The Ringer NBA Show - The Bulls' Drama Is Boiling Over Under Boylen | Heat Check (Ep. 351)

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Turmoil continues for the Chicago Bulls under Jim Boylen (7:16), the three Texas teams deviate from expectations (14:12), growing pains afflict the Philadelphia 76ers’ Jimmy Butler experiment (32:12), and Buddy Hield emerges as the Sacramento Kings’ budding star (53:39). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Shea Serrano, Michael Baumann, Katie Baker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? It's Liz Kelly. Throughout the month of December, we are writing a ton of year-end reviews on the site, ranking the best and worst moments of 2018 in music, TV, film, and sports. You can check that out on The Ringer.com. Also, make sure to listen to the two latest editions to the Ringer podcast network. We've got villains with Shea Serrano and Winging It with Vince Carter and Kemp Bazmore. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, producer Isaac here.

Before we get into the show, I just wanted to warn you about some technical difficulties. difficulties we had. We have Shea Serrano on our first segment and his audio drops out for about five minutes in the middle. No big deal. We just subbed in his phone audio. So he's going to sound a little different for that five minute chunk. And then you'll hear his normal audio again. Just wanted to give you a heads up before we start. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Heat Check. I'm your host John Gonzalez. And normally I start the program. I say, you know, joined as I am every week by my producer. It's reductive. We something bigger now because this guy isn't just a producer. He's a multi-talented threat. He's a polymath. He switches one to five. From ice to ice, the angelic voice, the international recording superstar,

who also happens to moonlight as a producer on the side. It's Isaac Lee. Oh, wow. What an introduction. How am I an international recording superstar, but we've done it domestically. You are known the world over now. Word travels fast for those who somehow missed it. I woke up on Saturday and looked at the old Twitter machine and saw one Jason Gallagher of NBA desktop fame and won Isaac Lee in Dallas to perform their hailed

song Halliluca which blew my mind how did that happen? It happened really fast. Tim Cato of the Athletic wrote a piece about this but it was just like the Mavs called us they wanted us to perform and we were like

what's the closest home game and it was Saturday. We flew out that morning. We performed and we performed then we flew back on Sunday morning. So if somehow you guys missed it, they did a spoof on Hallelujah with Halliluca, and it's hilarious and it's brilliant,

and Isaac's voice is wonderful, and Jason's lyrics are fantastic. The fact that you did this at the Mavs game is just too much for me to handle. Also, I believe that your sound check was during shoot-around, and people were not happy about that. Yeah, it was really funny, because we were doing the sound check,

and I see on the court assistant coaches looking up and looking very irate. And I'm just going to, I'm closing my eyes. I'm saying, I don't care. This was the Mavs people. Oh, it was the Mavs people. Yeah. And then afterwards, I heard that there were some Houston Rockets players who felt some sort of way about it because we're singing a song about a rookie. And you afterward, like you met up with Luca.

You took pictures. How many autographs did you sign? Everybody in the building? Zero. Everybody was taking pictures with them. They're super famous. You can catch ice to ice on their... You've got a world tour coming now, right?

Were you going to Europe? I am not going to Europe. This is the first time I'm hearing about it. We're going to need a new producer. If anybody wants to apply via zip recruiter... I love my job. Isaac is too famous now. It's just absolutely unbelievable.

There were people holding up their phones as you were performing to do that like concerty, like light in the dimly lit arena bit. Yeah, that was cool. Cool. Thanks to all the people who came out and watched this sing a stupid parody song. Jason did the full get-up with the hair. Does he actually play guitar or is he just faking it there? He does play guitar, but I gave him my guitar and I told him to hand sync.

Okay. Because it's almost impossible to play live at an arena like that without getting messed up. So yeah, that was a track that we played to. Now, I knew before that you had a life before this podcast where you were involved in music and a lot of things in that realm. But had you ever played anything even remotely close to that big a performance? Nothing to the point where there was a sold-out crowd and they all turned their attention to me during a timeout. Incredible. This is just mind-blowing.

What did Luca think? What did he say? Luca loved it. He dapped us up afterwards and was like, hey, thanks for writing this song about me. We gave him the shirt. He said he was going to wear it for sure. So I'm going to be on the lookout on his Instagram, making sure that he wears it at least once. t-shirt with his face on it, so it's a little weird, but...

It's fantastic. I hope you wears it. Please check out Isaac Lee and Jason Gallagher's performance on The Ringer.com. We've got a video up. It's all over Twitter. It's all over everything. It's unreal. I'm so proud of you. I feel like it's not a... I'm old enough probably to be your dad, but it's not quite a father's son relationship, but I feel a very proud paternal instinct seeing you do this. So, congratulations to you and Jason. It was amazing. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for listening to the He-check podcast. Please rate and review us.

and all of our fantastic Ringer NBA shows and pods, if you would be so inclined. And of course, as I mentioned, we have lots of great content on the ringer.com. KOC has a piece about the rockets and their slow start to the season and how they don't have a switch to flip, so they might have to go out and acquire somebody.

And we'll talk about the rockets a little later on in the program and all of Texas basketball. Haley wrote a piece about the Bucks beating the Raptors, which was incredible performance by Milwaukee. Makes me a little nervous because the Sixers went to Toronto and got the doors blown off in the fourth quarter. So good for the bucks, less good and encouraging for the Sixers. Andre Aguadal was on the winging a podcast with Vince Carter.

That's a fun show that you'd want to listen to. He talked about AI and a bunch of things there. And of course, NBA Desktop is killing it. I was on last week to talk about Victor Oladipo's new album. He's very horny and he's certainly no Isaac Lee. He's a good singer, but he's no Isaac Lee. So please check out NBA Desktop. Later on in the program, we'll have Michael Bowman here.

He's going to talk about the Sixers' Neverending Drama. Joel Embed had some very interesting things to say about how he's he's being used lately and then tried to walk it back. And also, Baumann is our medical experts. He wrote a piece about Fultz for the ringer.com. Dr. Michael Baumann. He's technically a doctor. Right.

He's an MD. He's got all kinds of degrees. So he's going to come on and just break down all things medical with the Sixers and also Sixers drama. And for the first time ever, Katie Baker will be on the show. Katie Bakes. Kills it.

She's one of my favorite writers here at the Ringer, which we have a zillion amazing writers, but she's at the top of the list for me. She wrote about Buddy Heald. We're going to talk about Buddy Heald and the Kings, but also she wrote about Seattle getting an NHL team before an NBA team, which is madness and makes me angry, but we'll get into that as well. And as I said, Texas basketball, there's a lot of things happening with Texas basketball. Isaac Lee was there. So we'll talk about the Mazz,

talk about the Rockets, we'll talk about the Spurs. We're going to start with that. But then all of a sudden for the second week in a row, the Bulls, the Bulls can't get out of their own way. They're hilarious. And for that, we need somebody to break down all of the drama, and we bring in our drama correspondent. Let's hit it. Bucchalaka. He's heating up. All right, joining me on the other line. He's one of our favorite repeat offenders here at Heat Check from villains.

His own podcast. It's Shea Serrano. What's up, man? What up, baby boy? How many villains have you done so far? We have done four so far. Killing it. We have 37 left.

It's a 41 episode first season. It's going great. 41 seems like a random number, but I like it. Everybody check out villains. He's killing it. Maybe you should do something on the Bulls for villains because the Bulls, last week. We started the show last week saying that they fired Fred Hoiburg and I couldn't figure out why because they're already bad and I was like, they can't think that they can be good, right? They must be tagging.

