On today’s episode, Jason discusses why he was so taken aback that the Indiana Pacers would dump Myles Turner - their longest tenured player on the roster - after coming just one win short of an NBA championship, why it feels like the Milwaukee Bucks' flurry of moves on Tuesday are just delaying the inevitable Giannis Antetokounmpo trade demand, where the Bucks rank in the Eastern Conference hierarchy with the addition of Turner, what's next for Damian Lillard now that he's a free agent, and why J-Mac's Men's League is suddenly the hottest ticket in town.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up Straight Fire, Bayam, It's me Jason McIntyre,
Straight Fire for Wednesday, July the second. Oh, I'm so
fired up about tonight. Very rarely do we get big
time matchups in July. Right the NBA season's over, Obviously
there's no football. Sure, you could maybe say that's a
(00:33):
big baseball matchup, but there's still like three months left
in the season. What we have tonight, USA versus Guatemala. Yes, Guatemala.
The last time I heard anybody mentioned Guatemala was in
the movie The Usual Suspects, which just happened to be
on in the background, like a few days ago, when
I was doing something and I remember Kevin Spacey eight. Oh,
(00:56):
I don't want to give any spoilers away on a
movie this is twenty five years old. Kevin space Se
aka Kaiser SoSE was making up stories and goes, yeah,
when I was picking beans in Guatemala, I don't know
anybody who's been to Guatemala. USA heavy favorites of minus
three eighty tonight to beat Guatemala in advance to the
Gold Cup Championship, They likely face Mexico Mexico's not as
(01:20):
big of a favorite over Honduras as we are over Guatemala,
but USA Mexico would be awesome. The games are on
FS one starting at four Pacific, seven Eastern, and then
the championship would be Sunday in Houston. Yeah, in Houston.
That would be a big one in USA Mexico. Obviously. Hey,
(01:41):
I tried to tell some people. Colin Coward tried to
tell some people, We're gonna be fine, even though we
have our beer se team and Pochattino came in on
a losing streek. Everything's gonna be fine, guys. And you
know what, everything is fine and the US is looking good.
They will beat Guatemala tonight. I don't know if they'll
beat Mexico, but just make in the Gold Cup Championship
is a big win for Potchattino in his first tournament
(02:03):
with the with the club or the national team side,
however you refer to the US national team. All right,
we got to go back to the NBA because you know,
I record these sometimes at night, sometimes early in the morning,
and right before I'm about to go on the herd
on Tuesday, big news breaks the Bucks are getting off
(02:24):
Damian Lillard. I'm like, how well they're cutting him and
stretching out his salary, Like, whoa, that was a shock,
A major, major shocker. And it's like, ohso what are
they doing. Oh, they're getting Miles Turner. And I start
seeing this Miles Turner stuff and I'm like, this is
absolutely staggering. So let me get through this real quick.
(02:49):
And again, nobody really cares that much about Myles Turner.
I had wanted the Lakers to target him, but you know,
obviously they could definitely not afford Miles Turner. But he's
he's a good center. Now is he what he was?
I don't know four years ago? Probably not? But is
he still really good and a factor? Yeah? Is he
(03:10):
gonna help Milwaukee whor anything?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Hell?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No. You want to know how many times Miles Turner's
been an All Star? Zero? He's a no time All Star. Okay,
he's a good player. If he's your fourth best player
third year, you're great. And the Pacers went to the finals. Now,
he had led the NBA and blocks a couple of times,
but he has not the last couple of seasons. He's
(03:33):
twenty nine, and I'm not saying he's starting to fall off.
But he like three years ago he was at eighteen
and seven. This year he was at fifteen and six.
Now you could argue, well, they are picking up the pace.
It's Halliburton's team. Now, Okay, fine, whatever you want to say.
Miles Turner a really solid player. But this is where
(03:54):
it gets interesting. So in that series against Okay, see
in the finals, Miles Turner was like up and down,
and you know, I thought he was pretty good. But
some of the numbers, once you start looking, you're like, oh,
Miles Turner wasn't that great. Now. We talked about it
during the series here on the pod that like Chet
Holmgren wasn't anything special, wasn't shooting it great? But people
(04:18):
for some reason bagging on Turner. These are the numbers
Miles Turner ended with in the NBA Finals. He averaged
ten point six points per game, four point four rebounds
per game. And that second number is what's a little troubling.
You're a center, you're playing heavy minutes. He played the
(04:41):
fourth most minutes on the team, and you averaged four
rebounds a game. Pascal Siakam averaged more. Ben Matherin in
limited actually not limited minutes, he played a lot. Matherin
average more boards, Obi Toppen coming off the bed to
average more boards, Aaron nee Smith averaged more rebounds. So
(05:05):
what's that all about? And you know you're like, okay,
he didn't have a great finals, but you know he
still had announced he was pivotal for the for the
Pacers into this title run. Now, the big thing on
Turner was, for probably the last six years, he's been
in trade talks. Do they want to move off him?
