The Ringer NBA Show - ‘Heat Check’: Turbulent Lakers, Triumphant Raptors, and Tampering in L.A. (Ep. 188)

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

The Ringer’s Juliet Litman and John Gonzalez unpack the drama surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers (0:58), evaluate the updated All-Star voting process (8:52), project the impact of players returning to action (14:38), and wonder if the Toronto Raptors could contend with the top-tier teams (20:24). Then they discuss some regrettable choices by players named Paul (24:49), react to eccentric news stories in basketball (30:47), and preview this week’s slate of games (34:01). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Heat Check. You knew that was coming. It's Heat Check time. Welcome to the Monday heat check. I'm Julianette Litman. I'm John Gonzalez. Happy New Year. We're back. I think we're beyond the Rubicon of one. You can say Happy New Year. But it's our first podcast back in 2018. Because Christmas and New Year's fell on a Monday and we're the Monday morning heat check. We haven't been here. I haven't seen you. I haven't seen your smiling face. I want to congratulate you, Bachelor Party. Thanks. Killing it. Thanks. Please subscribe. Bachelor Party. I want to say this, both to you and Isaac. How happy I am to you. to work with two superstars.

You have your own podcast industry. I mean, we do a lot of podcasts here at the Ringer, but you are on like 12 of them, and they're all super successful. A little bit less than 12, but there's a bunch, yes. Pretty close. I think I counted. That's very kind.

Please subscribe to Bachelor Party. And in the meantime, let's start by talking about the Lakers. Yes. Where we left 2017, we begin 2018. We go from the drama of Bachelor Party, the drama of the Lakers. Holy shit, Juliet, what is happening with them? They finally won a game.

They had lost nine in a row. They finally won a game against the Hawks last night. which I guess good for them. But in advance of that game... Let's not gloss over beating the Hawks. I am immediately glossing over. I was really weird they were going to lose to the Hawks. They're the worst team in the NBA.

Congratulations, you beat the Atlanta Hawks. But much more important for our purposes is that LeVar Ball from Lithuania gave an interview to ESPN in which he threw all shade at Luke Walton. All the shade. He said, you can see they're not playing for Luke no more. Luke doesn't have control of the team no more. They don't want to play for him. that's a good team.

Nobody wants to play for him. I can see it. No high fives when they come out of the game. People don't know why they're in the game. He's too young. He's too young. He ain't connecting them anymore. You can look at every player.

He's not connecting with one player. First, I want to applaud you for channeling your inner LeVar. That was awesome. That was like he was here. Second, LeVar, what the hell? Third, Luke Walton's response to this before the game, he said, you know, it was obviously not ideal. But my absolute all-time favorite quote may be in the last. decade came from Luke Walton afterwards. So Bill Orum, who works for local papers here in Los Angeles,

asked him, he goes, oh, you know, you pulled out Lonzo in the first quarter, and Luke's response was his dad was talking shit, so I took him out early. And then he let it breathe for a second, and everybody looked at him. He goes, yeah, I'm just kidding. Luke Walton, I love you. I don't know if you're any fun to play for, but you are an awesome quote. Very Steve Kerr of him. Amazing. Yeah, I really like it, too. I think that my favorite Laker, other than Rob Blanca, is Luke Walton. I just like their management. And I like for... love. And I just want them to be a better team.

So this has been particularly painful. How would you deal with it if you had to deal with a crazy parent who is telling people from Lithuania that nobody wants to play for you? And that's as, like, as good as you could possibly handle it. I don't think I would handle it that well. Yeah. And in our hiatus, the Lakers also enacted a new rule where basically LeVar can talk to the press at games. Like they're doing as much as they can.

So he left the country to do it. Yeah, they're doing as much as possible to curb him. He's a problem for them. Not that, you know, he necessarily affects Lonzo, because I do think it seems like Lonzo is quite good at just sort of like keying in on whatever the task at hand is, and all credit to him. But he's a distraction, like for the team. Like, he's a stage parent.

So LeVar did try to walk it back and he said that he hadn't spoken to Lonzo before he made these remarks. Mm-hmm. Which fine, you know, you're qualifying and I think he like, even LeVar realized that this was going to make waves. But so naturally, Lonzo was asked about it. And he had this like really sort of tepid, curious response where he said, initially they asked him about it and he said, I'll play for anybody. And then they pressed him again. They said, well, that's different than

like, do you like playing for Luke Walton or not? Because your dad says nobody likes playing for him. And he said, my job is to play basketball. I don't decide who the coach is. And my initial reaction to that was, what the hell? This is not exactly a warm embrace of your coach who got crushed by your dad from Lithuania. But people mentioned it on Twitter. Like, he's

sort of in a really tough spot. If he doesn't throw his arms all the way around Luke Walton, people are going to hit him for that. Yeah. But if If he does, then he's going against his dad. So he's in a total no-win situation. I almost kind of feel bad for Lonzo on this one. Definitely.

