The Ringer NBA Show - Three Old Men and a Dunk Contest | Heat Check

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Instant Replay: Anthony Davis busts his bum, Blake Griffin is no longer the bee’s knees, and more changes to the NBA (03:17). The Main Event: Dwight Howard gets a contract guarantee, and making the dunk contest amazing again (22:28). Good Call/Bad Call: Can you party too hard in Miami, Dramatic Apologies, Throwing Shade to Load Management. (31:33). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Haley O’Shaughnessy, Dan Devine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Winging It with Vince Carter and Annie Finberg is back in full swing for its second season. Catch up on recent episodes with guests like Wycliffe John, who talks about growing up in Haiti, hip hop as a teacher, and performing with a goat. And you can hear from tennis phenom, Cocoa, Goff on beating Venus Williams at 15 years old. You can listen to Winging It on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Heat Check. I'm your host, John Gonzalez. joined as I am every week once again by my producer, Steve Alman. Hello.

Buddy, I haven't seen you in a minute. He check was off. Then we had the new year. Isaac was in for you, as we like to call him, new Steve was in for you. And then also now, this is a Wednesday. I check the calendar again. Normally we're on a Monday. We flip-flogged with another podcast.

We're on a Wednesday. So it's been a second. Yeah, it's been way too long. This is a Wednesday now. We're like how far into this new year now? It's insane. weeks, months into the new year. It's been years into this new year.

Yeah, so I was, the reason why we flipped it is I was back in Philly for this past wild card weekend Eagles game where my wife hosted a wonderful event in our favorite bar, which went swimmingly, and then the Eagles fell apart. But here we are. That's okay. It was worth the trip, and we'll return to the regular schedule next week. But I wanted to say to you and the listeners, happy New Year. Thanks for listening.

A reminder to please rate and review. listen, don't forget about all the great NBA content on the ringer.com. Dan Devine has a story about the 11 teams that could be looking to sell at the deadline, and he double-dipped. He's got one on the Thunders rebuild, hitting the sweet spot. They just beat the Nets on Tuesday night. Nets are reeling. We're going to get into that a little bit later in the show.

Halee O'Shaughnessy has a story about the guide to the Western Conference logjam and the race for the eighth seed out west. That's a fun one. Don't miss that. And of course, Jonathan Charks, always doing good work. He has one about the big question. emphasis on big surrounding Zion's imminent return. Coming up later in the show, we'll discuss Dwight Howard in the dunk contest and why Haley

hates fun. But first, let's review the latest news from around the league and bring in our regular contributors, Dan and Haley. Boom, Shakalaka! He's heating up! All right, one of them is in studio and won his way across the country in our NYCCHQ. It's heat coast to coast with Haley and Dan. We are all dunking on Tristan Thompson.

It's what a look. And also, Dan Devine, cleanly shaven. Yeah, it looks great. Yeah, definitely a choice and not a mistake with a setting on the trimmer. So let's just like go with me leaning into a new year type situation. Oh, I've done that. Yeah. One time I went and was trimming up the old eyebrows because I've got Peter Gallagher-sized eyebrows.

Shouts to Peter Gallagher in the O.C. And took out a chunk. So that didn't go well at all. And everybody should be careful with their trimmer settings. All right. Let's review some headlines from around the league with NBA Instinct. replay. All right, AD and the Lakers, they

crushed the Knicks on Tuesday, but Anthony Davis fell hard on his tailbone. According to the athletics, Shams Charneya, the MRI came back clean, but he has a gluteous, maximus contusion, otherwise known as a butt bruise.