Do they want to keep him? What are they doing?
So this year the Pacers get to the finals, lose
(05:27):
in the seventh game. By that point, my old Lakers
should go after Myles Turner. Take was dead because you're
not you don't get to the finals, and then just
let Miles Turner walk. You just don't do that. And
then the Pacers did exactly that. And it comes back
to like, you know, I think there's a thing on
loyalty here, right. I mean, Miles Turner was a dealt
(05:48):
with trade rumors for like three or four seasons, okay,
and then it came time for his big money deal
and the Pacers said, we don't want to go into
the luxury tax. Now did they do that because Halliburton
went down and they probably were not gonna be as
good next year maybe, and they said, we don't want
to go in the luxury tax for a team that's
(06:09):
not going to get to the finals. And I'm not
asking them to pay Turner for what he did. Obviously,
contracts are forward looking, but he was the longest tenured
guy on the Pacers. He got there in twenty fifteen,
he'd been there ten seasons. Is that showing loyalty to
(06:31):
Miles Turner? Like loyalty? Honestly, guys, it's dead. And anytime
somebody tells you, oh, you gotta be loyal to the
company and got to be loyal to this team and
all thatf that that is total garbage. I feel like
Turner got totally screwed here. So basically, I know, Jason,
how can you say that he's getting a lot more money. Okay,
he's going to a vastly inferior team and the Bucks
(06:51):
have no path to success. Cutting Damian Lillard and stretching
him essentially means for the next forty years they're going
to be being Damian Lillard and Miles Turner about fifty
forty eight to fifty million dollars and they're only getting
Miles Turner. So this was a horrific move for the
(07:12):
Milwaukee Bucks. But I mean, I just chose to pull
out the Pacers. And the lack of loyalty, like anytime
a friend of family members that, well, you got to
be loyal to that company you've been just there's no
loyalty in sports, especially not in sports A Miles Turner
got a raw deal here. Do you think, hey, we
don't want to go into luxury tax Sorry we can't.
(07:33):
You're gonna have to take that extra you know, four
million a year and go to the Bucks? Like did
they think they could get a hometown discount? And a
guy who's been there forever. It just didn't look to
me on the surface like a nice thing to do. Now,
I mean, why would we expect teams to do nice things?
You know they're out there. These are businesses. I get it.
(07:54):
As a member a minority group of a soccer team,
I get it. It's about the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Guy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Obviously you want to win, but the bottom line is,
you know, this is a business. That's the reality. I
know people don't want to hear that, but this is
the reality. It's a business, and Indiana very clearly said
we'll just roll with Isaiah Jackson next year or Tony
Bradley at center, which is a huge drop off from
Miles Turner, and they have a big drop off from Haliburton.
(08:21):
Although Ben Matheren can get you buckets. They'll be competitive,
they'll be top eight in the in the East. I
would venture, assuming there's no other major injuries. But I
just didn't like how that looked to me. Like Indiana Pacers,
you're coming off your first run to the finals since
Reggie Miller got you there in like the early two thousands,
and mix Turner was an integral part, and you're just
(08:42):
gonna say, we don't want to go into the luxury
we're not paying the luxury tax. Sorry, bro, smell you lator.
It just felt a little disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Now. The other angle is the Milwaukee Bucks just just
absolute foolishness. One of the most head scratching moves you
will see. Damian Lillard is a now a free agent.
They have waived him. He can go wherever he wants
once he's healed from his achilles and you know what, hey, man,
(09:23):
come next. I don't know may could he could? He
admitted lya longshot. Could he give you a few minutes
off the bench for a contender as a floor stretching
guard who's a zone buster? I mean, he's obviously not
gonna defend anybody. But like the fact that Damiel Look
could go anywhere right now is awesome. It's incredible. It's
(09:46):
just really bad business for Milwaukee. I mean, I don't
think you guys are aware just how bad the Bucks
roster is. Okay, so yes they have you honest and
yes I saw at the end of last season without Dame,
you know he was hurt. Gianni's put up ridiculous numbers.
They didn't win anything. It's just all about Jannis and
(10:07):
his stats. These are your Moss Turner's obviously starting Jannis
is it uh? Is it one forward? These are your
other three starters as of right now, Kyle Kuzla, Gary
Trent Junior, and Kevin Porter Junior. I don't think that
they're I think that at that group is probably eight,
(10:31):
nine or ten in the East. I mean, I'll rattle
off the teams right now. I'll just write them down.
I think Cleveland is better. I think Orlando is better.
I think Atlanta is better. The Knicks are better. We'll
put the Celtics off to the side for a moment.
I Orlano. Oh, I said Orlando, I said Atlanta. The
Philadelphia seventy six ers are certainly better now that they're
(10:55):
gonna actually be healthy. Let's see here. No, no, no, no, Detroit.
