The Ringer NBA Show - Who Is to Blame for the Lakers’ Letdown? | Heat Check

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

The Los Angeles Lakers continue their collapse (4:04) while the Eastern Conference playoff race heats up (17:21). Plus: an inside look at the story of Rick Pitino in Greece (29:21). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Jonathan Tjarks, Chris Ryan, Dave the Greek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of Heat Check is brought to you by Belvedere, produced in one of the world's longest running distilleries. Belvedere vodka is the world's finest all-natural vodka, part of a 600-year Polish vodka making tradition. Belvedere is made with non-GMO Polish rye, pure water, and no additives. Recognized for quality, Belvedere was named the ISC World Vodka producer of the year in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Enjoy a delicious cocktail with Belvedere vodka today, and remember, always drink responsible. Today's heat check is also brought to you by Yahoo Daily Fantasy. Yahoo Daily Fantasy is coming out of All-Star Weekend Hot. Every day they're running a zero management fee fantasy basketball contest.

That means Yahoo is making nothing on this contest and that equals better odds for you to win. One in five people who play will at least double their entry fee. Tired of playing against people with 150 entries? Well, there's a limit of 10 entries per person, so don't miss these contests. Go to Yahoo.com slash Daily Fantasy to play. Use promo code Yahoo 25 when you make your first deposit for $25 in free play. And now, heat check. Welcome to Heat Check.

I'm your host, John Gonzalez, joined as I am every week by my producer, Isaac Lee. Isaac, the mystery has been solved. What mystery? I was away. I teased it last week. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't tell anybody where I was. I said a story was going to come out.

It finally came out. I went to Greece. I wrote a story about Rick Petino. You made me bleep back. out, grease. I made you bleep it out because I didn't want, I had to keep it all

under wraps. It was all very close hold. I'm glad you're back. I appreciate that. I hope you drink a lot of olive oil straight. Just, just order it at the bar, neat, you know. I did.

A bunch of shots of those and some pistachios that we'll talk about a little bit later on the show. But yeah, I was away for a while. I wrote the story. I hope you guys will read it on the ringer.com, but I didn't want to tease it too much.

I just didn't want people to know quite where I had absconded to. So we kept it on I had gone all away. I had gone to this place. Obsconded. But anyway, so later on in the program, to explain to you how that story came about and to discuss it with me will be one Chris Ryan,

who was instrumental in helping get it approved because it required international travel on the company dime. And my good friend, Dave the Greek, who is prominently featured in the story and who came along as my both translator and Greek fixer. He's Greek American and was instrumental in the story as well. So we'll get into that a little bit later. But first, I want to say thanks for listening. Please rate and review us and all of our fantastic NBA shows and pods if you would be so inclined.

And also, please check out the ringer.com. We've got a lot of great content up there right now. We've got Dan Devine's biggest winners and losers from the NBA's third quarter. Haley O'Shaughnessy on the Nets finally being at full strength just when they need it most. Zach Cram wrote a very Zach cram piece about why the NBA three-point boom is far from over.

And COC, taking his job status in his own hands, wrote, what's really the matter with the Celtics. You know what I love about KOC? What? When he does a heel turn and goes against his own people. That's my favorite KOC. Well, no, no, no. He's an objective journalist in his words. He's not a Celtics fan. I'm going to summarize it for people who haven't read it yet. KOC hates Boston and the Celtics. So if you're from Boston, he doesn't like you anymore. So like I mentioned, later in the show, Chris Ryan and Dave the Greek will be here. But first, we're barreling towards the postseason. There are some teams that are doing better than others. One of those teams that are not doing so hot right here in L.A. one of those teams that's not doing so hot, KOC's aforementioned Boston Celtics. So to break down all of the NBA playoff races,

we're going to bring on our resident Heat Check smart person. Let's hit it. All right, joining me on the other line. One of our favorites here at Heat Check. He's a repeat offender. He's a staff writer at the ringer.com. He also is one-third of the corner three, which you can listen to on the Ringer podcasting network on Fridays.

It's Jonathan Charks. What's up, Charks? What's up, Gons? Happy to talk to our Euro League correspondent over there. I am going to be our Euro. League Bureau Chief. Chris and I are finalizing that deal. Later on in the program, maybe I'll talk to him about that. You wrote two amazing stories, one on Josh Richardson. I highly recommend people go in and read that about how he's become sort of an unexpected and prototypical 3-and-D guy for the Miami Heat.

So check that out. And also really good that we're going to get into a little bit later on about Kwai Leonard and the Raptors. I don't want to give that away just yet. But first, Charks, Isaac, is our resident heat check historian. Have we ever talked about the Los Angeles Lakers on this program? The Los Angeles Lakers, I don't believe that we have ever mentioned their existence on the ringer. Hasn't happened. We're going to do it for the first time ever, gang, right here on Hitchack. The Lakers' charks, they're not very good anymore or at all at this season.

They've been bad. This has to be Isaac's, like, favorite week in M-Day history. Like, the Lakers collapsed, the clippers in the playoffs. This is as good as it gets, right? So they go out and they lose to the lowly sons. They are, and I'm looking at the standings right now, and I keep doing the math in my head, and it just still doesn't register, but this is a lot. true. They are two and a half games back

of Riley McAtee's Sacramento Kings. They are four and a half games back of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, which is your San Antonio Spurs. 538 Charks gives them an 8% chance to make the playoffs. ESPN's model gives them a 0.9%

chance to make the playoffs. Vegas has made it plus 600 to make it minus 900 to miss it. Basically everybody is saying it's over. Is it over? Yeah, Bassel reference it at 1% I'm looking at it right now. It's like I can't not believe in LeBron until he's eliminated, but it's hard to really at this point have much confidence left with those numbers, what they are.