Also, he's 19. Also, he's 19. Yeah, he's literally a kid. It's tough because, like, there's just another story in the New York Post this morning that says that the big baller brand got an F from the Better Business Bureau. An F, an F for the BBB from the BB. Is that bad? I think that's bad.

But it just sort of goes to show you that, like, this is kind of the first family business that's intersecting with the MBA in this way. Like, the Lakers are a family business with the buses or whatever. But what LeVar is doing is so oppositional to the way that the NBA business is conducted, not like official business, but just sort of like the rules of the game that everyone has accepted. And as a result, he's a true disruptor. And like I admire it, but I also am sort of sick of these stories. I mean, like the Lakers, who should feel about for the Lakers?

Like, it's a billion dollar company. Like everyone involved in Lakers is doing just fine. They've got Magic Johnson. Right. But it is like a conundrum. Like it's sort of like what everything that Chris Jenner did with her kids and like to disrupt like the reality TV world. There wasn't like an institution that she was like bristling against.

And this is this is truly new and unique in like the celebrity in sports world. As Luke Walton said, obviously not ideal. This is not a good time for the Lakers. This might be the worst time maybe ever for the Lakers. Let's talk with their future. So they finally won a game. They beat the Hawks. They lost nine in a row.

They have 12 wins. Only the Hawks have fewer wins in the NBA. Their point differential is completely upside down. Maybe they get LeBron. but why, if you're LeBron, you've got to clear the decks and bring in your own people. And so, yeah, I want to know, like, what is the Lakers future? Because you and I are sort of lukewarm on Lanzo. Sure.

He's fine. He is only 19. We'll see. I wrote a piece. I think Brandon Ingram's probably their best guy. Kuzma has been excellent. But what does that really get you? Note about Coos, when the Thunder were in town, he went out for dinner at Craggs with Parmelo

Anthony, which I just think is an incredible flex. I thought that was really interesting. And also, if I'm the Lakers, while I like Carmelo a lot, I'm not sure that's like the veteran. You don't want him hanging around with Melo. I don't know if I want like our prize rookie who's like a surprise prize to be. That's hard to say. And also clever. I like it.

Yeah. Thanks. I don't know if I want him taking advice from Carmelo and Anthony. I'm going to pull a Julia Lettman and put you on the spot. Who would you want him hanging around with? Like who would be your ideal veteran archetype for him to like model himself after? Interesting. Not a game, but like persona and like machinations.

in the league. Yeah. Because he's kind of like a, I don't even know who. Personality type I'm talking about. Yeah. I guess like, that's a good question. Like are we talking like a staff or a cold, like somebody, no. Take that stuff, Curry.

Honestly, I kind of think Durant, like of all of the superstars. Yeah, because Durant does his own thing. He's going to need a burner account. He definitely does need a burner. Probably has a lot of those. He's definitely getting it up. But he's also like, again, he's like, you know, a young Generation Z kind of person. But I think Durant because obviously he's not nearly as good, but the same kind of

of quiet, but it makes really big impact on the court. Professional ethos. Yeah, and sort of like, has his fun, has his business, and is still a pro. But it's not a knucklehead, right. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Okay, I can get behind that. Yeah.

Not you, though, Steph Curry. What about, like, just to get back to the Lakers here? Are they intentionally, I watch them and I go, are they actually trying to win? Because I think they are trying to win. And they're just bad. Why would they be tanking? They lose their pick. Right.

So why? It doesn't help them. They don't have any incentive on that one. If you're trying to attract LeBron, like, why would you want to steal like a hot mess? Like, there's no incentive to be bad. So they're just bad. They're just bad. It's disappointing.

And off the court bad. We knew this was going to happen. Like, from when we did NBA Paloosa before the season started, we were like, at the Lakers will be fun for six weeks, and then they're going to be a mess. And that's exactly what's happening. Like, in no way it's this surprising. They have way too many forwards. It's very weird.

Like, they're the only team that league rules. And Lou, dang, who they'll never get rid of. Yeah, they're waving Andrew, Bogot it. Like, it's just a really weird team. Without Contavius Caldwell Pope on the floor, they're barely a professional team. And like, Contavius Caldwell Pope is not that good. So, like, that's a problem. Also, they had a meeting where they were basically openly wondering why Julius Randall wasn't getting more minutes. This is a team in complete disarray. Do we know that everyone was wondering that or just Julius Randall?