Haley, what kind of concern? He's supposed to travel with the team for the upcoming Dallas and OKC double-dip road trip, but AD has had injury issues in the past. It sounds like this one will be okay. But anytime you see him go boom, you got to be a little nervous, no? I'm not saying that a gluteus maximus contusion is something easy to recover from, but it could have been much worse. But with that being said, the Lakers are in great positioning right now. I

see no reason to not let him fully heal. There's no reason to rush him back. So I really actually don't think that this is a major reason to worry. Dan Devon, your level of concern. And as our resident Dwight Howard, officianto and fan, you're excited for the increase in playing time coming his way. Yeah, I mean, although I will note we've sort of, part of the Dwight Howard Renaissance here has been that we've had like a limited exposure to Dwight Howard. So the more it grows, the greater the danger grows with it. So I think there's some reason to be concerned there. But with, I'm with Haley. I think that, you know, the main thing here, we've talked about this before. The Lakers have, have been great, obviously, with both LeBron and Anthony Davis

on the floor at the same time. But they've been similarly great with LeBron on and Davis off. the issues they've had are more when LeBron's off the floor. So I think for a short stint to get Davis some rest and get him back to full health, this should be pretty smooth sailing for them. The concern I would have is just if this leads to you overrelying on LeBron too early, which we've talked about before with that load management question. But I think for a short stint here, discretion is a better part of Valor for A.D. I think you're correct that as our exposure to Dwight Howard increases our affection for him

decreases. Those are inversely proportional. we're going to get to that later on in the main event because Haley has a lot to get off her chest. But I think that this brings up the constant conversation around the Lakers about their depth and whether or not this team, despite the fact that they're playing really well and have been all season long. And, you know, tops in the Western Conference second only to the bucks in terms of record in the entire NBA, whether or not they need more. And this is something that has been sort of chatted about in NBA circles the athletic and the Sacramento B both reported almost the exact same language.

which is very interesting. Whenever I see almost the exact same language from two different media outlets, it points me in the direction of a similar source. But in this particular instance, both of them reported that the kings are not interested in the rumored Kyle Kuzma for Bogdan Bogdanovich swap.

And both outlets said that they value the kings, value Bogdanovich's versatility, and they are comfortable having the right to match in restricted free agency this summer. But I ask you, do the Lakers need to make a trade? Yeah, it's necessary to look ahead and anticipate what issues might come down the road when the team is tired in the latter half of the season. If you think about their starting lineup and guys off the bench, they're run by

older players and injury prone players. And what they've needed all along is a guard, and that hasn't changed. It's just been that LeBron is capable of so many things. Unfortunately, the guard market for exactly what they need is pretty small. Pretty small. And so we've heard a lot about maybe Kyle Kuzma, Dan, being the guy that they'd want to move. Now, he makes $2 million this season. He's 0.3.6 million next season, which complicates things because that means they can't take back a ton of money. Now, if you started stacking some of these other contracts like DeMarcus cousins and Quinn Cook, who are essentially on expirings, that would work out to like eight and a half. You can take back 175% of what you send out. So

that could mean it could bring back maybe 13 and a half. But if you start sending out multiple players, like say three players, the receiving team would need to create room by either sending more players back, which sort of defeats the purpose here. waving somebody or working with a third team. So there's all these different kind of complicating factors. But I guess we'll just try to simplify this for conversation purposes. Is Kyle Kuzma the guy that had moved? Does he have a long-term future with them?

He didn't start the season with them. He doesn't play much defense. If he's not scoring, he's not adding a lot of value. What are you getting from Kyle Kuzma, whether you keep him and remove him? Well, first, I have to give you a shout out for that. 175% of what you take out, what you send out is coming back. You can't spell Gons without C-B-A-F-A-Q. So that was pretty impressive.

Thank you. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, Kuzma is, it's less that he's the piece that they would like want to move and more kind of like the last bullet left in the gun. You know, they sent out all of their, you know, young rookie scale kind of assets and the valuable pieces in the Anthony Davis trade, which obviously worked out like gangbusters. But so Kuzma is sort of like the last thing you can flip into something else. Financially is the big question of what you can get back that's in that salary range. But I think the bigger question, too. for Kuzma, like, he's a guy who can create his own shot.