Detroit is better. Pistons push the Knicks in the playoffs
last year. So that is one, two, three, four, five, six.
Who else do we got in the East? That's good,
Pacers will see. I don't think the heater are there yet,
but I would not be surprised if they made a move. Yeah,
(11:18):
so those six are clearly better. Then you have the
Celtics and Pacers who are going to be dealing with
Achilles injuries. And then you have the Bucks. So the
Bucks are to me a play in team or I
don't even know if they could get the six seed.
I mean, maybe things happen injuries around the league or whatever.
But and you're doing that for what to delay the
(11:40):
inevitable of moving off of Giannis at the deadline when
he demands out or next summer, and guess what, you're
going to get even less for him. So I get
it you want to keep Jannis, but the reality is
there's no point. Hey man, have you ever been in
one of those relationships. You know, you're in high school, college, whatever,
even after college, and you know all your friends are
(12:02):
telling you, you know, you got to move on from
this girl. She's not going to be the one. Just
just move on. It's gonna be a lot of heartache.
What are you doing here? Come on? And for some
reason you just feel you can't let go. Well right now,
the Bucks front office just cannot let go of Jannis.
And somebody tried to tell me, hey man, it's really tough.
(12:23):
Look at the Blazers. They moved off of Damon CJ.
And they were in the wilderness. They didn't plan for it.
They tried and held on too long. That's what happens
when you are smart and you move off early. Paul,
George and Okasee, that's how you start the rebuild that
(12:44):
I mean, the blueprint is right there for what to do.
You saw how OKC orchestrated it. They were able to
get Paul George from Indy. You remember when everybody said
Indy would be going back to being totally irrelevant. Not
so much. Paul George demanded out o case he took
a flyer on him. He was there for a pit stop,
(13:05):
ended up leaving, and it worked out great, worked out
tremendously for the Thunder. That trade was a launching pad
for their championship run. If the Bucks had a brain
in that front office, you would say, guys, let's get
picks and players. We want to bottom out. I know
(13:25):
attendance will be crappy. I know when we lost Jabar
in the seventies, it was we were at a wasteland
for decades. I get it. We can get back there.
We just need to move off of Giannis. Now. If
OKC is willing to give us five first, j Dubb,
you know Isaiah Joe who whatever the package is salary wise,
(13:48):
to make it match up, we've got to do that.
If you can get five first and for Gianness it's
probably going to be unprotected, you got to do that.
I mean, seriously, Michael Bridges got five first. Giannis is
going to get more than that and better players. So
you don't have to totally rebuild. I just think the
Bucks are making a grave mistake here, and I think
(14:10):
they're one of the biggest losers so far in NBA
free agency. And folks, listen, if you are like the
Atlanta Hawks and you look at what they're doing making
small moves around the edges, they're like, shit, why can't
we get to the finals next year? Honestly, I mean
the Calves lost Mighty Tie Jerome, everybody's favorite gunner from Uva.
(14:30):
He got paid a little bit of an insane cost,
but you know, it's just a lot of moves, nothing
earth shattering. I maybe. So I'll be hosting The Herd
today and then the show's dark for about a week,
and then I'm back next Thursday Friday to host The Herd.
And I'm already doing like, hey, who are going to
(14:52):
be my top eight in the East and West? And
it's like, I mean, you start looking around, guys, it
is looking kind of sort of bleak in the East.
There's just just not a lot of talent. I honestly,
I would not be shocked if the Sixers, may you
know they they they're timing was Lucky Tatum's down Haliburton's
(15:13):
down it. Look look, those two teams are gonna be
on top of the division. By the way. On a
side note, since I mentioned Tatum and Haliburton, I forget
who did the video, but one of these, like NBA
trainer guys, did a video about how the style of
play in the NBA, where it's more pace in space,
(15:33):
more drives to the basket. I think I saw drives
to the basket are up like thirty percent and the
start stop motions like again, you go go when NBA
TV fires up like a nineteen eighties game. Sure, where
there were some fast breaks, but by and large, the
half court offense was lumbering, not a lot of movement.
(15:53):
You dump it in the post to your seven footer,
see what the defense does, and you go from there.
There is so much much more action happening now in
the NBA. It's just crazy. And again I don't know
that he has much data outside of drives and injury
numbers up, but I think some people are going to
(16:13):
look into it and just be like, you know, maybe
some of this style that they're currently running in the NBA,
some of these offenses you're gonna need to pair back
the minutes on your guys or they're going to start
dropping like flies. I mean, if if you're the Knicks
and you saw all those guys at the top of
the leaderboard for minutes per game, you know, the new guy,
(16:37):
whether it's Mike Brown or James Barrego or whoever the
hell it is, he's got to get the memo that Listen.