Maybe Julius Randall put them to it. I don't know. He paid his teammates to ask, why isn't Julius Randall getting more? Just kidding. It's not a good situation on any front. Where are you on who their best player is? Because for me, it's still Ingram. I think it's Ingram, too. You think it is? Yeah, it certainly has the most upside, as they say.

Yeah. I really wish they were better. The league is more found when the Lakers are good. Yeah. It's all I've got to say. It's going to be a long time before that happens. Let's move it on. Let's talk about All-Star coming up.

All-Star is coming up right here in Los Angeles. Here in L.A. I'm excited. In our backyard, I'm excited about it to the latest results for All-Star voting came down. And where do you come down on, like, the overall process and also the most recent results. Because there's always going to be like a fan-heavy component to this where like there are certain guys who are getting votes who shouldn't. Specifically the Lakers players like the Lakers fans are a bunch of lunatics and consistently vote

for like you have Kyle Kuzma who's gotten more votes than Lamarcus Aldridge. And Lonzo's gotten more than Devin Booker and Jimmy Butler. Yes. Jimmy Butler. Which is absurd. He's having a great season. He's having an amazing season. He's doing Jimmy Butler things and he's infinitely.

better than Lanzor ball. But of course, we know that the Lakers fans are going to stuff the ballot box. But then also you have, like, LeBron James out there tweeting about getting Isaiah Thomas in there. And then you've got Kyrie Irving doing the same thing with his rookies. And it's kind of a little bit of a farce, no? Yeah. I mean, absolutely. One thing I've always been very skeptical of is that if you do hashtag NBA vote, that tweet gets counted. Yeah. I don't believe that. I don't believe that for a second. What kind of algorithm are they using? I don't know. But it seems very hard for me to believe that works. Yeah, I have no technical capacity whatsoever. So I guess maybe there's a program that could suck in this information.

Like maybe. But also if you misspell someone's name, like. How's that work? Yeah, just curious. That's like a hanging chat that doesn't get, that doesn't get counted. Is this a Bush v. Gore 2000 situation? It's all. Now I'm starting to question the legitimacy of this election.

And so on that note, Janus is the number one vote getter in the entire league. That I'm okay with because he deserves to be. I mean, he should be up there. I'm totally okay with it too, but I'm surprised. You'd probably go LeBron, right, if it was a complete meritocracy. But Janus deserves to be in the All-Star game and be a starter. So if he's leading the All-Star voting, that's fine by the name. He's got a hundred and thirty thousand more votes than Steph.

That's unusual. That's crazy. Steph's incredibly popular with children. And like... The child... Where's you got to turn out the child vote? But seriously, this makes me wonder, like, who's voting so far. I don't know.

I just, we need a wider swath of All-Star voting. Also, what about... So this year for the All-Star game, it's not just a... voting that I'm questioning, but also, I like the idea of picking captains. Yes. It's a school yard pick. Or captains picking teams, which is fine. But they're not televising the draft because they're worried about who gets picked last.

This is so dumb. I don't know why the NBA agreed to this is the MVPA if they weren't going to film it. So John Wall said they should televise it. It doesn't make any sense not to. And LeBron said, look, we're grown men. You're still getting a big fat check. And to his point, if you made the All-Star game, you are one of the absolute tip-top players in the NBA, the elite of the elite. If you get picked last, you are still the

last of the elite. Last of the top 25 out of the top 300, out of the entire world. Whose feelings get hurt? Seriously. You got to televise it. And you want to know what someone's feelings do get hurt, and that's why you televise it. As a connoisse or reality TV, let me tell you, there's nothing better than hurt feelings. That's what you want. That's what you want to see on television. Put on your bachelor party hat here. Tell me, forget about getting voted onto a team. They should have like whatever teammates that they pick, and then one guy who doesn't make the cut and has to go home from All-Star Weekend.

It would just be incredible to see which captain, like for the Warriors. Like right now, if this goes as the votes currently stand, Kevin Durant would be the captain for the Western Conference because he is the most votes to 767,402. Does he pick Steph or Dray or Clay as his first pick? And if he doesn't, like, do we start planning on him going to whatever team LeBron's going with?

Or like, does he pick Yonis? Like, how does Kevin Durant construct a team? Like, I want to know all about this. I want to know all about this, too. They've made a massive error here. We're going to have to do some serious reporting on it. But to your point about the captains, Yonah said that he would have LeBron as his captain.

And he had something else that was interesting to say, too. Got to go with LeBron James Best Player in the World so we can have a good relation for the fee agency. You never know. Might come play here. Okay, so LeBron's not going to go to Milwaukee. But should LeBron go to Milwaukee? This got me thinking.

