Nick Wright weighs in on the playoff push in the NBA and how teams like the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves are rising while the Suns and Nuggets are falling. What is the current outlook for Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers as they wait for LeBron James to return from injury? Later, Nick breaks down how Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals' future is impacted by signing Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to record deals and what it means for the rest of the league. Then, Nick discusses the never-ending Aaron Rodgers free agency saga and if he actually thinks Rodgers could retire. Finally, as always, Nick and Damonza answer your questions.
0:00 - What Missed
2:39 - Nick’s March Madness rant
5:24 - Lakers surviving stretch without LeBron
20:13 - Western Conference playoff outlook
29:28 - PHX is in the worst spot in the entire league
35:09 - Nick is dropping DEN down his tiers
47:35 - Nick’s March Madness picks
49:11 - Bengals pay Chase and Higgins
54:47 - Aaron Rodgers’ future
58:02 - F1 Minute
1:09:11 - Nick and Damonza answer listener questions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in What's driving Nick Great? Episode three eleven, including
on today's show for new viewers, the Glorious Return, and
you know what I'm gonna We're gonna have a little
Nick Great story time, the origin story, the true origin
story of the F one minute with Sierra Fidel and
(00:21):
the glorious return from a brand new studio. So that
coming later in the show. And this year, unlike last year,
we as a we're gonna actually cover F one. It's
it's the listen. It has just enough qualities of a
sport that I could get into that I'm gonna be
open to actually getting into it. You know what I've
(00:43):
grown to like demons over the last few years, and
that you're gonna laugh at me. Opulent wealth, opulent displays
of wealth where it's just like crazy rich people flaunting
how rich they are. And F One's got a lot
of that. By the who goes to it, it's like, oh,
the Monaco Grand Prix, here's the super yachts, the all
(01:07):
of it. And one little spoiler before we get to
the meat of the show and last night's basketball, I really,
without asking anyone for permission, this is one of the
bright sides I suppose of owning the podcast. Now, Sierra
our F one correspondent filled out a credential request for
(01:30):
the Miami Grand Prix to be our on the ground
F one correspondent for the Miami Grand Prix. Yeah, and
now it might get denied. I'm not certain. They asked
for like, you know, business letterhead and how many viewers
we have and things. They're like, you need at least
this many viewers a month. I'm like, man, we crushed
that number and so and so. Yeah, so hopefully you
(01:53):
know we're expanding. It asked where our business was located,
and I'm like, well, best I can tell, it's located
than New York, LA and Miami. We have people everywhere.
We're try Corystal at this point right boots on the ground.
So that coming later in today's show. Here is what
is not going to be in today's show, but kind
of in today's show because I'm saying it's on today's show.
(02:15):
Cavs winning streak ends at sixteen. Multiple fifteen game winning
streaks for them, Though wildly impressive baseball season officially underway
as of this morning show. He Otani and the Dodgers
won a baseball game that counted in Tokyo this morning,
and the producers are you know this is they're twisting
(02:37):
my arm, and so I will start the show with
this my annual March Madness bracket rant, which is very simple.
Fill out as many brackets as you'd like, enter as
many contests as you'd like. Have a mascot bracket, have
a best looking head coach bracket, Have a who would
(02:58):
win in a fight bracket? I have a coolest sororities bracket,
have a favorites bracket, of an underdog's bracket. Do whatever
the hell you want, but understand the rules, and the
rules are simple. If you fill out more than one bracket,
I'm not saying if you enter more than one contest,
(03:18):
but if you have for the sixty four tournament games,
I'm sorry, sixty three tournament games, anything other than the
exact sixty three winners of those games. If you have
any variation of your original bracket, you're never allowed to
(03:39):
say the following words. I picked that upset, I have
that team in the final four. No, these are just
the rules. I understand that our society is fraying day
by day and that established norms are going by away side. Yeah, well,
(04:02):
you know what, I don't even really you know, I
have varying opinions on participation trophies. My buddy Laslo used
to say, adults get them all the time. It's called
your weekly paycheck. You think you were the best at
your job this week. No, you just showed up. You
just showed up every day and at the end of
the week you got a paycheck. That's an adult participation trophy.
That's not what I mean. I'm just talking about. We
(04:22):
don't there's no there's a lack of take integrity. And
I'm all for bragging about picking a sweet upset, and
I'm even okay with you being like, oh, I had
that upset picking a twelve over a five, even if
your upset was the Vegas favorite, I'm okay with just
(04:43):
being like, no, they were the lower seeded team. I'm
not a gambler. Fine, all, that's fine. What I am
not okay with is folks who fill out six different
brackets with conflicting results, and therefore people are like, I
had that one, I had that one, I had this one. No,
if you fill out more than one, you have to
(05:03):
watch the tournament basically in silence. If you fill out
just one brag away. Those are the rules. We all
know the rules. We all should accept the rules. Now
to the actual show.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeahs, toy, do you do you think that the Lakers
have navigated Lebron's absence the best they possibly could and
then think.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
You still have more time coming up?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah? So, but he's day to day now and he
should be back. I'm gonna end up having nailed this exactly,
as is quite often the case when it comes to Again,
I'm not an insider. I don't have sources. I just
have great gut instinct and when it comes to the
(05:49):
Chiefs and the Lakers, and when it comes to things
like Mahomes or Lebron's injuries, when they happen, folks should
probably listen to me. And the day after the Lebron injury,
I did an emergency pod and I said, I think
the Lakers need to be planning on Lebron missing on
(06:11):
the high end ten games, and then I said I
would anticipate that he should be returning. My guess was
that he would be returning before their game in Chicago Thursday,
March twenty seventh. It now appears might that my updated
(06:33):
guests would be Lebron is going to return right around Thursday,
March twenty seventh, maybe a few days earlier, thankfully for
my own purposes. He should be definitely back by Saturday,
March twenty ninth, which is the game against the Grizzlies.
Now went as far as them navigating it. When I
(06:56):
looked at the ten games that I thought they might
have Lebron, I said, the goal is to go six
and four. Going five and five is acceptable. Anything worse
is a problem. They started with a loss in a
(07:17):
game that you hoped they could have won, the Brooklyn game.
But that and that Brooklyn game was, you know, a
highly problematic loss, especially because Luca did play, and so
that put them behind the eight ball. You anticipated they
were gonna lose to Milwaukee. They did. You anticipate they
were gonna lose to Denver. They almost stole that game
(07:37):
without Luca, But then they had to beat Phoenix, they
had to beat San Antonio and they did. And now
so they they started off zero to three, and I
said six and four was the goal. They're now two
and three. And again, if we're gonna use the ten
games as a level set home for Denver, home for Milwaukee,
(07:59):
in a back to back home for Chicago at Orlando
at Indiana. I look at home for Chicago at Orlando
and at Indiana as the games they've got to have.
And if somehow you can steal one of the Denver
(08:20):
Milwaukee games, and they've played really well against Denver, and
you've got They beat Denver when they were at full
when the Lakers before Lebron's injury, and they damn near
beat them when they were without Lebron. Luca Ruey, Jackson, Hayes,
Dorian Finnie Smith, Gabe Vincent six of their top eight
but the other So yes, I think that they're fine,
(08:43):
and I will take it a step further. What Austin
Reeves has done during this stretch and what Luca's done
during this stretch has made the Lakers look even more
dangerous when Lebron gets back. The other thing that's happened
is this the team they're chasing other than the Rockets.
(09:03):
None of them are red hot now. The Rockets have
won seven in a row, but the Lakers, despite that
four game losing streak, they are sitting there at twenty
five losses. The Rockets have twenty five, The Nuggets have
twenty five thanks to that. Well more in the Nuggets
in a moment, because that Nuggets Warriors game last night
was interesting. The Lakers have twenty five, and then the
(09:26):
Grizzlies are sitting there at twenty six and the Warriors,
who some people were like, oh, could the Warriors climb up?
The Warriors given the loss last night to a Nuggets
team without Jokic or Murray, and then Steve Kerr talking
about Steph potentially sitting out sometime, the Warriors. They the
(09:47):
Warriors question is are they gonna fall back a seed
into the play in not are they going to climb
into the five line. But the Lakers are still just
sitting there, you know, basically tied with Memphis, but a
game up in the lost column and tied in the
lost common with the Rockets and Nuggets, so seating wise,
(10:08):
they've been fine. We are seeing how important it is
for if, in case you didn't already know, for any
team with Luka Ancic, to just have one viable lob threat,
because Jackson Hayes all of a sudden, you know, is
you know, looking looks like a fifteen million dollar a
year player just by catching lobs from Luca and Man
(10:30):
oh man, is Austin Reeves a hell of an asset
and a hell of a player, And I understand the
internet on my behalf this week, you know, took a
bit of a victory lap for me about my Austin
Reeves Bradley Beal take from fifteen months ago. What's the meme?
They called me a madman? Guys, here's one of the
(10:53):
benefits of watching basketball. You know more than people who don't,
and anyone. And I'm not gonna act like I had
been watching a ton of Wizards and Bradley Beal, and
I like Bradley Beal personally, but I had watched enough
(11:13):
that I knew he is not at all what the
Sons need, and he is significantly on the downside, and
he doesn't really fit within that team needed strong point
guard play and a bigger post presence. What they didn't
need was another version of the exact player they have, Like,
(11:37):
what the reason I never liked well? And We're gonna
get more on the Suns in a bit. But I'm
you know, I'm interrupting myself. I'm bouncing around excited to
talk to you guys today. So it was not surprising
at all that Austin Reeves was a better third option
than Bradley Beal. What has been surprising is Austin Reeves
has made it really clear he could be a second
(12:00):
option on a decent team, like he third option on
an excellent team, but a second option on a decent team.
And here is my real question about what. Because Lebron
is watching all of this, processing all of it and
(12:21):
T one thousand style figuring out the best way for
him to play when he gets back, seeing not only
how Luca is playing, but how Austin is playing as
the secondary ball handler, similar to how Austin played as
the secondary ball handler when Lebron was in Luca's role
(12:41):
before they got Luca. I do wonder if when Lebron
comes back, he's gonna take a lot more reps. Say
it again, what were.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You going to say, Well, here's we're of You're almost
where I was.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was going to say a lot more reps as
a traditional power forward. But where it is, like the
Brew has talked about this before, almost the Karl Malone role,
and the NBA has changed so that role now kind
of is out on the wing, not in the low post.
But like I'm just gonna be a scorer. I'm gonna
be a scorer, defender, and rebounder and not so much
(13:23):
of a distributor because Luca obviously needs the ball in
his hands, and Austin's been so good, and so the Lakers.
I thought the best loss of the NBA season was
the Lakers loss to the full strength Nuggets. And then
the Lakers, clearly, I thought, you know, from their own play,
were a little invigorated by that, because then they blew
(13:46):
the doors off Phoenix. I know they only won by eleven,
but they were up twenty immediately and annihilated San Antonio
last night, and now they're gonna get Lebron back in
the next ten days at the latest, and the stretch
run gets going. I know you have one follow up on.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
The Lakers saying that Lebron's faking it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So this is this is just kind of a tale
as old as time with Lebron, which is, folks will
find a way to be wrong. Folks so badly want
to find ways to take shots or poke at this
(14:27):
guy that they will find ways to be wrong on
both sides of the equation. So, two very very prominent
voices in basketball media right after the Lebron injury said,
(14:48):
I mean he's probably done for the rest of the
regular season. In Berkley and Simmons, both of them. Simmons like, no,
he's probably done with the rest of the regular season,
you know, probably not going to be eligible for all NBA.
Barkley said that, you know, he's not gonna play again
this year until the playoffs, all of it. And then
(15:08):
a week later they're throwing out there and Barkley hasn't
done this. The Bill did. Are we sure he actually
got hurt or did Lebron in that Celtics game, which
is now being framed as, oh, he knew they were
gonna lose, that game was over even though it's a
four point game with five minutes left, knew the schedule,
(15:33):
knew Bryce, you know, might be playing for a state championship,
needs some time being a little PTO, and just you know,
is is faking essentially the injury as opposed to Oham's raiser,
the most obvious, you know, the simplest answer is usually
the right one. The most obvious answers usually the right.
(15:54):
When I might have got Okham's razor, they're wrong a bit.
There's a little irony in that or maybe the guy
who's played more men and it's of NBA basketball than
any human being alive. One of only two guys ever
make it to year twenty two, the oldest player in
the league, a forty year old, tweaked a soft tissue
injury in a game where he had to play center
against the defending champs, moving up and down the court.
(16:16):
I think that probably makes more sense.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Even if the man wasn't.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Even if he was, I don't want to say faking it,
but kind of like taking like a load management type
of thing to prepare for the run. They're about to
have a deep run. The guy it's forty years old.
I feel like if anybody, oh, I think that would have.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Been totally allowed. Yeah, I agree, but.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's not what happened. He tweaked his growing Now. I
also didn't believe again, just listen to me on this stuff, guys.