And in a playoff series, we see that as series go on and on, if you can't do something on offense, you can't stay on the floor. If you can't defend, you can't stay on the floor either, which is kind of a tough line to walk. But the idea that you might want to have another shot creator makes some sense to me is like a second unit, you know, initiator or somebody that can just get some points going in a hurry. But the question of what, as Haley pointed, like what they would want in that role, what the last

piece of their puzzle, what they've done. view it as is fascinating to me because if they decide it's a playmaking guard, maybe you try to move that to Detroit for like Derek Rose, right? If you decide it's a wing defender, somebody who can go up against Paul George and Kaui Leonard in a series, maybe you start calling Minnesota and see if you can move that salary range for like Robert Covington. You know, the idea of, or if this, you know, if you just say, we want to build the whole plane out of guys that can shoot, you know, bomb threes off LeBron passes, maybe you keep,

how, you know, knocking on Sacramento's door about Bogdanovich. The idea of what they think they need is, I think one of the more. fascinating questions we would look at because I don't know that they need need anything, but what they see as a problem is sort of a big, a big, an interesting puzzle box here. Yeah. And also, I mean, as you mentioned, you know, it's one thing to say, okay, we need something. We're going to send Kuzma out. But Kuzma by himself, to me, doesn't feel like you're going to get a ton back for him. As I mentioned, the complicated salary things. And then as you mentioned, the lottery picks, they don't really have any to offer because New Orleans owns their entire

draft from now until the end of time. So that's going to make things. harder for them and then also maybe the return that they get back if they decided to go that way wouldn't yield maybe as much as they would otherwise hope. In a similarly difficult spot, although for much different reasons in terms of what they might do with their franchise, the Detroit Pistons, holy hell. Are these dark days in Detroit? Shams again reported that Blake Griffin underwent surgery on his left knee and will undergo extended rehab.

He is out indefinitely. We presume this means he will not play again this season. just 18 games, some of the worst numbers of his career. He's owed $75.8 million over the next two seasons. I mean, my God, the pissons are in a bad spot. He'll be 31 in March, Blake Griffin. Let's just start with this. How bad was that trade?

Okay, so I would like to give an update just so we can see currently for what they got. Exactly, what the clippers got. So ultimately, trading Blake Griffin got the clippers shy, Gilders Alexander, which was part of the trade for Paul George, Landry, Zubach, Wilson Chandler, Jamichael Green, and Garrett Temple, who were all on expirings, the 2020 first round pick from Philly, which they flipped last year for the 27th overall pick to draft Cabin Gellie. I'm going to do that again. The 27th overall pick to draft Cabin Gellie, two second round picks in 2021 and

2023, which they still have, and a 2021 first round pick for Miami, which is also part of the Paul George trade. So they have Paul George, Landry Shamman. Zubak, a G-Leager who, I don't know, we'll see maybe two second round picks and a ton of capspace. The Pistons have Blake Griffin's knees. Yeah, the Pistons have the office at Dan, which, like, I look at them and I, this is tough times. And I know a couple of people over there, and I want nice things for the Pistons. I think it's going to be difficult, though.

The owner Tom Gore said that he's open to new directions. Yeah, no shit, I would hope so. They've got Andre Drummond, who is 1,000 percent opting out this summer, which means that they're probably going to try to move him at the deadline. Now, the problem here is, one, what is actually Andre Drummond? Is he a good stats, bad team guy? Is he like a slightly better version of Hassan White's side? What could you get back from him?

Especially because teams know that he's probably going to walk. So like, what are you going to get there? And then also in the same way that we were saying that the Lakers are sort of handicapped and what they can maneuver, the pistons don't have a ton of cap space. They don't have like this cash of picks that they can go and build upon. and, you know, hopefully build through the draft. And then they don't have a single player who's a young player that they absolutely know will be a star moving forward.

How bleak is this? It's not great, Gans. I'm not going to lie to you. But I think you're right. You're right to note with the Andre Drummond question, both the fact that he's probably a rental or you're trading him to a team that's going to try, they're going to extend or resign him this summer. You're probably not like refilling the coffers off of that.

That's like an expiring salary. and maybe like a protected future first or something like that. The return's not going to be great. That kind of doesn't matter though because you just have to start getting returns. Like basically anything that's not under 24 and nailed down to the court at Little Caesar's Arena

has to be on its way out for something that you can then build into something else. The bummer here is I still, like, I get why Detroit did what it did was the Stan Van Gundy era. They were like, it's not just Stan trying to save his job, but also Detroit's never getting. a guy even as good as injured and older Blake Griffin.