Now I get it. They decided to bring in Jim Boylan who has pissed off everybody within the span of a week. They lost his first game and his very next practice show. He had a two and a half hour practice with suicides in the NBA. And I'm like, oh no. I thought like I put in slack, I'm like, they're going to mutiny within a month. Turns out it wasn't a month. It was a week. they lose two in a row and they're six and 21 they've lost eight at the last 10 the second game they lost over the weekend

was the Celtics by 56 points so he goes and he pulls his starters in the third quarter and he says the reason why was because he wanted to have a hard practice on Sunday after a back to back the players decide oh no this ain't happening and there was like some text messages on Saturday

this is amazing there's text messages on Saturday between the players this according to the athletic where they had like kicked around a bunch of ideas. One of the ideas was, let's just not go. Another idea was let's go, but when we show up, we'll immediately leave. They instead settled on, let's go, let's have a player's only meeting, and then we'll tell the coach what we said in the players only meeting, which was basically, yo, this shit can't stand. It's just incredible. Jim Boland, they made him the head coach.

He's not the interim coach. He's the head coach. This has already gone south. Yeah, it sounds like a fantastic time to be a Bulls fan, which is. school. Can you imagine trying to get multimillionaires to run suicides? When I when I started making like $43,000 a year, like my ninth

year of teaching, I said, I'm never answering the phone again. I'm fucking rich now. You're trying to give multi-millionaires to run suicides. I guess like he showed up and he had to let him know he was willing to take it there, I guess. I don't know what he was thinking.

I mean, I do know what he's thinking because he had some quotes about it. We're going to get to that in a second. But apparently Laurie Mark and Robin Lopez were like the voices of reason telling the other players who didn't want to show up. Like, yeah, okay, he's gone too far here, but we have to go to work. So it's gotten really better. I mean, like, they're a bad team. But when you have players who have to tell the other players, no, we still have to go to work.

It's really gone south. I can't believe what a mess. The Bulls have made out of this. Like Fred Hoyberg was bad. But Jim Bowling, I don't know what, like he's on some like high school. school, like, let's do some suicide shit. And that just doesn't work in the NBA. He thought he was going to show up and be like the NBA coach Carter.

Yeah. And it is not working out. He's trying to coach them up. They don't want to get coached up. So he was asked about all this, right? And so apparently in that Celtics game when they were getting absolutely crushed, he subbed out all five guys like hockey style. And he was asked about that.

And somebody said, you know, this could be construed as like potentially embarrassing because they're professional players. Right? First you got them running suicides. Now you're subbing them out wholesale five at a time. And he said Greg Popovich used to sub five guys and no one said anything up to him about it. Which let's just stay right there for a second. He's invoking Greg Popovich. And it's like, yo, man, you're coaching the Bulls and this is your first gig. Yeah, that's like when my youngest son is like, why do I have to go to bed at 830? mama gets to stay up as late as you want. Like, and mama's running things, you ain't.

Yeah, no shit, right? I see her building stuff all the time. It's crazy. So then they said, well, okay, fine. The Greg Popovich thing aside, this could be construed as potentially embarrassing. And he responded, this is insane, he responded, I think your play's embarrassing.

Me subbing them is me saving them, maybe. Maybe we saved them. Turns out you did not save them. Isaac, can you, when he says that part right there, can you like have gunshots down? Sure. Yeah. Leave all of this in here. Leave it all in.

Leave it all in so people know how it gets made. But you're right. This is how, like, I don't know. I think the Bulls have to disband. Yeah, they've got to serve four years in the G league and then come back with the new roster. So they were playing, that was the Celtics they got just, you know, right? Yeah, yeah. And I was scrolling through Twitter and I saw the score and I was like, I was confused.

I didn't know what had happened. Like, did they play an extra quarter, but only the selfies were allowed to play? Like, when you get to that point, when you see a screenshot of the score and it's worse than anything you could have imagined, like, I don't know. It's just not even any fun, really. The only fun part is how, I guess, how bad it is if you're not anywhere involved with that. Right. For us, it's fun. Who knows, John?

I don't know what's going on. It's crazy. And this is one of the teams like, like at the beginning of the year, there were hopes for this team. Like people were looking at them as like potentially a young and fun, interesting up and coming team, like a team on the rise. Because they do have Laurie Market and who was out at the beginning of the season. But like he was really promising in his first year. And Zach Levine, for all of his faults, has talent. I like Wendell Carter Jr.

That was fun. They go and get Jabari Parker, who his defense has been atrocious fine. But Chris Dunn was injured. And I thought like, okay, if all of these guys are healthy, at the very least, they could be. interesting. And it has gone the exact opposite way. And this is like tire fire territory, 56 points. There's one of the worst losses in NBA history. And on top of that, you've got a guy like calling his players. He's just now the head coach and he's calling himself Greg Popovich and his players embarrassing. It could not be worse. I really like Zach Levine a lot too. He's one of my

favorite, like just personal players to root for. So yeah, I was a little excited going into the the end of the season. He was finally going to be at some point he was going to be playing well again and John, it's just so sad. It's sad. Godspeed to the Chicago Bulls. I don't know what they're going to do about Jim Boyland. Like this aggression can't stand. It's shocking to me that they made him bad coach

in like a permanent head coach rather than an interim, but I guess like that's the new trend now and now like they're stuck with him for however long unless they want to eat another contract because they're already pet. Fred Hoyberg right now, I don't know where he is. I hope he's sitting on an island somewhere with his feet in the and a drink with a little umbrella and just

like straight up Kermit the Frog meme just enjoying this. Good for him. Yeah, that. All right, let's move on to Texas basketball. You're there. No, let's not. Let's not.

I don't want to detain. It's gotten better for, we'll get to the Spurs in a second. It's gotten better for them in the last couple of games. But I want to start with the Mavs though because, do you see your boy, Iceman? Did you see him performing at the Mavs game and a Mavs win over the Rockets? I couldn't believe that that happened.

when you were there, Isaac, were you fully aroused the whole time? It's just incredible. Maybe if I was at a Clippers game. I don't know who the night was bigger for Iceman or Luca himself, who... Definitely Luca. Luca went on an 11-0 run to close out that game.

Mavs beat the Rockets. He had two step-back threes. He had 21 points. Tim McMahon from ESPN tweeted this out afterwards. He said, the best clutch field goal percentage of this season, minimum of 15 attempts, Guess who has the best clutch field goal percentage? And the entire NBA, it's Luca Donkich.

He's like the best rookie since when. Like the Kings, the Sons, the Hawks, everybody has to be kicking themselves because he has run the NBA in terms of being a rookie this year. Yeah, he's so much fun to watch. I thought that Jason Gallagher was just like dicking around when he was saying how good he was. I missed like the first, whatever, 10 Mavericks games and Jason wouldn't stop talking about him. So I finally paid attention.

And I was like, holy shit, this guy is like. It's one thing to be good. It's another thing to be fun and good. And he's fun and good. Even when he's like, even when he's not playing well, he's still exciting to watch. The 11-0 run was unbelievable.

That's sort of like magic that he can summon out of nowhere. Like that's why you want to watch a basketball game. You want to see a guy do a thing like that. You want to see a girl do a thing like that. Like give me more basketball as soon as something like that happens. You know what I'm saying? Like that's a feeling you get. Absolutely.

