On today's episode, Jason gets the party started by sharing his thoughts on the PGA Tour merging with LIV Golf after years of publicly shaming the golfers who defected to the Saudi-backed golf league. This sudden change of heart feels like it was made out of necessity; perhaps the PGA Tour wasn't as solvent as they led us to believe. Either way, you can't blame a big business for making what they deemed to be a good business decision. Later, J-Mac goes deep on the latest surrounding Kyrie Irving's attempt to recruit LeBron James to the Dallas Mavericks. First off, are we sure Luka Doncic is even on board with Kyrie calling the shots on his team? Secondly, if Dallas does give in to Kyrie's list of demands, would it actually hurt their team's long-term outlook? This is definitely a situation that bears monitoring. Finally, Jason closes the show with his Best Bets for Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What
is up straight Fire? Fam, It's me Jason McIntyre. Straight
Fire for Wednesday, June seventh. Got an NBA basketball game tonight.
(00:25):
Very excited listen. Seasons starting to wind down and I
don't love this extra day off in between finals games.
Kind of a lull. Fortunately, we had massive golf news. Yes,
we'll talk about that shortly. I do have some decent
NBA bets for tonight. Again, I know it's weird. Game One.
Felt confident going in Game one, liked a lot went well.
(00:46):
Don't feel great about anything else right now, Becau. There's
a lot of questions unanswered. We'll get too shortly. And also,
I'm sorry I cannot stop talking for the third day
about Kyrie Irving and the Los Angeles Lakers. Lakers have
shut it down. Nobody's touched the Luca and I will
go there because that's what I do. I'm a Luca guy.
But we got to start with the big Live Tour
(01:07):
PGA Civil War ending unbelievable story. It didn't even break
on a sports outlet. This was not from like a
golf reporter. This is not ESPN, no Fox. It was CNBC.
CNBC broke the news. I think that's kind of telling
that the PGA Tour and the Live after two years
of you know, mud slinging and lawsuits, it's over. They
(01:29):
are going to merge. And the news caught a lot
of people by storm. You saw some golfers on Tuesday
not really happy at one went down and listen, I
know a lot of there's not a lot of casual
golfers out there. They only want to tune in on
Sunday if Tiger Woods is in the mix. Just there's
something here that I think you're gonna be interested in,
even if you don't really like golf. So for the
longest time, the PGA Tour had been using the media.
(01:52):
They had been leaning on politicians to bash the Live Tour.
Saudi Arabia was throwing around all this money. Of course,
you had media columnists and golf columnists, sports writers everywhere,
talking heads talking about how how could Phil Mickelson take
that blood money? And they were talking about they were
(02:12):
really just making Saudi Arabia look bad. And listen, obviously,
Saudi Arabia, hey, the other side of the world, they
do things a little bit differently. Nobody's justifying any of that.
But he had all these hot people high on their
horse getting up saying, well, how could Mickelson do? I
just can't believe that. I applaud Tiger Woods for not
accepting the nine figures that Live was reportedly offering him.
(02:34):
I saw as high as a billion dollars. Again, these
are just reports. But they wanted to pull Tiger, and
Tiger said, no, let's hold the line. All these PGA
Tour golfers, we should stay. I got a couple of
names here. Matsuyama apparently was offered three hundred million dollars.
Will Xalatorus offered one hundred and fifty million, reportedly to
join the Live Tour. They said, no, okay, we know
(02:56):
anybody with a brain, one hundred and fifty million dollars
is not that's not generational wealth. That's you know, your family,
your kids, your grandkids. You're great, great, they're all gonna
eat forever. Everybody's set up. If you get a one hundred
and fifty mil from the Saudis to join the Live Tour,
and the PGA begged these guys not to go. The
guy Jay Monahan looks like the real idiot here. I
(03:18):
don't know how he keeps his job. I'm not gonna,
you know, litigate whether or not he should be bounced.
Apparently he's been there six years now as PGA Tour commission.
Players are not happy. I don't know how you can
trust a word out of his mouth or anything coming
out of the PGA. Now after they slam the Saudis,
bashed them, beg players not to leave, and then now
get in bed with them. It's just a little hypocritical
(03:40):
of the PGA. They've got a lot of explaining to do.