I didn't believe the fatalistic you know, ah man, he
could be out a month stuff. And the reason I
didn't was because Lebron talked after the game, and Lebron
(16:55):
was not despondent. Lebron was not beside himself, but he
was He's like you know, I gotta work it out
and figure out where I'm at, which is why it
felt like this would be a two ish, two to
three week injury at the most. And that's what it is.
I think the Lakers, though, right now I am and
(17:17):
we'll get to these teams shortly. I am downgrading the Nuggets.
I am the Nuggets slash Warriors. I'm kind of upgrading
the Warriors, downgrading the Nuggets. And to me, in the
Western Conference, it is Oklahoma City and the Lakers on
their own tier of contention, and then Nuggets Warriors on
(17:40):
their own tier beneath them of contention, and then everyone
else who and the everyone else is kind of just
Minnesota and Memphis as their own little semi content, you know,
not really contenders. But maybe all right, let's talk about
I just listen.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think it's.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They're young, and I don't think they have the guy yet.
Shngoon's awesome, but I you know, you can't give him
the ball in the playoffs and be like, get me
a bucket, not yet, you know what I mean. And
so Van Vliet's a nice player, Chandler, and listen, they
have a great coach. They've won seven in a row.
They're the two seed right now. They deserve a lot
(18:21):
of respect, But can I see them. I think they are,
and I bet everyone listening agrees with me. I think
Houston is way more likely, way more likely to lose
in Round one than to make forget the NBA Finals,
the conference finals. I think they're like the I think
(18:42):
it would be a great season for them to win
around a great season to win a round, And if
they lose in the first round, I don't think it
means this wasn't an excellent season, Like these are the
steps you've got to take, So no, I don't consider them.
If if I were to break the probable Western Conmerance
(19:05):
playoff teams into pairings, it would be Oklahoma City and
the Lakers group one, Denver and the Warriors group two,
Minnesota and Memphis group three, and the Clippers in the
Rockets group four. And I understand people you might be
hearing that be like, man, the Rockets. You have the
(19:26):
Rockets beneath Minnesota. I do because I saw Minnesota, Yeah
make a conference finals last year, right, and you have
Anthony Edwards who's going you know? And so even though
like it's not like they're a profit team and that
they have their guy. And so I do wonder if Houston,
Sorry to get off on a little Houston tangent, I
(19:48):
do wonder if Houston could be an interesting home for
Kevin Durant in the offseason. I think that's uh. I
would certainly put to Houston and Minnesota as possible possible
Kevin Durant destinations. All right, let's talk six seed in
the West.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so Golden State in Minnesota went on some runs.
They both had those snapped, but the vibe is still
looking good.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
They both had those by the way, real quick, sorry,
had those snapped by teams without their best player. Yeah,
Minnesota lost to Pacers without Haliburton, and the Warriors lost
to the Nuggets in a game looked like the Nuggets
were punting. No, yok at your Murray and the Nuggets anyway,
go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
But yeah, no, but the vibes are looking good. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
The Lakers are kind of dealing with injuries right now.
It's possible they fall down, but yeah, a month away
from the playoffs, who do you see avoiding the play
in So.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
This is where our friends at Tankaton are super helpful.
So where we can look at most difficult or easiest
strength of schedule left. So as a for instance, Phoenix,
who were going to get to in a minute, has
far and away the hardest schedule remaining. Phoenix has games
(21:07):
left against the Cavs, the Thunder, two against Boston, the Knicks,
the Rockets, and the Warriors, with only two like layup games,
the Spurs and the Bulls. So Phoenix, if they were
fighting for something, you'd be like, oh, they're in rough shape.
Here's why it matters. Minnesota has the third easiest schedule
(21:31):
remaining Minnesota. Now, it's a bad loss last night, but
Minnesota is a you know, the teams they're up against
have a combined winning percentage of four point thirty, and
they have games remaining against New Orleans, two of them
the Jazz, two against the Nets, one against the Sixers.
(21:53):
So you have five games remaining, no, i'm sorry, two
against New Orleans, two against the Nets, one six Ers,
one Jazz. Six games remaining against teams that actively want
to lose. So that's super helpful for Minnesota. The Warriors
are right at league average as far as their schedule remaining.
(22:14):
Their easiest games are New Orleans Toronto two against San Antonio.
Miami and Portland. Here's why it's to me somewhat noteworthy.
That's they they own. As far as teams that want
to lose, it's really only four for the Warriors as
(22:35):
far as the games they have left, and it's six
for Minnesota. So that plays in Minnesota's favor significantly. They
you know that Minnesota has two fewer games left than
Golden State. They have won more loss than Golden State.
When I heard Steve kerseay, you know we are you know,
(22:59):
Steph's worn down, and that essentially we're going to take
care of Steph down the stretch and rest him tomorrow
or tonight, pardon me. Against Milwaukee, now they don't have
The Warriors don't have many. In fact, they only have one,
no two back to back's left. They have a back
(23:22):
to back at the Lakers and then home for the Nuggets,
and then they have a back to back a week
later at Phoenix and then a home for San Antonio.
Right now, I would and this is not going to
be where Vegas would have it, but right now I
(23:44):
would anticipate that the Western Conference standings and mark this
down and let's see how this ages. But I think
the Western Conference standings are going to end up Minnesota six,
Golden State seven, Clippers eight, with the Kings being the
(24:08):
nine seed and then that ten seed being just the
saddest competition ever between Dallas and Phoenix, just two teams
who did not ever think this is where they were
going to end up. But it's where they have ended up.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And I talked one of the earlier actually that might
need you.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Oh yeah, well they might have to forfeit games. It's
in so if people don't understand the forfeiting games things
with the MAVs, let me explain it. This is super nerdy,
but I'll do my best to explain it. The NBA
has Here's okay, I'm gonna have to talk about a
(24:53):
few things here. Hard cap, softcap. Okay, hard cap is
the NFL where where the salary cap is a number
and you must, from the first day of the league
year until the last day of the league year be
under it at all times. You cannot go a dollar
(25:16):
over the hard cap. Now, because of the way NFL
contracts are structured, you can always manipulate that year's cap,
guys cap figures by turning salaries into signing bonuses, spreading
them out over multiple years, so it can feel like
a soft cap at times, but the cap is the cap,
(25:39):
and however you need to manipulate it. You can manipulate
your own guys' salaries, but you can't ever be over it.
That's why the NFL doesn't have things like a luxury tax,
because a luxury tax is for a soft cap sport
like the NBA, where we have a cap, but you
can go over it for various reasons. You can go
(26:02):
way over it. At times you just pay a penalty
in luxury tax. And one of the reasons the NBA
kind of has to work like that is because NBA
player contracts are guaranteed. For the most part, you can't
really manipulate a player's contract like, oh, we're turning your
salary into a signing bonus. It's not how it works.
So they need a soft cap except and of course,
(26:26):
there are certain things NBA teams can do transactionally which
triggers an actual hard cap. So if you're an Apron
team and do a sign in trade, all of a sudden,
you have a hard cap. If there's certain things, we
(26:47):
need Bobby Marx to really explain all of it. But
there are certain things that can happen where Oh no,
now you do have an NFL style hard cap. The
MAVs are a T with a hard cap. So here's
why you're hearing about the MAVs potentially having the forfeit games.
(27:07):
You must have eight healthy players ready and able to play.
The MAVs are close to exhausting their limit on two
way guys, guys from their G league team that can
call up, send down, call up and send down. They
(27:28):
have had all these injuries and because of the hard
cap demons, they are not allowed to sign another minimum player.
They can't go over the hard cap. They are running
out of two way guys' eligibility. Even they are so
(27:50):
close to the hard cap, they don't have the space
for another minimum guy. They can't sign their version of
and Alex Lynn to just be like, hey, come off
the street and play for us.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
So it be a perfect situation for Browny right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Oh yeah, or for any young player or any draft
pick right to get some burn. But they they suited
up eight healthy guys the other day.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, so it would be.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I've never in my life watching the NBA, I've never
seen a team have to forfeit games because they didn't
have eligible players. It would be kind of the crowning
achievement of what has been six weeks of just a
fever dream of terror for MAVs fans, starting with the
(28:40):
Luca trade, then the added pain of Ad getting hurt,
then the real pain of Kyrie blowing out his knee,
then the like, oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Quinton Grimes all of a sudden is a star player
in this league. We gave him away for Aleb Martin
(29:00):
for no reason whatsoever, and now we're gonna have to
maybe forfeit games. Unprecedented, just unpressed in it. But flip
side of that is AD's ramping up and they might
make the playoffs or the play in over the damn Suns,
who desperately want to win and are incredibly healthy. So
(29:21):
let's talk Suns here.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
So since the start of February, they are seven and fifteen,
and like you just said, they have no injuries.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
So it's kind of weird whatever's going on over there.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Their preseason projected win total was set at forty six
and a half games, and it seemed like they might
miss the play in. Do you think that the do
you think the Sons are going to try to actually
go on a run or are they going to tank here?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, the coach and the owner want them to go
on a run. I think the players might be over Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Every term I see him just seems more and more
pissed these days.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
He see Yeah, Katie doesn't seem happy. Coach Bud told
Devin Booker basically to shut up the other day. That
didn't go over well. I mean, they are not trying
at all. On the defensive end, Luca was miked up
against the Suns, and Luca just said, kind of in passing,
I've never had so many open looks in my life.
(30:18):
Luka have been playing professional basketball since he's fifteen. He's
like the worst defense I've ever seen. And Lebron wasn't
even out there to open stuff up and so uh.
But the Suns, I don't know that this is a
hot take. The Suns are in the worst position moving
(30:42):
forward of any team in the league because Mattishpia came
in and bought the team and traded away everything for
Kevin Durant and then traded away everything they had left
for Bradley bial Bial has a no trade and is
(31:04):
not good. Durant is approaching thirty seven and not going
to get you a ton in return, and is gone
this summer. And then you have Devin Booker, who's a
real asset. But it doesn't really make sense to trade
Booker because you would then be tanking, and you don't demanse.
(31:28):
They do not have their own pick until twenty thirty two.
Twenty thirty two, it's twenty twenty five, so they they
traded their picks away, and then they swapped picks, and
then as part of the Beal trade, they swapped the swaps.
(31:50):
This is like a mortgage crisis, but in the NBA.
So they over the next seven drafts, they either simply
give their pick away or they are in a three
way swap with other teams where of the three teams
they get the worst draft pick, so even if they're
(32:11):
the worst team in the league, that doesn't help them.
And they traded away most of their second round picks,
so it was again I used to this is sorry
for all these kind of non sequiturs. Today's a show.
I'm gonna be totally honest. Today's show that is not
necessarily going to go viral for a lot of things.
(32:34):
But real folks that are real, what's right or as
awkward as this is to say, like Nick Wright fans
are going to really be enjoying today because we talked
hard cap softcap. I did my basketball March Madness rant.
I'm now going to talk about Ted Steppien for a second.
So Ted Stepien was an owner in the NBA in
(32:54):
the eighties and he was so bad and so disastrous
for them calves. The NBA made a rule that's called
the Stepian Rule. That's about how many draft picks you
can and cannot trade. You can't trade draft picks in
consecutive years. That's why teams have to like, you know,
(33:17):
I'll trade you my twenty five and my twenty seven
because you can't just trade away all your picks and
you can only trade draft picks like six years out.
You know, those seven years out. Those are the rules
they put in to prevent an owner from just destroying
a team. And there has been a lot of frustration
(33:37):
from GM since then of like, man, I would like
full flexibility to you know, run my team as I
see fit and not have these guardrails in there. And
I think at one point there was a little momentum
in the league, like all right, we're not in the
tape delayed era of the eighties. It's smarter people running
(34:00):
the teams. It's big money. Maybe we don't need to,
you know, have these guardrails in. And then Manishbia came
along and is like Ted Steppian holding my beer. I'm
gonna show you, I'm gonna speed run, absolutely wrecking a
(34:21):
decade of a team that again, the Suns right before
you took over, made the finals, and then we're the
number one seed sixty four win or sixty some win team.
And then Luca eviscerated him, and then they trade for KD.
Then they trade for Beal, and now they're just ruined,
absolutely ruined to a point to where they even though
(34:45):
the Mavericks are two and eight in their last ten,
don't have any healthy players, their fans have turned on them.
The Mavericks still have a cushion in the standings. It's
really a remarkable, remark arkable turn of events. All right,
let's talk one more basketball thing before we get to
NFL stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Oh yeah, so the Nuggets struggled to beat that depleted
Lakers team and then they went on to lose to
the Wizards.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
All the party, yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
After that game, Jokis was asked if Denver could step
it up come playoff time, and he said, I think
who you are in the regular season, that's who you
are in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
I think you cannot flip a switch. Flip a switch.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
But they obviously just beat the Warriors without and Murray
and Christian Braun, So are you counting them out as
contenders or how do you feel about them?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So yesterday was a weird one. And if people don't know,
our Ace producer, Daniel is a die hard Nuggets fan,
and you know, his Nuggets fandom almost once upon a
time cost him his producership of this show. Because Daniel,
before you know, he and I had the great relationship
we have now thought it would be smart to troll
(35:55):
me during the Nuggets Lakers Conference finals a couple of
years ago and send me brooms. And again we joke
about it now, but Demonse knows to say I was
legitimately angry, probably under sells it. I was irate. Now
was that me being a little sensitive? Sure? But because
(36:20):
Daniel and I got through that rough patch, I have
now I have a bit of an affinity for the Nuggets.