But like, I'm going to believe in LeBron. I've watched LeBron in my entire life, I feel like, I can't give up until it's absolutely over. So this is generally my default position. I think people who listen to the heat check program know that I'm just, my worldview when it comes to basketball is very simple. If you have LeBron, you're going to be good. And that has been true for the last 13 seasons. He's made the playoffs for 13 straight years. The last time he didn't make it or he had a losing team this late into the season was his rookie year. So it's generally like, yeah, he'll figure it out, except for he hasn't. And now he has missed a bunch of games and they've been a lot better with him than without him. I think they're 6 and 12 without LeBron this year and 24 and 21 with LeBron.

Thanks to Isaac Lee for putting that in our show outline. But it's just amazing to me that he hasn't been able to marshal them since he's come back and just like reboot, flip to switch, whatever you want to use, whatever cliche you want to use. I just expected that that would happen. It's not happening. I mean, the most entertaining part has been as postgame comments, the Instagram feed, like LeBron's for living the postmodern life right now. Yeah, it's really great. I've really enjoyed their post game comments, their workout comments. So among other things that have been said after they lost to the suns, Kuzma said, obviously there's something wrong with this team. No shit. A stute observation. LeBron said, I'm not here to harp on the negativity or the

negative. And then he said, we could have played better here. We could have played better there. That's been throughout the whole season. Why has it been throughout the whole season, though? Because I, like, I don't know where you were. I forget what your position was preseason. But KOC and I were like, yeah, I think they're going to be like the second or third best team in the West. Yeah, it seems like right now, like one, they really, really miss Lonzo Ball. Like they need him on defense. And then two, their older players have been terrible.

So, like, Rondo, Lance, even Javail's really cooled off. And like three, this is how Isaac Lee, they really miss Zubach at center. They're right now playing Kuzma and LeBron at center a lot and those arms getting absolutely smoked.

That's been a problem all year. I mean, from the very, very beginning of the year, like, I remember when they were still in like training camp phase, when Walton was like,

I might run Kuzma out as my emergency center. I'm like, that's a terrible idea. He's a really bad defender. he's going to be atrocious as your emergency center. So they've been thin at the five all year long. But everything you just said speaks to roster construction, right? Because at the beginning of the year, Magic and Plinko were like,

oh, we love the guys that we put around LeBron. This is going to be a really good team. I'm like, I don't know, man. You guys might be overvaluing this. If your whole situation right now is that, you know, you're really missing Lonzo or, you know, you're really missing Zubach. Something went wrong when you were planning your team. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Tyson really gave them a lot of stability at Center, but he's simply like he's really slowing down. And Rondo, like, to me, the Rondo would always blew my mind. Like, you get in a guy who doesn't defend anymore, who can't space the floor, who takes the body your best player's hands. This is like Rondo's, like, six team and six seasons. Like, I remember watching him in Dallas like three years ago. This guy is completely cooked. Yeah. And he's just still hanging around. So much for playoff Rondo. What do you think about, like, the chemistry question, too? Because so Jeannie Bus was at Sloan. And she gave a really interesting quote that was essentially a sub-tweet of Magic Johnson. She said, there's damage done to team chemistry when players have to read about trade rumors. Trade rumors was inferred. It seems like there's more stuff out there with no sources.

I'd like to see more responsibility. Paging Magic Johnson, how much stock do you put in them trying to acquire AD, it falling through? Magic saying, hey, don't treat these guys as kids. They're professional players. They know what the deal is. but clearly that post, like, we didn't get AD. We were trying to sell off all of you guys. It didn't work.

But now we're all coming back together. Kumbaya, let's try to win games. Something broke there. Yeah, but like, Ingram and Kuzma are playing well. Like, the guys who are in these trade talks were like, they're the ones who are playing better. Like, you look at this roster. Like, they've got no centers. I kind of thought they'd more to Mike Muscala, which I guess is wrong right there, right?

I was like, I'm getting the Scala help us a shooting at the five. And the history of the English language, you just said it first. Nobody has ever said those words in combination. I expected more from Mike Muscala. That's never happened. They just don't play much defense. They don't have any centers. They don't have a lot of shooting.

Chemistry or not, trade rumors are not. Those issues were still there. And then LeBron got her for the first time in his career. I think that groin injury really threw him off. That's a really tough injury to come back from. Tough injury to have. And LeBron's not playing much defense anymore, which never hasn't in a couple years.

But it's really bad now out any centers behind him. Yeah, it sucks when you, I mean, like, LeBron could still be your best defender, but how much does he have left to give? And at what end of the floor do you want him to give it? So it's definitely been a problem. And earlier on in this season, he and Rondo were playing pretty good defense,

and then it just went off the rails. I wonder, like, if LeBron took a step back on offense, could he give more on defense? But I wonder if LeBron is so tied to his numbers that he feels, I have to get my numbers, because if I get my numbers, I did my part.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe if LeBron took a step back, look the way this roster is built, if LeBron's like, I'll let Ingram, Kuzma, even Ron, they'll do more in offense. then I'll be more of a two-way player. Maybe that would have made a difference.