Like it's one thing for him to be just a talented quality rookie that's a lot of fun And he's got this amazing step-back move and he's got fantastic court vision where he's making these Beautiful passes But if he was like doing that on a bad team, we'd still be really entertained and interested in him But now he's doing it in situations where he's helping buoy the Mavs and like They're not super deep. They're not super talented Dirk has been the guy for that franchise in forever and hasn't played a second for

them. And yet, right now, already, you talk to people in Dallas. Like, Mark Stein was on Simmons's podcast and was saying it's already Luca's team. And good for him. I mean, like, he came in and he's been way better than I think anybody could have anticipated. Yeah. I mean, they're in the eighth spot right now, right? Like, nobody saw that coming. They could sneak into the playoffs and playoff Luca would automatically be, you got to watch this game. Playoff Luca. I mean, like, that's crazy. Yeah, they're 13 and 11. They're in that. eight spot right now. They've won seven of their last 10. And like I said, I mean, the rest of this roster, Harrison Barnes has been fine. Wesley Matthews is playing better than he had in previous seasons after

the Achilles injury. Dennis Smith Jr. has been hit or miss. Like, okay, it's Luca's team. And like, the idea of potentially, I know we're getting like way ahead of ourselves because it's still super early. But yeah, man, the idea of like playoff Luca is super interesting. And I thought, Like, to get back to the Markstein Simmons conversation about this, they had, like, floated the idea of like, what if because the Mavs don't have their pick this year because they traded it for Luca, what if the Mavs are a buyer this year, which would be crazy? Right? Yeah. You know what's fun about Luca? And this is a thing that is sort of like you can't really measure it.

But when you get a player like that on the team, other guys just get a little bit better without even thinking about it. because you go like, oh, we've got the guy who can do the thing. And once you are in that spot, like everything just sort of clicks together a little bit more than maybe it should have. It's cool to watch, man. It's really, it sucks that it's happening to Dallas and not San Antonio. Right. Yeah. But whatever.

I'll take Texas. Texas is over everybody. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. If you, like, because this kind of reboots the Mavs on the fly, right? Like, Dirk's on his way out eventually at some point. and the Mazur is sort of casting about for an identity or for a transition. And all of a sudden, like, this is it.

Like, you know what you've got in him. And who knows, you know, like, Dennis Smith Jr. was never going to be the best player on a relevant team. But maybe he could be a second or third guy. Or maybe you deal him. Who knows? But now you've got your franchise cornerstone. And on top of that, like, Jason Concepcion and I have talked about it on Hecheck.

I love the way he looks because he doesn't look like he should be a killer. He's got that, like, sort of doughy dad bod, even though he's like 19 or whatever, and I love that shit. Right. Yeah, he's got that European body right now that like smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee at halftime body. That Boris Dio body, baby. He's got the Boris Dio body.

He looks like he should be playing in the ring of rec league. It's incredible. Dennis Smith doesn't need to be like, he doesn't need to be the best player anymore. What he needs to be now, all that he needs to be, he needs to be Jason Terry. Can you be Jason Terry to Dirk? Like, that's it. And if you do that, fucking who knows? Who knows?

What could happen. And what's crazy is we know what could happen. The Mavericks are not going to beat anybody in the playoffs. But because they've got Luca, you have to say now, who knows what could happen. So you don't sound like an idiot later on. They're so much fun to watch. They've lost 11. The Spurs have lost 14.

The Rockets have lost 14. But it doesn't feel like they've lost any games at all. It feels like the Rockets have lost 100 games. It feels like the Spurs have lost 100 games. And it feels like the Mavericks are fucking undefeated right now and blowing everybody out. It's just great. They are. They're playing with House Money.

You mentioned the Rocket. Not good for the Rockets. KOC's got a piece up there on the ringer.com about how they don't have a switch that they can just flip and fix this thing. They're 11 and 14. They've lost their last three, including the one that we mentioned about the Mavs beating them. Seven of their last 10. Shea, they're on pace for 36 wins. The only team in the Western Conference that's worse than them is the Suns.

First of all, let me tell you, don't ever say Kevin's name to me again. I'm calling KLC. You have to call him something else. You have to call him something else. Fair enough. Pick a different name. Let's vote on a name right now. Ice,

we need you to tell us what we can call Kevin besides Kevin when we're talking. Okay. Can we call him like, like, fart snake?

Is that okay? Am I allowed to call him fart snake? I mean, you can. You can call him whatever you want. I think, okay. So Fart snake has a piece up.

FS for short? Nope, Fart snake. You have to say the whole thing. My God. No euphemisms of, loud. Poor KOC. He's got a piece up there, though. And he said that they might need to buy, which would be crazy. Because right now, if you're 11 and 14, like, first of all, like, cap-wise,

they don't have a lot of moves. There's a reason why the roster was constructed this way. And the reason why they went out and took a cheap flyer on Mello that didn't work out is because that, like, cap-wise, it was tough. And going and getting another player could zoom them into the luxury tax, and then they got this new owner who's like, I don't want to go into the luxury tax or repeater tax if all of a sudden, like, we're going to be a first-round exit or winning a first-round game is going to be difficult for us. They're in a tough spot right now. Yeah, really tough. I mean, you said they're going to win 36 games this year? That's what they're projected right now. Well, they're on pace right now to win 36, yeah. On pace to win. And what did they get last year?

60-something, 64, 65, right? Yeah, it would be one of the worst, it would be one of the worst falls after a 60-something win season in NBA history. Yeah, they were, they were like four three-pointers away from winning a championship last year. Yeah. And now they're just second to last in the Western Conference. Like, that part is sucky. For the record, I do not want to root for the Rockets or the Mavericks. But I do like when they're good.

It's just better that way. They're not any fun to watch right now. You turn on Rockets game and they're like, bleh, this is no good. Like, it's just not cool. Yeah. It sucks. It sucks. It's crazy because, I mean, like, they do still have two fantastic players.

I know that CP3 is getting a little bit older and he's 30 now and he's coming off that hamstring injury that, like, early. in the season he looked good. So I think like he's still CP3. Maybe he's slowed a little bit, but he knows how to play the game. It's not like he's 40. He's going to be fine. And Hardin is hardened.

The rest of the roster is the problem, though. I mean, it's really a thin team. And you're trying to square, like Eric Gordon isn't hitting threes the way he was supposed to or the way that he did previously. Capella has had a good season, but it's just not enough. They don't have enough guys where, you know, when you're not playing your main two guys that they can keep afloat. And now they're hoping, like, maybe Brandon Nike,

give them something? I mean, it's just a really ridiculous, tough situation. And I just, I wonder what happens if they have an upside down season and they miss the playoffs? Like, where does the axe fall there? What's weird to think about is the roster isn't super, super different than it was last year.

I mean, they lost Trevor, they lost Luke. You know, you lose guys like that who were doing a bunch of important things and you don't have those pieces filled in now. The part that messed me up the most was that clip that Eric Gordon had yesterday, maybe Dave before where he was talking about it's just not any fun playing right now. And I don't know if

everybody's being used to like the best of their abilities. Because that's what we saw with the Rockets last year. You were like, oh shit, Eric Gordon's going to put up 12 three-pointers tonight or something crazy like that. Like everybody was doing a thing that it seemed like they were good at and having fun and we were all sort of cheering for them. And for some reason they're not doing that this year. Like at what point do you say this is because Trevor Arisa is gone? Like, is that an okay thing to say? Is that a correct thing to say? I don't know, because you do have James and you do have Chris and you've got Capella. Those are the three main pieces from last year.

Why can't we do more of what they were doing last year? Yeah. It's just, I don't know. But that's to answer your question. I don't know what happens. If they, for some reason, missed the playoffs, let's say they hit a crazy, like a 4 and 13 skid and just are all the way out of it right after the All-Star break. I don't know who you get rid of at that point. Mike Dan Tony proved that he was a great coach with Hardin and Paul together, like those three.

and then we at Capella, like those pieces are still there. What is going on? I have no idea what's tell you right now, John. Yeah, they're only, I mean, not to get like too alarmist here. They're only two games out of that final playoff spot, and they're only six, this is how crazy the Western Conference is. There are only six games out of first place, even though they're next to last in the conference.

