December 2, 2025 • 50 mins
In the first hour of the show, Walker and Flounder discuss another disappointing loss for the Hornets against a bottom-feeder team in the East, talk about the inconsistencies that we have seen from the Panthers' offense and compare the Hornets' build to where the Panthers are at.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven a half
m goming u fnzy fine, He's.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The Wes and Walker Show. Even a crowd knows what's
coming there.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Wes and Walker, Sports Radio ninety two to seven wfn Z.
We appreciate you joining us, folks listening to your favorite
midday show every weekday from twelve to three pm.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
No Wes again.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Just a reminder for all the people that didn't check
us out yesterday one where the hell were you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Two?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome back? No Wes all week long. It's going to
be Flounder. He's going to be doing the renaissance man thing.
He's going to be the board op, the producer, the
co host, he's going to be doing all of it, folks.
Flounder helping us out with Wes just taking some time off.
No need to worry about him. He's all good, just
taking some time off before he comes back next week.
So it's the Westless and Walker Show on Sports Radio
(01:02):
ninety two to seven WFNZ. We're broadcasting live as always
from the Chandler Volta Studios. CV Injury Law dot Com,
Cvinjurylaw dot Com.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
One call.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
That's all the Carolina's personal injury lawyers, and last but
not least, you the listeners. Man, you have an opportunity
to contribute to this show. Congratulations to you. You can
do it by texting the FanDuel text line seven oh
four five seven oh ninety six ten. Shout out to
FanDuel Texas there FanDuel text line once more seven oh
four five seven oh ninety six ten.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We got a new Carolina shirt for you there over
there for it is the first time I believe I
have debuted it at the station. But this is a
This is a more classy Carolina shirt. It is an
onward reserve shirt. So I got Drake on the back.
It has a quote of him talking about how much
he loves Chapel Hill. So it's Shuger and I gotta
(01:55):
get it. You know, that's my guy.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's really your North Carolina preppy shirt. It's it's like
you went to school there. I mean, you are our
gyle short of being just a full on prep with
that T shirt.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh man, if I could get the argyle short, you
would just go ahead and match prep. Big day for
Heels fans.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Not only do you get to celebrate Drake May being
the odds on favorite MVP. Now after his performance and
Stafford's performance against the Panthers, you could celebrate that with
your T shirt. But also Carolina Kentucky one of my
favorite non conference scheduled games that we see pretty consistently.
I've always loved the North Carolina Kentucky games, going all
(02:36):
the way back to yesteryear as a kid watching the
Heels take on the Wildcats, just a regularly scheduled non
conference rival.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I would definitely say yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Jocking for position among blue bloods, and there is some
familiarity here. I really am excited about this game tonight.
Kentucky reeling a little bit, having spent more money than
anybody on their roster, North Carolina having spent a lot
of money themselves, trying to bounce back after a tough
loss to Michigan State where Michigan State just flat out
look like the better team. Still have a lot of
hope for North Carolina. We'll see what happens between those
(03:12):
two programs and the ACC SEC challenge. I don't want
to jump the gun on this because I want to
save this combo for the campus corner, but I am
very excited about the ACC slash SEC challenge, especially after
last year where you only had two wins.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Man that was it. You had Duke, you had Louisville.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Those are the only teams that represented the ACC well
enough to come out on top. Who buddy, I would
love to just win this thing. I would love to
have more than half. The victory is amazing against the
conference as respected as the SEC. Can all of the
big boy programs take care of business? Can we get
wins from Virginia and Duke and Louisville and North Carolina?
(03:53):
Can the blue bloods slash best ACC programs over the
last twenty years look like it they do? Then, I
think we're going to be taken off. The plane is
going to get off of the ground. With the ACC
hype heading into the new year, I'm hoping for it. Floundy,
I've got I've got good feelings. I am knocking on wood.
You can hear it. I like to make sure y'all
(04:14):
can hear it, just so you don't think I'm lying
to you. I am knocking on wood. But I do
have a lot of hope that the ACC can take
care of business and show everybody why ACC basketball still
reigned supreme.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, I feel confident too going into this. I do
think that the ACC is much better this year. Now,
there are going to be some games that I think
are going to get ugly, you know, teams like Pittsburgh
Boston College, Like those games are going to be really,
really rough because those are two of the worst teams
in all of major college basketball. But I do think
the rest of this conference actually has a pretty legit chance.
(04:47):
And I mean we'll run down the schedule here a
little bit later of how many we actually believe have
a chance to win. Yeah, but I mean it just
feels like going in last year, we knew going into
this ACC SEC challenge, Oh, we were probably gonna be
in some trouble because you looked around and said, how
many teams in the ACC are actually good? Well, this year,
I think we trust a decent amount of teams in
(05:09):
the ACC. There are some teams that already they are
reaching some important games. I mean, for Carolina, tonight's pretty important.
I feel like, you know, you kind of need to win.
I'm not saying that the season goes by the wayside
if you lose, of course, especially if it's close, but
you you'd like this one, especially because you know They've
been in a lot of these big games.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
They haven't necessarily won a lot of these big games.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
NC State, this feels like one that NC State desperately
needs because they're reeling a little bit coming out of
MAUI can they find a way to get back on,
you know, good terms against I don't even know who
they play.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I have to look it up.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So NC State they do not play tonight. Instead they
play tomorrow. This is a two day event, so I'm
gonna look tomorrow or scrolling or scrolling during the schedule.
NC State will play all Burn on the road tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's a tough one man twenty I say, you can
get that win, then that's a huge win for them
on their schedule to sort of boost their resume early.
So I mean, there's going to be some really great opportunities.
This is as excited as I've been in a while
for the ACC SEC Challenge or the ACC Big Ten Challenge,
even because it felt like the Big Ten had the
ACC's number.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I have so many thoughts. I need to save them.
I need to stay disciplined. I am one of the
least disciplined hosts when it comes to sticking to the schedule.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's just what it is.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Because I get I get hooked on a conversation. I
want to just say, all right, let's just tear up
the rundown. I need to stay disciplined, folks. Okay, Wes
does a good job at that.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I do not.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So we're going to try to push that backwards. One
o'clock we'll start to focus a little more on the
acc SEC challenge. I do want to read a few
text messages seven oh four five seven zero ninety six
ten people riding in about not only the aacc SEC challenge,
but some more panthers takes just coming in to start
the show. Also Antoine the Mailman. He writes, this founder
(07:01):
is shameless wearing the shirt of the guy who beat
the team he roots for. That's coming in again from
Antwine the Mailman. Now, I heard Mack and Bone talk
about this a little bit today, saying that it would
be shameless if you came in wearing your Drake May jersey.
Was this a conscious decision for you to make to
(07:22):
wear something Drake May but not Patriots Drake May Man
know it, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I wasn't gonna wear the Patriots jersey because I was
disappointed in the fact that he beat my team last night,
but I still I got to respect the man right
like that. I'll tell you that was one of the
toughest games that I've watched in a long time, because
that was my quarterback at Carolina going up against my
current quarterback with the New York Giants at the professional
(07:47):
level in Jackson Dart and you know, it wasn't even close.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Truck me.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
That was what was just unbelievable to me, was that
the Giants didn't even put up a fight in this game.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Drake Mayl looks great, just I mean, of course, I'm
not saying I'm not saying anything. The guy's the odds
on favorite to win MVP, and even if it changes
next week, it's only going to be because Matthew Stafford
overtakes him and he'll be second. If he wins MVP,
it will have been deserved because of how well that
he's played all season long.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I like the play Flounder. I think that you thread
the needle nicely here.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
If you would have worn a Patriots jersey, I think
you're starting to wander into enemy territory a little too much.
But wearing this shirt, getting your full on prep on
I like it. So here's the question that I have
for the people. Too preppiest article, not not article, preppiest
clothing brand seven oh four five seven oh ninety six
(08:42):
to ten onward reserve.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's not crazy like it. We're starting to get into
that territory a little bit. But what are the prepri
I can't even say that word preppiest brands of clothes
seven oh four, five ninety six ten let us know.
On the FanDuel text line, all right, I want to
talk about the Hornets game. We got to get to it.
They lost to the Nets last night, another tough loss.
(09:05):
What do we do with this Hornets team? They lose
one sixteen to one oh three. Nets pull away in
the fourth quarter. People are complaining about Charles Lee's lineups.
They're playing a whole bunch of rookies, not only con
the good rookie or Kalkbrenner, the other good rookie like
Sion's still good. Leam McNeely actually had a pretty nice game.
It's still four rookies they're playing out there. Buddy LaMelo
(09:29):
just not hitting shots. Let's get to it. Let's pull
up to the scene. I was reluctant to get on
this hornet's bus, but we gotta get on it. Let's
pull up to the scene, flound dog, open up the doors,
Let's get.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Off the bus. We look good getting off the bus.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Con kin Nippi looked great again. He was seven of
eighteen from the field. He goes for eighteen points. He
continues to hit a bunch of three pointers. He was
four of nine. As long as he stays healthy, he's
going to break the rookie three point record, and actually
he's going to blow the old record out of the water.
It's Keegan Murray with two oh six. Con ginnipl is
going to flirt with three hundred as long as he
(10:10):
plays every game, as long as he stays healthy. Even
so short of three hundred, you're talking two hundred and eighty.
That's totally fine with me. LaMelo Ball is the star
of this team. He's getting paid like it. People act
like it. He acts like it. And I don't know
if you can say that he's been playing like the
star of this team. It's been hard for him to
(10:31):
get back into a rhythm. He's missed half the games
this season. He is on a minute's restriction, but he
did play thirty minutes last night, yet floundy. He's three
of nine from the field. His shooting splits this year,
they're not good. Even people nationally who are still hanging
on to a lot of hope with LaMelo, even they're
(10:51):
starting to have a hard time continuing to prop up
LaMelo as a potential star. Zach low talked about this
very thing on his own Pie Cast with Mo Daquille,
who also says that he's a LaMelo guy. It's just
been rough for us LaMelo defenders this season, and it's
getting a lot tougher for Zach low who has been
(11:11):
a defender of LaMelo for quite some time. Here is
Zach Lowe talking about LaMelo and the murky waters that
is the LaMelo lagoon trying to pull for him even longer.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's going to be a very interesting trade season from.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
That regard, because I do think they're all these sort
of distressed asset kind of players that people don't know
what to do with. I mentioned all the point guards,
and I do think we are going to hear some
LaMelo noise. He rebutted a report that he wanted out
of Charlotte. I actually believe him that he doesn't want
out of Charlotte. I think the more interesting question is
what does Charlotte want. He's got three years left on
(11:49):
his contract after this year. It's a tough one to move.
That's what I mean by distress. It's gonna be a
tough one to move point guard. Not everyone needs a
point guard. Look as one of the last people swimming
in the LaMelo lagoon, this season has been very tough
for me. The water, his water's getting a little murky.
