March 6, 2025 • 67 mins
Nick Wright opens up about what Around the Horn being cancelled and what the show meant to him. Then, Nick gets into the matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks and Jeanie Buss’ comments on the Luka-AD trade. Later, Nick discusses the path back to relevance for the Dallas Mavericks, Shaq claiming Steph Curry should be in the GOAT conversation, and the Kansas City Chiefs sending Joe Thuney to the Chicago Bears. Finally, as always, Nick and Damonza answer your questions. #Volume
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in What's Right with Me? Great episode three oh six,
A ton to do today? Demand in Los Angeles, me
here in New York. By the way, for people watching
on YouTube, we have sent off to the framers more
things for our background, so hopefully in the next couple
of weeks the background will get filled up a little
(00:21):
bit more. You also might in the background, see like,
are those a couple of microphones far in the distance?
They are? That's for the podcast we're developing. That'll be
me and a different member of the family when in
studio here, and by studio I mean Demand's old bedroom
so and so, which is our new podcast studio. So
(00:46):
that'll be so that'll be coming in short order. We
have the setup for that here. Demanse, how are you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm doing great this morning. How you doing, Pops?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You sound great? Wow? Yeah, I don't know what's change
with your microphone or maybe in a late stage final puberty.
You sound like even deeper points than usual. But you said,
I'm bro Let's get right to it. So here's what
missed the cut. The Cavs clinched the playoffs last night.
That missed the cut Max Crosby getting thirty five and
(01:17):
a half million dollars per year that missed the cut,
and James Harden with his first fifty point game as
a Clipper. Also, it's now I think the third time
in his career he has had a game with fifteen
points on twos, fifteen points on threes, fifteen points on
(01:37):
three throws, and a few other you know, random stats
where he's the only guy to ever do that. I
was going to start the show on around the Horn,
and we are gonna get to around the Horn in
just a moment. But first I just a little a
little point of order, because I did notice yesterday that
(01:57):
there have been some folks friends of mine that, you know,
bowing out is one way to put it, Waving the
white flag is another way to put it. Who are like,
you know what this Jordan Lebron debate, let's retire it.
And usually, in my experience, people that are that have
(02:18):
been very ardent and adamant about something for years and
years and years and they just seemingly out of the
blue be like, I don't want to argue about this anymore.
Usually it means they have a lose they know they
have a losing hand. Very rarely are people right when
they're about to win an argument, be like, you know what,
let's just shake hands and move on. So that's fine.
(02:42):
I've always said history is gonna look fondly on the
correct side of the argument, which is mine. But the
point of order that I must address, which is even
the folks who argue that Lebron is the goat, far
too many of them say and Jordan had the higher peak,
just like as a given. But and then they do
(03:05):
a whole thing, but the you know, Lebron's longevity in
this and that, and the third we did a whole
show on this once before, so we don't have to
do a whole show where he kind of broke it
down different slices. But I just want to remind the
audience in America the single greatest season of professional basketball
ever played by any player was the twenty twelve twenty
(03:28):
thirteen Lebron James Miami Heat season. No player has ever
reached a higher peak than the following one vote for
being unanimous MVP when no one had ever been unanimous
MVP runner up and Defensive Player of the Year when
the guy who beat him in Defensive Player of the
Year wasn't even first team All defense, shooting fifty seven
(03:51):
percent from the floor and forty percent from three, a
twenty seven game winning streak. It's all culminating in a
Game seven of the Finals, where he hit the game
clinching jump shot for thirty seven and twelve against a
(04:11):
team with four future first Ballot Hall of Famers. That
season is the greatest single season start to finish any
players ever had. So it's not just the longevity side
of it, it's the peak side of it as well.
Now we can move on to the actual show. Go ahead,
(04:33):
all right?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, So, after twenty three years and over forty nine
hundred episodes Around the Horn espns, Around the Horn has
coming to a halt May twenty third, what are your
thoughts on it ending and what did the show mean
to you?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
All right? So I can't speak to why it's ending.
It doesn't really make sense to me. But I don't
I don't know, you know, I can't look at their books.
I don't know what their plans are. They can do
whatever whatever they want. I do want to say, as
someone who has not ever been bashful about criticizing either
(05:09):
shows or personalities or opinions, really more opinions than people
that I disagree with that. I do not think it
is an exaggeration to say for me personally, Around the
Horn was the single most important sports show that ever existed.
(05:33):
And for me personally, I know I wouldn't be doing
what I'm doing now on television if not for Around
the Horn. For I'm forty years old. For people my generation,
(05:55):
the combo in our teen years of PTI coming on
the air, and then Around the Horn coming on after
being our for so many of us, the first shows
we ever DVRD being daily after school viewing, and then
(06:18):
Around the Horn for those of us who were getting
into the business being seemingly an attainable goal of like, man,
one day I'm going to be on Around the Horn
and having that be a carrot of if I work
(06:41):
hard enough, if I can make myself a name within
my city big enough, man, maybe just maybe I can
get on Around the Horn. And it was a show
(07:01):
for writers, initially exclusively, and then it expanded a bit,
and then I saw Bomani Jones on there, and I
understand BALMANI was a writer as well as other things,
but I didn't view Bimani as a writer. I viewed
Bomani as a radio host. He hosted The Morning Jones
on Sirius XM, and that's before Bamani was one of
(07:24):
my dearest friends in the world. He was a guy
who I knew of his radio show, I knew of
his Twitter presence, and I knew of him on Around
the Horn. And once Bomani got on Around the Horn,
I was like, I'm gonna I I need to get
on that show. I'm going to work to get on
that show. And in Houston, I kind of talked my
(07:50):
way into a It wasn't even a part time job,
just an occasional appearance gig on Comcast Sports at Houston.
And the reason I did it was to create a
television reel to try to get on Around the Horn.
(08:11):
And that shows ability to give people reps on TV,
opportunities to do TV and what it has done for
people in our industry's careers is unlike any other show
that I think has ever existed. And the fact that
(08:34):
along the way post Max Kell and I have so
many I will I'm gonna spend real time on this.
My connections to Around the Horn without ever being on
it is It's remarkable when I look back and think
on it, so I'll tell those stories in a moment,
but post Max Kellerman, who did a great job with it,
(09:00):
and then Reality takes it over, and Tony Reality, who
at one day I'll meet him, but I've never met him.
Tony Reality's ability from when he was a kid taking
over that show and kind of being the conscience of
(09:24):
that show and the through line of the show is
one of the most impressive broadcasting feats in our industry ever.
And I Reality would tweet out texts he would send
people saying like, you know that it was gonna be
(09:46):
their first time, you know you're gonna invite someone on
a show, first time on the show, and all that stuff.
And there was a period of time where I thought
I might be getting an invite this nine years ago,
(10:07):
and Reality tweeted getting ready to inte something. I'm gonna
misquote it a bit, but you know, getting ready to
send out an invite to someone who's never been on
a show, and then described the person, and I convinced
myself it was me he was talking about, and I
was just waiting. I remember I was in an airport
(10:28):
and I was so nervous. I'm like, I'm gonna be
on the plane and I might not get the text.
And then I got on the plane, no service, get
off the plane, turn my phone back on. Don't have
the text, and I checked and see it was like,
oh man, it wasn't me. And I just it was
such a goal and a valuable thing. And I'm sad
(10:52):
it's gonna be gone. And when I say my connections
to it, demanse, the through lines of this are truly
gonna blow your mind. Okay, so I already mentioned Kellerman
was the original host. Kellerman I interned at ESPN Radio
twenty years ago in New York. ESPN Radio, New York,
(11:14):
and Kellerman was one of the guys I interned for.
But that wasn't a real connection. I mean, I knew
him and he was super nice to me, but that
wasn't the connection. The connection is the following. Okay, it's
thirteen years ago. I set up a meeting. I'm gonna
(11:40):
go to New York. I'm doing radio in Houston. I'm
gonna fly to New York and I'm gonna meet with
two people. One is Eric Rideholme, who created Around the Horn,
and the other is Jamie Horowitz, who was a big
(12:01):
wig at ESPN kind of on the TV show side
first take. He then ended up being well, I'll get
to the Jamie piece of it in a minute, and
I'm gonna go meet with those people and sell them on.
Let me have a shot on this show. Let me
have a shot on Around the Horn. And I fly
(12:25):
into New York on my own dime. And when I land,
I check my email and my meeting with Jamie has
been canceled because he got called into Bristol. And I
now have a meeting with someone else who I don't
(12:53):
really know who he is, but when I see the name,
I'm like, oh, I recognize this name. I've heard this
guy on Bill Simmons podcast and he's a different executive
at ESPN, And so I have about I have a
night before that. I flew in it like I don't know,
Tuesday night. The meetings are Wednesday morning. I'm gonna meet
(13:15):
in with this meet with this guy who's not Jamie,
and then I'm gonna meet with ride home and I
prep and I listen to all these podcasts that this
guy's been on and I walk into his office and
I pitch and I know his story and the guy
(13:37):
at the end of it of my Pitch is like
all right, yeah, I mean that's that's interesting, but you know,
like I have nothing to do with that show, right,
I was like, damn, that person was Kevin Wilds. That's
a true story. I then I'm like, well, this meeting
(14:01):
went just terribly, Like this guy thinks I'm a fool
and I'm wasting his time and he's he's working on
the Olberman show. Like that went terribly. I didn't meet
with ride Home, who is one of the kindest, most
brilliant people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing in
(14:25):
the kind of dining area of the Whole Foods in
Columbus Circle. And I I'm going to see if I
can pull this up the email bring manilla envelopes, So
this one I did not, So I have the I
didn't do theanilla envelope thing. But let me see the
(14:47):
I want to spell his name right in the email.
See if I can find the email. But I see,
so I can get the exact date. So the first date, Okay,
so this is we met in November of thirteen. In
November of thirteen is when we met, and when I
(15:12):
went to New York, and so this is twelve years ago,
like I thought. And so the meeting went really well
with ride home, but he was like, listen, we do
have you know, you're not a writer essentially, but that
doesn't the door is not closed to you. So I
kind of pitched him my pitch to ride home if
(15:34):
I remember, In fact, I'll just tell you, guys, I
do remember. I don't want to act like I'm not
sure I do remember. My pitch to ride home was
this they had at that point on around the Horn
kind of old journalists and then the new wave young
(15:55):
journalists who they brought on. And the old journalists were
almost all white guys and all and the vast majority
of the new way the newer guys they had brought
on were minorities and women, and so I what I
(16:15):
said to him was, I was like, what, as an
audience member, very often you are having disagreements that I
think break down on generational levels, but appear to be
breaking down on either racial or gender angles. Because all
(16:38):
the old guys are white males, and almost all the
young people are, you know, either women or non white guys.