We just got a couple guys for our bench. The
Knicks picked up Yabousele, the really, really impressive guy who
was Oh where did he play? I think it was
for France, the France national team at the Olympics last summer,
(16:58):
and then he got on with this. He had previously
been I think a lottery first round pick of the Celtics.
But Yabousele is a good player. He give you minutes
up front, he's tough. And then they got Jordan Clarkson,
who's a bucket kind of guy off the bench. You know,
I think we'll see a lot of a lot of
Jordan Clarkson. So you don't have Jalen Brunson having to
(17:19):
do every frickin thing. I mean, the last thing you
need is Jalen Brunson to go down. I mean, the
rest of the heat. The rest of the East is
already beat up. But so yabou Sele for there. Last
year was that eleven and five starting forty three games
for the Sixers. Now the Sixers were absolute disaster due
(17:40):
to the injuries. And I don't know, you look at
Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, Karl Anthony Towns, yabou Sele, it's
a good get for the next and Jordan Clarkson's good.
I don't think anybody can match what Denver has done.
Adding Tim Hardaway, like boy, they are just I mean,
Denver's really loading up now. I haven't looked at their
(18:02):
cap number. I'm sure getting rid of Michael Porter help,
but man, Denver's looking good. If Julian Strather can play more,
Peyton Watson can play more. They had no bench when
Yokich would go to the bench to get annihilated. So
getting a bench, I got Jonas Valenschunis, the big seven
footer like they they're backup for Yokich. Last year was
I think DeAndre Jordan like that doesn't work in twenty
(18:25):
twenty five. So yeah, I have to love what the
the Denver Nuggets have done.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
All right, So before I go on a little hiatus
for the pod, you guys are I talked about that
Mecca League out here in Los Angeles that I joined
with a couple guys. Obviously, it's one of the coolest
things I've ever done from a sports perspective. Also, I'm
out of my league by a mile. So we had
a game on Sunday I don't think I talked about
(19:06):
on the podcast. We were playing the defending champions, and
you know, they're like, oh, yeah, this guy sponsored by
boost Mobile, this guy did this, he's a former MVP,
blah blah. I mean, they're loaded, and we have our
scrappy group. But as GM, I've been working and I've
been working on Danny Green, and Danny Green played with us.
(19:27):
So Danny Green walks in the gym and people are like,
oh sheez. Everybody starts staring. You know, there's probably one
hundred people in the gym, maybe one fifty whatever, And
I'm sitting there and he comes over to sit with us,
and then he goes to get dressed, and I got
guys who we played against in the last couple of
weeks who've never looked at me, and they're turning, Yo,
y'all cheating. How you get him? Now? They're starting to
(19:50):
talk to me because we got a former NBA player.
It was kind of hilarious. So anyways, unfortunately we had
him and another guy who hadn't played with us before,
so you know, there's some chemistry stuff. I mean, while
the defending champions come out and like their first trip
down the court, they're running a horn set and you're like,
what I mean, these guys have played together for three years.
(20:11):
Apparently they do practices and they are just doing some
I mean, and they're the MVP guy. You know, he's
like a six to one point guard who just is
lightning quick and his mid range is like automatic, like
Shake Gills is Alexander. So you know, we're instantly behind
the eight ball and you know we're down. We just
couldn't stop them. I mean, they're driving kick, they're splashing threes.
(20:34):
I mean, these guys are really really good players. So
we're down like eighteen in the third quarter, and I decide,
all right, listen, let me see if I can give
my team a spark. Let me see if I can
go in the game. I didn't play in the first one.
Let me just see if I can go in the
freaking game and do something, do something to wake our
(20:56):
team up, because we were constantly we're down like eighteen.
So so I go in and I inbound the ball
and they instantly double team the guy who got I
might have been Danny Green, and Danny Green passed it
to another guy passed it to me. They're not even
guarding me. I don't even know if they knew I
was playing. I had the jersey guner everything, and I'm like,
(21:16):
oh shit, I'm wide open. I gotta shoot this. So
I fire up at NBA three. It's right online, felt great,
front rim, back round bounces off. I'm like, oh that
was that was like my thing. Literally ten seconds after
I got on the game. So I raced down the court.
I'm like basically face guarding my guy, kind of doing
the jersey grab. But with three refs, you can't do
my usual techniques, which are like really up on the
(21:38):
guy and like grab his jersey and all this stuff.
So I'm just in my head, I'm like, oh man,
I hope this mffort does not go screen the ball
and I get switched onto the ball. I do not
want that, and they have like you know, people watching,
there's an announcer. I was nervous. I'm not gonna lie
guys and nothing. You know, some guy takes a shot
(22:01):
and misses or whatever. We get the board. I just
race down the court. I just start setting screens. I'm
not even really I'm I'm just calling hey, screen setting screens.
