March 28, 2025 • 48 mins
On the latest New Orleans Pelicans Podcast for Friday, March 28, 2025, Pelicans.com’s Jim Eichenhofer and Gus Kattengell hold a Pelicans Radio Roundtable with play-by-play announcer Todd Graffagnini and TV studio host/reporter Erin Summers to give out their inaugural Pellies Awards.
Plus it’s Friday, so Jim has his trending numbers to go with a weekend showdown you won't want to miss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome in to the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast, the official
podcast of your New Orleans Pelicans, a podcast dedicated to
everything you need to know about the squad here from players, coaches, broadcasters,
and those who cover the NBA on a daily basis.
It's time to flock up. The New Orleans Pelicans Podcast
(00:29):
starts right now.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, if you want to welcome to the New Orleans
Pelicans Podcast, official podcast of your New Orleans Pelicans, Jim,
I can offer Gus catt and gel with you. It
is Friday, which means we will have TGI Jim not
TGI Friday, a very fun segment coming up around Table
next with Todd Grafferini and Aaron Summers, but a very
special edition version of it. Wh wy don't you go
(00:55):
ahead and quickly tease it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yes, we're going to have the Inaugural Pellies, which is
the name that we came up with, or maybe more
specifically I came up with in terms of we're going
to hand out awards for the best players on the Pelicans,
in terms of interviews in various categories, and we're going
to enjoy the different responses we get from the panel.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So the last time the Pelicans played was at the
beginning of the work week. Back on Monday, team taking
on the seventy six was trying to snap a brief
two game losing Street which just looked good in doing it.
And this is what took place on the Pelicans radio network.
Tavarado looking for a cutter.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
He found Hawkins streaking down the lane, and we'll punch
it down. Halt, dare we say, flying to the hoop
back the other way the Pels and Macovich will slam
it down and the assist goes to Greta data Alford.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Payton, who just checked in.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Kick at the Brooks right corner.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Three, there's the first three of the night for the
rookie keeon Brooks.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
It's Peyton with four underneath the hoop. Throw it out
long knonas for three.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
His first Pelican is a three from the left bangle.
Welcome to the team, Lester. Peyton slithers through and throws
it up to me. See who dunks it in. Alfred
Payton's got seven assists already cook past the Reeves left wing.
Three rattles in for the rookie from Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Give me some sugar. I am your neighbor. Three vault.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That is Antonio Reeves again.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Antonio Reeves cook it slipping out to Jri extra pass.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Reeves takes the three, takes, the three HiT's, the three
Antonio Reeves cannot be stopped. Melo Lennox fall away there
and another assist from Alfred.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Payton, Zegraphoni and John Deshas are with the calls. There
a nice win, mister Jimi can offer by the Pels
over the seventy six Ers. Head coach Willie Green was happy.
I know fans are happy. How did you feel about
the one?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, I mean, it was great to see so many
different players play well. The Pelicans had five guys in
double figure scoring. Carlo Mekovic actually led the way with
nineteen points. By the way, it feels like so long
ago that this game was played as we record this,
but it was good to get a win. I mean,
I understand, you know, this wasn't the kind of game
where you're gonna give yourself too many taps on the
(03:21):
back for I get the feeling the Sixers are not
going all out to try to win right now. But nonetheless,
it was still a positive performance. I loved watching Elford
Payton in his passing. He had fourteen assists to add
to his twenty one assist game that he had earlier
this season. By the way, there's still only two players
in the NBA this entire season that have more assists
(03:42):
in a game than Alfred Peyton. That is, Jokic and
Trey Young both have a twenty two assist game, so
and his fourteen assist game is probably in the top
maybe one hundred or so assist games a season. So,
I mean, the guy's been on two ten day contracts
and he has two of the better assist games in
the entire league this season. So pretty impressive work by him.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That's the way coach Willie Green had to say about him.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
I'll say it again, there's no way that he shouldn't
be on a roster he is. He's that good. And
he can pass the ball. He knows how to you know,
throw you open. Sometimes even when you don't know you're open,
the ball is hitting you. Brighten your hands, on time,
on target. He's an excellent defender, floor leader. Uh, We're
(04:25):
glad to have him regain our group.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The other thing that I thought interesting too is Peyton
afterwards said, look, obviously getting a chance to play and
you can just hear the appreciation.
Speaker 8 (04:36):
Now it feels good, It feels really good. You know,
you go through this journey and you know you have
all these things happened to you, so it's easy to Uh,
it's easy to I don't want to say like half
doubt you know what I'm saying. Uh, you know, stuff
like that. But you know, I've stayed confident or man confident.
I think I've had the right people in my circle,
(04:57):
and uh, you know, work paid off. I was able
to get a thankful for this opportunity and to be
able to go out there and play at that levels.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I mean a lot. How much you we appreciate the
fact that he had that level of assists with guys
that he hasn't even probably practiced with.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's one of those things where it reminds you of
the saying basketball is basketball that you know a lot
of times we try to complicate things and you know,
make it seem like it's a more intricate game than
it is. I mean, just the fact that his basketball
IQ is so high and his anticipation is.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Great, so he knows where guys are going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I mean, yeah, I would think if you asked him too,
he would probably say, you know, it helped me a
little at least a little bit more too, if I
had more time with some of these players on the
team on the court. But it's just a testament to
his game, and I just I enjoy watching the way
that he sees the floor. If you watch him, you know,
if you're a young basketball player, you watch him, and
(05:52):
he always has his head up. I think you could
say that about every good passer in the NBA, is
that you they always they're always scanning the floor. They're
always trying to see who's about to be open, who's.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Open right now.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And I think you know, one of the comments that
Willie Green made and the clip that you played, was
how he always throws the ball in the right spot.
So I mean, there's a bunch of times where he's
dishing the ball off to a big guy who only
has to take maybe one dribble or maybe no dribbles,
and he goes right to the rim and dunks it.
So he's putting people in really good positions where they
can score easily. And I think that's a big part
(06:26):
of how the Pelicans had thirty six assists in that game,
which was a great passing night. They shot forty nine
percent from the field, forty three percent on threes. So
I mean, I just enjoy watching a pass first point guard.
I feel like I wish there were more of those
in the NBA. They're kind of a dinosaur, They're kind
of a dying breed. But at least Elfred Payton is
trying to bring that kind of game back to the league.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No doubt about it. One more game this week, as
we mentioned, that is tonight against Golden State. Look, Steph
Curry didn't play earlier this week too, he's kind of
nursing an injury. And I know you kind of touched
on them in the last of weeks and even this
week about spoiler scales and where they stand when you
look at the standings where they are Golden State seventh.
We all know what we've done with the Pelicans, so
(07:09):
important the difference between six and seven. They same record
going into Thursday nights. I actually going into Friday with
forty one and thirty one both teams and three games
behind fitth So really, would you say both of those
two teams are battling for six.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, I mean, to me, it's right now it's a
three team it's a really good three team race between
the Warriors, Clippers, and Timberwolves. I mean there's a little
bit of separation if you go beyond them in the standings,
and there's a little bit in front of them as well.
But I mean I have mentioned this in something that
I wrote to that I mean, this is the most
this is probably the most significant game. Maybe that definitely
(07:45):
the most significant home game that the Pelicans have left
on the schedule in terms of the importance of the
game for the opposing team. So yeah, I mean I
would look, I'll look forward to this game tonight and
I'm sure a lot of people out there will as well,
and we'll find out what the status is of Curry.
But but this is I think this will be a
fun game in the blender.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I've lost two straight and one quick thing before we
move on to our next segment. As you mentioned his name,
and I just got to bring it up because look,
even Graft said it earlier in the week. He hopes
Steph Curry plays. He wants to see him. He's one
of those players, Jim, where you make the effort, I
like you just it's one thing to see him on TV.
And I say this all the time every time we
play them and he's in town. If you can go
(08:30):
and you go watch him when he doesn't have the basketball,
I don't think people realize the amount of running. Oh yeah,
he does around to get open how he shoots and
if he can go get there early because he puts
on the show during warm ups. He does trick shots
after he goes through his routine, which is amazing in
(08:51):
itself because if you've ever watched his routine on YouTube
or Will Gillery, you know somebody will posted. He'll go
on every point of the paint, whether it's the block,
then the elbow, then the nail, then the top of
the key, and he keeps backing up to the half
court line and worked his way back all the way
to the rim after it's a layup and he doesn't miss.
Like I challenge anybody to go do that on your driveway,
(09:14):
you know, just do a layup, then right block, right elbow,
top of the key, left elbow, left block, and keep
backing up the half court and do nothing but net.
And he does that all the time, and it's just
it's so much fun just to really see I think
Jim in our lifetime, one of the if not the
best shooter. I mean, I hear a lot about Pistol
Pete here, you know, obviously from LSU and being Louisianian.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But that guy, Yeah, I mean you Friday night, you
have the opportunity to watch the greatest shooter in the
history of the NBA, history of basketball.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Really changed the mening.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
There's no way that I don't think you can objectively
say that it's anyone else if you just look at
all the stats and you just watch the guy play. So,
I mean, one of the things that you mentioned earlier,
Gus is you know, this is a player who's worth
the effort of getting to the game.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I feel like we don't have to.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Encourage people to do that because everybody is flocking to
his games. And that's one of the reasons why they've
always been the last bunch of years, they've always been
top two, top three in the NBA in road attendance
because people always make sure that they can go to
the Golden State Games.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yep, go check them out. All right, Tom, now to
do a very special edition of a radio round table.
The Pellties Awards coming up next. All right, Tom, now
for our very special radio roundtable, mister Jimichen offers. We
have the voice radio voice of your New Orleans Pelicans,
Tigraphanini and Aaron Summers team and sideline reporter here as well.
(10:32):
We normally do a regular you know, roundtable. A little
different though, Jim, what is different about this version?
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Sir?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
This is going to be a special edition where I've
decided to call this the Pellies. It's kind of like
the Emmys, you know, but this is going to be
us giving awards for the best interviewees on the roster
in a range of categories.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Oh wow, so we need to make it special. Yes, yes,
well on that note.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So that music makes it nice and official teograph and
he will start with you. The opening category is very simple,
who's the best interviewing for a sound bite?