He's missed Halftic games almost like usual. He's shooting thirty
eight percent, twenty eight percent on threes. Just got to
(12:12):
make more more baskets. I just haven't loved what I've
been seeing LaMelo ball shooting splits. You just heard what
Zach Low went through there, Like you're talking about a
career low three point percentage. At this point, it's going
to come up, but right now it's at a career
low at twenty eight. It's a career low field goal
percentage at this point, at thirty eight percent. It's going
(12:33):
to come up as well, but again it's at a
career low effective field goal percentage clearly down, Like it's
actually quite bad at forty five percent, you need to
be above fifty, especially with somebody handling the basketball as
much as he is.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I do think that he's.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Making efforts to play the right way, and I'm not
here to dismiss that him playing like a facilitating guard
that matters. I think that's when he's at his best.
But part of what makes him at his best when
he's facilitating is that he's also efficient on lower volume,
and the efficiency is not appearing at lower volume, and
that's an issue. You heard Zach just sum it up there.
(13:08):
I think quite well. Got to hit shots, So this
is what I don't know how. It's hard for me
to evaluate it because make or miss league shots are
going to come around. Con Kinnaple just talked about it
a couple of days ago when he had like a
two game, one and a half game bad shooting stretch.
That's apparently all he's going to go through. The shots
(13:28):
are going to come around for LaMelo. Is it going
to come around enough to propel him and to start
him again? And that's the issue because here we are
talking about the trade rumors surrounding him again. I believe LaMelo,
most people I think believe LaMelo when he says he's
not frustrated with Charlotte so much that he wants out.
(13:48):
When you read that report, even with the headline from
Kelly Eco a couple of weeks ago, LaMelo growing frustrated.
The headline didn't necessarily match the material. Once you clicked
on the headline, it more so pointed towards the Hornets
not knowing what they wanted to do with LaMelo and
all we're seeing the games that have happened since that
(14:09):
report is LaMelo not play like a star, not hit shots,
and not play winning brand of basketball, which I have
always defended. You can't play winning basketball when it's a
bunch of gen leaguers up there with Marcus Garrett and
Wendell Moore. I hate continuing to point to those guys,
but it's been the truth. You have better talent. Now
it's not great, it's not the best in the world,
(14:31):
but you have better talent. You have guys like Colin
Sexton and Coon kin Nipple. Again, I'm not telling you
that this should be a playoff team. I would like
to compete a little more so for a play in
Spot and LaMelo. How long are we going to wait
for him to get into a rhythm. It's tough stuff
right now.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, I mean at this point, you know, it's starting
to become a more of a conversation than I think
we even anticipated that it would become this year, because
at the Star the year, you thought, man, this dude
is back. He's back playing the level of basketball that
we've seen from him throughout his career. Now it's all
about staying healthy. Well, this is the thing. Since he's
(15:10):
come back, he's just been that bad to where now
it's about to play on the court, which it's never
really been about. I think for the most part, people
have just been frustrated with his availability. So I mean, yeah,
this is this is tough stuff, man, And it's honestly
shocking how much he struggled during this stretch. I don't
know if it really is those reports getting in his
(15:31):
head and it's just completely you know, affected the way
that he plays or what's going on. But this is
not the same player that we saw. And you know
there are moments where you know, somebody brought it up. Now,
I don't think this is correct, because I think Toronto
showed that it wasn't correct. Some people saying guys, like
Miles Bridges are better with him not on the floor.
(15:53):
No Toronto showed you that. That's when Miles is at
his best. When Lamelow's on the floor. LaMelo's sharing the basketball,
doing all those types of things. But you're getting to
a point now where you almost don't want him to
shoot the basketball. You're like, can you just be out
there to facilitate things, because right now your shot is
not falling. When you're shooting thirty eight percent from the
(16:14):
field and twenty eight percent from three, especially on the
volume that he shoots it, that is.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Not that's not a recipe for success, man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And the other thing is they are better. You mentioned
it right, They are better with him on the floor.
He still makes things happen for other people, and that
is something important to note for kN k Nipple. I
still think the two man game could be exceptional between
those two guys. The way that kN reads screens and
creates a ton of separation, like he's Jerry Rice at
(16:45):
route running. He creates so much separation off of those
screen reads it doesn't really matter what you do. And
then he has the quick trigger off of a Lamello pass.
LaMelo can make every pass on the court because of
his vision, and he's taller than everyone, so he can
hit over the top like there's he can hit from
different angles in theory, having LaMelo and Con and Brandon
(17:06):
on the floor all at the same time in rhythm,
that's really tough to stop offensively. You might have your
deficiencies defensively, but it's really stopped. It's really hard to
stop them offensively. We just can't get them all in
a rhythm, all on in the court at the same time.
Brandon Miller isn't playing last night. I thought you missed him.
LaMelo's not hitting shots. So when it's only Con hitting
the shots and you have to rely on offensive rebounds
(17:28):
from musa Man, you end up losing to one of
the worst teams in basketball, and you end up giving
a bunch of three pointers with Michael Porter Junior going
off for thirty. They're gonna have another really good draft
pick this year. It's gonna happen. I want to win
more games. There was a report from Terrence Oglesby about
ownership wanting to win more games before we even got
(17:50):
the season started. The thing is, you can fall back
into the nice cushion of this being a crazy deep
draft class. Yes, even deeper than the one we saw
last year. So we'll see what happens with the Hornets.
It is frustrating to watch them lose to some of
the worst teams in basketball, like they did last night
when they dropped a game to the Brooklyn Nets one
sixteen to one oh three. We'll read some of your
(18:12):
comments on the FanDuel text line. We're looking at preppy
clothing brands, We're looking at Hornets takes, and I have
some Panthers conversation points I want to get to. Do
we know what Bryce Young is at this point? Have
we figured it out? Or do we still have a
lot of work to do? How much work do we
have to do in evaluating Bryce Young? All of that
coming up next. Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ
(18:41):
Weston walker Back. Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ
got a lot of texts coming in, a lot of
good ones about a bunch of different topics. And here
I am not even arguing with heat fan. I'm just
mad at him. And really I'm not even mad at him.
I'm just mad at the heat flounder. They're just never
going to die. Mike Myers no, I think.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
You said, guy, they've got maybe, I mean maybe the
greatest coach that's ever been on the sidelines. And Eric Spolster,
because every time that you doubt him, he finds a
way to just prove to you that he's his team's
inevitable are gonna make play?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Heat fan says Walker, You really thought this Hornet's team
could compete with my Heat for a play in and
we aren't even You said we weren't even a playing team.
You were also wrong about that. All love, but this
was a nasty take when we both know you did
no research on the Heat. That's not true. That's a
Heat fan and it's all love between me and Heat fan.
We come from a place of understanding. But I really thought,
(19:37):
I've said this a couple of times. It looks like
Miami they had squeezed all of the juice from the
fruit that they could possibly get, and it's just pulp,
and nobody really wants the pulp, and you can just
discard it. They should be composted at this point, and
yet somehow they find more juice. And it's because Eric
Spolstra finds different iterations on what his team should play,
(20:00):
on how his team should play. So now they're just
like not running any pick and roll. They're playing at
an extremely fast paced with a very similar core. They
got different pieces here and there, but a very similar
core like you still have bam Adebayo. Now they're working
Tyler Hero back from his injury, and that seems to
be just fine because shooting is the great elixir for
(20:21):
any fit question. Hey, just have them stretch the floor
and shoot. Okay, that's easy enough. And what we're gonna
do is we're gonna spread everybody out and just run
a whole bunch of cuts. And that's the offense we're
gonna run. We don't even have to be an amazing
three point shooting team anyways. Just the heat are never
gonna die. It's frustrating. I'm sure Smoke is somewhere punching
something out of anger, because that's the issue that Smoke has.
(20:44):
It's that one that the heat are good and they
find different ways to defibrillate themselves like they're never dead.
And either Rodney macgruder days, oh thank god, Rodney McGruder,
like Tyler Johnson, those are your guy. Y'all are gonna
beat Oh wait, no, y'all are still fighting for one
(21:05):
of those last playoff spots anyways, unbelievable, and here are
the Hornets who aren't going to reach the play in
They're not going to reach the playoffs. You needed to
win last night too.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I continue with this positive trajectory that we had felt
over the last couple of games, because you beat the Bulls,
good Win, You beat the Raptors, who had been one
of the hotter teams in the league. Good Win, prove
it against one of the worst teams in the league,
and then you end up losing by double digits and
you don't show up in winning time even without Brandon Miller.
(21:38):
You have a bunch of rookies out there. Tjan Salon
is back, Like, Okay, now, it's how much did you
care about winning that game last night? If those are
the guys, I don't know. LaMelo missed a bunch of shots.
If you expect him to go to forty five percent
from the field, then you're in this a little more
(22:00):
and you win that game. I just I would like
to know what their angle is on the whole, because
I do want to know. Okay, are we cool with competing,
but we don't want to compete too much. We would
like one of these lottery selections because it is a
crazy deep draft. Class eight overall is going to be
a good player at least, that's the story coming in
(22:20):
in this draft. In this draft, yes, in this draft,
there's a lot of really good players. I know people
get frustrated. I've heard this complaint quite a bit, how
every class is the deepest. I push back on that.
We don't really say that every year. Did we say
that last year? We said it last year. I'll give
them that the year before. Absolutely, No, no, no, we
(22:41):
were all talking about how weak it was. Like we'll
say a draft class is week if it's weak. The
Lamellow draft class. We talked about how weak that was
when it was happening all the way back in twenty twenty.
So this one man's a lot of studs. It's a
lot of stars, and I want one of them. I
also don't want to lose anymore, not at the rate
(23:03):
in which the Hornets are losing right now.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Well, because the thing is right, if you keep losing
at this rate, then you have to have the conversation
about Charles Lee. And then we're going in a circle again,
because then if you end up firing him, what we're
starting from the bottom.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yet again, my.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Question about the Charles Lee stuff, though, is how much
do you put on him when you are playing t
Jon Salon and all of the rookies as much as
you do in the fourth quarter in winning time it's
fair and you don't have Brandon Miller and you have
LaMelo ball in a minute's restriction.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But man, like LaMelo, we do know this.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
We do have the numbers to back up that the
Hornets are a better basketball team buy a decent amount,
especially when LaMelo, Khn and Mussa are all on the
floor together. There are winning combinations within this core that
you have. So when you don't have LaMelo and he
only plays twenty two minutes, then how much do you
really put on Charles Lee? That's the issue though, to
(23:59):
kind of make your point come to life, is that
we can't evaluate him as a head coach all that
much because we don't have all of the best basketball
players on the court nearly.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And the other thing is how many years are you
going to keep putting it off for that's because then
you're saying, okay, well, you're just extending this out when
really I guess we should know that you don't have
the guy, so you need these guys to be on
the court. You need LaMelo to be playing at his
best so you can get a real evaluation of your
head coach, Do you have the guy? We see stuff
(24:28):
that we think is tangible and we believe makes him
the guy. But it's really hard to sell that to
the fan base when you're six and fifteen and you
can't beat the freaking Brooklyn Nets, who have three wins
coming into this game.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I love and I mean this word. I don't like
the principles that Charles Lee preaches. I love them, I
really do. I believe in the principles that he preaches
for his team. I think this entire regime, they're going
after players that embody what it is to be a
part of Hornet. Colin Sexton has issues on ball, no doubt.