I set like three screens in like ten seconds. I
just wanted to move the active hustle. One of our
guys misses. I raced down the court, find my guy again,
guard him, guarding him, and then one of their other
guys scores or no drives to the basket, is fouled
(22:22):
and misses. At this point, honestly, this is like four
trips up and down the court, I'm absolutely gassed. I
was nervous and I was gassed. So I walk over
our bench and I go to one of our guys
at like, E come get me, and I'm like breathing hard.
I'm like, what the hell. It was just one of
those moments where it was and I've done every sport. Guys.
I've played really good tennis players, obviously, nobody on the tour.
(22:44):
I played soccer at a high level against good players.
This was different because I'm older now and it didn't
really give us a spark. I think my plus minus
was minus one because the guy made one of the
free throws and we didn't score in the two trips
where I was there. But of course the fourth quarter
starts and I'm like, guys, we just got to get
five stops, and we're right back in this freaking game
(23:06):
where we get five stops. We ended up going on
it eighteen to two run cut the lead to one,
and we had a couple chances that we end up
losing by one to the defending champs. But i mean,
you know, they were pretty much at full strength. They
didn't have this guy. If you follow basketball out here,
you know this guy Frank Nitty, who's like this playground legend.
He wasn't there. But we were also missing two guys.
(23:28):
So we've lost to the defending champs and then the
team that won the championship two years ago, and then
we're two and two. But I'm just telling you, this
is one of the most fun things I've ever done.
It was exciting, and of course the league is thrilled
that we've brought Danny Green to the table. And here's
the best part, and this is the only reason I
mentioned it. So since our game, we've had three guys
(23:50):
reach out to us, Hey, can I run with you? Guys?
They want to switch off their team to come to
our team. I'm guessing partially because of Danny Green, and
we have you know, there's word is out now We've
got some other guys coming. But it's like, we're fun,
We're not ballhogs. We play the right way. Guys. It's
awesome now as long as I don't get injured. And
if we win the chip, which is worth fifty K,
(24:11):
that would be certainly a career highlight. Anyways, so I'm
off for a couple of days, obviously, back for the
free agency chaos. If Jannis gets dealt or Lebron backs out,
I guarantee you I will do a podcast from wherever
I am. Have fun on July fourth. Be safe out there,
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up Straight Fire, Bayam, It's me Jason McIntyre,
Straight Fire for Wednesday, July the second. Oh, I'm so
fired up about tonight. Very rarely do we get big
time matchups in July. Right the NBA season's over, Obviously
there's no football. Sure, you could maybe say that's a
(00:33):
big baseball matchup, but there's still like three months left
in the season. What we have tonight, USA versus Guatemala. Yes, Guatemala.
The last time I heard anybody mentioned Guatemala was in
the movie The Usual Suspects, which just happened to be
on in the background, like a few days ago, when
I was doing something and I remember Kevin Spacey eight. Oh,
(00:56):
I don't want to give any spoilers away on a
movie this is twenty five years old. Kevin space Se
aka Kaiser SoSE was making up stories and goes, yeah,
when I was picking beans in Guatemala, I don't know
anybody who's been to Guatemala. USA heavy favorites of minus
three eighty tonight to beat Guatemala in advance to the
Gold Cup Championship, They likely face Mexico Mexico's not as
(01:20):
big of a favorite over Honduras as we are over Guatemala,
but USA Mexico would be awesome. The games are on
FS one starting at four Pacific, seven Eastern, and then
the championship would be Sunday in Houston. Yeah, in Houston.
That would be a big one in USA Mexico. Obviously. Hey,
(01:41):
I tried to tell some people. Colin Coward tried to
tell some people, We're gonna be fine, even though we
have our beer se team and Pochattino came in on
a losing streek. Everything's gonna be fine, guys. And you
know what, everything is fine and the US is looking good.
They will beat Guatemala tonight. I don't know if they'll
beat Mexico, but just make in the Gold Cup Championship
is a big win for Potchattino in his first tournament
(02:03):
with the with the club or the national team side,
however you refer to the US national team. All right,
we got to go back to the NBA because you know,
I record these sometimes at night, sometimes early in the morning,
and right before I'm about to go on the herd
on Tuesday, big news breaks the Bucks are getting off
(02:24):
Damian Lillard. I'm like, how well they're cutting him and
stretching out his salary, Like, whoa, that was a shock,
A major, major shocker. And it's like, ohso what are
they doing. Oh, they're getting Miles Turner. And I start
seeing this Miles Turner stuff and I'm like, this is
absolutely staggering. So let me get through this real quick.
(02:49):
And again, nobody really cares that much about Myles Turner.
I had wanted the Lakers to target him, but you know,
obviously they could definitely not afford Miles Turner. But he's
he's a good center. Now is he what he was?