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Well, I think my colleagues are going to agree with
me on this, but it's got to be Tray Murphy,
the man who's never met a microphone he didn't like,
And with all of the different questions that have been
asked for him, it's always pretty extensive, very detailed, and
of course the man loves the media. So Trey, who
(11:33):
got the good news yesterday that his shoulder surgery was successful,
which again, get better very soon, Trey.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
But that is my pick.
Speaker 9 (11:45):
I would have to agree that I think this category
can also be known as best all around, because Trey
is really good at any of the We have further
topics that will cover, but he's he's pretty good at
anything you throw at him. And some time he begrudgingly
pretends that he doesn't want to do the interview, but like.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You said, which is a complete false.
Speaker 9 (12:08):
He loves a microphone and he's willing to speak as
long as you need him. So I will definitely agree
Trey Murphy.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
My best SoundBite actually goes to you know, I'm not
going to disagree with Trey, because he, like you said,
he's a very versatile interviewee. But I went with Jose
Alvarado because I feel like a lot of times he
gets right to the point, and he's very good at
giving you something that is an anecdote that you can tweet.
So with the limited characters of two hundred and eighty,
I feel like he does a really good job sometimes
(12:39):
of giving you a story that is right to the point.
And I'll give you a perfect example. He said a
few weeks ago, maybe when he was on the bus
with Trey Murphy that Trey Murphy said, Hey, I want
to be an All Star next year. It was such
a perfect, you know thing that you could use in
whatever format it. The sound was great for writing, obviously,
(12:59):
That's what I think about a lot. It was great
for an article and it was great for a tweet.
So Jose Evarado is my pick for the guy who
produces the best sound bites.
Speaker 9 (13:08):
I will say that it does matter about being concise
and getting to the point, especially with TV when you
have limited amount of time, or when you're running something
a pregame show for radio, so this kind of goes later.
But CJ is also a great sound bite, but he
talks so fast and he doesn't stop, so it's really
(13:28):
hard to get that succinct, nice SoundBite from him.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that, what would say perfect sound bite? Timing wise,
it does it matter if it's two seconds, ten seconds,
twelve seconds, so you look at for anything, or is
it just like when do you know it's the bite? Bite?
Speaker 5 (13:41):
You can't you can't start rambling, y, just get to
the point and you can.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
Cut it up audio watch.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Live when you're doing postgame like Aaron or Live. It's
it's just no rambling, no rambling. Okay, perfect sound bite,
all right? Next up, best to explain xes and o's. Well, actually,
I'm gonna have some recency bias here, Gus and Aaron
and Jim. I got to interview Elfred Payton for Pelicans
(14:12):
Weekly a couple days ago, which aired on Tuesday night
on WWL, our flagship, and I asked him about the
twenty one assist game in Indianapolis, and he just started
talking about picking rolls and diving to the bucket and
who was getting open and this.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I'm like, wow, this was a lot more than I
bargained for.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
So Elfred Payton, of course, has a tremendous basketball IQ
and it's just really been a pleasure to watch him play,
even though we haven't really seen him.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Play a lot this year.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
But you don't really get a lot of x'es and
o's from players nowadays. You're gonna get him really from
the older guys that have been in the league for
a while because they understand the game. I think a
little bit more, but I'm going to have to go
with Elford Payton.
Speaker 9 (15:01):
Yeah, I mean, and I think that's definitely a good pick.
CJ McCollum is somebody who really will break stup down
for you. Again, he's very detailed and he says a lot,
so he really gives you a good picture of a
play or a goal or what they're trying to achieve
in a game. So I think he's great when you're
trying to break down something x's and o's wise, then
(15:25):
you can just kind of relay it and not use
the SoundBite.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Though CJ was my pick for x'es and o's as well.
I think, you know, I hadn't thought about that much
about Elfred Payton, just because only he's been here briefly,
but I remember speaking to him about five or six
years ago when he was here the first time. He's
one of the best guys on the team to talk
about the NBA overall, Like he follows it really closely.
He knows what's going on, he knows all the players.
(15:49):
He's probably could give you like a detailed scouting report
on just about every player that's played a decent amount
of minutes across the league. But the thing about CJ
is he's one of I think he's the technical speaker
of anyone. He's the only guy that I think you'll
hear him talking about pinned downs, and you'll talk hear
him speaking about efficiency and shot selection. He's the one
guy that I can easily picture him sitting down with
(16:12):
one of the analytics people or one of the player
development coaches and looking at the stats as far as
you know how many points per jump shot and pull
up shot.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I get.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
He's really the only one that I think goes into
the detail that in depth. So I would I'd go
with CJ for x's and o's all.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Right, easy enough, right, next up, best to discuss non
basketball topics. So, yes, we've talked to basketball. We've got
great sound bites. Now none basketball topics. CJ.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
Again, I just get very diverse.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
He is and of course president of the Players Association,
but also a line connoisseur, has his own vineyard as
his own brand, so if you want to talk wine again.
I get to see this sometimes on a regular basis
when CJ comes to the back of the plane and
(17:10):
Joel Myers is sitting next to me and they exchange,
you know, wine bottles, which is which is also a
very interesting situation. But I'm gonna have to go with
CJ on that one.
Speaker 9 (17:23):
I kind of think Jose Alvarado is fun just to
banter with, and especially hanging out in the locker room
post game waiting for interviews and everything. You know, he's
really poking at guys and just kind of a fun energy.
So when you talk to him about other stuff, he's
actually interested and he kind of entertains the conversation. Trey
(17:45):
also will do that as well. He'll kind of go
back and forth about whatever. I mean, there was one
instance where he would not stop singing the obviously Mobamba
song when Moe was in the locker room during one
of his interviews, and that kind of turned into this
whole other conversation that was actually cool and like led
to some more insight into Mobamba, and you know, they
(18:09):
went back and forth about how old Trey actually was
when that song came out, and you know that kind
of stuff. So it's fun when you get to see
kind of behind the curtain and see a little more
of their personalities.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I went with CJ.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
If you're talking about, as Graf mentioned, wine, maybe investments
kind of financial strategy, I feel like he has a
lot of insight on all that stuff and it's something
that he's definitely.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Thought a lot about.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But another kind of honorable mention Elfred Peyton. If you're
you know, this is non basketball, it's still in sports,
but if you want to talk Saints, Elfred Peyton is
the guy I remember the first time he was here.
We would see him, you know, if the Saints were
playing a Thursday night game or Monday night game whatever,
or Thanksgiving game, we would see him. We would always
see him somewhere. He'd be always out, you know, watching
(18:52):
the game. And it seemed like no matter what city
we were, he was like ready to go, and he
had his Saints gear on and he was he was
pumped for it. So that that was That's definitely those
two guys definitely are the ones that I enjoy listening.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
I have not had the golf conversation with Bruce Brown
yet though that that needs to happen before the end
of the season. What about cowboy hats, I'm not really
on the uh cowboy hats and belt buckles and boots
and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
That was one locker room conversation between Jose.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
I would imagine. Yes, I can definitely though, talk.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
Golf with Bus Jose wor and he said he was
going to he said he's got to get his fit.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Not seen that yet.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
He did when they.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
Were on the road. I think it was in Texas somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
San Antonio game.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, okay, there's photos of this.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I've got it pretty sure. I've got it. I did
see it now, going to think about it. It's kind
of just, you know, blocked out.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
The last few weeks. I understand one of the players
that you just mentioned to, I gotta imagine maybe a
good chance of winning this one post game walk off
guy Jose there it is.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
I think Carlo was great.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, see, you know I was gonna mention Carlo. I didn't.
I think he's a fantastic interview. He is. We just
we've only gotten him once.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Yeah, but he was so excited he was.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
That, you know, I have to change my vote. No,
you're right, it is Carlo. Oh absolutely, really no, because
of exactly what I just said. He was so fired
up to just be there. Well he deserved it too,
I mean, that's great, and he had and he was
just like he was. I mentioned to John, I was like,
did you hear the excitement in that young man's voice
(20:43):
when he was just fired up, and I'm getting actually
goosebumps thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You're exactly right.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Eron, I'm going with Carlo Macovich and I hope we
have him many, many, many more times.
Speaker 9 (20:55):
Yeah, I mean he was so excited. He was praising
his teammates, but he was talking about, you know, trying
to break down everything that happened in the game.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I mean it was a lot, but you could hear
his voice like shaking because his adrenaline was rushing so much.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I actually did some research for this, oh lot. I
went back through because as you guys, no, I did
not do that. However, as you guys know, I tweet
a lot of the postgame radio walk off and so
I did a search on x for postgame radio and
I found tons of examples of my own tweets of
quotes that I used, And so from that I found
(21:31):
that Jose Elverado has a bunch of really good quotes
from his postgame walkoffs. But CJ, I think is actually
the leader in how many he's done Over the last
few years. He's done a ton of postgame radio interviews.
So those are those are two guys I thought were
have shown them.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
My initial Jose was okay, okay, for sure.
Speaker 9 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean this was just like this year recently
stood out. There was one game a couple of weeks
ago that'd be won, and I was waiting on the
court and CJ like slightly turned his head and caught
my eye and he goes, dang it, And I was like, yep,
and he goes, man. I was trying not to catch ay,
and he knew it at that point that he was
the guy. But he obviously came over and was great.
(22:13):
And to your point, he is usually just so steady
in every game that there's a new player like that
will have a great game that TV will get for
their walk off, and then CJ's usually the next the
guy that did a little bit of everything that we do.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
Talk to him a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And by the way, too, this is maybe something that
I notice only because as a writer, a lot of
times if I'm doing interviews just with a guy off
to the side at practice for they seem to be looser.
On radio, they seem to be a little bit more
relaxed because they know they're not on camera. So I
think people should I would recommend people as much as
they can listen to the postgame radio walkoff interviews because
(22:52):
you hear a lot of funny stuff and you hear
a lot of them. Obviously they're in a good mood
as well because they just won the game. But but yeah,
I've enjoyed listening to them over the last few years.
I'm and here's to there being many more walk off
interviews next season on the radio than they're worth this season.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
I'm all for that, And here's to Jim for plugging
the radio broadcast.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Definitely, thanks girl that very much. Also one final category
in this in the first ever Pelly's Awards, Best to
discuss teammates, Zion comes to mind.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Zion comes to absolutely no doubt. He's one A one B.