I think Phil Mickelson was probably, you know, enjoying a
Scrooge McDuck victory lap, just swimming around in cash. He
took the money and now he gets back on the
PGA tour. It's kind of interesting, like what is going
to fall out here? Now? There's a lot of unanswered questions. Obviously,
I do want to say another note that I have here.
(04:03):
Look there PGA and Liver trying to spin this as
a win win. Hey, hey, PGA tour gets the money.
They need some reports claiming PGA tour like not going great,
could use the finances, so it's a win for them. Obviously,
the Saudis, they get thrust in more. Keep an eye
on the Saudis and soccer. Remember the whole Ronaldo thing.
Let's see what MESSI ends up doing. And you know, yeah,
(04:26):
I'm not going to get into on a sports podcast
whether Saudi Arabia is whitewashing sports and trying to erase
their history of really unscrupulous actions. But I do want
to remind people US government, and you could read it
on their website they've been in bed with the Saudis
for eight decades. Okay, so slamming golfers for tickets and money.
(04:51):
US government has been working with the Saudis for eight decades.
Do you go read It's right on the US government website.
I had to look it up. I was a little stunt,
but take a sip. One thing. I did want to add.
This whole outrage, just faux outrage from the media. How
could the PGA do this? How could they cave? Listen,
(05:11):
a lot of these guys have never run a business.
Sometimes you run a business, you see the writing on
the wall. You got to make a decision. It may
not be a popular decision, it may not be a
decision you want to make, but you want to save
the business, save jobs, save your job. You have to
make some decisions now. Again, I know people are gonna say,
oh yeah, Jason, what if it was you know, Vladimir Putin?
How about that? Well, would you change your mind? Let's
(05:33):
just deal in reality. Okay, let's not go into what
if land. But the reality is the PGA Tour needed
to do this deal. The live golfers were kind of
sort of thriving. Okay, this helps the PGA. They've got
explaining to do to a lot of their golfers. I
would not be shocked if Monahan lost his job, but
this is one of those situations where like you kind
(05:56):
of got to make a decision. And a lot of
these guys you're gonna read columns and columns and hear
talking heads. These guys have never run a business. As
a guy who's run a business, I can tell you
sometimes you got to make tough decisions. Now, I had
a small business. Obviously, the website didn't always it wasn't
always great. You had to make some tough decisions, and
that's what being a business is all about. Right. A
(06:20):
lot of these writers they've never run a business, had
to hire anybody had to fire. Anybody had to make
tough decisions, and I'm not going to crush the PGA
for this. I can understand how they look like the
biggest loser and how it's not going to be, you know,
well regarded by a lot of players in the media,
but the reality is they probably have their reasons for
doing this deal. PGA is not going to really crack
(06:41):
open the books and show everybody what's going on. But
I think it's a fascinating merger. And you know, hey,
welcome to twenty twenty three, where a lot of craziness
is happening in sports. Before we get to Nuggets heat,
I have to absolutely have to chime in on this
Lebron Kyrie MAVs Laker story. Okay, we're in I guess
day three now of the saga, and we've covered the
(07:05):
Kyrie extensively. We can recover some of that if you want.
We've looked at the Lebron, which seems like the least likely.
Nobody seems to be talking about the Luka Doncic angle
of this Kyrie Lebron MAVs idea. We'll just call it
an idea because the chances of it happened are extremely slim.
I need to ask you guys something. So, Luka Doncic
(07:27):
was drafted by the MAVs. Remember there was that draft
day trade with the Trey Young Luka Doncic decision on
the draft, Lucas the franchise guy, instantly becomes a superhero
in the league, instantly becomes an All NBA player. He's
clearly a franchise Pillar MVP candidate. And they go to
the Conference finals last year. That's after we went to
(07:47):
to toe with Kawhi and Paul George in back to
back years in the first round. Then Kyrie Irving comes
in midway through last season after forcing a trade. So
Kyrie Irving has been in Dallas for like seven minutes,
and Kyrie Irving is not even unpacked in whatever hotel
he's staying at, because we know he didn't buy no
property there or wherever. He's airbnbing and he's now trying
(08:12):
to call the shots in Dallas. We should add Lebron James. Listen,
nobody's going to turn down a thirty eight year old
Lebron James. He's a historically great player. I've called him
the best player in league history. I know some people
hate that and they was there, Jordan George, whatever, I'm
not doing that now. Who is Kyrie Irving to come
(08:32):
into Dallas and instantly start calling the shots on what
this team needs and what he can deliver. The last
time Kyrie tried to put a team together in Brooklyn,
it failed spectacularly, the Kevin Durant team. They didn't win anything,
they didn't get to the finals because Kyrie Irving's not
a leader. But he's now in Dallas trying to call
the shots and pull Lebron in from LA. So we
(08:54):
know he's not going to get Lebron from LA. That's
a pipe dream. And we know behind the scenes Kyrie's
really angling for a four year deal from Dallas because
he wants the Max. So has anybody asked how Luca
Dantag feels about interloper Kyrie Irving parachuting into Dallas and
all of a sudden saying let's bring in Lebron. That's
our answer. That's how I'm going to stay here, folks.