I was like, so you you Basically my pitch was
you need an older black panelist and a younger white
panelist to see like, wait, is this a generational disagreement
or a cultural racial whatever it was? And he was perceptive,
(17:00):
but I wasn't a writer. And so that was in thirteen.
Fast forward to a couple years later, Jamie gets hired
from ESPN and some other places to run FS one
and I called in the chit of he had canceled
(17:25):
that meeting on me to get a meeting with him
that was actually supposed to be about Fox Sports Radio.
That's a whole nother, longer, more convoluted story, doesn't matter,
And I ended up getting it because the around the
because he had canceled on me before. He then connected
me to a guy named Charlie Dixon, who I ended
(17:49):
up hitting it off with, and then they those two
guys hired me for FS one, and to this date,
Charlie's my boss. In the midst of all of it.
In the midst of all of that, right before I
agreed to a deal with Fox, ESPN came back to me.
(18:13):
This is in twenty sixteen. January twenty sixteen, ESPN came
back to me and offered me a job doing radio
in LA and weekly Around the Horn appearances and the
(18:33):
moment they offered me that, I was like, well, I'm
taking that job I want. I'm a radio guy and
I'm gonna get to be on Around the Horn. And
then Charlie, to his credit, called me and in a
thirty minute conversation sold me on why I should come
(18:54):
to Fox, and it ended up being the best decision
I ever made. I wouldn't have had this trajectory or whatever.
And my only like wistfulness of it was, man, if
I do this, I'll probably never get to be on
around the Horn. And now you know, now officially I won't.
(19:18):
And that's fine. I have there's no no regrets. But
that show meant a lot to me. So I know, listen,
that's twenty minutes of today's show. I don't know how
much the audience cares. I hope they care. I care,
and just shout out to the people who made that
show to ride Home and Solomon and Reality and Reality
(19:43):
Pardon Me and the countless panelists and all of it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And so yeah, the question was what does it mean
to you? I think you did a good job at
makes sense?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I mean, no, I know, I certainly a The question
that my question was, does the audience give a shit
about my answer to the question I have to do.
But uh but yeah, so there it is, all right,
let's do uh the actual sports stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, so we got Knicks Lakers tonight, Lakers. They are
seventeen and three over their last twenty. Cat missed the
last game they lost to Golden State, but he should
be back, which is gonna be good for them. They're
zero to eight against Boston, Cleveland, Oklahoma City and the Lakers,
so tonight with Kat should be a good test for them.
You said that they're going in the wrong direction though,
(20:34):
What's what's going on?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Then?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, I just don't think. I don't think the Knicks
can beat the best teams in basketball. And they were
they were built in a way where they're supposed to
be able to beat the best teams in basketball. That's
the problem. You don't go you don't go out and
(20:56):
spend this type of money on trade for Karl Anthony
Towns not the money thing, and trade for McHale Bridges
to be in the same spot the Knicks are supposed
to be having this season, the Cabs are having, maybe
not the gaudy record, but like, oh man, they really
(21:18):
might be able to beat the selfish Yes, exactly right,
and instead they just get their teeth kicked in by
good teams. Now, it is usually in moments like this
that you get you know, the league zags a bit,
(21:43):
where this is the when everyone is super high on
the Lakers right now and way low on the Knicks
against good teams, the type of game you're not that
shocked if the Knicks win tonight, and I wouldn't be
that shocked if the Knicks win tonight the Lakers and
will get more on the Lakers in a minute. The
Lakers can't stay this hot. I mean they're on. I
(22:08):
mean they're on a seventy win pace for the last
quarter of the season. I mean that's well. I think
that their defense can be really good. They have the
number one Let me rephrase that. I think their defense
can be good. Their defense during this stretch has been great.
(22:30):
I think that is probably Yeah. I think that water
will find its level a bit there. But I just
don't to me, there are six teams that can win
the title demonse six and this is not in the order,
but in the East Boston, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and in the West,
(22:58):
the Lakers, the thun and Denver and to it is
you put those teams into two separate buckets, Boston Cleveland. Oksee,
you put in the outstanding rosters eight deep. You know,
(23:19):
like that are going to be able to play a
bunch of different ways, in a bunch of different you
know it, styles, all of it. And then Lakers, Bucks
Nuggets you put in the star driven Well, yeah, I
mean you're probably just gonna have the best player on
(23:42):
the floor. And it was you know for what, Jokic,
It's it's you have this transcendent superstar and then an
awesome number two. So the reason Milwaukee is back in
that group is Dame is playing like an awesome number
or two. The reason Denver is back in that group
(24:03):
is Jamal Murray now that he's in shape, is playing
like an awesome number two. And the reason the Lakers
are back in that group is because man, oh Man
Luke is a hell of a number two. I'm kidding, no,
yeah no, Because now that the Lakers are in a
position where Lebron in a playoff series can be their
(24:28):
second best player, they're they're wildly dangerous, wildly dangerous, and
I am in shout out to Sam Amic for writing
an article owning it. I'm really curious what Barkley's gonna
say tonight. I am shocked that there were a lot
(24:48):
of folks who thought Lebron wouldn't be able to instantly
adjust how he plays. The idea like, this is what
I want to say about Lebron, and then Demon's say,
I do want to do? We skipped it. But the
Steph and the Goat conversation. The there the amount of
(25:14):
people who act like Lebron plays for lack of a
better term, a selfish style of basketball in the face
of twenty years of history, was really odd to me.
(25:36):
And by that I mean this the idea that Lebron
has played at times kind of the heliocentric I need
to control everything style in service of his ego as
opposed to in service of this is the best way
(25:57):
to win. I thought it was odd that folks were like, well,
Lebron doesn't play without the ball in his hands. He
hasn't except for a couple years in Miami, really had
the opportunity to play without the ball in his hands
(26:19):
because he's never had a teammate where the team has
a better chance of creating great offense, running the show
that gives them a better chance than with them running
the show rather than Lebron. Lebron is a guy who
I think it's pretty clear could have in his prime
won the scoring title any year he wanted to, and
(26:42):
instead he won one. Ever why because he was doing
what would have been best for the team when they
get Luca. What's best for the team is for Luca
to be running the show a lot, and Lebron instantly
did that, of course, and also to me, not surprisingly,
now that Lebron doesn't have to run the show on offense,
(27:05):
he has more energy on defense. So the Lakers are
a top tier contender. And JJ Reddick has done and
I gotta give him credit, man, he has done an
awesome job. They are buttoned up, they are prepared. He
(27:25):
is grinding his ass off and they It is been
really impressive watching him and watching them. They've been without
Reeves and Ruey and they're doing this. So I'm super
excited for Nicks Lakers tonight. There is a chance I
(27:48):
do a live reaction pod after the game, like for
like twenty minutes. The problem with that is that was
my plan, and then I think think when I made
that plan, I was in New Zealand, and I had
the time of the game all screwed up because it
was showing me the time in New Zealand, and I
(28:08):
didn't do the math right. That game's gonna end. That
game's gonna end around one am Eastern. So like I
so I so I'm not. It's less about me. I'm
always if I stay up to watch a big game,
I always have trouble going to sleep. So it's less
(28:29):
about like me falling, like needing to go right to bed.
It's more about two things. One is I don't know
how to do any of the tech stuff, so somebody's
got to be up on the other end doing that.
And the other one is this I'm quite loud and
me doing this pod at one am in a sleeping house,
(28:53):
and you know the geography of the house, demons a
sleeping right next to a window. It's all no, but
it's all like our neighbors. So so it's maybe I'll
do a live reaction show. I'm not sure. All right,
let's talk Steph for a minute.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, so Shaq said that Steph deserves to be in
the goat conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Do you think that's a right take to have?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Sadly no, So let's talk best point guard ever. We've
done this before, I'll do it again just quickly here.
Magic Johnson, I believe this in my bones, is the
greatest point guard in NBA history. And Magic Johnson. It's
(29:42):
not only that as a rookie one Finals MVP, now
we shouldn't have Kareem should have won it, but had
one of the single greatest finals games ever playing center,
just being utterly dominant to win a championship as a
rookie right after winning a championship in college. If people
(30:05):
don't know what I'm talking about, the Kareem was out
so magic jump center as a rookie against Doctor J
and the Sixers and dropped forty two, fifteen and seven
to win a championship in the finals. That almost gets
talked about too much. And what doesn't get talked about enough,
in my opinion, is this demons. In year three, Magic
(30:30):
Johnson was second team All NBA, and then after that
he played nine more seasons before the HIV diagnosis and
was first team All NBA all nine seasons. Those nine
seasons after year three, his MVP finishes were third second
(30:53):
hold sorry third third, second, third, first, third, first, first, second,
So again, years four to twelve for Magic, nine consecutive
first team all NBA's nine consecutive top three MVP finishes,
three league MVPs, went to nine finals, won five championships.
(31:19):
He's the greatest point guard ever. With that said, every
time I'm putting together my all time starting five, STEP's
the better option at point guard than Magic. So I
know that sounds weird, but whenever it's like, Okay, create
(31:40):
the greatest team you can possibly create, I'm like, all right,
So the only two locks, even with respect to Kareem,
the only two locks are Michael and Lebron. Those guys
are the locks. And now we're figuring out the rest
of the squad. And so I go, So Lebron's there,
(32:04):
he can bring the ball up. I you know, Michael
couldn't shoot a three to save his life, so I
probably need some more shooting. Defensively, I'm going to be
a monster anyway, So I'll put Steph in in place
of Magic. So that's where the best point guard conversation,
you know, gets off to a rough start, or not
(32:25):
a rough start, but it gets complicated. But as far
as best player of all time, there's a I mean,
I just told you, Magic has nine First Team All NBAS.
The guys who are actually in the discussion for greatest
player of all time, Lebron, Michael, and Kareem, they have
(32:48):
as far as first team All NBAS thirteen for Lebron,
ten for Kareem, ten for Michael. Some people throw Kobe
in there. I don't think that's legit, but that that's fine.
