at all time. But he's figuring it out, right? He's great on social media. He's great on a basketball court. He's great in the interview. He's great everywhere he goes. Yeah.

And I'm glad he's at least going to be part of the weekend when he's on that world team. Which, by the way, that world team is loaded. Oh. Unfair. It's entirely unfair. It's almost embarrassing. You know what I mean? To be for American basketball.

The world team. I mean, these guys, because, all right, so M. B, he's for sure going to make all. All-Star teams. Exum healed, who knows. Nikolai Jokic, earlier this year, I had Mike Miller on the podcast, and he's like, he's the one. He's the one on that Denver team, because he's on that Denver team now.

He's like he will be a multiple-time All-Star, like several All-Star games. So then you got Trey Liles, Moodye, Jamal Murray, and then Porzingis, Sabonis, Sarich. I mean, good grief. Things just loaded. This team gets to pair with like, you know, Jonathan Simmons and Jalil Okopur. Like, that'll excite everybody. At least Towns is going to be in the game, right? Yeah, it would be fun.

Towns can't take on for Zingis and Bid and Yokic at the same time. That's unfair. You could see Booker giving them buckets, though. Devin Booker could be the way. He's going to pull from 30. He's going to be just all over the place. And, you know, he and towns with that Kentucky connection, they'll be trying to set each other up the whole night.

All right. So overall, the only ones that you would put back on, and I don't have a problem with it, is M.Bed, you would have MBEED instead of M.SAP, and then you would have Gobert and Conley on the West team. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, like, I don't think anyone that they picked isn't All-Star work, right? Like, I just think there are some, a couple of guys that are more worthy of being an All-Star, but I don't think anyone got on. That is ridiculous. There's some level of controversy, I don't know, very minute, you know, just because Kerr made a big deal. lot of the players making a mockery of it, whatever. But it does feel at least like this, like, did they get it more right because of the way it was done? You don't have like the elder statesman. Clearly, Dwayne Wade would be in the game if it was the way it used to be.

So there are a couple guys that if it were the way it was used to be, maybe Carmelo too, would be in this game. So is this, is there, is the mode of operation to get the All-Stars this year more right? Yeah, I think so And I also think that it's I just think there aren't a lot of people that understand How to vote for All Star Like I really like in our in our NBA Twitter bubble

We get it right But in terms of like just the casual fan I don't think the casual fan really knows like it feels like I don't have numbers back this up This could be an entire lie But it just feels like there are fewer votes than in the past Like I because we don't have those those punch card ballots In arenas anymore

I just feel like we're getting fewer votes And I think the process is either confusing or just not within the periphery of the casual fan in any way. So I do think that there needs to be a better job of getting the system out there to people and to NBA fans to vote. But I think, I don't know, like letting the, seeing who the players vote for, seeing who the media votes for, seeing who the fans vote for, I kind of like that dynamic. Maybe they need to wait a different way. But I like the dynamic of seeing how all these different sects of our NBA world. actually end up voting in what they think all-stars are. All right.

Well, all the all-stars and everything surrounding it were announced last night. We do need to get into some of the, but they were not the biggest stories in the NBA that came out last night probably because they even had to break into their All-Star shows on TNT about Ray John Rondo's Instagram rant. I'm going to get to that as soon as we come back. Today's episode is brought to you by The Masked. Man Show on Channel 33. Each week, David Shoemaker and a rotating cast of experts break down all you need to know in the world of professional wrestling. Royal Rumble is this weekend.

I can't wait. You can listen to the Mask Man Show on Channel 33 podcast feed on iTunes by going to iTunes.com backslash the ringer or finding it wherever you get podcast. So, Zach, they break into the broadcast last night, and we've got this epic Ray John Rondo Instagram. tweet or Instagram post which is taking on I don't think anybody like there's no like there's no way around it it's the it's the day after Jimmy Butler and Dwayne Wade were very public in their criticisms of the Bulls team to the media and then you have Rondo with this Instagram post calling out the leadership and basically comparing those guys to leaders of the past like Paul Pierce like Kevin Garnett when you first see the Rondo post what do you think?

I got in at a lucky time with this Rondo post because I clicked on it. I read the whole thing. I see the picture of Big Three in Boston. And then, you know, that Instagram won't show you all of the comments that's a lot of right, especially on an athlete. Like there are just too many comments. So it's like, you know, you more comments here, like 956 comments here. But the two I saw was one person saying, you're the best.