I don't know. Do you think that this means curtains for Luke Walton? So after the son's loss, I love this. Because everybody, Kuzma's out here going, there's something wrong with this team. LeBron is like, this is not what's supposed to be happening. Genie's over its own. Luke says, I'm confident.

I told you I believe in our group. I believe that we can get it done. What else are going to say, right? Like, I get up on this team. It's over. Coach. Bless his heart. He's definitely screwed, right?

Yeah, I mean, it feels a lot like Cleveland. Like LeBron comes in. You had a coach who was brought in to coach younger players. LeBron comes in. LeBron wants his own guy. But I mean, Luke knows the deal. He's been on the block now enough to know.

Yeah, I think he'll get a job somewhere else. I think so, too. It sucks. I really like Luke. I think he was brought in to do one job and everything shifted. And that's a tough thing to do on the fly, especially when you have all these new guys that you didn't really have these relationships with.

And you were probably going to be the scapegoat anyway. Where do you think they go from here now? Because they're probably going to have a new coach. They've got all these guys on one-year contracts who are surrounding LeBron and the young guys that they're going to have to replace. They're still trying to get AD and Kauai and whoever else. But LeBron is going to be 35 next year. Does somebody who's a top-tier free agent want to go and play under LeBron in L.A.

when he's on his way down? He's still LeBron. I just think making the Lakers the Lakers again, even with LeBron, suddenly looks a lot harder than I anticipated it being. Well, that is the question, isn't it? I would assume, like, step one is like, once again, make the Anthony Davis offer, dump your whole team and try to get him.

I'd assume that's the major step. And if you can get him, then maybe you become a freight and destination. But looking back on it, it must make you wander, like, as LeBron was getting older,

did it really make sense to bring him somewhere and have to do more work and not bring him somewhere again and their star already on the roster? Like, was that really the wisest choice,

especially given his age? You're right. That's a really good point. He came to L.A. He wanted to be in L.A., and I think that there was some assumption on his part that he's still LeBron, they're still the Lakers, people will just come and play with me.

Where he had it right when he went to Miami, where it was like, oh, I'll go play with Wade, and then we'll get somebody else on top of it. Like, I already got a guy right there who is built in, and then we only need one other guy, and we're good. Yeah, that's what I was been thinking, too, with, like, Duran. So what I've always thought is, like, if you look at it, stars don't like to go somewhere without another start already in place, right? Because it's hard at putting things out two or three years in advance,

and you have to count on somebody else coming later. it's really hard to do that. Usually the star wants someone to be there in place. Because there's no star in place. Now LeBron's kind of holding the bag right now. It's crazy. Maybe no one else. It's like he robbed the bank when.

Maybe there's no getaway car. Maybe he just stuck there. I don't know. I honestly barely remember what the playoffs were like without LeBron, but we're probably going to find out. It's kind of crazy. I anticipated, like I said, that they would be the second or third best team in the West.

I was clearly very wrong on that. I know Isaac is super broken up about it. But here's my question for you. Who do you think is the second best team in the West right now because there's a lot of teams that you could throw out there. The nuggets have been at the top of the standings all season long jockeying with the Warriors. The Thunder have been on the come. The Blazers are right where they were supposed to be. The Rockets and the Jazz after having super slow starts are killing it lately. Who do you got? I'll tell you this. The TMI trust after

Golden State the most is probably Houston right now. I think Houston's got hardened. They know how they want to play. And I think they know how to play small ball better than these other teams. I trust their style of playing the playoffs. Isn't that wild after the way they start? started too. Yeah. And I mean, if you look at the numbers, I think the biggest thing, since the All-Star break, Chris Paul's played much better. Oh, he's killing it. I think Chris Paul getting back to even like 85, 90% of what he was, that is just a huge difference maker for that team. And maybe he was sandbagging at all season. He's pretty old now. He is old. He's constantly having to like play himself into shape. But supposedly, like, I was watching the Rocket Celtics game

and they were pumping up how he's like changed his routine so that he could stay healthy for the postseason. Okay, sure, I'll believe it when I see it. But yeah, I think he's, you might be right. I think that, you know, the rockets are playing exceptionally well after that really slow start. I think the Blazers are what we expected them to be. Okay, see, with Paul George, has exceeded my expectations. So of the nuggets. I mean, the nuggets are the wild card for me because they're just so deep. Yolkich is obviously their best player, but is Yokic as your best player enough to be the second best team in the West? I wonder. Yeah, I mean, Denver's just a young team. They've kind of skipped a step, right? Because they were the number nine seed last year.

And normally you expect, okay, a young team get in the playoffs, like the fifth through eight seed, they'll learn the first round, get better for next year. But Denver's on number two seed, and they've kind of like jumped two steps in the process. And we'll see how they look in the playoffs. You haven't seen any of those guys in the playoffs, basically. It's all especially for all of them.