(09:16):
You know, I like Luca. I went on Undisputed I
think two years ago, said he was the best player
in the league. The Undisputed mob, those crazy fans, they
were very angry with me. Luca held up his end
of the bargain when they went to the conference finals.
Did not do that this past season. I'd blame Kyrie Irving,
but that would be harsh of me, I'm told. I
(09:37):
just wonder at what point if we get to the
scenario or Mark Cuban says, sorry, Kyrie, were not offering
you the four year max, will give you two plus one,
and Kyrie Irving says, not going to do it. I
want the four year max. If you're not going to
give me the max, I'm out of here. And they
dare him to take less money from someone else, that's
(09:58):
going to be a real game of chicken. You're sitting
at a Texas Holden table across from Kyrie Irving, and
you're probably in some trouble because he's unpredictable. You have
no idea he could be bluffing. That's like the last
guy I would want to be at a negotiation table
with because I don't know if he's skipping out of
the league and quitting. I don't know if he would
(10:19):
actually take less money for a year. I can't imagine it,
but would he I don't know, Like Kyrie Irving, over
the last three four years has just kind of gone off.
You just don't know what he's doing. He take he
goes a wall in Brooklyn and then like won't answer
the phone, doesn't tell anybody where he is. That's the
(10:41):
kind of guy. You're gonna offer a Max too, of
course not so then you're looking at Luca. Let's say
Kyrie flies the coup and Kyrie says, you know what,
I'm going to just just gonna joke around here. I'm
going to Washington. He's not going to wash it. Let's
just say he does. Luka donc just looks around and says,
porzingis didn't work. We had Brunson Cuban. You screwed that
(11:04):
up badly. Then you tried to save face and get
at Kyrie Irving in here. Kyrie Irving is now gone.
Lucas looking around. It's like that Will Smith meme from
Fresh Prince, the old Fresh Prince, not the new one
on Peacock. But I do like that show where Will's
standing around there and the living room is empty, and
it's Luca's looking around. He's like, Okay, well I'm not
(11:25):
winning Jack Squat with Tim Hardaway and Davis Bertans get
me out of here, and he demands a trade like
that has to be somewhere on the spectrum of outcomes
in Dallas, like that could legitimately happen. And Mark Cuban's
playing with firefolks, so they ain't getting Lebron. Maybe they
have to do a deal with the Devil and Kyrie
(11:47):
and give them four years. I would hate to do that,
and you also run the risk of alienating Luka Dancic,
who is, without question is one of the three best
players in the league. Way younger than Lebron, way younger
than l Kyrie, younger than Kevin Durant. Like, this is
getting into a danger zone for Mark Cuban and the MAVs. Listen,
he claims to be the greatest business guy ever. Right,
(12:09):
he's on Shark Tank. My kids know what Shark Tank
is because of Mark Cuban. Like, the guy's a good businessman.
But he's done a terrible job, terrible with Jalen Brunson.
And let's see if he can save face with Kyrie Irving.
The only thing better than sitting on your couch watching
the games. He's making money while you do it. Here's
(12:31):
your best bet, all right, let's get to the finals game.
As I'm looking at the odds right now, now, this
is interesting. Denver two and a half at two respected
shops in Las Vegas. One of them has gone to
minus two, So there is money coming in on the heat. Folks.