They had to try something. It's like a get busy living or get busy dying kind of thing. The upside of it was last year, Blake Griffin is a legitimate all-NBA player and you make the playoffs again. The downside of it is all of the risk of the knees and the injury stuff comes to roost. And now you're left kind of nowhere. But you were sort of nowhere already. So at least you tried something.

And now you build it's going to be a take a while, but you kind of have to try shit, you know? Well, and but my one concern is. is that previously they had tried shit and then screwed it up as well because they missed on Stanley Johnson and Henry Ellison. They took Luke Kinnard one pick

ahead of your guy, Don Mitchell. Boo! And they actually, they landed on Chris Middleton and Spencer Dinwiddie and then gave up on Chris Middleton and Spencer Dinwiddie. So I worry about how,

what will happen if they do try shit and then actually, you know, maybe screw it up anyway. But good news for them. They beat the Cavaliers on Tuesday. Hooray. For beating Cleveland, things not going so well in Cleveland either. As I mentioned, they lost to the

Pistons. Kevin Love, Kevin Love threw a temper tantrum. And then he apologized for throwing his temper tantrum. He said that he was, he wasn't acting like a 31 year old. He was acting like a 13 year old. He told the media that I fucked up. I showed my actions on a national level. That was childish of me. And this is the interesting part. And I'll go to you here first, Dan. I don't care if I'm here for five months or for five more weeks. I'm going to try to do my best by the these guys and by the coaching staff, he clearly wants out, Dan. Do you understand his frustration? Because on the one hand, he took all their money. But on the other hand, I think it's fair to say that he probably didn't think it would get this bad. Yeah, I found myself laughing at that,

whether it's five weeks or five months, but definitely not four years. Definitely not the remainder of this contract. No doubt about it. Which, by the way, I want to stop you real quick. Therein lies the rub in terms of moving him. You mentioned the remainder of his contract. After this year, He has owed 31.2 million, 31.2 million, and then 28.9 in the final season, that is a tough contract to move. But, Gons, it declines in value as it goes along. It makes him basically a positive asset when you really think about it in two years. It's going to be great. It pays for itself. So long as he's not whipping fastballs at somebody because he's pissed off. Yeah, I think that they, he did what he needed. You secure the bag and you figure everything else out later. That's basically the idea with Kevin Love there.

The Cavs were saying we need something that keeps us basically theoretically relevant after LeBron leaves an actual NBA basketball player who is a grown up to keep to stick around and maybe a star. They do that with Kevin Love. They also locked in a price point thinking if he stays healthy, he's tradable because, you know, there's not going to be X amount of stars on the market, yada, yada, yada. I think Kevin Love probably figured that it was going to be, we try to stay competitive. Hell, they're signing me.

We're still going to try to stay competitive. And then in the short term thereafter, it's like, oh, no, actually, we're turning everything over to a dorm room. And that's going to be sort of a problem for me. So he bears some responsibility for not maybe seeing this coming or understanding that this was going to be part of the process. But I believe the calves probably bear a fair amount of it, too, for saying like, no, no, no, we're going to be good. Don't worry about it. We're going to build around you. And then when everything falls apart, you wind up with some disgruntled parties on both sides.

Haley, sometimes you've got to speak up. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. I understand his frustration here. Where are you on Kevin Love's outburst and then the apology tour? I'm always on the side of the players because organizations are never fair and they're just people and they should be happy. However, I think it's interesting that 10 days ago, Dwayne Dedman told the Kings that he told the media, sorry, that he wants to trade and he later got fined $50,000. Yet Kevin Love can say yesterday, quote, I know I can get a lot better and that can't go on here, but he will not be fined. he's Kevin Love. Maybe they give him a little leeway because he is still stuck in Cleveland, although he's making many millions of dollars. So that would probably help mitigate any pain there. All right. Last one, I want to move on. I guess this entire headlines is just going to be all sorts of dark. We've gone through Cleveland, Detroit. And now the Brooklyn Nets, they lost again on Tuesday. They fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Seven game losing streak, eight of nine. Spencer did he didn't what he missed a technical free throw towards the end of regulation and a floater.

Um, they go down. Kyrie Irving no closer to return. He's got a shoulder injury. No shoulder surgery for now, but it's not off the table. He took a cortisone shot Christmas Eve. He'll be reevaluated in a month or two. He only feels pain, Dan, when he lifts his right shoulder to shoot. So, uh, would you just shut him down?