In this regard and their fans. I respect the fact
that they were right and I was wrong about how
great jokicch is. I respect it like I you know,
(36:42):
I pat myself on the back all the time when
I'm right and when I see things other people don't.
And I was adamant. While I stand by a lot
of what I've said about the actual MVP votes, one
of my general premises was, you know, we are elevating
Yokage to all time legendier when he's not that, and
(37:04):
I was wrong. He is an all time legend. And
because I have such a steadfast belief that anytime you
have an all time legend in his prime in this league,
(37:24):
you're a viable championship contender. I have disregarded a lot
of the Nugget struggles, but this past weekend was jarring.
They were trying in theory against the Lakers, who again
were without six of their top eight players, and Austin
(37:48):
Reeves and Dalton connect lit them up for sixty five points,
and the Lakers had a three point lead with a
minute left. And what made the the fact that they
didn't take that game seriously at all and almost lost
to me was should have been a Okay, guys, we
(38:10):
gotta show up if we're gonna win. And to follow
that up with a loss to the war to the Wizards,
is I was just I said it on TV show,
I'm out on the Nuggets, and it seemed like Jokic
was out on the Nuggets.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah, I mean with that that answer, but.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Then they beat the Warriors without all their guys and
so like that does is that a rallying moment? I
don't know. I here's what I do know, And Daniel
don't get mad at me, especially because you know I'm right,
Joker better have a playoff defensive gear or else they're
(38:55):
drawing dead. I can't be subjected to years of Twitter
cutups of Luca on the perimeter playing Maddador defense and
then accept Joker as your rim protector, just being like,
I go ahead, like I just want to inbound the
(39:15):
ball anyway, I can't have it. And I'm gonna say
another thing to Nuggets folks. I saw, we all saw
when it was all good with Ross early in the year.
Folks be like, oh, why couldn't Lebron get this version
(39:35):
of Russell Westbrook the Joker can get and listen, Russ
was good last night, and Russ has had some nice moments.
But I also know everyone that watches Nuggets games. Every
once in a while you have these moments where like, Russ,
what are you doing? Or where you see how the
offense can get a little gummed up because the smart
(39:57):
teams are like, hey, Russ, shoot the ball, got shoot it?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And I also think one of the reasons the Lakers,
after the Nuggets have owned them for years, the Lakers
having a little success against the Nuggets is Russ sees
those Lakers and is like, I'm gonna and that's not
(40:24):
good for them. And so I I'm not dismissing them,
but I have downgraded. I had thunder Lakers Nuggets, as
you know, the top tier in the West. I've downgraded
the Nuggets. H a spot on that. You have a
follow up here.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Man, Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
If the Nuggets have another early exit, do you since that,
do you think they'll have some major changes to come?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well, Listen, they as much as Michael Malone can annoy me,
he's obviously an excellent coach, So you can't. You wouldn't
change the coach. The change needs to be. They need
to recognize we have one of the greatest players ever
in his prime. So how about this for an offseason
(41:13):
instead of losing a key contributor, let's add one.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Like they they.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Let guys walk out the door. They let Bruce Brown
walk out the door over money. They didn't let CACP
walk out the door over money. The move they could
make is Michael Porter junior. But the that's the move.
And I'll say one other thing. Here's another change I
think would be good for the Nuggets. Can someone convince
(41:46):
Jamal Murray that the season starts in October? And that
does mean as a fifty million dollar a year professional athlete,
it would be nice if your season started in October
not Christmas? Can someone convince Jamal Murray to be in
shape in the offseason.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Dan Michel, the Nuggets fan, agrees with you heavily there,
He says.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, of course, anyone that watches the games knows this stuff. Like,
here's the deal, Yokich is allowed to be Dowe. No
one else is like the You're just it's like here,
I have a non PC take Dowe.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Wait wait yeah, is that like a Tubby reference?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Well, Tubby's too strong, but like not ripped allowed to
be a little Joey, you're your point guard, can't be
And here's the and here's the other. Here's the non
PC take get ready to cancel me. I don't know why,
(42:55):
but I allow the Eastern European guys to not be
in elite shape. I don't know. Maybe it's the tough
where they grew up. It's tough. They just can deal
with it. Like like it's the smoking or the drinking
or the partying or whatever. I I don't know. My
point is this. I don't judge yo Ki, your Luca
(43:16):
for you can't see their muscles, but all of the
American athletes I do like that's the like I'll tell,
I'll give you a guy. It's right. It's not a
white thing. As much as I like Austin Reeves, I
need Austin Reeves to get on the Alex CRUs So
workout playing this summer. Like Austin Reeves can't as awesome
(43:39):
as he is.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
He taking contacts.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
No, he just no. Again, he's great at it. Uh,
he's he's an excellent player, very good player. But Austin
Reeves looks less physically impressive in a Laker jersey than you.
Not Okay, you're pro athlete, and so I only allow.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Just look like a normal guy, like a normal guy.
He's just a normal.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Guy out there and so like and uh and it's
not like normal guy like crazy skinny like Durant. Like Durant.
You can see his muscles, they're just not you know
what I mean, because he's super thin. But the like, yeah,
I don't like dowie NBA players again, unless you're from
(44:24):
like war torn Eastern Europe, in which case I'm like,
I don't know, you figured it out, like I I
can't vetus Sa Bonus was this way, Vlade was this way,
you know, like Powe was never super ripped. He's from Spain,
not Eastern Europe. I know, man who Like again, now
I'm really just talking about the foreign guys. So it's
(44:45):
not just Eastern European guys. But for some reason I
deal with it more. But I the where did they?
Oh it was about Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray, I need
you to be a little more in shape. I think
that's totally fair.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Last Onion says that Jack Dawson Reeves would be lights
out for the rest of the league.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
I mean, Caruso got jacked in his excellent. Now now
he's not his again, I'm throwing around excellent too strongly.
But I was thinking of and again, I don't mean
to be just doing white guy, white guy, but the
he was kind of in the Austin Reeves role with
the Lakers and then got super jacked and got big
contract with the Bulls and is really good for the Thunder.
(45:29):
And I guess I'm not doing white guy white guycause
of the subject of this conversation, Shimal mart But yeah,
but yeah, right now, Joker and Luca are the only
ones who are like, eh, whatever everyone else.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I mean, he's not like looking at all, like swollen.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
But correct Lucas. Lucas slimmed down a bit, but he's.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Not looking right jack Jacket.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
But like I I did, let me look at it
real quick. So I did my all NBA teams, a
first run at my all NBA teams for the TV show,
and this is where I came out. First Team Shay Donovan, Tatum,
Jannis Jokic, second Team Cade steph Aunt, Lebron Triple J,
(46:16):
fourth Team Harden Brunson, Jalen Brown, Mobiley, Karl Anthony Towns
and so because Luke is not eligible because he hasn't played.
He's not going to play enough games. So just looking
at it, Guys on there who have been on the
(46:37):
you know, awesome player but a little dowie over the
course of their career at different times. Joker obviously, Harden, Brunson,
and Cat. That's the list of those guys. Okay, and
what do you disagree?
Speaker 2 (46:59):
I think this is runs And I look at it
a little bit differently because I feel like he's a
shorter guy, so just a little bit more likely to be.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
And maybe you're kind of build.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
He might have like the Mahomes approach, which is I
need this because of the beating I'm taking. Maybe Harden
used to have that too, but still.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I don't think it was ever beneficial for Harden. I
think I don't think so either.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, and Jamal Murray would be on would be on
that list, all right. I don't know what we just
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terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co slash
b ball. All right, demons, let's do some NFL stuff
before we get to our f one minute.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Bengals Bengals bangalsman so Jamar Chase and T Higgins are
now the highest paid non quarterbacks in history, and Higgins
is the highest highest wide receiver two so forty of
their cap is going to those players.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Put your gam hat on. How would you fix this? Oh?
My goodness, they're screw me.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
They don't, well, I mean they don't think they're screwed.
I think it's an insane way to run a team,
and I think it's a low So here's what Higgins becomes,
as Demant said, the highest paid wide receiver two in
the league. Chase becomes the highest paid non quarterback in
the league, and Burrow's got a huge salary as well.
(50:38):
It's not that you can't win with three huge contracts.
It's that having all of your huge contracts just be
about the passing game doesn't make a ton of sense,
and having all of your resources debt like it's a
low key insult to Burrow. And I know it's what
(51:03):
Burrow wanted, so he doesn't view it this way. But
here's what I mean. It operates as if you're not
gonna have an elite passing game unless you have both
of these elite weapons. And I think Joe Burrow's better
than that. I think Joe Burrow would be just fine
(51:25):
with just one of these guys. And I think that again,
the example people use as a defense of this is
Peyton's cults. But here's the problem with you. Because Peyton's
calls had Reggie Wayne, and Marvin Harrison. The problem with
(51:46):
using that as an example is they also had Dwight
Freenian Robert Mathis as bookend defensive ends. But the other
problem with that is Peyton's with respect underachieved. You had
thirteen years of Peyton Manning, eleven of those are peak
(52:11):
Peyton Manning years. You made two Super Bowls one to one.
Compare that to the Broncos who had four years of
Peyton Manning only three of those peak Peyton Manning years.
They also went to two Super Bowls and one to
one by building a well rounded team. Compare it to
(52:32):
the Chiefs who had a choice to make a few
years ago. We are not going to be able to
pay Tyrek and Chris Jones, so you know what, We're
gonna move Tyreek to save the money for Chris and
ask Patrick to do more with less. And they've been
(52:52):
to every Super Bowl since then. And so and yeah,
mahomes last two years as numbers of DIP. Now his
first year without Tyrek, he won the MVP at the
most yards of any player in the season ever, first
player win League MVP and Trouper Bowl MVP since Kurt Warner,
but set that aside. Uh, it is just to me
(53:12):
the wrong approach to building a team. So what would
I have done. I would have a year ago, a
year ago traded t Higgins when I could have gotten
a first round pick for him and dedicated more resources
to the defense. But here is what I'll say about it,
demonse I Burrow wanted this, and it's fine. But he's
(53:36):
a smart guy and he understands the resources are limited.
He understands what this means. It kind of removes a
little bit of the If next year goes how last
year went, where Burrow's numbers are unbelievable, the Bengals offense
is excellent and they missed the playoffs because the defense
(54:00):
is terrible. It's not quite as an accomplishment for Joe
Burrow as this year he got MVP votes because it
was like, oh my god, he's doing his job. What
can he do about the defense being awful? Well, when
you go on every talk show imaginable and say you
(54:22):
need Higgins and Chase back and you understand what that
means about your ability to improve your offensive line in
your defense, well now it probably is a little more
fair to at least put some of potential Bengals struggles,
even if they're defense related at the feet of their quarterback.
(54:42):
I know that sounds odd, but I just think it's
I think it's probably the wrong approach to building a
sustainable champion, and it also is it It is to me,
certainly not the right place approach to win that division.
And the problem with that is, I don't think you
(55:08):
have any shot of winning three straight road AFC playoff
games that'll probably be outdoors, probably in cold weather cities,
with a defense that looks like the Bengals is going
to look for the near future. So I just think
I think it's a mistake, even though it's fun. All right,
(55:31):
let's talk Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Oh yeah, Aaron Rodgers still does not know where he
wants to go.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
The talks are if the Vikings don't want him, he
might retire or do you think you see Aaron Rodgers going?
Speaker 1 (55:43):
I mean, probably the Steelers. But Rapaport reported this morning
that he might not decide until after the draft.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
The draft.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Draft's in like forty days, and I understand actually why
he would wait until after the draft, because he doesn't
want to pick Pittsburgh and then see, you know, as
a for instance, Shadoor drop and then the Steelers draft
a quarterback and he's like, what the hell, so or
pick the Giants and then they draft should Or at
(56:14):
three like who knows? But I am I'm over the
Aaron Rodgers story in this regard. I just I don't
think the twentieth best quarterback in football is worth this
time or attention. And I really don't understand why the
(56:35):
Vikings would be entertaining this demon's unless they are unless
they have undisclosed news about JJ McCarthy's injury that they sum.
But the only way that even makes sense is if
they got this news somehow in the short window of
time between when they let Darnold walk and you know,
(56:58):
this last week, which is only a few days. Because
now that we have the actual Sam Donald contract details,
chalk another one up to the sports media on Budsman
by the way, who said, instead of all these tweets
just giving love to the agents that negotiated the deals,
can we please get accurate contract info. For a week,
(57:19):
we were told Sam Darnald got fifty five million guaranteed.