(25:03):
I thought he was bad last night. He won bad
in the previous couple of games where they really needed
him off of the bench. But also, Colin Sexton isn't
an all star. I think he's a really good player,
and we've needed him a couple of those times to
bring the energy, to bring the juice byog Dabosweeney style.
Colin does that, Sion James does it. Kan K Nipple
plays hard every freaking possession just as much as Mussa diabate.
(25:25):
So they're going after the right kinds of players, They're
shooting the right kinds of shots. I don't think that
they're completely neglecting what it is that makes Brandon special.
Brandon's getting some mid range shots up there. Man, Charles
Lee is not a race I know that's been a
common complaint. Oh, Charles Lee is just so analytics driven. Yes,
but he's not erasing what makes some of these players special, right.
(25:47):
He still allows them to dabble in those waters. I
think philosophically, those things make sense to me. I have
some issues with some of the plays that don't work.
Sideline out of bounds, baseline out of bounds, the lobs,
the block and the slobs could work a little bit
more on that. The atos, the aftertimeouts could work a
little more on that.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Like, there's that.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
That problem that has persisted so long with us not
being able to inbound the basketball so many times ago,
right up to that five second point, and we can't
inbound the ball. That seems pretty simple that's been across Charles,
that's been Steve Clifford, that's been James Morego. It's been
a real issue all of that To say, I think
when you look at the macro here, there are a
lot of good things. Once you bring enough talent and
(26:30):
you bring in the players that fit that style. It's
just hard to sell when you got six wins to
your name. Yeah, that's the hard part. Yep, that's hard.
You're one hundred percent right. The preppy clothing brands people
understood the assignment on this. Brian writes in on the
FanDuel text line Colombia American Eagle, Banana Republic, Colombia.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That's not preppy, is it? I was going to say,
Luke Combs wears that, is that really?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Maybe Columbia? Maybe maybe Columbia vest just because Vest within itself. Yeah,
that's pretty That American Eagle that was still to me
one of the more acceptable preppy clothing brands all the
way back in middle school. But you stop wearing American Eagle,
I would say, like past tenth grade, does anybody past
tenth grade wear American Eagle anymore?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
No, you can't. You can't do it.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Man and anybody past middle school can't wear Hollister anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, if you wore home Does that even exist still?
It's a fair question.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I don't know, I because I couldn't tell you the
last time I was actually in a mall, Like people
were like, are you going to the mall to shop
for your parents?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And I'm like, yeah, the online mall.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
This is where we need Wes because he can tell
us having a kid, what styles are in right ry exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I have zero clue. Hollister, don't know if that's still
a thing. I remember all I did was wear tarheel gear,
hornets gear, and panthers gear. And really it was all
tar heel gear. That's really all it was. My sister
when she would come down from Indiana would say, Walker,
come on now, all right, we gotta get together here, okay.
In middle school she completely revamped my wardrobe on what
(28:03):
I was allowed to wear at school. No more sweatpants,
gotta wear jeans, no more North Carolina stuff every single day.
And then so we did the Hollister American Eagle shopping
thing and I didn't love it, but I did it,
and you know what worked out for it? Did give
me a few votes on the best Dressed category. At
the end of the year. It did give me a
few votes. I didn't win, but I would.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
See I didn't have this sage advice my wardrobe. First
of all, we had to wear uniforms at school, so
everybody dressed the same. But when you would have dress
down days, which is what we used to call it,
then I would wear my tar heel stuff. Always had
to have a tar heel shirt on. Like it's still
to this day. That's my wardrobe.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I got mad at me.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We gotten into like arguments about me wearing too much
Carolina blue because it was every day it's all I
wanted to wear, and my mom got frustrat I know,
but that's your identity.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
When that's your identity, that's what it is. Historic Loso
mentions Chaco's Yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
The ultimate answer is, to me very clear, it is
vineyard vines, and that's if you wear that, you are
definitely preppy.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
No doubt about it, no question. I don't own any
vineyard vines. But I love the logo, you know, me
animal lover, aquatic sky. I love the whale. The whale's
great true, it's a great looking logo. I love the Whale,
but you're right, I can't wear that as preppy as
I'll get because I'll dabble.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't know anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Banana Republic is like toned down prep, so I'll go
Banana Republic. Problem is, man, their clothes are so small.
My big behind can't wear them. I can't find any
pants that fit. I don't buy pants at Banana Republic
shirts They're just not long enough.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Banana Republic is for smaller people, So I don't know
if anybody else has run into that problem. Last clothing
brand I want to mention, decent amount of people are
mentioning Abercrombie and Fitch. What I will tell you is
that if you have not been, if you've not studied
the game recently, complete rebrand from them. What if I
told you, flound Dog that I am currently wearing an
(30:10):
Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirt right now. Wow, it doesn't look
like it. It doesn't look like it does. It's a
that's a nice sweater y. You know what I'm saying.
You know what I'm saying. It's all purple.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It's just a purple, plain old sweatshirt. But it's great.
I'm a big, small neck hole guy. I don't like
the big neck holes that try to show a little
too much taco meat. So I like it round and fitting.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'm Italian, so I like to show off the chest here.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That's all right, get you, David tepperaw man, that's okay.
Let that let that chest hair sing. Not me, that's
not That's not what I'm comfortable with. But Abercrombie and Fitch,
they they have great vintage sports gear. They've they've done
a complain they I highly advise you this holiday season,
folks to go search on Abercrombie and Fitch and be amazed.
If you don't know game as much as you used to.
(30:57):
All right, it used to be crazy preppy, right, all
of It's totally true. They've completely rebranded. If you don't know,
it's good stuff, I'm just telling you seven oh four,
I have to check it out. Five seven oh ninety
six ten seven oh four five seven oh ninety six
ten ooh. I'm getting some texts about Abercrombie needing to
rebrand because of their old CEO, and uh, I didn't know.
Apparently I need to study up on the game. Speaking
(31:19):
of studying up on game, it feels like Dave Canalis
did that. Going into that La Rams contest, it felt
like the best game plan from our head coach this
year floundy compared to any other game that we've had.
And it doesn't mean that he's had bad game plans
every single time. The games that come to mind the
best coaching performances that we've seen from him, it's been
(31:40):
Green Bay, Atlanta. Just throwing the Rams already into the mix.
Are there any of the games that stand out above
those three? Both Atlanta games, I thought he did a
pretty good job in. I mean, you won one thirty
to nothing and then the other one you threw for
four hundred and forty eight yards in. I guess the
reason that I I don't put the thirty to nothing
(32:01):
victory in there is because Michael Pennix was so bad
and the defense helped out so much, and I just
give defensive credit to Ajaro of Arro. So that's why
I don't put that one among that in that group.
I should say, Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I wouldn't have it as his best, But I did
think it was a solid game plan because you knew
pretty much all you had to do was run the
football successfully, which they did in that game, and you
were gonna get out of there with a win.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Dallas. Yeah, Dallas is a good one. I mean really,
it's just let's run it a bunch of times with
Rico and Bryce. I don't even know how many exceptional
throws there were from Bryce in that game. But Bryce,
again classic phrase for him, did what he had to do.
This felt like the best game plan that we had
seen from Dave. But I'm gonna straight up rip some
content from Ovius and Julio. I hopped on with Joe
(32:51):
Ovius on the Ovius and Julio podcast. Go search it
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
A nice pluck. I thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I hopped on with them and we were talking in
just about the panther's angle of all of it with
Bryce Young.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Do we know what he is?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
The inconsistency surrounding Bryce, and I do think people rightfully
so try to shoot the flare up here for Dave
Canallis and say what about the inconsistencies for him? Why
are you focusing so much on Bryce? I think that's fair.
As somebody that believes in Dave Canalis, I think that's fair,
and it is hard to get a grip on why
is Dave going back and forth? Why is there a
(33:25):
roller coaster that we're riding with him just as much
as we are with Bryce. The game plans. You want
to be stubborn running the football. You were for a
stretch this season, and then you went away from it.
Then you went back to it against the Rams, and
when you go to it, you seem to win more games.
So what's happening here? And the best answer I could
come up with, and you can have your answer as well.
On the fandual text line, I think Dave gets a
(33:47):
little too caught up in this is what the defense
is showing us. This is how you typically attack those defenses,
and then you get away from what we do best
within our row identity, which is, hey man, we're pretty
good at running the football. Load up that box all
you want to our guys move people. Rico Daddle runs
(34:09):
through arm tackles. Tube is healthy again, that's a twelve
hundred yard back. Would have had more had he been healthy. Like,
we got a really good duo when both are healthy.
We have a good enough offensive line with all of
the combinations we can run block, I can design a
nice enough run game. It doesn't matter if you load
(34:29):
the box. We're still going to run the football to
try to open up the passing game a little bit more.
And so that was what was so frustrating against San Francisco.
It's that he didn't run it as much. But you
could point to an excuse if they weren't successful running
in but flown they weren't. Yeah, and then as so,
it's happened so many times. The fan base has been
(34:51):
proven right in what we've wanted quite a bit this year.
And I'm not telling you again, I'm not saying Dave
Canalis needs to make decisions based off of what fans want,
because that's a bad head coach.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You can't do that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
At the same time, we've been proven right on a
lot of personnel decisions, on a lot of Hey, if
you do this, then it feels like that will work.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
We were all mad at day for not running the
football nearly as much as he should have against San
fran and Cuba looked good. We came in the next
day and said, Cuba looks good, let's use him more
and maybe still have Rico beat the lead back. You
did that against the Rams and it worked. So I
(35:31):
just wonder, are we going to see more consistency from
Dave and play calling where he just leans on his
strengths even more so, run the ball a bunch, parlay
the run game into taking advantage is deep down field
on God to have it downs. And if you can
do that consistently, man, I think we're cooking the rest
of the way.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think that he will be able to because now
you've gotten to a point where I believe that he
looks at Cuba Hubbard and says he's healthy enough. I
wonder if he was questioning how healthy Chuba actually was.
Now that's no excuse because Cuba had a couple of
runs in that game. Well, a couple of passes out
of the backfield in that game against San Francisco where
(36:11):
he looked explosive enough. That should have shown you we
can lean on him in the run game a little bit.
If Rico's not having the greatest night, Rico was okay
in that game.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He was about as good as he was in this game.
I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I think he gets obsessed with trying to adjust the
offense to what the defense is showing them, what they've
seen on tape, what tendencies the defense has?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
You know, where are the weaknesses of that defense?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And I get that you have to be able to
adjust your game plan to certain things like that throughout
the year, but you can't completely change your identity. You
can't say, well, this is a team that just allows
so many yards through the air that we just have
to turn into an air raid offense.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
That's not the way that you do it.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
You've got to have an identity, and I think this
week you finally found out what that identity is because
we were questioning what exactly was the identity of this team.