I don't know four years ago? Probably not? But is
he still really good and a factor? Yeah? Is he
(03:10):
gonna help Milwaukee whor anything?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Hell?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No. You want to know how many times Miles Turner's
been an All Star? Zero? He's a no time All Star. Okay,
he's a good player. If he's your fourth best player
third year, you're great. And the Pacers went to the finals. Now,
he had led the NBA and blocks a couple of times,
but he has not the last couple of seasons. He's
(03:33):
twenty nine, and I'm not saying he's starting to fall off.
But he like three years ago he was at eighteen
and seven. This year he was at fifteen and six.
Now you could argue, well, they are picking up the pace.
It's Halliburton's team. Now, Okay, fine, whatever you want to say.
Miles Turner a really solid player. But this is where
(03:54):
it gets interesting. So in that series against Okay, see
in the finals, Miles Turner was like up and down,
and you know, I thought he was pretty good. But
some of the numbers, once you start looking, you're like, oh,
Miles Turner wasn't that great. Now. We talked about it
during the series here on the pod that like Chet
Holmgren wasn't anything special, wasn't shooting it great? But people
(04:18):
for some reason bagging on Turner. These are the numbers
Miles Turner ended with in the NBA Finals. He averaged
ten point six points per game, four point four rebounds
per game. And that second number is what's a little troubling.
You're a center, you're playing heavy minutes. He played the
(04:41):
fourth most minutes on the team, and you averaged four
rebounds a game. Pascal Siakam averaged more. Ben Matherin in
limited actually not limited minutes, he played a lot. Matherin
average more boards, Obi Toppen coming off the bed to
average more boards, Aaron nee Smith averaged more rebounds. So
(05:05):
what's that all about? And you know you're like, okay,
he didn't have a great finals, but you know he
still had announced he was pivotal for the for the
Pacers into this title run. Now, the big thing on
Turner was, for probably the last six years, he's been
in trade talks. Do they want to move off him?
Do they want to keep him? What are they doing?
So this year the Pacers get to the finals, lose
(05:27):
in the seventh game. By that point, my old Lakers
should go after Myles Turner. Take was dead because you're
not you don't get to the finals, and then just
let Miles Turner walk. You just don't do that. And
then the Pacers did exactly that. And it comes back
to like, you know, I think there's a thing on
loyalty here, right. I mean, Miles Turner was a dealt
(05:48):
with trade rumors for like three or four seasons, okay,
and then it came time for his big money deal
and the Pacers said, we don't want to go into
the luxury tax. Now did they do that because Halliburton
went down and they probably were not gonna be as
good next year maybe, and they said, we don't want
to go in the luxury tax for a team that's
(06:09):
not going to get to the finals. And I'm not
asking them to pay Turner for what he did. Obviously,
contracts are forward looking, but he was the longest tenured
guy on the Pacers. He got there in twenty fifteen,
he'd been there ten seasons. Is that showing loyalty to
(06:31):
Miles Turner? Like loyalty? Honestly, guys, it's dead. And anytime
somebody tells you, oh, you gotta be loyal to the
company and got to be loyal to this team and
all thatf that that is total garbage. I feel like
Turner got totally screwed here. So basically, I know, Jason,
how can you say that he's getting a lot more money. Okay,
he's going to a vastly inferior team and the Bucks
(06:51):
have no path to success. Cutting Damian Lillard and stretching
him essentially means for the next forty years they're going
to be being Damian Lillard and Miles Turner about fifty
forty eight to fifty million dollars and they're only getting
Miles Turner. So this was a horrific move for the
(07:12):
Milwaukee Bucks. But I mean, I just chose to pull
out the Pacers. And the lack of loyalty, like anytime
a friend of family members that, well, you got to
be loyal to that company you've been just there's no
loyalty in sports, especially not in sports A Miles Turner
got a raw deal here. Do you think, hey, we
don't want to go into luxury tax Sorry we can't.
(07:33):
You're gonna have to take that extra you know, four
million a year and go to the Bucks? Like did
they think they could get a hometown discount? And a
guy who's been there forever. It just didn't look to
me on the surface like a nice thing to do. Now,
I mean, why would we expect teams to do nice things?
You know they're out there. These are businesses. I get it.
(07:54):
As a member a minority group of a soccer team,
I get it. It's about the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Guy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Obviously you want to win, but the bottom line is,
you know, this is a business. That's the reality. I
know people don't want to hear that, but this is
the reality. It's a business, and Indiana very clearly said
we'll just roll with Isaiah Jackson next year or Tony
Bradley at center, which is a huge drop off from
Miles Turner, and they have a big drop off from Haliburton.
(08:21):
Although Ben Matheren can get you buckets. They'll be competitive,
they'll be top eight in the in the East. I
would venture, assuming there's no other major injuries. But I
just didn't like how that looked to me. Like Indiana Pacers,
you're coming off your first run to the finals since
Reggie Miller got you there in like the early two thousands,
and mix Turner was an integral part, and you're just
(08:42):
gonna say, we don't want to go into the luxury
we're not paying the luxury tax. Sorry, bro, smell you lator.