I was like, oh my God, that's an amazing idea. It is a good idea. There would be a lot of talent there for him. He'd be with his bro, Eric Blasow. How do you stop Janus and LeBron on the same team? You don't. You just don't. LeBron's amazing passing would benefit Janus so much, too.

Yonnas might be on to something here. Totally. Like all this, I got super, like, the NBA nerd in me got super excited, the fantasy nerd in me. I'm like, I need this to happen. I need this to happen. Did you have a thought on who was the most, like, snubbed of these list so far. Right now, those five starters would be for the East, Janice LeBron, Kyrie, Damar, and Ambide. It's three front court and two guards. Right.

Which I think is actually a pretty good five, like pretty accurate. And for the West, it would be K.D., Anthony Davis, Buggy, Steph, and Hardin. As the West goes, I'm cool with the West vote. AD and Buggy, both making it would be such an indictment of the Pelicans, though. Yeah. It's like you have two of the five starters and yet you're still sitting in eighth. Like, that's not really acceptable. In the past, when that has happened with the Hawks or with the Warriors, they were very clearly

the best team in their conference. And the Pelicans are of 500. They're 19 and 19. Only two games in front of the Clippers. Yeah, what are they doing? So that, to me, is actually kind of an interesting storyline. The Eastern Conference,

I think the voting total for the starters is slightly more interesting. One, I love that Embed would project as a starter right now. Two, Demar's been really good. Yeah. He leaves me a little cold.

Sure. Like, I'm like, that's fine. Yeah, we'll talk about the Raptors. Yeah, we're going to get into the Raptors. It's just, I'm looking for a daughter. I'm going to make up for it, Raptors fans, later. Okay.

All right. Let's move it on. Still good. Still good. L.L. still good. Isaiah Thomas is back. He's back. I shared a controversial opinion last week on.

Oh, do tell. On what's that podcast called? Sources say. Yes. I listened to that. I don't remember the controversial opinion. I just felt that like there was like a compulsory cheering for Isaiah Thomas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You did see that. And I remember I was walking the dogs when I was listening to it. And I was like, oh, no, Juliet. Yeah, there is a compulsory component to rooting for him. People have come out of the woodwork to say they agree with me. They did? Yes, it's just, I hate when you. Why can't he just live?

Why can't, like? I totally support him. I'm happy he looks good. I'm happy he's going to recover him this injury. But I don't know exactly like where this ground swell came from. That's all I'm saying. He's an easy dude to root for. Sure.

Of course. And I'm rooting for him. He's had to, but to a point. Yeah. It's just not like I'm living my MBA life around Isaiah Thomas's future. It shouldn't be like an obligatory thing. Yeah. That's all I'm saying.

great. I'm glad to have him back in our lives. I really like watching him against the magic. He scored 19 points in 22 minutes. That's good. But I'm just saying the magic. The magic are the most like woeful team in the NBA. 17 points and 19 minutes against the Blazers in the first game back. That was good. And also like the way he finishes around the rim and you're like considering he had a hip injury and all the thing, getting traded and the whole bit. It's great to have him back. He brings a level of offensive dynamism of the calves of sorely needed. Yeah. Especially because at the point guard situation, they had Derek Rose, who may or may not still be in the NBA. Can't keep up. Who knows what day is today. And they had Jose Calderone, who awesome pig farmer.

He's 36. It's true. You know, he has like the special brand of Hamone ham, which I would love to sample. I'm pro-Hammon. But not exactly a great basketball player at this time in his career. So getting Isaiah back is great for the calves. Yeah. Great for us.

Sure. So it's a comeback. We're calling it a comeback. Yeah, that's great. And Steph is back. Your guy's killing it. Did you watch the Clippers Warriors game, the 12.30 p.m. Affair on Saturday? I did not.

I watched, I casually took it in. You did? Yes. And I was like, wow, staff's really good. And then I looked at the box score like halfway through the third quarter. And I was like, holy shit. She's putting up numbers. Halfway through the third quarter and he's got 40 points already.

It's amazing. He is so good and just like changes gravity. It's just incredible. I love watching him. And I think we've kind of like taken for granted. And there's so many other like great players this season. But he's almost like underrated. I'm really glad that he's healthy, that that injury wasn't more than it turned out to be that he's back.

Since coming back, he scored 38, 32, 29, and then 45 against the clippers. Incredible. I think earlier in the season because Durant got off to such a hot start, we kind of slept on staff a little bit and we're like, we're taking him for granted. We're like, oh, you know, he's just really good. And then he's staffed. It's amazing. And we forgot, no, no, he's one of the elite all-time scores in NBA history. Yeah.

