04-17-23 Line Change - Mark Henry Jr.

Mark Henry Jr. joins the show to talk #NBA, #Sixers-#Nets, Jalen Hurts, and more.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome back to the line change FoxSports the Gambler. Follow us at Fox
PHL Gambler on Twitter, Fox PHLGambler dot com, or you can check
out the podcast, including the podcastfor this host here on the station.
You can hear him every Saturday elevenam to one pm. And he's joining
me right now on the Gambler Hotline. You can follow him add to Mark

(00:26):
Henry Junior underscore. We're gonna talksome NBA. I'm sure we'll get into
I heard maybe no Markey pucks yet, so we might just have to stick
to, uh, potentially the NFLdraft. But Mark, Game one good
for the Sixers. Are we expectingGame two to be just as good?
Yeah? Yeah, I don't seewhy the Sixers can't sweep the series now,

(00:49):
going into the series, I thinka lot of us. I know,
I had Stean Barnard on the toughCover radio shows we're going to throughout
the entire NBA playoffs, and me, him and Jared all picked Sixers in
five. With the the gentleman's sweepagainst the Nets. I think I and
a lot of other people came outof Game one the same reaction where maybe

(01:11):
this could be four instead of five. Maybe we don't have to to budget
for that one that one game,and maybe all of this is, like
you due to the Sixers, ButI don't think that the Nets are good
enough to hang with the Sixers.We saw Michael Bridges go absolutely nuts in

(01:32):
the first half, and even duringthat and during a half, are Emdeed
wasn't particularly great the sixth time.So with Michael going nuts, and with
Joel not playing great, and withMaxie not really being all that involved,
the Sixers were up that big.And I'm gonna loop in the Sixers with

(01:55):
another Game one because I think thatthere's a comparison there that I've been thinking
about the way that I feel abouthow the Sixers played in Game one is
very similarly to the way that Ifeel about the Lakers and how they played
in Game one. And we'll getwe'll talk about that more, I'm sure,
But I walked out of that gamethinking, well, you didn't even

(02:16):
have to really get your A pluseffort out of Lebron. You didn't really
have to get your A plus effortout of Joel, you didn't really have
to get an A plus effort outof Max. You didn't really have to
get an A plus effort out ofAnthony Davis and the guys that are supposed
to step up in the middle ofthe roster for the Lakers and the Sixers
stepped up. We saw Paul Reidhave a moment that we've never really seen

(02:37):
a backup center have in the playoffsand the Joel and Beat era. We
saw PJ Tucker activate playoff PJ modeand be the guy that's been annoying us,
you know, on the sidelines foryears, whether you'd be on the
Heat or the Bucks or whoever thecase may be. We saw other guys
step up. Jayla McDaniels seems likehe's perfectly you know, not that he

(02:59):
did anything spectacular in Game one,but you watch it and he was just
immediately so much more playable than matisstTibel ever was in the playoffs. And
then one last guy and someone thatI actually saw people complaining about after Game
one, which surprised me, wasTobias Harris. People were saying he was
too involved, dribbling too much,too many possessions were devoted to Tobias And

(03:22):
you know, I'm all about criticizingTobias Harris, and I'm all about I'm
all about pointing out, you know, his flaws as a player and his
flaws in this system. I thoughthe was really good in that game on
both ends of the floor, soI thought he stepped up when he needed
to. Obviously, you got theend of possession threes from Harden that make
things look a lot better. ButI feel really good about the Sixers because

(03:46):
they didn't have to get your MVPnight from Joel to win a game and
control it for the entirety of thegame. Other guys were able to step
up and it maybe I don't knowif you want to use that as a
segue, but the Lakers, Ifeel the same way about Anthony Davis and
Lebron not having to drop thirty andfifteen in game one. They both had
good games. I mean twenty theyhad twenty point double doubles or whatever the

(04:09):
case may be. But I don'tknow if I've ever seen a game one
tell me or switch my opinion somuch in a series. Then I saw
with Grizzlies Lakers that series feels over, and I think the Sixers next series
is over as well. Yeah,I was about to say, maybe that'll
lead into more of the Lakers Grizzlygame. But Game ones, we had

(04:30):
a few upsets, we had someinteresting scores. It was it was a
really good weekend of basketball and againsome upsets that I don't think people were
expecting. Which game one surprised youthe most or made you feel strongly about
a team the most? And Ifeel like the Lakers Grizzly game falls under
that a little bit. Yeah,since I touched on that, Yeah,
that's definitely the one that changed myopinion the most. I was really fifty

(04:54):
fifty on that series. I pickedMemphis in seven. Now I'm thinking that
could be Lakers in five or sixthe ones. That's the one singularly that
surprised me the most was the Calvesand the Knicks. I thought the Calves
were winning the series in five games, if not, maybe even a sweep.
That's how low I was on theKnicks and how high I was on
the Calves. I put them fifthon my power rankings in the entire NBA.