Yeah, I don't know how they'll perform in the playoffs. I will say that I really have enjoyed watching them. Yokic is so much fun to watch. Love you. The team is just fun to watch. They shuttle in all these, like, interchangeable pieces, and they're, you know, garden wing heavy, and like, they're just fun.

you're like, oh yeah, I forgot how good Will Barton is at basketball, and he's like their fourth option. It's just really wild. Also, the Utah Jazz have been delightful to watch after Palo. Shots to Palo Esco Block, who I love dearly and is a regular on this program, but he was killing the jazz all season long and saying that they weren't good. And now all of a sudden, they're giving Palo his comeuppance. The great Joe Ingalls, that was really the key for the team,

he's giving him the keys to the offense. He's running point a lot now. He's really letting Mitchell play off the ball and go for shots. They go bare still. Yeah, when Ricky's on the bench, generally, like if they, in the times when they're playing them at the same time, it's almost like they have two point guards. And then like in the middle of the game, when they're staggering their minutes, it's, you're exactly right. He's handling a lot of the point guard duties.

And it's fun to watch. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, here's what I come back to with Houston. I look at the teams above them, Oklahoma City, Utah, Portland, Denver. All those teams have traditional big men. Harding's going to attack them in a playoff series. Like, can Stephen Adams, can Rudy Gober? I saw it last last year. Hardin crushed Gober. Can Nurk it? Kenyokish, all those guys, Hardin's going to isolate them, they're going to spread them out,

can they start on Hardin or they have to go smaller, do they have to change who they are to play against Houston? I have to give Houston advantage over almost all these teams but Golden State. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this, although oddly enough, I think I might be more excited about the Eastern Conference playoff picture. I think so for sure.

I mean, the top four in East is fascinating. It's crazy, and I want to pivot to the Eastern Conference now and talk to you about that because the Pacers somehow are still in this mix. the Sixers and the Celtics could be locked into a four or five matchup, which would be crazy. Would that be amazing?

To start. That would shut the ringer down. It would be the end for all of us. I mean, like, this is something like, I wrote about this last year when the Celtics dispatched the 76ers in the semifinals where I was like, hey, we're looking at the next however many years of these two teams jockeying for like Eastern Conference supremacy. And one of them might be one and done in the Eastern Conference in the first rounds. Yeah, I mean, just the takes. Like, my eyes are already bleeding from the takes from that.

From Philly not being knocked out in the first round or busts? Oh, my goodness. Well, let's go down. So the Bucks are already in the playoffs of their first team to clinch. The Raptors, I think, are an interesting case study. I still think that they're the deepest team in the Eastern Conference. You wrote a piece, though, about the Raptors in Kauai, saying the one thing holding back Kawhi and the Raptors from greatness for people who didn't read it, the abridged version.

Basically, I think Kauai, for a guy who's like a 25 point a game score, he's dead last and assists. So there's 13 players after 25 a game in the NBA this season and Kauai is dead last at 3.5 assists per game. He doesn't have as big a role in the offense as you would expect. I think the only guy among the top 20 scores in the league who touched the ball

less than Kauai is Clay Thompson. It's crazy. Basically, Toronto has their whole offense and Kauai kind of pops their now and scores a will, basically. But he's not really the hub of the offense. It's still Kyle Lowry. And to me, in the playoffs, if they're going to be Milwaukee, if they're going to get to the NBA finals, that got to have

Kauai creating shots for Lowry or in Lowry creating shots for Kauai because you need a 6-7 guy who's and get a shot in the lane whenever he wants. And Kauai right now sometimes he's still not passing much as he needs to. He's still shooting a little too much, I think. I think he has more of a past first player.

What do you make of the way that they're using Mark Gassal too? Because he's lately gotten more minutes. But initially they were keeping him in like the low 20s. Some of it was matchup base. Some of it wasn't. Do you think that like he could be an X factor

as the playoffs approach Are they trying to save him as the postseason approaches? See, I think they brought in Gasol to help Kauai with the playmaking to kind of release, ease someone that burden and be less Lowry-reliant. The problem I wonder is, like, as they go deeper into the playoffs, can Gasol stay on the floor given his lack of speed? If he gets spread out by smaller guards, because he hasn't done out of the first round in the playoffs in like four or five years.

I feel like these bigger, slower centers, as you go deeper in the playoffs, they become more of a liability. Yeah, that's proven true over the last. few years, we've definitely seen that. And you mentioned, like, guys like Hardin or guys who can take you off the dribble when you're switching onto them in a pick and roll situation and you're dragging them away from the basket, they do become liabilities. So I love Gassau. I love his playmaking, but that'll be something to watch for sure. So those two teams, the Bucks and the Raptors at the top, pretty much, there's sort of tiers in the Eastern Conference. Bs on the Raptors at the top. And then in the

middle, you've got this Pacers, Sixers, Celtics situation, which the Pacers keep plugging along without Ola Depot. The Sixers haven't had Embedied of late. And then the Celts, Celtics, Isaac is our resident Hechechastrian. Have we ever talked about the Celtics here? Where are they located? Boston or something like that? Somewhere in the northeast somewhere. Somewhere. Some have completely and totally cratered. Here's what I put in my show

notes, sharks. I have Celtics and then I just have LOL. And Isaac told me not to get fired. I mean, it's definitely been pretty fun to watch. Kyrie and LeBron, like, they seem to have rubbed off in the worst way with each other. They're both just on like

planet, who knows anymore? deserve each other. I hope they get the band back together. That's why I've been wondering, that phone call, that mysterious phone call. Who knows what it was talked about? I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If you had to bet on that middle tier between the Pacers, Sixers and Celtics, who has the better

change? I mean, the Pacers are probably going to have a more favorable matchup, but who would you bet on advancing further in the playoffs? Because the Pacers don't have Depot. I like that they're still plugging, but I wonder how sustainable it is when you're in a playoff matchup. And then the Sixers and the Celtics, if they face each other, one of them's already out.