He has eleven. Steph has four. So he doesn't have
the the great season after great season after great season
(33:11):
all these other guys did. Here's the other thing that
he doesn't have. And again I'm not tearing him down,
but this if everyone who is actually in the goat debate,
which I think is only three people, but other people
might want to expand it to a couple others. And
(33:33):
even if you expand it to them, if you include Magic,
if you include Wilt or Russell, like pick whomever, they
all had an extended period where they were unequivocally, undeniably
(33:55):
the best player in the league. Steph doesn't have one.
Step doesn't have one season. Now that's again it's like, well,
it's his whole career is during Lebron's career. I get it,
But that so you just so you can't be in
the goat conversation when and you can be like, what
about the Yearie won unanimous MVP. Yeah, he was going
(34:18):
to be considered the best player in the league and
then the finals happened, and so like, there is just
not been so a spot. I'm not tearing him down.
You guys know how highly I think of him as
a player. He is arguable the greatest shooter ever. He
(34:40):
might be the greatest ball handler ever. He's one of
the greatest teammates ever. That yeah, but he.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Is the best off ball players I know.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's not like the exactly the best, the best actually
probably one of the best off ball players.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
In NBA history, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Maybe maybe the maybe the best. Yes, no, all those
things really matter, I find to me, Uh, nobody wants
to have this debate. But an interesting one is him
versus Duncan, Like it is, it's hard to do, like
(35:19):
putting up Steph's career versus Duncan, and Steph's career versus Kobe,
and Steph's career versus Shack are all really interesting because
those are four so different players, just you know, so
(35:40):
such drastically different players, different styles, different career arcs like those,
to me are real debates, But Steph versus Lebron, Michael
and Kareem are not. She's not and that's fine, that's
(36:00):
not a It was also weird timing to have this discussion,
Like Steph was having a down year and the Warriors
were twenty five and twenty five, and they traded for
Jimmy and they're, you know, on the uptick, and Steph
is playing some of his best basketball of the year.
But this isn't like some magical Steph Curry season. He's not.
(36:21):
He has no shot of being first team All NBA
this year. He is. I remember when they traded for Jimmy,
he had as many games with fifteen or fewer points
as he had thirty plus points. Like, he's averaging the
fewest points he's averaged in a season since his first MVP,
(36:43):
so in a decade, and he's averaging below forty from
three for just the second time of his career. So again,
I'm not. He's all all that's true, While it's also
true is he having the greatest old little guy season ever?
(37:05):
So all those things can be true at the same time,
But goat conversation now, we're now we're getting a little cuckoo.
He might show up, however, in our DraftKings player prop
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All right, Demonse, let's get to Genie Buss's comments.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, so she recently opened up about the ad trade
and she said, we have lost the last We have
lost the last three years in a row to the
Denver Nuggets in the playoffs, and we really didn't have
anything that was gonna look different going into the playoffs. Again,
Anthony Davis was complaining about where he was being played
and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
So I think this is a positive for both teams.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So I hate this quote so much.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Well, first of all, you're wrong, they have not lost,
not you, Demonse, She's wrong. Yeah, No, know your playoff history,
you own the team. You have not lost to the
Nuggets three years in a row, lost Nuggets two years
in a row. Likes, I'm not acting like that's awesome,
but it hasn't been three years in a row you've
lost to the Nuggets. That's first of all. Second of all,
(41:00):
we really didn't have anything that was gonna look different.
Take that, JJ Reddick. I mean, one of the biggest
things you can do is change your coach. You did.
You also traded away Di'angelo Russell, who has been an
unmitigated playoff disaster at second of all, Third of all,
(41:23):
ad came to the Los Angeles and kicked ass won
you a championship alongside Lebron And by the way, you
know what series Anthony Davis brought not probably the best
playoff series of his career against Denver and Jokic in
(41:46):
the conference finals when you won the championship, including hitting
a game winning three in a series when he averaged
thirty one and six en route to a gentleman's sweep
over the Nuggets. So again, like, I'm not saying she
(42:06):
was wrong about that We're gonna have trouble with Dinburgh
in this year. That probably would have been true. Why
say it? What is the why go after ad like that.
I mean, here's here's the quote. This is again, this
is what you need to say. Just my opinion. Yeah,
(42:30):
if you'd asked me six weeks ago, would we ever
trade Anthony Davis, my answer publicly would have been absolutely not.
But my answer even privately to friends would have been,
I mean not unless Jokichiannis or Luca are available, and
(42:52):
they're not available. He is one of the greatest players
in the league. We just signed him to an extension.
Our plan was to have him take us into the
post Lebron era whenever that era is as Lebron keeps
defying Father Time. But when Rob got the phone call
(43:17):
that we could get one of the only players in
the entire league who is more accomplished, and I'll say
it probably better than Anthony, and he's six years younger,
that's just a move you can't turn down. So no,
(43:40):
I I was very comfortable and very excited about Anthony
Davis being the face of the Lakers for the next
half decade. With her, now we have the opportunity to
have someone be the face of the Lakers for the
next fifteen years, and so we took it go ahead.
That's what with her.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It should have been with her saying what she said,
And like, do you think even if Luca wasn't on
the table that there was a chance to think got
rid of Anthony Davis?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I may, I don't know. She's clearly didn't like that
ADS quote, the complaining thing about you know, not wanting
to play center and they need a center, all that stuff.
But deal with it, Like, I just did not like
that quote at all. All. Right, let's go on to
(44:28):
the MAVs. Demonsey.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, so obviously Kyrie towards a c O. Anthony Davis
might be out for even longer. You said that what
Dallas is going through is something that teams really hard,
have a heart, really have Jesus Christ, have a really
have a really hard time coming back from.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
So with with them repairing that, what do you what
do you think it's going to be harder to repair
the team or its future or the trust and the
fans really really.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, that's a tough one tongue twister. So they sold
shells down by the seashore.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
But with one comes another, right obviously, like you repair
the team, you gained the trust of the fans.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That's the thing I don't know. You can't regain the
trust of the fans without repairing the team. But just
repairing the team, I don't think we'll regain the trust
of the fans. So I listen, don't. This is because
this is private. I guess it's not that private if
I'm about to say it, but I just don't. I
(45:33):
don't want to like turn this into like a social clip.
This thing here, So there's in the chat, Biggie says, Hey, Nick,
longtime MAVs fan, It's sad. What's happened. I got a
text yesterday, first text I've gotten from this person since
(46:00):
before the Super Bowl. Man, y'all gotta stop talking about
the MAVs. And then the crying laughing emoji from none
other than Patrick Mahomes. And the reason I say that
is MAVs fans are so sad.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You know, I'll tell you what I text him, But
he didn't respond. Maybe didn't take it. Well, Bro, you're
just a Laker fan, now, I wrote, I wrote, it'll
be fine. I never liked the Lakers, but then they
got bron so now I'm a Laker fan. And now
they have Luca too. It's glorious. I am. This is.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I this has the feel, honest to God of like
a team moving cities.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
What it's done to the fan base out of nowhere.
And so I people are like, all fire, Nico, Sure fine,
but the owner co signed all of it. And by
the way, let me find this statement, Nico Harrison statement
(47:27):
on Kyrie. So here's what Nico said. So he said,
Kyrie's the heart and soul of this team is embraced
city of Dallas and our fans as an extension of
his own family. All fine. I've been fortunate enough to
have witnessed his journeys, continued evolution and growth over the years.
(47:47):
I'm incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to see him
approach the game basketball the same energy and fierce passion
of the game. He's a young man on the verge
of his career. All fine, there too, and then this
his work, ethic, ethic, and absolute dedication to his craft.
It's cut from the cloth of grapes. I know it,
(48:08):
I lived it. I see the same ferocity and passion
in him that I saw in Kobe. Bro. You gotta
stop playing the Kobe card. You just have to we
get it. You were Kobe's guy at Nike. We understand,
but you traded Luka because he wasn't Kobe. Kyrie is
(48:28):
gonna be fine at thirty three post acl because he
is the work ethic of Kobe, by the way, again,
and I am rooting for Kyrie, Butkoche, even Kobe when
he was older and he suffered a catastrophic injury, was
(48:49):
never the same. I'm not hoping that for Kyrie at all.
But I just this team is so cooked out of
nowhere for no reason. I just have never seen anything
like it, and I feel I truly, I truly feel
(49:12):
terribly for their fans terribly.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
You go out there, you know there was talks of there, Yeah,
there were talks of this being a move for them
to tank the team so they could then be able
to move to Vegas. Now do you think there's any
truth to that? Do you think that that's possible with
they're given situation?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Now?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So here's the thing. Dallas is a top five market.
Vegas is not a big city comparatively like where is
hold On. Sorry, I'm doing a lot of on the
fly biggest cities in the US. So the Dallas is
(49:51):
so Dallas is the number nine city, but the Dallas
Fort Worth metro is top five, Vegas is number twenty four,
So that just doesn't make a ton of the NBA
is gonna have a presence in Dallas. So that was
one of the many reasons this made no sense. That
(50:13):
conspiracy theory and and hold on biggest metro areas let
me do that. I mean, there's nothing is really great
radio podcasting like this. Yeah, that's what I thought. So
Dallas Fort Worth Arlington is the number four metro behind
only New York, LA, Chicago, and Vegas is the number
(50:36):
twenty nine metro, So that speaks to it even more.
Shout out Kansity, kans City, number thirty one metro. You
know we once we used to be like twenty seven
all on a bit. But that's okay, h going down,
up and down a bit. Yeah no, that's all right. Yeah, fluctuating,
But so that's not gonna happen. But again, if if
(51:02):
you have made a move that is so catastrophic and
incomprehensible that folks are like, maybe you're trying to pull
a Major League on your own team, or I guess
the more common example of it would be for season one,
(51:22):
Ted Lasso on your own team, then you probably should
just resign. And I also want to say one other thing,
because there's this whole thing that like, oh, Kyrie's workload
had nothing to do with the injury. No, obviously it
(51:45):
had something to do with the injury. So he led
the league in Mint's last six weeks, and people were like, well,
it's not an overuse injury, it's not a soft tissue,
it's a fluke thing. Got it. Even if I concede
that point, here is the very very simple response to that.