I think we knew it all along, but we were
just waiting for Dave Canalis to actually execute it. You
found it this week. Now let's carry that over into
the next game you play. You got a buye week
(37:18):
time to recollect. But that game right there against the
best team, and that is I I would still say
that's the best team in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I would totally agree with you that game plan. How
do you not use that moving forward?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
If it works against that team and that defense, then
it should work against most teams. Not saying you can't
tweak certain things and you should be tweaking it lean
on that game plan and say this is the one
that we are going to use when we're at.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Our best, last thing before we move on. I am
suddenly reminded of what some of the Tampa Bay Beat
writers were saying about Dave Canalis when we hired him
in Carolina that the first half of that season, if
you'll go back and check, it took a while for
even that offense to form an identity. But once they did, boom,
Baby Tampa's offense really took off. You had better talent,
(38:10):
You had a great wide receiver duo with healthier Chris
Godwin and Mike Evans going for his billionth one thousand
yard season, and you had a nice enough running game,
and you had Baker Mayfield, who you were reclamating at
that point. So once you found your identity the second
half that was the year. It was Dave Canallis who
(38:30):
helped them win the playoff game against Philly. If I'm
not mistaken, I believe that's correct. Yes, So Dave Canallis
the OC there. It was power throwing team. It was
run the football a lot and then take your deep shots.
They ran it a decent amount on first and second
like Dave canallis. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I remember
(38:51):
coming across the stat where they had the most first
down run, second down run, third down pass sequences in
the entire NFL that year that he was plays for
Tampa Bay to.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Where people got frustrated because they're running game. They didn't
have Bucky Irving, it was Rashad White. Yeah, they were
running it and they weren't great.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah they weren't good from an efficient standpoint, but they
stuck to it a decent amount and then they would
hit over the top. And I like the idea of
throwing the football. If you keep trying to run it
and then you just don't have any success with it,
that's the thing. I don't want you to run into
a brick wall non stop, never be successful, and then
keep doing it and constantly like I don't want that.
(39:31):
What I want is you to keep running the football
because it works for you. That's the thing. They are
successful running the football, so there's really not any reason
to go away from it. And I don't love a
ton of snaps every single drive because, as defenses will say,
every snap they take, the higher likely, the higher the
(39:52):
likelihood it is that the defense wins because you have
to be perfect on every snap, and then the more
snaps there are, the higher chance there is for or
a turnover.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
But when you're good at running the football and then
you hit some of those explosives off of running, that's
when you get to marry the concepts and that's what
we like to see. That's what we did see against LA.
Let's continue to talk about the Bryce Young of it
all coming up next Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ.
(40:28):
This is where I go to my safe space when
I think about the Hornets, Guys like Zach Kram and
Zach Lowe, all the NBA Zach's in the world just
applauding what con K Nipple is doing. Zach Kram writes,
Conk Nipple is a fun sleeper All Star candidate due
to his over eighteen points per game and over forty
one percent shooting from three point land on high volume.
(40:50):
But he would be just the third rookie in the
twenty first century to make an All Star team. The
other two we're number one picks Yao Ming and Blake Griffin.
So I.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I read that and I hope.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
People understand just how crazy it is that we're watching
KHN do this because I think there's a legitimate All
Star case to be made for him. The thing that
would bring him down is the same thing that brought
LaMelo down for a while. It's being on a losing
basketball team. You need enough wins to propel these guys
to get to the All Star Game. But also the
(41:27):
thing that was holding LaMelo down in a lot of
respects is the lack of efficiency. I mean, CON's is
just out of this world as a rookie on high volume.
So you got that working for you if you actually
make an All Star Game and you're the only rookie
to do it outside of Blake Griffin, who remember, wasn't
like a real rookie. It was the second year because
his first year in the league got hurt, missed every
(41:48):
single game, So it was the Ben Simmons All Star
nod kind of faux rookie, a faux rookie. Yes, he
was the f roy he was the freud. And then
you go to Yao Ming, who remember he had played
profess with the Shanghai Sharks. Was dominant at seven to five,
a complete unicorn that had this amazing touch at seven
(42:08):
to five while also being a brute force. That's how
he after already playing professionally overseas and being a unicorn,
that's how he got to the All Star Game. We
would be looking at a weird case, and I'll say
unique case with KHN who isn't a second year guy
who didn't play professional basketball, who isn't a first overall
pick like both of those other guys were. If Kan
(42:30):
Kinniple makes the All Star Game, he'll have been the
first guy since the turn of the millennium to make
it under these circumstances, which again it's bonker.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
So how what am I supposed to do? Flounder?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Am I supposed to celebrate and throw a parade with
a rookie who's doing this in his first twenty games
of his career? Or am I still supposed to feel
pain because the Hornets only have six wins and they're
not going to sniff the play in?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
What am I supposed to do? Okay? I think it's both.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I think honestly, you love the fact that you've got
a great player and that this pick really looks like
you've hit on something that you've got potentially an All Star,
potentially what Bill Simmons talked about an Olympian somewhere down
the line.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
How funny is it that he's so right about that
right now?
Speaker 3 (43:15):
It looks spot on, man, and he's got You've said it,
he's got an eye for talent. He used to be
doing NBA draft shows for ESPN, but we know ESPN.
You know, they like there's certain guys that they have
on so you know, he got phased out of it.
But I think that's the thing that's amazing is that
you've got this great player, so there's hope. But at
(43:35):
the same time, you know, as a Hornets fan, you
can't get too excited because the team just isn't that
good and who knows what the other pieces around him
are going to look like. Like That's that's what sucks,
is that you just there can't be a moment where
you're just excited and you're just ecstatic that man, we
got a really good one here. Let's soak it up.
We're playing entertaining basketball. Like if this team was what
(43:57):
the Bulls are eleven, we would say to ourselves, man,
this is a pretty fun, exciting team.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
It's a leite pass type team.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
There's no you know, we got a chance to potentially
make the play in Oh that would be fun. But
when you're six and fifteen and you're dealing with some
of the issues that you're dealing with with how LaMelo
is playing, it takes the fun.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Out of it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So the Hornets aren't showing us what the Panthers are
of the last couple of years. Collectively, we're not seeing
that positive trajectory. Even if I think it's there, I
don't have any proof to point to in the wins
column like I can with Carolina, because I do think,
to be fair to the Hornets organization, I think they
are moving in the right direction. I really do. I mean,
(44:40):
is the rookie class the best of any team in
the NBA right now? I would say yes to that.
I think Sian is for real in his role Cal Prinner,
same thing, con a for real star. I think all
of that's very real. And Liam McNeely actually played pretty
well last night, played pretty well.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Can't rely on them to once in. It wasn't bad
against the Rafters either. He made a couple of nice
plays that game.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, Liam McNeely getting some run last night coming off
of the bench. I thought did some nice things off ball.
It's not mean he had eight points. He hit a three,
didn't have any turnovers, which is nice, Like, I mean,
just fine, and seventeen minutes to play fine. All that
to say, I like what the rookies are showing. I
like some of the moves that they made. I can't
point to the wins column and say see it's happening.
(45:21):
I can with Carolina. Both teams have real inconsistencies, but
we don't have. I mean, I guess we got one
against Toronto with Charlotte. But the big things you can
point to, like a win over the Rams where it's
not like the Rams laid an egg. I think that's
an important point to make, and I'll make it for
the second straight day. The Panthers forced some things. Man,
(45:41):
they did that. It wasn't oh okay, well, I guess
the Rams are just handing this game over to us.
Bad turnovers, No doubt they forced him. You have the
win against Green Bay Bryce Young when his good games,
he'll give you some dots like those dimes are impeccable.
Beautiful throws to t mac oh.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
That was so smooth.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
The Jalen Cocher throw where It's funny how different Jalen
Cocher and Team Mac are. Jalen Coker makes everything a
grind and I love it, and t Mac makes everything
look so smooth, and I love it.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
They're very different. Players love both of them.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
But we get to point to some wins, and even
if they don't make the playoffs, I'm cool with that
because they're clearly moving in the right direction. And this
is one thing I want to get to before we
exit the first hour here Flounder, something I talked about
with Joe Ovius earlier. Man, this is what I want
collectively from this team this year. They are two wins
(46:34):
away from finishing above five hundred on would I feel
pretty good about that. I feel good that they can
at least get two more wins Saints and one other game.
That's all we need, and you're over five hundred, that's
all we need. This is a team, this is a franchise.
This is an organization that has never had back to
(46:54):
back winning seasons.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Still crazy to think about.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
It's crazy. You've been alive for thirty years. Now, can
you get to a spot where you set yourself up
to have back to back winning seasons for the first
time in franchise history.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
That is not a small thing.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
I came in after the San Francisco game Tuesday saying
that their blood type over there at Bank of America
Stadium is inconsistent.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Positive.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
To go nine to eight and then win nine or
more games the following season while getting to a playoff
berth to have back to back winning seasons for the
first time ever, that would go a long way in
providing stability that we have not seen quite literally ever.
And so that's why I'm real excited about what this
(47:40):
team could do at the end of the season and
what this team could do the following year. If you
give me back to back winning seasons, I think that's
a big deal. We had the three postseason appearance thing
with Ron Rivera. Remember that was in a worse NFC
South than what we're seeing right now with the seven
win team that eventually got to the postseason with the
wonkye tie in there. Can you get me back to
back winning seasons? If you can, I'll say this, David
(48:04):
Tepper would have something to point to and say, big
Cat never did that. All these other coaches that everybody
else hired, they never did that. That would be a
strong feather in that cap that he stole off of
somebody at Dilworth. Strong feather in that cap, and I,
for one would celebrate it. That's what I want to
see Flounder. Is that a fair north Star to want
(48:27):
this year? I think so because they're trending. You look
at the last few years and they've been trending in
that direction.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Now.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I don't think there's going to be nearly as big
of a leap in terms of wins, because you went
from two to five to nine. If you get there
this year, that's what we're hoping they get to, and
then you're going to take another two or three game jump,
that's probably I mean, that might be asking a little much.
But if they can just win ten games next year eleven,
(48:58):
get themselves into the playoffs, win the Divisi, then we're
talking about you building something, really building something here. And
that's all we're looking for, right, is just that the
one of these builds is going right. And I think
you're right. I don't think the Hornets build is necessarily bad.
(49:18):
I just think that they have the absolute worse luck
in the league, the Panthers.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
The Panthers, it doesn't seem like that.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
So hopefully the Panthers can take advantage of it, and
I feel like they're going to be able to because
I think you're seeing that progression this all season. They're
only going to get better defensively. I would think they're
probably going to continue to add in that area. They
may add at wide receiver, probably try to improve that
area a little bit, somebody that can take the top
off of defenses. If you've got that guy, I don't
(49:48):
see how this team can't be even better next year.
The only way that it wouldn't if there was an injury.
That's the only way that it would have.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Not in this city, never never, all right.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Coming up next, it's the Campus Ka Khana ACC SEC Challenge.
It begins tonight. It's a two day event. The ACC
didn't even really show up at all last year. How
much do we expect them to show up this season?