You gotta, I mean to me, that's a no brainer.
It's Herb Jones. I mean, the man's never spoken about
himself ever. It's true, it's always about his teammates.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But no, Zion does.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
A fantastic job of giving credit to everybody else, even
though obviously he's the best player on the team.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
But no, that's a great call their gus. But I
gotta go with Herb.
Speaker 9 (23:51):
Yeah, I said Zion, because he does. He gets really
animated when he talks about his teammates, and he really
praises the people around him. I think it just very
seems very genuine. But he's a really good teammate in
that regard that he likes to give credit to everyone
else around him. One thing, This is kind of random,
but I wish we got to see a little bit
(24:12):
more of Dejante Murray this year because he is very
thoughtful in what he says. And I was trying to
think of what category he might fall in, but I
just don't know. If I haven't, I.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Think teammates is a good one.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, he does do that as well, though you're very
he was very positive and very insightful as far as
understanding a lot of guys games right, understanding like why
this guy's a good player and why I'm optimistic about
playing with.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Him or so you throw that category too, Yeah, you could.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
For discussing teammates, I actually had two other guys besides Zion.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Trey is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think he's he's one of the best guys at
coming up with something funny, like if you're you might
ask a basketball question about another player and he'll throw
in something funny about you know, some detail that you
didn't know, but also a late arrival in this category.
Kelly Olnic to me, has been rapidly insightful on a
lot of his new teammates. Just I mean the fact
(25:12):
that he just got here in February. I think if
he really went back through, this is only something I
would be interested in maybe, But if you went through
and like researched how many interesting quotes players have had
over the last couple of weeks, he would be probably
maybe number one on the list.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
You know, when you were saying that, Jim, I was thinking,
I don't want to go rogue here and go off topic,
but I mean you think in just the last three
years about someone who has come in and immediately just
fit right in. I mean number one is CJ McCollum
when the trade was made for cig I mean immediate impact,
immediate impact, and now it's I mean Kelly Olinic. It's
(25:48):
like he's been here the entire time. It's been amazing.
It's been amazing to watch him play.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I think not only that, just when you talk about
fitting into how he's kind of helped other players your
point with Zion, he's talked about how he's can you know,
the basketball IQ in teaching him, and I really really
loved I think he was your chat with him or
somebody spoke with him about and he just talked about
Eve mecI forever remember, and he was just talking about
(26:14):
how to help him and what he needed to work
on specifically and all those different things. I'm like that.
It's almost like a coach right there, no doubt.
Speaker 9 (26:23):
Yeah, No, He's been a really good person to talk to.
I do think overall he's a great SoundBite. He was
somebody I had written down, but then kind of like
I moved around. Appreciate him post game again, very thoughtful
in his answers, and I think he knows so much
about his teammates because he's such a pro that he's
watched the film and he's tried to learn. He had
(26:43):
to sit for a little while because he had some
Canadian issues before he could play, and I think he
actually did a lot of homework at that and that time.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, all right, all right, Well I guess that'll do
it for our first ever hellies. What do you guys think?
Do you think this is something that we could bring
back next year? Was this gonna ask me any more categories?
You need her?
Speaker 5 (27:03):
I think you could. You could add some categories. Maybe
we can make a real whole show about I know,
we got some other stuff to do here, but yeah,
I mean this this is good, Jim. I like the
idea and of course the music underneath really makes.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
We'll get in the lab this offseason.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Guess we'll get in our We'll get in the you know,
we'll really grind down and figure out what we will do,
like you know, towards the end like that, and you know,
best game, best win, best yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, office loss.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
I we kind of did that last year, but it
was a little bit more of a successful season.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So they have the Razzies too, right, the opposite Toy.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I mean, we got plenty of material. Who's missed the most?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No, God, no to moving on, we do have some
stuff to get into here as well. As we are
about to get into the month of April. So Todd,
which game are you looking forward to among the finals?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
As they say in the golf world, this baby's on
a tee or the baseball world too well, Jim, Unfortunately,
I'm going to have to say April thirteenth against Oklahoma
City because it is the final game of the season.
It is ready to end. We're in single digits now
now I have a that's one A and one B. Also,
(28:22):
OKAYC because and this is my own personal selfish reasons.
As you know, I know what we're going to wear
basically every game, and I want to match what I'm
wearing as far as my pullover what the Pelicans are wearing. Well,
we are wearing our City editions on the final day
of the regular season. Do you know how many wins
(28:44):
we have this year wearing our City Edition uniforms. That's
part of the best uniforms in the NBA.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
We have a Goose egg.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
That would be zero. Thank you, Aaron Summer.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
There's no they're not wearing them at all between now
and I didn't sheck.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I just know that we're wearing them that day, and
I would imagine Oklahoma City is not going to play
many of their players in that game, which is the
city We have a pretty decent chance maybe of winning
the game. We have to win a game, must win
the City Edition court wearing our City Edition uniforms.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's one A. Also, it's the last game of the
regular season.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
One B, one B. Come on Tuesday, April first, into
a Dome, LA Clippers first trip to the two three
billion dollar arena in Inglewood, California. Really much looking forward
to seeing that. Unfortunately, I heard the broadcast location not
(29:47):
very desirable. But we'll have to, you know, make a
few adjustments there. And also I'll be at the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Game the night four.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
But anyway, no, I will be into a dome. I'm
actually pretty much looking forward to that. Everybody I've talked
to you said, it is an unbelievable place, except if
you're a radio broadcaster or a TV broadcaster.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
If we win in the city editions, do we break
all curses on this team from this?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I like it.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I like fresh slate, I like it.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
We've got to win, you know. Now, I'm intrigued. I
need to look. I need to look and see if
we're playing if we use.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
This beautiform before that, I expect it. I know we're
playing that.
Speaker 9 (30:30):
The last day very thorough walks with graph around the
into it dome. Hmm, we haven't had one in a while.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
No, no, I was no, I'm not even going to
put that into the universe.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I could do that.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
I mean, the thing is, we're going to have a
shoot around that that morning, so that would be I heard,
you got it. There's no elevator going up to the
broadcast spot. Uh. The engineer who does the Lakers and
the Clipper, well, who used to do the Clippers when
they were both at Crypto dot com, told me there's
there's no escalator or elevator going up to where the
(31:07):
broadcast spot is. So even the engineers have to lug
their equipment up the steps, which is not very good
if you're an engineer.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Three billion dollars and couldn't do an escalator. So of
toilets in that.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Again, it's it's all about the people who don't have
to work games in these beautiful arenas. I will say, though,
Chase Center's pretty cool. Other than you have to walk
the shit steps there.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You should at least make a basket on the court outside.
You know, there's like a full court basket that's correct
area out there. You should at least get some video
of you doing that.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
All right.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
I will not say I'm looking forward to that game
or the Lakers game because it is a nine.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
There's the Clipper game.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
The Clipper game, yeah, but those are both nine thirty starts.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Well, it's seven thirty where I am, but I'm just
being selfish.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
It is not enjoyable to start games at nine thirty here.
It's your game shows, right, not at all. Yeah, so
not looking forward to those ones. I would say, okay, see,
just because it is gonna be the last home game.
I think those are It's always fun regardless of how
everything has gone. It's it's exciting to have like the
last game of the season. And then kind of in
the same regard, I guess the last broadcast that I'll
(32:17):
have would be the Milwaukee Bucks game on the tenth,
which is the first half of a back to back,
so hopefully everybody would play in that one. It'd be
a good, big game, maybe could win, and it'd be
the last broadcast for me on Gulf Coast Sports and
Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I went with Friday, April fourth against the Lakers, mostly
because I thought I would get thrown out of the
studio if I didn't pick the Lakers game as the
one that I'm the most looking forward to.
Speaker 9 (32:43):
And by the way, I have popcorn to eat. Yesterday
watching TV with the back and forth with Lebron.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I actually didn't pay that much attention. You didn't pay
to the greatest game wear of all time apparently. I mean,
I was so nauseated last night, Jim, maybe that's why
I did good Attention.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
You shouldn't have been is literally the greatest shot in
the history of the NBA.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I put I, I don't.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Know why I did this, but I put ESPN on
this morning knowing what would have happened, and they put
it on loop. The greatest tip in tip in by
the way to Indiana.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Blew it.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I wanted to quickly add slightly off topic, but also
on topic graph go Dodgers because the game that you're
going to is against the break and as a Phillies fan,
let's go Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Let's let all winy.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Jym, your your support is always it's the Dodgers payroll.
It doesn't matter about payrolls. Do you know how many
rookies and first year players.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Are in the lineup, Gus, don't sick people talking about
our payroll?
Speaker 5 (33:46):
A billion rookies throat following it by your cubs a
billion last week?
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Congratulations, we're two and oh what are you? Wow?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Exactly? Can't win them all if you don't win the
first two?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I mean, can you get excited about it? Regular season
fired up.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna where's that yesterday?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
You know what real way off talk we need? There
it is And that's all the time we have for Graffini,
Aaron Summers. That's always appreciate the time for Wait, we
had one more question.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Did we?
Speaker 8 (34:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I thought I was well do an entire show?
Speaker 5 (34:19):
Where's the slight in gym? Is question?
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Which see what you need? What your Dodgers? Okay? Graph?
Which team should the Pelicans fans root for this postseason
in the West? Nobody? Oh, I knew he was gonna
say that. I knew he was gonna say.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Okay, so listen, all right, if you had to gun
to the head, you have the West team depending like
look me selfishly, okay, not team wise, not team wise, okay, okay.
But one of my best broadcast buddies is Matt Thomas,
(34:59):
who does the Huge and Rockets, and they have been
down for a long time and he is just tickled
pink right now because they're going to be in the playoffs.