This is a difficult game because listen, as we talked
with Sodano yesterday, there's a world where Miami somehow wins
(12:56):
this game and then they're up to one in the
finals and then it's like, whoa is Denver shook? I
firmly believe it was just a fourth quarter explosion from
the heat. They cannot duplicate that. No, you're not gonna
shoot eleven for sixteen in the fourth. No you're not
gonna score thirty six points in the fourth in Denver
and win. That's just not gonna happen. Again. A question
(13:17):
is can they unlock Jamal Murray, because, as Steve Kerk
talked about with Draymond Green here on the volume, you
gotta shut down Jamal Murray. If you stop him, what
else you got? Then you become like, wait a minute,
Wait a minute, what's going on with Michael Porter. He
doesn't seem locked in defensively. Oh maybe that's because he
doesn't have the basketball and at one point, like you
(13:39):
guys have all played basketball, I'm in that my men's league.
If there's like four or five trips that I don't
touch the ball, the next time I get it, you
can be damn sure the ball is going up. Now
that's just me. I'm a shooter and playing in a
men's league. I'm not gonna loaf off on defense. But
a pro like Michael Porter, an offensive scoring assassin, Michael
(13:59):
Port jor clearly wasn't involved in the offense, and then
the defensive end was not nearly as locked in. That
is a problem. I don't know how you solve that,
because can you really ask Michael Porter Junior, hey man,
we're gonna get you your shot, and Miami's not leaving
him because they're not doubling Yokic. So now you're like, Okay, well,
if Mpj's not locked in, let's get him off the court.
(14:21):
We're locking down Jamal Murray with Jimmy Butler, we got
Bruce Brown KCP and Aaron Gordon. Of those three guys,
do any of them terrify you? And now all of
a sudden, Denver's looking a little bit kind of thin
now for Miami. If Butler's guarding Jamal Murray, He's not
gonna be able to have one of his thirty point games.
(14:42):
That's just not happening for Butler when you're shadowing Jamal Murray. However,
the opposite is potentially true. Jokic could go for fifty
the way he did against Phoenix, but they've lost every
game when he's gone over forty in the playoffs, zero
to three. So I don't know that I want to
bet the sp I do think a lot of people
like Miami the public, so I would lean Denver on
(15:04):
the money line, but I'm not gonna actually bet that.
I do believe the one thing I'd be looking for,
and this is a tough one because the juice is brutal.
Nicola Jokics assists over nine and a half. We know
he's a triple double king, and he had four assists
last game and they lose, but they were only a
three point or away from winning, so it's close. Miami
(15:26):
slowed the game down to a crawl. I think we'll
see much better tempo in this one. Denver knows they
want to runner. They don't want to let Miami set
up that zone. I think we're just gonna see a
lot more scoring, much higher tempo. So over nine and
a half assists for Yoki's The problem is it's minus
one forty eight. They're doing a basic one hundred dollars bet.
That's one hundred and forty eight dollars to win one
hundred and Jokics needs ten assists. I mean, I like that,
(15:50):
but the juice is scaring me. So then you look
at all right, what about points? Well, this is where
it gets really dicey because they set Jamal Murray's number. Wait,
hold on that points. Yeah, Jamal Murray twenty four and
a half. You want to go over Monus Born twenty
five Jamal Murray not. I mean, listen, he can get
to the foul line, he's money from the foul line,
(16:11):
but he's not really getting to the line. So is
he gonna get open with Jimmy Butler on him again?
I like Jamal Murray. I hype the guy a lot.
I would look away from that. I think, if I'm
gonna target anyone just simply because I believe what he's had,
this is probably a little bit of a bye high.
But bam out of Bayo over nineteen and a half.
He has played ridiculously good through two games. You know,
(16:34):
as if he doesn't have foul trouble. He's playing forty
minutes plus, he's gonna get shots. Butler guarding Jamal Murray
probably not as integrated into the offense because he can
be gassed. I don't expect Struce and Vincent to get
a billion open threes like they did last time. Duncan Robinson.
I mean, could you really count on Duncan Robinson to
have another monster game? Okay, so now you're looking at
(16:55):
who Bam out of Bayo a really good free throw
shooter over nineteen and a half. That's my one bet
over nineteen and a half points for Bam. I do
think Denver wins this. I'll be looking at Denver money
line if Miami wins this, Folks, you gotta be a
little nervous if you're Denver. And that's why I don't
see the Nuggets losing. So I'll pick the Nuggets. I'll
(17:18):
go Nuggets one point fifteen heat one eleven. Bit of
a barn burner. I'll be rooting for Jamal Murray and
Jokic obviously Aaron Gordon as well because the player points pool.