Did you watch his Britta commercial? I did. What did you think of that? I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I was like, this is the weird kind of thing that, like, this is better than him just drinking water and be like, water's so pure. It was so weird, and I thought it was hilarious. Let's just play the commercial really quickly.

Don't look at me, Steph Curry. Come on, man, what? You never had pizza for breakfast? No, not really. Just put the pizza down, man. I wasn't finished? You don't need that. How, what is... Don't worry about it.

All that matters is I'm here to help me. Help me with what? My free throws? I mean, that's what? wonderfully weird. That's the kind of stuff that I was hoping stuff would be doing. So I'm all for it. You know how the Cavs don't really start playing. The bronze teams don't start playing seriously until like end of March, April. Yes. The Warriors are sneaky doing that as well. Like I know Steve Kerr is like he's very, you know, downplays like how good the team is or whatever. They're platooning Steph and KD. They haven't played together really very much this season.

And so they don't need to. I know they don't need to. And so when they finally gets the playoffs, it's like A will be a little bit harder to game plan against them. And B, it'll be like a a whole, a team that we haven't watched all season. This whole thing for the Warriors is just a time fill. They're just waiting. And meanwhile, Clay's having a great season too. Clay is having a great season. He loves Clay. There's more Clay News later in the podcast.

One more comeback that I thought was a comeback and maybe isn't now. No, it's not. Kauai is back except for he's not really, apparently he's got a partial tear in his left shoulder, according to Greg Popovich. And Pop said that he may or may not return on this road trip. He didn't play against the Blazers, night. He's not going to probably play against Sacramento tonight. Then they play against the Lakers on the road here in L.A. on Thursday. This sucks. It does suck. He hasn't played in consecutive

games since returning. Oh, no, he did it once. He played one consecutive game, but no back to back since returning. The Spurs are a contender with Kauai, and with Adam, they're just good. I think that a partial tear sounds bad. No matter what. Any kind of tear. Yeah, I know that this is sort of being downplayed. Like, Pop doesn't seem that concerned. But that sounds bad to me. That sounds like something that if you keep playing on will linger and you probably should let heal.

Also, and we know the way that Pop and the Spurs are want to handle these things, right? I mean, like, they didn't bring Kauai back to start the season until they were absolutely sure that he was okay with his leg injury. And then all of a sudden, he's got a shoulder deal. This sucks. Do they know about that? Like... I don't know.

I mean, obviously they're unrelated, but I, like, I wonder if it was something that was previously lingering or if it just now popped up. But either way, I, I, like watching Quai Leonard play basketball, and I haven't been able to watch Quai Leonard play basketball. Yeah, I'm with you. The basketball fates are conspiring against us, Juliet. He's really exciting. He's really exciting. He's really good. He's great at both ends.

And, like, without him, the spurs are not going anywhere. Love when he takes over a game. Just absolutely love it. Well, we won't be seeing that anytime soon, I guess. It's such a somber note to transition on. We're going to talk about real or not real. But first, let's just talk about the Raptors a little bit. Often overlooked. Off and overlooked frequently by us.

Frequently by us. Three games behind the Celtics and sitting in the second spot in the east. DeMar de Rosen is 7 points per game in the league. He's having one, maybe his best season ever. He's shooting 48.7 from the field, which is quite good, particularly for Demard de Rosen, and averaging 25 points. The Raptors have the best point differential in the league after the Golden State Warriors.

That's pretty crazy. Only the Warriors are better. It is pretty crazy. They've been really good. We overlooked them. Why do you think we don't talk about them more? Is it just because, like, the pieces haven't really changed and then the Raptors and we know they're going to be towards the top of the Eastern Conference and, you know,

they haven't gotten past the cabs? Like, do we just kind of overlook them because we have in the past? They're just not that exciting. Like, Demard de Rosen taking the leap is cool. And, like, for Danny Chow, I'm really happy for him. But it's just not the same kind of, like, explosive energy that, like, Janus or Hardin has. Like, it's just not the same as. They've changed their style of play, though, this year.

They're shooting more threes. Way more. Welcome to 2018. Dwayne Casey woke up and was like, all right, I'm going to deploy my pieces a little bit differently. And Abaca is a really interesting piece with the way that they're using him. This year, like, obviously they had him last year, but like to have him for a full season. I like this team.

You brought up a really interesting point. Are they better overall than the Celtics? This was suggested to me by my father, Alfred, who is a connoisseur of Eastern Conference Basketball via watching. Shouts to Alfred. Many Nets games. He suffers through them. but we're longtime Nets fans, and that's his team.