It's an important challenge between the two conferences. We'll get
to it coming up next on Wes and Walker. Listen
to The Wes and Walker Show wewee teas from noon
to three only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven
(50:24):
FM UFNZ, the official home of the Charlotte Sports Fan
Only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven a half
m goming u fnzy fine, He's.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The Wes and Walker Show. Even a crowd knows what's
coming there.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Wes and Walker, Sports Radio ninety two to seven wfn Z.
We appreciate you joining us, folks listening to your favorite
midday show every weekday from twelve to three pm.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
No Wes again.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Just a reminder for all the people that didn't check
us out yesterday one where the hell were you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Two?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome back? No Wes all week long. It's going to
be Flounder. He's going to be doing the renaissance man thing.
He's going to be the board op, the producer, the
co host, he's going to be doing all of it, folks.
Flounder helping us out with Wes just taking some time off.
No need to worry about him. He's all good, just
taking some time off before he comes back next week.
So it's the Westless and Walker Show on Sports Radio
(01:02):
ninety two to seven WFNZ. We're broadcasting live as always
from the Chandler Volta Studios. CV Injury Law dot Com,
Cvinjurylaw dot Com.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
One call.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
That's all the Carolina's personal injury lawyers, and last but
not least, you the listeners. Man, you have an opportunity
to contribute to this show. Congratulations to you. You can
do it by texting the FanDuel text line seven oh
four five seven oh ninety six ten. Shout out to
FanDuel Texas there FanDuel text line once more seven oh
four five seven oh ninety six ten.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We got a new Carolina shirt for you there over
there for it is the first time I believe I
have debuted it at the station. But this is a
This is a more classy Carolina shirt. It is an
onward reserve shirt. So I got Drake on the back.
It has a quote of him talking about how much
he loves Chapel Hill. So it's Shuger and I gotta
(01:55):
get it. You know, that's my guy.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's really your North Carolina preppy shirt. It's it's like
you went to school there. I mean, you are our
gyle short of being just a full on prep with
that T shirt.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh man, if I could get the argyle short, you
would just go ahead and match prep. Big day for
Heels fans.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Not only do you get to celebrate Drake May being
the odds on favorite MVP. Now after his performance and
Stafford's performance against the Panthers, you could celebrate that with
your T shirt. But also Carolina Kentucky one of my
favorite non conference scheduled games that we see pretty consistently.
I've always loved the North Carolina Kentucky games, going all
(02:36):
the way back to yesteryear as a kid watching the
Heels take on the Wildcats, just a regularly scheduled non
conference rival.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I would definitely say yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Jocking for position among blue bloods, and there is some
familiarity here. I really am excited about this game tonight.
Kentucky reeling a little bit, having spent more money than
anybody on their roster, North Carolina having spent a lot
of money themselves, trying to bounce back after a tough
loss to Michigan State where Michigan State just flat out
look like the better team. Still have a lot of
hope for North Carolina. We'll see what happens between those
(03:12):
two programs and the ACC SEC challenge. I don't want
to jump the gun on this because I want to
save this combo for the campus corner, but I am
very excited about the ACC slash SEC challenge, especially after
last year where you only had two wins.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Man that was it. You had Duke, you had Louisville.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Those are the only teams that represented the ACC well
enough to come out on top. Who buddy, I would
love to just win this thing. I would love to
have more than half. The victory is amazing against the
conference as respected as the SEC. Can all of the
big boy programs take care of business? Can we get
wins from Virginia and Duke and Louisville and North Carolina?
(03:53):
Can the blue bloods slash best ACC programs over the
last twenty years look like it they do? Then, I
think we're going to be taken off. The plane is
going to get off of the ground. With the ACC
hype heading into the new year, I'm hoping for it. Floundy,
I've got I've got good feelings. I am knocking on wood.
You can hear it. I like to make sure y'all
(04:14):
can hear it, just so you don't think I'm lying
to you. I am knocking on wood. But I do
have a lot of hope that the ACC can take
care of business and show everybody why ACC basketball still
reigned supreme.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, I feel confident too going into this. I do
think that the ACC is much better this year. Now,
there are going to be some games that I think
are going to get ugly, you know, teams like Pittsburgh
Boston College, Like those games are going to be really,
really rough because those are two of the worst teams
in all of major college basketball. But I do think
the rest of this conference actually has a pretty legit chance.
(04:47):
And I mean we'll run down the schedule here a
little bit later of how many we actually believe have
a chance to win. Yeah, but I mean it just
feels like going in last year, we knew going into
this ACC SEC challenge, Oh, we were probably gonna be
in some trouble because you looked around and said, how
many teams in the ACC are actually good? Well, this year,
I think we trust a decent amount of teams in
(05:09):
the ACC. There are some teams that already they are
reaching some important games. I mean, for Carolina, tonight's pretty important.
I feel like, you know, you kind of need to win.
I'm not saying that the season goes by the wayside
if you lose, of course, especially if it's close, but
you you'd like this one, especially because you know They've
been in a lot of these big games.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
They haven't necessarily won a lot of these big games.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
NC State, this feels like one that NC State desperately
needs because they're reeling a little bit coming out of
MAUI can they find a way to get back on,
you know, good terms against I don't even know who
they play.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I have to look it up.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So NC State they do not play tonight. Instead they
play tomorrow. This is a two day event, so I'm
gonna look tomorrow or scrolling or scrolling during the schedule.
NC State will play all Burn on the road tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's a tough one man twenty I say, you can
get that win, then that's a huge win for them
on their schedule to sort of boost their resume early.
So I mean, there's going to be some really great opportunities.
This is as excited as I've been in a while
for the ACC SEC Challenge or the ACC Big Ten Challenge,
even because it felt like the Big Ten had the
ACC's number.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I have so many thoughts. I need to save them.
I need to stay disciplined. I am one of the
least disciplined hosts when it comes to sticking to the schedule.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's just what it is.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Because I get I get hooked on a conversation. I
want to just say, all right, let's just tear up
the rundown. I need to stay disciplined, folks. Okay, Wes
does a good job at that.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I do not.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So we're going to try to push that backwards. One
o'clock we'll start to focus a little more on the
acc SEC challenge. I do want to read a few
text messages seven oh four five seven zero ninety six
ten people riding in about not only the aacc SEC challenge,
but some more panthers takes just coming in to start
the show. Also Antoine the Mailman. He writes, this founder
(07:01):
is shameless wearing the shirt of the guy who beat
the team he roots for. That's coming in again from
Antwine the Mailman. Now, I heard Mack and Bone talk
about this a little bit today, saying that it would
be shameless if you came in wearing your Drake May jersey.
Was this a conscious decision for you to make to
(07:22):
wear something Drake May but not Patriots Drake May Man
know it, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I wasn't gonna wear the Patriots jersey because I was
disappointed in the fact that he beat my team last night,
but I still I got to respect the man right
like that. I'll tell you that was one of the
toughest games that I've watched in a long time, because
that was my quarterback at Carolina going up against my
current quarterback with the New York Giants at the professional
(07:47):
level in Jackson Dart and you know, it wasn't even close.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Truck me.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
That was what was just unbelievable to me, was that
the Giants didn't even put up a fight in this game.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Drake Mayl looks great, just I mean, of course, I'm
not saying I'm not saying anything. The guy's the odds
on favorite to win MVP, and even if it changes
next week, it's only going to be because Matthew Stafford
overtakes him and he'll be second. If he wins MVP,
it will have been deserved because of how well that
he's played all season long.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I like the play Flounder. I think that you thread
the needle nicely here.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
If you would have worn a Patriots jersey, I think
you're starting to wander into enemy territory a little too much.
But wearing this shirt, getting your full on prep on
I like it. So here's the question that I have
for the people. Too preppiest article, not not article, preppiest
clothing brand seven oh four five seven oh ninety six
(08:42):
to ten onward reserve.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's not crazy like it. We're starting to get into
that territory a little bit. But what are the prepri
I can't even say that word preppiest brands of clothes
seven oh four, five ninety six ten let us know.
On the FanDuel text line, all right, I want to
talk about the Hornets game. We got to get to it.
They lost to the Nets last night, another tough loss.
(09:05):
What do we do with this Hornets team? They lose
one sixteen to one oh three. Nets pull away in
the fourth quarter. People are complaining about Charles Lee's lineups.
They're playing a whole bunch of rookies, not only con
the good rookie or Kalkbrenner, the other good rookie like
Sion's still good. Leam McNeely actually had a pretty nice game.
It's still four rookies they're playing out there. Buddy LaMelo
(09:29):
just not hitting shots. Let's get to it. Let's pull
up to the scene. I was reluctant to get on
this hornet's bus, but we gotta get on it. Let's
pull up to the scene, flound dog, open up the doors,
Let's get.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Off the bus. We look good getting off the bus.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Con kin Nippi looked great again. He was seven of
eighteen from the field. He goes for eighteen points. He
continues to hit a bunch of three pointers. He was
four of nine. As long as he stays healthy, he's
going to break the rookie three point record, and actually
he's going to blow the old record out of the water.
It's Keegan Murray with two oh six. Con ginnipl is
going to flirt with three hundred as long as he
(10:10):
plays every game, as long as he stays healthy. Even
so short of three hundred, you're talking two hundred and eighty.
That's totally fine with me. LaMelo Ball is the star
of this team. He's getting paid like it. People act
like it. He acts like it. And I don't know
if you can say that he's been playing like the
star of this team. It's been hard for him to
(10:31):
get back into a rhythm. He's missed half the games
this season. He is on a minute's restriction, but he
did play thirty minutes last night, yet floundy. He's three
of nine from the field. His shooting splits this year,
they're not good. Even people nationally who are still hanging
on to a lot of hope with LaMelo, even they're
(10:51):
starting to have a hard time continuing to prop up
LaMelo as a potential star. Zach low talked about this
very thing on his own Pie Cast with Mo Daquille,
who also says that he's a LaMelo guy. It's just
been rough for us LaMelo defenders this season, and it's
getting a lot tougher for Zach low who has been
(11:11):
a defender of LaMelo for quite some time. Here is
Zach Lowe talking about LaMelo and the murky waters that
is the LaMelo lagoon trying to pull for him even longer.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's going to be a very interesting trade season from.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
That regard, because I do think they're all these sort
of distressed asset kind of players that people don't know
what to do with. I mentioned all the point guards,
and I do think we are going to hear some
LaMelo noise. He rebutted a report that he wanted out
of Charlotte. I actually believe him that he doesn't want
out of Charlotte. I think the more interesting question is
what does Charlotte want. He's got three years left on
(11:49):
his contract after this year. It's a tough one to move.
That's what I mean by distress. It's gonna be a
tough one to move point guard. Not everyone needs a
point guard. Look as one of the last people swimming
in the LaMelo lagoon, this season has been very tough
for me. The water, his water's getting a little murky.
