The Ringer NBA Show - Real Ones Live From All-Star Weekend!

Episode Date: February 16, 2025

Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard M’fin Beck are live from the Punchline in San Francisco during All-Star Weekend (presented by State Farm)! The guys discuss the true contenders from both the Western and Eastern Conference. Will this All-Star weekend be successful with the new ASG format? Plus, Raja dissects if AAU is affecting the NBA product and answers who were the top 5 overrated/underrated players he had to defend during his playing days. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hit the mailbag!: [e-mail] Hosts: Logan Murdock, Howard Beck, and Raja Bell Producer: Clifford Augustin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Video: Victoria Valencia Social: Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers here and we are back for another season of OffGuard. Me and my guy, Pasha Giggy, are hitting your podcast feeds every Monday and Thursday talking everything hoops. Austin is bringing that 11-year NBA veteran perspective and of course keeping you guys entertained throughout the season. Make sure you tap into OffGard with Austin Rivers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow everything we've got going on social media. The OffGar Podcasts, Ringer NBA. And of course, check us out on Ringer NBA's YouTube channel. We're getting better

You are watching a master at work Bye Yo, yo, yo, this is Jomi Adirond, aka Big Jome A.k.a. Jomey the explainer, aka. A.k.a.a.a. The friendly neighborhood, Nigerian. And throughout my travels, I've learned a thing or two about what's real and what's not. Real is more than an adjective. It means genuine, not counterfeit, artificial or imitation.

It's a lifestyle. And nobody has exemplified that credo more than these three Gs ready to hit the stage. Help me give a yay area. Welcome to Raja Bell, Logan Murdoch, and Howard motherfucking Beck. Real ones. What's up?

How are you guys doing? I'm Logan Murdoch. That's Raja Bell. This is Howard motherfucking Beck. Hello? And we are the real ones. Friends. A little trivia. Oh, first before I give to the trivia,

I want to give a big thank you to State Farm for sponsoring the events tonight. So this is like a pivotal moment. Once, one, that we're actually doing this is really tight that, you know, everybody came out, we did it in the bay. But this is also a pivotal moment because this is the first time

these two people have been in a room since when, Howard? We think, was it 2006 or seven? When Rajah was playing for the Sons and having a little if you issues with Kobe Bryant. And I was covering that series. But we didn't know each other then. And this is the first time the three of us

have been in the same room since we started doing this pod. Yeah, for sure. Good to see you again. Howard. Been a long time. It's good. Did you know Howard at all?

Like in that time? Yeah, no, no. I mean, I knew Howard to know Howard in a media scrum, but I didn't know him any further than that. Local guys, I knew all of them because that was my job. Yeah.

Damn. Sorry about that, Howard. I apologize, buddy. It's all right. That's tough. It's all right. All right. This is, this is, could I just say?

Can I say it? This is fucking surreal. Because like, Logan and I are both Bay Area guys. Shout out San Jose. Anybody, say, where are my San Jose people? All right. San Francisco High School? Anyone?

Anyone? No. All right. UC Davis? Oh, yeah. Go Aggies. Thank you. This is surreal for us.

There's like extra surreal. Like this was, the punchline was something you heard on commercials on like KS.JO. anybody old enough to know KS.JO? No, aside for my brother. No, this is awesome. Thank you all for being here. Any Oakland in the house? Any Berkeley High in the house?

Yes, Lord, go yellow jackets. Piedmont? Piedmont. I can't get a shout out to Piedmont. Anybody from the People's Republic of Piedmont in building? And there's a dope little turtle farm in Piedmont. I swear to God, my kids used to love it. Little turtles, waterfalls, shit like that.

I never, you know. I didn't have enough money to just be perusing Piedmont at the time. So anyways, let's get to the shits. We're going to do a little segment called, I don't even know what it's called, but we're going to talk about contenders for the first segment. And I'm going to ask you about a contender. You guys are going to tell me how you feel your confidence meter. If you think they're going to be real or fake.

There we go. I just did a segment for this one. I found the name of the second. Real or fake? Real or fake. Let's start off with a team. that a lot of people in the Bay Area know very well, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Obviously, they're real.

But what can go right for them and what can go wrong for them on their quest for a title? Well, they have a lot of ways to get it right, right? Let's just start there. They're really versatile. They got real positional size across the board. They got a lot of guys that can get a bucket, even though SGA is clearly their number one. and he's a professional score within a league of professional scores, like he's one of the best to do it.

They also have other guys that can put it in the rim, you know? So on any given night, he's not really cooking that way. They can still manufacture enough points to win. But that's not what makes them the most scary, quite frankly. It's their ability to defend, you know, and their ability to come at you now with real size and control their own backboard and stuff like that. So those are all things that could go right.

Howard, you want to take what's going to go wrong? I don't know. No, I mean, there's just a lot of things that can go right, them. Like, there's no obvious holes there, right? They have talent. They have size. They have shooting. They have elite defense. And then the only thing you worry about, if you worry about it, like, if you're trying to find, like, where is, like, the potential hole there? Like, they, they haven't been deep in the playoffs yet. Like, that's the really only thing you can say about them right now is they're still a very young team with very brief playoff experience. Yeah. So if they're going up against the Nuggets at some point, who are a recent defending champion, or if they have to face, like, we'll, we'll, get to this, but like there's some fun dark

horses, right? Like, Luca and LeBron are playing together and Jimmy Butler's with the Warriors now. Like, there's some veteran teams where a young team might seize up a little bit in the spotlight at that moment. And the Thunder have all the talent in the world, all the depth in the world. They should be favored in every series, for sure. But if you're trying to find

that little opening, maybe, maybe it's the experience. Yeah. Well, that's well done because, like, sorry, Logan, but like, the other thing would be, and you can't predict this is if they caught a bad matchup. Like, you don't know what that matchups are the bad matchups that that you see that are like, ah, I'm scared of this team if I'm the Thunder. I always, like, he bought up a good one, and I don't put a lot of stock in the Lakers right now.

Like, I think that's still TBD to some degree. But, like, when you get into playoff situations, like, it's people that can just go off. And you can't control them with your scout, right? So, like, we're going to spend all this time sitting there, you know, a week's worth of prep. And we've had advanced scout, like, two weeks out. And we've got what we find to be, like, the best possible game plan to stop this. but it doesn't fucking matter because those two were that good at what they do.

That would be the only thing that I could see and on top of them just not having the experience. If you just caught a terrible matchup and it'd probably be in the light of someone like two guys, because one person's not going to be enough to beat them, but if you have two guys, i.e.

Luca and Kyrie, right? Like two people that you can't stop, that could be a problem. But that's a problem for anyone. When I think of O.K.C., I think of Shea, right? Obviously. And a guy that can get to the free throw line and that's going to be huge, Howard, and obviously in the postseason for a guy like that,

that can kind of just slow the game down when you need it when, you know, things are getting out of hand and things are, a run is he could be a run stopper by getting to the free throw line. Like, how big of a postseason is it for Shea in this regard? I think it's huge because, so we just saw the latest version of the Tim Bond Temps MVP poll within the last day or so here, and Shay is leading like two to one over Yokic, right? And like, Yolkich has all the stats in the world, like there's a, super strong case again, but the thunder are in that, that pole position. And so that puts all the pressure on Shay. He's been sitting there knocking on the door of MVP. The thunder for the last two

seasons now or the team that is, you know, they're racking up the most wins in the West. Like, they've put themselves in that position where it's like, as like you can't say championship or bust. They're young. They've got all the time in the world, although in this league, the doors close quickly. You kind of seen that with the thunder when, uh, 10 years ago. If there's any thunder fans here, I'm sorry. But, you know, we've seen that before where you feel like you have all the time the world and that's that's a good object lesson though that's that that's why you don't you don't waste you don't squander these chances and um so i do think there's a lot on shay and on the thunder to get it done now i'm but i also think like no one's going to be concerned day to day like you know what

you're going to get from shay i think i'm more curious about like we haven't seen like a ton of those postseason moments from say jalen williams like who's going to be the second guy on a night when you know whether she's carrying you or not or whether he's having a bit of an off night Who else on the Thunder? There's a ton of talent, but is there anybody else who can just be like the dude on a given night? And I don't think we've seen enough of that yet. A lot of potentials. I mean, Chet is a guy that has the potential to be able to do that.

Jalen is probably my favorite player to watch in the league right now. He has the potential. He's got to prove it. Like, what's the mindset, Roger, as a young guy, when you do got to prove it at that stage, you've done it in the regular season, but you have to, what's the next gear you have to get to? I really don't think you change anything. Like, you know, from a player's perspective, I think everything kind of remains the same, right? Like, that's just the step that you're going to make in your evolution as a player.

I think where people kind of fall short is when they start to put that pressure on themselves to make a step. That step should be an organic thing, right? So, like, you know, to Howard's point, they don't really have guys who have shown that capability in those moments. They've shown it during the regular season. you're just going to try to continue that, right? Like we're just going to keep growing, keep getting better. If the opportunity presents itself, hopefully it doesn't because Shay's just doing what Shay does and I get to live in this realm that I've proven myself in.