Right now, before we go on to your San Antonio Spurs, feed to the fire, do the Rockets make the playoffs this year? Yeah, I can't not see them making the playoffs. Every time I look at the roster and I see James Hardin, MVP, Chris Paul, one of the best point guards of all time. Mike Dan Tony, brilliant basketball coach, Clint Capella, wonderful world player. Eric Gordon, wonderful role player. Like, I can't see those names and go like, oh, they're not going to be better than the Mavericks or the Trailblazers. They should be the second or third seed.

I feel like they got to get hot eventually. And when that happens, everything will sort of, they will remember, oh, shit, this is what we do. Let's go. And it'll be fine. Yeah, I think you're right. I would still bet on them. You had mentioned while we were talking about the Rockets, it didn't look like they were having fun.

It's interesting you mentioned that because the Spurs, the 13 and 14, they beat the Lakers over the weekend after losing to them last week, beat the Lakers over the weekend, then they beat the Jazz. It's the first consecutive wins that they've had since late October, early November. And Patty Mills said in that Lakers win in San Antonio over the weekend, it's probably the first game and the first win that everyone felt like it was fun, including the fans.

And that kind of blew me away. Because when you think about the Spurs, like maybe for those of us who aren't Spurs fans like you, maybe it's not like a super exciting visceral experience. But the Spurs have been so good for so long that of course they've been having fun. And for Patty to go, oh, yeah, we haven't had fun this year. It's like it's kind of a crazy thing. It feels like maybe they're starting to get going now with these last two wins, but it's been a weird year for them. Yeah, it has been a weird year.

The Spurs, we get excited about like a back cut. Like that's fun when you're a Spurs fan. You know what I'm saying? And that's sort of the thing that we've been missing. The ball's been a little bit too sticky. Because we still have Lamarcus. We've got De Mardoros. And we have two all-MBA players.

But there are some games when you're like, what the fuck is going on right now? This is no fun to watch at all. I think that was the first time. They lost like three games in a week by 30 or more points. Yeah. Which I can't remember that happening ever in my lifetime, even when they were bad. It was not that sort of situation. You lose a game by 10 points, 12 points, fine.

The other team is better than you. You lose a game by 30 plus points. There's no 30 point skill difference in the NBA, except between maybe the Warriors and the Suns. And that's it. Or if the balls are out there. Everybody else is closer in there. It's crazy, though, like the defense until these last two games has not been great.

They've given up 135 points four times, which had only happened. 135 points four times this year. We're only like at the quarter mark of the season And that's only happened previously twice in the history of Pops career So you know he wasn't excited about that But then I go like it's tough for him because the roster is so much different Obviously you've got no Mano no Tony no Tim And then they got rid of Kauai they got rid of Danny Green

They lost Kyle Anderson And then on top of that Dejante Murray's out Lottie Walker, Palgassal's been hurt Like this team is thin I mean you're running Brent Forbes out there at point guard Because you have to and that's not really his spot And then on top of that, your best three players are DeMarle, Lamar, Lamarcus, and Rudy Gay. And that is mainly a mid-range team, right?

Like, Pop, did you see him saying how much he hates the three-pointer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he says he hates the three-pointer, which fine, he was being, like, crumudgeonly pop. But he also kind of has personnel that play into his hatred of it, right? Like, they're just, like, running the mid-range game in a league that left that behind a long time ago. So, like, the way they're playing, plus the personnel, plus the injury. It's just a bad mix. I mean, like, yeah, they're close to 500 now, and I still think because of the spurs, they'll figure it out. But tough sledding. Like, the degree of difficulty is tougher this year than it has been in a long time. Yeah, it is. The Dejante thing, that one hurt a lot. That one hurt more than maybe anything else. We were excited about Lonnie, of course, and he's finally getting back on the court. But the Dejante thing, when that one happened, it was like, motherfucker, you got to be kidding me. Like, that sort of sucked all of the end. energy out of everybody in the beginning.

And now they're recalibrating. Pieces are starting to fit together. We're looking, okay, I was at the Lakers game when they played in San Antonio. They were down like 15 in the third or 10 in the fourth. And that's a game they should have lost probably, but they didn't. And it just felt like, okay, I remember how this is supposed to work. I think we're going to be fine. I think we'll be okay.

I mean, okay for us right now is first round playoff exit in six games. maybe we get hot and we get to the second round but I think that's where we are as a team. We're just missing a few too many pieces. I do love the thing about popping like you know what? Fuck three pointers. Give me a bunch of mid-ring guys. Like this is a bit for him at this point.

This was like when Larry Bird decided he was going to play with his left hand for that game. That's what Pop, it feels like he's doing right now. Like he's done all this before. He's like trying some zany shit just to see what happens. I fucking love Crumudgeonly Pop. I love when he leans into it at the Lakers game here in L.A. He was leaning into it super hard after the game.

You know, they lose and somebody asked him like, hey, you know, why was it so hard to stop LeBron in the fourth quarter? Yeah. And he looked at the guy and I was like, oh, no, I know exactly what's coming. And he looked at the poor kid and he was like, have you seen LeBron? Do you know who LeBron is? And then he just walked off. And then he came back later to reenact it.

It was hilarious. So I'm all for Commergroomly Pop. before I let you go, they've had 21 straight winning seasons. Is it going to be 22? Yeah, no question. There's no way they finish under 500. That's unbelievable. If they finish under 500, I'll set the SBC Center on fire myself.

We'll start all over. We're going to start anew. He's off to get matches and gasoline. And also to record episodes, what did you say? You have 41 episodes, so episodes 5 through 41. Yeah, I'm out of here. Shout out of Fars think forever. There he is.

From villains, Shea Serrano. Thanks for doing it. All right, that was Shea. He was fantastic. Before we bring in Michael Bauman, a quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode of Heat Check is brought to you by Zoom.

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Hey, my dad's going to be really happy to learn that I finally went to med school. school. That's fantastic. We're going to get into your deep doctor knowledge later on in the program when you break down what's happening with faults. But I figured because you're a Philadelphia and because you've written about the Sixers extensively in a past life, we'd start with typical Sixers drama. Can't go more than a day without something popping up and over the weekend. And Bede finally sat out, which I was thrilled about. He had played the most minutes in the NBA. He hadn't taken a game off. And we went from saying like, oh, you know, I want to see Embed out there all the time to go, and hey, maybe, you know, it's still December, like, give him a blow here.

So he sat out against Detroit and immediately went and talked to Keith Pompeii from the Inquirer and gave the following quote. He said, I haven't been myself lately. I think it's mainly because of the way I've been used. I'm being used as a spacer, I guess, a stretch five, which I'm only shooting 29% from three point range. It seems like the past couple of games, like the way I play are set up. Brown always has me starting on the perimeter. and it just really frustrates me. My body feels great, and it's just I haven't been playing well. Now, they immediately went into damage control, and Embedeed retweeted something saying, like,

you know, this is the national media making too much of it, that it wasn't about Jimmy Butler, that it was mostly just about the way he was being used. Brett Brown didn't seem like he was overly thrilled with Embed saying it, but the main takeaway from the Sixers so far is like, oh, no, no, no, no, Jimmy and Embeddeed are fine. This is just Embed being frustrated. Were you worried at all about this? I've been worried about Jimmy Butler and Joel Embed getting along, not so much meshing on the court, but clashing off it since months before this trade actually happened.