He's missed Halftic games almost like usual. He's shooting thirty
eight percent, twenty eight percent on threes. Just got to
(12:12):
make more more baskets. I just haven't loved what I've
been seeing LaMelo ball shooting splits. You just heard what
Zach Low went through there, Like you're talking about a
career low three point percentage. At this point, it's going
to come up, but right now it's at a career
low at twenty eight. It's a career low field goal
percentage at this point, at thirty eight percent. It's going
(12:33):
to come up as well, but again it's at a
career low effective field goal percentage clearly down, Like it's
actually quite bad at forty five percent, you need to
be above fifty, especially with somebody handling the basketball as
much as he is.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I do think that he's.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Making efforts to play the right way, and I'm not
here to dismiss that him playing like a facilitating guard
that matters. I think that's when he's at his best.
But part of what makes him at his best when
he's facilitating is that he's also efficient on lower volume,
and the efficiency is not appearing at lower volume, and
that's an issue. You heard Zach just sum it up there.
(13:08):
I think quite well. Got to hit shots, So this
is what I don't know how. It's hard for me
to evaluate it because make or miss league shots are
going to come around. Con Kinnaple just talked about it
a couple of days ago when he had like a
two game, one and a half game bad shooting stretch.
That's apparently all he's going to go through. The shots
(13:28):
are going to come around for LaMelo. Is it going
to come around enough to propel him and to start
him again? And that's the issue because here we are
talking about the trade rumors surrounding him again. I believe LaMelo,
most people I think believe LaMelo when he says he's
not frustrated with Charlotte so much that he wants out.
(13:48):
When you read that report, even with the headline from
Kelly Eco a couple of weeks ago, LaMelo growing frustrated.
The headline didn't necessarily match the material. Once you clicked
on the headline, it more so pointed towards the Hornets
not knowing what they wanted to do with LaMelo and
all we're seeing the games that have happened since that
(14:09):
report is LaMelo not play like a star, not hit shots,
and not play winning brand of basketball, which I have
always defended. You can't play winning basketball when it's a
bunch of gen leaguers up there with Marcus Garrett and
Wendell Moore. I hate continuing to point to those guys,
but it's been the truth. You have better talent. Now
it's not great, it's not the best in the world,
(14:31):
but you have better talent. You have guys like Colin
Sexton and Coon kin Nipple. Again, I'm not telling you
that this should be a playoff team. I would like
to compete a little more so for a play in
Spot and LaMelo. How long are we going to wait
for him to get into a rhythm. It's tough stuff
right now.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, I mean at this point, you know, it's starting
to become a more of a conversation than I think
we even anticipated that it would become this year, because
at the Star the year, you thought, man, this dude
is back. He's back playing the level of basketball that
we've seen from him throughout his career. Now it's all
about staying healthy. Well, this is the thing. Since he's
(15:10):
come back, he's just been that bad to where now
it's about to play on the court, which it's never
really been about. I think for the most part, people
have just been frustrated with his availability. So I mean, yeah,
this is this is tough stuff, man, And it's honestly
shocking how much he struggled during this stretch. I don't
know if it really is those reports getting in his
(15:31):
head and it's just completely you know, affected the way
that he plays or what's going on. But this is
not the same player that we saw. And you know
there are moments where you know, somebody brought it up. Now,
I don't think this is correct, because I think Toronto
showed that it wasn't correct. Some people saying guys, like
Miles Bridges are better with him not on the floor.
(15:53):
No Toronto showed you that. That's when Miles is at
his best. When Lamelow's on the floor. LaMelo's sharing the basketball,
doing all those types of things. But you're getting to
a point now where you almost don't want him to
shoot the basketball. You're like, can you just be out
there to facilitate things, because right now your shot is
not falling. When you're shooting thirty eight percent from the
(16:14):
field and twenty eight percent from three, especially on the
volume that he shoots it, that is.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Not that's not a recipe for success, man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And the other thing is they are better. You mentioned
it right, They are better with him on the floor.
He still makes things happen for other people, and that
is something important to note for kN k Nipple. I
still think the two man game could be exceptional between
those two guys. The way that kN reads screens and
creates a ton of separation, like he's Jerry Rice at
(16:45):
route running. He creates so much separation off of those
screen reads it doesn't really matter what you do. And
then he has the quick trigger off of a Lamello pass.
LaMelo can make every pass on the court because of
his vision, and he's taller than everyone, so he can
hit over the top like there's he can hit from
different angles in theory, having LaMelo and Con and Brandon
(17:06):
on the floor all at the same time in rhythm,
that's really tough to stop offensively. You might have your
deficiencies defensively, but it's really stopped. It's really hard to
stop them offensively. We just can't get them all in
a rhythm, all on in the court at the same time.
Brandon Miller isn't playing last night. I thought you missed him.
LaMelo's not hitting shots. So when it's only Con hitting
the shots and you have to rely on offensive rebounds
(17:28):
from musa Man, you end up losing to one of
the worst teams in basketball, and you end up giving
a bunch of three pointers with Michael Porter Junior going
off for thirty. They're gonna have another really good draft
pick this year. It's gonna happen. I want to win
more games. There was a report from Terrence Oglesby about
ownership wanting to win more games before we even got
(17:50):
the season started. The thing is, you can fall back
into the nice cushion of this being a crazy deep
draft class. Yes, even deeper than the one we saw
last year. So we'll see what happens with the Hornets.
It is frustrating to watch them lose to some of
the worst teams in basketball, like they did last night
when they dropped a game to the Brooklyn Nets one
sixteen to one oh three. We'll read some of your
(18:12):
comments on the FanDuel text line. We're looking at preppy
clothing brands, We're looking at Hornets takes, and I have
some Panthers conversation points I want to get to. Do
we know what Bryce Young is at this point? Have
we figured it out? Or do we still have a
lot of work to do? How much work do we
have to do in evaluating Bryce Young? All of that
coming up next. Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ
(18:41):
Weston walker Back. Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ
got a lot of texts coming in, a lot of
good ones about a bunch of different topics. And here
I am not even arguing with heat fan. I'm just
mad at him. And really I'm not even mad at him.
I'm just mad at the heat flounder. They're just never
going to die. Mike Myers no, I think.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
You said, guy, they've got maybe, I mean maybe the
greatest coach that's ever been on the sidelines. And Eric Spolster,
because every time that you doubt him, he finds a
way to just prove to you that he's his team's
inevitable are gonna make play?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Heat fan says Walker, You really thought this Hornet's team
could compete with my Heat for a play in and
we aren't even You said we weren't even a playing team.
You were also wrong about that. All love, but this
was a nasty take when we both know you did
no research on the Heat. That's not true. That's a
Heat fan and it's all love between me and Heat fan.
We come from a place of understanding. But I really thought,
(19:37):
I've said this a couple of times. It looks like
Miami they had squeezed all of the juice from the
fruit that they could possibly get, and it's just pulp,
and nobody really wants the pulp, and you can just
discard it. They should be composted at this point, and
yet somehow they find more juice. And it's because Eric
Spolstra finds different iterations on what his team should play,
(20:00):
on how his team should play. So now they're just
like not running any pick and roll. They're playing at
an extremely fast paced with a very similar core. They
got different pieces here and there, but a very similar
core like you still have bam Adebayo. Now they're working
Tyler Hero back from his injury, and that seems to
be just fine because shooting is the great elixir for
(20:21):
any fit question. Hey, just have them stretch the floor
and shoot. Okay, that's easy enough. And what we're gonna
do is we're gonna spread everybody out and just run
a whole bunch of cuts. And that's the offense we're
gonna run. We don't even have to be an amazing
three point shooting team anyways. Just the heat are never
gonna die. It's frustrating. I'm sure Smoke is somewhere punching
something out of anger, because that's the issue that Smoke has.
(20:44):
It's that one that the heat are good and they
find different ways to defibrillate themselves like they're never dead.
And either Rodney macgruder days, oh thank god, Rodney McGruder,
like Tyler Johnson, those are your guy. Y'all are gonna
beat Oh wait, no, y'all are still fighting for one
(21:05):
of those last playoff spots anyways, unbelievable, and here are
the Hornets who aren't going to reach the play in
They're not going to reach the playoffs. You needed to
win last night too.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I continue with this positive trajectory that we had felt
over the last couple of games, because you beat the Bulls,
good Win, You beat the Raptors, who had been one
of the hotter teams in the league. Good Win, prove
it against one of the worst teams in the league,
and then you end up losing by double digits and
you don't show up in winning time even without Brandon Miller.
(21:38):
You have a bunch of rookies out there. Tjan Salon
is back, Like, Okay, now, it's how much did you
care about winning that game last night? If those are
the guys, I don't know. LaMelo missed a bunch of shots.
If you expect him to go to forty five percent
from the field, then you're in this a little more
(22:00):
and you win that game. I just I would like
to know what their angle is on the whole, because
I do want to know. Okay, are we cool with competing,
but we don't want to compete too much. We would
like one of these lottery selections because it is a
crazy deep draft. Class eight overall is going to be
a good player at least, that's the story coming in
(22:20):
in this draft. In this draft, yes, in this draft,
there's a lot of really good players. I know people
get frustrated. I've heard this complaint quite a bit, how
every class is the deepest. I push back on that.
We don't really say that every year. Did we say
that last year? We said it last year. I'll give
them that the year before. Absolutely, No, no, no, we
(22:41):
were all talking about how weak it was. Like we'll
say a draft class is week if it's weak. The
Lamellow draft class. We talked about how weak that was
when it was happening all the way back in twenty twenty.
So this one man's a lot of studs. It's a
lot of stars, and I want one of them. I
also don't want to lose anymore, not at the rate
(23:03):
in which the Hornets are losing right now.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Well, because the thing is right, if you keep losing
at this rate, then you have to have the conversation
about Charles Lee. And then we're going in a circle again,
because then if you end up firing him, what we're
starting from the bottom.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yet again, my.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Question about the Charles Lee stuff, though, is how much
do you put on him when you are playing t
Jon Salon and all of the rookies as much as
you do in the fourth quarter in winning time it's
fair and you don't have Brandon Miller and you have
LaMelo ball in a minute's restriction.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But man, like LaMelo, we do know this.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
We do have the numbers to back up that the
Hornets are a better basketball team buy a decent amount,
especially when LaMelo, Khn and Mussa are all on the
floor together. There are winning combinations within this core that
you have. So when you don't have LaMelo and he
only plays twenty two minutes, then how much do you
really put on Charles Lee? That's the issue though, to
(23:59):
kind of make your point come to life, is that
we can't evaluate him as a head coach all that
much because we don't have all of the best basketball
players on the court nearly.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And the other thing is how many years are you
going to keep putting it off for that's because then
you're saying, okay, well, you're just extending this out when
really I guess we should know that you don't have
the guy, so you need these guys to be on
the court. You need LaMelo to be playing at his
best so you can get a real evaluation of your
head coach, Do you have the guy? We see stuff
(24:28):
that we think is tangible and we believe makes him
the guy. But it's really hard to sell that to
the fan base when you're six and fifteen and you
can't beat the freaking Brooklyn Nets, who have three wins
coming into this game.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I love and I mean this word. I don't like
the principles that Charles Lee preaches. I love them, I
really do. I believe in the principles that he preaches
for his team. I think this entire regime, they're going
after players that embody what it is to be a
part of Hornet. Colin Sexton has issues on ball, no doubt.