(05:15):
I would have put them over anyWest team besides the Suns, and
they did. They played terribly inthat Game one. It's and I've seen
a lot of Calves fans on Twittersaying Oh, the Knicks played their best
possible game. I don't think soat all. I don't think the Knicks
played their best game at all.I think the better argument is maybe the
Cavs played their worst possible game.But that's definitely one that makes me nervous

(05:38):
as a guy who's been kind ofhot hyping up the Calves as a dark
horse all year long and saying,oh, I think they can give the
Bucks a really good series in roundtwo. They have to worry about getting
past the Knicks now, and youget back to Madison Square Garden for Games
three and four, that place isgonna be a madhouse, especially if it's
up If the Knicks are up two. Oh, so the Calves are in

(05:59):
a must must, must win gametomorrow night in Game two. But even
having said all of that, Ithink you can take back anything I said
about them giving the Bucks or theCeltics or the Sixers any problems. I
think you can put that to rest. Everyone that kind of told me at
Day they're a year away. Ithink they're probably right. I was probably
jumping the gun a little bit onputting Cleveland into contender status, and I

(06:20):
think they showed that in game oneWarriors Kings surprised me. I thought the
Warriors would win that in five.But the Warriors lost by three points in
the King's first home game. Andyou know, however, many years in
the playoffs, so I'm not goingto freak out too much about that one
tonight. I really really like theWarriors tonight. The Warriors tonight. Why
do you like the Warriors? Ididn't have a better team, you know,

(06:43):
I understand that they lost by threein that Game one. I think
that was a big emotional dump forSacramento, and I think there will be
a letdown game a little bit.I think Golden State knows the rhythm of
these playoff series and they know thata series doesn't truly start until the team
loses on the road, and theyneed to go and get that the team
loses at home, I should say, and they need to go and start

(07:04):
that series before it gets to GoldenState. So not that they're out of
it if they go down two oh, but even still, even after game
one, if you look at theminutes where Steph Curry's on the floor,
and you look at the minutes whereGolden State has all five of their starters,
they're the best team in the NBAeven after Game one. So I'm

(07:25):
banking on that coming back to eartha little bit. And I'm banking on
Sacramento maybe not scoring one twenty six, maybe Malik Monk not shooting fourteen free
throw attempts. And I'm a bigMalik Monk guy, but I don't know
if that's repeatable at all. SoI think that Golden State takes care of
business here and I love that sinceto be bugged past the Sixers, I
meant, I meant to drop thisplay here, but my favorite play of

(07:46):
the night, and it was myfavorite play on Saturday that cashed Sixers team
total over one to eleven and ahalf. They've now scored one twelve plus
in twenty of the last twenty fourgames that they've played. Yeah, and
I think that defense just doesn't havethat he answers for him bead and because
they have to throw out more bodiesat a bad it's leaving things open for
guys like Maxie and Hardened. AndI don't think there's going to be a

(08:07):
change that can be made for Brooklynto stop this Sixer's offense. So I
do like that play there. Imight actually tell you on that one.
That's really good. But I thinkone of the more surprising games as well
the Clippers and Sons. Clippers comeaway with the Game one win Westbrook.
He was three of nineteen from thefield, but it was his defense,
his rebounding that really was a helpand benefit for the Clippers. Now,

(08:30):
this is the first game that KevinDurand has lost as a Phoenix son on
the floor with Phoenix, and Ithink the first game he's lost in quite
a while that he's been on thefloor end Phoenix obviously going to go through
some growing pains. I felt likethey already had it figured out with Kevin
Durand. He already seemed to fitthere. What went wrong? And is
that concerning to you? A gameone lost the Clippers. Yeah, it

(08:52):
is concerning because Russ shot so badand they were the Clippers were still able
to win, and they just didn'tseem to have an answer for Kauai.
But I do think a lot ofthe things were correctable. The Suns have
about six NBA players and they choseto play eleven guys. I don't know
who told them that was a goodidea. They're not used to that.
They're used to having depth. Theydon't have that anymore, No, they