Bless his heart. Yeah, I can't believe how many games he watches of the Nets. But I don't know. I mean, they're certainly more tested. Like, I think it would be easy to say that a team with the experience of Lowry and Dorozan and Abaka, you would take them over a team that's relying on a 19-year-old Jason Tatum. We do like the J-Team, though. I love Jason Tatum.

Yeah. He's amazing. Yeah, he's fantastic. We've spoken about him quite a lot on his podcast. Perhaps too much. I don't know if they're better. I don't either. I'm probably still a Cavs Celtics in that order if I'm looking at the Eastern Conference and who's more likely to come out of it. I think with the Cavs and the Celtics, you just know

who will be making the final play and you have like utter confidence that it'll work out for them. Yeah. Now, Zerosen would be like the guy who gets the ball at the answer to the Raptors. I just have less confidence in that. Yeah, but I am however more intrigued by the Raptors this year than I have been in quite a long time. Like since they were like really at the beginning of the Kyle Lower era got good and everybody went, holy shit, the Raptors are good, what's happening. And then we kind of got used to the Raptors. And now it's like, oh, wait, maybe the Raptors are a different version of themselves. But to the early era raptors, Woj had DeMarter Rosen on his pod.

And DeMarre had, he revealed something that I thought was like really interesting. He said, my first year with Kyle, we didn't say a word to one another. We didn't speak. We didn't have a conversation. We didn't hang out. We didn't go to eat. We didn't sit next to each other. I didn't have his phone number.

Juliet, how the hell is that possible? It's very odd. I don't know. Also, I guess you just don't talk to everyone on your team. I would. I would try to have a friendship with everyone or hate them. I mean, we have more people here than they have teammates on the Raptor. So we don't, like, I don't have everybody's number and I haven't gone out to eat with everybody. It's like harder to do office dynamic wise. However, the component where they said we didn't have a conversation. We didn't speak. We didn't say a word to one another. It's so weird. Now they're literally best friends. Like, now they're literally best friends. They have kids hang out. They're really cute. It's super strange. So weird. I guess it's just weird up there. I don't know, man.

It's cold. Everybody's got to go home. Staying inside. They're all shut-ins when they're not playing. Who can understand? I think the other thing by the Raptors is the most interesting person to me is Messiah, on the team. So that's kind of damning for the team itself.

We've managed to talk about the Raptors being more exciting and yet still throw shade at the Raptors. I'm sorry. I can't help it. It just always happens. I wanted to discuss them and ponder if they could beat the Celtics. And yet, I'm still being very rude. I'm getting behind the Raptors now.

I'm doing it. I like it. It's important it. Why don't you watch all of their games for a week and report back? I will. See how that goes. It's homework for me. I would like it if they made the conference finals, by the way.

I would just really like a shake-up. As I bet you feel similarly, covering basketball, like I love LeBron. But like, I would just like anything but the Cavs again, just because I want it to be different. I want Cavs Celtics. I won't Cav Celtics for the storylines. Yeah, that's true. Okay. Now, time for real or not real.

All regrets. All Paul edition. This is the number one rule for you said in order to survive. Gotta learn and live with regrets. First Paul on the table. Paul George. Paul George, what are you doing? All right.

So real or not real, Juliet. Paul George should regret gushing about the love he got in L.A. He called the respect, the love, and the recruitment. Awesome. I wish I could be involved in Paul George's decision making on a daily basis. What's he doing? I would have a lot of suggestions for him. Just like not at it, dude.

Everybody knows. No, it's really bad. So the official report from the league about the tampering of Paul George against the Lakers was that Palinkan Magic spoke to his agent, Aaron Mince. That was the official report. And then Paul George said the tampering charge came from him hanging out with Brian Shaw because they were together in Indiana and like row fishing together. That to me is like the dumbest thing he's done in the last week. Like everyone likes to be supported by their hometown like fine. He considers L.A. his home even though he's like not from close to here.

That's fine. His palm made, right? Or Palmdale? Palmdale. Palmdale. Palmade is what you put in your hair. Yeah. If you're like 70. Yeah. But it's Palmdale. I think it's really, really bad to give an opening for other teams to pursue a follow-up tampering charges or to like somehow block him from going to the Lakers. That said, I don't think he will go to the Lakers. That's just JMT. It's just my thoughts.

The tampering thing to me, like I don't care about it. Sure. Like, okay, fine. He wants to play in L.A. It's close to where he grew up. He considers himself an Angelino. He likes the Lakers. all that fine in your head in theory. Here's where I take my leave. He played in Indiana and was very open about wanting to get out of Indiana and that like pissed off a bunch of people who live in Indiana and rightly so. This is, I think, worse.