I mean, barring a disaster here in the last two weeks,
they're going to be top six. So I'm pulling for him,
not the Houston Rockets if you had to pick a
(35:19):
team out of the West, which again I am that is.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Against against everything you believe, every five.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Of my being, Jim. But Denver, I just I don't
have any animosity towards Denver.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
I just don't just My pick is OKAYC.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
They win, and then they will have to start blowing
some things up because he learned, like level we are
going to take down, this is, this is I hope
you're right now.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
You know what they did with Wiggins. They'd sign him
to this.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Very affordable team, very affordable.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Like his salary goes down. Yeah, no, they're getting crafty.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And I don't like that one bit.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I don't like it one I like that. But there's
no way, there's no way on God's Green Earth, I'm
pulling for OKC and anything.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I knew Graf was gonna say nobody, which is part
of why I enjoy this question. But for me, I
actually have a very specific and detailed explanation for why
I'm picking this team.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Now, Grant is when I say this is.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
My blood gonna start noiling here.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
In fact, one of the players on this team, I
think you really like it, and I thought when you
were saying you're not gonna root for a team, you're
gonna root for an individual.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I thought you were gonna mention this. No gentleman is
gonna go the way it's so fun I'm going with.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And I also preface this by saying that this team,
to be honest, doesn't have a great chance of advancing.
They might not at this point, they might not even
make the playing tournament. But the Sacramento Kings are the
team that Pelicans fans should be rooting for.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
They had to trade their best player at mid season
who wanted out. He wanted to go somewhere else. They
are a small market team.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Does this sound familiar to anyone exactly? And Yonis Valacunas
is the player that I was referring to earlier that
you respect. And so Sacramento Kings are my pick. Another thing,
this is a rant for another day. They're trying to win.
They're not giving up. They're not saying they like when
Darren Fox said he wanted to be traded. They didn't
(37:35):
say like, Okay, well let's just give up on the season.
I've talked about this many times before that I feel
like we're getting to the point in the NBA way
too much where everyone, including many media members, when I
say the slogan should be when adversity strikes, just give up.
I feel like that mentality is too common in the NBA.
So right now, so root for the Sacramental Kings because
(37:56):
they're this is I know, this is really controversial. They're
trying to act win, they're trying to actually accomplish things.
So Sacramento Kings, let's go King.
Speaker 5 (38:06):
I'm gonna get I'm gonna I'm gonna give that to Jim.
The reason I didn't say Sacramento is because I still
have a very open wound that has not closed going
back to the second last game of the season last year.
It is because of the Sacramento Kings that we did not.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Be We didn't help we needed and as they as
they choked.
Speaker 6 (38:28):
Zion got hurt and the next tear right.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
None of it happens. None of it happens. If Sacramento
all they had to do was hold the lead against
the Phoenix Suns at home in the last three minutes
of the ball game, and everything that happened at the
end of last year, history would have been in a
different spot because we would have been top six. Zion
(38:53):
never would have gotten hurt. We would have played the
Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs with
a healthy team, with a healthy team as a sixth
seed against a three seat symbol. And all of that
is because Sacramento choked that lead.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
See.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
I was walking back to my hotel in San Francisco
listening to the game after we had beaten the Golden
State Warriors. We did what we had to do and
Sacramento blew it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So No, this is why I.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Knew he was gonna say nobody because his ability to
dig deep I can't is impressive. I respect the heck
out of you for the king because I pride myself.
I pride myself on that. But you keep taking another
level that I don't even like. Go to the beach,
I dig real deep, love it.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I'm with you, Aaron. I like, okay, see in
this aspect of it, because once you win, it's harder
to come back there. Somebody they're gonna have, they're gonna
have to Max. You're the guy of curses. I mean
you love curses. Hey, it's hard to repeat and and
win that nature I mean, have they have they maxed
SG yet he's I mean he should be getting close.
(40:03):
He should be due right pretty soon. I'm not sure
if no one ever talks about.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
It, they're gonna have to max him. They're gonna have
to max JDub. They're gonna have to max home Shed Holmgren.
I mean now he's still on a rookie deal. Yeah,
but how many years away is that though?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I mean, things get sped up when you win the
championship though, And because other people might be I hope.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
You're right, because what I'm watching right now is just nauseating.
They got a Max lou Dort, the greatest defensive player
in the history of anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
By the way, it's never filed anymore.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Yeah, talk about can you you know, Jim, you're really
good at reesing. I mean, now won a roll where
you guys blew it the uh you want? Can you
research something, Jim?
Speaker 6 (40:47):
How many times he stepped on someone's foot?
Speaker 5 (40:49):
No, that's a good one though. How many times has
lou Dort filed out in his NBA career? I'd love
to see that because I watched two of our guys
get filed out in Detroit last Sunday, Carlo and oly
It both filed out in the same game.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
How many times has lou Doord ever filed outright? I
got it ready? Yeah? Ten times? Really? That many? Wow?
Ten times. He has committed one thousand and thirty three
personal fouls in his career and he's only filed out
ten times out there, it is all right? Well boy,
that's thanks for the quick answer.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I thought it was less than that.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
He did have a technical foul rescinded, Oh sure, I'm sure,
of course, Gus.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Do we need to start having like a regular segment
where graph just unloads on?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
How about graph.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
Vent Yes, yes, grafs, grievances.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Graphs grief. That's perfect. I like that. I like that.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
I'll do it. I'll do next year. Next year when
we're on radio round table. Okay, I will do a
graphs grief come up with a sound uh from the
past's got a lot of work to do this off season.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. That could be.
That could definitely be the closing category two and I
will awards. I will who do you dislike the most season?
There's a lot of I mean, go Bear is going
to be a finalist. Every year, right, would you say,
go Beart is a finalist?
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Give me a three finalists, Rudy Gobert, Lou Dort, who else?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
She's the list? The list is long and illustrious. Uh
la boo boo boo boo. Really have all of them?
Come on?
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Man, uh god, I gotta look at teams.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Let him get in the lab. I gotta get the lab.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
This is way too many candidates.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, that is definitely gonna be a category.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
He's thinking, Oh god, sheese boom. Who am I going
to do? I told you who am I? Who am
I just gonna absolutely unload on Friday Night. I just
told you this ten minutes ago. Randon pagem Screen, who
I hold personally responsible for this entire season when he
haphazardly and recklessly dove into herb Jones's shoulder in the
(43:17):
third game of the season, hurting her, putting him out
for a month. And of course we know where herb
Jones is right now. I fully blame Brandon Pajemski.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Let it all out, grapheven, this is seventy three game.
Here the music. I gotta go. There's the music. I
gotta go for Tigraffanini, Aaron Summers, thank you so much
for this wonderful segment, the inaugural Annual Helly's Awards, and
so much more. Thank you, fellas, we'll see you soon.
Our thanks to Tigraphani and Aaron Summers as It's always
(43:48):
fun we do that, And I love that we got
a handful of more categories. You gotta get in the lab.
As he said, it just the first year. The first year,
you're gonna have to find some stuff. Maybe.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
I don't know if we want to find more categories
that will intages Graf or bring him down.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Which direction we want to go, if we want to
if we want to get him to cool off a
little bit, if we want him to keep going down
this road of intense animosity.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
But we'll we'll work on that during the summer.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That is a very good point. Tgi. Jim.
Speaker 9 (44:19):
It's Friday, which means mister Eichenhoffer has a pair of
things for us, trending numbers and.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Weekend Showdown.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
What are we starting with, Jim.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Well, Mellory, let's start with the weekend Showdown, because I
have a trending number that I think is gonna be
a lot of fun and maybe interesting to some people.
Weekend Showdown is Saturday at seven pm the Lakers at
the Grizzlies. This is a there's a very tight battle
in the West going on right now for seeds three
through five. Right now, the Lakers and Grizzlies could be
matched up at the four to five series, so this
(44:55):
could be a playoff preview. Should be a really interesting game.
In twenty twenty three, the Lakers played the Grizzlies in
Round one and the Lakers were able to eliminate Memphis
four to two.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
So I think that's.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
A weekend game that a lot of people will have
their eyes on and has some major ramifications. In terms
of the trending number, the trending numbers is seven and thirteen,
and that is this is I thought about this in
terms of I was trying to think of is there
a theme to this weekend for the Pelicans in terms
of the teams that they're playing against with you know,
(45:28):
Golden State on Friday and then Charlotte on Sunday. Do
you realize, Gus that if you look at the all
time NBA three point percentage leaders, that three of the
top forty in the history of the league. Three of
those gentlemen will all be in the blender this weekend,
and all from the same family. Nonetheless. Okay, so trending
(45:50):
number seven and thirteen. Seth Curry is seventh all time
at forty three point three percent. Steph Curry is thirteenth
at forty two point three percent. Their father, Del Curry
is fortieth all time at forty point two percent. He
is Charlotte's TV analyst, so he gets to call all
(46:11):
of his son, Seth's game, who is a guard for
the Charlotte Hornets.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
So therefore, this is one of my favorite trending rubbers
the whole season. So we will have three Curries in
the SMOOTHI King Center this weekend, all of them ranked
in the top forty all time in three point percentage.
Big weekend for the Curry family. If you see a
Curry family member in town, maybe on Saturday, you'll understand
why this is a big This is a big weekend
(46:36):
for them to.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Be in New Orleans. You know, it's interesting. We know Dell,
we know Staph. We just finished talking about him. Not
a lot of people kind of really talk about Sev.
It was surprising and you just gave me his all
time number where he's seventh.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, he's seventh in percentage all time. Yeah, I mean
he's year in and year out. This guy is among
the best guys in three point percentage. I'd have to
check he's this season, he's one or two. He's been
kind of going back and forth with Luke Canard and
I heard out a recent Charlotte broadcast they were talking
about how Seth Curry has to make. He has to
get to eighty two makes this season to qualify for
(47:06):
the league lead.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
But yeah, I mean, he's definitely.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
An underrated guy, but just incredible the Curry family that
all three of those guys are among the greatest three
point shooters in the history of the league. And we
will see two of them play this weekend against the
Pelicans hopefully, and then the data will also be courtside
on the other end of the floor from Joel and
Antonio calling the game on Charlotte Television.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I love that, and that's why we have things like
trading numbers. That was a good trading number. It's really good.
Got me thinking number two. And we'll talk probably a
little bit more about that all right after the game tonight.
Thank you sir. We'll see at the Smoothe King Center.
Sounds good as always. We thank you for tuning in
to the New Orleans Pelicans podcast. We'll see you on Monday.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Thanks for listening to the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast. Join
us three times per week on pelicans dot com, the
Pelicans mobile app, the iHeartRadio app, or where you at
your podcast, and be sure to give Jim and Guss
a follow on x at Jim Underscore I Can Offer
(48:07):
and Gcat Underscore seventeen. We'll see you next time right
here on the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast
Welcome in to the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast, the official
podcast of your New Orleans Pelicans, a podcast dedicated to
everything you need to know about the squad here from players, coaches, broadcasters,
and those who cover the NBA on a daily basis.