(25:03):
I thought he was bad last night. He won bad
in the previous couple of games where they really needed
him off of the bench. But also, Colin Sexton isn't
an all star. I think he's a really good player,
and we've needed him a couple of those times to
bring the energy, to bring the juice byog Dabosweeney style.
Colin does that, Sion James does it. Kan K Nipple
plays hard every freaking possession just as much as Mussa diabate.
(25:25):
So they're going after the right kinds of players, They're
shooting the right kinds of shots. I don't think that
they're completely neglecting what it is that makes Brandon special.
Brandon's getting some mid range shots up there. Man, Charles
Lee is not a race I know that's been a
common complaint. Oh, Charles Lee is just so analytics driven. Yes,
but he's not erasing what makes some of these players special, right.
(25:47):
He still allows them to dabble in those waters. I
think philosophically, those things make sense to me. I have
some issues with some of the plays that don't work.
Sideline out of bounds, baseline out of bounds, the lobs,
the block and the slobs could work a little bit
more on that. The atos, the aftertimeouts could work a
little more on that.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Like, there's that.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
That problem that has persisted so long with us not
being able to inbound the basketball so many times ago,
right up to that five second point, and we can't
inbound the ball. That seems pretty simple that's been across Charles,
that's been Steve Clifford, that's been James Morego. It's been
a real issue all of that To say, I think
when you look at the macro here, there are a
lot of good things. Once you bring enough talent and
(26:30):
you bring in the players that fit that style. It's
just hard to sell when you got six wins to
your name. Yeah, that's the hard part. Yep, that's hard.
You're one hundred percent right. The preppy clothing brands people
understood the assignment on this. Brian writes in on the
FanDuel text line Colombia American Eagle, Banana Republic, Colombia.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That's not preppy, is it? I was going to say,
Luke Combs wears that, is that really?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Maybe Columbia? Maybe maybe Columbia vest just because Vest within itself. Yeah,
that's pretty That American Eagle that was still to me
one of the more acceptable preppy clothing brands all the
way back in middle school. But you stop wearing American Eagle,
I would say, like past tenth grade, does anybody past
tenth grade wear American Eagle anymore?
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
No, you can't. You can't do it.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Man and anybody past middle school can't wear Hollister anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, if you wore home Does that even exist still?
It's a fair question.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I don't know, I because I couldn't tell you the
last time I was actually in a mall, Like people
were like, are you going to the mall to shop
for your parents?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And I'm like, yeah, the online mall.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
This is where we need Wes because he can tell
us having a kid, what styles are in right ry exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I have zero clue. Hollister, don't know if that's still
a thing. I remember all I did was wear tarheel gear,
hornets gear, and panthers gear. And really it was all
tar heel gear. That's really all it was. My sister
when she would come down from Indiana would say, Walker,
come on now, all right, we gotta get together here, okay.
In middle school she completely revamped my wardrobe on what
(28:03):
I was allowed to wear at school. No more sweatpants,
gotta wear jeans, no more North Carolina stuff every single day.
And then so we did the Hollister American Eagle shopping
thing and I didn't love it, but I did it,
and you know what worked out for it? Did give
me a few votes on the best Dressed category. At
the end of the year. It did give me a
few votes. I didn't win, but I would.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
See I didn't have this sage advice my wardrobe. First
of all, we had to wear uniforms at school, so
everybody dressed the same. But when you would have dress
down days, which is what we used to call it,
then I would wear my tar heel stuff. Always had
to have a tar heel shirt on. Like it's still
to this day. That's my wardrobe.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I got mad at me.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We gotten into like arguments about me wearing too much
Carolina blue because it was every day it's all I
wanted to wear, and my mom got frustrat I know,
but that's your identity.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
When that's your identity, that's what it is. Historic Loso
mentions Chaco's Yeah, well.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
The ultimate answer is, to me very clear, it is
vineyard vines, and that's if you wear that, you are
definitely preppy.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
No doubt about it, no question. I don't own any
vineyard vines. But I love the logo, you know, me
animal lover, aquatic sky. I love the whale. The whale's
great true, it's a great looking logo. I love the Whale,
but you're right, I can't wear that as preppy as
I'll get because I'll dabble.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't know anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Banana Republic is like toned down prep, so I'll go
Banana Republic. Problem is, man, their clothes are so small.
My big behind can't wear them. I can't find any
pants that fit. I don't buy pants at Banana Republic
shirts They're just not long enough.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Banana Republic is for smaller people, So I don't know
if anybody else has run into that problem. Last clothing
brand I want to mention, decent amount of people are
mentioning Abercrombie and Fitch. What I will tell you is
that if you have not been, if you've not studied
the game recently, complete rebrand from them. What if I
told you, flound Dog that I am currently wearing an
(30:10):
Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirt right now. Wow, it doesn't look
like it. It doesn't look like it does. It's a
that's a nice sweater y. You know what I'm saying.
You know what I'm saying. It's all purple.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
It's just a purple, plain old sweatshirt. But it's great.
I'm a big, small neck hole guy. I don't like
the big neck holes that try to show a little
too much taco meat. So I like it round and fitting.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I'm Italian, so I like to show off the chest here.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That's all right, get you, David tepperaw man, that's okay.
Let that let that chest hair sing. Not me, that's
not That's not what I'm comfortable with. But Abercrombie and Fitch,
they they have great vintage sports gear. They've they've done
a complain they I highly advise you this holiday season,
folks to go search on Abercrombie and Fitch and be amazed.
If you don't know game as much as you used to.
(30:57):
All right, it used to be crazy preppy, right, all
of It's totally true. They've completely rebranded. If you don't know,
it's good stuff, I'm just telling you seven oh four,
I have to check it out. Five seven oh ninety
six ten seven oh four five seven oh ninety six
ten ooh. I'm getting some texts about Abercrombie needing to
rebrand because of their old CEO, and uh, I didn't know.
Apparently I need to study up on the game. Speaking
(31:19):
of studying up on game, it feels like Dave Canalis
did that. Going into that La Rams contest, it felt
like the best game plan from our head coach this
year floundy compared to any other game that we've had.
And it doesn't mean that he's had bad game plans
every single time. The games that come to mind the
best coaching performances that we've seen from him, it's been
(31:40):
Green Bay, Atlanta. Just throwing the Rams already into the mix.
Are there any of the games that stand out above
those three? Both Atlanta games, I thought he did a
pretty good job in. I mean, you won one thirty
to nothing and then the other one you threw for
four hundred and forty eight yards in. I guess the
reason that I I don't put the thirty to nothing
(32:01):
victory in there is because Michael Pennix was so bad
and the defense helped out so much, and I just
give defensive credit to Ajaro of Arro. So that's why
I don't put that one among that in that group.
I should say, Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I wouldn't have it as his best, But I did
think it was a solid game plan because you knew
pretty much all you had to do was run the
football successfully, which they did in that game, and you
were gonna get out of there with a win.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Dallas. Yeah, Dallas is a good one. I mean really,
it's just let's run it a bunch of times with
Rico and Bryce. I don't even know how many exceptional
throws there were from Bryce in that game. But Bryce,
again classic phrase for him, did what he had to do.
This felt like the best game plan that we had
seen from Dave. But I'm gonna straight up rip some
content from Ovius and Julio. I hopped on with Joe
(32:51):
Ovius on the Ovius and Julio podcast. Go search it
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
A nice pluck. I thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I hopped on with them and we were talking in
just about the panther's angle of all of it with
Bryce Young.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Do we know what he is?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
The inconsistency surrounding Bryce, and I do think people rightfully
so try to shoot the flare up here for Dave
Canallis and say what about the inconsistencies for him? Why
are you focusing so much on Bryce? I think that's fair.
As somebody that believes in Dave Canalis, I think that's fair,
and it is hard to get a grip on why
is Dave going back and forth? Why is there a
(33:25):
roller coaster that we're riding with him just as much
as we are with Bryce. The game plans. You want
to be stubborn running the football. You were for a
stretch this season, and then you went away from it.
Then you went back to it against the Rams, and
when you go to it, you seem to win more games.
So what's happening here? And the best answer I could
come up with, and you can have your answer as well.
On the fandual text line, I think Dave gets a
(33:47):
little too caught up in this is what the defense
is showing us. This is how you typically attack those defenses,
and then you get away from what we do best
within our row identity, which is, hey man, we're pretty
good at running the football. Load up that box all
you want to our guys move people. Rico Daddle runs
(34:09):
through arm tackles. Tube is healthy again, that's a twelve
hundred yard back. Would have had more had he been healthy. Like,
we got a really good duo when both are healthy.
We have a good enough offensive line with all of
the combinations we can run block, I can design a
nice enough run game. It doesn't matter if you load
(34:29):
the box. We're still going to run the football to
try to open up the passing game a little bit more.
And so that was what was so frustrating against San Francisco.
It's that he didn't run it as much. But you
could point to an excuse if they weren't successful running
in but flown they weren't. Yeah, and then as so,
it's happened so many times. The fan base has been
(34:51):
proven right in what we've wanted quite a bit this year.
And I'm not telling you again, I'm not saying Dave
Canalis needs to make decisions based off of what fans want,
because that's a bad head coach.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
You can't do that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
At the same time, we've been proven right on a
lot of personnel decisions, on a lot of Hey, if
you do this, then it feels like that will work.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
We were all mad at day for not running the
football nearly as much as he should have against San
fran and Cuba looked good. We came in the next
day and said, Cuba looks good, let's use him more
and maybe still have Rico beat the lead back. You
did that against the Rams and it worked. So I
(35:31):
just wonder, are we going to see more consistency from
Dave and play calling where he just leans on his
strengths even more so, run the ball a bunch, parlay
the run game into taking advantage is deep down field
on God to have it downs. And if you can
do that consistently, man, I think we're cooking the rest
of the way.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think that he will be able to because now
you've gotten to a point where I believe that he
looks at Cuba Hubbard and says he's healthy enough. I
wonder if he was questioning how healthy Chuba actually was.
Now that's no excuse because Cuba had a couple of
runs in that game. Well, a couple of passes out
of the backfield in that game against San Francisco where
(36:11):
he looked explosive enough. That should have shown you we
can lean on him in the run game a little bit.
If Rico's not having the greatest night, Rico was okay
in that game.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He was about as good as he was in this game.
I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I think he gets obsessed with trying to adjust the
offense to what the defense is showing them, what they've
seen on tape, what tendencies the defense has?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
You know, where are the weaknesses of that defense?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And I get that you have to be able to
adjust your game plan to certain things like that throughout
the year, but you can't completely change your identity. You
can't say, well, this is a team that just allows
so many yards through the air that we just have
to turn into an air raid offense.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
That's not the way that you do it.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
You've got to have an identity, and I think this
week you finally found out what that identity is because
we were questioning what exactly was the identity of this team.