But if he should come up short, then I just, the next natural step in my progression is to kind of take the baton. But to put the pressure on yourself, I mean, it's like anything else, right? When you start making it something bigger than it is, you start talking about it in a way that kind of puts it in this, I got to get this done or it's a failure type of mindset. that's when you have those failures. So real talk, you just go out there and hoop, right? And, you know, look, I've never been the number two on a team,

but there were nights in Phoenix when people decided they wanted to try to take away Steve or Amari or someone like that. Like the first time it happens to you, you're not aware of it, right? You don't know that's the game plan, but by game two, you know that's the game plan. So, you know, you can't go back and be like, oh, shit, I got to be good, I got to do that. You just, hey, I'm going to hoop. I'm going to do what I always do. And I'm going to trust that my work in the offseason and what I've,

done to prepare myself for it's gonna gonna work out speaking of trusting your work let's talk about the Denver nuggets look at you look at you fucking it's is live it's one thing when it's on a video screen dude i'm not fucking around amen we home baby it's great being able to do this without riverside freezing up on us i know the other uh the other podcast this little inside baseball here rogers internet went out and he was frozen and it was shit and he had to uh you tell my business dog this is that fucking but he's let him put my business Well, I said it on the podcast. No, yeah.

I had already said it on a podcast. It was Comcast. It was Comcast. It was Comcast. Yeah, it was Comcast. And the Bay Area, everybody knows like, Exfinity can be fucked up at times. Sorry. Sorry, everybody out there.

Everybody. They're not a sponsor, right? He was frozen. He was frozen. And he did a whole podcast frozen. But we figured it out. Yeah. Was that the whole time?

It was very, it was teetering. It was frozen to, like, maybe we see, like, pixels of stuff. You guys missed some good shit. I was on fire that day. No, you were locked in. It was like the stuff. the Steph lookaway. That's what it was. Let's talk about the Divernuggets. What gives you guys pause for the Diver Nuggets and what gives you guys optimism? We'll start with Howard.

Optimism first, because Jamal Murray looks like Jamal Murray again. But that's kind of a recent phenomenon and we haven't seen that guy a lot for the last year and a half. So I kind of want to see more of it, but they've been as dominant as almost any team for the last six weeks. So at some point, we've got to start believing in them again, I think. And Yokic just still the probably undisputed best player on the planet. So Westbrook's fitting and fine. I'm like... Westbrook's fitting and fine, Roger.

Did you hear that? That's as far as I'm going with it. He's not washed. He's not cooked? We thought he was. The Clippers and the Lakers certainly thought he was. And the jazz waved him twice. Holy moly.

I don't have no jazz talk to here. I have been no jazz talking about. How is your Westbrook stock going right now? How is it? How are you doing? Listen, I bought, I held. Okay. It's still here.

We're good. No, I mean, if you're the thunder and you're looking down the standings, like, who am I worried about? Doesn't it have to be the Nuggets first? The most recent defending champion that's in your conference? I would be scared as hell that Jamarra Murray is just putting in 55 points at this stage of the season, right? Like, we all know he had injuries to start the season also was, you know, had to kind of get called out by Shaq, right? Like, had to kind of get a foot in his ass. And he's really responded to that point.

Like how important has Jamal Murray been and how important will he be in this in this postseason alongside Yokin? Yeah. I mean, when they've been at their best, when they've been the team that wins championships, like Yolkich has had Jamal Murray at his side doing Jamal Murray or true number two type of things. So, you know, to kind of piggyback off of the question that Howard answered, your concern would be that the water shuts off. That for whatever reason, Jamal can't sustain it. You know what Yokic is going to do. Because they're just not, they're not good enough if he's not getting the support.

He can be as brilliant as he's been. And if he's just not getting true number two support on a nightly basis, it's going to be hard to come out of a Western conference, even if we can agree that most of the Western conferences kind of influxing up for grabs, right? But like, that's going to be difficult. So, you know, when they've been at their best, when they're their most dangerous, those two specifically because they play so well together. And they go through this kind of dance of offense that, you know,

I talked about a scout. and like when you do an advanced scout, like what we're looking for is like your tendencies, like, you know, where do you like to get the ball? And when you get the ball there, what's, what's Yokic going to do? And like, how effective are they, you know, on the right side of the floor? Like, those two play in a very, like, kind of organic way when they're flowing together, and it's hard to get a scout on it.

Like, you kind of know where they're going to be. Like, they got certain actions that they like, but they played so long together and they do it so well that it's hard to scout it. So, like, you know, they're going to need him to be played well. The biggest thing that gives me pause, and I'm going to lead this to Beck, is they're not a deep team by any stretch. They have one of the worst benches in the league. And in the postseason, you don't necessarily need to be deep, but you do need to have bodies just going down. And they don't have that.

And that was one of the biggest reasons why they lost so early, in my opinion, to Minnesota in the second round last year is because they didn't have those. How do they overcome this? Is it we got to just, we need to end a few series early? We need to kick some ass early and just get out of a series to get rest, or is it something more than that? Maybe it's Yokic playing 48 minutes in every playoff game. I mean, like to an extent, like they do have a little bit more wiggle room there, where when Yokch goes to the bench now, at least if you've got this, Jamal Murray and you've got Westbrook, you've got other guys who can at least keep the offensive float instead of just falling off the cliff. But yeah, I don't trust anybody on that bench. And when they won the championship, you know, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green were really important.

those guys are gone. I don't trust Julian Strother, Peyton, Watson, who I mean, just go down the list. You tighten your rotation in the playoffs anyway, but depth still matters to the extent that your sixth and seventh guys at a minimum matter. And when you're going up against a team like Oklahoma, that can just throw bodies upon bodies out there, and they're always going to be fresh. And their second unit might just blow your second unit out of the water, no matter how good Yokic is. And now you're having to make up ground again. There's also a sense that this is the last.

You had something to say, Ron? Yeah, and I was going to say, remember we were talking before, and they were asking about Sean Marion, because we had seen Sean Marion around. I was listening to him on NBA radio with Eddie Johnson and them, and they asked him a specific question about his Mavs team beating the heat. And his thing was that the bench wins the championship when you get that deep into playoff runs.

I don't know that I totally 100% agree with that, but he literally said that yesterday, which was like the reason we felt we were going to win was because we knew our bench was better than your bench. And once we got into it, we were going to run away. You know, so. Yeah. And one of the things that just, I don't know, one of the things that just gives me,

gives me pause with this team is one, the depth. And also, like, there's a sense from this Denver team. If it doesn't work out this season, like, they could be retooled around yoga. It's obviously Roakins is going to be, say, Jamal Murray, not Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. said this early, the season of Ramona Shelburne just about the urgency of this season. How much you think that will play a part in this particular postseason? I think they're feeling it. I mean, we all know, like there's tensions throughout the organization, right? From the front office to the coach,

and then the coach to the players, I think, on some level. And, you know, Michael Porter Jr.'s having to hear his name in, not trade rumors, more like trade speculation, right? There was the, if Denver's going to make a move to fortify themselves for the stretch. run, that's the piece you're moving, right? You're not offloading Aaron Gordon. You're not offloading Jamal Murray. Yokic is obviously your franchise. Like who else you got? Well, it's Michael Porter Jr. And so, yeah, if they flame out early, everything's on the table. The front office is on the table. The coach is on the table. Every role player, everybody who's not named Nicola Yokic is on the table. So I think that they're feeling that. I mean, Rajah, like you've been on teams where

expectations are high. Like, don't you always, on some level feel like going to the playoffs? Like, there are stakes here that go beyond whether or not we're winning a round or a title. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, especially, I mean, look, once you win the title, I mean, that the clock, you know, if you ever had to guess whether a clock was on or not, like, once you win the title, the clock's always on. And so every year you go into those, you know, playoffs and stretch runs, like, you're hoping to win that championship in that way. But, you know, the reality is that's not just them.

There are a bunch of teams in the league that are going to be under that type of pressure. And, you know, for whatever it's worth, like, that's just the job we sign. up to do, right? So if you're Michael Porter Jr. or anybody like that, you know, you ask how do you get ready for a stretch run? Like, how do you? And I said, well, we're not sitting there necessarily thinking about like, hey, I got to be better in this. Well, you know, you got an organic kind of like fire under your asses. I don't want to be traded. Like, I don't want to be the reason this doesn't work. So you got to play ball. Let's switch gears. There's it. I want to go to a team that honestly, honestly, I don't have a read on. So I'm honestly asking you about this team, the Memphis

Grizzlies. Like, John Moran has been injured for much of the season. And me and Cliff, we're talking about just how he hasn't probably found the level that he would want to be throughout this season. They do have Jared Jackson who's playing really well this season. Where do you guys stand on them? Roger. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead first, Roger.

Any Grizzlies fans in the audience today? Any grizzlies fans in the audience? No. No, we're in a bay, brother. It's hard to get here from Memphis. Yeah, man, I don't know how I feel about Memphis. It's pretty remarkable what they're doing. Sharon Jackson's playing great.

You know, I don't know personally, although record-wise, I know where they sit. Like, I don't know that I'd have them as a true contender in the West. I just don't, they could beat anybody, but I don't see them as one of the teams that I would have as a true contender in the West. I think with them, if you could get them into a game to slow them down, like, the reason I say this is because our son's teams played super fast, right? Like, and anybody that tried to play fast with us and teams will do that with you in the regular season because you don't have the same amount of time to prep for that. And it's it's a lot easier to bait someone into running up and down with you than it is to like really slow down because everybody wants to fucking run. Right. Like everybody wants to get up and down to get their buckets.

But in the playoffs, if you could really slow them down and get them grinding like on a half court game, like that's going to be a problem for them. Like they just want to play so fast. You know, they're physical. They also can guard. Like, they have some good things, but I think it's going to be, the style of playing the playoffs is not going to be a great thing for them. It's probably the best way I can put it. Howard, how many, if it doesn't work out with Memphis, they are another team that's kind of reaching a ceiling with this core. Like, what gives if they can't figure it out this season?