That's what it seems like to me. I feel like all those teams will be underdogs to Milwaukee and Toronto. So I feel like the second round will be tough for any of them. Man, Boston's got so much talent. They're so deep. I still want to believe in Boston, even though there's really no reason to it at this point. But I still want to believe in Boston. I think Horford in a playoff series has a lot of value.

Though, Philly's playing well too with Harris. I'll say Philly has the high. I'll go with Philly. Demand knows his audience. You know your audience. I appreciate that. you come on the heat check podcast, you pick the 76ers.

It's the way it's supposed to work. The bottom three teams, the bottom tier is the pistons, the Nets. And currently the Magic and Hornets are tied for that last spot. It would go to the Magic if it ended right now.

Sure. Are any of these teams any good at all? I mean, like the magic we're trying to pull, like thread the needle between player development and making the playoffs for some reason,

the organization, everybody I talked to constantly like, yes, we really want to make the playoffs. Okay, sure. The Nets have been a somewhat pleasant surprise this season. I think that

they've exceeded expectations, and the Pistons have been right around 500, pretty much, all season long. Yeah, here's all you need to know about the Eastern Conference playoff race. I think the big move was the Pistons getting Wayne Ellington. That was like the game-changing move. It's unbelievable. Like, what a weird group of teams this is. Because he gave them a good shooter. Like, the Pistons, they've got Blake, and they really were struggling with shooting around him.

Now he was playing Ellington, Luke Conard, and spreading the thwart for Blake. I think Brooklyn probably has the most talent. What's happening right now with them is when Leverts come back, they've had to kind of change their identity on the fly because when he got hurt, it became D'Angelo Russell's team. And now Leverts's back and they're kind of feeling that out. And Leverts really struggled since he came back, which makes sense because that really bad injury he had.

But he was playing at an also level before the injury. And now it's kind of like a low-rent Boston where you have all these guys who used to playing with the ball in their hands. Now I'm trying to figure out once again how to make a mix work in the last weeks this season. Yeah, I've liked watching. them. And I'm just, I'm staring at the standings right now. And I'm, and I'm looking at like a Pacer's Pistons first round. One of them advances. NBA TV. To the finals. Holy shit, the NBA. All right,

what else do you got work? What are you working on for this week? Anything good? Yeah, I'm working on a big John Morant piece trying to get to the bottom on kind of the other breakout star in college of basketball this season. John Morant, a point guard in Murray State, went from like a first-up pick to possibly a top five pick. So to see what he's all about, kind of breaking down his game, how he projects into the NBA. This is prime time chart season. You've got the NBA regular season funneling towards the playoffs. You've got March Madness coming up.

You're in your glory. Yeah, I'm going into March Madness month a little bit. I'm going to probably covering that pretty hard for three weeks. And the nice thing is that ends. Oh, right, NBA playoffs start. You'll come back and you'll explain all of college basketball to us because I don't watch it. Hey, you got to watch Zion guns.

That's worth the time. I've heard of him. I saw the shoe blown out, and that was like the extent of my college basketball watching. But I get my college basketball through osmosis through the corner three with you guys. And then, of course, one shining podcast with Tate and Titus. So I got all my college basketball guys funneling me information. Yeah, I'm saying is like college basketball, whatever, Zion is, that's a whole different thing.

If he's healthy, make sure to watch him. He is incredible to watch. You're selling me. Go read Jonathan Charks. Listen to him on the Corner 3 on Fridays. He's excellent. Charks, thanks for doing this. Thanks having me on.

All right, that was Jonathan Charks before we get to Chris Ryan and Dave the Greek. want to remind you about the NBA watch of the night. Isaac Lee, this is your game. Clippers at Lakers on NBA TV tonight. Could this be the final death blow to the Lakers? I'm just grinning year to year, just imagining that scenario. It's so unlike you to take Schadenfreude for the Lakers here and delight in their misery.

In fact, it's so unlike you that you even made a song about it. Can we get a little sample? You guys are maniacs. I would have bet all the money in the world that the Lakers would make the playoffs. And then I would have bet even more money that they'd be better than the Clippers. and I would have no money. Yes, you would. I've been telling everybody all year,

and I told everybody last year, I was like, hey, I don't think the Lakers are going to be good with LeBron, because there were such a bad team last year. They won 35 games, you know, their young team, and that front office, not very good, as we just discussed with Charks.

And I would have advised you against betting all the money. I would have bet all the money, and I would have lost all the money because I would have argued to you that the Cavs sucked too last year. That supporting cast was horrendous, aside from Kevin,

love. It's not like they had world beaters. I just figured like LeBron would be good, but that's not true. Let this be a lesson to everybody who says that because I work in sports or because anybody works in sports that you must automatically know what's going to happen in games. The truth of the matter is, here's a little secret. Nobody knows shit. None of us have any idea what we're doing. Nobody knows anything, but I will watch the Clippers and the Lakers tonight and I guess pour one out for the Lakers because this could be the end for them. Clippers at Lakers or Lakers at Clippers, It's the same place. It's technically a Lakers home game.