I think we knew it all along, but we were
just waiting for Dave Canalis to actually execute it. You
found it this week. Now let's carry that over into
the next game you play. You got a buye week
(37:18):
time to recollect. But that game right there against the
best team, and that is I I would still say
that's the best team in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I would totally agree with you that game plan. How
do you not use that moving forward?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
If it works against that team and that defense, then
it should work against most teams. Not saying you can't
tweak certain things and you should be tweaking it lean
on that game plan and say this is the one
that we are going to use when we're at.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Our best, last thing before we move on. I am
suddenly reminded of what some of the Tampa Bay Beat
writers were saying about Dave Canalis when we hired him
in Carolina that the first half of that season, if
you'll go back and check, it took a while for
even that offense to form an identity. But once they did, boom,
Baby Tampa's offense really took off. You had better talent,
(38:10):
You had a great wide receiver duo with healthier Chris
Godwin and Mike Evans going for his billionth one thousand
yard season, and you had a nice enough running game,
and you had Baker Mayfield, who you were reclamating at
that point. So once you found your identity the second
half that was the year. It was Dave Canallis who
(38:30):
helped them win the playoff game against Philly. If I'm
not mistaken, I believe that's correct. Yes, So Dave Canallis
the OC there. It was power throwing team. It was
run the football a lot and then take your deep shots.
They ran it a decent amount on first and second
like Dave canallis. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I remember
(38:51):
coming across the stat where they had the most first
down run, second down run, third down pass sequences in
the entire NFL that year that he was plays for
Tampa Bay to.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Where people got frustrated because they're running game. They didn't
have Bucky Irving, it was Rashad White. Yeah, they were
running it and they weren't great.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah they weren't good from an efficient standpoint, but they
stuck to it a decent amount and then they would
hit over the top. And I like the idea of
throwing the football. If you keep trying to run it
and then you just don't have any success with it,
that's the thing. I don't want you to run into
a brick wall non stop, never be successful, and then
keep doing it and constantly like I don't want that.
(39:31):
What I want is you to keep running the football
because it works for you. That's the thing. They are
successful running the football, so there's really not any reason
to go away from it. And I don't love a
ton of snaps every single drive because, as defenses will say,
every snap they take, the higher likely, the higher the
(39:52):
likelihood it is that the defense wins because you have
to be perfect on every snap, and then the more
snaps there are, the higher chance there is for or
a turnover.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
But when you're good at running the football and then
you hit some of those explosives off of running, that's
when you get to marry the concepts and that's what
we like to see. That's what we did see against LA.
Let's continue to talk about the Bryce Young of it
all coming up next Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ.
(40:28):
This is where I go to my safe space when
I think about the Hornets, Guys like Zach Kram and
Zach Lowe, all the NBA Zach's in the world just
applauding what con K Nipple is doing. Zach Kram writes,
Conk Nipple is a fun sleeper All Star candidate due
to his over eighteen points per game and over forty
one percent shooting from three point land on high volume.
(40:50):
But he would be just the third rookie in the
twenty first century to make an All Star team. The
other two we're number one picks Yao Ming and Blake Griffin.
So I.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
I read that and I hope.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
People understand just how crazy it is that we're watching
KHN do this because I think there's a legitimate All
Star case to be made for him. The thing that
would bring him down is the same thing that brought
LaMelo down for a while. It's being on a losing
basketball team. You need enough wins to propel these guys
to get to the All Star Game. But also the
(41:27):
thing that was holding LaMelo down in a lot of
respects is the lack of efficiency. I mean, CON's is
just out of this world as a rookie on high volume.
So you got that working for you if you actually
make an All Star Game and you're the only rookie
to do it outside of Blake Griffin, who remember, wasn't
like a real rookie. It was the second year because
his first year in the league got hurt, missed every
(41:48):
single game, So it was the Ben Simmons All Star
nod kind of faux rookie, a faux rookie. Yes, he
was the f roy he was the freud. And then
you go to Yao Ming, who remember he had played
profess with the Shanghai Sharks. Was dominant at seven to five,
a complete unicorn that had this amazing touch at seven
(42:08):
to five while also being a brute force. That's how
he after already playing professionally overseas and being a unicorn,
that's how he got to the All Star Game. We
would be looking at a weird case, and I'll say
unique case with KHN who isn't a second year guy
who didn't play professional basketball, who isn't a first overall
pick like both of those other guys were. If Kan
(42:30):
Kinniple makes the All Star Game, he'll have been the
first guy since the turn of the millennium to make
it under these circumstances, which again it's bonker.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
So how what am I supposed to do? Flounder?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Am I supposed to celebrate and throw a parade with
a rookie who's doing this in his first twenty games
of his career? Or am I still supposed to feel
pain because the Hornets only have six wins and they're
not going to sniff the play in?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
What am I supposed to do? Okay? I think it's both.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I think honestly, you love the fact that you've got
a great player and that this pick really looks like
you've hit on something that you've got potentially an All Star,
potentially what Bill Simmons talked about an Olympian somewhere down
the line.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
How funny is it that he's so right about that
right now?
Speaker 3 (43:15):
It looks spot on, man, and he's got You've said it,
he's got an eye for talent. He used to be
doing NBA draft shows for ESPN, but we know ESPN.
You know, they like there's certain guys that they have
on so you know, he got phased out of it.
But I think that's the thing that's amazing is that
you've got this great player, so there's hope. But at
(43:35):
the same time, you know, as a Hornets fan, you
can't get too excited because the team just isn't that
good and who knows what the other pieces around him
are going to look like. Like That's that's what sucks,
is that you just there can't be a moment where
you're just excited and you're just ecstatic that man, we
got a really good one here. Let's soak it up.
We're playing entertaining basketball. Like if this team was what
(43:57):
the Bulls are eleven, we would say to ourselves, man,
this is a pretty fun, exciting team.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
It's a leite pass type team.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
There's no you know, we got a chance to potentially
make the play in Oh that would be fun. But
when you're six and fifteen and you're dealing with some
of the issues that you're dealing with with how LaMelo
is playing, it takes the fun.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Out of it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So the Hornets aren't showing us what the Panthers are
of the last couple of years. Collectively, we're not seeing
that positive trajectory. Even if I think it's there, I
don't have any proof to point to in the wins
column like I can with Carolina, because I do think,
to be fair to the Hornets organization, I think they
are moving in the right direction. I really do. I mean,
(44:40):
is the rookie class the best of any team in
the NBA right now? I would say yes to that.
I think Sian is for real in his role Cal Prinner,
same thing, con a for real star. I think all
of that's very real. And Liam McNeely actually played pretty
well last night, played pretty well.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Can't rely on them to once in. It wasn't bad
against the Rafters either. He made a couple of nice
plays that game.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah, Liam McNeely getting some run last night coming off
of the bench. I thought did some nice things off ball.
It's not mean he had eight points. He hit a three,
didn't have any turnovers, which is nice, Like, I mean,
just fine, and seventeen minutes to play fine. All that
to say, I like what the rookies are showing. I
like some of the moves that they made. I can't
point to the wins column and say see it's happening.
(45:21):
I can with Carolina. Both teams have real inconsistencies, but
we don't have. I mean, I guess we got one
against Toronto with Charlotte. But the big things you can
point to, like a win over the Rams where it's
not like the Rams laid an egg. I think that's
an important point to make, and I'll make it for
the second straight day. The Panthers forced some things. Man,
(45:41):
they did that. It wasn't oh okay, well, I guess
the Rams are just handing this game over to us.
Bad turnovers, No doubt they forced him. You have the
win against Green Bay Bryce Young when his good games,
he'll give you some dots like those dimes are impeccable.
Beautiful throws to t mac oh.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
That was so smooth.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
The Jalen Cocher throw where It's funny how different Jalen
Cocher and Team Mac are. Jalen Coker makes everything a
grind and I love it, and t Mac makes everything
look so smooth, and I love it.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
They're very different. Players love both of them.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
But we get to point to some wins, and even
if they don't make the playoffs, I'm cool with that
because they're clearly moving in the right direction. And this
is one thing I want to get to before we
exit the first hour here Flounder, something I talked about
with Joe Ovius earlier. Man, this is what I want
collectively from this team this year. They are two wins
(46:34):
away from finishing above five hundred on would I feel
pretty good about that. I feel good that they can
at least get two more wins Saints and one other game.
That's all we need, and you're over five hundred, that's
all we need. This is a team, this is a franchise.
This is an organization that has never had back to
(46:54):
back winning seasons.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Still crazy to think about.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
It's crazy. You've been alive for thirty years. Now, can
you get to a spot where you set yourself up
to have back to back winning seasons for the first
time in franchise history.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
That is not a small thing.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
I came in after the San Francisco game Tuesday saying
that their blood type over there at Bank of America
Stadium is inconsistent.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Positive.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
To go nine to eight and then win nine or
more games the following season while getting to a playoff
berth to have back to back winning seasons for the
first time ever, that would go a long way in
providing stability that we have not seen quite literally ever.
And so that's why I'm real excited about what this
(47:40):
team could do at the end of the season and
what this team could do the following year. If you
give me back to back winning seasons, I think that's
a big deal. We had the three postseason appearance thing
with Ron Rivera. Remember that was in a worse NFC
South than what we're seeing right now with the seven
win team that eventually got to the postseason with the
wonkye tie in there. Can you get me back to
back winning seasons? If you can, I'll say this, David
(48:04):
Tepper would have something to point to and say, big
Cat never did that. All these other coaches that everybody
else hired, they never did that. That would be a
strong feather in that cap that he stole off of
somebody at Dilworth. Strong feather in that cap, and I,
for one would celebrate it. That's what I want to
see Flounder. Is that a fair north Star to want
(48:27):
this year? I think so because they're trending. You look
at the last few years and they've been trending in
that direction.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Now.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I don't think there's going to be nearly as big
of a leap in terms of wins, because you went
from two to five to nine. If you get there
this year, that's what we're hoping they get to, and
then you're going to take another two or three game jump,
that's probably I mean, that might be asking a little much.
But if they can just win ten games next year eleven,
(48:58):
get themselves into the playoffs, win the Divisi, then we're
talking about you building something, really building something here. And
that's all we're looking for, right, is just that the
one of these builds is going right. And I think
you're right. I don't think the Hornets build is necessarily bad.
(49:18):
I just think that they have the absolute worse luck
in the league, the Panthers.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
The Panthers, it doesn't seem like that.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
So hopefully the Panthers can take advantage of it, and
I feel like they're going to be able to because
I think you're seeing that progression this all season. They're
only going to get better defensively. I would think they're
probably going to continue to add in that area. They
may add at wide receiver, probably try to improve that
area a little bit, somebody that can take the top
off of defenses. If you've got that guy, I don't
(49:48):
see how this team can't be even better next year.
The only way that it wouldn't if there was an injury.
That's the only way that it would have.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Not in this city, never never, all right.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Coming up next, it's the Campus Ka Khana ACC SEC Challenge.
It begins tonight. It's a two day event. The ACC
didn't even really show up at all last year. How
much do we expect them to show up this season?
It's an important challenge between the two conferences. We'll get
to it coming up next on Wes and Walker. Listen
to The Wes and Walker Show wewee teas from noon
to three only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven
(50:24):
FM UFNZ, the official home of the Charlotte Sports Fan
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