It's not a dangerous question, but I have a potentially dangerous answer. Uh-oh. Do I want to say this? I guess I will. Say that shit. Like, Howard. I can't, I can't, like, tease that. Sponsor by State Farm.

aggregators don't aggregate this aggregate that shit don't do it um I'm constantly checking him with executives around trade deadline about like okay you know what we saw what we didn't see what's next and you're in this league you are always always always on the lookout for who's the next wave of stars that are going to get dealt right we just saw

shock of all shocks the lucca deal we saw jimmy butler there's already whispers once again about Janus and somebody out of the blue said, keep an eye on Jha this summer. Again, aggregators don't aggregate this. Good thing there's not any Grizzlies fans in here. Yeah, thank God. But because they're just deep enough into the life cycle.

Don't tweet that out. Don't tweet that shit, Roger. We're good, we're good, we're good. Keep that shit off social media. They're just deep enough into the Jah Morant life cycle and also the Jah, Bain, Jaron. Jackson Jr. grouping. And like, you know, they're young enough. They should have plenty of runway. But again, in this league, you never have as much runway as you think you're going to have.

And Jaws obviously had some issues. Everything's been fine for a while here. So not to overplay stuff from a year and a half, two years ago. But at a certain point, teams will pivot. And, you know, there's always, for everything we know publicly, there's always a little bit that's going on below the surface, too. So I would just like, I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm just saying it's one of those things of just kind of keeping an eye on if they were to flame out early. Hey Keith our social media member did you get that shit wherever you are did you get that we will aggregate ourselves I'm so fucked yes you are no fucking blue sky Twitter it's out all that shit it's all out sorry is that claimant you know this podcast is also indirectly

sponsored by blue sky because of this guy right here. Meet me there you're not going to find me anywhere else all right before we get to the eastern I see a Boston Celtics fan here, which is brave. No one. All right. We got two Boston Celtics fans over there. Milwaukee Jersey here. Kings in front.

All right. Hey, let's let's let's just go around to put a bow on the Western conference. I'll start off. We're going to do our wild card for each one. My wild card, I had like three. Roger saw me pre-pot. I had like my notes going. He was like, what the hell are you doing?

He got, it made him nervous. Yeah. I had immediate sweat. I'm like, who fucking did notes for this? traffic for this shit. We fucking did notes. But I have the Houston Rockets. And one of the reasons is

they are the team now, like, where they could either be the kings of two years ago, where everybody actually wants to play them. I don't believe that. Or they could be some version of maybe the 2010 OKC

Thunder or the 2011 OKC Thunder, where young team really well coached plays play really hard and they're not scared of anyone. I do, I am scared of they don't have, I don't think they have a true number one. They are a team-based team. And what I mean by that is they play really hard,

but down the stretch of playoff games, you need a dude. And I don't know if they have a dude yet. But I'd be scared as hell to play with them. And they're even more scared because everybody seems to be trying to play them in the first round. So I'm going to go to the Rockets. I'm just going to piggyback off of that.

Howard, you go next. The difference between them in Sacramento, I mean, it wasn't seen. Sorry, my guy in the first row of Sacramento came. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's a Bibi fan? Oh, we're team dying. For sure, we're here. They guard the shit out of you, like in a way that SAC wouldn't, right?

And that's scary sometimes in the playoffs because like they're young, they're big, they're athletic, they're versatile, and they'll strap up. And so you're right. Like, you need that dude and they don't necessarily have that dude, but they have ways to stop you're that dude. you know what I mean? So that's scary sometimes when the team just locks up. Hey, Raj. Yeah. You're the dude now that has to be a wild card.

Hey, man. Thanks, man. You know what? Yeah. Your turn. Yeah. I guess wild card, I mean, I would have taken Houston, but nobody wants to hear me say Houston again. So I did Lakers probably?

We got any Lakers fans here? Like, yeah, okay. I mean. Tough crowd. Like, are we considered, well, anybody that we haven't mentioned, it can be a wild card in the, this? Yeah. You're going to I'm going to leave them for you. I'm going to leave them for you.

I'm going to leave them for you. Yeah, I'll take the Lakers just because if, right, if, and I don't know that I always subscribe to this, but if those two can figure that out, it's got to look a lot different than his look. He's been out of shape. Like Luca, that is, like he's been out of shape. They can't play the way they played the last.

Don't get me in any more trouble with the fucking Luca, man. Please, I don't need any more problems. But if he gets in shape, if they figure out that to get the Luca that you traded for, he's got to have the ball. There's no other way around that, right? There's no, Austin Reeves is great. LeBron is great. Like, he got to have a ball.

That's the only way Luca is as valuable as he was in Dallas. But if they can figure that out, and if LeBron can play off of that, and if they're better defensively, then I'm going to give them credit for, they become a team in this world where we're talking about wild cards, where if all of that's clicking, They have two of the best players on the planet offensively, and that could be a problem. Well, the NBA is mad about all-star game scores. They're going to be really mad about the Lakers scores because they're going to be bananas. It's going to get 175 to 160. And that's why you can't take the Lakers seriously. They're not going to stop anybody.

They've got no size. They've got no defense and their two best players don't play defense. Sorry, Jeremy, wherever you are. I apologize. But that said, especially if I were the Houston Rockets, a young team with no playoff experience and I'm looking across the court at Luca and LeBron. Oh. Yeah. No, I mean, like that's so I will never dismiss them because of how great those two guys are and they've got all the experience in the world, but only against like Houston, right? Like I'm not, I'm not

picking them against the Thunder. I'm not picking them against Denver. I don't know if I'm picking them against anybody. And I think the Lakers need a lot of time now in an offseason to figure out how to reconfigure this team. Also, Luca needs time to, to Raj's point, Luca needs time to figure out how to play with and off of LeBron. Like, LeBron and Dwayne Wade, you know, they were both in their prime, but they needed months to figure out how to play with each other as ball dominant stars. So, um, I'm not taking them that seriously. Okay, quick.

Uh, somebody asks if the Warriors were an X factor. I mean, I guess because we are the Bay Area. No, but that's where he's going. I think that's who Roger was leaving for me. Somebody said Clippers. I do think the Clippers. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. But, um, but. Yeah. Wow. You break in hearts. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not. Really not.

Really not. You see Daniel Ewing tell him I said hello either. No, I was just talking. Do we have like a segment where we're just like, this is the segment where we pander? Let me pander. The Warriors are obviously the greatest X Factor team in the Western Conference. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I've making the rounds the last like 48 hours since I got here, um, have seen a number of people with the Warriors organization at various levels. They're like giddy about Jimmy Butler right now. And I know like all of us, we talked about this on the pod before they got Jimmy, after they got Jimmy,

like there's a whole bunch of stuff that comes with having Jimmy. Um, and so you would think that the Warriors themselves might be a little bit kind of like, yeah, it's early. Like things are okay and we'll see how, no, they're like fucking giddy.

And you've seen it in the results so far. I think he's fitting in really well. I think he was exactly what they needed on so many levels. The defense, just the attitude, just the badassery of Jimmy Butler is just an element. They kind of need it out there. Somebody had mentioned to me that it was like a little bit tough for Drayman. Like I know you look at Drayman and you think like this is just his natural state. Like why would he ever need somebody else to do the things and say the things that he does?

But he needs somebody else to do it so it's not on him all the time. And Jimmy can carry some of that. So plus you've got more of the mid-range game and the ability to get to the line a gazillion times a game which they had nobody doing. Yo, you're breaking faces right now, brother. Are you okay, brother?

No. This is what the shit that he does on the pod. He has to, like, we're trying to make a point stuff and then Rod's just like, ah, oh, oh, all right. If you ever, like, you're like, funky awkward pauses. Don't let this happen. Like, Keith clip this shit again. Don't let this whole thing happen for them to fucking play in the playing game and lose.

Because they have good vibes. The vibes are very excited. The vibes are awesome. My face was about, I heard it in the back and I saved my reaction for the stage. Yeah. Was just the fact that like Draymond needs help being fucking Dremont. Stop. I'd stop.

No, no, it's not you saying it. Sometimes somebody else has to be the asshole. He wants somebody else to be the asshole sometimes. I think he's pretty cool being the asshole. No, I can I, can I give him some bail real quick? Yeah. Let me give him some bail real quick. So one of the things, like when the warriors were at their absolute peak, like absolute peak,

there was a contingency of veterans in the locker room that could buffer the... Stop. Stop. No, why I got to stop? I hear what you about to say. No, but he's still an asshole. But the only... No, but you can mitigate the assholery, is what I'm saying.

In a good way, though. In a good way, he's an asshole, right? I'm not, I don't mean to be... Can I say about a wait? Because every team needs it. No. Go ahead. So back in the day, before you, I was rudely interrupted by a fellow burgo.

Oh. They had a contingency of guys of taking David West, Sean Livingston, Igu Diggins, Igu Dahl. Barbosa. He said Barbosa in the preposso in the prepot. Like, yeah, we got to give my guys some love. But no, they had guys. Andy Verragel for a second. Exactly.

They had guys that could let Dremont be Dremont while also having leadership. Now, I don't know if Jimmy Butler. They still need a few more veterans in that locker room. I don't think that Jimmy Butler is the end-all-be-all. But like you, I've heard optimism, too. Somebody told me, like, we haven't had a guy like this who could be both tough, defensive-minded, and a leader like Iguadala,

who can offset that to your point. So I am cautiously optimistic, but also they haven't been good this season, and I think that they're in the square and the plane. Now, the Western Conference is tight. They could. I just don't see them at this point getting to the sixth seat. They could.