Turns out he got thirty seven million guaranteed. Turns out
the contract Sam Donald got is essentially one year, thirty
seven and a half million dollars and then two team
options afterwards. Who de thunk it? If that's all it
was going to take to keep Donald, they could have
(57:40):
gotten him essentially for one year forty million bucks. If
you're worried about JJ McCarthy, then do that. Yeah, he's
better than Rogers at this point.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Like why would any team want it?
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Like just not even a football standpoint, just him as
a I'm not trying to attack his character or anything,
but he just he ruined stuff.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Well yeah, I mean I think it's fair to attack
his football character and like leadership, and also like why
is he taking this long? I think because he can,
and because it is a good way to make it
clear who has the upper hand in the relationship from
the moment the relationship starts, like if if you can
(58:24):
make some an entire organization, Wait, poor Russell Wilson's like,
I can't even sign with a team until this guy does,
like and so it's just asserting asserting dominance, I guess
is what some would say. All right, time for Nick
Write's storytime. Unless you've got something else, demanse you wanted
(58:45):
to do?
Speaker 2 (58:46):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (58:46):
Before I get to it. Okay, time for Nick writes.
Story time. So, twenty years ago one of my friends
had a baby and I was twenty years old, and I,
(59:09):
you guys, some of you guys might know this, some
of you guys don't. I don't have any cousins. Really,
I had no nieces and nephews growing up. My my
dad has a sister that we didn't see all that
much when I was growing up. And my mom brother
died before I was born, so I didn't come you know,
Demans's mom's side of the family, huge family, a bunch
(59:31):
of cousins, nieces, nephews running around everywhere. I didn't have.
I didn't have that. And so the only reason I'm
even including that story is I had like no experience
around babies like I was. You know, my sister's a
year older than me. The I had. I never baby sat.
I didn't have you know, cousins or anything. And so
(59:52):
when my friend uh had a baby, it was and
he and I over a summer where I was damn
near living with him. She it was like, you know,
I call her, I said, even though I wasn't, I
think officially named her godfather that I was her godfather,
(01:00:12):
and it was my first experience ever with little kid
with babies. And then I watched this little girl, you know,
turn into a toddler as you know, as happens, and
then and this is why this is this is a
really touching kind of story for me. So again, the
sports were f one minutes coming, but that the just
(01:00:35):
stay with me here. And when I met Demanse's mom,
my wife, Danielle, and I then first met Demonse and Diora.
Diora was the exact same age as my goddaughter, and
(01:00:57):
I had like a little experience orience of dealing with
a child Diora's age because of my relationship with my goddaughter.
And I've always kind of felt that one of the
reasons I was comfortable and kind of knew how to
interact with Diora when she was a baby, when she
(01:01:18):
was when I met her, she wasn't even three, was
because of my my experience with my goddaughter. And then
our families became super close. My goddaughter had an older
sister who was almost exactly Sorry, if you're listening on
(01:01:38):
the pot, I promise I'm not crying, but it does
sound like this would be a time where I would
cry the same age as Demanse, and they became close
and then they had another baby, this baby boy, who
was just a bowling ball of energy, yeah monster. And
our families in Kansas City, you know, grew up together. Essentially,
(01:02:03):
Danielle and I ended up getting engaged, and you know,
our families grew up together. And in fact, when I
I don't know if you remember this part, you probably wouldn't,
but there was two months when I got the job
in Houston, or six weeks when I was in Houston
by myself before you guys came, and I drove from
Kancity to Houston. I drove from their house like we
(01:02:28):
were all together at their house, and then I got
on the road with my car packed up, like the
last place I saw you guys before you guys came
to Houston was their house, and because everyone was hanging
out together. And then, you know, kind of sadly we
(01:02:49):
didn't fall out of touch, but we moved to Houston
and they were in Kansas City, and then part of
the family ended up moving. Their family moved to California,
in another part moved to Miami, and we were, you know,
we went from seeing each other all the time and
talking all the time, not seeing each other that often.
I kind of, you know, it was bad, a bad
godfather in those times. And then Demandse moved back out
(01:03:15):
to California, and I was moved to California briefly, and
we kind of reconnected, and Diora and my goddaughter became
super close again, and I actually and I the had
a did an event in Vegas and Diora and her
(01:03:37):
came and everybody kind of reconnected again, and then reconnected
again at our wedding. Vower knew all about a year ago.
Well, we didn't get see each other all that often, And
there I found out, because I didn't know this, that Sierra,
(01:04:00):
who is the girl in this story, wanted to be
a sports broadcaster, and that her the sport she loves
is F one, which is the sport I know almost
nothing about. And so the culmination of this for the
longtime viewers or listeners of the pod was the F
(01:04:22):
one minute that we created last year. And a few
months ago, Sierra called me and said she had enrolled
at Jacksonville University in Florida, that she was majoring in
broadcasting and was going to have a studio for the
(01:04:45):
F one Minute. And I do this podcast because it's
good for me professionally and it's good to you know,
grow my brand in these different things. But I do
this podcast because I want it to be ultimately my
(01:05:06):
family business. It's why Demanse is my co host. It's
why I will at some point do a show behind
us with my wife, and it's why it is so
thrilling to me to watch the first baby I ever
held twenty years later be this wildly impressive young woman
(01:05:32):
who is our F one correspondent for the second season,
Sierra Fidel. And so here is the F one minute
with Sierra Fiddel. Take it away.
Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Cc Hey, guys, welcome back to F one Minute. We're
in season two because the twenty twenty five F one
season has officially kicked off in Melbourne, Australia. There are
any conditions single handedly through this race into chaos. But
before it even began, rookie Isaac Hajar crashed into the
barriers during the formation lap, which delayed the start of
(01:06:05):
the race. But if you love the thrills, don't fret,
because this only set the stage for five of the
drivers to eventually spin off and crash. Luckily, nobody was
seriously harmed in the making of this Grand Prix, and
so the jama begins with a front row lockout for McLaren,
Norris and p One and p Astree behind him. Norris
manages to protect his position despite some dicey action between
(01:06:28):
Verstappen and Pastry and the opening meters, but things slowed
down once rookie Jack Doing from Alpine collided into the
barriers during the first lap of the race, bringing out
the first of.
Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Four safety cars.
Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
But here's where the chaos really unleashed on pretty much
everyone involved, even me at home watching. So after the
next DNF on the list from Fernando Alonso, many teams
decided to make a pit stop under this safety car.
From that crash, however, around laps forty four to forty
seven is where heavy rain began to hit, and virtually
(01:07:03):
nobody had the right tires for these conditions, which made
everything a little bit more exciting. Both McLaren's slid off
the track and we had two different race leaders within
this timeframe. Now it's important to note that it's a
huge challenge to race with the wrong tires and heavy rains,
so drivers like for Stappin and Hamilton led the race,
(01:07:24):
but only for a moment because they sort of gambled
on thugging it out. Should I stay out, should I
go in the pits? But eventually they caved and they
switched to eat eat intermediate tires and so oh, I
forgot to mention there was another crash between Liam Lawson
and Gabriello, not together, they just crashed on the same lap.
And so with that crack, with those crashes, the last
(01:07:46):
safety cars were out. In the closing moments of the race.
Max stalked Norris right unto the end. But big props
to Lando Norris because despite the other changing conditions, the
safety cars and the pressure run behind and he started
and ended the Australian GP in first place for a
stapp And ended in p two, and we're also at
(01:08:06):
Mercedes ended in p three. Now I'm going to introduce
something that's kind of new and it's my twiste on DRS.
So normally DRS stands for Drag Reduction System, but here
on the four minute DRS stands for disastrous race Shenanians
and for the Australian JP. I have to hand it
to our friends at forts of Ferrari because we had
(01:08:26):
Charles L Kirk complaining on the radio that his seat
was full of water. And then we have Lewis Hamilton
who just joined the team, only to see both Mercedes
in front of him, not only a Mercedes though also
a Sober and also Williams. So he ended this race
with one point. So welcome to the team, I guess, Lewis,
but it's only up from here. It's the first race.
It was pretty tricky. You're not going to hit it
(01:08:48):
out of the park every race, so we'll see. But
we've had a fascinating season open in Australia and now
it's off to Shanghai, China for round two this Sunday.
That's it for four minute and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Great one, love it and brought one of the one
of the cool things about the F one season is
how dope it would be to be one of these
drivers all the different places you race. So they're just
in Australia this weekend. She mentioned there in Shanghai a
few weeks A couple weeks later, it's there in Japan,
(01:09:23):
then they're in Bachran, then Saudi Arabia, then down in
Miami then like it's just the whole world. It's so cool.
All right. So news that I took away from it
is Verstapping got some work to do. Is in second, Lando,
Norris uh in first, and Team Ferrari had Lewis Hamilton.
(01:09:48):
He came in tenth, Charles Leclerk came in eighth. All right, good,
great f one minute with Sierra. All right, let's do
a couple listener questions to monsday before we go.
Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Uh So, last week a listener had asked if he
could uh he asked for the rights to put your
name or hit your face on a shirt, and he
did it, and he tweeted us out, I think we're
gonna show it for the Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
They came at him for the font.
Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
But I okay, yeah, I saw you had a funny reply.
So this is a great if you're not watching, it's
me wearing the Louis Vatan fleece and says mister consistency.
And somebody asked him about the font choice and demonse
Snap replied, you were expecting Times new Roman question mark.
You were a second Times the Roman, weren't you. I
(01:10:32):
love it was funny. That's pretty good. All right, great
job by him. Shout out to him. Let me give home,
Let me give his Twitter a shout out. Oh he
is kind of a bad Twitter handle, but that's fine.
It's not bad, like inappropriate. It's just hard to remember.
His Twitter handle is Dallas two one four, five, eight
eight three three. So there, shout out to him. All right? Next?
Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Uh, noah, Nick, what will the media says the Lakers
win at all but Luca's finals MV. Do you think
of lebron ring where he's not finals MVP weighs any
less than his other rings?
Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Well, listen, I don't know. Yes, not being finals MVP
weighs a little bit less, but being the second best
player in the finals in year twenty two at age
forty weighs a lot. You know what I mean. So
it kind of offsets it to a degree. All right,
(01:11:26):
let's go.
Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
To justin if I made it.
Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
If I make a bunch of brackets but the exact
same prediction for a specific upset and all of them,
can I brag about that game? An example, picking Drake
to win round one every time?
Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Okay, So two things. One is I think that's allowable.
I think if you're going to do the multiple brackets,
and you want to be able to brag, you can
only brag about things you had in every single one.
I picked this team to make the final four, in
every single one, or I picked this upset, and every
(01:12:05):
single one that one I will allow the other thing
is okay. So I so he wrote there because I
can see it.
Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
I E.
Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
And demondse just turned that into an example. And when
he said that, I was like, holy moly. I never
knew what I E stood for, and I think demands
just taught me that the game now, so you're not.
Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Gonna get You're.
Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Not No, you're not gonna get cooked now. As it
turns out, it's not what it stands for, but I
like it. No, it's uh. It's evidently an abbreviation for
a Latin phrase I S, which is I'm again. I'm
reading this from the why the Warnell School of Forestry
(01:13:09):
and Natural Resources. I don't know why they have that
this in there, but they example makes it makes perfect sense.
And id ST in Latin can mean for example, so
you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say you
got it. I'm gonna say you got it here? Tell
me like the I like it I like it. Yeah, No,
(01:13:36):
that was good. I like that one a lot. All right,
let's do the last two quick, and then I.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Gotta gon nick.
Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Nick, you said before the third star with Lebron, Bosh
and Love have to sacrifice their numbers? Is that better
for this Lakers team? Since Austin Reeves was never a
star given his history.
Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
So what I have said is because second stars with
Lebron thrive, and fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth man men thrive.
The third guy historically with Lebron, Bosh, Kevin Love have
seen their kuzma. With the Lakers, you could argue seeing
their numbers potentially drop because the third guy on a
(01:14:21):
Lebron team is just the open guy. Like you're not
gonna We're not gonna force feed touches to a third guy.
In that regard, I do understand where like Austin Reeves
in a pinch, can be your second guy, hell can
be your best guy on certain nights, as he was
in one of the games the Lakers won, or well,
they almost beat the Nuggets, but they also had a
game right after the Luca trade when Austin was that
(01:14:42):
against Boston. Boston that Austin was the top guy doesn't matter. Uh,
but yeah, I think that is smart. All right, let's
do the last one.
Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Jaton asked, how do you do this podcast and on
TV every weekday?
Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
How do you sleep?
Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
I sleep fine, listen, it's the podcast is supposed to
be forty five minutes every day, it ends up being
an hour twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
But it's.
Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
You know, I enjoy it, and I as long as
I don't feel like I am giving less than full
effort or attention to either thing, I'll keep doing both.