And then the next person saying, come on, man, you quit on the Mavericks. Like, how can you say this? and it's just a perfect like it's a perfect summation of the Rondo experience right like he's he's moody he'll speak his mind often in kind of like a sub-tweety kind of way

but yeah he'll mostly speak his mind and then to come out and do that and really just be a hypocrite because of his past actions like yeah maybe KG Pierce and Ray Allen would have handled this a different way you're not handling a different way this is how you handled it so don't

don't say these guys would have done this when you won't do Ray John Rondo is a bull over under 10 days, Zach. You know what, let's get fun. I'm going to go under. This week, he gets waved. Well, I saw earlier today one of the guys on Twitter, and I can't recall what was, so forgive me, that covers the bull saying that he had been at shoot-around for 40 minutes outside,

and he had not heard a ball bounce yet. So they're going through it. Oh, Fred Oiberg's going through it. They're having a heart to heart. I mean, you know, you and I watch Michael Carter Williams enough to know that he's not a very good basketball player, right? Like, the Bulls opted for Michael Carter Williams to play with this team heavy minutes over Ray John Rondo. Like, that's just, you know, he's just not a part of the team. And I don't know, like maybe LeBron takes a chance on him because he wants a backup point card.

But I just don't like, what game is there to bring Rondo in at this point? is there any upside to it because do you believe that he is actually going to play like the Rondo from four or five years ago? Like I just don't see it happening. So the Bulls are probably trying to, you know, probably trying to push him out the door right now, like literally push him out the door in that shoot around. It's probably a film session of how to push someone out of a room and they're now trying to enact that. Not to, well, forget the whole that he's not what he used to be, that he's not good anymore. You get all this shit that comes with it. You know what I mean?

Like nobody wants that. Instagram. It's self-sabotage. It's different if you're the guy. And if you're the lead, like if Jimmy Butler, I don't know. Actually,

I don't know. I don't think, I promise you, they can all hash it out today. Wade and Butler will resent him forever for posting that. You'll just never get over. I mean, they can hash it out today and then two weeks from now

when they have another bad loss. And Jimmy Butler and Dway are like, this is not how it's supposed to go. We got to be better than this. Then Rondo, what, throws up a Snapchat? Like, what's the next day? Like, he's just always going to move on to being Rejon Rondo in a different platform.

Well, and it just feels like it's disloyal, right? Like, I mean, you saw KG last night on TNT talking about, like, you handled this in the locker, which I thought was interesting, because there's Rondo, like saying this team needs leadership and whatever else, and that's how they did it in Boston and whatever else. And yet there's Kevin Garnett, who is a subject of the post on TNT last night.

night saying this, you know, you got to handle this man to man, right? Yeah. It's almost like you can't get, you can't get more ironic than that, right? Then he's comparing it. This is just Rondo. This is just what he does, right? Like, he's just, he's checked out. Like, he's still good enough and athletic enough to be on an NBA roster.

But would you want to play him? No, he doesn't play any defense and he just, you know, hunts for assists. And then he, and then he's a prick in the locker room or he's interviews or whatever. And it's fine. Like, if you're good enough. to justify being a prick, then you get away with it. There are a lot of them in the NBA right now. Kobe was that forever, right?

But he was so good that he could get away with it. Rondo's not that good. And Rondo's not good enough to do that anymore. So, you know, he just ends up looking like a hypocrite, which isn't anything new. Like people expect, that's the sad things. People expected this out of Rondo at some point, right? Whether it was an Instagram post or whatever, they knew this was coming. Is it an indictment of Hoyberg, do you think?

No, no, I'm not talking about just Rondo specifically on what he has to. to say, but just the whole situation, I'll be honest with you. Have you heard Fred Hoyberg say anything? Have you seen anybody talking about a Fred Hoyberg quote about what's going on with the Bulls? Like, nobody really even gives a crap. It's like Dwayne Wade and Jimmy Butler are talking. But other than that, you know, I don't know.

It's kind of like Hoyberg's an innocent bystander to this team that's been put together. Yeah, and you can't be that as a coach, right? I mean, you have to be a leader in Thumbstores. and this was stuff Jimmy Butler complained about last people, saying, you know, going from Tom Thibito to Fred Hoyberg, he's not yelling at us. He's not cursing at us. He's not loud enough.