They could. And if they end up in the playing and come out of the playing, like, they are going to be the proverbial version of the, you know, the team that you don't want to face in the first round. Like, and especially if you're one of those teams near the top, if it's, you know, holds up as like OKC and Memphis or if the Warriors matched up with like, again, Houston, younger teams looking across that Steph, Draymond, Jimmy Butler, assuming like, listen, we've got a very, very, very small sample size with Jimmy so far. If they play like this for the next month and a half, two months, like everybody at the top of the standing is going to be like, those are the guys I want to avoid. You may start seeing that as the top of the standings be the ones to, like, throw games down the stretch trying to jockey for a position to avoid them. Is it going to be like that a Debo scene where you don't know that, never mind. Can I, can I piggyback though? Can I explain? Go ahead, buddy. So let me explain. Like, I don't.

Did you get the Debo reference? Yeah, but I don't. Yeah, but I don't dispute any of that. And they do need leadership because what you're describing is like you need multiple leaders out there. Like, all I'm saying is guys that are typically the assholes on a team, like in the good way, like they don't get tired. being the asshole. Like, that's their fucking job. So, like, they're gonna do. The assholes are in the building. Do you guys get tired of being the assholes?

No. I just like the idea of like, Draymond at some point telling somebody else going like, hey man, chill out. It's okay. Like, we need to calm down. It's like Jimmy, come on, man. But I think, no, no, no, but like to, like, they're a scary, they're a scary team. First of all, like, all the things that that Jimmy does are things

offensively that they just did not have an answer for, right? Like, that ability to just go pure ice out of structure. you know, get a bucket, get us to the free throw line to stop a run, just to slow the game down, whatever we need to do, just to manufacture points. The extra grit, like, they're a sound defensive team from a schematic standpoint, but like a Swiss Army knife of a body and a mindset that's got that level of grit, like, is imperative on a team that wants to win something.

And then just what they do is hard to guard when it's working at its best. Like it's a hard scout. It's a hard prep. It's a hard. There are too many things going on and too many reads that Draymond can make with the ball on his hands. For me to be able to account for all of them as a defender. I'm always behind you. Like you're you make the first step and I'm in reaction mode.

It's just the nature of like two things start moving, right? Like you're moving first. And so if you're going to do that and it's all read based, I'm always behind you. Always behind you. And so when you bring in Jimmy who's played in a system like that in Miami at times and you pair him with Steph and all of those things, Look, I still think their moves that need to be made to make them the ultimate team that they want to be for that next run, but they could be really scary. Yeah.

And I think everything you said, and I agree with you, I think even with that, I think there's serum. It's probably if they get into the first round, maybe they can win a war. If they went around, it's fucking cool. No, yeah. But, but, like, I'm with Howard. You might beat him in a second room. You won't want to play him. Nope.

Yeah. It's going to be tough. Let's go to the Eastern Conference. Boston, Milwaukee. I see you. Let's start with Boston. I don't know if he needs earmuffs right now. What gives you pause about Boston and what makes you excited about Boston?

What makes me excited about Boston is just, I mean, across the board, they've got guys with real ability to put it in a bucket and defend, right? Like, they just do that. What gives me pause about them is if they ever go cold. Like if they go cold and their stubbornness sometimes to just continue to shoot the ball. Every time I'm like, just gets the fucking freak throw line. Yeah, like, look, but, but I mean, like it bears itself out that they, win they win like the numbers work out for them but like if you hit that cold stretch against a

really good team it could be catastrophic right like you're not making shots a couple years ago miami beat them where they just they couldn't consistently make shots like that now they committed more to it now than they they ever have um i think there was also with the miami series there's a bit of mind games being played too right like they missed shots but they also jimmy was in their head yeah but shooting is a mind game right like at it's purest like it's a mind game like We all have jump shots, like, and you see some of the best shooters on the planet to ever shoot, and one of their shots doesn't look exactly like the other one shot. So at the end of the day, it is all about confidence in somebody being in your head. I think they're the best team in the East.

Like, I know Cleveland's done what Cleveland's done, but not much gives me pause about them. I think they're very versatile, very long, very rangy, very capable offensively, even in ISO situations. They've got multiple guys that can get you buckets. So they're my favorite in the East, but what would give me pause would be if they just were stubborn about how they wanted to win a game. And I mean, that sounds corny, but it can be a thing sometimes, right? Like, you get stubborn and we want to do it this way, and that's how we're going to do it. Coaches are in a meeting. You've lost the game and you look at each other and you're like, well, we've done this shit for like 87 games now. Let's do it again. Fine. Well, in the 88th game,

it doesn't work and you have the same meeting and you're like, it's going to work tomorrow. Okay, now we're down 02 going 0.03. Like, if they get stubborn, that's what that's what would concern me. because there are more ways it's going to cat with the compilation of talent that they have. I feel like they're past that, though. Like, I don't, I mean, even when you win a championship, there's times when you're never completely past it, right? Like I covered the shack and Kobe teams where it's like, oh, they figured it out. Oh, they stopped figuring it out.

Oh, they got to figure it out again. And the Celtics could have some of that same thing where they're going to backslide and get a little bit too much isolation heavy or whatever. But I'm not worried about Boston at all. Like I would actually ask the question in the inverse, which is, what's the case for anybody in the East beating them four out of seven? I don't know. That's fair.

I don't know. Does I give you optimism? Are you excited? Okay. All right. Michelle, you should be. You should be. Running along.

Let's go with the, you just talk about, you reference to Cleveland Cavaliers. Well, here's the answer to that. What would, because I tend to agree with you. Like, Boston's like, but if the calves were to be able to spread them out, right?

And really get downhill with those guards. If they did not handle pick and roll well, that's a problem for Boston. Because Cleveland's as good as anyone in that pick and roll, rim run. spread you out, start spreading the ball around. And they too have guys that can kind of get off. So that would be the only thing is if you could get them in pick and roll situations that they weren't able to identify early, like let's say you're moving, not just a straight up pick and roll

where you're coming down. We know it's coming, but ball moves to one side of the court. We flow through to the other ball reverses, reverses. It's on that side and we're into a quick pick and roll. And now I got someone running into a pick and roll in that drop coverage. Like Donovan, Darius Garland, with the rim runs that they have, like that could be a problem. I don't think it's going to be a problem, but that would be the answer to how you might be able to get them. Let's talk about the, but the calves. Are you excited about the calves?

I like the calves. No, I like the calves. One thing that gives me pause, though, about the calves is like, they seem like a great regular season team. They don't seem like they can translate. For whatever reason, whenever I watch them, it just doesn't seem like they're going to be able to translate it to the post. It's two different game.

They're a team that, you know, obviously has to take that next step, not unlike what Howard was saying about some of the players from OKC or OKC in general. Like you want to see them have sustained success in the playoffs. Like that's their next step to prove to people that they're a playoff team. I think that they will this year. I think they're going to, they're going to be a deep playoff run. I don't think they beat Boston. But I think there's some real sustainable stuff there with what Coach Atkins does

and the creation of the space, the pieces that they have within that system and how they want to play. Like they stick to their guns with that. And it's hard to guard. Like when you have proper spacing on a basketball court and you are like you're moving your chest pieces around offensively and you're creating like for offense, sorry guys, they told me to make sure I don't forget about this side of the room, so I'm sorry.

Like all you're trying to practice. All you're trying to do offensively is create one help defender to have to trigger, right? Like so, you know, I've got the ball, I gotta get by my defender, and if I do that it triggers one help defender. Well, once that happens, that's, dominoes start to fall. So I swing that ball and he's open, which pulls another defender. And if he swings the ball, he's open. And you're just pulling defenders around the floor. And if someone does that

well and has proper spacing, you can't catch up to the ball. You just can't. It's five on five on five theoretically, but it was two on one to start. So now we're playing four on three behind it. They do that better than anybody in the league. So like I, yeah, they got to win in the playoffs, but I think it's for real. I want to, I want to get to X factors. And I do think this is an X factor in the Eastern conference, but they were on our contenders list. It can go either or this is in your backyard, even though you don't never want to go to Madison Square Garden. The New York Knicks.

What do you think of the New York Knicks? We got Knicks fans in the house. Wow. Okay. All right. A Knicks fan with a Steph jersey on. Wow. The Knicks, Howard.

I did throw down a couple of notes. The Knicks are 0-1-1 against the Cavs and O and 2 against, or excuse me, Yeah, oh and two against the Celtics. That may or may not matter when we get to the postseason. I think what worries me about the Knicks in general is that here you've got a Tibbs team that's like middle of the pack or lower in defensive efficiency. Like a Tibbs team is supposed to be great defensively first and foremost, but they kind of swapped out their identity in the offseason.

When Hartnstein leaves and they trade for Mikhail Bridges and they get Carl Anthony Towns, suddenly they're very offensive driven. It's all about Brunson and Kat, just Dyson teams, up and they have great defenders. Ananoi's a great defender, Bridges is a great defender, Hart's a great defender, but they're not collectively defending at a high level and teams are attacking their two best players. They're attacking Brunson and Kat. And their depth is an issue. They made a couple moves of the deadline that may or may not matter. And we have this big wild card there with Mitchell Robinson who's nearing a return. Maybe we'll see him right after the break ends. Does Mitchell Robinson

solve their entire defense? I'm not so sure. And he and Kat have never played. played together. So now you've got a big adjustment in your front court trying to get these guys in sync while trying to be a contender. I just, I think they just have too many concerns or too many, you know, variables right now to put them at the same level with Cleveland and Boston. Sorry, Ben, wherever you are. What do you think about the Knicks? Are you or not in the same place? I mean, I mean, you basically swapped out. Look, I mean, the knock on Tibbs was was grueling practices, so much time spent on defense taking years off of your career type of stuff like when I was mine and and like from all accounts like that's just the opposite of what he's doing now like they're

really good offensively but you're only going to beat a certain level of team hanging your hat on that right if you can't defend in the way they're supposed to defend and what teams are going to do to them is what what you see teams do like look if you have one person on the floor that is a defensive liability that's that's a thing right like we're going to find that we're going to get that into an advantageous situation and we're going to beat you up. You got two people on the floor that can't really guard and that's a problem, right?