Like if at any point I was like, I'm mailing
it in now, then it means it's time for me
to only do one. But you know it as is.
(01:15:31):
I think it's fine. Oh and it was the Lakers
Pacers game that Austin had forty five Thank you producers,
all right, great job, de Mond's a great job. Our
friends at Blue Duck, thank you to our friends at
DraftKings in the volume, and I will see you guys
on Thursday. What's right
Welcome in What's driving Nick Great? Episode three eleven, including
on today's show for new viewers, the Glorious Return, and
you know what I'm gonna We're gonna have a little
Nick Great story time, the origin story, the true origin
story of the F one minute with Sierra Fidel and
(00:21):
the glorious return from a brand new studio. So that
coming later in the show. And this year, unlike last year,
we as a we're gonna actually cover F one. It's
it's the listen. It has just enough qualities of a
sport that I could get into that I'm gonna be
open to actually getting into it. You know what I've
(00:43):
grown to like demons over the last few years, and
that you're gonna laugh at me. Opulent wealth, opulent displays
of wealth where it's just like crazy rich people flaunting
how rich they are. And F One's got a lot
of that. By the who goes to it, it's like, oh,
the Monaco Grand Prix, here's the super yachts, the all
(01:07):
of it. And one little spoiler before we get to
the meat of the show and last night's basketball, I really,
without asking anyone for permission, this is one of the
bright sides I suppose of owning the podcast. Now, Sierra
our F one correspondent filled out a credential request for
(01:30):
the Miami Grand Prix to be our on the ground
F one correspondent for the Miami Grand Prix. Yeah, and
now it might get denied. I'm not certain. They asked
for like, you know, business letterhead and how many viewers
we have and things. They're like, you need at least
this many viewers a month. I'm like, man, we crushed
that number and so and so. Yeah, so hopefully you
(01:53):
know we're expanding. It asked where our business was located,
and I'm like, well, best I can tell, it's located
than New York, LA and Miami. We have people everywhere.
We're try Corystal at this point right boots on the ground.
So that coming later in today's show. Here is what
is not going to be in today's show, but kind
of in today's show because I'm saying it's on today's show.
(02:15):
Cavs winning streak ends at sixteen. Multiple fifteen game winning
streaks for them, Though wildly impressive baseball season officially underway
as of this morning show. He Otani and the Dodgers
won a baseball game that counted in Tokyo this morning,
and the producers are you know this is they're twisting
(02:37):
my arm, and so I will start the show with
this my annual March Madness bracket rant, which is very simple.
Fill out as many brackets as you'd like, enter as
many contests as you'd like. Have a mascot bracket, have
a best looking head coach bracket, Have a who would
(02:58):
win in a fight bracket? I have a coolest sororities bracket,
have a favorites bracket, of an underdog's bracket. Do whatever
the hell you want, but understand the rules, and the
rules are simple. If you fill out more than one bracket,
I'm not saying if you enter more than one contest,
(03:18):
but if you have for the sixty four tournament games,
I'm sorry, sixty three tournament games, anything other than the
exact sixty three winners of those games. If you have
any variation of your original bracket, you're never allowed to
(03:39):
say the following words. I picked that upset, I have
that team in the final four. No, these are just
the rules. I understand that our society is fraying day
by day and that established norms are going by away side. Yeah, well,
(04:02):
you know what, I don't even really you know, I
have varying opinions on participation trophies. My buddy Laslo used
to say, adults get them all the time. It's called
your weekly paycheck. You think you were the best at
your job this week. No, you just showed up. You
just showed up every day and at the end of
the week you got a paycheck. That's an adult participation trophy.
That's not what I mean. I'm just talking about. We
(04:22):
don't there's no there's a lack of take integrity. And
I'm all for bragging about picking a sweet upset, and
I'm even okay with you being like, oh, I had
that upset picking a twelve over a five, even if
your upset was the Vegas favorite, I'm okay with just
(04:43):
being like, no, they were the lower seeded team. I'm
not a gambler. Fine, all, that's fine. What I am
not okay with is folks who fill out six different
brackets with conflicting results, and therefore people are like, I
had that one, I had that one, I had this one. No,
if you fill out more than one, you have to
(05:03):
watch the tournament basically in silence. If you fill out
just one brag away. Those are the rules. We all
know the rules. We all should accept the rules. Now
to the actual show.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeahs, toy, do you do you think that the Lakers
have navigated Lebron's absence the best they possibly could and
then think.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
You still have more time coming up?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah? So, but he's day to day now and he
should be back. I'm gonna end up having nailed this exactly,
as is quite often the case when it comes to Again,
I'm not an insider. I don't have sources. I just
have great gut instinct and when it comes to the
(05:49):
Chiefs and the Lakers, and when it comes to things
like Mahomes or Lebron's injuries, when they happen, folks should
probably listen to me. And the day after the Lebron injury,
I did an emergency pod and I said, I think
the Lakers need to be planning on Lebron missing on
(06:11):
the high end ten games, and then I said I
would anticipate that he should be returning. My guess was
that he would be returning before their game in Chicago Thursday,
March twenty seventh. It now appears might that my updated
(06:33):
guests would be Lebron is going to return right around Thursday,
March twenty seventh, maybe a few days earlier, thankfully for
my own purposes. He should be definitely back by Saturday,
March twenty ninth, which is the game against the Grizzlies.
Now went as far as them navigating it. When I
(06:56):
looked at the ten games that I thought they might
have Lebron, I said, the goal is to go six
and four. Going five and five is acceptable. Anything worse
is a problem. They started with a loss in a
(07:17):
game that you hoped they could have won, the Brooklyn game.
But that and that Brooklyn game was, you know, a
highly problematic loss, especially because Luca did play, and so
that put them behind the eight ball. You anticipated they
were gonna lose to Milwaukee. They did. You anticipate they
were gonna lose to Denver. They almost stole that game
(07:37):
without Luca, But then they had to beat Phoenix, they
had to beat San Antonio and they did. And now
so they they started off zero to three, and I
said six and four was the goal. They're now two
and three. And again, if we're gonna use the ten
games as a level set home for Denver, home for Milwaukee,
(07:59):
in a back to back home for Chicago at Orlando
at Indiana. I look at home for Chicago at Orlando
and at Indiana as the games they've got to have.
And if somehow you can steal one of the Denver
(08:20):
Milwaukee games, and they've played really well against Denver, and
you've got They beat Denver when they were at full
when the Lakers before Lebron's injury, and they damn near
beat them when they were without Lebron. Luca Ruey, Jackson, Hayes,
Dorian Finnie Smith, Gabe Vincent six of their top eight
but the other So yes, I think that they're fine,
(08:43):
and I will take it a step further. What Austin
Reeves has done during this stretch and what Luca's done
during this stretch has made the Lakers look even more
dangerous when Lebron gets back. The other thing that's happened
is this the team they're chasing other than the Rockets.
(09:03):
None of them are red hot now. The Rockets have
won seven in a row, but the Lakers, despite that
four game losing streak, they are sitting there at twenty
five losses. The Rockets have twenty five, The Nuggets have
twenty five thanks to that. Well more in the Nuggets
in a moment, because that Nuggets Warriors game last night
was interesting. The Lakers have twenty five, and then the
(09:26):
Grizzlies are sitting there at twenty six and the Warriors,
who some people were like, oh, could the Warriors climb up?
The Warriors given the loss last night to a Nuggets
team without Jokic or Murray, and then Steve Kerr talking
about Steph potentially sitting out sometime, the Warriors. They the
(09:47):
Warriors question is are they gonna fall back a seed
into the play in not are they going to climb
into the five line. But the Lakers are still just
sitting there, you know, basically tied with Memphis, but a
game up in the lost column and tied in the
lost common with the Rockets and Nuggets, so seating wise,
(10:08):
they've been fine. We are seeing how important it is
for if, in case you didn't already know, for any
team with Luka Ancic, to just have one viable lob threat,
because Jackson Hayes all of a sudden, you know, is
you know, looking looks like a fifteen million dollar a
year player just by catching lobs from Luca and Man
(10:30):
oh man, is Austin Reeves a hell of an asset
and a hell of a player, And I understand the
internet on my behalf this week, you know, took a
bit of a victory lap for me about my Austin
Reeves Bradley Beal take from fifteen months ago. What's the meme?
They called me a madman? Guys, here's one of the
(10:53):
benefits of watching basketball. You know more than people who don't,
and anyone. And I'm not gonna act like I had
been watching a ton of Wizards and Bradley Beal, and
I like Bradley Beal personally, but I had watched enough
(11:13):
that I knew he is not at all what the
Sons need, and he is significantly on the downside, and
he doesn't really fit within that team needed strong point
guard play and a bigger post presence. What they didn't
need was another version of the exact player they have, Like,
(11:37):
what the reason I never liked well? And We're gonna
get more on the Suns in a bit. But I'm
you know, I'm interrupting myself. I'm bouncing around excited to
talk to you guys today. So it was not surprising
at all that Austin Reeves was a better third option
than Bradley Beal. What has been surprising is Austin Reeves
has made it really clear he could be a second
(12:00):
option on a decent team, like he third option on
an excellent team, but a second option on a decent team.
And here is my real question about what. Because Lebron
is watching all of this, processing all of it and
(12:21):
T one thousand style figuring out the best way for
him to play when he gets back, seeing not only
how Luca is playing, but how Austin is playing as
the secondary ball handler, similar to how Austin played as
the secondary ball handler when Lebron was in Luca's role
(12:41):
before they got Luca. I do wonder if when Lebron
comes back, he's gonna take a lot more reps. Say
it again, what were.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You going to say, Well, here's we're of You're almost
where I was.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was going to say a lot more reps as
a traditional power forward. But where it is, like the
Brew has talked about this before, almost the Karl Malone role,
and the NBA has changed so that role now kind
of is out on the wing, not in the low post.
But like I'm just gonna be a scorer. I'm gonna
be a scorer, defender, and rebounder and not so much
(13:23):
of a distributor because Luca obviously needs the ball in
his hands, and Austin's been so good, and so the Lakers.
I thought the best loss of the NBA season was
the Lakers loss to the full strength Nuggets. And then
the Lakers, clearly, I thought, you know, from their own play,
were a little invigorated by that, because then they blew
(13:46):
the doors off Phoenix. I know they only won by eleven,
but they were up twenty immediately and annihilated San Antonio
last night, and now they're gonna get Lebron back in
the next ten days at the latest, and the stretch
run gets going. I know you have one follow up on.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
The Lakers saying that Lebron's faking it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So this is this is just kind of a tale
as old as time with Lebron, which is, folks will
find a way to be wrong. Folks so badly want
to find ways to take shots or poke at this
(14:27):
guy that they will find ways to be wrong on
both sides of the equation. So, two very very prominent
voices in basketball media right after the Lebron injury said,
(14:48):
I mean he's probably done for the rest of the
regular season. In Berkley and Simmons, both of them. Simmons like, no,
he's probably done with the rest of the regular season,
you know, probably not going to be eligible for all NBA.
Barkley said that, you know, he's not gonna play again
this year until the playoffs, all of it. And then
(15:08):
a week later they're throwing out there and Barkley hasn't
done this. The Bill did. Are we sure he actually
got hurt or did Lebron in that Celtics game, which
is now being framed as, oh, he knew they were
gonna lose, that game was over even though it's a
four point game with five minutes left, knew the schedule,
(15:33):
knew Bryce, you know, might be playing for a state championship,
needs some time being a little PTO, and just you know,
is is faking essentially the injury as opposed to Oham's raiser,
the most obvious, you know, the simplest answer is usually
the right one. The most obvious answers usually the right.
(15:54):
When I might have got Okham's razor, they're wrong a bit.
There's a little irony in that or maybe the guy
who's played more men and it's of NBA basketball than
any human being alive. One of only two guys ever
make it to year twenty two, the oldest player in
the league, a forty year old, tweaked a soft tissue
injury in a game where he had to play center
against the defending champs, moving up and down the court.
(16:16):
I think that probably makes more sense.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Even if the man wasn't.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Even if he was, I don't want to say faking it,
but kind of like taking like a load management type
of thing to prepare for the run. They're about to
have a deep run. The guy it's forty years old.
I feel like if anybody, oh, I think that would have.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Been totally allowed. Yeah, I agree, but.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's not what happened. He tweaked his growing Now. I
also didn't believe again, just listen to me on this stuff, guys.
I didn't believe the fatalistic you know, ah man, he
could be out a month stuff. And the reason I
didn't was because Lebron talked after the game, and Lebron
(16:55):
was not despondent. Lebron was not beside himself, but he
was He's like you know, I gotta work it out
and figure out where I'm at, which is why it
felt like this would be a two ish, two to
three week injury at the most. And that's what it is.
I think the Lakers, though, right now I am and
(17:17):
we'll get to these teams shortly. I am downgrading the Nuggets.