I'm closing in on the championship. Gosh, it feels good
to win. All right, that's it for today. We'll talk
to you tomorrow
The volume. This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What
is up straight Fire? Fam, It's me Jason McIntyre. Straight
Fire for Wednesday, June seventh. Got an NBA basketball game tonight.
(00:25):
Very excited listen. Seasons starting to wind down and I
don't love this extra day off in between finals games.
Kind of a lull. Fortunately, we had massive golf news. Yes,
we'll talk about that shortly. I do have some decent
NBA bets for tonight. Again, I know it's weird. Game One.
Felt confident going in Game one, liked a lot went well.
(00:46):
Don't feel great about anything else right now, Becau. There's
a lot of questions unanswered. We'll get too shortly. And also,
I'm sorry I cannot stop talking for the third day
about Kyrie Irving and the Los Angeles Lakers. Lakers have
shut it down. Nobody's touched the Luca and I will
go there because that's what I do. I'm a Luca guy.
But we got to start with the big Live Tour
(01:07):
PGA Civil War ending unbelievable story. It didn't even break
on a sports outlet. This was not from like a
golf reporter. This is not ESPN, no Fox. It was CNBC.
CNBC broke the news. I think that's kind of telling
that the PGA Tour and the Live after two years
of you know, mud slinging and lawsuits, it's over. They
(01:29):
are going to merge. And the news caught a lot
of people by storm. You saw some golfers on Tuesday
not really happy at one went down and listen, I
know a lot of there's not a lot of casual
golfers out there. They only want to tune in on
Sunday if Tiger Woods is in the mix. Just there's
something here that I think you're gonna be interested in,
even if you don't really like golf. So for the
longest time, the PGA Tour had been using the media.
(01:52):
They had been leaning on politicians to bash the Live Tour.
Saudi Arabia was throwing around all this money. Of course,
you had media columnists and golf columnists, sports writers everywhere,
talking heads talking about how how could Phil Mickelson take
that blood money? And they were talking about they were
(02:12):
really just making Saudi Arabia look bad. And listen, obviously,
Saudi Arabia, hey, the other side of the world, they
do things a little bit differently. Nobody's justifying any of that.
But he had all these hot people high on their
horse getting up saying, well, how could Mickelson do? I
just can't believe that. I applaud Tiger Woods for not
accepting the nine figures that Live was reportedly offering him.
(02:34):
I saw as high as a billion dollars. Again, these
are just reports. But they wanted to pull Tiger, and
Tiger said, no, let's hold the line. All these PGA
Tour golfers, we should stay. I got a couple of
names here. Matsuyama apparently was offered three hundred million dollars.
Will Xalatorus offered one hundred and fifty million, reportedly to
join the Live Tour. They said, no, okay, we know
(02:56):
anybody with a brain, one hundred and fifty million dollars
is not that's not generational wealth. That's you know, your family,
your kids, your grandkids. You're great, great, they're all gonna
eat forever. Everybody's set up. If you get a one hundred
and fifty mil from the Saudis to join the Live Tour,
and the PGA begged these guys not to go. The
guy Jay Monahan looks like the real idiot here. I
(03:18):
don't know how he keeps his job. I'm not gonna,
you know, litigate whether or not he should be bounced.
Apparently he's been there six years now as PGA Tour commission.
Players are not happy. I don't know how you can
trust a word out of his mouth or anything coming
out of the PGA. Now after they slam the Saudis,
bashed them, beg players not to leave, and then now
get in bed with them. It's just a little hypocritical
(03:40):
of the PGA. They've got a lot of explaining to do.
I think Phil Mickelson was probably, you know, enjoying a
Scrooge McDuck victory lap, just swimming around in cash. He
took the money and now he gets back on the
PGA tour. It's kind of interesting, like what is going
to fall out here? Now? There's a lot of unanswered questions. Obviously,
I do want to say another note that I have here.
(04:03):
Look there PGA and Liver trying to spin this as
a win win. Hey, hey, PGA tour gets the money.