And like I'm a Jalen Brunton fan and everyone, like all of us aren't created equal, right? Like he's so good offensively that, yeah, we're going to give him a little break on the defensive side of the ball. But then we went and got Kat who is so good offensively and he's bad on the defensive side of the ball. And hiding two of those is really difficult,

especially when you're playing the upper echelon teams, you know, in the league. Any other Eastern Conference wild cards? We can get to before we talk about shit on the All-Star format. The only other team you could even consider as Milwaukee? Yeah. I don't. I feel like you, it's you're obligated to do that.

I don't, I, there's nothing that gives me, sorry, brother. There's nothing that gives me optimism about the walking. It's respect for Janus and Dame. Exactly. And, um, and Kyle Kuzma, maybe. There's a big three. Somewhere. I actually like the Kuzma acquisition.

He's going to be right for them. He's going to be right. But I don't think that makes them a contender. But you have to give them the respect of, again, you know, if you're any of those teams and you're looking across the court at Damon Janus, like you're on your toes. Like you're at least, you know, respecting them. I don't think that they're knocking out anybody. I'm going to ask this because we're in the Bay Area and I want to put you on the spot.

Oh, God. What does this do for Janus if they don't, if they flame out? My man's already dope. I mean, we already put him on the watch list, right? Like, he's, there's definitely, like, you know, Miami wants to make a move. I mean, some of the pause from the Warriors and, like, trading for Jimmy Butler was like, I mean, Janus is a big fish out there that we've always wanted. And they've saved all of their best assets to still be able to make that move. Yep.

So, um, but yeah. No, the Voltures are circling Milwaukee. In front offices, everybody's board and everybody's front office around the league. who are we keeping an eye on, who are we saving all of our assets for, and this goes for Brooklyn, too, with all their picks. Like, Janus is right at the top of the list.

There you go. No, no, keep already got it. Keep already, click. I'll keep this on the internet now. Keep me good. Keep me good. Keep me good. Keep me good.

All right. The All-Star format, in which Howard is a big proponent of it. There's so many rounds, so many games, so many, what's going on? Oh, hey, hold on, real quick. It isn't that complicated. Hey, Raja, can you give the format

of what the, All-Star game festivities are. What is the format of the tournament? Can you give it to us right now? I do. I know that. I know that. What is it?

That's two teams. It's a tournament, right? Two teams play each other. Two teams. It's a tournament. That's what it is. Is that what you said with the spreadsheet with Adam Silver in the office? I have one question.

I just had a question. This is a genuine, like, how did Candace get Amen Thompson? I have no idea. Like, I really genuinely. He asked Howard, and Howard was like, I didn't pay attention to anything that happened last night. Yeah. We were not watching.

Right, right, right. Because like the G-League team played like another team, right? And then... But how did she get A.N. Thompson off on one of the fucking teams? Logan, nobody cares about that part. No, here's the other thing, though. This is why, and I've been waiting to have this conversation for weeks, this is why the All-Star format is cooked because we have to have these conversations.

Because we have to ask questions going into an All-Star. What's gonna happen? What are we doing? Wait, who's doing that? It is a tournament, right? It is a tournament. It's a tournament. But like we have to continue to do this.

And I understand that there is a lack of competitive balance and all those things. But I think a lot of that stuff has to do with the fact that we're not putting the players in optimal. And Rajah, I think will back me up on this. We're not putting players in optimal conditions to actually have a competitive game. They are spending a weekend in a random place. They're having a lot of fun guys. They're having a lot of fun. Fun is had.

Fun is had. You got a lot of fun at also, right? And then, like, when they get to the arena itself, after all the fun that they had, they have to take pictures, have to do press. They don't even get, like, they get like 10 minutes of warm-up time. And then you expect them to play a competitive basketball game. You're not, it doesn't matter what the format is, in my opinion. I know you're going to push back on that.

But I think it's not going to be competitive no matter what if that's, if you are not putting the conditions to be competitive in place. we've literally been sitting on this debate for like a month. Yeah. Logan's like, it's trash. I'm like, no, it's fine. I'll have the conversation when we get to All-Star Weekend. All right, one, dude, not that complicated.

There are three teams on Sunday that are made up of the 24 All-Stars eight per team. Harry the Five. And they made it even... Minus Six. Even simpler to follow it away because Chuck Kenny and Shaq, who picked up the teams, divided up the All-Stars, did it thematically. So there's one team of like under 25 stars. There's one team of mostly international guys.

One team of the OGs, LeBron, Steph, all that. And so... Where's the other team? And then the fourth team is whoever the fuck won last night, which I was not... With Aeman Thompson who lost somehow, right? And how did A.M. Thompson get with them? Don't know. All right, right, right.

Didn't realize he was in the game. So two of those teams are playing each other tomorrow. Then the other two teams play each other. And the winners of those two are playing in the final of this new All-Star format. That's not that complicated. That's a tournament. So they're playing to a target. With more than two teams.

one of the two teams. Four, in fact. They're playing to a target score. It's not this drawn-out 48-minute, ridiculous three-hour affair. Like, guys are going to get to 40 points quickly in today's NBA. So you will have two snappy semifinal games

followed by a probably equally snappy final where whoever gets to 40 first. And because of the format of going for 40 as opposed to having to play 48 minutes in this long slug, also you only got 8. guys, it's going to have some urgency and some pace to it that the All-Star game in recent years has had zero of. To your point, Logan, I agree. Part of the problem here is it's the last thing

they do on a... They try to go to Cabo. Yeah. No, that's the thing. J's FFO are already like, they're already ready to go. They've got the rest of the week off. They want to just get the hell out of Dodge and just go have fun and relax before the season starts again. True and true also that all the sponsors, all the events, all the stuff they got to do the rest of the weekend. By the time they get to Sunday night, these guys are cooked. They don't give a shit about trying to put on a great show. But unless you're going to either move the All-Star game to Friday or Saturday, or start eliminating sponsor events, good luck with that. I don't know how you change the, I agree. The conditions are part of the problem, but I don't know how you change that. The other thing, frankly,

is just that the All-Stars of today makes so much money. I don't think they feel the same obligation and investment as their predecessors did to say, you know what, guys, this is a signature event of a signature weekend for our league. And we got to do this. We got to put on a show and at least try a little bit because this is how we keep the game going. They've got like, you know, 70 billion coming or whatever in the next media rights deal. No one is worried about. You know what I think, though, I'm at counterpoint on that?

I don't think, and I've said this recently, but, and I want to, I'm going to push this to, to Raja. They don't, I think we're in a transitional phase. in the NBA where the LeBrons and the KDs and the steps are phasing out. And they at a point in time where OGs that players respected to be like, okay, I guess I got to play hard now because LeBron said let's fucking go, right? But they don't necessarily have that energy right now. And so we're in a transitional phase. But then you hear other players, young guys, Anthony Edwards, Wimby, saying,

oh, we're going to turn this shit up. And I think there's some level of optimism going forward about that. How much is that a factor in your eyes, Roger? Oh, it's huge. I mean, if your new generation of guys takes it more serious and wants to compete in it, then that's all that really matters, right? Because they're the ones that are going to be carrying the game forward.

Clearly, dudes don't play as well hungover anymore, right? I just said fun, but yes, drinking, yes, is something that happens. Right? Because, like, every, like, I mean, that's just the thing. How did you play? Very degrees of success with that. But like, generally speaking, I wasn't bad. I was right. I mean, there are a few.

Hey, you're potting pretty well right now. Thank you. You're fucking potting. Thank you. Good job, buddy. Who would have known? Yeah, no, look, man, it's always going to be hard. This generation of Hooper, if any of you guys have kids that are out there kind of hooping in the AAU scene or the shoe company like scene and stuff like that, like I've been in it since, I don't know, for like.

eight or nine years and then my middle boy is just now getting on the shoe circuit scene. Like any type of all-star level event that you go to is played like that. It's played like where they don't give a shit in a way that like, and I know this comes off as like, you'll get off my porch old dude, but we just played a lot harder and stuff like that. Like even when we were coming up. And so you wind up with the generation of players that are kind of conditioned to not really come to something like this and want to give out effort that would like, like, set them back on the back end of All-Star Break or even get them hurt, right?

So it becomes critical to have stars, young stars, especially that are saying, hey, we want to, we want to compete and we want to get after it. The only thing I'll say to, like, the structure of this on top of the fact that I still clearly don't understand all of the moving parts is like... It's more than two teams. We've established it's a tournament, right? It's a tournament. I used to like seeing the matchups.

Like, I used to like seeing the Western Conference matchup of the power forwards. versus the Eastern Conference power forwards and stuff like that. And I think you lose that a little bit when you're split into four teams and everybody's not going to play each other and shit like that. But I think the allure of that has faded anyway because we're in a league pass era where everybody in every market sees every team all the time. And we've seen these players all play with each other either in the Olympics or because players change teams so often in this era.

There's the mystique of All-Star when you and I were younger and Logan wasn't born yet. We were going to get to age jokes. eventually. Was that it was the lone time of the season where you saw these guys in the same court together. It's like, wow, this is awesome. Look, man, like, you know, Magic and Jordan and Bird and Neek and all these guys are out there together.