It's time to flock up. The New Orleans Pelicans Podcast
(00:29):
starts right now.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, if you want to welcome to the New Orleans
Pelicans Podcast, official podcast of your New Orleans Pelicans, Jim,
I can offer Gus catt and gel with you. It
is Friday, which means we will have TGI Jim not
TGI Friday, a very fun segment coming up around Table
next with Todd Grafferini and Aaron Summers, but a very
special edition version of it. Wh wy don't you go
(00:55):
ahead and quickly tease it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yes, we're going to have the Inaugural Pellies, which is
the name that we came up with, or maybe more
specifically I came up with in terms of we're going
to hand out awards for the best players on the Pelicans,
in terms of interviews in various categories, and we're going
to enjoy the different responses we get from the panel.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So the last time the Pelicans played was at the
beginning of the work week. Back on Monday, team taking
on the seventy six was trying to snap a brief
two game losing Street which just looked good in doing it.
And this is what took place on the Pelicans radio network.
Tavarado looking for a cutter.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
He found Hawkins streaking down the lane, and we'll punch
it down. Halt, dare we say, flying to the hoop
back the other way the Pels and Macovich will slam
it down and the assist goes to Greta data Alford.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Payton, who just checked in.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Kick at the Brooks right corner.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Three, there's the first three of the night for the
rookie keeon Brooks.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
It's Peyton with four underneath the hoop. Throw it out
long knonas for three.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
His first Pelican is a three from the left bangle.
Welcome to the team, Lester. Peyton slithers through and throws
it up to me. See who dunks it in. Alfred
Payton's got seven assists already cook past the Reeves left wing.
Three rattles in for the rookie from Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Give me some sugar. I am your neighbor. Three vault.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
Are you serious?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That is Antonio Reeves again.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Antonio Reeves cook it slipping out to Jri extra pass.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Reeves takes the three, takes, the three HiT's, the three
Antonio Reeves cannot be stopped. Melo Lennox fall away there
and another assist from Alfred.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Payton, Zegraphoni and John Deshas are with the calls. There
a nice win, mister Jimi can offer by the Pels
over the seventy six Ers. Head coach Willie Green was happy.
I know fans are happy. How did you feel about
the one?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, I mean, it was great to see so many
different players play well. The Pelicans had five guys in
double figure scoring. Carlo Mekovic actually led the way with
nineteen points. By the way, it feels like so long
ago that this game was played as we record this,
but it was good to get a win. I mean,
I understand, you know, this wasn't the kind of game
where you're gonna give yourself too many taps on the
(03:21):
back for I get the feeling the Sixers are not
going all out to try to win right now. But nonetheless,
it was still a positive performance. I loved watching Elford
Payton in his passing. He had fourteen assists to add
to his twenty one assist game that he had earlier
this season. By the way, there's still only two players
in the NBA this entire season that have more assists
(03:42):
in a game than Alfred Peyton. That is, Jokic and
Trey Young both have a twenty two assist game, so
and his fourteen assist game is probably in the top
maybe one hundred or so assist games a season. So,
I mean, the guy's been on two ten day contracts
and he has two of the better assist games in
the entire league this season. So pretty impressive work by him.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That's the way coach Willie Green had to say about him.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
I'll say it again, there's no way that he shouldn't
be on a roster he is. He's that good. And
he can pass the ball. He knows how to you know,
throw you open. Sometimes even when you don't know you're open,
the ball is hitting you. Brighten your hands, on time,
on target. He's an excellent defender, floor leader. Uh, We're
(04:25):
glad to have him regain our group.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The other thing that I thought interesting too is Peyton
afterwards said, look, obviously getting a chance to play and
you can just hear the appreciation.
Speaker 8 (04:36):
Now it feels good, It feels really good. You know,
you go through this journey and you know you have
all these things happened to you, so it's easy to Uh,
it's easy to I don't want to say like half
doubt you know what I'm saying. Uh, you know, stuff
like that. But you know, I've stayed confident or man confident.
I think I've had the right people in my circle,
(04:57):
and uh, you know, work paid off. I was able
to get a thankful for this opportunity and to be
able to go out there and play at that levels.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I mean a lot. How much you we appreciate the
fact that he had that level of assists with guys
that he hasn't even probably practiced with.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's one of those things where it reminds you of
the saying basketball is basketball that you know a lot
of times we try to complicate things and you know,
make it seem like it's a more intricate game than
it is. I mean, just the fact that his basketball
IQ is so high and his anticipation is.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Great, so he knows where guys are going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I mean, yeah, I would think if you asked him too,
he would probably say, you know, it helped me a
little at least a little bit more too, if I
had more time with some of these players on the
team on the court. But it's just a testament to
his game, and I just I enjoy watching the way
that he sees the floor. If you watch him, you know,
if you're a young basketball player, you watch him, and
(05:52):
he always has his head up. I think you could
say that about every good passer in the NBA, is
that you they always they're always scanning the floor. They're
always trying to see who's about to be open, who's.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Open right now.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And I think you know, one of the comments that
Willie Green made and the clip that you played, was
how he always throws the ball in the right spot.
So I mean, there's a bunch of times where he's
dishing the ball off to a big guy who only
has to take maybe one dribble or maybe no dribbles,
and he goes right to the rim and dunks it.
So he's putting people in really good positions where they
can score easily. And I think that's a big part
(06:26):
of how the Pelicans had thirty six assists in that game,
which was a great passing night. They shot forty nine
percent from the field, forty three percent on threes. So
I mean, I just enjoy watching a pass first point guard.
I feel like I wish there were more of those
in the NBA. They're kind of a dinosaur, They're kind
of a dying breed. But at least Elfred Payton is
trying to bring that kind of game back to the league.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
No doubt about it. One more game this week, as
we mentioned, that is tonight against Golden State. Look, Steph
Curry didn't play earlier this week too, he's kind of
nursing an injury. And I know you kind of touched
on them in the last of weeks and even this
week about spoiler scales and where they stand when you
look at the standings where they are Golden State seventh.
We all know what we've done with the Pelicans, so
(07:09):
important the difference between six and seven. They same record
going into Thursday nights. I actually going into Friday with
forty one and thirty one both teams and three games
behind fitth So really, would you say both of those
two teams are battling for six.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, I mean, to me, it's right now it's a
three team it's a really good three team race between
the Warriors, Clippers, and Timberwolves. I mean there's a little
bit of separation if you go beyond them in the standings,
and there's a little bit in front of them as well.
But I mean I have mentioned this in something that
I wrote to that I mean, this is the most
this is probably the most significant game. Maybe that definitely
(07:45):
the most significant home game that the Pelicans have left
on the schedule in terms of the importance of the
game for the opposing team. So yeah, I mean I
would look, I'll look forward to this game tonight and
I'm sure a lot of people out there will as well,
and we'll find out what the status is of Curry.
But but this is I think this will be a
fun game in the blender.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I've lost two straight and one quick thing before we
move on to our next segment. As you mentioned his name,
and I just got to bring it up because look,
even Graft said it earlier in the week. He hopes
Steph Curry plays. He wants to see him. He's one
of those players, Jim, where you make the effort, I
like you just it's one thing to see him on TV.
And I say this all the time every time we
play them and he's in town. If you can go
(08:30):
and you go watch him when he doesn't have the basketball,
I don't think people realize the amount of running. Oh yeah,
he does around to get open how he shoots and
if he can go get there early because he puts
on the show during warm ups. He does trick shots
after he goes through his routine, which is amazing in
(08:51):
itself because if you've ever watched his routine on YouTube
or Will Gillery, you know somebody will posted. He'll go
on every point of the paint, whether it's the block,
then the elbow, then the nail, then the top of
the key, and he keeps backing up to the half
court line and worked his way back all the way
to the rim after it's a layup and he doesn't miss.
Like I challenge anybody to go do that on your driveway,
(09:14):
you know, just do a layup, then right block, right elbow,
top of the key, left elbow, left block, and keep
backing up the half court and do nothing but net.
And he does that all the time, and it's just
it's so much fun just to really see I think
Jim in our lifetime, one of the if not the
best shooter. I mean, I hear a lot about Pistol
Pete here, you know, obviously from LSU and being Louisianian.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But that guy, Yeah, I mean you Friday night, you
have the opportunity to watch the greatest shooter in the
history of the NBA, history of basketball.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Really changed the mening.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
There's no way that I don't think you can objectively
say that it's anyone else if you just look at
all the stats and you just watch the guy play. So,
I mean, one of the things that you mentioned earlier,
Gus is you know, this is a player who's worth
the effort of getting to the game.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I feel like we don't have to.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Encourage people to do that because everybody is flocking to
his games. And that's one of the reasons why they've
always been the last bunch of years, they've always been
top two, top three in the NBA in road attendance
because people always make sure that they can go to
the Golden State Games.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yep, go check them out. All right, Tom, now to
do a very special edition of a radio round table.
The Pellties Awards coming up next. All right, Tom, now
for our very special radio roundtable, mister Jimichen offers. We
have the voice radio voice of your New Orleans Pelicans,
Tigraphanini and Aaron Summers team and sideline reporter here as well.
(10:32):
We normally do a regular you know, roundtable. A little
different though, Jim, what is different about this version?
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Sir?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
This is going to be a special edition where I've
decided to call this the Pellies. It's kind of like
the Emmys, you know, but this is going to be
us giving awards for the best interviewees on the roster
in a range of categories.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Oh wow, so we need to make it special. Yes, yes,
well on that note.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So that music makes it nice and official teograph and
he will start with you. The opening category is very simple,
who's the best interviewing for a sound bite?
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Well, I think my colleagues are going to agree with
me on this, but it's got to be Tray Murphy,
the man who's never met a microphone he didn't like,
And with all of the different questions that have been
asked for him, it's always pretty extensive, very detailed, and
of course the man loves the media. So Trey, who
(11:33):
got the good news yesterday that his shoulder surgery was successful,
which again, get better very soon, Trey.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
But that is my pick.