(52:07):
What are the chances you have of getting hit by
a car acrossing the street? Let's call it one in
one hundred. Well, if you normally cross the street fifteen
times a day and the last six weeks you're crossing
the street thirty times a day and you get hit
(52:28):
by a car, is it because you were crossing the
street more often than usual or was it just a
fluke thing. Well, I don't know, but you gave yourself
more opportunity to get hit by the car. Kyrie Irving
didn't blow out his knee walking his dog. He did
it playing basketball. And so the more the more you
(52:49):
play basketball, the more often chance you have an opportunity
to suffer a basketball injury. And so I'm not saying that, oh,
Kyrie needed to be low managed to the hilt, but
of all the players in the league, he was leading
the league in minutes that seemed reckless. And so yeah,
(53:10):
I just don't know what you do if you're Dallas.
They really do not know what you do if you're Dallas. Fold.
This is what my buddy, Mike melt you say, fold
the franchise. I don't know, man, All right, let's let's
go fastest.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, so you did this this the season debut of
King of the Hill. On your show the other day,
you said that Jokich is clearly the best player in
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
So why as you and Vegas giving Shaye the MVP.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
H His best player doesn't win MVP every year. Lebron
didn't have fourteen of them. You know, Jordan doesn't have
eight of them. The Yo Kicch is the best player.
Shaye's having the best season, So like it's It's not
(53:58):
like I didn't say Yokic was having the best year.
Shay's having the best year and he right now deserves MVP.
And he had another great game last night. That to
me is like a and a not a complicated one
that just being the best player in the league does
not mean that every year you had the best season.
(54:22):
And I'll say another thing. Each MVP is harder to
win than the last. The threshold to win your first
MVP is here, the threshold to win your second MVP
is here, the threshold to win your third MVP is
very high. And the threshold to win four or five
or six is astronomical. And so Jokis is sitting at
(54:49):
three and so even though he's gonna average a triple
double as a sinner because his team right now is
the three seed and Shay's team is gonna win sixty
seven games, and Shay's gonna win the scoring title, right
He's gonna win the scoring title, Indney, That's gonna be enough. Yeah,
(55:10):
I mean yeah, it's gonna win the scoring title by
a lot. It's thirty two point eight points per game. So, yeah, Shay,
Shay's having the best year. Jokich is the best player.
What I'm interested in the MVP thing is Lebron gonna
finish top five. I Lebron finished top five and age
forty right, so right now, Demon's Shay Yo Kicic there's
(55:35):
my ballot, Shay Jokicic, Giannis Tatum, that's my four. That
fifth spot, it's either Bron or Donovan. Donovan's team has
been unreal. Lebron's got better numbers across the board than Donovan.
Speaker 5 (55:54):
Like.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
And then here's the other thing. Here's the other thing.
I hated, hated that the NBA changed All NBA to positionless.
Should be two guards too forwards in a center.
Speaker 5 (56:09):
I hated it might help out my guy Bron this year, though, Yeah,
because if it were two guards too forwards in a center,
then All.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
NBA is done. It's Jokic as your center, Jannison Tatum
as your forwards, Shayan Donovan as your guards. But since
it's positionless, could Bron take Donovan's spot on first team
All NBA. Maybe? By the way, sorry, Lebron. James in
(56:41):
year two at age twenty, was second team All NBA. No,
I'm saying, year two, age twenty, second team All NBA,
almost first team All NBA. Year twenty two, age forty,
probably gonna be second team All NBA, almost first team
(57:04):
All NBA. It's unbelievable. All right, before we're gonna do
some quick hitter NFL stuff and answer your questions. But first,
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By the way, before we get to the football stuff,
speaking of sponsors, do what I haven't talked Tomnzie. Did
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Speaker 2 (58:38):
I still have the same car? Nobody.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
I've been checking my email, obviously, I've been checking. No,
I'm going to Key on Sunday, though, We're gonna we're
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So I was gonna say, you're it's coming up, Wind's
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Speaker 1 (58:58):
You've now shifted the power back to them a bit. Really,
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Well, hey, I will tell them I'm the same thing
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Hopefully the Key dealership doesn't watched the pod, but I
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Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, let's let's keep this. Let's keep this let's let's keep.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I was gonna ask, is is King of the Hill
basically just Club Superstar with more sections?
Speaker 1 (59:23):
No, it's Mahomes Mountain. But for basketball, all.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
Right, you want to make it. I wanted to make
it some type of fun.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
So alright, no, why it's just get it's more NBA players.
I thought you guys were expanding on the on the
Club Superstar.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Club Superstar is very specific because it's a one in,
one out policy and there's it's it's not it's not
just about how you played this year, like it there is,
you know, it's so as a for instance.
Speaker 2 (59:55):
But how you played this year could get you taken
out right or some.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Guys, but like Steph Curry's Superstar, he would have to
have like a truly horrendous year to be out. And
I can't even I'm not even gonna say the idea
of Lebron not being in there and so like, so
(01:00:22):
it's a different thing. Let's quickly do the Chiefs, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
So there's no secret that the Chiefs cannot protect their
quarterback in the Super Bowl. So they made a pretty
odd move. They're moving Joe Dooney to the Beer to
the Bears for a fourth round pick.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Did this move shack.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
You, no, because once once they franchised Tag Tray Smith
their right guard, they were clearly gonna have to move
on from Tony. So they have the highest paid center
in the league. They currently have the highest paid guard
in the league, and Toney would have been the second
(01:01:00):
his paid card in the league. You can't have like,
you just can't spend your money that way, and so
I listen, these are the tough decisions you have to
make if you're just gonna try to keep a dynasty going. Tone,
he's still a really good player, but he's thirty two
years old, he's expensive. You get now, you get a
young draft pick again a year from now at a
(01:01:22):
draft capital what they're probably they took Kingsleys Suamataya in
the second round last year to play tackle. He did
not play it well. They will probably kick him over
to guard. Listen, if you are trying to have a
sustained level of success that only the Patriots and NFL
history have had, you've got to make these tough decisions,
(01:01:43):
and you've got to get real playing time from your
draft picks. So you can't like Kingsley's got to play
this next year. It just is what it is. And also, yes,
good for Caleb. So they got they signed a tackles
or they traded for a tackle. I forget the name,
(01:02:04):
but they traded for a tackle. They traded for Tony.
They're rebuilding their offensive line. All right. Let reminder like rate, subscribe, review,
do all that stuff. And also, yeah, do it now
because maybe at one am Eastern I'm gonna pop on
and talk about the Lakers tonight. Let's do a few
listener questions.
Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Demanse Riley says, the stories like the around the Horn
story and the moments you have with Colin are the
intangibles that make us us as fans come back.
Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
That's very nice. I appreciate that. That's very nice. All right,
thank you, Riley.
Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Let's keep going, Trunks lifelong MAVs fan.
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
At least I was, man, the lack of awareness that
this new ownership group and front office just makes makes
sports seem less fun and more of a business, which
it is.
Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I'm out now, no.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Point, Well listen, don't be out, man, But I get
the pain of this. I can't imagine. Like I said
to Wilde's yesterday, I was like, if the Hunt family
sold the Chiefs and a new ownership group came in.
I would have a lot of worries, but one of
(01:03:16):
them would not be what if these guys trade Mahomes?
Like I would be worried about a bunch of stuff,
but trading Mahomes wouldn't be on there. So when Cubans
sold the MAVs, I'm sure some MAVs fands were like,
oh boy, he was a hell of an owner. He
was invested all this stuff. But I don't think they
were ever thought what if they trade Luca? Now, maybe
(01:03:39):
they were worried Luca might demand a trade. That's the
other piece of this. I think it is way easier
to deal with if Luca demands the trade, way easier
because then A, you don't probably love Luca as much anymore,
and B you're like, well, there's nothing we could do.
And so that that to me, is that is what
(01:04:00):
it seems like, right, That's what makes it just impossible.
All right, let's do the next one.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Isaac asked after Mahomes, Alan and Burrow, which two players
round off your top five players to start a franchise with.
Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I don't know that I would have Burrow third. I
think Burrow's Jayden's interesting. I was this will shock you.
I was gonna say Lamar, Yeah, yeah, because like my
playoff concerns with Lamar, notwithstanding he's such a transcendent regular
(01:04:37):
season player and available and all that stuff. I'm you know,
Burrow's injury stuff is and slow starts you know, are
to me mahomes Alan Lamar Burrow, and then I you know,
I obviously would love to say kylea but that's not
a legitimate opinion right now. You'd have to say you'd
probably have to say Jayden h as the fifth guy,
(01:05:01):
given what they've both done in the pros. I'm trying
to think if there's anybody that's a fun producers, mark
that down for a good August or July conversation, Like
the best guys at other positions as well, non quarterbacks
start franchise with all that. I like that conversation. Isaac,
(01:05:23):
Good job you're out producing the show, all right, Great job,
Demanse a great job to everyone at Volume and Blue Dock,
all everybody helping out with today's show. Thought it looked
and sounded great. Maybe I'll be on again in twelve hours.
I don't know. Also, Demons have you talked to your mom? Like,
do you know what her travel plans are? I do?
Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
I mean I didn't learn until Monday or Tuesday, So yeah,
I thought, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Okay, yeah. So the reason I mentioned this is my wife,
Demanday's mom is going to LA and the also, so
she I said to her real quick, and then we'll
move on. Then we'll in the show said. So I said,
we're this morning, and I should have known better. I
was like, so, where are you staying in l A?
(01:06:10):
And she just turned to me and looked at me
like I had two heads. She was like, you haven't
booked my hotel yet? Like no, I she said. She said, wait,
I don't have a hotel or rental car yet. I'm like, no,
you haven't asked me to do any of that stuff.
She was like, you know you need to do.
Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Sore the assistant, But yeah, I mean, if it worse
comes to worse, I have a I have a car,
might not have a car here soon, and I have
a place.
Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Oh well, that's what I was about to say. I was,
could you imagine your mom's sleeping on your couch.
Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
It would be me sleeping on the couch. But yeah,
I mean I could not.
Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Yeah, but either way you wouldn't act, would allow it,
You would be a great allow it your mother your
mother would not. All right, great job. Everybody see you
eyes on TV. In a few hours. Will train
Welcome in What's Right with Me? Great episode three oh six,
A ton to do today? Demand in Los Angeles, me
here in New York. By the way, for people watching
on YouTube, we have sent off to the framers more
things for our background, so hopefully in the next couple
of weeks the background will get filled up a little
(00:21):
bit more. You also might in the background, see like,
are those a couple of microphones far in the distance?