It just felt a little disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Now. The other angle is the Milwaukee Bucks just just
absolute foolishness. One of the most head scratching moves you
will see. Damian Lillard is a now a free agent.
They have waived him. He can go wherever he wants
once he's healed from his achilles and you know what, hey, man,
(09:23):
come next. I don't know may could he could? He
admitted lya longshot. Could he give you a few minutes
off the bench for a contender as a floor stretching
guard who's a zone buster? I mean, he's obviously not
gonna defend anybody. But like the fact that Damiel Look
could go anywhere right now is awesome. It's incredible. It's
(09:46):
just really bad business for Milwaukee. I mean, I don't
think you guys are aware just how bad the Bucks
roster is. Okay, so yes they have you honest and
yes I saw at the end of last season without Dame,
you know he was hurt. Gianni's put up ridiculous numbers.
They didn't win anything. It's just all about Jannis and
(10:07):
his stats. These are your Moss Turner's obviously starting Jannis
is it uh? Is it one forward? These are your
other three starters as of right now, Kyle Kuzla, Gary
Trent Junior, and Kevin Porter Junior. I don't think that
they're I think that at that group is probably eight,
(10:31):
nine or ten in the East. I mean, I'll rattle
off the teams right now. I'll just write them down.
I think Cleveland is better. I think Orlando is better.
I think Atlanta is better. The Knicks are better. We'll
put the Celtics off to the side for a moment.
I Orlano. Oh, I said Orlando, I said Atlanta. The
Philadelphia seventy six ers are certainly better now that they're
(10:55):
gonna actually be healthy. Let's see here. No, no, no, no, Detroit.
Detroit is better. Pistons push the Knicks in the playoffs
last year. So that is one, two, three, four, five, six.
Who else do we got in the East? That's good,
Pacers will see. I don't think the heater are there yet,
but I would not be surprised if they made a move. Yeah,
(11:18):
so those six are clearly better. Then you have the
Celtics and Pacers who are going to be dealing with
Achilles injuries. And then you have the Bucks. So the
Bucks are to me a play in team or I
don't even know if they could get the six seed.
I mean, maybe things happen injuries around the league or whatever.
But and you're doing that for what to delay the
(11:40):
inevitable of moving off of Giannis at the deadline when
he demands out or next summer, and guess what, you're
going to get even less for him. So I get
it you want to keep Jannis, but the reality is
there's no point. Hey man, have you ever been in
one of those relationships. You know, you're in high school, college, whatever,
even after college, and you know all your friends are
(12:02):
telling you, you know, you got to move on from
this girl. She's not going to be the one. Just
just move on. It's gonna be a lot of heartache.
What are you doing here? Come on? And for some
reason you just feel you can't let go. Well right now,
the Bucks front office just cannot let go of Jannis.
And somebody tried to tell me, hey man, it's really tough.
(12:23):
Look at the Blazers. They moved off of Damon CJ.
And they were in the wilderness. They didn't plan for it.
They tried and held on too long. That's what happens
when you are smart and you move off early. Paul,
George and Okasee, that's how you start the rebuild that
(12:44):
I mean, the blueprint is right there for what to do.
You saw how OKC orchestrated it. They were able to
get Paul George from Indy. You remember when everybody said
Indy would be going back to being totally irrelevant. Not
so much. Paul George demanded out o case he took
a flyer on him. He was there for a pit stop,
(13:05):
ended up leaving, and it worked out great, worked out
tremendously for the Thunder. That trade was a launching pad
for their championship run. If the Bucks had a brain
in that front office, you would say, guys, let's get
picks and players. We want to bottom out. I know
(13:25):
attendance will be crappy. I know when we lost Jabar
in the seventies, it was we were at a wasteland
for decades. I get it. We can get back there.
We just need to move off of Giannis. Now. If
OKC is willing to give us five first, j Dubb,
you know Isaiah Joe who whatever the package is salary wise,
(13:48):
to make it match up, we've got to do that.
If you can get five first and for Gianness it's
probably going to be unprotected, you got to do that.
I mean, seriously, Michael Bridges got five first. Giannis is
going to get more than that and better players. So
you don't have to totally rebuild. I just think the
Bucks are making a grave mistake here, and I think
(14:10):
they're one of the biggest losers so far in NBA
free agency. And folks, listen, if you are like the
Atlanta Hawks and you look at what they're doing making
small moves around the edges, they're like, shit, why can't
we get to the finals next year? Honestly, I mean
the Calves lost Mighty Tie Jerome, everybody's favorite gunner from Uva.
(14:30):
He got paid a little bit of an insane cost,
but you know, it's just a lot of moves, nothing
earth shattering. I maybe. So I'll be hosting The Herd
today and then the show's dark for about a week,
and then I'm back next Thursday Friday to host The Herd.