And then before that, it will be the Mazat the Nets. Both games are on NBA TV. And remember, gang, if you want to watch every NBA game, please subscribe to NBA League Pass on NBA.com or from your preferred video provider. And now, before we go back to Heech, let's get a word from our sponsors. Today's episode of Heech is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

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with first responders. No matter how you define safety for you, your family, or your business, ADT is there. ADT, real protection. Visit ADT.com slash podcast to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. And now, let's bring in Chris Ryan and Dave the Greek. All right, joining me in the studio, our editorial director, host of the watch, my editor, Chris Ryan. And on the other line, internationally known, famous now. Dave the Greek, Dave the Fixer, properly known as Dave Durami, my friend, Dave the Greek. Dave, how's things? Good, good.

How are you guys doing? Good, man, good. Dave, is it weird now that, like, you're like the Michael Clayton of sports journalism. Are you going to start getting people being like, hey, man, I need a pound of pistachios, and can you get me some time with Jay Wright? I wish I could say, yeah. If it goes as smoothly as our week in Athens, then I'd love to do it. You know, if you guys are ready to do a story on David Blatt with the Lillifia Bush,

you know, with my Greek, half my Greek roots and half my Israeli roots, I'm on board. I'm ready to go. He does have like all of a sudden a side business now. So for people who didn't realize or haven't read the story, I wrote a story about Rick Petino, who now coaches Panathanasios in Greece. Oh, my God. Not bad, right?

Me, Parathenicos. Dave, how many times did we practice saying that? About a million, right? Absolutely, yep. It's definitely not an easy. That's just because if you did it in your Philly accent, it would be like, Panathenaikos. Yeah, Panathenaeikos. So I wrote the story about Rick Petino.

But in order to do this story, I think I was sort of like uniquely positioned only because I know Dave the Greek. Dave is a good friend of mine, has been for a very long time. His Greek Americans is flowing. His family lives over there in Athens, not far from Petino. know. And I told Chris, I was like, hey, I really want to do this story, but also I want to bring Dave with me, which is kind of a weird request, except for Chris has been in Dave's living room and has background knowledge on all this. Yes. Well, John brought me over to watch an Eagles game there over the Christmas break and was like, have you ever had Greek pistachios? And I'm not. And they are buttery and delicious. And they are something that Dave may or may not bring to the United States in. bulk, and I was convinced of his alchemical abilities after that.

Yes, Dave traffics Greek pastasios back and forth from Greece to America, and that was basically my selling point for Chris on how to bring Dave the Greek with me. But so, Dave, you've been over there a zillion times. You've been going since you were a kid. As I said, your family lives over there. I'm going to whisper this so that the Patino crowd doesn't hear it, but they're kind of Olympiacos supporters. And you had told me about how crazy it was, but it doesn't really do it justice until you see it, right, Dave? Yeah, I had a sense of whatever it was going to be like going into it.

And, you know, as I was telling Coach Petino and you guys, you know, Greece is one of the few European countries where, yeah, of course, soccer rules the roost there, no question about it. But Greece is one of the few countries where it's actually on par with soccer. soccer probably still a little more popular, but the Greeks, they are fanatics about their basketball team, their national team, the local teams. You know, it was only, what was it? I think in 06, Greece beat the dream team in the world championship in the semifinals. They've had success for many, many years when it comes to basketball. So he told me about all this stuff and

like about the pomp and the pageantry and like how intense the rivalry between Olympiacos and Panathanasios is. And that was one. element. Then Petino, like, just taking a job and flying across the world. Like, he gets offered on Christmas Eve and he takes it on Christmas Day. And I was telling Chris about this. But the thing that really, I think, sold it for all of us was the owner. So Demetrius Yanukopoulos is the owner. And he's a maniac. And Petino knows that he's a maniac and has leaned into working for this guy who, as I described in the story, is kind of a bond villain. And I think when I pitched a to Chris, it was like this idea of, you know, he's kind of an Al Davis figure, but everything

that I said about this guy, like, he exceeded expectations from the moment we got over there. Yeah, I mean, that was actually the draw, you know, because I figured that Petino was probably going to be doing some image maintenance, you know what I mean? And I wanted to make sure that. There was less of that than I expected. No, I know. And, you know, it's like one of those things where it's like, I was talking with Haley O'Shaughnessy a little bit about your piece.

And she was just like, it just seems like it's a really good idea to talk to people who love to talk. And that was the thing with Petino is he probably couldn't even help himself. You know what I mean? Like he was texting you before you got to Greece. He spent so much time with you while you were in Greece. You even mentioned that you were up late one night watching like a Sixers game and he was like, you should have come over. I mean, it just sounds like this is a guy who wants to be surrounded by people and talk about his accomplishments and his regrets and like his current state of his career and what might happen in the future.

he's at a fascinating inflection point in his life. And in the meantime, he has somehow not even the most intriguing character in his own soap opera right now. Since doing this story, Dave, so Dave would like go on his Instagram. I am a thousand years old and not on Instagram. So Dave and my wife will send me pictures from Yanukopoulos's Instagram, like him doing all kinds of crazy things. And Petino has too. He keeps sending me stuff being like, oh, did you see the latest photo? which I'll then send to Dave,

and then Dave will send a Patino or whatever. You could just open the link. You know that, right? I know, I know. But it's easier for them to just send it to me. That way it takes a... I have middlemen for this, Chris. We're not paying for middlemen, are we?

Who knows? It's all on the expense report. But Patino even said to me, I told you the story should probably be about Yanukopoulos. Like, Dave, like, put in perspective what a cult figure he is and how many conversations we had in Greece about Yanukopoulos and, like, how basically everybody thinks he's like, either directly or indirectly mobbed up.