They need some reports claiming PGA tour like not going great,
could use the finances, so it's a win for them. Obviously,
the Saudis, they get thrust in more. Keep an eye
on the Saudis and soccer. Remember the whole Ronaldo thing.
Let's see what MESSI ends up doing. And you know, yeah,
(04:26):
I'm not going to get into on a sports podcast
whether Saudi Arabia is whitewashing sports and trying to erase
their history of really unscrupulous actions. But I do want
to remind people US government, and you could read it
on their website they've been in bed with the Saudis
for eight decades. Okay, so slamming golfers for tickets and money.
(04:51):
US government has been working with the Saudis for eight decades.
Do you go read It's right on the US government website.
I had to look it up. I was a little stunt,
but take a sip. One thing. I did want to add.
This whole outrage, just faux outrage from the media. How
could the PGA do this? How could they cave? Listen,
(05:11):
a lot of these guys have never run a business.
Sometimes you run a business, you see the writing on
the wall. You got to make a decision. It may
not be a popular decision, it may not be a
decision you want to make, but you want to save
the business, save jobs, save your job. You have to
make some decisions now. Again, I know people are gonna say,
oh yeah, Jason, what if it was you know, Vladimir Putin?
How about that? Well, would you change your mind? Let's
(05:33):
just deal in reality. Okay, let's not go into what
if land. But the reality is the PGA Tour needed
to do this deal. The live golfers were kind of
sort of thriving. Okay, this helps the PGA. They've got
explaining to do to a lot of their golfers. I
would not be shocked if Monahan lost his job, but
this is one of those situations where like you kind
(05:56):
of got to make a decision. And a lot of
these guys you're gonna read columns and columns and hear
talking heads. These guys have never run a business. As
a guy who's run a business, I can tell you
sometimes you got to make tough decisions. Now, I had
a small business. Obviously, the website didn't always it wasn't
always great. You had to make some tough decisions, and
that's what being a business is all about. Right. A
(06:20):
lot of these writers they've never run a business, had
to hire anybody had to fire. Anybody had to make
tough decisions, and I'm not going to crush the PGA
for this. I can understand how they look like the
biggest loser and how it's not going to be, you know,
well regarded by a lot of players in the media,
but the reality is they probably have their reasons for
doing this deal. PGA is not going to really crack
(06:41):
open the books and show everybody what's going on. But
I think it's a fascinating merger. And you know, hey,
welcome to twenty twenty three, where a lot of craziness
is happening in sports. Before we get to Nuggets heat,
I have to absolutely have to chime in on this
Lebron Kyrie MAVs Laker story. Okay, we're in I guess
day three now of the saga, and we've covered the
(07:05):
Kyrie extensively. We can recover some of that if you want.
We've looked at the Lebron, which seems like the least likely.
Nobody seems to be talking about the Luka Doncic angle
of this Kyrie Lebron MAVs idea. We'll just call it
an idea because the chances of it happened are extremely slim.
I need to ask you guys something. So, Luka Doncic
(07:27):
was drafted by the MAVs. Remember there was that draft
day trade with the Trey Young Luka Doncic decision on
the draft, Lucas the franchise guy, instantly becomes a superhero
in the league, instantly becomes an All NBA player. He's
clearly a franchise Pillar MVP candidate. And they go to
the Conference finals last year. That's after we went to
(07:47):
to toe with Kawhi and Paul George in back to
back years in the first round. Then Kyrie Irving comes
in midway through last season after forcing a trade. So
Kyrie Irving has been in Dallas for like seven minutes,
and Kyrie Irving is not even unpacked in whatever hotel
he's staying at, because we know he didn't buy no
property there or wherever. He's airbnbing and he's now trying
(08:12):
to call the shots in Dallas. We should add Lebron James. Listen,
nobody's going to turn down a thirty eight year old
Lebron James. He's a historically great player. I've called him
the best player in league history. I know some people
hate that and they was there, Jordan George, whatever, I'm
not doing that now. Who is Kyrie Irving to come
(08:32):
into Dallas and instantly start calling the shots on what
this team needs and what he can deliver. The last
time Kyrie tried to put a team together in Brooklyn,
it failed spectacularly, the Kevin Durant team. They didn't win anything,
they didn't get to the finals because Kyrie Irving's not
a leader. But he's now in Dallas trying to call
the shots and pull Lebron in from LA. So we
(08:54):
know he's not going to get Lebron from LA. That's
a pipe dream. And we know behind the scenes Kyrie's
really angling for a four year deal from Dallas because
he wants the Max. So has anybody asked how Luca
Dantag feels about interloper Kyrie Irving parachuting into Dallas and
all of a sudden saying let's bring in Lebron. That's
our answer. That's how I'm going to stay here, folks.