Like, that, I just don't think it has the same resonance. And on top of that, yeah, they're not playing as hard as they used to. You know, and every time we talk to guys from the 90s early 2000s, like, that's the one thing they keep saying. Like, we actually cared. Like, we wanted to go out there and be the dude. and the guys now are just like, hey, let's just like throw lob dunks from half court.

Yeah, no, it's hard, it's hard to watch. I mean, there's some fairness to that. Is there an AAUification of this All-Star game, do you think, Raja? An AAUification. I mean, the NBA is AAPUIFI, period, right? Like, not in a bad way, but that's just where all your products coming from. So, like, all of those, you know, players, say for the foreign players are kind of coming up in that system.

you really want me to rant you want me to rant you want me to do it fucking go let's what the people want to come here and fucking rant I'm not gonna go no I know

everybody wants me to do it let's go all right let's do it also aggregators get this um look we

when you start playing when you start playing when you're in the third grade and this is real shit when you start playing 200 fucking basketball games over the course

of a spring you start to desensitize to like losing and shit like that. You're just rolling out there to get your numbers. You're rolling out there to get your little viral highlights and stuff like that. You're speaking of Michael Money's language right there. He's right there in the white. You're speaking his language right there.

No, but that's real talk. You're speaking his language right there. That's real talk. And I'd have kids in my program. I know we're not all here for this. But like I try to tell their parents, these are third grade people. Like, and you would think like you come to a program for a little bit of

guidance within your program. If it's not me, like I had other, like, multiple other like college and pro players within the program. And they're like, hey, man, you guys aren't playing this weekend. You know, is it okay if we go play for X, Y, and Z? And I'd be like, yeah, you do whatever you want, but like, I don't think your kid needs it. Oh, well, he really loves to play or, you know, this and that. All right, go ahead and do it.

Hey, we're not playing over the course of the next three months, like, because we don't play all year round, right? Like, I don't believe in that. I think kids need a break from it. You know, hey, can we go play with X, Y, and Z team, or what do you think is in my kid's best interest? And I'd be like, mom, do you want to know, dad? Real talk. Let him go fucking play soccer. Let him swim.

Let him like go play anything else other than basketball. Yeah. And no, honestly, I'm not even pandering. Like, I believe that. Let them go do something else so they get away from this. Not just for their own sanity and like, you know, the pressure that comes with training like you're a pro when you're eight years old. But like, you know, you're playing too much basketball and it's taking away from like

what basketball is about, which is competition and like trying to win basketball games. Every time you touch a basketball court, you should be trying to win a basketball game. And if you ever touch a basketball court and that's not your priority, then someone has missed along the way in your development. Straight up. Good fucking shit, Roger. All right. All right.

It's time for your questions. Do you have something to add on that? Do you have your solution to all-star game real quick? Let's see your solution to all-star game before. Bigger tournament. Yeah, there we go. Bear with me. It's a 14-term.

A mid-season play. a tournament. I do like the fact that the young guys, whoever the hell that team is from last night that's advancing, no one's gonna want to lose to them.

So, like, there's extra incentive on Sunday. The whole thing, it's a big psychological mind game with the players, right? They've demonstrated for years that they don't care enough to play hard, and the league has, like,

you know, cajoled and beseeched and whatever. Like, we need the ghost of David Stern to come back and bully them for a minute or something. But, like, they've tried every year is he? Roger's still getting high.

I'm sorry. Roger's scared as fuck. I didn't mean to trigger the PTSD. Okay, buddy. Wait, Roger. There he is. He's right there.

Did you ever get called to the principal's office? Olympic Tower? More like lived in the principal's office. Not my bestie. But if you've tried everything else. Like being willing to try this and do something else.

And it is a psychological game. It's try to get them to care in a way that they've already demonstrated they don't. And when you change the format and you add like these little gimmicks that makes some urgency infused into the thing. We'll see. Clearly, I'm the optimist here.

Logan wants to trash it already. Every time we come in, he's like, yeah, man, I think it's going to work. Hey, Roger Logan, I think it's going to work. I'm the guy who crapped all over the NBA Cup, so, you know, I'm going to give them credit on this way. Crapped in the Cup. Not in, about.

All right, all right, let's get to the question. Just get a little loopy here at the Park's wine. All right. This is a funny one because we haven't talked about this team And also I'm going to do this one first Because of all of there's only There's a lot of questions and I thank you guys for this But there's only been like two people that said their names

And this is one of them so I'm just going to shout this person out Shout out to Owen is Owen here where's Owen? Yeah, got it up for Owen He gave a great question Does Jason Kid quit in the next two weeks And does Nico Harrison get fired this off season. Wow.

That's not it. Wow. Go Lakers. And Boston sucks. Oh, wow. Stir it up. All right. Wow.

Had a great time in Boston. Boston is a good time. I went to school in Boston for a little bit. No and no to Nico and and and Jason kid. Look, Nico, look. I, I sense a, that's, This is Harry, right? This is Eric.

I'm establishing an aggregator alert. Nico did not do a great job in terms of getting back in return what he could have gotten for a talent like Luca. I am not one that's weighing in, and I've said this before, to some people's like, you know, they didn't really appreciate it. But like, I'm not in the building, right? None of us are in the building. And you hear people say this a lot. If anyone's going to know someone in the NBA, it's going to be someone in the NBA, it's going to be the people to see him all the time. That doesn't mean that they had to trade him,

right? That doesn't mean that 31 other GMs would have traded him. But for whatever it's worth, they decided that that that's what they're going to do. I would say all that to say that like, Nico didn't make that move like unilaterally. That wasn't Nico just saying, hey, guess what? I'm going to wake up on Tuesday and trade his ass. Like that that there were also no guard rails at all. Like, yeah. Because if I tell you, I'm the GM right now, hey, I'm going to go trade Luca. What are you going to tell me? What? If Luca's on our team. Who am I? you're my boss oh am i i'm the i'm the owner you're the owner well like but that's my point though right like if that like they're in lockstep like that like they had to be or he doesn't get to pull that

off are they in lock step or is it just that nico had standing and the new owners don't know shit about basketball no i i don't think he fleeced i don't i love i love how Howard talks about how he doesn't want to get aggregated and then says some shit to get aggregated listen i mean look i don't know that he flees the new owner two of them so i don't think he gets to get I really don't think he gets fired at the end of this season. Because I don't think that they pull that. Does he get fired eventually? They all fucking do. But I don't think he gets fired at the end of this season.

Also, getting fired in the NBA is not like getting fired from United Five. It's fair. You know what they do after they get fired in the NBA? They go to Cabo. Yeah, they're on the PJ at SFO. Exactly, exactly. All right. This is from Chris. Chris. Are you here? There's a lot of Chris's. Okay.

My dog. seeing the fire 1V1 competition that the unrivaled league hosted this past week for the women's game do you think the NBA players

could ever be convinced to try the same plus negative hold on fucker it's hold on who from the current players

would you have a shot at taking the crown I'm gonna I'm gonna start this off I think it's KD I think KD would do it I saw KD at a practice one time. Like, it was like King of the Court.

And he did like three moves and he kicked everybody's ass off the court. He just did it. Uh-uh. Wop. Uh-uh. Wap. Fade away here, Wap. Yeah.

And he's so tall and so unguarable. And he's made for a one-on-one series. I think it would be KD. All right. Yannis. Oh. Yeah. He did.

Okay. Just like he, okay. I mean, look, what you're talking about is an unrivaled skill set with like length and athleticism and shit like that. Pun intended. Right. Right. Right.

Right. I did pretty good there. But, like, when you're stripping, like, the other nine players off of a court, like, that becomes way more valuable because, like, we can't get all the way to the basket. You know what I'm saying? Like, we can't get exactly where we want to go all the time because there's somebody else there. So my ability to, like, raise up in the air and shoot a jump shot, like, sometimes one-on-one becomes, like, just brute force.

because ain't shit else out there it's just you and him. So like in that world if you give a Janus the ball first he's caving somebody's chest over and over and over again and so I take something like that. We're never gonna...

I don't even think about that, yeah. And we're never going to see it because like the reason that the women started the league is because the W doesn't pay well enough and they need other sources of income and this was a really smart endeavor that they've gone into. The NBA guys don't need it.

It wouldn't do it. So we probably won't see it. It was interesting when I did So because we were going to talk All-Star and format and what if we just, like, deconstructed the whole weekend and started over, I threw the question out on Blue Sky. And only on Blue Sky. Cut the check. Some of the responses that came back were things like, hey, let's do one-on-one, two on two, three-on-three. Like, it would be really fun to see, like, the best, you know, the All-Stars get into it that way where there is more proud in the line with a fewer view on the court. It's a different format. Like, I like that, but I don't think it would ever be like a separately, like, unrivaled. For sure. I didn't think about the good shit on the Yonassan. No, I mean, like, and a lot of it's like who gets the ball first. Yeah, for real.

Right? Okay, this is from Kyle Madsen. Where's Kyle Madsen? Is he here? There he is. True. My guy, Kyle Monson. To all, is the top 10 in the West set?

Or can the Sons or Spurs sneak in over the Warriors, Kings, or Mavericks? Yeah, what's that look like? And to Logan. Who is your favorite former NBC coworker? and why? You guys want to... Go ahead. You go.

You go first. Okay. Cats out the bag, me, and Kyle worked at NBC Sports Bay Area before then. So, yes, Kyle, obviously. But I do want to... Since this question is here, I do want to shout out the one and only Karth Burke, who is my best friend at NBC. Held me down.

I didn't know shit about television or how to do television. And she held me down, and she's one of my best friends. So shout out Karth, motherfucker, Burke. Hope she hears this. and Kyle motherfucking Madison. Do you have the standing, sir? Standings are in. Okay, let me see that.