I am the Nuggets slash Warriors. I'm kind of upgrading
the Warriors, downgrading the Nuggets. And to me, in the
Western Conference, it is Oklahoma City and the Lakers on
their own tier of contention, and then Nuggets Warriors on
(17:40):
their own tier beneath them of contention, and then everyone
else who and the everyone else is kind of just
Minnesota and Memphis as their own little semi content, you know,
not really contenders. But maybe all right, let's talk about
I just listen.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think it's.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They're young, and I don't think they have the guy yet.
Shngoon's awesome, but I you know, you can't give him
the ball in the playoffs and be like, get me
a bucket, not yet, you know what I mean. And
so Van Vliet's a nice player, Chandler, and listen, they
have a great coach. They've won seven in a row.
They're the two seed right now. They deserve a lot
(18:21):
of respect, But can I see them. I think they are,
and I bet everyone listening agrees with me. I think
Houston is way more likely, way more likely to lose
in Round one than to make forget the NBA Finals,
the conference finals. I think they're like the I think
(18:42):
it would be a great season for them to win
around a great season to win a round, And if
they lose in the first round, I don't think it
means this wasn't an excellent season, Like these are the
steps you've got to take, So no, I don't consider them.
If if I were to break the probable Western Conmerance
(19:05):
playoff teams into pairings, it would be Oklahoma City and
the Lakers group one, Denver and the Warriors group two,
Minnesota and Memphis group three, and the Clippers in the
Rockets group four. And I understand people you might be
hearing that be like, man, the Rockets. You have the
(19:26):
Rockets beneath Minnesota. I do because I saw Minnesota, Yeah
make a conference finals last year, right, and you have
Anthony Edwards who's going you know? And so even though
like it's not like they're a profit team and that
they have their guy. And so I do wonder if Houston,
Sorry to get off on a little Houston tangent, I
(19:48):
do wonder if Houston could be an interesting home for
Kevin Durant in the offseason. I think that's uh. I
would certainly put to Houston and Minnesota as possible possible
Kevin Durant destinations. All right, let's talk six seed in
the West.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so Golden State in Minnesota went on some runs.
They both had those snapped, but the vibe is still
looking good.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
They both had those by the way, real quick, sorry,
had those snapped by teams without their best player. Yeah,
Minnesota lost to Pacers without Haliburton, and the Warriors lost
to the Nuggets in a game looked like the Nuggets
were punting. No, yok at your Murray and the Nuggets anyway,
go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
But yeah, no, but the vibes are looking good. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
The Lakers are kind of dealing with injuries right now.
It's possible they fall down, but yeah, a month away
from the playoffs, who do you see avoiding the play
in So.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
This is where our friends at Tankaton are super helpful.
So where we can look at most difficult or easiest
strength of schedule left. So as a for instance, Phoenix,
who were going to get to in a minute, has
far and away the hardest schedule remaining. Phoenix has games
(21:07):
left against the Cavs, the Thunder, two against Boston, the Knicks,
the Rockets, and the Warriors, with only two like layup games,
the Spurs and the Bulls. So Phoenix, if they were
fighting for something, you'd be like, oh, they're in rough shape.
Here's why it matters. Minnesota has the third easiest schedule
(21:31):
remaining Minnesota. Now, it's a bad loss last night, but
Minnesota is a you know, the teams they're up against
have a combined winning percentage of four point thirty, and
they have games remaining against New Orleans, two of them
the Jazz, two against the Nets, one against the Sixers.
(21:53):
So you have five games remaining, no, i'm sorry, two
against New Orleans, two against the Nets, one six Ers,
one Jazz. Six games remaining against teams that actively want
to lose. So that's super helpful for Minnesota. The Warriors
are right at league average as far as their schedule remaining.
(22:14):
Their easiest games are New Orleans Toronto two against San Antonio.
Miami and Portland. Here's why it's to me somewhat noteworthy.
That's they they own. As far as teams that want
to lose, it's really only four for the Warriors as
(22:35):
far as the games they have left, and it's six
for Minnesota. So that plays in Minnesota's favor significantly. They
you know that Minnesota has two fewer games left than
Golden State. They have won more loss than Golden State.
When I heard Steve kerseay, you know we are you know,
(22:59):
Steph's worn down, and that essentially we're going to take
care of Steph down the stretch and rest him tomorrow
or tonight, pardon me. Against Milwaukee, now they don't have
The Warriors don't have many. In fact, they only have one,
no two back to back's left. They have a back
(23:22):
to back at the Lakers and then home for the Nuggets,
and then they have a back to back a week
later at Phoenix and then a home for San Antonio.
Right now, I would and this is not going to
be where Vegas would have it, but right now I
(23:44):
would anticipate that the Western Conference standings and mark this
down and let's see how this ages. But I think
the Western Conference standings are going to end up Minnesota six,
Golden State seven, Clippers eight, with the Kings being the
(24:08):
nine seed and then that ten seed being just the
saddest competition ever between Dallas and Phoenix, just two teams
who did not ever think this is where they were
going to end up. But it's where they have ended up.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And I talked one of the earlier actually that might
need you.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Oh yeah, well they might have to forfeit games. It's
in so if people don't understand the forfeiting games things
with the MAVs, let me explain it. This is super nerdy,
but I'll do my best to explain it. The NBA
has Here's okay, I'm gonna have to talk about a
(24:53):
few things here. Hard cap, softcap. Okay, hard cap is
the NFL where where the salary cap is a number
and you must, from the first day of the league
year until the last day of the league year be
under it at all times. You cannot go a dollar
(25:16):
over the hard cap. Now, because of the way NFL
contracts are structured, you can always manipulate that year's cap,
guys cap figures by turning salaries into signing bonuses, spreading
them out over multiple years, so it can feel like
a soft cap at times, but the cap is the cap,
(25:39):
and however you need to manipulate it. You can manipulate
your own guys' salaries, but you can't ever be over it.
That's why the NFL doesn't have things like a luxury tax,
because a luxury tax is for a soft cap sport
like the NBA, where we have a cap, but you
can go over it for various reasons. You can go
(26:02):
way over it. At times you just pay a penalty
in luxury tax. And one of the reasons the NBA
kind of has to work like that is because NBA
player contracts are guaranteed. For the most part, you can't
really manipulate a player's contract like, oh, we're turning your
salary into a signing bonus. It's not how it works.
So they need a soft cap except and of course,
(26:26):
there are certain things NBA teams can do transactionally which
triggers an actual hard cap. So if you're an Apron
team and do a sign in trade, all of a sudden,
you have a hard cap. If there's certain things, we
(26:47):
need Bobby Marx to really explain all of it. But
there are certain things that can happen where Oh no,
now you do have an NFL style hard cap. The
MAVs are a T with a hard cap. So here's
why you're hearing about the MAVs potentially having the forfeit games.
(27:07):
You must have eight healthy players ready and able to play.
The MAVs are close to exhausting their limit on two
way guys, guys from their G league team that can
call up, send down, call up and send down. They
(27:28):
have had all these injuries and because of the hard
cap demons, they are not allowed to sign another minimum player.
They can't go over the hard cap. They are running
out of two way guys' eligibility. Even they are so
(27:50):
close to the hard cap, they don't have the space
for another minimum guy. They can't sign their version of
and Alex Lynn to just be like, hey, come off
the street and play for us.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
So it be a perfect situation for Browny right.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Oh yeah, or for any young player or any draft
pick right to get some burn. But they they suited
up eight healthy guys the other day.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, so it would be.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I've never in my life watching the NBA, I've never
seen a team have to forfeit games because they didn't
have eligible players. It would be kind of the crowning
achievement of what has been six weeks of just a
fever dream of terror for MAVs fans, starting with the
(28:40):
Luca trade, then the added pain of Ad getting hurt,
then the real pain of Kyrie blowing out his knee,
then the like, oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Quinton Grimes all of a sudden is a star player
in this league. We gave him away for Aleb Martin
(29:00):
for no reason whatsoever, and now we're gonna have to
maybe forfeit games. Unprecedented, just unpressed in it. But flip
side of that is AD's ramping up and they might
make the playoffs or the play in over the damn Suns,
who desperately want to win and are incredibly healthy. So
(29:21):
let's talk Suns here.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
So since the start of February, they are seven and fifteen,
and like you just said, they have no injuries.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
So it's kind of weird whatever's going on over there.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Their preseason projected win total was set at forty six
and a half games, and it seemed like they might
miss the play in. Do you think that the do
you think the Sons are going to try to actually
go on a run or are they going to tank here?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, the coach and the owner want them to go
on a run. I think the players might be over Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Every term I see him just seems more and more
pissed these days.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
He see Yeah, Katie doesn't seem happy. Coach Bud told
Devin Booker basically to shut up the other day. That
didn't go over well. I mean, they are not trying
at all. On the defensive end, Luca was miked up
against the Suns, and Luca just said, kind of in passing,
I've never had so many open looks in my life.
(30:18):
Luka have been playing professional basketball since he's fifteen. He's
like the worst defense I've ever seen. And Lebron wasn't
even out there to open stuff up and so uh.
But the Suns, I don't know that this is a
hot take. The Suns are in the worst position moving
(30:42):
forward of any team in the league because Mattishpia came
in and bought the team and traded away everything for
Kevin Durant and then traded away everything they had left
for Bradley bial Bial has a no trade and is
(31:04):
not good. Durant is approaching thirty seven and not going
to get you a ton in return, and is gone
this summer. And then you have Devin Booker, who's a
real asset. But it doesn't really make sense to trade
Booker because you would then be tanking, and you don't demanse.
(31:28):
They do not have their own pick until twenty thirty two.
Twenty thirty two, it's twenty twenty five, so they they
traded their picks away, and then they swapped picks, and
then as part of the Beal trade, they swapped the swaps.
(31:50):
This is like a mortgage crisis, but in the NBA.
So they over the next seven drafts, they either simply
give their pick away or they are in a three
way swap with other teams where of the three teams
they get the worst draft pick, so even if they're
(32:11):
the worst team in the league, that doesn't help them.
And they traded away most of their second round picks,
so it was again I used to this is sorry
for all these kind of non sequiturs. Today's a show.
I'm gonna be totally honest. Today's show that is not
necessarily going to go viral for a lot of things.
(32:34):
But real folks that are real, what's right or as
awkward as this is to say, like Nick Wright fans
are going to really be enjoying today because we talked
hard cap softcap. I did my basketball March Madness rant.
I'm now going to talk about Ted Steppien for a second.
So Ted Stepien was an owner in the NBA in
(32:54):
the eighties and he was so bad and so disastrous
for them calves. The NBA made a rule that's called
the Stepian Rule. That's about how many draft picks you
can and cannot trade. You can't trade draft picks in
consecutive years. That's why teams have to like, you know,
(33:17):
I'll trade you my twenty five and my twenty seven
because you can't just trade away all your picks and
you can only trade draft picks like six years out.
You know, those seven years out. Those are the rules
they put in to prevent an owner from just destroying
a team. And there has been a lot of frustration
(33:37):
from GM since then of like, man, I would like
full flexibility to you know, run my team as I
see fit and not have these guardrails in there. And
I think at one point there was a little momentum
in the league, like all right, we're not in the
tape delayed era of the eighties. It's smarter people running
(34:00):
the teams. It's big money. Maybe we don't need to,
you know, have these guardrails in. And then Manishbia came
along and is like Ted Steppian holding my beer. I'm
gonna show you, I'm gonna speed run, absolutely wrecking a
(34:21):
decade of a team that again, the Suns right before
you took over, made the finals, and then we're the
number one seed sixty four win or sixty some win team.
And then Luca eviscerated him, and then they trade for KD.
Then they trade for Beal, and now they're just ruined,
absolutely ruined to a point to where they even though
(34:45):
the Mavericks are two and eight in their last ten,
don't have any healthy players, their fans have turned on them.
The Mavericks still have a cushion in the standings. It's
really a remarkable, remark arkable turn of events. All right,
let's talk one more basketball thing before we get to
NFL stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Oh yeah, so the Nuggets struggled to beat that depleted
Lakers team and then they went on to lose to
the Wizards.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
All the party, yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
After that game, Jokis was asked if Denver could step
it up come playoff time, and he said, I think
who you are in the regular season, that's who you
are in the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
I think you cannot flip a switch. Flip a switch.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
But they obviously just beat the Warriors without and Murray
and Christian Braun, So are you counting them out as
contenders or how do you feel about them?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So yesterday was a weird one. And if people don't know,
our Ace producer, Daniel is a die hard Nuggets fan,
and you know, his Nuggets fandom almost once upon a
time cost him his producership of this show. Because Daniel,
before you know, he and I had the great relationship
we have now thought it would be smart to troll
(35:55):
me during the Nuggets Lakers Conference finals a couple of
years ago and send me brooms. And again we joke
about it now, but Demonse knows to say I was
legitimately angry, probably under sells it. I was irate. Now
was that me being a little sensitive? Sure? But because
(36:20):
Daniel and I got through that rough patch, I have
now I have a bit of an affinity for the Nuggets.