I had a tweet months and months ago about I'm only okay with the Sixers trading for Butler if there's some sort of takeback clause if Embed literally beats him to death at practice. So at least it's not that. At least it's like an actual basketball tactics thing. I don't know. Like, nothing is easy with this team. Even when when things are going well, even when they make them, you know, the big trade that's supposed to put them over the top. The problem is Ben Simmons can't shoot.

And Butler's an okay three-point shooter. He's not an awesome three-point shooter. And they just need spacing. You know, Embed might be one of their best three-point shooters when he's, when they've got their best lineup on the floor. So, you know, you've got to create space for Butler and Simmons to go to the rim. And Embed's a big man. and big men want to post up. That's what they want to do.

So it's not like none of the individual components of this are shocking or even frankly all that worrying. I think it just speaks to sort of the underlying dangers of the team that getting these three stars to mesh together. And also, you know, they need more shooters. They just need a deeper bench. They need a lot more of everything. Like I said when they got Jimmy and I've been repeating this, but it's true, they got better, but they're also thinner. And like they do need more, right? because after JJ, you know,

you've got Landry Shamit who's sort of mini JJ, but you don't have much shooting and you don't have much scoring either. It just like it falls off real fast when you need Mike Muscala out there, cranking threes for you, you're in a lot of trouble. And Amir Johnson hasn't played well.

And like Wilson Chandler hasn't played well. And it's a pretty thin team. But like Brett pushed back on the whole paint touches thing and said that the paint touches for Embed have been about the same since Jimmy came in. Now, I will say Embeddead's counting stats have sort of fallen off a little bit without Jimmy Butler on the team. He was scoring about six points more per game.

The rebounds are about the same. The assists have actually gone up with Butler, Mbid's assist. His blocks are the same. He's taking the same number of three-pointers. He's just not, he hasn't been as efficient. He hasn't scored at the same rate. He hasn't gotten to the line quite as much. But mostly the numbers are roughly the same.

And I think like, I don't know. Look, Jimmy flat out said he was okay with what Mbid said because he called them be our best player and we need him to be happy and play well, and he's right about that. But I don't know exactly where this came from, because I look at the numbers, and I'm like, it's not,

he's scoring slightly less, but how is it much different? Yeah, and you'd expect him to score slightly less because Butler is a guy who can go and get his own shot, which as much as I love Dario and Robert Covington, you know, those guys didn't really create offense on that level on their own. And to the point about the touches,

I think this is an insightful Sixers number, so I assume it comes from Derek Bodner, but I'm not positive. Embed's touches, post-up touches are down like three-tenths of a post-up per game. Like, you know, Embed's a smart basketball guy, but I wouldn't think that that would be perceptible to him. I think, you know, they're just sort of feeling each other out. Like, there's a lot of very specific pieces between Simmons-Buller and Embed, you know, in terms of other guys, other players of that quality, they need a lot of the other pieces around them to sort of fit in a way that I don't know that that's true. Kevin Durant was the first name that came to my mind. Like all those guys need the

pieces around them to be working in a certain way to be at their most efficient. And they're still figuring that out. And that, you know, the team's going to evolve. They're going to need another backup big. The big question is, can they figure out what works best by the time they reach the playoffs? How do you feel about this team, like just as a fan and a Philadelphia and watching them so far this year because I was all about, I thought like getting Jimmy Butler, if you can go and get Jimmy Butler, yes, I liked Robert Covington and Dario and they were very much like process identified, but to get Jimmy Butler, I was like, oh, this is a perfect fit. You know, he can shoot a little bit. He plays defense. He's super switchable. He passes well. He gets the line. This is good for them.

They're 18 and 9. They're tied for second place with the Bucks in the Eastern Conference, but we just saw the Bucks go up and beat the Raptors on their floor and the Sixers lost in that same scenario. So I dislike Jimmy Butler's personality. It's my least favorite, like that type of personality, like the super efforty, hard ass is my least favorite

personality in sports. What kind of Philadelphia are you? Well, I'm not from Philadelphia. I'm from the suburbs. Yeah, but more laid back in South Carolina. Your grandfathered in. Geographically, that still counts. Like, this is a very un-Philadelphia take. Yeah, well, here's the thing. I've also been around watching, like, the best players on all the teams that I loved growing up as a kid get run out of town because

they're not sweating hard enough, you know, from Bobby O'Brien, Eric Lindrauss to Donovan McNabb. Right, right. To even, yeah, Alan Iverson's the most efforty player in basketball history. And even he, I think he took a lot of deserved criticism for his attitude, but I'd rather you be good than try hard. And Jimmy Butler is sort of like a very high school football strength coachy mentality. Isn't he both, though? Isn't he good and tries hard?

He is good, yeah. Well, that's the other thing is he is good. And so, you know, you look at it, they needed a wing who could score and play defense. And Paul George would have been a better fit. Why Leonard would have been a better fit? And they just missed on those guys. And Jimmy Butler was just what was left. And I worry about, I don't think it's an unfixable problem.

But what made them good as a team was their ability to run all those guys out there. You know, they're taking two good rotation players. and replacing them with one outstanding rotation player. And they just haven't filled that hole yet. And, you know, that, they filled that hole with BIOS last year, but they just haven't done it yet. It's tough to do. And like everybody last year who was all over Bellanelli and Ilysova and talking about, oh, that's exactly what the Sixers need and whatnot.

Okay, yeah, they hit on both of those guys, and that is to their credit. However, both of those guys way overperformed what they would normally do. and to find one, let alone two of those guys to both overperform in those buyout scenarios is incredibly difficult. And I think even then, both of them left defensive holes. Yeah. You know, Bell and Ellie was, I mean, they did play them in crunch time in the playoffs, but if they had had better options, they wouldn't have. Like, that's not the ideal shooting guard for your run to the Eastern Conference finals or beyond.

And it's just, I don't know, like, you guys talked about this after the trade, and I was, this came up on a Zach Lowe podcast, but like there's a lot of pressure now. Like, this is the window. Yeah, the next couple years before Butler gets old, even if they do resign him. And all of a sudden, like, there's this feeling, at least as a fan of like, oh, now they actually got to go accomplish something. And it was way more fun when there was no pressure and no expectations. You know, these guys are, you know, this is the window right now.

And this is the team that you're going to do it with. And it just makes me a little nervous about they had all these lottery picks. they botched a couple of them. You know, the Ocalfour pick was a bad, you know, bad pick at the time. And, you know,

I would, knowing what I knew then, I would do the Fultz for Tatum trade again. Like, this has turned out about as badly as, as it could have. But even though there was no way to anticipate this,

but how, you know, how different does this team look with one extra lottery pick on the roster right now? How many of those depth issues is this solve? Incredibly different. I mean,

Zach Cram wrote a piece for us, on the ringer.com wondering, are the big three, the Sixers big three, as good as they've seemed. And his whole thing was, so we had our 25, we did a staff post, our 25 best NBA players to date this season. And the Sixers were the only team with three players on that list. But as Zach pointed out, the Sixers are a league best 13 and three in clutch situations this season, clutch situations defined by the NBA as five points or fewer in the last five minutes. but they're five and six in non-clutch games. So if you adjust what they would be expected to win,

what their record would be, they're 18 and 9 right now, but with the adjusted, what they'd be expected to be, would be 15 and 12. So, like, they've won a bunch of games that maybe they probably shouldn't have won.

Like, there was that game that they won after they got Jimmy Butler in Brooklyn, where he hit a ridiculous step back, falling away, three-pointer as he's going out of bounds. And the whole time that he's making that move, I'm going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

and it goes in and I'm like, okay, sure. Like, great. That was fantastic, but that's not the ideal shot there. So I think you're right. Like, they need more. And I also wonder what their ceiling is, especially because Toronto is so deep and talented. And Milwaukee's playing out of its head.