(09:13):
don't. And Monty Williams is notadjusted and he really needs to and he
needs to fast. And we've seenMonty Williams spur. I know he's a
coach, a former Coach of theYear. He's clearly a really good regular
season coach. He's a great guyon all accounts. All the guys love
him. But he's had some weird, weird series where it's feels like he's
had the coach the pants coached offof him by the opposing coach. And

(09:35):
I thought he got out coached amillion percent in Game one by Tylum.
I thought ty Lou was the rotationswere way smoother for the Clippers. They
It's funny that I think I shouldhave factored this in and the Clippers were
such a massive underdog in this seriesthat I should have sprinkled on it.
But I was so thrown off atthe fact that Kevin Durant was twenty seven

(09:56):
and two in the last twenty ninegames he had played in really really good
basketball player that Kevin Durant, Soit kind of skewed my thoughts a little
bit. But we're talking about aSun's team. That's probably the most shallow
team in the playoffs, and we'retalking about a Clippers team. You can
make arguments the deepest team in theplayoffs. They have too many guys.
You can make an argument for Ithink Robert Covington's not even getting minutes where
he would definitely be getting minutes asa bench guy on pretty much every other

(10:20):
playoff team. But the Clippers havetwelve guys that think they should be starting,
and a lot of the times that'sa problem. But when against the
Suns, it might be it mightbe the exact perfect matchup for the Clippers
that they're able to just throw thesehockey shifts of guys alongside of Kauai out
there and see what happens against Phoenix'seither tired guys or bad depth players.

(10:43):
And it seemed like Phoenix needs todo a better job. They're big four
in terms of Chris Durant, DevinBooker and to get better playoffs. You
know, that's a tale as oldas time went to the playoffs. So
to be concerned, I think Phoenixshould still win the series. But man,

(11:05):
the West is out, Yeah,West is um? I mean Denver
did play well, how much doyou take away from that from that win
against Minnesota? Obviously Minnesota is yeah, maybe not that good, but still
impressive in a way. I hadtalked to Minnesota getting through reason man that

(11:26):
was ugly, so kind of waitand see what happens throughout the rest of
that series for play defense or Minnesota'soffense just being a bys bull. And
I do think it's clear that Minnesotaneeds to just stop playing or to Gobert
though, because that offense without Gobertout there is untenable. So not much

(11:46):
to take away from Game one,just a drubbing. Also, you have
the factor in the fact that theNuggets still have a have a disadvantageous home
court advantage. They are home courtaltitude merchants, So that's something that you
always have to keep in mind withwith Denver playing at home. I'm half
kidding, but it is actually definitelya fact Flue playing games and then Denver.

(12:13):
It's talk with Mark Henry Journey.You can follow him add to Mark
Henry Jr. Underscore having some hiccupswith the phone. But I do want
to ask you. Obviously, theNFL Draft is coming soon, but today
Jalen Hurts gets a five year extensionon his contract gonna make him the highest
paid player per year with this contractfifty one million, which is more than

(12:35):
Aaron Rodgers fifty point three million withGreen Bay. I'm not sure if I
can really ask, is that toomuch money? It's the market price for
a quarterback. That's exactly what theyshould have paid. But how do you
think this changes things moving forward?And obviously with the Eagles your thoughts and
the extension with Hurts and the Eagles, Yeah, I'm just happy you got

(12:56):
it done and you don't have todeal with anything in terms of what the
Baltimore Ravens are going through, whatany of these these teams are going through.
So I'm happy they got it done. When Burrow and Herbert and the
next people sign their deals, it'lllook smaller. And you have to look
at the guaranteed money, since it'sall that really matters, and you take
a look at the fact that hegot fifty one million less guaranteed than Deshaun

(13:22):
Watson got asked obviously having the worsttype of allegations come out about him,
and he still got fifty one millionmore guarantee than jail and Hurt Scott.
So taking that into consideration. Hehas to be pretty happy about the amount
of guaranteed money that they were ableto give him, and the fact that
you're will be given the no tradeclause and all that stuff. I think

(13:43):
it is it worked out both waysfor Hurts and for the Eagles. If
the Eagles had to get out ofit after three years, I think they'd
be able to. And the factthat apparently they also kept the money down
in the first two years, thatshould help them kind of maximize the Super
Bowl window. And then how wecan do his cap wizardry down the line.
So the NFL Draft coming up,and of course number one pick odds