In this regard and their fans. I respect the fact
that they were right and I was wrong about how
great jokicch is. I respect it like I you know,
(36:42):
I pat myself on the back all the time when
I'm right and when I see things other people don't.
And I was adamant. While I stand by a lot
of what I've said about the actual MVP votes, one
of my general premises was, you know, we are elevating
Yokage to all time legendier when he's not that, and
(37:04):
I was wrong. He is an all time legend. And
because I have such a steadfast belief that anytime you
have an all time legend in his prime in this league,
(37:24):
you're a viable championship contender. I have disregarded a lot
of the Nugget struggles, but this past weekend was jarring.
They were trying in theory against the Lakers, who again
were without six of their top eight players, and Austin
(37:48):
Reeves and Dalton connect lit them up for sixty five points,
and the Lakers had a three point lead with a
minute left. And what made the the fact that they
didn't take that game seriously at all and almost lost
to me was should have been a Okay, guys, we
(38:10):
gotta show up if we're gonna win. And to follow
that up with a loss to the war to the Wizards,
is I was just I said it on TV show,
I'm out on the Nuggets, and it seemed like Jokic
was out on the Nuggets.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah, I mean with that that answer, but.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Then they beat the Warriors without all their guys and
so like that does is that a rallying moment? I
don't know. I here's what I do know, And Daniel
don't get mad at me, especially because you know I'm right,
Joker better have a playoff defensive gear or else they're
(38:55):
drawing dead. I can't be subjected to years of Twitter
cutups of Luca on the perimeter playing Maddador defense and
then accept Joker as your rim protector, just being like,
I go ahead, like I just want to inbound the
(39:15):
ball anyway, I can't have it. And I'm gonna say
another thing to Nuggets folks. I saw, we all saw
when it was all good with Ross early in the year.
Folks be like, oh, why couldn't Lebron get this version
(39:35):
of Russell Westbrook the Joker can get and listen, Russ
was good last night, and Russ has had some nice moments.
But I also know everyone that watches Nuggets games. Every
once in a while you have these moments where like, Russ,
what are you doing? Or where you see how the
offense can get a little gummed up because the smart
(39:57):
teams are like, hey, Russ, shoot the ball, got shoot it?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
And I also think one of the reasons the Lakers,
after the Nuggets have owned them for years, the Lakers
having a little success against the Nuggets is Russ sees
those Lakers and is like, I'm gonna and that's not
(40:24):
good for them. And so I I'm not dismissing them,
but I have downgraded. I had thunder Lakers Nuggets, as
you know, the top tier in the West. I've downgraded
the Nuggets. H a spot on that. You have a
follow up here.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Man, Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
If the Nuggets have another early exit, do you since that,
do you think they'll have some major changes to come?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well, Listen, they as much as Michael Malone can annoy me,
he's obviously an excellent coach, So you can't. You wouldn't
change the coach. The change needs to be. They need
to recognize we have one of the greatest players ever
in his prime. So how about this for an offseason
(41:13):
instead of losing a key contributor, let's add one.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Like they they.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Let guys walk out the door. They let Bruce Brown
walk out the door over money. They didn't let CACP
walk out the door over money. The move they could
make is Michael Porter junior. But the that's the move.
And I'll say one other thing. Here's another change I
think would be good for the Nuggets. Can someone convince
(41:46):
Jamal Murray that the season starts in October? And that
does mean as a fifty million dollar a year professional athlete,
it would be nice if your season started in October
not Christmas? Can someone convince Jamal Murray to be in
shape in the offseason.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Dan Michel, the Nuggets fan, agrees with you heavily there,
He says.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, of course, anyone that watches the games knows this stuff. Like,
here's the deal, Yokich is allowed to be Dowe. No
one else is like the You're just it's like here,
I have a non PC take Dowe.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Wait wait yeah, is that like a Tubby reference?
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Well, Tubby's too strong, but like not ripped allowed to
be a little Joey, you're your point guard, can't be
And here's the and here's the other. Here's the non
PC take get ready to cancel me. I don't know why,
(42:55):
but I allow the Eastern European guys to not be
in elite shape. I don't know. Maybe it's the tough
where they grew up. It's tough. They just can deal
with it. Like like it's the smoking or the drinking
or the partying or whatever. I I don't know. My
point is this. I don't judge yo Ki, your Luca
(43:16):
for you can't see their muscles, but all of the
American athletes I do like that's the like I'll tell,
I'll give you a guy. It's right. It's not a
white thing. As much as I like Austin Reeves, I
need Austin Reeves to get on the Alex CRUs So
workout playing this summer. Like Austin Reeves can't as awesome
(43:39):
as he is.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
He taking contacts.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
No, he just no. Again, he's great at it. Uh,
he's he's an excellent player, very good player. But Austin
Reeves looks less physically impressive in a Laker jersey than you.
Not Okay, you're pro athlete, and so I only allow.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Just look like a normal guy, like a normal guy.
He's just a normal.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Guy out there and so like and uh and it's
not like normal guy like crazy skinny like Durant. Like Durant.
You can see his muscles, they're just not you know
what I mean, because he's super thin. But the like, yeah,
I don't like dowie NBA players again, unless you're from
(44:24):
like war torn Eastern Europe, in which case I'm like,
I don't know, you figured it out, like I I
can't vetus Sa Bonus was this way, Vlade was this way,
you know, like Powe was never super ripped. He's from Spain,
not Eastern Europe. I know, man who Like again, now
I'm really just talking about the foreign guys. So it's
(44:45):
not just Eastern European guys. But for some reason I
deal with it more. But I the where did they?
Oh it was about Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray, I need
you to be a little more in shape. I think
that's totally fair.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Last Onion says that Jack Dawson Reeves would be lights
out for the rest of the league.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
I mean, Caruso got jacked in his excellent. Now now
he's not his again, I'm throwing around excellent too strongly.
But I was thinking of and again, I don't mean
to be just doing white guy, white guy, but the
he was kind of in the Austin Reeves role with
the Lakers and then got super jacked and got big
contract with the Bulls and is really good for the Thunder.
(45:29):
And I guess I'm not doing white guy white guycause
of the subject of this conversation, Shimal mart But yeah,
but yeah, right now, Joker and Luca are the only
ones who are like, eh, whatever everyone else.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I mean, he's not like looking at all, like swollen.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
But correct Lucas. Lucas slimmed down a bit, but he's.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Not looking right jack Jacket.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
But like I I did, let me look at it
real quick. So I did my all NBA teams, a
first run at my all NBA teams for the TV show,
and this is where I came out. First Team Shay Donovan, Tatum,
Jannis Jokic, second Team Cade steph Aunt, Lebron Triple J,
(46:16):
fourth Team Harden Brunson, Jalen Brown, Mobiley, Karl Anthony Towns
and so because Luke is not eligible because he hasn't played.
He's not going to play enough games. So just looking
at it, Guys on there who have been on the
(46:37):
you know, awesome player but a little dowie over the
course of their career at different times. Joker obviously, Harden, Brunson,
and Cat. That's the list of those guys. Okay, and
what do you disagree?
Speaker 2 (46:59):
I think this is runs And I look at it
a little bit differently because I feel like he's a
shorter guy, so just a little bit more likely to be.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
And maybe you're kind of build.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
He might have like the Mahomes approach, which is I
need this because of the beating I'm taking. Maybe Harden
used to have that too, but still.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I don't think it was ever beneficial for Harden. I
think I don't think so either.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, and Jamal Murray would be on would be on
that list, all right. I don't know what we just
did there. Hey, guys, when it comes to college basketball
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(48:10):
as a whole. Well, just just my opinion. I like
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Now they're in tough draw. I gotta get past Houston.
I really like. I didn't pull the odds for this,
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(48:31):
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b ball. All right, demons, let's do some NFL stuff
before we get to our f one minute.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Bengals Bengals bangalsman so Jamar Chase and T Higgins are
now the highest paid non quarterbacks in history, and Higgins
is the highest highest wide receiver two so forty of
their cap is going to those players.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Put your gam hat on. How would you fix this? Oh?
My goodness, they're screw me.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
They don't, well, I mean they don't think they're screwed.
I think it's an insane way to run a team,
and I think it's a low So here's what Higgins becomes,
as Demant said, the highest paid wide receiver two in
the league. Chase becomes the highest paid non quarterback in
the league, and Burrow's got a huge salary as well.
(50:38):
It's not that you can't win with three huge contracts.
It's that having all of your huge contracts just be
about the passing game doesn't make a ton of sense,
and having all of your resources debt like it's a
low key insult to Burrow. And I know it's what
(51:03):
Burrow wanted, so he doesn't view it this way. But
here's what I mean. It operates as if you're not
gonna have an elite passing game unless you have both
of these elite weapons. And I think Joe Burrow's better
than that. I think Joe Burrow would be just fine
(51:25):
with just one of these guys. And I think that again,
the example people use as a defense of this is
Peyton's cults. But here's the problem with you. Because Peyton's
calls had Reggie Wayne, and Marvin Harrison. The problem with
(51:46):
using that as an example is they also had Dwight
Freenian Robert Mathis as bookend defensive ends. But the other
problem with that is Peyton's with respect underachieved. You had
thirteen years of Peyton Manning, eleven of those are peak
(52:11):
Peyton Manning years. You made two Super Bowls one to one.
Compare that to the Broncos who had four years of
Peyton Manning only three of those peak Peyton Manning years.
They also went to two Super Bowls and one to
one by building a well rounded team. Compare it to
(52:32):
the Chiefs who had a choice to make a few
years ago. We are not going to be able to
pay Tyrek and Chris Jones, so you know what, We're
gonna move Tyreek to save the money for Chris and
ask Patrick to do more with less. And they've been
(52:52):
to every Super Bowl since then. And so and yeah,
mahomes last two years as numbers of DIP. Now his
first year without Tyrek, he won the MVP at the
most yards of any player in the season ever, first
player win League MVP and Trouper Bowl MVP since Kurt Warner,
but set that aside. Uh, it is just to me
(53:12):
the wrong approach to building a team. So what would
I have done. I would have a year ago, a
year ago traded t Higgins when I could have gotten
a first round pick for him and dedicated more resources
to the defense. But here is what I'll say about it,
demonse I Burrow wanted this, and it's fine. But he's
(53:36):
a smart guy and he understands the resources are limited.
He understands what this means. It kind of removes a
little bit of the If next year goes how last
year went, where Burrow's numbers are unbelievable, the Bengals offense
is excellent and they missed the playoffs because the defense
(54:00):
is terrible. It's not quite as an accomplishment for Joe
Burrow as this year he got MVP votes because it
was like, oh my god, he's doing his job. What
can he do about the defense being awful? Well, when
you go on every talk show imaginable and say you
(54:22):
need Higgins and Chase back and you understand what that
means about your ability to improve your offensive line in
your defense, well now it probably is a little more
fair to at least put some of potential Bengals struggles,
even if they're defense related at the feet of their quarterback.
(54:42):
I know that sounds odd, but I just think it's
I think it's probably the wrong approach to building a
sustainable champion, and it also is it It is to me,
certainly not the right place approach to win that division.
And the problem with that is, I don't think you
(55:08):
have any shot of winning three straight road AFC playoff
games that'll probably be outdoors, probably in cold weather cities,
with a defense that looks like the Bengals is going
to look for the near future. So I just think
I think it's a mistake, even though it's fun. All right,
(55:31):
let's talk Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Oh yeah, Aaron Rodgers still does not know where he
wants to go.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
The talks are if the Vikings don't want him, he
might retire or do you think you see Aaron Rodgers going?
Speaker 1 (55:43):
I mean, probably the Steelers. But Rapaport reported this morning
that he might not decide until after the draft.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
The draft.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Draft's in like forty days, and I understand actually why
he would wait until after the draft, because he doesn't
want to pick Pittsburgh and then see, you know, as
a for instance, Shadoor drop and then the Steelers draft
a quarterback and he's like, what the hell, so or
pick the Giants and then they draft should Or at
(56:14):
three like who knows? But I am I'm over the
Aaron Rodgers story in this regard. I just I don't
think the twentieth best quarterback in football is worth this
time or attention. And I really don't understand why the
(56:35):
Vikings would be entertaining this demon's unless they are unless
they have undisclosed news about JJ McCarthy's injury that they sum.
But the only way that even makes sense is if
they got this news somehow in the short window of
time between when they let Darnold walk and you know,
(56:58):
this last week, which is only a few days. Because
now that we have the actual Sam Donald contract details,
chalk another one up to the sports media on Budsman
by the way, who said, instead of all these tweets
just giving love to the agents that negotiated the deals,
can we please get accurate contract info. For a week,
(57:19):
we were told Sam Darnald got fifty five million guaranteed.
Turns out he got thirty seven million guaranteed. Turns out
the contract Sam Donald got is essentially one year, thirty
seven and a half million dollars and then two team
options afterwards. Who de thunk it? If that's all it
was going to take to keep Donald, they could have
(57:40):
gotten him essentially for one year forty million bucks. If
you're worried about JJ McCarthy, then do that. Yeah, he's
better than Rogers at this point.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Like why would any team want it?