Yeah. I mean, at this point, I just settled. I'm taking great comfort in the Celtics being just as dysfunctional, if not more so. Celtics are on the come now, though. They won five in a row, which makes me, like, it kind of pisses me off. I liked bad Boston a lot better than better Boston.

Yeah. Well, here's what I'll say about Zach Cram. I think he's, first of all, underrating him Bede's will to win and his own inherent clutchness. And I'd say, you know, as much as I like Zach as a baseball guy and as a co-host on the MLB show, he's got this streak of Sixer Concern Trollism. Oh. That he's sort of like moonlighting as a process hater in his basketball writing. And I don't like that outfit on him. It's not a hat that it's really becoming.

I personally have quite enjoyed the reaction to it and would encourage Sixers fans to get at Zach Cram on Twitter and tell them what you think about that. You would mention what the team would look like if it had another star that you would have done knowing what you knew then, that you would still make that Markell Fultz trade. Man, if they could undo that,

that would make things so much different. Yeah. And now I'm ready for Dr. Baum and MD. So you've got your stethoscope, you've got your chart. You went and wrote a piece for the ringer.com. What baseball can tell us about Markell Fultz's latest diagnosis, which was TOS, Therassic Outlet Syndrome?

Therassic Outlet Syndrome. Right. So tell us what you know about that injury and how it pertains to Fultz. So there's only been like one or two recorded cases. I mean, I'm sure there are more recorded cases, but like of high profile NBA quality basketball players coming down with Thoracic Outlet,

this has become a pretty common injury for pitchers. So what happens is through trauma of repetitive motion or sometimes it's just congenital, the gap between your collarbone and the first rib gets squeezed, and that squeezes all the soft tissue inside, which is most notably nerves and blood vessels. So this happens probably like three or four a season for pitchers and including a bunch of really high-profile names, like Jaime Garcia and Matt Harvey, Phil Hughes. And I mean, it's pretty close to a career killer. I mean, one of the first high-profile cases of this that was diagnosed was J.R. Richard,

who was the ace of the Astros in 1980, who had a stroke in the middle of the season and never pitched again. And so what they do is, I mean, Fultz is going for physical therapy right now. But if that doesn't work, what they do is take out a piece of your first rib to open up that gap and let ever, you know, relieve the concerns. restriction on the nerves and blood vessels. And the return rate is not that great. I mean, pitchers come back, but they tend to be diminished. You know, Matt Harvey was sort of a below average starting pitcher instead of a guy who was getting Cy Young votes. You know, the same with Garcia and Phil Hughes and Tyson Ross. I mean, the only, and there are some pitchers, if it happens to an older pitcher, they'll just hang it up. So again, guys like whose names you know,

like Chris Carpenter and Josh Beckett. So there's only been a couple cases of pitchers returning from thoracic outlet and being better than they were before they got the surgery. So that, what this tells us about a jump shot, who knows, but the physicality of it for a pitcher is, I mean, it's a career-threatening injury. So whether this is what is actually wrong with Markell Fultz is anybody's guess. But in classic Sixers fashion, it is unusual and weird and maybe not solvable. Of course, of course it's unusual, weird, and maybe not solvable. That was really impressive, by the way. If I ever have any kind of health issue at all, I'm coming to your practice, you know quite a bit about the medicine. I think this is strange. So you were talking about this is

close to a career killer. The Sixers come out, rather Raymond Brothers comes out and says, you know, he's got thoracic outlet syndrome. He leaks it to Woj. Sixers come out with a statement saying that he's expected to be out three to six weeks. That doesn't track with what we know about TOS, but sure, this is the Sixers. They also said that he saw doctors, but they didn't ascribe any of this to a doctor or even several doctors. Normally in these medical updates, they'll say he saw Dr. So-and-so, and Dr. So-and-so diagnosed him with X. And so it feels like he had seen multiple specialists and nobody wanted to attach their name to. This is just me speculating now. I don't have any. This is not any sourcing. And then they said, okay, this is what we're

going to go with. We're going to rehab and hopefully he can get back out there. I will say that I talk to several people around the league who think this is the last resort for Fultz and Raymond brothers in his camp to come up with an idea of how can we get Fultz back out on the court without people thinking that it's mental, right? And without him thinking that it's mental, because let's not forget, when they shut him down, the night before they played the sons and Fultz didn't play in the second half. T.J. McConnell got all those minutes and then Brett Brown was asked about it and he goes, yeah, you know, I'm going to see based on matchups and opponents, who is a better fit to get out there and we'll just run it that way. And the very

next morning, all of a sudden, Raymond brothers said, hey, we're shutting down Fultz again. So a lot of this feels kind of squarely. On top of that, you know, in defense of faults, I had heard while I was in Philadelphia, it wasn't just a shoulder issue. It was also a thumb issue. So I guess that would track with TOS. That's where the nerve, the nerve irritation manifests itself. Right. So maybe that does track. But all I'm saying is there's a lot of people out there who still wonder, you know, how much of this is mental. And maybe this is designed to, you know, go stick them in California for a little bit. We're going to air quotes rehab him for a while. We're going to look for a deal. We're going to try to sell to somebody else that it's physical and not mental.

Take him off our hands. Change of scenery. We'll do him wonders. And now he's healthy. And like, everybody goes on in their in their own direction. But it's, as you mentioned, not good. Not good. Yeah. And, you know, bouncing around from doctor to doctor, like that'll happen with thoracic outlet. So it's not something that is necessarily obvious. I speak for much. my extensive experience as a neurologist here, but my understanding is this is something that can go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed over the course of years even. So no individual piece of this is implausible to me. It's just the packaging makes it sound sort of bullshitty. And what's disappointing to me is like why everybody is, and I'm, you know, I don't

know exactly what's wrong with, Volz. You know, if I would be surprised if the Sixers or Fultz or his agent or his doctors even are 100% sure what's wrong with them. But it's disappointing that the team is not willing to entertain the possibility that it's the ips. That's a thing that happens to athletes all the time in other sports. And if there is a mental issue, like there's nothing to be ashamed of about that. It's just as if he had suffered a physical injury. I think the only thing that would, you know, if he's going to get criticism for that,

that reflects worse on the people who would levy that criticism than Fultz or the Sixers. So, you know, I worry if they're afraid of making it worse, like why they're not entertaining that possibility. But I guess that's something you don't want to speculate about if you're a teen. I think internally, they've considered it for sure, you know, like coming out publicly and being like, yeah, it's the Yips. It's something that they don't want to do and that Fultz doesn't want to do for sure. They don't want to entertain that possibility. They've been entertaining every possibility but that, which is part of what's happening right now. I just wonder if, do you think he can ever play for the Sixers again?

Yeah. If it's actually thoracic outlet, sure. Like, if this is what's been wrong the whole time, I mean, you know, Embedde was, this is a completely different issue. But, you know, he had his lower body injuries for two years and came back and was played that abbreviated season. And now is a complete workhorse. So, like, anything's possible. I just don't think it's likely. I think that if it is, he needs to be in a different team set.

up in order to work his way back into it. And if, like, he's just a non-shooter, he could still be useful as a defender and a passer, but not with the expectations that this team has and the way it's set up and how much Simmons and Beat him, Butler all need the ball. So it's a huge bummer because I like Fultz and, you know, I want him to to succeed wherever he goes. It's just not a good situation for him anymore. Not a good situation for him.