You just got to Oklahoma City. You're just figuring it out. Thunder fans want to like you and you're already talking about your recruitment in Los Angeles. Give it a second because now you've alienated two fan bases in like six months. Yeah, it's really, he's just not making wise. At least like pretend that you really like being in Oklahoma for Thunder fans' sake. Let them just enjoy this one year. And then you can go and get recruited and courted and loved by Los Angeles.

If you're Paul George's agent, like you have one job. One job to do. It's to give them the proper talking points and like how to respond to these obvious questions. And clearly the prep was not done. It's like, I don't know. Very dismissed. Bad PR work. Very bad.

That staff work. Moving on to Paul Pierce of ESPN. Yes. Should he regret not wanting to share his jersey retirement day with Isaiah Thomas? Pierce Jersey retirement on February 11th is the same day as the video tribute to IT because he requested to not have one last week when he was in the building. Because he wasn't playing. So they said, we'll give it to you on February 11th.

Paul Pierce got angry about this, Juliet. Not once but twice. The first time he said it should belong to Paul Pierce. And he said that in the third person. And he said that they should just put out the tribute video on Instagram. Then he was asked if he wanted to walk it back. and he said, Isaiah will be back in Boston again next year, the year after, he's going to have a long career. But this one day should belong to Paul Pierce.

That's from Paul Pierce. First, real or not real, real that he should regret talking about himself in the third person. And also real that, like, there can't be both things? I think I'm on Paul Pierce's side here. No. Yes. I don't believe this. Here's why.

What? I just think that this is a true look into the psyche of an NBA player, and I appreciate it. So you like his candor, his realness. And they're in his realness. Yes. That's why I like it. I'm just sick of like pandering. You know, I'm like, good. Show us who you are. Be yourself. Be you. And he is. Yes. Like you're showing us your ass and you're cool with it. Why should he try to be winning over fans? He won them a championship. He is done playing. He's going to be beloved in Boston anyway. It doesn't matter. Here's my thing. The video, they usually do

these things like coming out of a timeout or something like in the first quarter. Paul Pierce is going to have an entire half-time retirement ceremony. It's not like it's going to take away any of time. I will say also the Paul Pierce Retirement Tour was hilarious. Basically everywhere he went, there was the Paul Pierce video. Like, there were just, like, there was a good point. The Clippers had like three videos for him. Like when the

Celtics came, when he finally left, like, it was so over the top. It was hilarious. I don't know though. I think this is funny and I just wish more players are like, yeah, I am a multi-millionaire. I'm fucking great at basketball. I won a championship for this city. You want my night. Give me

my night. I like it. It was ridiculous that Kobe pretended to be humble on Kobe Knight. Like, yeah. Like, I'm sure he loved it. He had his stupid cartoon. Still wanted how much the Lakers paid for it. Like, I just think that this is how it should go down. I need to know more about that cartoon.

Yeah, me too. I need to know, like, because you know he was over somebody's shoulder, like, I need more of this and that. Paul Pierce should make a cartoon. I was going to say, how long until Paul Pierce demands his own cartoon? I hope he gets one. And I will say, I look forward to the IT tribute video. He definitely deserves it. He did so much for the Celtics.

But, yeah, separate the different nights. Your Isaiah Thomas Healturn is discontaltern. is disconcerting. I like him a lot and he's obviously really like someone you want to root for. Let the man live. But just when everyone,

every single person is zinging, I can't help but Zag. You do. I just can't help it. Like I just, it makes me so mad when there's just like a monolithic opinion. Too much group think.

Yes. It drives me crazy. I cannot stand it. Moving on. I'm so glad we're back. All right. Chris Paul. He's got a wonderful to me,

new commercial where he's singing the Backshute Boys with Trevor Ariza and Oscar Nunes while James Hardin makes fun of them. And that is his new vibe on the state farms commercials. Cliff Paul stayed in Los Angeles. And now we've got teeny bopper Chris Paul.

I like it. James Harden, the whole point of the bit is that James Hardin is in the back, like kind of wondering what the hell is happening. I thought it was hilarious. I like it too. I'm on board with it. I'm a backshed boys fan, though. Look, any kind of group sing along in the car?

I'm in. I love car with karaoke. You and I have not had the occasion yet to drive in a car yet together, but when we do, we'll pump some backshree. I listen to a lot of musicals and pop music. I'm on board with it. Okay, great. Moving on to the heat check, heat check. Boom, Shakalaka.