They are? That's for the podcast we're developing. That'll be
me and a different member of the family when in
studio here, and by studio I mean Demand's old bedroom
so and so, which is our new podcast studio. So
(00:46):
that'll be so that'll be coming in short order. We
have the setup for that here. Demanse, how are you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm doing great this morning. How you doing, Pops?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You sound great? Wow? Yeah, I don't know what's change
with your microphone or maybe in a late stage final puberty.
You sound like even deeper points than usual. But you said,
I'm bro Let's get right to it. So here's what
missed the cut. The Cavs clinched the playoffs last night.
That missed the cut Max Crosby getting thirty five and
(01:17):
a half million dollars per year that missed the cut,
and James Harden with his first fifty point game as
a Clipper. Also, it's now I think the third time
in his career he has had a game with fifteen
points on twos, fifteen points on threes, fifteen points on
(01:37):
three throws, and a few other you know, random stats
where he's the only guy to ever do that. I
was going to start the show on around the Horn,
and we are gonna get to around the Horn in
just a moment. But first I just a little a
little point of order, because I did notice yesterday that
(01:57):
there have been some folks friends of mine that, you know,
bowing out is one way to put it, Waving the
white flag is another way to put it. Who are like,
you know what this Jordan Lebron debate, let's retire it.
And usually, in my experience, people that are that have
(02:18):
been very ardent and adamant about something for years and
years and years and they just seemingly out of the
blue be like, I don't want to argue about this anymore.
Usually it means they have a lose they know they
have a losing hand. Very rarely are people right when
they're about to win an argument, be like, you know what,
let's just shake hands and move on. So that's fine.
(02:42):
I've always said history is gonna look fondly on the
correct side of the argument, which is mine. But the
point of order that I must address, which is even
the folks who argue that Lebron is the goat, far
too many of them say and Jordan had the higher peak,
just like as a given. But and then they do
(03:05):
a whole thing, but the you know, Lebron's longevity in
this and that, and the third we did a whole
show on this once before, so we don't have to
do a whole show where he kind of broke it
down different slices. But I just want to remind the
audience in America the single greatest season of professional basketball
ever played by any player was the twenty twelve twenty
(03:28):
thirteen Lebron James Miami Heat season. No player has ever
reached a higher peak than the following one vote for
being unanimous MVP when no one had ever been unanimous
MVP runner up and Defensive Player of the Year when
the guy who beat him in Defensive Player of the
Year wasn't even first team All defense, shooting fifty seven
(03:51):
percent from the floor and forty percent from three, a
twenty seven game winning streak. It's all culminating in a
Game seven of the Finals, where he hit the game
clinching jump shot for thirty seven and twelve against a
(04:11):
team with four future first Ballot Hall of Famers. That
season is the greatest single season start to finish any
players ever had. So it's not just the longevity side
of it, it's the peak side of it as well.
Now we can move on to the actual show. Go ahead,
(04:33):
all right?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, So, after twenty three years and over forty nine
hundred episodes Around the Horn espns, Around the Horn has
coming to a halt May twenty third, what are your
thoughts on it ending and what did the show mean
to you?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
All right? So I can't speak to why it's ending.
It doesn't really make sense to me. But I don't
I don't know, you know, I can't look at their books.
I don't know what their plans are. They can do
whatever whatever they want. I do want to say, as
someone who has not ever been bashful about criticizing either
(05:09):
shows or personalities or opinions, really more opinions than people
that I disagree with that. I do not think it
is an exaggeration to say for me personally, Around the
Horn was the single most important sports show that ever existed.
(05:33):
And for me personally, I know I wouldn't be doing
what I'm doing now on television if not for Around
the Horn. For I'm forty years old. For people my generation,
(05:55):
the combo in our teen years of PTI coming on
the air, and then Around the Horn coming on after
being our for so many of us, the first shows
we ever DVRD being daily after school viewing, and then
(06:18):
Around the Horn for those of us who were getting
into the business being seemingly an attainable goal of like, man,
one day I'm going to be on Around the Horn
and having that be a carrot of if I work
(06:41):
hard enough, if I can make myself a name within
my city big enough, man, maybe just maybe I can
get on Around the Horn. And it was a show
(07:01):
for writers, initially exclusively, and then it expanded a bit,
and then I saw Bomani Jones on there, and I
understand BALMANI was a writer as well as other things,
but I didn't view Bimani as a writer. I viewed
Bomani as a radio host. He hosted The Morning Jones
on Sirius XM, and that's before Bamani was one of
(07:24):
my dearest friends in the world. He was a guy
who I knew of his radio show, I knew of
his Twitter presence, and I knew of him on Around
the Horn. And once Bomani got on Around the Horn,
I was like, I'm gonna I I need to get
on that show. I'm going to work to get on
that show. And in Houston, I kind of talked my
(07:50):
way into a It wasn't even a part time job,
just an occasional appearance gig on Comcast Sports at Houston.
And the reason I did it was to create a
television reel to try to get on Around the Horn.
(08:11):
And that shows ability to give people reps on TV,
opportunities to do TV and what it has done for
people in our industry's careers is unlike any other show
that I think has ever existed. And the fact that
(08:34):
along the way post Max Kell and I have so
many I will I'm gonna spend real time on this.
My connections to Around the Horn without ever being on
it is It's remarkable when I look back and think
on it, so I'll tell those stories in a moment,
but post Max Kellerman, who did a great job with it,
(09:00):
and then Reality takes it over, and Tony Reality, who
at one day I'll meet him, but I've never met him.
Tony Reality's ability from when he was a kid taking
over that show and kind of being the conscience of
(09:24):
that show and the through line of the show is
one of the most impressive broadcasting feats in our industry ever.
And I Reality would tweet out texts he would send
people saying like, you know that it was gonna be
(09:46):
their first time, you know you're gonna invite someone on
a show, first time on the show, and all that stuff.
And there was a period of time where I thought
I might be getting an invite this nine years ago,
(10:07):
and Reality tweeted getting ready to inte something. I'm gonna
misquote it a bit, but you know, getting ready to
send out an invite to someone who's never been on
a show, and then described the person, and I convinced
myself it was me he was talking about, and I
was just waiting. I remember I was in an airport
(10:28):
and I was so nervous. I'm like, I'm gonna be
on the plane and I might not get the text.
And then I got on the plane, no service, get
off the plane, turn my phone back on. Don't have
the text, and I checked and see it was like,
oh man, it wasn't me. And I just it was
such a goal and a valuable thing. And I'm sad
(10:52):
it's gonna be gone. And when I say my connections
to it, demanse, the through lines of this are truly
gonna blow your mind. Okay, so I already mentioned Kellerman
was the original host. Kellerman I interned at ESPN Radio
twenty years ago in New York. ESPN Radio, New York,
(11:14):
and Kellerman was one of the guys I interned for.
But that wasn't a real connection. I mean, I knew
him and he was super nice to me, but that
wasn't the connection. The connection is the following. Okay, it's
thirteen years ago. I set up a meeting. I'm gonna
(11:40):
go to New York. I'm doing radio in Houston. I'm
gonna fly to New York and I'm gonna meet with
two people. One is Eric Rideholme, who created Around the Horn,
and the other is Jamie Horowitz, who was a big
(12:01):
wig at ESPN kind of on the TV show side
first take. He then ended up being well, I'll get
to the Jamie piece of it in a minute, and
I'm gonna go meet with those people and sell them on.
Let me have a shot on this show. Let me
have a shot on Around the Horn. And I fly
(12:25):
into New York on my own dime. And when I land,
I check my email and my meeting with Jamie has
been canceled because he got called into Bristol. And I
now have a meeting with someone else who I don't
(12:53):
really know who he is, but when I see the name,
I'm like, oh, I recognize this name. I've heard this
guy on Bill Simmons podcast and he's a different executive
at ESPN, And so I have about I have a
night before that. I flew in it like I don't know,
Tuesday night. The meetings are Wednesday morning. I'm gonna meet
(13:15):
in with this meet with this guy who's not Jamie,
and then I'm gonna meet with ride home and I
prep and I listen to all these podcasts that this
guy's been on and I walk into his office and
I pitch and I know his story and the guy
(13:37):
at the end of it of my Pitch is like
all right, yeah, I mean that's that's interesting, but you know,
like I have nothing to do with that show, right,
I was like, damn, that person was Kevin Wilds. That's
a true story. I then I'm like, well, this meeting
(14:01):
went just terribly, Like this guy thinks I'm a fool
and I'm wasting his time and he's he's working on
the Olberman show. Like that went terribly. I didn't meet
with ride Home, who is one of the kindest, most
brilliant people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing in
(14:25):
the kind of dining area of the Whole Foods in
Columbus Circle. And I I'm going to see if I
can pull this up the email bring manilla envelopes, So
this one I did not, So I have the I
didn't do theanilla envelope thing. But let me see the
(14:47):
I want to spell his name right in the email.
See if I can find the email. But I see,
so I can get the exact date. So the first date, Okay,
so this is we met in November of thirteen. In
November of thirteen is when we met, and when I
(15:12):
went to New York, and so this is twelve years ago,
like I thought. And so the meeting went really well
with ride home, but he was like, listen, we do
have you know, you're not a writer essentially, but that
doesn't the door is not closed to you. So I
kind of pitched him my pitch to ride home if
(15:34):
I remember, In fact, I'll just tell you, guys, I
do remember. I don't want to act like I'm not
sure I do remember. My pitch to ride home was
this they had at that point on around the Horn
kind of old journalists and then the new wave young
(15:55):
journalists who they brought on. And the old journalists were
almost all white guys and all and the vast majority
of the new way the newer guys they had brought
on were minorities and women, and so I what I
(16:15):
said to him was, I was like, what, as an
audience member, very often you are having disagreements that I
think break down on generational levels, but appear to be
breaking down on either racial or gender angles. Because all
(16:38):
the old guys are white males, and almost all the
young people are, you know, either women or non white guys.
I was like, so you you Basically my pitch was
you need an older black panelist and a younger white
panelist to see like, wait, is this a generational disagreement
or a cultural racial whatever it was? And he was perceptive,
(17:00):
but I wasn't a writer. And so that was in thirteen.