Speaker 9 (11:45):
I would have to agree that I think this category
can also be known as best all around, because Trey
is really good at any of the We have further
topics that will cover, but he's he's pretty good at
anything you throw at him. And some time he begrudgingly
pretends that he doesn't want to do the interview, but like.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You said, which is a complete false.
Speaker 9 (12:08):
He loves a microphone and he's willing to speak as
long as you need him. So I will definitely agree
Trey Murphy.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
My best SoundBite actually goes to you know, I'm not
going to disagree with Trey, because he, like you said,
he's a very versatile interviewee. But I went with Jose
Alvarado because I feel like a lot of times he
gets right to the point, and he's very good at
giving you something that is an anecdote that you can tweet.
So with the limited characters of two hundred and eighty,
I feel like he does a really good job sometimes
(12:39):
of giving you a story that is right to the point.
And I'll give you a perfect example. He said a
few weeks ago, maybe when he was on the bus
with Trey Murphy that Trey Murphy said, Hey, I want
to be an All Star next year. It was such
a perfect, you know thing that you could use in
whatever format it. The sound was great for writing, obviously,
(12:59):
That's what I think about a lot. It was great
for an article and it was great for a tweet.
So Jose Evarado is my pick for the guy who
produces the best sound bites.
Speaker 9 (13:08):
I will say that it does matter about being concise
and getting to the point, especially with TV when you
have limited amount of time, or when you're running something
a pregame show for radio, so this kind of goes later.
But CJ is also a great sound bite, but he
talks so fast and he doesn't stop, so it's really
(13:28):
hard to get that succinct, nice SoundBite from him.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that, what would say perfect sound bite? Timing wise,
it does it matter if it's two seconds, ten seconds,
twelve seconds, so you look at for anything, or is
it just like when do you know it's the bite? Bite?
Speaker 5 (13:41):
You can't you can't start rambling, y, just get to
the point and you can.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
Cut it up audio watch.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Live when you're doing postgame like Aaron or Live. It's
it's just no rambling, no rambling. Okay, perfect sound bite,
all right? Next up, best to explain xes and o's. Well, actually,
I'm gonna have some recency bias here, Gus and Aaron
and Jim. I got to interview Elfred Payton for Pelicans
(14:12):
Weekly a couple days ago, which aired on Tuesday night
on WWL, our flagship, and I asked him about the
twenty one assist game in Indianapolis, and he just started
talking about picking rolls and diving to the bucket and
who was getting open and this.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I'm like, wow, this was a lot more than I
bargained for.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
So Elfred Payton, of course, has a tremendous basketball IQ
and it's just really been a pleasure to watch him play,
even though we haven't really seen him.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Play a lot this year.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
But you don't really get a lot of x'es and
o's from players nowadays. You're gonna get him really from
the older guys that have been in the league for
a while because they understand the game. I think a
little bit more, but I'm going to have to go
with Elford Payton.
Speaker 9 (15:01):
Yeah, I mean, and I think that's definitely a good pick.
CJ McCollum is somebody who really will break stup down
for you. Again, he's very detailed and he says a lot,
so he really gives you a good picture of a
play or a goal or what they're trying to achieve
in a game. So I think he's great when you're
trying to break down something x's and o's wise, then
(15:25):
you can just kind of relay it and not use
the SoundBite.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Though CJ was my pick for x'es and o's as well.
I think, you know, I hadn't thought about that much
about Elfred Payton, just because only he's been here briefly,
but I remember speaking to him about five or six
years ago when he was here the first time. He's
one of the best guys on the team to talk
about the NBA overall, Like he follows it really closely.
He knows what's going on, he knows all the players.
(15:49):
He's probably could give you like a detailed scouting report
on just about every player that's played a decent amount
of minutes across the league. But the thing about CJ
is he's one of I think he's the technical speaker
of anyone. He's the only guy that I think you'll
hear him talking about pinned downs, and you'll talk hear
him speaking about efficiency and shot selection. He's the one
guy that I can easily picture him sitting down with
(16:12):
one of the analytics people or one of the player
development coaches and looking at the stats as far as
you know how many points per jump shot and pull
up shot.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I get.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
He's really the only one that I think goes into
the detail that in depth. So I would I'd go
with CJ for x's and o's all.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Right, easy enough, right, next up, best to discuss non
basketball topics. So, yes, we've talked to basketball. We've got
great sound bites. Now none basketball topics. CJ.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
Again, I just get very diverse.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
He is and of course president of the Players Association,
but also a line connoisseur, has his own vineyard as
his own brand, so if you want to talk wine again.
I get to see this sometimes on a regular basis
when CJ comes to the back of the plane and
(17:10):
Joel Myers is sitting next to me and they exchange,
you know, wine bottles, which is which is also a
very interesting situation. But I'm gonna have to go with
CJ on that one.
Speaker 9 (17:23):
I kind of think Jose Alvarado is fun just to
banter with, and especially hanging out in the locker room
post game waiting for interviews and everything. You know, he's
really poking at guys and just kind of a fun energy.
So when you talk to him about other stuff, he's
actually interested and he kind of entertains the conversation. Trey
(17:45):
also will do that as well. He'll kind of go
back and forth about whatever. I mean, there was one
instance where he would not stop singing the obviously Mobamba
song when Moe was in the locker room during one
of his interviews, and that kind of turned into this
whole other conversation that was actually cool and like led
to some more insight into Mobamba, and you know, they
(18:09):
went back and forth about how old Trey actually was
when that song came out, and you know that kind
of stuff. So it's fun when you get to see
kind of behind the curtain and see a little more
of their personalities.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I went with CJ.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
If you're talking about, as Graf mentioned, wine, maybe investments
kind of financial strategy, I feel like he has a
lot of insight on all that stuff and it's something
that he's definitely.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Thought a lot about.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But another kind of honorable mention Elfred Peyton. If you're
you know, this is non basketball, it's still in sports,
but if you want to talk Saints, Elfred Peyton is
the guy I remember the first time he was here.
We would see him, you know, if the Saints were
playing a Thursday night game or Monday night game whatever,
or Thanksgiving game, we would see him. We would always
see him somewhere. He'd be always out, you know, watching
(18:52):
the game. And it seemed like no matter what city
we were, he was like ready to go, and he
had his Saints gear on and he was he was
pumped for it. So that that was That's definitely those
two guys definitely are the ones that I enjoy listening.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
I have not had the golf conversation with Bruce Brown
yet though that that needs to happen before the end
of the season. What about cowboy hats, I'm not really
on the uh cowboy hats and belt buckles and boots
and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
That was one locker room conversation between Jose.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
I would imagine. Yes, I can definitely though, talk.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
Golf with Bus Jose wor and he said he was
going to he said he's got to get his fit.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Not seen that yet.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
He did when they.
Speaker 9 (19:35):
Were on the road. I think it was in Texas somewhere.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
San Antonio game.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, okay, there's photos of this.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I've got it pretty sure. I've got it. I did
see it now, going to think about it. It's kind
of just, you know, blocked out.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
The last few weeks. I understand one of the players
that you just mentioned to, I gotta imagine maybe a
good chance of winning this one post game walk off
guy Jose there it is.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
I think Carlo was great.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, see, you know I was gonna mention Carlo. I didn't.
I think he's a fantastic interview. He is. We just
we've only gotten him once.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Yeah, but he was so excited he was.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
That, you know, I have to change my vote. No,
you're right, it is Carlo. Oh absolutely, really no, because
of exactly what I just said. He was so fired
up to just be there. Well he deserved it too,
I mean, that's great, and he had and he was
just like he was. I mentioned to John, I was like,
did you hear the excitement in that young man's voice
(20:43):
when he was just fired up, and I'm getting actually
goosebumps thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You're exactly right.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Eron, I'm going with Carlo Macovich and I hope we
have him many, many, many more times.
Speaker 9 (20:55):
Yeah, I mean he was so excited. He was praising
his teammates, but he was talking about, you know, trying
to break down everything that happened in the game.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I mean it was a lot, but you could hear
his voice like shaking because his adrenaline was rushing so much.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I actually did some research for this, oh lot. I
went back through because as you guys, no, I did
not do that. However, as you guys know, I tweet
a lot of the postgame radio walk off and so
I did a search on x for postgame radio and
I found tons of examples of my own tweets of
quotes that I used, And so from that I found
(21:31):
that Jose Elverado has a bunch of really good quotes
from his postgame walkoffs. But CJ, I think is actually
the leader in how many he's done Over the last
few years. He's done a ton of postgame radio interviews.
So those are those are two guys I thought were
have shown them.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
My initial Jose was okay, okay, for sure.
Speaker 9 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean this was just like this year recently
stood out. There was one game a couple of weeks
ago that'd be won, and I was waiting on the
court and CJ like slightly turned his head and caught
my eye and he goes, dang it, And I was like, yep,
and he goes, man. I was trying not to catch ay,
and he knew it at that point that he was
the guy. But he obviously came over and was great.
(22:13):
And to your point, he is usually just so steady
in every game that there's a new player like that
will have a great game that TV will get for
their walk off, and then CJ's usually the next the
guy that did a little bit of everything that we do.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
Talk to him a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And by the way, too, this is maybe something that
I notice only because as a writer, a lot of
times if I'm doing interviews just with a guy off
to the side at practice for they seem to be looser.
On radio, they seem to be a little bit more
relaxed because they know they're not on camera. So I
think people should I would recommend people as much as
they can listen to the postgame radio walkoff interviews because
(22:52):
you hear a lot of funny stuff and you hear
a lot of them. Obviously they're in a good mood
as well because they just won the game. But but yeah,
I've enjoyed listening to them over the last few years.
I'm and here's to there being many more walk off
interviews next season on the radio than they're worth this season.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
I'm all for that, And here's to Jim for plugging
the radio broadcast.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Definitely, thanks girl that very much. Also one final category
in this in the first ever Pelly's Awards, Best to
discuss teammates, Zion comes to mind.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Zion comes to absolutely no doubt. He's one A one B.
You gotta, I mean to me, that's a no brainer.
It's Herb Jones. I mean, the man's never spoken about
himself ever. It's true, it's always about his teammates.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But no, Zion does.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
A fantastic job of giving credit to everybody else, even
though obviously he's the best player on the team.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
But no, that's a great call their gus. But I
gotta go with Herb.