Go ahead, Howard. Howard studied for this. We were out in the chairman. We were on flights, fucking partying and shit. Did no such thing. I think I said it on the show a week or two ago, so I better just stick with it, even though they've been a little wonky.

I think the Spurs crack the top ten. I like the Deerre and Fox pickup. I think not a Kings fan, right? No, no, no. That's team dime. That's a big. It's a straight bibby. All right, that's cool.

The kings could fall out, the Mavs could fall out. I think the Sons and Spurs could both break in, but I don't have much faith in the Sons overall. I think the Spurs are... How many back were the Spurs again? I'm sorry, I didn't... The Sons are so sad, bro. So the Sons are...

I know you're trying to get a rise out of me, bro. I'm not giving you it. The Sons are a game and a half behind the Warriors for 10 right now. Sons are, yeah, yeah, yeah. Spurs. Yeah, I don't know. No. The Suns could get in.

I know the Spurs are kind of back there, though, aren't they? The Spurs are what? How many games back are they? The Spurs are two behind the suns. They have good vibes. All these other teams that you describe have bad vibes. The fucking Mavericks are injured. Nah, but yeah, I mean, they're injured right now.

Yeah, but this is like, they're also shell shocked. Yeah. They're also shell shocked. The vibes aren't immaculate. And we only have like. Shell shot, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Shell shocked with white, with what?

The loop, the, the, the craziest. Did you see them playing in the first game, AD was back? Did you see that? No, no, no, no, no. But those we're having, these are two separate conversations, though. Clearly, clearly when, when, without health, I mean, we're having a different conversation. But my, that's right. That's what's right in front of us, though.

No, but what I'm saying is, like, they're not, like, shell shocked I can't subscribe to because that team. Did anybody watch them play in AD's first game? They were playing the rest. Not, wait a minute. Did anybody get the sense that those fuckers were upset? No, yeah, no, but I'm like, listen. Like, like, don't know, do. Oh, seriously, that's a real thing.

Now, I'm not there. And again, I'm not saying definitively that that's the case. But I watch body language and I watch Hoopers. And that team came out not like feeling sorry for themselves. Oh, shit, they traded Luca. They didn't do that. They literally did. They did not do that.

And so what I'm saying is if they're healthy, like, I wouldn't count them out. That's a huge if. That's a huge if. That's the other conversation. They're not healthy. And who knows what do you got a grain or an adductor or something like that? And then they're a. front court is just depleted with

lively out and Gaffrey? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that's real talk. Um, I think that, uh, if I, I do believe that the Spurs do have a shot, but are there any Kings fans here?

Yes. Yes. Was it hard? Okay. Was it hard watching how inconsistent Deer and Fox could be at times? Okay. All right.

All right. For sure. I do think, I think that is fair, but I do think that, One of the complaints his coaches had, Dierrin Vox, right? If I'm going to, say, maybe have a caveat to them doing good, is that he struggled with consistency and would only play well when he was angry.

That's something that we all hear throughout our travels. And he's so talented, but he's going to have to find a motivation other than being angry. Now, obviously, there's Wimby there, and there's a lot, there's Chris Paul there to help him out. But if there was something that would give me pause about Deer & Vox, I'm just trying to just grasp it. shit at this point but like if there's something there I would say that'd be something to look at all right um I don't travel so I don't I don't hear any of that stuff but you did today hey clap it up for a rajah getting on the plate I'm glad to be here no thank you guys thank you I'm

excited I this is air where it's airing yeah I shouldn't say it but my wife's got like her brother and my sister-in-law and their kids in town so it wasn't the worst two days like wasn't the worst I they're there for like six days though so like I get four days We were not expecting you to be here. Two days. No one in here was expecting here. It just worked out like that. I didn't plan that.

I didn't. And it worked out. Hold on. Go ahead. Can I just want to say this about him? Like, it could just be that Deere Fox, that is, right? Like, it could be that like he's just not a number one. Right?

Like, right? And so. You have foreshadowed that a lot. Huh? You have foreshadowed that a lot. That's the AD Memorial pick for not necessarily number one. Yeah. But, but, so you're watching.

people play and their skill sets, like it's not a skill set thing. Being a number one in the NBA, your average NBA dude that you, that you think is trashed because you guys don't see him on the court. And when he comes in, like, he's rusty because he doesn't get the ball and it's not his job and shit. Like that person, if you put a court like right here in the middle of that and ask him to shoot a hundred jumpers, he'd make 88 of them. Like, like he'd do shit that you'd be sitting there like, really? Like, they're that good. So it doesn't be, like a number one isn't always dictated by the skill set, like, or the size or the combination of the two. It's dictated by their mental makeup, right? And like, what, what they'll do in those

situations that are pressure-packed and only, like, some people can rise to that level and meet the challenge. And so while, and I'm only saying this about Deeran, because I believe to be a really, really good player, I just don't know that these are number one. So, like, you know, putting a franchise on your back is, well, that shit's not easy. Like, putting a team on your back for one night's not easy. But putting a franchise on your back and trying to take him the places that they haven't been in a long time is unbelievably difficult. And so I just cut him a little slack because I just don't think he's a true number one. And I think if you put him somewhere where he's got support, and this might be kind of echoing what you're saying, like if you

put him somewhere where he's got real support and they make up for some of maybe his shortcomings, like I think it'd be all right. What advice would you give for a person trying to put a pickup team on their back? Put a pickup. All right, this is messy. shoot, homie. Get them. Get them up. This is messy. This is so messy.

I need to put a name with it. It is for you, Roger. The five most underrated players you've ever guarded, and then the five most overrated players you've ever guarded. Where's the fucking camera? Roger didn't pre-screen none of these questions neither than I. They didn't even let me look at them. You're giving me shots of tequila. Anybody let me see a picture or no?

I ain't seen a photo. If we promise that Keith will not put this on Instagram, can we get the true image? Yeah, that's tough. See, that would have been a good one for me to have a little, like, because, like, those are hard to come up with off the top. But I'll take a shot. Lame. Let me take a shot.

Boom. Damn. Underrated that I had to guard. Kevin Martin, played for the Kings. Yeah. Funky shot. Really tough to guard. Really weird to guard.

Trying to think of dudes. J.R. Smith. Yeah. You're hot. J.R. Smith. hot, big body, like bigger than you think. Six-five, six, six, six, but like real good size on him.

Flip Murray. Flip Murray. Yeah. Flip Murray. I mean, you remember those seasons he had? Where was he? Was he in, uh... It was like four, but I do remember it.

But it's crazy. No, I'm like. What it's crazy. I remember Flip Murray. I was there. Cleveland. Like, where was he in the Sonics, right? Like, and I think Ray had gotten hurt and maybe Rushard, had he been shipped out?

Yeah. Or he was hurt. but Flip was cooking, and another one of those dudes, he'd be like, flip, who? Get flip the ball and let him shoot 25 times and he can have 40 points because, like, he's hard to guard. Man, I'm trying to think of J.J. Barrella? J.J. Barreya.

Yeah, yeah. Any Laker fans announced? Yeah, yeah. Do you see it, remember when JJ read it cooked the Lakers? You asked for five, right? You asked for five? We also have overrated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm gonna get to the overrated too.

Here's my fifth underrated. Here's my, and you said Lakers, and it's real tall. Because I could not guard him and I couldn't figure it out. And I played him maybe three times. He was with the Wizards. He wound up with the Lakers. Nick Young. Yeah.

He's fucking really hard to guard. Also, Nick Young, top three person I've ever covered in my life. Hilarious. No, he's hilarious. He's hilarious. I sat with his parents at a Laker game. Like I was there. They're even better than Nick Young.

Bro. So Nick Young, I got to be a lot I got a story real quick. I got a Nickyard's story. So when Nick Young was on the Warriors, after his pregame warm up, he would dribble the basketball all the way to the locker room, and he would try to get people to, like, steal the ball from him.

He would shake the shit out of everyone. And then he would see Mark Medina, who was at the San Jose Mercury News at the time, and he would shake the shit out of Mark McGregory. And then at one time Mark stole that shit, and he was like, yeah! Shout out Mark Medina. Shout on Nick Young, too.

Amazing guy to cutter. Yeah. Are you going to do the overrated? Overrated. Yeah, I think I want to... Overrated. This would have... Listen, all right, let me...

Where the cameras. You have to take this in context, right? I put some context. Major disclaimer coming here. Yeah, because I caught people at different stages in their career. Right? Like, that's fair, right? Like, I caught people at different stages

in their evolution as players. So like, when I came into Lee, LeBron was not very hard to guard. He, but no, no, no, I'm just, listen, listen, this is, he was a baby. He hadn't, he hadn't figured out, like, he hadn't figured out all of his, all of his weaponry. And, like, I was able to kind of be physical in a way and kind of get him into some things where, where, like, he just wasn't putting 50 on me in that way, right? And, like, I got so many 50 balls dropped on me that if you didn't, that, then, then, Like, but I would not want to have to guard him now or, or a few years ago.

But back then, yeah, he, he, I could kind of bait him into trying to post me up and LeBron didn't have a post game yet, right? And so he'd settle for a lot of kind of fadeaways and stuff like that because the old thinking was like, you're so much bigger than him go fucking post him up. And I was like, perfect, come post me up because I couldn't stay in front of him, but he'd settle for the jumpers. And so, yeah, he'd be one. I know that that's crazy.

Don't put me up on shit. Is there any other ones? Yeah, no, that's a tough question, man, because dudes were so good, overrated. Like most of your, you know, most of your cobies and like those, those dudes were what they were. They were impossible to guard. And, and, shit, I'm trying to think, man.