And I think that the report out of, you know, Raymond Brunson, brother's world initially before they came out with this TOS diagnosis. It was he needs a fresh start. They were trying to have it. They were trying to be on a very fine line where he's like, Fultz needs a fresh start, but we haven't formally requested a trade. I think the fresh start thing is right, man. I think that like he should go somewhere else. The Sixers should move on. They've already moved on in terms of like not expecting him to be around and just going with T.J. And like, this is the team we have. And we're not going to probably get anything out of Fultz, even if he does come back. My thing is, though, if they do decide.

that they're definitely going to move him. And if this is kind of just trying to provide both him and the team cover so they can go out there and shop them and try to find a deal. KOC and I went through the teams where we were like, all right, let's try to figure out like what would be a situation where Fultz could go there, but also the team would want him. And it's like not a long list. Like Orlando, the Bulls and the Sons were the three we came up with.

And maybe you could strain a couple of other teams if you really wanted to. But like the obvious ones, pretty limited. So it's tough right now. It's tough for him, the kid. It's tough for the team. Like, they're in a no-win situation. Even if they can find a taker, what they're going to get back is going to be next to nothing.

Like, at this point, I'm almost like cap relief for next season would be awesome. Maybe you get a second round pick thrown in. Who knows? But it's not going to be much, even if they can move them. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the Bulls. That's certainly a healthy nurturing environment for a beleaguered young player right now. He wouldn't have to practice.

He could join the rest of the guys and not practicing. Fantastic. I mean, you could get a lot of. a low pressure in game minutes if they're down by 56. Right. When Jim Bowlin hockey substitutes five guys, it could be in that second wave. It'd be fantastic. Do you have anything you want a pub?

I've got a year-end feature coming out this week that I don't want to tip my hand too much, but keep your eyes peeled on the site for that. There will probably be some overlap between Sixers fans and people who are interested in what I'm writing about. I am privy to what you are writing about. I will keep it under my hat until it comes out. I can say I've never been so excited. I cannot wait to read it. Yeah.

This is the story I was born to write. Dr. Bauman, MD. Thank you, my son. This was excellent. Always happy to talk to international pop star, Isaac Lee, and some other guy. That's so true. He's so big. All right.

That was Baumann, and he was excellent. Now we're going to bring in Katie Baker. All right, joining me on the other line for the first time ever. We have a lot of incredibly talented people at the ringer. It's part of the reason why I wanted to work. work here, even as the last guy on our bench, it's nice to be associated with people so talented. But for my money, one of our best and most talented writers. Staff writer Katie Baker makes her first ever heat check appearance. What's up, Katie? Thank you for the intro. I noticed that

you didn't say anything about talented podcasters, which I'm not. You're top of our list. I'll try my best here. Your top of our list. We're happy to have you on heat check. I'm excited about this. You went and wrote a king's piece. I made several pilgrimages to Sacramento last year. I have not made any this season. You went and you did a Buddy Heel piece, which I highly recommend everybody reading. It's up on the ringer.com. Katie always kills it. But you went and you like spent a little time with him and we were around the team in general. And they've been sort of a surprise and part of the reason why is Buddy Healed has been really good. Yeah. And I mean, even before that I went on draft night during their in arena

draft party. So that was one of my introductions to the team and yeah, and then went back to write about Buddy and saw a couple games and they obviously are kind of one of the surprises of the start of the season to an extent.

So, you know, it's actually the closest pro team to where I live. So I'm hoping they become the young super team that Zoddy predicted so that I can mooch off of their success for a while. Yeah, it's nice. It's kind of like I was just here living in an LA hang out with international recording superstar Isaac Lee, and all of a sudden, LeBron James,

who is not quite as famous as Isaac, parachutes in, and it's really great to just have a superstar like LeBron and the Lakers in your backyard. So I wish that for you in the Kings in Sacramento, but what was Buddy Healed like? Like, what kind of person was he? You know, he's obviously now playing much better than he did in New Orleans. And like Vivek had had that famous line about calling him the next step. But he's not that, but he's been really good. Yeah,

I mean, two things that stuck out to me. One was just that he, the fitting of his origin in the Bahamas, was just a super nice laid back guy while we were talking. But one thing I also noticed, I think the second game I attended was his spot in the locker room. I never know what to call it because it's not a locker,

his cubby in the locker room. He's all the way on one end. He sits right next to Shump. And it was definitely a hub of activity. It just reminded me of like the cool person in middle school that everyone is gravitating around. And I just noticed several times that he would be deep in conversation with another player before or after a game.

And I don't know. That just struck me. Like he just seems like he's in some ways pretty central to the team, not just on the court, but just in terms of his relationships with other players. Yeah, his personality seems like it's a pretty big one and like fits nicely with that locker room culture dynamic. And it certainly fits great on the court with Deerrin Fox. Like, I was wondering, you know, when they got Fox, what would happen with Heald and if they'd be good paired together? They've been excellent together. And it seems like they really enjoy playing side by side.

Yeah, and they're so good in transition and they're both fast, but also Buddy has a big trash background. He grew up him and a lot of his siblings focused on track and field to the point where people even almost dissuaded him from starting to play basketball when he got to like the middle school age because at that point he wasn't necessarily physically imposing or anything like that. And they told him that track and field would be as he puts it a lot kind of the best way to get off the island. And there's a stat. I don't know what the latest updated number is, but he runs like two and a half miles a game. game and he used to be a middle distance runner so he can handle that but I did notice that the two of them just really seem to enhance one another in terms of fast break stuff just kind of being on the same page positioning wise when they're at full speed and um they're obviously just two guys who

have been so fun to watch and have really come into their own even if you just compare it to last season to this season yeah I wasn't sold I didn't think yeah from last year to this season is a big jump. It's a big difference. Like I went up and did it a Deerran Fox piece and he showed flashes last season. But there was really wasn't a point where I was like, oh, this team and these kids are going to be good. And now all of a sudden this team and

these kids are kind of good. They're 13 and 12. They're right behind the Mavericks in the Western Conference standings. They're half a game behind the Mavericks in the Western Conference standings. Half a game ahead of the Pelicans and the Timberwolves, a little bit ahead of the Spurs and the Jazz. I mean, like they're in a mix where I didn't expect them to be.

And even though they started off hot, I thought, okay, well, this is definitely going to fall off. And they've just kind of been relevant all season long and like giving people a good run. And my natural inclination is to be doubtful of the kings, but they're making it hard to be doubtful. Are you a believer? I mean, it's hard because when you look at the standings and you say, oh, they're a bubble team and then you look at the other teams on the bubble and you think, okay, well, those teams are maybe some of the underperforming, kings are overperforming, how long can this last? But at the same time, I just, when you watch them play, I just think they have a lot of weapons.