Speaker 9 (23:51):
Yeah, I said Zion, because he does. He gets really
animated when he talks about his teammates, and he really
praises the people around him. I think it just very
seems very genuine. But he's a really good teammate in
that regard that he likes to give credit to everyone
else around him. One thing, This is kind of random,
but I wish we got to see a little bit
(24:12):
more of Dejante Murray this year because he is very
thoughtful in what he says. And I was trying to
think of what category he might fall in, but I
just don't know. If I haven't, I.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Think teammates is a good one.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, he does do that as well, though you're very
he was very positive and very insightful as far as
understanding a lot of guys games right, understanding like why
this guy's a good player and why I'm optimistic about
playing with.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Him or so you throw that category too, Yeah, you could.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
For discussing teammates, I actually had two other guys besides Zion.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Trey is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I think he's he's one of the best guys at
coming up with something funny, like if you're you might
ask a basketball question about another player and he'll throw
in something funny about you know, some detail that you
didn't know, but also a late arrival in this category.
Kelly Olnic to me, has been rapidly insightful on a
lot of his new teammates. Just I mean the fact
(25:12):
that he just got here in February. I think if
he really went back through, this is only something I
would be interested in maybe, But if you went through
and like researched how many interesting quotes players have had
over the last couple of weeks, he would be probably
maybe number one on the list.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
You know, when you were saying that, Jim, I was thinking,
I don't want to go rogue here and go off topic,
but I mean you think in just the last three
years about someone who has come in and immediately just
fit right in. I mean number one is CJ McCollum
when the trade was made for cig I mean immediate impact,
immediate impact, and now it's I mean Kelly Olinic. It's
(25:48):
like he's been here the entire time. It's been amazing.
It's been amazing to watch him play.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I think not only that, just when you talk about
fitting into how he's kind of helped other players your
point with Zion, he's talked about how he's can you know,
the basketball IQ in teaching him, and I really really
loved I think he was your chat with him or
somebody spoke with him about and he just talked about
Eve mecI forever remember, and he was just talking about
(26:14):
how to help him and what he needed to work
on specifically and all those different things. I'm like that.
It's almost like a coach right there, no doubt.
Speaker 9 (26:23):
Yeah, No, He's been a really good person to talk to.
I do think overall he's a great SoundBite. He was
somebody I had written down, but then kind of like
I moved around. Appreciate him post game again, very thoughtful
in his answers, and I think he knows so much
about his teammates because he's such a pro that he's
watched the film and he's tried to learn. He had
(26:43):
to sit for a little while because he had some
Canadian issues before he could play, and I think he
actually did a lot of homework at that and that time.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, all right, all right, Well I guess that'll do
it for our first ever hellies. What do you guys think?
Do you think this is something that we could bring
back next year? Was this gonna ask me any more categories?
You need her?
Speaker 5 (27:03):
I think you could. You could add some categories. Maybe
we can make a real whole show about I know,
we got some other stuff to do here, but yeah,
I mean this this is good, Jim. I like the
idea and of course the music underneath really makes.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
We'll get in the lab this offseason.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Guess we'll get in our We'll get in the you know,
we'll really grind down and figure out what we will do,
like you know, towards the end like that, and you know,
best game, best win, best yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yeah, office loss.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
I we kind of did that last year, but it
was a little bit more of a successful season.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So they have the Razzies too, right, the opposite Toy.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I mean, we got plenty of material. Who's missed the most?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
No, God, no to moving on, we do have some
stuff to get into here as well. As we are
about to get into the month of April. So Todd,
which game are you looking forward to among the finals?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
As they say in the golf world, this baby's on
a tee or the baseball world too well, Jim, Unfortunately,
I'm going to have to say April thirteenth against Oklahoma
City because it is the final game of the season.
It is ready to end. We're in single digits now
now I have a that's one A and one B. Also,
(28:22):
OKAYC because and this is my own personal selfish reasons.
As you know, I know what we're going to wear
basically every game, and I want to match what I'm
wearing as far as my pullover what the Pelicans are wearing. Well,
we are wearing our City editions on the final day
of the regular season. Do you know how many wins
(28:44):
we have this year wearing our City Edition uniforms. That's
part of the best uniforms in the NBA.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
We have a Goose egg.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
That would be zero. Thank you, Aaron Summer.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
There's no they're not wearing them at all between now
and I didn't sheck.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I just know that we're wearing them that day, and
I would imagine Oklahoma City is not going to play
many of their players in that game, which is the
city We have a pretty decent chance maybe of winning
the game. We have to win a game, must win
the City Edition court wearing our City Edition uniforms.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's one A. Also, it's the last game of the
regular season.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
One B, one B. Come on Tuesday, April first, into
a Dome, LA Clippers first trip to the two three
billion dollar arena in Inglewood, California. Really much looking forward
to seeing that. Unfortunately, I heard the broadcast location not
(29:47):
very desirable. But we'll have to, you know, make a
few adjustments there. And also I'll be at the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Game the night four.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
But anyway, no, I will be into a dome. I'm
actually pretty much looking forward to that. Everybody I've talked
to you said, it is an unbelievable place, except if
you're a radio broadcaster or a TV broadcaster.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
If we win in the city editions, do we break
all curses on this team from this?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I like it.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
I like fresh slate, I like it.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
We've got to win, you know. Now, I'm intrigued. I
need to look. I need to look and see if
we're playing if we use.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
This beautiform before that, I expect it. I know we're
playing that.
Speaker 9 (30:30):
The last day very thorough walks with graph around the
into it dome. Hmm, we haven't had one in a while.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
No, no, I was no, I'm not even going to
put that into the universe.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I could do that.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
I mean, the thing is, we're going to have a
shoot around that that morning, so that would be I heard,
you got it. There's no elevator going up to the
broadcast spot. Uh. The engineer who does the Lakers and
the Clipper, well, who used to do the Clippers when
they were both at Crypto dot com, told me there's
there's no escalator or elevator going up to where the
(31:07):
broadcast spot is. So even the engineers have to lug
their equipment up the steps, which is not very good
if you're an engineer.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Three billion dollars and couldn't do an escalator. So of
toilets in that.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Again, it's it's all about the people who don't have
to work games in these beautiful arenas. I will say, though,
Chase Center's pretty cool. Other than you have to walk
the shit steps there.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You should at least make a basket on the court outside.
You know, there's like a full court basket that's correct
area out there. You should at least get some video
of you doing that.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
All right.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
I will not say I'm looking forward to that game
or the Lakers game because it is a nine.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
There's the Clipper game.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
The Clipper game, yeah, but those are both nine thirty starts.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Well, it's seven thirty where I am, but I'm just
being selfish.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
It is not enjoyable to start games at nine thirty here.
It's your game shows, right, not at all. Yeah, so
not looking forward to those ones. I would say, okay, see,
just because it is gonna be the last home game.
I think those are It's always fun regardless of how
everything has gone. It's it's exciting to have like the
last game of the season. And then kind of in
the same regard, I guess the last broadcast that I'll
(32:17):
have would be the Milwaukee Bucks game on the tenth,
which is the first half of a back to back,
so hopefully everybody would play in that one. It'd be
a good, big game, maybe could win, and it'd be
the last broadcast for me on Gulf Coast Sports and
Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I went with Friday, April fourth against the Lakers, mostly
because I thought I would get thrown out of the
studio if I didn't pick the Lakers game as the
one that I'm the most looking forward to.
Speaker 9 (32:43):
And by the way, I have popcorn to eat. Yesterday
watching TV with the back and forth with Lebron.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I actually didn't pay that much attention. You didn't pay
to the greatest game wear of all time apparently. I mean,
I was so nauseated last night, Jim, maybe that's why
I did good Attention.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
You shouldn't have been is literally the greatest shot in
the history of the NBA.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I put I, I don't.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Know why I did this, but I put ESPN on
this morning knowing what would have happened, and they put
it on loop. The greatest tip in tip in by
the way to Indiana.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Blew it.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I wanted to quickly add slightly off topic, but also
on topic graph go Dodgers because the game that you're
going to is against the break and as a Phillies fan,
let's go Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Let's let all winy.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Jym, your your support is always it's the Dodgers payroll.
It doesn't matter about payrolls. Do you know how many
rookies and first year players.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Are in the lineup, Gus, don't sick people talking about
our payroll?
Speaker 5 (33:46):
A billion rookies throat following it by your cubs a
billion last week?
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Congratulations, we're two and oh what are you? Wow?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Exactly? Can't win them all if you don't win the
first two?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I mean, can you get excited about it? Regular season
fired up.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna where's that yesterday?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
You know what real way off talk we need? There
it is And that's all the time we have for Graffini,
Aaron Summers. That's always appreciate the time for Wait, we
had one more question.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Did we?
Speaker 8 (34:17):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I thought I was well do an entire show?
Speaker 5 (34:19):
Where's the slight in gym? Is question?
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Which see what you need? What your Dodgers? Okay? Graph?
Which team should the Pelicans fans root for this postseason
in the West? Nobody? Oh, I knew he was gonna
say that. I knew he was gonna say.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Okay, so listen, all right, if you had to gun
to the head, you have the West team depending like
look me selfishly, okay, not team wise, not team wise, okay, okay.
But one of my best broadcast buddies is Matt Thomas,
(34:59):
who does the Huge and Rockets, and they have been
down for a long time and he is just tickled
pink right now because they're going to be in the playoffs.
I mean, barring a disaster here in the last two weeks,
they're going to be top six. So I'm pulling for him,
not the Houston Rockets if you had to pick a
(35:19):
team out of the West, which again I am that is.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Against against everything you believe, every five.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Of my being, Jim. But Denver, I just I don't
have any animosity towards Denver.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
I just don't just My pick is OKAYC.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
They win, and then they will have to start blowing
some things up because he learned, like level we are
going to take down, this is, this is I hope
you're right now.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
You know what they did with Wiggins. They'd sign him
to this.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Very affordable team, very affordable.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Like his salary goes down. Yeah, no, they're getting crafty.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And I don't like that one bit.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I don't like it one I like that. But there's
no way, there's no way on God's Green Earth, I'm
pulling for OKC and anything.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I knew Graf was gonna say nobody, which is part
of why I enjoy this question. But for me, I
actually have a very specific and detailed explanation for why
I'm picking this team.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Now, Grant is when I say this is.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
My blood gonna start noiling here.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
In fact, one of the players on this team, I
think you really like it, and I thought when you
were saying you're not gonna root for a team, you're
gonna root for an individual.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I thought you were gonna mention this. No gentleman is
gonna go the way it's so fun I'm going with.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And I also preface this by saying that this team,
to be honest, doesn't have a great chance of advancing.