(14:09):
keep moving. Bryce Young seems tobe now the overwhelming favorite. Hell convinced
to you the Young could go numberone to Carolina. Yeah, it seems
like it's a done deal with himcanceling all his pre draft workouts that were
scheduled for the Texans and for teamsthat I think the Colts and I think
the Titans, the Raiders might havebeen in there. He key canceled all

(14:31):
of those after a meeting with thePanthers, which doesn't feel very I guess
they're not trying to hide it andthere's no reason too if you're the Panthers
or if you're Bryce Young, Iguess. So it seems like that is
a done deal. And now thereal intrigue starts to happen with what happens
at number two. There was duelinginsiders today. Ian Rappaport came out and
said he'd be shocked if the Texansdon't take their quarterback of the future at

(14:56):
pick number two, and then AdamSchefter came out and said he'd be shocked
if they did take a quarterback atpick number two, and that he expects
the Colts to have their pick ofall three. It's Anthony Richardson. The
preferred option assoutely is CJ. Strouds. So those are the kind of rumors
out there, and the Texans andthe Colts are the two big dominoes that

(15:18):
are going to have to start tostart this draft. So what do you
think the Texans should do? Shouldthey get their quarterback in the future and
CJ. Shroud or do you thinkthey might pass up on that opportunity?
Yeah, I think they should.I think you should go and get the
guy if you think that you havethe opportunity too, and the seconds the
twelfth pick. I don't think thatit qualifies you from going and drafting another

(15:41):
buy two years from now if youhave to. I know that there's some
argument that people are saying they shoulddraft Lilanderson and the next year they can
go draft Caleb Williams and they cantake a quarterback that way. That's a
easier sit thing than ton to waita full year and to you know,
have all of that bad little ofcarable quarter play for yet another here or

(16:03):
any other another stock. It shouldget there to start with me to ride
the right way with a franchise quarterbackin the time the Champions and the Peas
actually built around rank Richardson, Iunderstand that as well. You're at ground
zero of a rebuilt why not swingfor defenses as much as you can.
So, Um, I think thatthey should make a quarterback pick, whether
it be Anthony Richardson or c J. Strow. So another day, another

(16:29):
question about the Eagles draft pick.Um. I know, last week I
think we're talking about Jaalen Carter andyou know, defensive lineman things like that.
But any change on what you thinkthe Eagle should do. Obviously with
the number ten overall draft pick,I've remained pretty pretty firm that they should
be one of the past rushers.It should be one of Miles Murphy,

(16:51):
Kyrie Wilson, or Jalen carter Um. But outside of that, I'm really
starting to talk myself into the factthat I think wide receiver three might be
the most immediate need that the Eagleshave and no one's talking about it.
I mean, I think we sawQuiz Watkins mess up a few really potentially
big plays for the Eagles, andwhen you're the wide receiver three in the

(17:15):
NFL these days, you're going toget a lot of snaps. Go take
a look at how it STAPs QuizWatkins and Jack Pasco played combined. That's
in a lot of it. That'sa lot of snaps. And if you
could get someone in the draft thatcould slot right in and be an elite
slot receiver like a Jackson fifth andJacobo, like Jordan Addison, like a
Zai Flowers, like a Josh Down. There's obviously some other guys later on
in the draft, but if youwant to use a first or second round

(17:37):
pick on that, I don't thinkthat's silly. And by the way,
I wouldn't rule it out either.Especially with that thirtieth pick. Our head
coach Nick Sirianni is a former widereceiver and a former wide receivers coach,
and he couldn't have been happy watchingdrop those huge opportunities or fumble those huge
opportunities away. And then you havethe GM Howie Roseman through everyone's putting out

(18:00):
the corners. Everyone's talking about howmany corners that the Eagles are going to
draft, or whatever the case maybe. And I have to remind people
that the Eagles haven't drafted a cornersin Flido Shephard in the first round back
in two thousand and one or twothousand and two. Howe, your husband
doesn't draft corners. But what hedoes do is he drafts wide receivers,
and he drafts them at a higherclip than almost any other GM in the
sport. And obviously we remember Ragerand Ja Jaul, but he obviously also

(18:23):
drafted Davante Smith and he also useda draft pick. He used draft capitals
to go and get a J.Brown. He also drafted Quiz obviously a
few years ago. So he hasshown that he thinks that you find receivers
through the draft, or you findreceivers using draft capital. I would not
be surprised that they go and addresswide receivers three, just as I think