You know, they kind of just had, I mean, I guess not just at this point, but Bogdanovitz came back after being sidelined for a little bit, and he is, he spreads the floor even more with his pre-pointability. And I also think to some extent they have the luxury of this season kind of being just gravy for them. Like, they didn't go into it with high expectations. So just the environment at the arena is one of, it's a really fun, joyful experience. It's not like people are mad when they lose. People are happy if the game was close and people showed good flashes, you know. So it's a positive environment, obviously, until you get to the front office kind of recent thing. But even that, I mean, that's the kind of thing that, and I'm talking about

the fact that there was the Yahoo report about the head coach, Lou Geiger, and whether there are people in management that didn't like his minutes management of guys like Bagley. But that's the kind of thing where when it was happening kind of right when I was writing the buddy piece and I just thought, oh, great, it's going to all of a sudden everything's going to just spiral downwards. But they've sort of, I don't know, I feel like they've sort of just gotten past it. I don't know what's to come with that. And I'm sure if they go into a slump, it's going to, it's one of those things that can always

crop up and linger. but I think it's telling that that wasn't an anchor that pulled them down in the way that it maybe could have in a season that hasn't been as fun and as exciting and promising as it has been. So the Marvin Bagley thing and the front court rotations being kind of squarely, I could see how that would create some friction between a head coach and the front office, Assistant General Manager Brandon Williams, apparently didn't agree with the way that Dave Yeager was running his guys. out there. And apparently Dave Yeager believed that Brandon Williams had leaked some stuff about it to Yahoo, at which point Dave Yeager allegedly,

reportedly possibly leaked some stuff to the athletic about how leaking is bad and created this friction. And then evidently tossed Brandon Williams out of practice, which the surest way for you to try to get fired, aside from doing a Jim Boland in Chicago and running your guys

into the ground after a back-to-back, is to go and toss an assistant general manager or general manager or executive out of your practice if you're the head coach. Like that shit does not go over great. So I'm wondering like while you were there and all this shit is going down and like Vladia is trying to do damage control and put out all these fires. Was the vibe weird around the team? Like it seems like it would be a weird time to be around them. So one of the first practices I went to was they had been on the road when it happened when the Yahoo!

They were in between games. I think it came out over a weekend. So it was kind of the only bit of news. And so it kind of had to be asked. And I don't have to be a beat writer. So I don't have to go person to person and ask that was the hot issue of the day. But, you know, it was kind of the token blower plate. There was a lot of mumbled questions that were like, given all the outside distractions that are going on, how do you think the team is handling this?

Oh, yeah, they were using euphemisms. Nobody just went right at them? I would say there was a lot of euphemisms being used. and I don't say that to criticize anyone. Interesting. And they asked Yeager about it too, and this was like in between the report coming out and the getting kicked out of practice situation. So that report came out, I think, like, I can't remember if it came out before after my

piece went up, but I was like, oh, I think it was after. And I was like, oh, no, everything I wrote is going to, like, be down the tubes in some way. But it did have this overarching air of here we go again. Right. And I don't even know if this is true or not, but I think I had heard that people literally saw Brandon Williams at a Lakers game or something talking to the reporter. And the whole thing was just felt very amateur hour. I love it. I can't get enough of it.

We hear at Heechak condone and endorse amateur hour and would like to encourage the Kings to do more of it. Vladdy, if you're listening, it was fantastic. And Vladie having to send out a statement saying, I've directed my head coach and the rest of our our front office to stop this crap. Just fantastic. I really like it. So go and read Katie Baker's story about Buddy Heald. that's up on the ringer.com.

You also have a story, Katie Baker, about how Seattle is getting a hockey team, which cool, I guess. But the thing that made me upset was that how was Seattle getting a hockey team before they get the Sonics back? And it pissed me off. So you went and wrote about them getting a hockey team.

But the community has to want a basketball team, too, no? I would certainly think so. I mean, Kevin Durant still talks about it. So he is still that fixated on it. I can only imagine what the average Seattle fan feels. It's funny because there is kind of a link between the two stories in that back in the day, one of the people that was really pushing for a basketball team was this guy, Chris Hansen. And he then was found to be kind of giving money to a, it reminds me of politics.

He was giving money to this like dark money group that was trying to get petitions to try to slow down the planned Sacramento new arena. And he got fined, I forget how much, I want to say like a quarter million dollars for that. And once that happened, I think it sort of made Seattle basketball a little bit radioactive just for a while, especially if he was going to be involved. So of course, you know, it all comes back to the Sacramento Kings, as I'm sure our beloved. or Riley would say, yes, the hockey thing's been also similarly, they've been kind of in the discussion for a hockey extension for a long time. Obviously, Seattle's history with basketball is super, it's been years and years, but I'm sure it's still kind of a raw subject.

I think in this case, they will now have, they won't have a new arena, but they're doing pretty wholesale renovation of key arena. And that's always kind of step one, is there an arena, I just don't know with NBA whether they want to keep Seattle as like their constant trump card when other teams are starting to agitate for either moving or if they're having trouble getting a new arena. If they want to always have like the leaving threat of Seattle in their pocket or if they are interested in expanding the league. And to me, there's 30 teams. It's like you kind of have to have 30 or 32 if you want things to be relatively even. So I don't know what people consider to be the other NBA potential city, whether it's Vegas or whether Kansas City or, you know, what else.

So it's interesting to me to think about like, okay, what would be the other city that would be the equalizer. If you were going to expand. But, I mean, you know, the relocation thing is interesting too, because you're right. Like Seattle has always been sort of just lingering out there in case an ownership group or a new ownership group wants to threaten to move the team. Like it happened with the Bucks where the new ownership group came in. in. They were like, all right, I don't know, we might just move this team to Seattle and instead they got a new arena. And I wonder, like, if you were going to relocate a team and stick them in, like, to me, it's a try, look, and I apologize to everybody in Oklahoma City. I've been there.

It's a lovely place. I can't believe that the Thunder exist and there's no team in Seattle. Like, it's a travesty to me. I would just as soon, like, hit the reset button and put them back in Seattle, but that's not going to happen. And then, like, you look around the league and there's, like, not that many other teams that you'd go, oh, yeah, maybe they should just relocate. Like, New Orleans with the Pelicans, like, nobody really goes. And, you know, Anthony Davis has been struggling

to, like, marshal them and make them something for a while now. Who knows if he leaves, if somebody wants to relocate, you know, maybe the Orlando Magic, although they're on the come now, like, the Hawks probably aren't going away. There's just, like, not that many teams where you'd go, oh, yeah, they're a relocation candidate.

So maybe it does have to be an expansion bit. if the league is even considering it. But the fact that there's a hockey team now in Seattle and no basketball team makes me sad and angry alternately. There is an extremely important basketball connection that I would be remiss if I didn't mention. And I also should preface this by saying maybe he's since pulled his money

and this is old data. But one of the bankrollers of the group that is rebuilding key arena for the hockey team, is the one and only part of my heart, part of my soul, James Dolan. So, you know, no matter, you can go 3,000 miles away. It doesn't matter. James Nolan is involved. And he's finding a way to, I don't know,

I don't know if it would annoy basketball fans that he's giving a hockey team there. Or, I mean, they'd probably be happy that any time that there's private money for an arena rather than, and I'm sure that there's going to be public funds in some way that, you know, obviously will go toward the entire project. But by and large, it's privately financed. And, yeah, our man, Dolan. I need, I need Dolan to focus all of his attention on doing exactly what he's been doing, which is ruining the Knicks.

Just keep at it. You're really good at it. And those of us who aren't Knicks fans appreciate it. Katie Baker, this was excellent. We're going to have you back again. You killed it per usual. Are you working on anything that you want to plug? Anything you want to disclose?

I don't know how many NBA PR people listen to this podcast, but if you're an NBA PR person who is in the middle of an email thread with me about a request when I tell you to please say yes, and then I will be able to announce stories that I'm looking on. Let's put it that way. All right. Get back at Katie Baker. She's good.

You want her around your team writing about your team because she's a killer. Katie, thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. All right. Thanks to Katie. Thanks to Shea and Michael Bauman, Michael Bauman, M.D. And of course, International Recording Superstar Isaac Lee. I want to thank all of you for listening to Heech in the NBA show.

Please remember to rate and review us on Apple if you'd be so kind. And don't forget that the mismatch is on Tuesday. Sources say on alternate Wednesdays group chat on Thursdays. Corner 3 on Fridays. And Heat Check will be back on Monday. We'll see you. Thanks.