They might not at this point, they might not even
make the playing tournament. But the Sacramento Kings are the
team that Pelicans fans should be rooting for.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
They had to trade their best player at mid season
who wanted out. He wanted to go somewhere else. They
are a small market team.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Does this sound familiar to anyone exactly? And Yonis Valacunas
is the player that I was referring to earlier that
you respect. And so Sacramento Kings are my pick. Another thing,
this is a rant for another day. They're trying to win.
They're not giving up. They're not saying they like when
Darren Fox said he wanted to be traded. They didn't
(37:35):
say like, Okay, well let's just give up on the season.
I've talked about this many times before that I feel
like we're getting to the point in the NBA way
too much where everyone, including many media members, when I
say the slogan should be when adversity strikes, just give up.
I feel like that mentality is too common in the NBA.
So right now, so root for the Sacramental Kings because
(37:56):
they're this is I know, this is really controversial. They're
trying to act win, they're trying to actually accomplish things.
So Sacramento Kings, let's go King.
Speaker 5 (38:06):
I'm gonna get I'm gonna I'm gonna give that to Jim.
The reason I didn't say Sacramento is because I still
have a very open wound that has not closed going
back to the second last game of the season last year.
It is because of the Sacramento Kings that we did not.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Be We didn't help we needed and as they as
they choked.
Speaker 6 (38:28):
Zion got hurt and the next tear right.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
None of it happens. None of it happens. If Sacramento
all they had to do was hold the lead against
the Phoenix Suns at home in the last three minutes
of the ball game, and everything that happened at the
end of last year, history would have been in a
different spot because we would have been top six. Zion
(38:53):
never would have gotten hurt. We would have played the
Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs with
a healthy team, with a healthy team as a sixth
seed against a three seat symbol. And all of that
is because Sacramento choked that lead.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
See.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
I was walking back to my hotel in San Francisco
listening to the game after we had beaten the Golden
State Warriors. We did what we had to do and
Sacramento blew it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So No, this is why I.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Knew he was gonna say nobody because his ability to
dig deep I can't is impressive. I respect the heck
out of you for the king because I pride myself.
I pride myself on that. But you keep taking another
level that I don't even like. Go to the beach,
I dig real deep, love it.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I'm with you, Aaron. I like, okay, see in
this aspect of it, because once you win, it's harder
to come back there. Somebody they're gonna have, they're gonna
have to Max. You're the guy of curses. I mean
you love curses. Hey, it's hard to repeat and and
win that nature I mean, have they have they maxed
SG yet he's I mean he should be getting close.
(40:03):
He should be due right pretty soon. I'm not sure
if no one ever talks about.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
It, they're gonna have to max him. They're gonna have
to max JDub. They're gonna have to max home Shed Holmgren.
I mean now he's still on a rookie deal. Yeah,
but how many years away is that though?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I mean, things get sped up when you win the
championship though, And because other people might be I hope.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
You're right, because what I'm watching right now is just nauseating.
They got a Max lou Dort, the greatest defensive player
in the history of anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
By the way, it's never filed anymore.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Yeah, talk about can you you know, Jim, you're really
good at reesing. I mean, now won a roll where
you guys blew it the uh you want? Can you
research something, Jim?
Speaker 6 (40:47):
How many times he stepped on someone's foot?
Speaker 5 (40:49):
No, that's a good one though. How many times has
lou Dort filed out in his NBA career? I'd love
to see that because I watched two of our guys
get filed out in Detroit last Sunday, Carlo and oly
It both filed out in the same game.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
How many times has lou Doord ever filed outright? I
got it ready? Yeah? Ten times? Really? That many? Wow?
Ten times. He has committed one thousand and thirty three
personal fouls in his career and he's only filed out
ten times out there, it is all right? Well boy,
that's thanks for the quick answer.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I thought it was less than that.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
He did have a technical foul rescinded, Oh sure, I'm sure,
of course, Gus.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Do we need to start having like a regular segment
where graph just unloads on?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
How about graph.
Speaker 6 (41:40):
Vent Yes, yes, grafs, grievances.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Graphs grief. That's perfect. I like that. I like that.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
I'll do it. I'll do next year. Next year when
we're on radio round table. Okay, I will do a
graphs grief come up with a sound uh from the
past's got a lot of work to do this off season.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. That could be.
That could definitely be the closing category two and I
will awards. I will who do you dislike the most season?
There's a lot of I mean, go Bear is going
to be a finalist. Every year, right, would you say,
go Beart is a finalist?
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Give me a three finalists, Rudy Gobert, Lou Dort, who else?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
She's the list? The list is long and illustrious. Uh
la boo boo boo boo. Really have all of them?
Come on?
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Man, uh god, I gotta look at teams.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Let him get in the lab. I gotta get the lab.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
This is way too many candidates.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, that is definitely gonna be a category.
Speaker 5 (42:53):
He's thinking, Oh god, sheese boom. Who am I going
to do? I told you who am I? Who am
I just gonna absolutely unload on Friday Night. I just
told you this ten minutes ago. Randon pagem Screen, who
I hold personally responsible for this entire season when he
haphazardly and recklessly dove into herb Jones's shoulder in the
(43:17):
third game of the season, hurting her, putting him out
for a month. And of course we know where herb
Jones is right now. I fully blame Brandon Pajemski.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Let it all out, grapheven, this is seventy three game.
Here the music. I gotta go. There's the music. I
gotta go for Tigraffanini, Aaron Summers, thank you so much
for this wonderful segment, the inaugural Annual Helly's Awards, and
so much more. Thank you, fellas, we'll see you soon.
Our thanks to Tigraphani and Aaron Summers as It's always
(43:48):
fun we do that, And I love that we got
a handful of more categories. You gotta get in the lab.
As he said, it just the first year. The first year,
you're gonna have to find some stuff. Maybe.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
I don't know if we want to find more categories
that will intages Graf or bring him down.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Which direction we want to go, if we want to
if we want to get him to cool off a
little bit, if we want him to keep going down
this road of intense animosity.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
But we'll we'll work on that during the summer.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
That is a very good point. Tgi. Jim.
Speaker 9 (44:19):
It's Friday, which means mister Eichenhoffer has a pair of
things for us, trending numbers and.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Weekend Showdown.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
What are we starting with, Jim.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Well, Mellory, let's start with the weekend Showdown, because I
have a trending number that I think is gonna be
a lot of fun and maybe interesting to some people.
Weekend Showdown is Saturday at seven pm the Lakers at
the Grizzlies. This is a there's a very tight battle
in the West going on right now for seeds three
through five. Right now, the Lakers and Grizzlies could be
matched up at the four to five series, so this
(44:55):
could be a playoff preview. Should be a really interesting game.
In twenty twenty three, the Lakers played the Grizzlies in
Round one and the Lakers were able to eliminate Memphis
four to two.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
So I think that's.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
A weekend game that a lot of people will have
their eyes on and has some major ramifications. In terms
of the trending number, the trending numbers is seven and thirteen,
and that is this is I thought about this in
terms of I was trying to think of is there
a theme to this weekend for the Pelicans in terms
of the teams that they're playing against with you know,
(45:28):
Golden State on Friday and then Charlotte on Sunday. Do
you realize, Gus that if you look at the all
time NBA three point percentage leaders, that three of the
top forty in the history of the league. Three of
those gentlemen will all be in the blender this weekend,
and all from the same family. Nonetheless. Okay, so trending
(45:50):
number seven and thirteen. Seth Curry is seventh all time
at forty three point three percent. Steph Curry is thirteenth
at forty two point three percent. Their father, Del Curry
is fortieth all time at forty point two percent. He
is Charlotte's TV analyst, so he gets to call all
(46:11):
of his son, Seth's game, who is a guard for
the Charlotte Hornets.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
So therefore, this is one of my favorite trending rubbers
the whole season. So we will have three Curries in
the SMOOTHI King Center this weekend, all of them ranked
in the top forty all time in three point percentage.
Big weekend for the Curry family. If you see a
Curry family member in town, maybe on Saturday, you'll understand
why this is a big This is a big weekend
(46:36):
for them to.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Be in New Orleans. You know, it's interesting. We know Dell,
we know Staph. We just finished talking about him. Not
a lot of people kind of really talk about Sev.
It was surprising and you just gave me his all
time number where he's seventh.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Yeah, he's seventh in percentage all time. Yeah, I mean
he's year in and year out. This guy is among
the best guys in three point percentage. I'd have to
check he's this season, he's one or two. He's been
kind of going back and forth with Luke Canard and
I heard out a recent Charlotte broadcast they were talking
about how Seth Curry has to make. He has to
get to eighty two makes this season to qualify for
(47:06):
the league lead.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
But yeah, I mean, he's definitely.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
An underrated guy, but just incredible the Curry family that
all three of those guys are among the greatest three
point shooters in the history of the league. And we
will see two of them play this weekend against the
Pelicans hopefully, and then the data will also be courtside
on the other end of the floor from Joel and
Antonio calling the game on Charlotte Television.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I love that, and that's why we have things like
trading numbers. That was a good trading number. It's really good.
Got me thinking number two. And we'll talk probably a
little bit more about that all right after the game tonight.
Thank you sir. We'll see at the Smoothe King Center.
Sounds good as always. We thank you for tuning in
to the New Orleans Pelicans podcast. We'll see you on Monday.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Thanks for listening to the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast. Join
us three times per week on pelicans dot com, the
Pelicans mobile app, the iHeartRadio app, or where you at
your podcast, and be sure to give Jim and Guss
a follow on x at Jim Underscore I Can Offer
(48:07):
and Gcat Underscore seventeen. We'll see you next time right
here on the New Orleans Pelicans Podcast
Host
Jim Eichenhofer
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