(18:44):
people are talking about them addressing runningback, or people are dressing talking about
them addressing linebacker safety. I thinkyou can put wide receiver right on that
list. One last question for ourguests joining us in the Gambler hotline,
Mark Henry Junior, you can followadd to Mark Henry Junior underscore Jalen Hurts
her Mar Jackson. That's a crazyquestion. It's Tailing Hurts. I can't

(19:06):
even believe that I'm in an argumenton Twitter against Lamar Jackson. If anyone
knows me and knows my you knowmy feelings about Lamar Jackson, you'd be
shocked to hear me staunchly against himin any argument. Killen Hurst just went
to the freaking Super Bowl. Heput up thirty five points in the Super
Bowl. He had an historic performancein the Super Bowl. Lamar Jackson's played

(19:26):
twenty two games the last two years. Klan Hursts played eighteen this year because
he took his team to the SuperBowl and two rounds farther than Lamar Jackson
ever did. And believe me,I know Lamar Jackson doesn't have receivers.
I know Baltimore has done terrible thingsto Lamar Jackson and the roster around him.
I think that he should demand atrade out beyond the contract. Like

(19:48):
I think that this is a Ithink the Ravens don't get enough to smack
talk for how badly they've surrounded LamarJackson with talent, people just talking about
how great of a job they dodrafting, and oh look how great their
defense and all this stuff. They'vedone nothing to get Lamar help. And
then when they did, they tradedHollywood Brown immediately, and wasn't a good
trade. Probably like Hollywood Brown fora first round pick in a vacuum.

(20:11):
It's probably the right decision. It'scomputer, it's probably the right decision.
I don't think Hollywood Brown's all thatgood. He's probably not one of the
twenty five to thirty best receivers infootball, but he was probably the best
receiver Lamar Jackson ever played with.And when you look at your roster,
you should have realized, oh,if we trade that, we better replaced
that. And they didn't. SoI don't know how they turned into me
yelling about the Raven receiver, butthat was me trying to defend to the

(20:37):
little people that are mad at meabout Lamar Jackson that I am a Lamar
Jackson guy. But let's be honestabout who Jalen Hurts is and who Lamar
Jackson is and where they're at intheir careers. And we I mean,
we're at a stage where Jalen Hurtsgoing into his third year as a starter.
We've seen the Lamar Jackson thing fora little bit longer, and we've
now seen for two straight years thatthere are durability concerns there that Hurts has
had, you know, Nickson bumpsthat he's been a couple of games here

(21:00):
and there for but Lamar's had twostraight years where he's basically missed the entire
second half of the season. SoI and also not to dive too deep
into this, because again, Ilove Lamar. I love that he tweets
just like I do. He tweetshis boss immediately and he come back people
on Twitter. I love Lamar likeI think he's an awesome personality to have

(21:21):
in the game of football. Butwhen we're comparing who I want my franchise
quarterback to be personality wise, JalenHurts fits that to at Eve even taking
any questions about Lamar's personality or hisdiet or all his sleeping schedule, everything
that was throwing that report was throwingout earlier this all season that I thought
was a joke, but taking itseriously for a second, we don't have
to worry about any of that nonsensewith Jalen Hurts. Jaleen Hurts seems like

(21:45):
he's the hardest working guy in showbusiness. So I think you look at
the on the field stuff, youlook at the off the field stuff.
I don't even think it should bea question. So sorry to my man
on Twitter, Grum, Yeah,all good. I just saw that you
were having a bit of a specon Twitter, so I needed to bring
that to light. Mark, asalways, thank you for joining me.
Enjoy the Sixers game tonight and hopefullya Sixers win tonight. You could always

(22:11):
say I've always been a bit ofa spattle Twitter, whether it be you
know whoever it be with but DictorsCountry, Let's ride that is Mark every
Junior Follow him at Mark Henry JuniorUnderscore on Twitter, and again the Toughcover
Radio show every Saturday eleven am toone pm right here on these airwaves of
Fox Sports to Gambler Foxpho gambler dotcom. Also follow us at fox Pho

(22:34):
Gambler, on Twitter one or twofive MM fourteen eighty am, and always
streaming on the iHeart Radio app.From one guest to another. Jeff Parl's
going to join me next. We'llbreak down these NBA series more with him
as well, including Milwaukee losing inGame one, including the Lakers winning Game

(22:56):
one against Memphis. Got some interestingthings over the weekend in the NBA to
talk about, and of course maybeget some Major League Baseball plays as well.
That's all coming up next with JeffParles of Vson right here on the Gambler