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Like just not even a football standpoint, just him as
a I'm not trying to attack his character or anything,
but he just he ruined stuff.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Well yeah, I mean I think it's fair to attack
his football character and like leadership, and also like why
is he taking this long? I think because he can,
and because it is a good way to make it
clear who has the upper hand in the relationship from
the moment the relationship starts, like if if you can
(58:24):
make some an entire organization, Wait, poor Russell Wilson's like,
I can't even sign with a team until this guy does,
like and so it's just asserting asserting dominance, I guess
is what some would say. All right, time for Nick
Write's storytime. Unless you've got something else, demanse you wanted
(58:45):
to do?
Speaker 2 (58:46):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (58:46):
Before I get to it. Okay, time for Nick writes.
Story time. So, twenty years ago one of my friends
had a baby and I was twenty years old, and I,
(59:09):
you guys, some of you guys might know this, some
of you guys don't. I don't have any cousins. Really,
I had no nieces and nephews growing up. My my
dad has a sister that we didn't see all that
much when I was growing up. And my mom brother
died before I was born, so I didn't come you know,
Demans's mom's side of the family, huge family, a bunch
(59:31):
of cousins, nieces, nephews running around everywhere. I didn't have.
I didn't have that. And so the only reason I'm
even including that story is I had like no experience
around babies like I was. You know, my sister's a
year older than me. The I had. I never baby sat.
I didn't have you know, cousins or anything. And so
(59:52):
when my friend uh had a baby, it was and
he and I over a summer where I was damn
near living with him. She it was like, you know,
I call her, I said, even though I wasn't, I
think officially named her godfather that I was her godfather,
(01:00:12):
and it was my first experience ever with little kid
with babies. And then I watched this little girl, you know,
turn into a toddler as you know, as happens, and
then and this is why this is this is a
really touching kind of story for me. So again, the
sports were f one minutes coming, but that the just
(01:00:35):
stay with me here. And when I met Demanse's mom,
my wife, Danielle, and I then first met Demonse and Diora.
Diora was the exact same age as my goddaughter, and
(01:00:57):
I had like a little experience orience of dealing with
a child Diora's age because of my relationship with my goddaughter.
And I've always kind of felt that one of the
reasons I was comfortable and kind of knew how to
interact with Diora when she was a baby, when she
(01:01:18):
was when I met her, she wasn't even three, was
because of my my experience with my goddaughter. And then
our families became super close. My goddaughter had an older
sister who was almost exactly Sorry, if you're listening on
(01:01:38):
the pot, I promise I'm not crying, but it does
sound like this would be a time where I would
cry the same age as Demanse, and they became close
and then they had another baby, this baby boy, who
was just a bowling ball of energy, yeah monster. And
our families in Kansas City, you know, grew up together. Essentially,
(01:02:03):
Danielle and I ended up getting engaged, and you know,
our families grew up together. And in fact, when I
I don't know if you remember this part, you probably wouldn't,
but there was two months when I got the job
in Houston, or six weeks when I was in Houston
by myself before you guys came, and I drove from
Kancity to Houston. I drove from their house like we
(01:02:28):
were all together at their house, and then I got
on the road with my car packed up, like the
last place I saw you guys before you guys came
to Houston was their house, and because everyone was hanging
out together. And then, you know, kind of sadly we
(01:02:49):
didn't fall out of touch, but we moved to Houston
and they were in Kansas City, and then part of
the family ended up moving. Their family moved to California,
in another part moved to Miami, and we were, you know,
we went from seeing each other all the time and
talking all the time, not seeing each other that often.
I kind of, you know, it was bad, a bad
godfather in those times. And then Demandse moved back out
(01:03:15):
to California, and I was moved to California briefly, and
we kind of reconnected, and Diora and my goddaughter became
super close again, and I actually and I the had
a did an event in Vegas and Diora and her
(01:03:37):
came and everybody kind of reconnected again, and then reconnected
again at our wedding. Vower knew all about a year ago.
Well, we didn't get see each other all that often, And
there I found out, because I didn't know this, that Sierra,
(01:04:00):
who is the girl in this story, wanted to be
a sports broadcaster, and that her the sport she loves
is F one, which is the sport I know almost
nothing about. And so the culmination of this for the
longtime viewers or listeners of the pod was the F
(01:04:22):
one minute that we created last year. And a few
months ago, Sierra called me and said she had enrolled
at Jacksonville University in Florida, that she was majoring in
broadcasting and was going to have a studio for the
(01:04:45):
F one Minute. And I do this podcast because it's
good for me professionally and it's good to you know,
grow my brand in these different things. But I do
this podcast because I want it to be ultimately my
(01:05:06):
family business. It's why Demanse is my co host. It's
why I will at some point do a show behind
us with my wife, and it's why it is so
thrilling to me to watch the first baby I ever
held twenty years later be this wildly impressive young woman
(01:05:32):
who is our F one correspondent for the second season,
Sierra Fidel. And so here is the F one minute
with Sierra Fiddel. Take it away.
Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Cc Hey, guys, welcome back to F one Minute. We're
in season two because the twenty twenty five F one
season has officially kicked off in Melbourne, Australia. There are
any conditions single handedly through this race into chaos. But
before it even began, rookie Isaac Hajar crashed into the
barriers during the formation lap, which delayed the start of
(01:06:05):
the race. But if you love the thrills, don't fret,
because this only set the stage for five of the
drivers to eventually spin off and crash. Luckily, nobody was
seriously harmed in the making of this Grand Prix, and
so the jama begins with a front row lockout for McLaren,
Norris and p One and p Astree behind him. Norris
manages to protect his position despite some dicey action between
(01:06:28):
Verstappen and Pastry and the opening meters, but things slowed
down once rookie Jack Doing from Alpine collided into the
barriers during the first lap of the race, bringing out
the first of.
Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Four safety cars.
Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
But here's where the chaos really unleashed on pretty much
everyone involved, even me at home watching. So after the
next DNF on the list from Fernando Alonso, many teams
decided to make a pit stop under this safety car.
From that crash, however, around laps forty four to forty
seven is where heavy rain began to hit, and virtually
(01:07:03):
nobody had the right tires for these conditions, which made
everything a little bit more exciting. Both McLaren's slid off
the track and we had two different race leaders within
this timeframe. Now it's important to note that it's a
huge challenge to race with the wrong tires and heavy rains,
so drivers like for Stappin and Hamilton led the race,
(01:07:24):
but only for a moment because they sort of gambled
on thugging it out. Should I stay out, should I
go in the pits? But eventually they caved and they
switched to eat eat intermediate tires and so oh, I
forgot to mention there was another crash between Liam Lawson
and Gabriello, not together, they just crashed on the same lap.
And so with that crack, with those crashes, the last
(01:07:46):
safety cars were out. In the closing moments of the race.
Max stalked Norris right unto the end. But big props
to Lando Norris because despite the other changing conditions, the
safety cars and the pressure run behind and he started
and ended the Australian GP in first place for a
stapp And ended in p two, and we're also at
(01:08:06):
Mercedes ended in p three. Now I'm going to introduce
something that's kind of new and it's my twiste on DRS.
So normally DRS stands for Drag Reduction System, but here
on the four minute DRS stands for disastrous race Shenanians
and for the Australian JP. I have to hand it
to our friends at forts of Ferrari because we had
(01:08:26):
Charles L Kirk complaining on the radio that his seat
was full of water. And then we have Lewis Hamilton
who just joined the team, only to see both Mercedes
in front of him, not only a Mercedes though also
a Sober and also Williams. So he ended this race
with one point. So welcome to the team, I guess, Lewis,
but it's only up from here. It's the first race.
It was pretty tricky. You're not going to hit it
(01:08:48):
out of the park every race, so we'll see. But
we've had a fascinating season open in Australia and now
it's off to Shanghai, China for round two this Sunday.
That's it for four minute and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Great one, love it and brought one of the one
of the cool things about the F one season is
how dope it would be to be one of these
drivers all the different places you race. So they're just
in Australia this weekend. She mentioned there in Shanghai a
few weeks A couple weeks later, it's there in Japan,
(01:09:23):
then they're in Bachran, then Saudi Arabia, then down in
Miami then like it's just the whole world. It's so cool.
All right. So news that I took away from it
is Verstapping got some work to do. Is in second, Lando,
Norris uh in first, and Team Ferrari had Lewis Hamilton.
(01:09:48):
He came in tenth, Charles Leclerk came in eighth. All right, good,
great f one minute with Sierra. All right, let's do
a couple listener questions to monsday before we go.
Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Uh So, last week a listener had asked if he
could uh he asked for the rights to put your
name or hit your face on a shirt, and he
did it, and he tweeted us out, I think we're
gonna show it for the Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
They came at him for the font.
Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
But I okay, yeah, I saw you had a funny reply.
So this is a great if you're not watching, it's
me wearing the Louis Vatan fleece and says mister consistency.
And somebody asked him about the font choice and demonse
Snap replied, you were expecting Times new Roman question mark.
You were a second Times the Roman, weren't you. I
(01:10:32):
love it was funny. That's pretty good. All right, great
job by him. Shout out to him. Let me give home,
Let me give his Twitter a shout out. Oh he
is kind of a bad Twitter handle, but that's fine.
It's not bad, like inappropriate. It's just hard to remember.
His Twitter handle is Dallas two one four, five, eight
eight three three. So there, shout out to him. All right? Next?
Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Uh, noah, Nick, what will the media says the Lakers
win at all but Luca's finals MV. Do you think
of lebron ring where he's not finals MVP weighs any
less than his other rings?
Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Well, listen, I don't know. Yes, not being finals MVP
weighs a little bit less, but being the second best
player in the finals in year twenty two at age
forty weighs a lot. You know what I mean. So
it kind of offsets it to a degree. All right,
(01:11:26):
let's go.
Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
To justin if I made it.
Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
If I make a bunch of brackets but the exact
same prediction for a specific upset and all of them,
can I brag about that game? An example, picking Drake
to win round one every time?
Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Okay, So two things. One is I think that's allowable.
I think if you're going to do the multiple brackets,
and you want to be able to brag, you can
only brag about things you had in every single one.
I picked this team to make the final four, in
every single one, or I picked this upset, and every
(01:12:05):
single one that one I will allow the other thing
is okay. So I so he wrote there because I
can see it.
Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
I E.
Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
And demondse just turned that into an example. And when
he said that, I was like, holy moly. I never
knew what I E stood for, and I think demands
just taught me that the game now, so you're not.
Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Gonna get You're.
Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Not No, you're not gonna get cooked now. As it
turns out, it's not what it stands for, but I
like it. No, it's uh. It's evidently an abbreviation for
a Latin phrase I S, which is I'm again. I'm
reading this from the why the Warnell School of Forestry
(01:13:09):
and Natural Resources. I don't know why they have that
this in there, but they example makes it makes perfect sense.
And id ST in Latin can mean for example, so
you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and say you
got it. I'm gonna say you got it here? Tell
me like the I like it I like it. Yeah, No,
(01:13:36):
that was good. I like that one a lot. All right,
let's do the last two quick, and then I.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Gotta gon nick.
Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Nick, you said before the third star with Lebron, Bosh
and Love have to sacrifice their numbers? Is that better
for this Lakers team? Since Austin Reeves was never a
star given his history.
Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
So what I have said is because second stars with
Lebron thrive, and fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth man men thrive.
The third guy historically with Lebron, Bosh, Kevin Love have
seen their kuzma. With the Lakers, you could argue seeing
their numbers potentially drop because the third guy on a
(01:14:21):
Lebron team is just the open guy. Like you're not
gonna We're not gonna force feed touches to a third guy.
In that regard, I do understand where like Austin Reeves
in a pinch, can be your second guy, hell can
be your best guy on certain nights, as he was
in one of the games the Lakers won, or well,
they almost beat the Nuggets, but they also had a
game right after the Luca trade when Austin was that
(01:14:42):
against Boston. Boston that Austin was the top guy doesn't matter. Uh,
but yeah, I think that is smart. All right, let's
do the last one.
Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Jaton asked, how do you do this podcast and on
TV every weekday?
Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
How do you sleep?
Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
I sleep fine, listen, it's the podcast is supposed to
be forty five minutes every day, it ends up being
an hour twenty.
Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
But it's.
Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
You know, I enjoy it, and I as long as
I don't feel like I am giving less than full
effort or attention to either thing, I'll keep doing both.
Like if at any point I was like, I'm mailing
it in now, then it means it's time for me
to only do one. But you know it as is.
(01:15:31):
I think it's fine. Oh and it was the Lakers
Pacers game that Austin had forty five Thank you producers,
all right, great job, de Mond's a great job. Our
friends at Blue Duck, thank you to our friends at
DraftKings in the volume, and I will see you guys
on Thursday. What's right
Host
Nick Wright
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