(09:16):
You know, I like Luca. I went on Undisputed I
think two years ago, said he was the best player
in the league. The Undisputed mob, those crazy fans, they
were very angry with me. Luca held up his end
of the bargain when they went to the conference finals.
Did not do that this past season. I'd blame Kyrie Irving,
but that would be harsh of me, I'm told. I
(09:37):
just wonder at what point if we get to the
scenario or Mark Cuban says, sorry, Kyrie, were not offering
you the four year max, will give you two plus one,
and Kyrie Irving says, not going to do it. I
want the four year max. If you're not going to
give me the max, I'm out of here. And they
dare him to take less money from someone else, that's
(09:58):
going to be a real game of chicken. You're sitting
at a Texas Holden table across from Kyrie Irving, and
you're probably in some trouble because he's unpredictable. You have
no idea he could be bluffing. That's like the last
guy I would want to be at a negotiation table
with because I don't know if he's skipping out of
the league and quitting. I don't know if he would
(10:19):
actually take less money for a year. I can't imagine it,
but would he I don't know, Like Kyrie Irving, over
the last three four years has just kind of gone off.
You just don't know what he's doing. He take he
goes a wall in Brooklyn and then like won't answer
the phone, doesn't tell anybody where he is. That's the
(10:41):
kind of guy. You're gonna offer a Max too, of
course not so then you're looking at Luca. Let's say
Kyrie flies the coup and Kyrie says, you know what,
I'm going to just just gonna joke around here. I'm
going to Washington. He's not going to wash it. Let's
just say he does. Luka donc just looks around and says,
porzingis didn't work. We had Brunson Cuban. You screwed that
(11:04):
up badly. Then you tried to save face and get
at Kyrie Irving in here. Kyrie Irving is now gone.
Lucas looking around. It's like that Will Smith meme from
Fresh Prince, the old Fresh Prince, not the new one
on Peacock. But I do like that show where Will's
standing around there and the living room is empty, and
it's Luca's looking around. He's like, Okay, well I'm not
(11:25):
winning Jack Squat with Tim Hardaway and Davis Bertans get
me out of here, and he demands a trade like
that has to be somewhere on the spectrum of outcomes
in Dallas, like that could legitimately happen. And Mark Cuban's
playing with firefolks, so they ain't getting Lebron. Maybe they
have to do a deal with the Devil and Kyrie
(11:47):
and give them four years. I would hate to do that,
and you also run the risk of alienating Luka Dancic,
who is, without question is one of the three best
players in the league. Way younger than Lebron, way younger
than l Kyrie, younger than Kevin Durant. Like, this is
getting into a danger zone for Mark Cuban and the MAVs. Listen,
he claims to be the greatest business guy ever. Right,
(12:09):
he's on Shark Tank. My kids know what Shark Tank
is because of Mark Cuban. Like, the guy's a good businessman.
But he's done a terrible job, terrible with Jalen Brunson.
And let's see if he can save face with Kyrie Irving.
The only thing better than sitting on your couch watching
the games. He's making money while you do it. Here's
(12:31):
your best bet, all right, let's get to the finals game.
As I'm looking at the odds right now, now, this
is interesting. Denver two and a half at two respected
shops in Las Vegas. One of them has gone to
minus two, So there is money coming in on the heat. Folks.
This is a difficult game because listen, as we talked
with Sodano yesterday, there's a world where Miami somehow wins
(12:56):
this game and then they're up to one in the
finals and then it's like, whoa is Denver shook? I
firmly believe it was just a fourth quarter explosion from
the heat. They cannot duplicate that. No, you're not gonna
shoot eleven for sixteen in the fourth. No you're not
gonna score thirty six points in the fourth in Denver
and win. That's just not gonna happen. Again. A question
(13:17):
is can they unlock Jamal Murray, because, as Steve Kerk
talked about with Draymond Green here on the volume, you
gotta shut down Jamal Murray. If you stop him, what
else you got? Then you become like, wait a minute,
Wait a minute, what's going on with Michael Porter. He
doesn't seem locked in defensively. Oh maybe that's because he
doesn't have the basketball and at one point, like you
(13:39):
guys have all played basketball, I'm in that my men's league.