He's not, you know, he's not strong enough with us. Like, he needs to coach us harder. I don't know what coach us harder even means, but that's what Jimmy Butler has consistently said about him during this time. And so, yeah, like, I mean, I think Fred Hoyberg is a smart guy. I think he's probably a good coach in the NBA with the right mix. But, I mean, he's at least been someone. one that Jimmy Butler seems to be trying to force himself to talk, you know, to talk himself

into. And it's just, I don't know, it's not a fit. Super crazy situation, too, because in most cases, if you have like the tyrannical coach, then the guy that's not brow beating you and beating your ass and, you know, yelling at you all the time, that that guy can be a super breath of fresh air, except when the players seemingly all swear by you. and I think that's kind of what happened with Tibbs, right? Like, I never got the sense that, you know,

everybody else could talk about how these guys play too many minutes and he was rough on him and he's always screaming and whatever. But it never seemed like the players had a problem with Tom Tibido, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those guys would run through a brick wall for him, right? Like, they run through a beaded curtain for Fred Hoyberg at this point? Probably not. Probably not.

I can't imagine. I would, I give anything to, like, for there to be a video camera in on that meeting today. I just love to hear it all hash out. You could change my league pass payment to $2,000 a year if you gave me access to those locker rooms and those meetings. That's all I want to see. Well, I think whatever you want, I'll pay it. I think kind of the interesting thing is there seems to be some level of alignment between Butler and Wade. I may be reading that wrong, but I think that, you know, when you brought

in Dwayne Wade and he's got the titles and he's got the All-Stars or whatever, that it was just going to be, everybody was saying, oh, now it's going to be Jimmy Butler's team, right? Rose is gone, Noah's gone, and Tibbs is gone, and this is Jimmy Butler's team. And then they bring in Dwayne Wade. It's like, eh, you probably ain't getting your own team, buddy, because any locker room that Dwayne Wade walks into,

he's going to be the most respected guy. Yet it does seem like their relationship is fine. Those two, they seem to be on the same page. They're the only ones. Yeah, I mean, I think they get it. Like, Jimmy Butler, you know, works his ass off, and he's an unbelievable place. player. And I think Wade respects that.

Wade can't do what he used to do, right? But Wade still tries to do what he does. You know, he's still a very good score. He's still a guy who can, you know, attract the attention of the defense. And I'm sure Butler respects the hell out of that because you need the defense getting away from you at times to get some buckets. And so I think there is a kinship. Like, will that last two, three seasons? I don't know.

Probably not. But right now, yeah, they seem to kind of be banding together of like, look, we've got to figure this out because Butler's been on pretty good teams of Wade has obviously been on very good teams of four. They trust that each other is going to know how to do it. They just need help to do it. All right. Let me get to the Carmelo Anthony stuff. Yesterday I had Chris Mannix on the podcast,

and he talked about him and Adrian Warjianowski's report that the Knicks had been talking to teams, most exclusively the Clippers and the Celtics, as some teams that maybe that they could move Carmelo Anthony to. If you're Danny Aange, Would you trade for Carmela? I mean, here's the tricky part. I don't think the assets Danny Ait has are all that good.

You know, I think they're fine. But, like, I don't think he has this treasure trove of assets outside of the Brooklyn fix. Really? That really matter. I mean, like, all right, who's he going to move? Like, Jaylon Brown's fine, right? The one that got brought up. These are solid role players.

Okay, the one that got brought up yesterday was, like, a deal that would include smart and Crowder. I mean, that's a nice hall. Is that a nice hall for the second best player on your team? because I think Porzingis is the best player on the Knicks right now. Like, I don't know. I mean, I guess part of the asset is getting out of the money you owe, right? Like that is an asset in and of itself.