I mean, like, I know that the Nets had high higher hopes than this for the season, but ultimately it's still about waiting until KD comes back next year. Yeah. And that's been sort of the tension. all season long, right? I'd also like to note for the record that I wrote about the nets in five most interesting teams like two weeks ago and then since I think they have not won a game. So ringer curse alive and well in its various forms.

I think everybody knew this was a placeholder here, but the hope was that you would sort of develop some things along the way that can be of value when you get Kevin Durant back and you can see what the team really looks like. The injuries to Kyrie Irving and Karis LaVert, who just came back last night as well, kind of impeded that. So I think if there's a question at all about whether Kyrie coming back this year could harm the long-term, you know, viability of his health or whatever, then I think, yeah, shut him down, punt it. We'll see where we go from here. But you still want to see what Lavert looks like alongside Irving, you know, Sharon the ball.

What a three-headed monster with them and Dinwiddie looks like over a longer period of time. How they defend all that kind of stuff. Like those things still will matter when you get to plug Kevin Durant in, but it's ultimately like this might make the decision for them. Haley, as we record this, the Brooklyn Nets are clinging to the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. They are two and a half games up on the Charlotte Hornets. They're a half game back over the Orlando Magic for the seventh seed. But there's a path here if they really wanted to like go hard right and tank into it. Which way would you go?

Tank or play? I would honestly, I would play because the guys who are there now will be there next year. And Keras LaVerd is back. He was injured last year. He's already injured this year. Give him a chance to, you know, grow. Spencer Didwinny. have not given up on at all.

I think that, you know, yesterday is a normal struggle for someone of his caliber. Oh, he's had a really good year. He's had a really good year with Carrie Irvin. I like Carouselberg, too. Yeah, let them grow. Let them play. Yeah. They're done tanking and getting draft picks.

They've done it long enough. Haley is about empowering people except for one specific person who we will get to in just a second. It's Dan. That was NBA instant replay. before we go to the main event, a quick break for a word from our sponsors. January is here, and that means January sports are here. NFL divisional round is kicking off the college football national championship has set and the NBA is getting into full swing.

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Let's go to the main event. All right, so on Tuesday, along with a whole bunch of other players in the NBA, who didn't get waived, Dwight Howard's contract became guaranteed. He'll make the veteran minimum of $2.56 million. And more notably, for our purposes right here, he'll be in the dunk contest. For the first time since 2009, Haley is already shaking your head at me. Howard is 34 years old. Haley, when this happened, immediately.

took to the old Twitter machine firing off the following missive. The dunk contest is the only good thing about All-Star weekend. By the way, we're going to get into that. And they're going to throw 34-year-old Dwight Howard back in there. I hope Jha, Morant, uses him as a prop for fuck's sake. Haley, a lot of things

to unpack in this, including your hatred of the olds, but we'll get to that in a second. You just go. Just go and tell me why you don't like this. Okay, a couple things to like as precursors. age is relative in the NBA. True. Age is very relative.

So I'm not calling 34 years old. I like to believe that it's relative in life as well. Just like more broadly. Yeah. Just if we were going to pan back for a second, it's just a number, as grandma would say. Exactly. Exactly. Second, I feel the need to say that his redemption story doesn't feel so heartwarming to me personally because of his transphobic comments last season.

However, that is not why I'm opposed to him in the dunk contest. This is a sentimental thing. Do you guys remember the last time someone his weight was in the dunk contest? It was 2017. It was DeAndre Jordan. And after his very first dunk in the first round, he had nothing else to do. He looked embarrassed. He looked like he didn't want to be there.

He looked like he wanted to be over. Give it to someone who can do some cool shit. Kids these days can, like, ball themselves up. Kids these days! I'm much older now. They can ball themselves up, flip sideways, flip freaking upside down, through the hoop. They're doing crazy shit that Dwight Howard will never be able to do.

Save the sentimental stuff for like a halftime ceremony. All right. So all of these things are incredible and you bring up some very interesting points. I'll counterpoint and I'll throw to my fellow old or less old than me, but older than Haley. I'll take it gone. It's okay. I'm not offended.