If there's like four or five trips that I don't
touch the ball, the next time I get it, you
can be damn sure the ball is going up. Now
that's just me. I'm a shooter and playing in a
men's league. I'm not gonna loaf off on defense. But
a pro like Michael Porter, an offensive scoring assassin, Michael
(13:59):
Port jor clearly wasn't involved in the offense, and then
the defensive end was not nearly as locked in. That
is a problem. I don't know how you solve that,
because can you really ask Michael Porter Junior, hey man,
we're gonna get you your shot, and Miami's not leaving
him because they're not doubling Yokic. So now you're like, Okay, well,
if Mpj's not locked in, let's get him off the court.
(14:21):
We're locking down Jamal Murray with Jimmy Butler, we got
Bruce Brown KCP and Aaron Gordon. Of those three guys,
do any of them terrify you? And now all of
a sudden, Denver's looking a little bit kind of thin
now for Miami. If Butler's guarding Jamal Murray, He's not
gonna be able to have one of his thirty point games.
(14:42):
That's just not happening for Butler when you're shadowing Jamal Murray. However,
the opposite is potentially true. Jokic could go for fifty
the way he did against Phoenix, but they've lost every
game when he's gone over forty in the playoffs, zero
to three. So I don't know that I want to
bet the sp I do think a lot of people
like Miami the public, so I would lean Denver on
(15:04):
the money line, but I'm not gonna actually bet that.
I do believe the one thing I'd be looking for,
and this is a tough one because the juice is brutal.
Nicola Jokics assists over nine and a half. We know
he's a triple double king, and he had four assists
last game and they lose, but they were only a
three point or away from winning, so it's close. Miami
(15:26):
slowed the game down to a crawl. I think we'll
see much better tempo in this one. Denver knows they
want to runner. They don't want to let Miami set
up that zone. I think we're just gonna see a
lot more scoring, much higher tempo. So over nine and
a half assists for Yoki's The problem is it's minus
one forty eight. They're doing a basic one hundred dollars bet.
That's one hundred and forty eight dollars to win one
hundred and Jokics needs ten assists. I mean, I like that,
(15:50):
but the juice is scaring me. So then you look
at all right, what about points? Well, this is where
it gets really dicey because they set Jamal Murray's number. Wait,
hold on that points. Yeah, Jamal Murray twenty four and
a half. You want to go over Monus Born twenty
five Jamal Murray not. I mean, listen, he can get
to the foul line, he's money from the foul line,
(16:11):
but he's not really getting to the line. So is
he gonna get open with Jimmy Butler on him again?
I like Jamal Murray. I hype the guy a lot.
I would look away from that. I think, if I'm
gonna target anyone just simply because I believe what he's had,
this is probably a little bit of a bye high.
But bam out of Bayo over nineteen and a half.
He has played ridiculously good through two games. You know,
(16:34):
as if he doesn't have foul trouble. He's playing forty
minutes plus, he's gonna get shots. Butler guarding Jamal Murray
probably not as integrated into the offense because he can
be gassed. I don't expect Struce and Vincent to get
a billion open threes like they did last time. Duncan Robinson.
I mean, could you really count on Duncan Robinson to
have another monster game? Okay, so now you're looking at
(16:55):
who Bam out of Bayo a really good free throw
shooter over nineteen and a half. That's my one bet
over nineteen and a half points for Bam. I do
think Denver wins this. I'll be looking at Denver money
line if Miami wins this, Folks, you gotta be a
little nervous if you're Denver. And that's why I don't
see the Nuggets losing. So I'll pick the Nuggets. I'll
(17:18):
go Nuggets one point fifteen heat one eleven. Bit of
a barn burner. I'll be rooting for Jamal Murray and
Jokic obviously Aaron Gordon as well because the player points pool.
I'm closing in on the championship. Gosh, it feels good
to win. All right, that's it for today. We'll talk
to you tomorrow
Host
Jason McIntyre
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