So that helps for sure. Like, if I'm Danny Aange, do I think that Carmelo and Isaiah Thomas can coexist? Like, these are two guys who stop the ball, right? Like, I think it's some of this. But for the most part, he's a guy who, you know, pounds the ball and gets buckets and, you know, get playups and gets the free-for-line, all the stuff. Mello is a guy who, you know, he's a real ball-stopper. I don't know that they can play together

and so that's where I would be like do I really want to give up even even if like we just say like they have pretty decent assets right if we agree on that just for the sake of argument would I give up pretty decent assets to see if Mello and Isaiah Thomas can co-exist that kind of money? Not really

I don't think it's a bad idea I just don't think it's a no-brainer. You don't think that if you had Isaiah Thomas Carmelo Anthony and Al Horford that you would lock yourself into an Eastern Conference finals appearance you would but are you going to I think I just think everyone should be gearing up

to eventually take down LeBron and by the time LeBron is done Carmelo's done and so at that point as Al Horford at his age in three or four years is Isaiah Thomas going to be able to do it mostly on his own like I just don't see that happening I think you have to build you know be as competitive as you can now

while still building for the future I don't think that move does that. It'd be fun. It'd be fun for us It would be fun for us And LeBron's all salty recently, man I mean obviously the Cavs haven't been playing real well But you've got this whole public GMing thing going on Yeah, I mean that's just

You know, LeBron If you won't go as much into the You know, he's not going to be happy We saw that in Miami with Mike Miller Getting Wade Like that's just how it is Yeah, now it's it is it is odd right Because they do have three all-stars

On the team JR's been hurt but this, but he's been, it has not just been like a one-off. He has been relentless about this. Like almost every time he opens his mouth, he's like, and now it's gotten to the point where he's using the F word.

Well, you know, you know what? If someone wrote a letter like that about me once, like, yeah, that was in 2010, but I don't think you forget that. I think if you come back and you tell Dan Gilbert, you know what, I will give you championships because this is good for everybody, right? you're going to expect everything to be given to you that you want.

And LeBron probably expects that anyway because that's just how life has been for him since he was 14 years old. But if you're, like, if you're LeBron, you have to think that there shouldn't be a single thing that Dan Gilbert won't give me at this point because he owes me just from that letter alone. Like, I get that. Like, if I'm him, I'm putting all the pressure on Dan Gilbert to spend as much money. I mean, he runs a, he runs a, you know, a not a potentially fraudulent business, but like

that business has been under scrutiny for, you know, for, you know, for, you know, for fraud and stuff like that, right? Like the whole lending business. He literally just makes funny, like makes whatever money he needs in life to get whatever he needs done. LeBron should expect that that money should trickle into as much of the Cavs organization as LeBron

one. So do you think he is justified in doing what he's like? They killed him on TNT last night. I mean, they really did. They're like, what are the odds that he's just bored? Right? It's the middle of the season. I think these are the dog days. Like, he gets bored. He creates a little controversy. He tells Kevin love to, you know, fit in instead of fitting out. You know, he gets Kyrie Irving and play a little defense. You know, this might just be January for

LeBron. He didn't get to take his two weeks off like he did a couple years ago. He probably is just wondering, you know, how can I spice things up a little bit to make these games a little less monotonous? That may be so, because all of these teams are going through it. I mentioned yesterday that we are at that point in the season where you see these results on a given night and you could do with 10 to 15 teams what's wrong with and then just fill in the blank. Right? Because Boston takes these bad losses and the panic meter is high and then they lose to the Wizards like they do. And then they turn around and beat Houston and everything's fine.

Right. Yeah. I mean, and look at Houston too. Houston was what, like 34 and 12 or something like that, 34 and 11. And now they've lost two, you know, three or four in a row and we start wondering, oh, Houston getting figured out. I don't know. They might just be tired.

And that's not a satisfying answer in any way. That's not a good analysis, but sometimes it's just what it is. That's 100% true. I went to the Houston Grizzlies game last weekend and was talking to some of the guys from Houston. And, of course, they ended up smashing the Grizzlies in the game. It was last Saturday night. That was, and this is prior to them going on the rest of that trip.

I think they played at Milwaukee and the loss, and then they played against Boston lost. they had played eight games in 12 days. Like no team's going to be, especially a team that shoots like 63s a game. Like their legs were just shot. Yeah, although there is less running into the paint. So maybe that saves it a little bit. You just have to run.

I mean, this is my pickup game at 35 years old. I'm just going three point line and three point line. You can't tell me Ryan Anderson isn't doing the same thing. That is a, you know, that's everybody. I hadn't seen the paint I hadn't seen the paint in five years I heard my shoulder and had to

I couldn't shoot for about a month because I hurt my shoulder and so I did drive a lot more not for me I've realized why I stopped driving that's how injuries happen speaking of I'm not I'm not a hero

speaking of we now have a second year in a row where a playoff team is going to lose a big man over punching something last year it was Blake Griffin and it was another human. Last night it was Enos Canter. This guy's going to miss two months punching a chair in a win.