I want you to just be in my age group here. You're closer. You kind of split the difference between the two of us. But Haley said by 34, she'll be off the grid raising alpacas. on Twitter, and I look forward to that day, and I'll buy some of your alpaca fur. But I think counterpoint to this is that give me all the olds, Dan Devine. I want an exclusively old All-Star weekend where it's just like Vince, it's Vince Carter and Dwight Howard and Kyle Corver.

Mellow, get me mellow out there. Like, C.P. can get his creaky ass on the court. Give me all the olds. Well, I mean, that would really destroy the sanctity of a competition that in recent years has been dominated. by people like Hamadu Diallo and Glenn Robinson the third. And other people, you probably forgot won the dunk contest. Yeah, I mean, there are moments where it is cool and that there are things that are come back. Obviously, we remember fondly the Zach Levine and Aaron Gordon duel.

We remember, you know, Donovan Mitchell had had some moments a couple years ago. I'm sure Haley remembers that fondly. I sure do. But there's also a shitload of like Jeremy Evans jumping over a picture and stuff, you know? Like, I don't know that we need, if we're doing stunt dunking, let's do stunt dunking. with like, yeah, let's see, I want to see Kyle Corvercock back that thing and see what he can do with it. Like, it seems like at least worth a counter programming angle, if nothing else. Although I will say, this is my like hedge, I feel like the dunk contest is better when you're watching it in person than it is on TV sometimes.

And I know it's like a very privileged thing to be able to say to get to cover it. But like when you're watching guys fly, you're like, oh, that's fucking rad. That's really cool that that guy can do that. Even if he didn't make it, it's a cool thing. And on TV, you're just like, boo! you suck! And that's like a little, it's something that's lost in translation.

Yeah, so this is a good point. I mean, I like your idea about stunt dunking. We'll just like roll out to time out trampolines and have somebody catapult off of that thing. Get Gilbert Arenas in there. He used to like doing that kind of stuff. He also liked other stuff. That would be,

what was that sport that they had for like a half a second on Slamp ball? Slam ball. Yes, we'll do a slam ball dunk competition. But to Haley's point about the dunk contest is the only good thing about All-Star Week. I want to interrogate that for a second. Is that right?

Because there are other things that I think are semi-interested. Like the three-point contest, Luca and Trey, were invited to the three-point contest. I'm interested in that. The skills competition, semi-interesting. The Rising Stars game, whatever the fuck it's called now, kind of sort of piques my interest.

You can tell you love it based on you saying, whatever the fuck it's called. You can tell you really love it. You're super committed to it. I don't know what it is. And also, like, getting to see Kevin Hart and Michael Rappaport in a a celebrity game. Every now and again,

some interesting. So do you truly believe, or was this just a Twitter take, that the dunk contest is the only good part? I don't give a shit about Kevin Hart. Wow. Clip it and save it. I don't know what Kevin Hart ever did to you, but fine. New Isaac. Clip it. Done.

Yeah. I mean, sure, the three-point contest is interesting to see where people are against each other. I will say, Seth didn't beat his brother last year, but he did beat him overall in better three-point percentage. finish out the season. So is it super accurate? Are they the best three-point shooter? I don't know. There's no defenders. For Haley, it's about ethics in shooting journalism. She's here. All she really wants is to is, I want to know who is the best dunker and who is the best three-point shooter. So if Yannis isn't it, fuck it. Who cares? If it's not, you know, I don't know, George Hill this year,

I guess. Who cares? Forget it. I think, yeah, I don't know. I think that Haley's right to, to point to the three-point contest. I think that's become like the more marquee. event over the last few years, but I don't know that really, I mean, that any of it is like so overwhelmingly worth, you know, canonizing. Like the days where it was Dominique and Michael Jordan and, you know, like the heyday of that thing, Vince's 2000 Dunn contest is like preserved in amber. You're never touching that again. So like, do something weird with it, man. Dwight Howard, you know what, dude, go up there. I don't care if you bring the cape out. I don't care if you don't. I don't care. Please don't do the phone boot. That took a long time.