Fast forward to a couple years later, Jamie gets hired
from ESPN and some other places to run FS one
and I called in the chit of he had canceled
(17:25):
that meeting on me to get a meeting with him
that was actually supposed to be about Fox Sports Radio.
That's a whole nother, longer, more convoluted story, doesn't matter,
And I ended up getting it because the around the
because he had canceled on me before. He then connected
me to a guy named Charlie Dixon, who I ended
(17:49):
up hitting it off with, and then they those two
guys hired me for FS one, and to this date,
Charlie's my boss. In the midst of all of it.
In the midst of all of that, right before I
agreed to a deal with Fox, ESPN came back to me.
(18:13):
This is in twenty sixteen. January twenty sixteen, ESPN came
back to me and offered me a job doing radio
in LA and weekly Around the Horn appearances and the
(18:33):
moment they offered me that, I was like, well, I'm
taking that job I want. I'm a radio guy and
I'm gonna get to be on Around the Horn. And
then Charlie, to his credit, called me and in a
thirty minute conversation sold me on why I should come
(18:54):
to Fox, and it ended up being the best decision
I ever made. I wouldn't have had this trajectory or whatever.
And my only like wistfulness of it was, man, if
I do this, I'll probably never get to be on
around the Horn. And now you know, now officially I won't.
(19:18):
And that's fine. I have there's no no regrets. But
that show meant a lot to me. So I know, listen,
that's twenty minutes of today's show. I don't know how
much the audience cares. I hope they care. I care,
and just shout out to the people who made that
show to ride Home and Solomon and Reality and Reality
(19:43):
Pardon Me and the countless panelists and all of it.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And so yeah, the question was what does it mean
to you? I think you did a good job at
makes sense?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I mean, no, I know, I certainly a The question
that my question was, does the audience give a shit
about my answer to the question I have to do.
But uh but yeah, so there it is, all right,
let's do uh the actual sports stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, so we got Knicks Lakers tonight, Lakers. They are
seventeen and three over their last twenty. Cat missed the
last game they lost to Golden State, but he should
be back, which is gonna be good for them. They're
zero to eight against Boston, Cleveland, Oklahoma City and the Lakers,
so tonight with Kat should be a good test for them.
You said that they're going in the wrong direction though,
(20:34):
What's what's going on?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Then?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, I just don't think. I don't think the Knicks
can beat the best teams in basketball. And they were
they were built in a way where they're supposed to
be able to beat the best teams in basketball. That's
the problem. You don't go you don't go out and
(20:56):
spend this type of money on trade for Karl Anthony
Towns not the money thing, and trade for McHale Bridges
to be in the same spot the Knicks are supposed
to be having this season, the Cabs are having, maybe
not the gaudy record, but like, oh man, they really
(21:18):
might be able to beat the selfish Yes, exactly right,
and instead they just get their teeth kicked in by
good teams. Now, it is usually in moments like this
that you get you know, the league zags a bit,
(21:43):
where this is the when everyone is super high on
the Lakers right now and way low on the Knicks
against good teams, the type of game you're not that
shocked if the Knicks win tonight, and I wouldn't be
that shocked if the Knicks win tonight the Lakers and
will get more on the Lakers in a minute. The
Lakers can't stay this hot. I mean they're on. I
(22:08):
mean they're on a seventy win pace for the last
quarter of the season. I mean that's well. I think
that their defense can be really good. They have the
number one Let me rephrase that. I think their defense
can be good. Their defense during this stretch has been great.
(22:30):
I think that is probably Yeah. I think that water
will find its level a bit there. But I just
don't to me, there are six teams that can win
the title demonse six and this is not in the order,
but in the East Boston, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and in the West,
(22:58):
the Lakers, the thun and Denver and to it is
you put those teams into two separate buckets, Boston Cleveland. Oksee,
you put in the outstanding rosters eight deep. You know,
(23:19):
like that are going to be able to play a
bunch of different ways, in a bunch of different you
know it, styles, all of it. And then Lakers, Bucks
Nuggets you put in the star driven Well, yeah, I
mean you're probably just gonna have the best player on
(23:42):
the floor. And it was you know for what, Jokic,
It's it's you have this transcendent superstar and then an
awesome number two. So the reason Milwaukee is back in
that group is Dame is playing like an awesome number
or two. The reason Denver is back in that group
(24:03):
is Jamal Murray now that he's in shape, is playing
like an awesome number two. And the reason the Lakers
are back in that group is because man, oh Man
Luke is a hell of a number two. I'm kidding, no,
yeah no, Because now that the Lakers are in a
position where Lebron in a playoff series can be their
(24:28):
second best player, they're they're wildly dangerous, wildly dangerous, and
I am in shout out to Sam Amic for writing
an article owning it. I'm really curious what Barkley's gonna
say tonight. I am shocked that there were a lot
(24:48):
of folks who thought Lebron wouldn't be able to instantly
adjust how he plays. The idea like, this is what
I want to say about Lebron, and then Demon's say,
I do want to do? We skipped it. But the
Steph and the Goat conversation. The there the amount of
(25:14):
people who act like Lebron plays for lack of a
better term, a selfish style of basketball in the face
of twenty years of history, was really odd to me.
(25:36):
And by that I mean this the idea that Lebron
has played at times kind of the heliocentric I need
to control everything style in service of his ego as
opposed to in service of this is the best way
(25:57):
to win. I thought it was odd that folks were like, well,
Lebron doesn't play without the ball in his hands. He
hasn't except for a couple years in Miami, really had
the opportunity to play without the ball in his hands
(26:19):
because he's never had a teammate where the team has
a better chance of creating great offense, running the show
that gives them a better chance than with them running
the show rather than Lebron. Lebron is a guy who
I think it's pretty clear could have in his prime
won the scoring title any year he wanted to, and
(26:42):
instead he won one. Ever why because he was doing
what would have been best for the team when they
get Luca. What's best for the team is for Luca
to be running the show a lot, and Lebron instantly
did that, of course, and also to me, not surprisingly,
now that Lebron doesn't have to run the show on offense,
(27:05):
he has more energy on defense. So the Lakers are
a top tier contender. And JJ Reddick has done and
I gotta give him credit, man, he has done an
awesome job. They are buttoned up, they are prepared. He
(27:25):
is grinding his ass off and they It is been
really impressive watching him and watching them. They've been without
Reeves and Ruey and they're doing this. So I'm super
excited for Nicks Lakers tonight. There is a chance I
(27:48):
do a live reaction pod after the game, like for
like twenty minutes. The problem with that is that was
my plan, and then I think think when I made
that plan, I was in New Zealand, and I had
the time of the game all screwed up because it
was showing me the time in New Zealand, and I
(28:08):
didn't do the math right. That game's gonna end. That
game's gonna end around one am Eastern. So like I
so I so I'm not. It's less about me. I'm
always if I stay up to watch a big game,
I always have trouble going to sleep. So it's less
(28:29):
about like me falling, like needing to go right to bed.
It's more about two things. One is I don't know
how to do any of the tech stuff, so somebody's
got to be up on the other end doing that.
And the other one is this I'm quite loud and
me doing this pod at one am in a sleeping house,
(28:53):
and you know the geography of the house, demons a
sleeping right next to a window. It's all no, but
it's all like our neighbors. So so it's maybe I'll
do a live reaction show. I'm not sure. All right,
let's talk Steph for a minute.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, so Shaq said that Steph deserves to be in
the goat conversation.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Do you think that's a right take to have?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Sadly no, So let's talk best point guard ever. We've
done this before, I'll do it again just quickly here.
Magic Johnson, I believe this in my bones, is the
greatest point guard in NBA history. And Magic Johnson. It's
(29:42):
not only that as a rookie one Finals MVP, now
we shouldn't have Kareem should have won it, but had
one of the single greatest finals games ever playing center,
just being utterly dominant to win a championship as a
rookie right after winning a championship in college. If people
(30:05):
don't know what I'm talking about, the Kareem was out
so magic jump center as a rookie against Doctor J
and the Sixers and dropped forty two, fifteen and seven
to win a championship in the finals. That almost gets
talked about too much. And what doesn't get talked about enough,
in my opinion, is this demons. In year three, Magic
(30:30):
Johnson was second team All NBA, and then after that
he played nine more seasons before the HIV diagnosis and
was first team All NBA all nine seasons. Those nine
seasons after year three, his MVP finishes were third second
(30:53):
hold sorry third third, second, third, first, third, first, first, second,
So again, years four to twelve for Magic, nine consecutive
first team all NBA's nine consecutive top three MVP finishes,
three league MVPs, went to nine finals, won five championships.
(31:19):
He's the greatest point guard ever. With that said, every
time I'm putting together my all time starting five, STEP's
the better option at point guard than Magic. So I
know that sounds weird, but whenever it's like, Okay, create
(31:40):
the greatest team you can possibly create, I'm like, all right,
So the only two locks, even with respect to Kareem,
the only two locks are Michael and Lebron. Those guys
are the locks. And now we're figuring out the rest
of the squad. And so I go, So Lebron's there,
(32:04):
he can bring the ball up. I you know, Michael
couldn't shoot a three to save his life, so I
probably need some more shooting. Defensively, I'm going to be
a monster anyway, So I'll put Steph in in place
of Magic. So that's where the best point guard conversation,
you know, gets off to a rough start, or not
(32:25):
a rough start, but it gets complicated. But as far
as best player of all time, there's a I mean,
I just told you, Magic has nine First Team All NBAS.
The guys who are actually in the discussion for greatest
player of all time, Lebron, Michael, and Kareem, they have
(32:48):
as far as first team All NBAS thirteen for Lebron,
ten for Kareem, ten for Michael. Some people throw Kobe
in there. I don't think that's legit, but that that's fine.
He has eleven. Steph has four. So he doesn't have
the the great season after great season after great season
(33:11):
all these other guys did. Here's the other thing that
he doesn't have. And again I'm not tearing him down,
but this if everyone who is actually in the goat debate,
which I think is only three people, but other people
might want to expand it to a couple others. And
(33:33):
even if you expand it to them, if you include Magic,
if you include Wilt or Russell, like pick whomever, they
all had an extended period where they were unequivocally, undeniably
(33:55):
the best player in the league. Steph doesn't have one.