Yeah, it's funny. When you mention his name to anybody over there, their initial reaction, whether it's a joking laugh or smirk, and then they all have their opinion on him, whether it's, you know, for sure that he's, who knows what he's involved with, or, you know, if it's a Libbya Boas fan,

yeah, they're crushing him and just his ways and how crazy he comes off, whether he's crazy or not, but how he comes off, definitely he's an interesting guy. So let me ask you guys. So obviously in John's piece, there's this incredible moment where there's this Athens Derby being played, this rivalry game is being played.

And there are flares going off inside of a building, which is somewhat different from soccer. I mean, you see flares in a lot of European soccer matches going off, but rarely indoors. You've got people smoking. You've got guys dressed up as off-brand mascots of some sort. I don't even know. there's a lot of chaos going around.

Not now. I don't think you've ever feared for your life, but like, what kind of adjustments were you having to make? Because the game was called. I mean, this is just not what really happens in most American pro sports. So, Dave, this is interesting because before we went, his mom and his mom's boyfriend were warning us, like, hey, be careful when you go. And again, I had been to Greece with Dave before, so I was like, it's fine. But they warned us because you never see, like, in American basketball or American sports, fans of both teams at the game? Yes.

Except when the Warriors play anywhere in California. Right, right, right. Yeah. Understanding that, like, you would generally have some supporters of the other team, and it would mostly be fine, even in Philly. Like, it doesn't matter if, like, New Yorkers are mad. But it's not, like, where they have, like, there's, like, a full side of the stadium that's Giants fans at an Eagles game.

Right, right, right. And those people have to be bust in special. Like, that's not how it works. There's, like, a couple thousand scattered Giants fans you usually lay low at Eagles games. Yeah. In Greece, it's a complete opposite where like they separate them for reasons that that are obvious, right? Like if they ever

had them mixed, it would be chaos. It would be a bloodbath. Yeah, if both fans were in the arena at the same time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But Dave's family was like, be careful when you're leaving because we had taken the subway because previously there had been reports that Olympiacos fans

were waiting outside the subway to jump Panathanas. And they said, don't wear any red. At certain stops throughout Athens, they would be waiting for the Butth-A-Cos fans. So what about you? I mean, like, when we were in the arena, were you at all worried about it? I mean, I thought it was fine. We were in, like, the press section. The biggest thing for me was, like, the smoke inhalation. It was just like everybody was smoking everywhere. California's changed you, man. It's crazy.

Yeah, it's insane. I mean, and there's signs, no smoking signs all over the place. Nobody cares. Everybody's doing whatever they want in there. Thank God they don't serve alcohol at these games because it would, I mean, for good reason. But it was intense looking around, taking it all in. They have this huge net on the one side of the court. So fans are known for throwing fireworks at the players or like M80s. I mean, they didn't stop chanting and singing basically the entire game, which, I mean, even though it was half a game, but they would have, they would have done it for the whole game throughout. No problem, those guys.

For a country, a small country with an average salary of probably 12,000 euro, which is just under $14,000, they love their squad. There's no doubt about it. That's something that always strikes me about Greece. They've gone through this really rough austerity period, and the economy almost created. And, you know, as Dave mentioned, the monthly salary is not significant. And yet, these games are always packed. And so is every bar and cafe. I mean, like, everywhere we went, people are out.

Which, and I think, like, all of this makes for a really interesting stew and why I was interested in writing about Patino being over there. And also why I think, like, Patino, despite the fact that he was sort of exiled, is enjoying himself there. Like, he is alone, and his family, only one of his sons has come. The rest of them are supposed to come over. His wife's supposed to come over. He's surrounded by all these people.

He's trying all these things that he says he would never try in a million years in the States. for whatever period this is, however long he stays, and I still think that it's more likely than not that he's going to be one and done. He does seem to be sort of enjoying this weird, wild ride. Yeah, I mean, I think it sounds like when he was in Kentucky for both periods of time, both at University of Kentucky and at Louisville, he was a god, you know?

Yeah. And he was the center of attention. Those kids came and went in college basketball, but Patino was the steady, the constant sort of figurehead of the Louisville program. and obviously his reputation in the States is such, and you talk about this in your piece, that it is, I don't know if it's unlikely because crazy things happen all the time in American sports,

but it's unlikely that he will get the UCLA job. It's unlikely that he would get the Duke job, obviously. You know what I mean? Like he's old, but like it's unlikely that he would get a job that would be commensurate to the other jobs he's had in the past in the States. Yeah, but I kind of like the idea. idea. And I think he does too a little bit. And maybe that's why he was so like supportive of Dimitri. This period of him just like embracing that renegade element where he's just like,

oh, fuck it. I can be in Greece and just be whoever I want to be. It also seems like a guy who can go who's gone and lost himself in the way that he felt like he needed to do. I mean, like I think he went to Greece to kind of disappear a little bit. And that the tension of his sort of moment right now, if I may say so, is that he's at once, like, disappearing, but also is desperately wants the attention. He's getting both at the same time. It's so incredible. Like, Dave, how many people did we run into over there

who were just like, holy shit, there's Rick Patino? Like, every time we were at dinner, I mean, like the one restaurant we were at on the last night that we were there was the restaurant that Manos Papadopoulos, who's the longtime president and general manager, he'd gone to lunch with Rick Patino and said, hey, we shouldn't be here because the owner is an Olympiacos fan. We went back to

that same restaurant on our last dinner, had a wonderful Valentine's Day dinner with him and the two guys from Showtime. That kept it open late for us because he's such a rock star over there. Yeah. It's amazing. And I just like seeing the reaction of others when they see him. It's

so interesting to see how they're so excited for this American coach who's over there for whether it's six months or another year or so, but they're definitely taking it and they're enjoying ourselves with him there. So Dave obviously was there as the translator and clued both Patino and I

into multiple things, but at one point we had a conversation about my favorite. I know like maybe 15, what do you think? Like 15, 20 words in Greek, Dave? Yeah, yeah. Would you say you're more fluent in Greek or Instagram? Greek, absolutely Greek. One of the words I know is octopus, super useful.