Like this is very high on the list of asinine injuries. Yeah, I mean, also, like, how hard was that chair? I have no idea. But, I mean, you're punching one of those chairs on the sideline and your forearm fractures or whatever. I got to wonder if you're drinking enough. milk or taking on calcium or whatever. Like that's a real weird injury.

Well, it said as he brought his arm down, the folding chair flipped up, and he caught his forearm on the metal edge. That's terrible. I mean, it's at least more, it's probably more resistance than he's used to giving on defense. So I'm sure that it's just a for,

that kind of impact is just foreign to him. Yeah. It says, Thunder coach Billy Donovan said he wanted to withhold comment on the way Cantor's injury happened until he had a chance to talk to him. Cantor left the arena with a wrap around his right wrist and shook his head and patted his chest

in a, quote, my bad fashion. Yeah, you're bad, man. He's going to be out for two months. I just wanted to, like, does he blame himself or does he blame the chair? And is this worse than, didn't Carlos Boozer, like, trip over a gym bag and break something? Is this worse than that?

Yes. This is, because at least, Like you could just not see the gym bag, right? Like this is 100% self-inflicted. And the other thing is this. They're probably not in any kind of, you know, dire straits of dropping out of the playoffs. But, you know, right now they're a game and a half back from Utah. You know, the deal is there's that group where it's, you know, Denver is now the eight seed.

and they're six games behind the Grizzlies who are the seven seed. So you're probably not dropping off that much. But I do think they could have a tough time without Canter. They don't have a lot of – I mean, I know Westbrook's having this insane season, but they don't have a lot of guys that get buckets on that team that you can count on on a regular basis. And Canter has been really good for them. Hell, he's their third-leading scorer.

Yeah, I mean, aside from Westbrook, how much of their offense based on, you know, grabbing the offensive rebounds of missed shots and putting it back in. Like, he's incredible at that. You know, whether you want to think he's overpaid for what he does or doesn't play enough people, he definitely doesn't play enough defense. But, you know, however you want to categorize it, like, he does fit in a lot to what they do because they don't have shooters and they don't have much offense.

So how much more does Westbrook have to do? Or do they find a way to have Stephen Adams do more of that or, you know, to Montez's the bonus. Like, they have big men. They have depth to deal with it. But you're right. Like, that sucks. that's, you know, 15 to 20 points a night off the bench that is, you know, just efficient scoring inside.

And that's, I mean, I don't know. I guess Westbrook can play some post. Like, he's a pretty good post-up player. I guess he just does more now, right? Like, he just add it up. You get 31, let's say on average, you get 31 out of Westbrook, you get 16 out of Oladip. You get 12 out of Adams, okay? So there's your, there's, and then obviously you're taking the canter numbers out.

So you've got now three double-disc. digit scorers, and even with Westbrook having the crazy year, you're talking about, you add that up, you're talking about a tick under 50 points. Well, hell, most nights, you've got to get 50 more. So now you look up and down that roster and you go, all right, where's the other 50-something coming from? And when you take Cantor out, it's a little bit different than a lot of other teams. I don't think that that 14 just gets replaced rather easily.

I mean, Nick Collison, Renaissance, I'm ready for it. Nick Carlson comes out, starts playing like it's Kansas again. Like, this could, you know, this could be the greatest story of the second half of the season. Nick Galison is, I think it's, who is it? It's him, Dirk, and Haslam are like literally the elder statement, the guys that have been with their teams forever. With one franchise. Now that, you know, Duncan left and Kobe left, but we are, we don't have that many left in the league

that have been with their teams for over a decade. and Collison's one of them, so I'm with you. Let's get a Nick Collison Renaissance. It seems like the best option, right? I mean, I don't know if it's the best option, but it's most fun for us. Zach, good luck with the new gig at FanragSports.com. Good luck with the Comedy Central pilot. I hope it gets picked up.

Thank you so much. Anytime you want to talk to me, I'm ready to kill a morning with you. My man. Thanks, Zach. Thanks, Chris. Zach Harper. It's going to do it for the NBA show today. We will catch up with you next week.

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