Step doesn't have one season. Now that's again it's like, well,
it's his whole career is during Lebron's career. I get it,
But that so you just so you can't be in
the goat conversation when and you can be like, what
about the Yearie won unanimous MVP. Yeah, he was going
(34:18):
to be considered the best player in the league and
then the finals happened, and so like, there is just
not been so a spot. I'm not tearing him down.
You guys know how highly I think of him as
a player. He is arguable the greatest shooter ever. He
(34:40):
might be the greatest ball handler ever. He's one of
the greatest teammates ever. That yeah, but he.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Is the best off ball players I know.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's not like the exactly the best, the best actually
probably one of the best off ball players.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
In NBA history, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Maybe maybe the maybe the best. Yes, no, all those
things really matter, I find to me, Uh, nobody wants
to have this debate. But an interesting one is him
versus Duncan, Like it is, it's hard to do, like
(35:19):
putting up Steph's career versus Duncan, and Steph's career versus Kobe,
and Steph's career versus Shack are all really interesting because
those are four so different players, just you know, so
(35:40):
such drastically different players, different styles, different career arcs like those,
to me are real debates, But Steph versus Lebron, Michael
and Kareem are not. She's not and that's fine, that's
(36:00):
not a It was also weird timing to have this discussion,
Like Steph was having a down year and the Warriors
were twenty five and twenty five, and they traded for
Jimmy and they're, you know, on the uptick, and Steph
is playing some of his best basketball of the year.
But this isn't like some magical Steph Curry season. He's not.
(36:21):
He has no shot of being first team All NBA
this year. He is. I remember when they traded for Jimmy,
he had as many games with fifteen or fewer points
as he had thirty plus points. Like, he's averaging the
fewest points he's averaged in a season since his first MVP,
(36:43):
so in a decade, and he's averaging below forty from
three for just the second time of his career. So again,
I'm not. He's all all that's true, While it's also
true is he having the greatest old little guy season ever?
(37:05):
So all those things can be true at the same time,
But goat conversation now, we're now we're getting a little cuckoo.
He might show up, however, in our DraftKings player prop
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personal reasons. My Austin Reeves injury handicapping was so spot
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of the ones I gave you is one of the
issues with giving these out twelve hours for the games
that's fine. Today I'm looking at steph Over twenty five
and a half. Why play in Brooklyn? Score on them,
(38:30):
even though Brooklyn's playing better and all this goat talk lately,
STEP's got to put on a show. And I'm going
back to the well. Austin Reeves should be playing tonight.
I'm going under eighteen and a half. He's coming off
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All right, Demonse, let's get to Genie Buss's comments.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, so she recently opened up about the ad trade
and she said, we have lost the last We have
lost the last three years in a row to the
Denver Nuggets in the playoffs, and we really didn't have
anything that was gonna look different going into the playoffs. Again,
Anthony Davis was complaining about where he was being played
and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
So I think this is a positive for both teams.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So I hate this quote so much.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Well, first of all, you're wrong, they have not lost,
not you, Demonse, She's wrong. Yeah, No, know your playoff history,
you own the team. You have not lost to the
Nuggets three years in a row, lost Nuggets two years
in a row. Likes, I'm not acting like that's awesome,
but it hasn't been three years in a row you've
lost to the Nuggets. That's first of all. Second of all,
(41:00):
we really didn't have anything that was gonna look different.
Take that, JJ Reddick. I mean, one of the biggest
things you can do is change your coach. You did.
You also traded away Di'angelo Russell, who has been an
unmitigated playoff disaster at second of all, Third of all,
(41:23):
ad came to the Los Angeles and kicked ass won
you a championship alongside Lebron And by the way, you
know what series Anthony Davis brought not probably the best
playoff series of his career against Denver and Jokic in
(41:46):
the conference finals when you won the championship, including hitting
a game winning three in a series when he averaged
thirty one and six en route to a gentleman's sweep
over the Nuggets. So again, like, I'm not saying she
(42:06):
was wrong about that We're gonna have trouble with Dinburgh
in this year. That probably would have been true. Why
say it? What is the why go after ad like that.
I mean, here's here's the quote. This is again, this
is what you need to say. Just my opinion. Yeah,
(42:30):
if you'd asked me six weeks ago, would we ever
trade Anthony Davis, my answer publicly would have been absolutely not.
But my answer even privately to friends would have been,
I mean not unless Jokichiannis or Luca are available, and
(42:52):
they're not available. He is one of the greatest players
in the league. We just signed him to an extension.
Our plan was to have him take us into the
post Lebron era whenever that era is as Lebron keeps
defying Father Time. But when Rob got the phone call
(43:17):
that we could get one of the only players in
the entire league who is more accomplished, and I'll say
it probably better than Anthony, and he's six years younger,
that's just a move you can't turn down. So no,
(43:40):
I I was very comfortable and very excited about Anthony
Davis being the face of the Lakers for the next
half decade. With her, now we have the opportunity to
have someone be the face of the Lakers for the
next fifteen years, and so we took it go ahead.
That's what with her.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It should have been with her saying what she said,
And like, do you think even if Luca wasn't on
the table that there was a chance to think got
rid of Anthony Davis?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I may, I don't know. She's clearly didn't like that
ADS quote, the complaining thing about you know, not wanting
to play center and they need a center, all that stuff.
But deal with it, Like, I just did not like
that quote at all. All. Right, let's go on to
(44:28):
the MAVs. Demonsey.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, so obviously Kyrie towards a c O. Anthony Davis
might be out for even longer. You said that what
Dallas is going through is something that teams really hard,
have a heart, really have Jesus Christ, have a really
have a really hard time coming back from.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
So with with them repairing that, what do you what
do you think it's going to be harder to repair
the team or its future or the trust and the
fans really really.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, that's a tough one tongue twister. So they sold
shells down by the seashore.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
But with one comes another, right obviously, like you repair
the team, you gained the trust of the fans.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That's the thing I don't know. You can't regain the
trust of the fans without repairing the team. But just
repairing the team, I don't think we'll regain the trust
of the fans. So I listen, don't. This is because
this is private. I guess it's not that private if
I'm about to say it, but I just don't. I
(45:33):
don't want to like turn this into like a social clip.
This thing here, So there's in the chat, Biggie says, Hey, Nick,
longtime MAVs fan, It's sad. What's happened. I got a
text yesterday, first text I've gotten from this person since
(46:00):
before the Super Bowl. Man, y'all gotta stop talking about
the MAVs. And then the crying laughing emoji from none
other than Patrick Mahomes. And the reason I say that
is MAVs fans are so sad.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You know, I'll tell you what I text him, But
he didn't respond. Maybe didn't take it. Well, Bro, you're
just a Laker fan, now, I wrote, I wrote, it'll
be fine. I never liked the Lakers, but then they
got bron so now I'm a Laker fan. And now
they have Luca too. It's glorious. I am. This is.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
I this has the feel, honest to God of like
a team moving cities.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
What it's done to the fan base out of nowhere.
And so I people are like, all fire, Nico, Sure fine,
but the owner co signed all of it. And by
the way, let me find this statement, Nico Harrison statement
(47:27):
on Kyrie. So here's what Nico said. So he said,
Kyrie's the heart and soul of this team is embraced
city of Dallas and our fans as an extension of
his own family. All fine. I've been fortunate enough to
have witnessed his journeys, continued evolution and growth over the years.
(47:47):
I'm incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to see him
approach the game basketball the same energy and fierce passion
of the game. He's a young man on the verge
of his career. All fine, there too, and then this
his work, ethic, ethic, and absolute dedication to his craft.
It's cut from the cloth of grapes. I know it,
(48:08):
I lived it. I see the same ferocity and passion
in him that I saw in Kobe. Bro. You gotta
stop playing the Kobe card. You just have to we
get it. You were Kobe's guy at Nike. We understand,
but you traded Luka because he wasn't Kobe. Kyrie is
(48:28):
gonna be fine at thirty three post acl because he
is the work ethic of Kobe, by the way, again,
and I am rooting for Kyrie, Butkoche, even Kobe when
he was older and he suffered a catastrophic injury, was
(48:49):
never the same. I'm not hoping that for Kyrie at all.
But I just this team is so cooked out of
nowhere for no reason. I just have never seen anything
like it, and I feel I truly, I truly feel
(49:12):
terribly for their fans terribly.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
You go out there, you know there was talks of there, Yeah,
there were talks of this being a move for them
to tank the team so they could then be able
to move to Vegas. Now do you think there's any
truth to that? Do you think that that's possible with
they're given situation?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Now?
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So here's the thing. Dallas is a top five market.
Vegas is not a big city comparatively like where is
hold On. Sorry, I'm doing a lot of on the
fly biggest cities in the US. So the Dallas is
(49:51):
so Dallas is the number nine city, but the Dallas
Fort Worth metro is top five, Vegas is number twenty four,
So that just doesn't make a ton of the NBA
is gonna have a presence in Dallas. So that was
one of the many reasons this made no sense. That
(50:13):
conspiracy theory and and hold on biggest metro areas let
me do that. I mean, there's nothing is really great
radio podcasting like this. Yeah, that's what I thought. So
Dallas Fort Worth Arlington is the number four metro behind
only New York, LA, Chicago, and Vegas is the number
(50:36):
twenty nine metro, So that speaks to it even more.
Shout out Kansity, kans City, number thirty one metro. You
know we once we used to be like twenty seven
all on a bit. But that's okay, h going down,
up and down a bit. Yeah no, that's all right. Yeah, fluctuating,
But so that's not gonna happen. But again, if if
(51:02):
you have made a move that is so catastrophic and
incomprehensible that folks are like, maybe you're trying to pull
a Major League on your own team, or I guess
the more common example of it would be for season one,
(51:22):
Ted Lasso on your own team, then you probably should
just resign. And I also want to say one other thing,
because there's this whole thing that like, oh, Kyrie's workload
had nothing to do with the injury. No, obviously it
(51:45):
had something to do with the injury. So he led
the league in Mint's last six weeks, and people were like, well,
it's not an overuse injury, it's not a soft tissue,
it's a fluke thing. Got it. Even if I concede
that point, here is the very very simple response to that.