Like, go up and slap a sticker on the backboard. Go do something. call it back for us. Fuck it. Take one of Gerald Green's dunks. Go blow out a cupcake up there. Like, everything is a reboot nowadays anyway. Why not? Give it a shot. Let's see if Dwight Howard can bring some spark back to it. So this is my, this is kind of my underlying point here that I don't think we can bring

some spark back to it. I think that dunk contest is pretty well cooked and has been for a while with the exception of, you know, Zach Levine and Aaron Gordon like momentarily revitalizing it. So then my idea is we go the other way. And we lean hard into how awful this could be with Dwight Howard. I mean, I don't expect it to be good. In fact, I expect it to be bad. And we should, like, we should absorb that irony.

We should embrace it. We should lean into it. Yeah, take out the cape. Be bad at this. Like a bad dunk contest could be good. Ah, no. You're telling me that we should just give up on people doing the coolest thing besides chase down blocks in the NBA.

This is the greatest display of athleticism. Absolutely not. Also, if you want it to be fun again, you're telling me that you'd rather have Dwight Howard doing the same shit we've already seen except for much less springy than a young guy who has way more athleticism still in him. This has spoken like a still young person who is not yet raising alpacas and off the grid. For those of us who are post-34, like doing anything athletically is an incredible feat. that Dwight can do that at 34 is mind-boggling to me. That Vince Carter, and I've mentioned this on the show before, we're the same age.

He's like a month and a half older than me. That he's still out there playing in the NBA is incredible. That he can dunk is mind-blowing to me. I went for a run the other day. I got halfway out there. I thought I had to call Colleen to come pick me up because my body started to hurt.

So that's why seeing old people do shit like that is impressive to me, even if it is the much worse version of what they did when they were younger. I actually would approve of Vince. That's a completely different situation. Vince, come do the dunk contest. One note just to put a button on it from Dave McMahon of ESPN last night said Dwight Howard threw some kryptonite on any ideas he'd be making a Superman return to the dunk contest in Chicago next month.

Quote, I don't know where you guys are getting this information from. I never said I was doing the dunk contest. You protest too much, Dwight. And I'm telling you, the more he winds up going like, no, guys, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not doing it. And then it's like, surprise, I am doing it. We're going to be like, oh, fuck, Dwight. One, you're right.

I think he doth protest too much. And two, really wish we had added that information before we did an entire segment on Dwight Howard and he's done contest. Guys, he's running. Don't worry about it. He's running. That's heat check for you. That's the main event for you.

Let's go to our favorite segment. Good call, bad call. What a bold call here. All right, time for G. So, Dwayne Wade, he's retired. And we all knew that. And the Miami heat really want to reinforce that in our brains. They're going to retire his jersey.

and give him quite the send-off in February, a three-day weekend of retirement festivities for Dwayne Wade, which feels like a hell of a lot. I think you could, I mean, like Kobe, when Kobe retired, they put out Kobe land. Palo covered this for us for the ringer. There were like, it was like a fair that they did outside of Staples Center. But he didn't get three days.

He got one day. So Kobe's going to be pissed about this. So G.CBC, Haleo Shaughnessy to the Miami Heat giving Dwayne Wade an entire weekend of retirement. God, Wade has been living the life since he retired. And I think this is just a continuation of that. The longer a party, always the better. This is a good call. Dan Devine. The longer the party, the worst, the hangover is the other part of that, though. And I feel like this is like, by the end of it, you're sort of like, and also the longer the party, the more you're like, can't these guys just fucking leave? I want to clean up and go to bed.

So I think that maybe by like Sunday afternoon, that's going to be the vibe in Miami about about Dwayne Wade. I understand the idea of he's bent, he's meant so much to the franchise. it's his city, et cetera. Three days is a lot of time to celebrate anybody. So I'm going to go with bad call. I like this old man. I want to just go home and go to bed take. That's fantastic and very own brand.

Steve. I agree with the olds. I'm not up for that long of a party. That's the most Miami shit I've ever heard. It is Miami, however. That's a fair point. That's a fair point, though. It's a very Miami thing.