But the first word that I learned was... Come on. What is it? Octopote. Oh, come on. Yeah, that's why it's one of my 20. But probably the first word, I ever learned was Malacca, which is something that happened like on the street side, on the

curbside when that car stopped and peeled off. We started having a conversation with Petino about Malacca, which is the first word that he learned. And he goes, oh, you know, something like that happened recently where these guys stopped and were yelling and I heard this word Malacca. So I asked Monos, I said, Monos, what does Malacca mean? Dave, tell everybody what Malacca means? It means like an asshole, basically. Basically, but it can be used. in many different ways in the same way. Remember Donnie Brasco when Johnny Depp is going through

the Forget About a bit, and you could use Forget About it in a million different ways. You can use Malacca in that same way. Like I could call you Malacca and it would be like a very friendly thing. Like a term of endearment. Yeah, exactly. It depends on your inflection. Right. But that was the first word that Patino learned as well. Okay.

That was the story. One thing I wanted to ask you, how is the basketball? Not good. Yeah. Not good. Dave and I were talking about that. Like sub-ACC?

Like, what are we talking about here? Better. Better than the AC. I mean, Calathis. It's professional basketball. It's a rock fight in terms of shooting. Right. Olympiacos is a better shooting team.

They just had a bad night that night. Petino will tell you that his team can't shoot. Oh, no, no, no. Actually, you're wrong. What? Because I watched that press conference, one of his early press conferences is when he first gets there and runs them through like five practices. And he says, everybody says you guys can't shoot.

but they're wrong. You guys can't pass. And it's because you can't pass. That's why you can't shoot. I was like, oh my God. That's the next level. I got to do that now. Next time somebody's just like,

everybody says you can't write. But what it is, you can't type. That's perfect. I love that analogy. But yet the Pino went and tweeted that after a couple of practices in games over there

that Calatis was the best passer that he's ever coach. Yeah, he sent amended his statement about their passing. He has wept. Oh my gosh. That's exactly right. This was a unique piece for a lot of different reasons, not the least of which is like, I came away liking Petino. I had no preconceived notions about him. I don't cover college basketball. I don't watch college basketball. I didn't really care what he did at Louisville. And I came away like, I enjoyed him talking. Like, he really wanted to talk. And we had many conversations. And I came away just thinking, like, here's a guy who like wants to throw it all out there. And I enjoy that. that. Ditto, I couldn't, he was, I didn't know what to expect going into it. I had this notion of, okay, what's it going to be like with him?

And the minute we sat down for lunch and, you know, he went into a couple stories. The next thing you knew, two hours later, we were still sitting there and he was gracious, he was accommodating. He was just like a guy's guy just hanging out with. Reflective, too. I think, like, I think he's gotten to a point where he's like, ah, yeah, some shit went wrong. Right.

You know, we wouldn't have had this amount of time with him if this was Louisville or, or anywhere else. No, you know, again, each of information directors all over there. Yeah. Yeah.

It would have been completely different. And, uh, but that's what, that's what happens when you go to Greece. When you go to Greece, uh, everything's fly by the seat of your pants, which is exactly,

he said, come over and call me when you get here, which is not generally how I like to do interviews, but it ended up working out great, mainly because of Dave. We went, we even got to go to Dave's mom. She made us a zillion dinners.

She made us pastitio, which is like Greek lasagna, which we then had so much leftovers. We were destroyed. it to our showtime companions who are also on our plane. So it worked out great. It did. It's just something in the air in Greece, and everything seemed to work out, whether, you know,

with the games, the practices, the interview. It was a great trip. I'm glad I was a part of it. Thank you guys for bringing me on board for it. Really appreciate it. You're a ringer regular now, Dave. Couldn't happen without you and Chris Ryan. And as Chris said, if anybody needs a Greek fixer or European fixer, you get it, Dave, the Greek.

Dave DeGreique, I will talk to you soon. Chris Ryan's got to go off and do the watch. Thank you to both of you. The story could not have happened with that. Take care. All right, that was Chris Ryan and Dave the Greek. Want to thank both of them. I want to thank Jonathan Charks.

Isaac Lee, want to thank all of you for listening. And if you would be so inclined, please rate and review us on iTunes. We would really appreciate that. And don't forget, we've got a full lineup all week long of NBA shows. And we're going to be picking it up as the playoffs approach to. There'll be all kinds of content on the ringer.com. But you can hear the mismatch on Tuesday. Tuesdays. You can hear group chat on Thursdays and of course corner three rounding it out on Fridays.

And Isaac and I will be back in perpetuity. We never leave the studio. We'll be here every Monday from now until eternity. Check out next week's show. Thanks for listening again, guys. Bye.