(52:07):
What are the chances you have of getting hit by
a car acrossing the street? Let's call it one in
one hundred. Well, if you normally cross the street fifteen
times a day and the last six weeks you're crossing
the street thirty times a day and you get hit
(52:28):
by a car, is it because you were crossing the
street more often than usual or was it just a
fluke thing. Well, I don't know, but you gave yourself
more opportunity to get hit by the car. Kyrie Irving
didn't blow out his knee walking his dog. He did
it playing basketball. And so the more the more you
(52:49):
play basketball, the more often chance you have an opportunity
to suffer a basketball injury. And so I'm not saying that, oh,
Kyrie needed to be low managed to the hilt, but
of all the players in the league, he was leading
the league in minutes that seemed reckless. And so yeah,
(53:10):
I just don't know what you do if you're Dallas.
They really do not know what you do if you're Dallas. Fold.
This is what my buddy, Mike melt you say, fold
the franchise. I don't know, man, All right, let's let's
go fastest.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, so you did this this the season debut of
King of the Hill. On your show the other day,
you said that Jokich is clearly the best player in
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
So why as you and Vegas giving Shaye the MVP.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
H His best player doesn't win MVP every year. Lebron
didn't have fourteen of them. You know, Jordan doesn't have
eight of them. The Yo Kicch is the best player.
Shaye's having the best season, So like it's It's not
(53:58):
like I didn't say Yokic was having the best year.
Shay's having the best year and he right now deserves MVP.
And he had another great game last night. That to
me is like a and a not a complicated one
that just being the best player in the league does
not mean that every year you had the best season.
(54:22):
And I'll say another thing. Each MVP is harder to
win than the last. The threshold to win your first
MVP is here, the threshold to win your second MVP
is here, the threshold to win your third MVP is
very high. And the threshold to win four or five
or six is astronomical. And so Jokis is sitting at
(54:49):
three and so even though he's gonna average a triple
double as a sinner because his team right now is
the three seed and Shay's team is gonna win sixty
seven games, and Shay's gonna win the scoring title, right
He's gonna win the scoring title, Indney, That's gonna be enough. Yeah,
(55:10):
I mean yeah, it's gonna win the scoring title by
a lot. It's thirty two point eight points per game. So, yeah, Shay,
Shay's having the best year. Jokich is the best player.
What I'm interested in the MVP thing is Lebron gonna
finish top five. I Lebron finished top five and age
forty right, so right now, Demon's Shay Yo Kicic there's
(55:35):
my ballot, Shay Jokicic, Giannis Tatum, that's my four. That
fifth spot, it's either Bron or Donovan. Donovan's team has
been unreal. Lebron's got better numbers across the board than Donovan.
Speaker 5 (55:54):
Like.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
And then here's the other thing. Here's the other thing.
I hated, hated that the NBA changed All NBA to positionless.
Should be two guards too forwards in a center.
Speaker 5 (56:09):
I hated it might help out my guy Bron this year, though, Yeah,
because if it were two guards too forwards in a center,
then All.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
NBA is done. It's Jokic as your center, Jannison Tatum
as your forwards, Shayan Donovan as your guards. But since
it's positionless, could Bron take Donovan's spot on first team
All NBA. Maybe? By the way, sorry, Lebron. James in
(56:41):
year two at age twenty, was second team All NBA. No,
I'm saying, year two, age twenty, second team All NBA,
almost first team All NBA. Year twenty two, age forty,
probably gonna be second team All NBA, almost first team
(57:04):
All NBA. It's unbelievable. All right, before we're gonna do
some quick hitter NFL stuff and answer your questions. But first,
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(58:29):
By the way, before we get to the football stuff,
speaking of sponsors, do what I haven't talked Tomnzie. Did
you end up getting a new car? Still have the
same car? What? What? What? What happened?
Speaker 2 (58:38):
I still have the same car? Nobody.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
I've been checking my email, obviously, I've been checking. No,
I'm going to Key on Sunday, though, We're gonna we're
gonna talk about something.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
So I was gonna say, you're it's coming up, Wind's
coming up.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, you coming see it's it's I've got I've got
like a week and a half.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
But I'm going something.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
You've now shifted the power back to them a bit. Really,
what do you mean to tell you?
Speaker 3 (59:04):
Well, hey, I will tell them I'm the same thing
that you were telling me that I would never do.
Hopefully the Key dealership doesn't watched the pod, but I
will tell you.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, let's let's keep this. Let's keep this let's let's keep.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I was gonna ask, is is King of the Hill
basically just Club Superstar with more sections?
Speaker 1 (59:23):
No, it's Mahomes Mountain. But for basketball, all.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
Right, you want to make it. I wanted to make
it some type of fun.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
So alright, no, why it's just get it's more NBA players.
I thought you guys were expanding on the on the
Club Superstar.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Club Superstar is very specific because it's a one in,
one out policy and there's it's it's not it's not
just about how you played this year, like it there is,
you know, it's so as a for instance.
Speaker 2 (59:55):
But how you played this year could get you taken
out right or some.
Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Guys, but like Steph Curry's Superstar, he would have to
have like a truly horrendous year to be out. And
I can't even I'm not even gonna say the idea
of Lebron not being in there and so like, so
(01:00:22):
it's a different thing. Let's quickly do the Chiefs, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
So there's no secret that the Chiefs cannot protect their
quarterback in the Super Bowl. So they made a pretty
odd move. They're moving Joe Dooney to the Beer to
the Bears for a fourth round pick.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Did this move shack.
Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
You, no, because once once they franchised Tag Tray Smith
their right guard, they were clearly gonna have to move
on from Tony. So they have the highest paid center
in the league. They currently have the highest paid guard
in the league, and Toney would have been the second
(01:01:00):
his paid card in the league. You can't have like,
you just can't spend your money that way, and so
I listen, these are the tough decisions you have to
make if you're just gonna try to keep a dynasty going. Tone,
he's still a really good player, but he's thirty two
years old, he's expensive. You get now, you get a
young draft pick again a year from now at a
(01:01:22):
draft capital what they're probably they took Kingsleys Suamataya in
the second round last year to play tackle. He did
not play it well. They will probably kick him over
to guard. Listen, if you are trying to have a
sustained level of success that only the Patriots and NFL
history have had, you've got to make these tough decisions,
(01:01:43):
and you've got to get real playing time from your
draft picks. So you can't like Kingsley's got to play
this next year. It just is what it is. And also, yes,
good for Caleb. So they got they signed a tackles
or they traded for a tackle. I forget the name,
(01:02:04):
but they traded for a tackle. They traded for Tony.
They're rebuilding their offensive line. All right. Let reminder like rate, subscribe, review,
do all that stuff. And also, yeah, do it now
because maybe at one am Eastern I'm gonna pop on
and talk about the Lakers tonight. Let's do a few
listener questions.
Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Demanse Riley says, the stories like the around the Horn
story and the moments you have with Colin are the
intangibles that make us us as fans come back.
Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
That's very nice. I appreciate that. That's very nice. All right,
thank you, Riley.
Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Let's keep going, Trunks lifelong MAVs fan.
Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
At least I was, man, the lack of awareness that
this new ownership group and front office just makes makes
sports seem less fun and more of a business, which
it is.
Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I'm out now, no.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Point, Well listen, don't be out, man, But I get
the pain of this. I can't imagine. Like I said
to Wilde's yesterday, I was like, if the Hunt family
sold the Chiefs and a new ownership group came in.
I would have a lot of worries, but one of
(01:03:16):
them would not be what if these guys trade Mahomes?
Like I would be worried about a bunch of stuff,
but trading Mahomes wouldn't be on there. So when Cubans
sold the MAVs, I'm sure some MAVs fands were like,
oh boy, he was a hell of an owner. He
was invested all this stuff. But I don't think they
were ever thought what if they trade Luca? Now, maybe
(01:03:39):
they were worried Luca might demand a trade. That's the
other piece of this. I think it is way easier
to deal with if Luca demands the trade, way easier
because then A, you don't probably love Luca as much anymore,
and B you're like, well, there's nothing we could do.
And so that that to me, is that is what
(01:04:00):
it seems like, right, That's what makes it just impossible.
All right, let's do the next one.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Isaac asked after Mahomes, Alan and Burrow, which two players
round off your top five players to start a franchise with.
Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I don't know that I would have Burrow third. I
think Burrow's Jayden's interesting. I was this will shock you.
I was gonna say Lamar, Yeah, yeah, because like my
playoff concerns with Lamar, notwithstanding he's such a transcendent regular
(01:04:37):
season player and available and all that stuff. I'm you know,
Burrow's injury stuff is and slow starts you know, are
to me mahomes Alan Lamar Burrow, and then I you know,
I obviously would love to say kylea but that's not
a legitimate opinion right now. You'd have to say you'd
probably have to say Jayden h as the fifth guy,
(01:05:01):
given what they've both done in the pros. I'm trying
to think if there's anybody that's a fun producers, mark
that down for a good August or July conversation, Like
the best guys at other positions as well, non quarterbacks
start franchise with all that. I like that conversation. Isaac,
(01:05:23):
Good job you're out producing the show, all right, Great job,
Demanse a great job to everyone at Volume and Blue Dock,
all everybody helping out with today's show. Thought it looked
and sounded great. Maybe I'll be on again in twelve hours.
I don't know. Also, Demons have you talked to your mom? Like,
do you know what her travel plans are? I do?
Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
I mean I didn't learn until Monday or Tuesday, So yeah,
I thought, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Okay, yeah. So the reason I mentioned this is my wife,
Demanday's mom is going to LA and the also, so
she I said to her real quick, and then we'll
move on. Then we'll in the show said. So I said,
we're this morning, and I should have known better. I
was like, so, where are you staying in l A?
(01:06:10):
And she just turned to me and looked at me
like I had two heads. She was like, you haven't
booked my hotel yet? Like no, I she said. She said, wait,
I don't have a hotel or rental car yet. I'm like, no,
you haven't asked me to do any of that stuff.
She was like, you know you need to do.
Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Sore the assistant, But yeah, I mean, if it worse
comes to worse, I have a I have a car,
might not have a car here soon, and I have
a place.
Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Oh well, that's what I was about to say. I was,
could you imagine your mom's sleeping on your couch.
Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
It would be me sleeping on the couch. But yeah,
I mean I could not.
Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Yeah, but either way you wouldn't act, would allow it,
You would be a great allow it your mother your
mother would not. All right, great job. Everybody see you
eyes on TV. In a few hours. Will train
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