I mean, they've got all kinds of fun club drugs that they could do that weekend. I'm sure that they'll be up the entire time. I personally am always, On the one hand, I'm torn here. I'm torn between my default position of, yeah, I like to go to bed early too and get off my lawn. On the other hand, I love a weird scene. I pretty much made an entire career out of chronicling weird scenes. And this is going to be a weird scene.

That's a GC for me. Let's go to Dame Willard. He said that he threw a little shade at load management, told Bleacher Report, I don't play pickup all summer. That's where guys could start with their load management. Haley O'Shaughnessy, does Dame Willard have a point? Good call or bad call on? Just skip all of your Summer League for the love of the game, workouts, and do your load management in the offseason. Athletes are different people with different bodies and different injury histories who are different ages.

You can't tell someone what's best for them to prepare for a season. This is a bad call. He should be more considerate that others are different than him. Dan Devine, load manage in the off season? A good call. Listen, if I could get away with not simulating writing for three months, that would be fucking amazing. That would be super great. I would spend like my, you know, my July, my August, my September just like, I don't know,

pretending to like type, like, you know, working on my game, but like not actually getting out there, that'd be fantastic. Imagine how fit your fingers would be. They'd be amazing. Steve Allman. I'm all about organization. So I would say, good call. Yeah, I'm with Dane here.

Take a little time off in the summer, G.C. Let's go to my man, Brett Brown. I was home, which is the reason why the podcast is now on a Wednesday this week instead of on on Monday. I was home this weekend. And while I was there, not only did the Eagles lose, the Sixers' last. lost a bunch of games. And all I heard was how awful Brett Brown was from Philadelphia. And they're wrong about that. But Brett Brown leading into this, Brett Brown taking the heat for Ben Simmons, who hasn't shot a three in quite some time. And he gave this quote, evidently,

I have failed. It's something that we're all mindful of. And this is one of these things that is never going to go away. These attention, this is received is remarkable. I guess I helped fuel it. Helio, O'Shaughnessy, G.C. or BC on Brett Brown falling on the sword on behalf of Ben Simmons here. This is so dramatic. This is one of the things that's never going to go away. He really only needs to shoot a three. Just yank him like one game if he doesn't shoot a three.

It's Ben Simmons. Oh my God. You think that that would make it go away? You think he'd only slip? If they yanked him because he didn't shoot a three? Then do something like just do something dramatic. This is so dramatic. You're telling me that he couldn't just,

Brett couldn't just do something dramatic. Job is already like perpetually on the hot seat. Wouldn't you say that? Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, come on. Just like, just like, if you're saying, I failed. Okay, then do something else. I love drama.

I love a little Catholic guilt. This is a good call. God, you should move to Philadelphia. You'd be perfect there. Dan Devine. Yeah, I love that Haley's like, this is too dramatic. So let's put out a fire with gasoline.

That's the way to make this all work. Ben Simmons gets pulled. I think this is a good call for, because Brett Brown, he has the idea of like the, he's been sort of taking the slings and arrows for everybody in this franchise for this long. Like, it's just part of his identity.

As somebody who is perpetual, sorry and apologizing to everybody and always pretty sure I'm in everybody's way. I feel that. I really understand it. Yeah. So I just like my concern is that by the end of this all, Brett is going to be like scrunched into a corner on the train like I do. But I think the idea of saying like, I'm going to take all the heat so that these guys can go do whatever they need to do is the right idea. Also, fucking everybody shut up about Ben Simmons. He does so many other things really, really great. Let's focus on that for like five seconds maybe. Yeah. Also, just to point this out, Catholic guilt, that's his thing. Don't take his schick. Yeah, right. That's my best.

That's Dan Devine's bet. Steve Allman. I'd say BC, only because Haley was not the publicist that organized a more dramatic apology. So I would say... That would have been way better. I'm also a B.C. here.

I love Brett Brown, as stated time and time again on this show. And I hate how much heat he has to take in perpetuity for that organization. Everybody leave Brett alone. He's amazing. All right, that was good call, bad call. That was heat check.

I want to thank Steve Almond, Dan Devine, Haley O'Shaughnessy and all of you. for listening, please rate and review us. Read all of our content on the ringer.com. Listen to the NBA show on the ringer podcast network. He Check will be back next week in its regular Monday slot.

We enjoy all of you. Thanks so much. Bye.