He's heating up. He's on fire. So I'm super excited about this, Juliet. Not everything that's happened in Lithuania with the balls has been bad. Most of the basketball-related stuff has been bad. Everything LeVar said was not great. However, the Lithuanians were very excited about the arrival of Lamello and Leangelo. And to herald their arrival, they created a rap song.

Hey, brothers, welcome to my nation. We're waiting for you to come and see our basement. It's for you. LeAngelo ball, a metal ball. You ready? You come to Phineo. Watch your face. It's so good.

Also very timely because Kendrick Lamar is doing the halftime show, the national championship game today. Listen, we need to find her and bring her to the States. I want her on the heat check pod. I want her at All-Star Weekend. Can she do our theme song, perhaps? I want her to do the theme song. song, Isaac, we need to track her down and we need to get her on this show. That's what I want for

Christmas as a bullied gift. She's amazing. Love it. Congrats to the balls. Moving on. Other people to give to the Thunder, finally having some fun. And to that extent, after a win, Russ dump some water on Mello. And during live TV, Mello let out a few expletives. Adjustments. I think we had to figure out exactly what they was doing. Oh, motherfuckers. And I first had it was getting down 40-star points in it. Nothing else needs to be added. Live TV.

Happy Mello is one of the happiest, like, people in the world. I'm glad they're enjoying themselves, finally. I love Happy Mello. And I'm happy for you because you love the Thunder. I do. I also love Clay Thompson. Yes. And he's just on a role this season of like weird video bits.

And the latest he tries to speak Japanese. Whoa. You want to give that a try? Say one more time. Oh, wow. That's two different answers. Right, yeah. The one said Go Warriors and the other one said Go Warriors.

Sencho Iikimus. Dude, that sounds pretty good. It's pretty good. Good job, Clay. Not terrible. Where are you on that Clay video verse, him giving the random interview on? Newspapers?

No, that one was great too. Newspapers is my favorite. Scaffolding was my favorite. Oh, that's a good one. On the streets of New York City to a local New York City's TV station. Come on. What a run we're having with Clay. I should write it about this.

But the newspaper video is my all-time favorite. We need to put you with Clay. You need to be Clay's biographer. I would love to. I would absolutely love to. Unofficial or official. It needs to happen. A lifetime of Clay.

And finally, in our heat check, Kyrie had a display to unveil his new shoe that was meant to prove that the Earth is flat. No, thanks. It was like a weird die around. You hate this storyline with Clay. I hate it because I love Kyrie. I love watching him play.

And so this whole anti-science, the world is flat. bit, it just has to go. On his shoe, he has like an all-seeing eye. So he's really taking this like conspiracy theory, truthorism to like, now he's branding it on his shoe. And then had the shoe trying to be like a display of the earth is flat. He's leaning into it. I can't deal with it. Let's move on. This weekend basketball. So Sacramento's at the Lakers. Darren Fox versus Lonzo Ball.

Again. Again. I'm looking forward to that. Although certainly less luster now that we're in January. than like if we had been in November. Yeah, I'll take it though. Heat of the Raptors. The heat are surging. The heater surging. And as we mentioned,

the Raptors really good. This is a fun game. I love Coach Spow. I think he's my favorite coach in the league. Yeah, we need to get into the heat more too because I would love to. I love the heat. Next week we'll have a heat segment. We'll have a heat segment on the heat check podcast.

Yes, absolutely. It's very meta. Thunder at Wolves. These games have been really good so far. So this will be a fun one. They have been. I'm super excited for this one because, as we mentioned, OKC is figuring it out.

The Wolves are figuring it out. Jimmy Butler is killing it. Maybe Melo will curse some more. Town is looking better too. He's looking more engaged. Give me all of it. Celtics had Sixers in London. London. The Celtics just took off this morning. In fact, as we are talking, they're en route. They are on their way to London. Congrats.

Pipp. Have a great time, guys. Chirio. What else do they say? Things of that nature. Yes, stuff like that. Have some tea. I will recommend people go and find this. The Sixers did a video about like English slang. And our colleague here at the ringer, J.J. Reck. was the highlight of that video. So go and check it out. Okay.

Good to know. And on Friday, Warriors at Bucks. That's a fun one. Warriors at Janus. I love to see Janus test himself against the best in the league. Give it to me. That'll be a Warriors one.

Yeah, probably. But I still want to see what Janus can do. Yeah, I'm excited. This has been the Heat Check podcast. Thanks for listening. We're back. We're back. We'll be back next Monday.

Tomorrow get KOC in Verno. And on Thursday, the NBA group chat. And of course, all of the basketball on the Bill Simmons podcast. Soon to be Los Angeles living. Kevin O'Connor, give it to me.