It's okay. Yeah, I'm sorry, guys. I don't have a great answer. I thought it was something who's like really great, but you had more success against than you would have expected. Someone that was great had more success. Good shit, Howard.

You like walked away thinking, you know what they still got theirs but i made them work for it they shot 35 percent to get their 30 points or whatever yeah uh v Vince carter yeah like Vince Vince um yeah that's fair Vince like i mean but these are guys that also like you go and find a tape and they gave me 40 you know what i mean it's just what it is um but but but like Vince uh you know who would have been really hard to guard it's no but uh Gilbert arinas was incredibly difficult to guard incredible no no not not not and I did good job, like, and I got my ass bust, like, a lot. He was really good.

Who else? I don't know, Howard. I guess I wasn't that great a defender after all. Yeah, those two, I mean, look, for what it's worth, KD, when I played KD when he was young, and I played him when he was in Seattle, not the hardest person to guard. But, again, had not figured shit out yet. Like, he was a baby. He was shooting a bunch of deep threes.

He was really skinny. like he hadn't rounded out so you catch him at the right time and you could be saying that about a lot of guys you know what I mean like probably somebody sitting around and tell you MJ wasn't hard to guard at one point when he first came in the league like real talk so we'll have a few more

we're just going to go till they fucking tell us to come on let's go dude just talking bro Logan give us the top five football players in the Bay Area you played with or against number one one is actually in here I don't know what Sir, Delinsey Parham. He went to Idaho.

He's over here. He played at Berkeley High. He was really hard. He was really hard to play against. Marcus Peters. I played against him. And I think I've told the story of the pod, but I'll tell it again. I was in a passing league.

We were playing in Contra Costa College. Anybody went to Contra Costa College here? We were doing a seven-on-seven. And I was throwing against a cover, too. I'm about to speak Rogers language because Rogers, he's really a football dialed in, baby. He's dialed in.

So, Marcus is playing the flat. Yeah. And he, so I thought, like, hey, I could fucking throw. I felt really good about my arm. Contra Costa, the whim was at my back. I felt like, ah, get it right in there, right, before the safety comes.

You tried to hole shot him? I tried to hole shot him. He fucking baited, but he jumped into the zone from the flat, got the pig with one hand, didn't even run to the fuck. fucking end zone. Gave me the ball said here, bitch. I was like, oh, he's going to the NFL.

Yeah, it's fucking going to the NFL. He's a ball hug early. Stop. Shout out of McClimin, shout out of behind. Should ask him to sign it. Hey, hey, man. Fuck him. I don't know, man.

There was a lot of, Ricky Galvin was a great. I played with him. He ran for 2,000 yards. He was a stud. He went to Washington State. Oh, no, here's another one. Keenan Allen. Yeah.

We had him, we used to go to Cal Camp, and every year they would, UC Berkeley would have a, would bring all the high schools together. And Berkeley High, we were coached by Alonzo Carter, who is a big coach now. He's Arizona, he's the associate head coach of Arizona. But we were like the renegade team. We would have, it was Berkeley High,

but we just had like studs from like other recruits coming, who Cal was just trying to poach. And Keenan Allen was on the team. And he was my wide out. He was my number one wide out. So I'm fucking throwing posts. I'm like, ah, who's this kid? Put it up.

I thought I could have got a scali that time. And they saw my grades. It was like, nah. But he was amazing, bro. Like, he was great. But there was a few more. But those are the ones that stick out. No doubt.

There's some for Raza. Oh, here we go. This is what everybody wanted to hear. What is your most memorable interaction with Kobe Bean Bryant? You knew it was coming. Yeah. Yeah, there were a few. Obviously, like, we had our moment.

So I've told this, I'll tell a couple stories. So the next time I think we played then, we were in the preseason, we were at UNLV. And at UNLV, the locker rooms are kind of separate, so you don't really get into your action, any interaction with like the other team or anything like that. So there was no real opportunity for anything to jump off and it was fine. But like in the Staples Center, like you all come in one way. Like you come from

like the parking lot where the families park and like the buses are in the same place. And then you walk down this hallway. You pass the Lakers Hall home dressing room and then you get to the visitors dressing room like you guys will know this. Right. So to leave, I've got to walk from my locker room past the Lakers locker room and then to the bus where their cars are. So I'm like, all right, well, who knows who I'm going to see in the in the, in the, in the, in the, the, and the hallway, but like, you gotta be ready, right? Like, who knows? Like, I haven't seen him since the shit happened. So I'm- Words of sugar-free. Stay ready so you ain't got to go. Not, but straight up. So, because I don't know. Like, so I'm walking down, like, and he's, I see him. Boom, there he is out in

front of me. And he's walking with like, four people. And I'm like, here we go. So I'm walking, picked up my pace a little bit, like briskly kind of trying to get there. And as I pass him, he called my name. And I was like, this motherfucker. And so I turned around. I just, I turned around. I turn around and he was like, hey, Raj, this is, I want to introduce you. This is my wife. You know, Vanessa, this is my mother-in-law. And he had one of his daughters with him. And so, like, that was, yeah, that was pretty cool, right? Like, that was, it was a cool moment. From then on, we were pretty good. Like, people don't really know this. Like, and I don't, but, like, before every game, like, we'd be chopping it up about families and stuff. Like,

at most guys, you just, like, you know, tap up and say, like, have a good game and shit like that. Like, when he'd come out to, to Utah, like, he never came. and I understood why. Like, he was a really guarded dude, and, like, he can't just go anywhere. But, like, I'd invite him to Thanksgiving and shit like that when he was in town and we played. One of my other favorite ones is, I was in Charlotte, so this was, like, you know, fast forward a few years. And I was playing, and I had hurt my wrist.

I had to have wrist surgery. I didn't know it at the time, but I'd hurt my wrist bad in the game. And I played against Kobe. We had talked the whole. It was a preseason game. Like, we had chopped it up out there and everything. And so I was in my, in my locker kind of, like, down, like, doing my shoes. putting lotion on or something.

And I felt something kind of standing over me. It was like a shadow. And I looked up and it was a dude standing there, men in black, right? Black suit, black tie, white shirt. And he was like, hey, Mr. Bell, my name is Robert. I'm Kobe Bryant's personal security. Mr. Brian would like to know if you'd want to have dinner with him. And I was like, but no, I mean, that was cool.

But like I just fucking played this cat for like 30 minutes. Like, he could have just asked me if I wanted to go to dinner when we were on a fucking court. Like, what the fuck? So, like, just little shit like that. It was cool. And then one of my last interactions with them was when I didn't go to dinner, no.

My wrist, I had family in L.A. And my wrist was hurt so bad that I didn't. It's kind of one of, like, this is one of my, that was a big regret. And not, and not, and then I was a free agent. And I didn't really have a deal on the table yet. And so, you know, I was coming out to L.A. to go to the S-Bs and that I talked to Kobe.

Kobe knew I was coming out. He had called me the night free agency started, right? And he was like, you know, he said some pretty nice stuff. And he was like, hey, man, I want you to come be on his team, so on and so forth. So I was like, all right, cool. I'm coming out to L.A. I'm going to be at the Espeas. And so he called me.

He was like, look, man, I'm out of Malibu. But I don't know L.A. So I'm thinking like, we're going to have a coffee or something like that. He was like, that shit's kind of far, dog. I don't drive that. He's like, I'm going to send the helicopter to come get you. I was like, what? I was like, he said, yeah, the helicopter.

I'll send it, come pick you up. You meet it over there. I was like, all right, cool. No bullshit. Within the next two and a half hours, my phone started ringing from my agent. And between Kobe's invite on a helicopter and the pickup,

I had gotten two deals, one from the Chicago Bulls with Tibbs. I was like, yeah, I don't know if I want to do that shit. What about that, dog? And then to go back to Utah, when we had a really good team, and I thought we were going to be kind of viable in the Western Conference. And so I had to tell him, I didn't want to waste the chopper or to gas. So I had to tell him that I wasn't coming out.

And he understood because they couldn't pay me. Like, it was going to be the minimum and shit like that. But so I didn't get to take the chopper. And I wish I kind of want to take chopper out to Malibu. Sorry, buddy. Damn. Any Laker fans wish they would have dissat guy on the fucking Lakers? No, that would have been cool, though, just to see, like,

and it's sappy and shit like that. but just to kind of see how he worked. You know what I mean? Like, I consider myself a worker and someone that, like, you know, got after it. And obviously, he's legendary in that regard. So it would have been just cool to see if you could live up to that. Because there were a lot of cats that didn't live up to that. You know what I mean?

So that we can do. Well, man, this has been such a treat. You know what I mean? We talked about this prepod, me and Howard, just two Bay kids, like, never even knowing that they could do something like this to sell out the punchline, which is fucking crazy. Thank you guys. Thank you guys.

Thank you guys so much. We got the best fucking fans in the world. Me and Rajah was talking about this pre-pod. Just like me and Roger started this. We had a phone call for 15 minutes. That was the most awkward as shit ever. I don't even know how we got to 15 minutes. And we just, you know, we grew a friendship.

And then we get Howard into the fold. This has been a treat, man. So we appreciate all of you guys. Thank you so much for coming out. No doubt. Thank you all. We are going to give us a quick minute, but there is a beat and greet right outside at that little step and repeat. We'll take pictures, sign what you guys want to sign, anything.

And thanks again, man. We really appreciate this. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gand-Hallp.com. call 188-88-889-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in

Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helplinema.m.m.m.org or call 800-327-5-0 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8-Hop-N-Y or text Hope N.Y in New York.