And I'm already doing like, hey, who are going to
(14:52):
be my top eight in the East and West? And
it's like, I mean, you start looking around, guys, it
is looking kind of sort of bleak in the East.
There's just just not a lot of talent. I honestly,
I would not be shocked if the Sixers, may you
know they they they're timing was Lucky Tatum's down Haliburton's
(15:13):
down it. Look look, those two teams are gonna be
on top of the division. By the way. On a
side note, since I mentioned Tatum and Haliburton, I forget
who did the video, but one of these, like NBA
trainer guys, did a video about how the style of
play in the NBA, where it's more pace in space,
(15:33):
more drives to the basket. I think I saw drives
to the basket are up like thirty percent and the
start stop motions like again, you go go when NBA
TV fires up like a nineteen eighties game. Sure, where
there were some fast breaks, but by and large, the
half court offense was lumbering, not a lot of movement.
(15:53):
You dump it in the post to your seven footer,
see what the defense does, and you go from there.
There is so much much more action happening now in
the NBA. It's just crazy. And again I don't know
that he has much data outside of drives and injury
numbers up, but I think some people are going to
(16:13):
look into it and just be like, you know, maybe
some of this style that they're currently running in the NBA,
some of these offenses you're gonna need to pair back
the minutes on your guys or they're going to start
dropping like flies. I mean, if if you're the Knicks
and you saw all those guys at the top of
the leaderboard for minutes per game, you know, the new guy,
(16:37):
whether it's Mike Brown or James Barrego or whoever the
hell it is, he's got to get the memo that Listen.
We just got a couple guys for our bench. The
Knicks picked up Yabousele, the really, really impressive guy who
was Oh where did he play? I think it was
for France, the France national team at the Olympics last summer,
(16:58):
and then he got on with this. He had previously
been I think a lottery first round pick of the Celtics.
But Yabousele is a good player. He give you minutes
up front, he's tough. And then they got Jordan Clarkson,
who's a bucket kind of guy off the bench. You know,
I think we'll see a lot of a lot of
Jordan Clarkson. So you don't have Jalen Brunson having to
(17:19):
do every frickin thing. I mean, the last thing you
need is Jalen Brunson to go down. I mean, the
rest of the heat. The rest of the East is
already beat up. But so yabou Sele for there. Last
year was that eleven and five starting forty three games
for the Sixers. Now the Sixers were absolute disaster due
(17:40):
to the injuries. And I don't know, you look at
Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, Karl Anthony Towns, yabou Sele, it's
a good get for the next and Jordan Clarkson's good.
I don't think anybody can match what Denver has done.
Adding Tim Hardaway, like boy, they are just I mean,
Denver's really loading up now. I haven't looked at their
(18:02):
cap number. I'm sure getting rid of Michael Porter help,
but man, Denver's looking good. If Julian Strather can play more,
Peyton Watson can play more. They had no bench when
Yokich would go to the bench to get annihilated. So
getting a bench, I got Jonas Valenschunis, the big seven
footer like they they're backup for Yokich. Last year was
I think DeAndre Jordan like that doesn't work in twenty
(18:25):
twenty five. So yeah, I have to love what the
the Denver Nuggets have done.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
All right, So before I go on a little hiatus
for the pod, you guys are I talked about that
Mecca League out here in Los Angeles that I joined
with a couple guys. Obviously, it's one of the coolest
things I've ever done from a sports perspective. Also, I'm
out of my league by a mile. So we had
a game on Sunday I don't think I talked about
(19:06):
on the podcast. We were playing the defending champions, and
you know, they're like, oh, yeah, this guy sponsored by
boost Mobile, this guy did this, he's a former MVP,
blah blah. I mean, they're loaded, and we have our
scrappy group. But as GM, I've been working and I've
been working on Danny Green, and Danny Green played with us.
(19:27):
So Danny Green walks in the gym and people are like,
oh sheez. Everybody starts staring. You know, there's probably one
hundred people in the gym, maybe one fifty whatever, And
I'm sitting there and he comes over to sit with us,
and then he goes to get dressed, and I got
guys who we played against in the last couple of
weeks who've never looked at me, and they're turning, Yo,
y'all cheating. How you get him? Now? They're starting to
(19:50):
talk to me because we got a former NBA player.
It was kind of hilarious. So anyways, unfortunately we had
him and another guy who hadn't played with us before,
so you know, there's some chemistry stuff. I mean, while
the defending champions come out and like their first trip
down the court, they're running a horn set and you're like,
what I mean, these guys have played together for three years.
(20:11):
Apparently they do practices and they are just doing some
I mean, and they're the MVP guy. You know, he's
like a six to one point guard who just is
lightning quick and his mid range is like automatic, like
Shake Gills is Alexander. So you know, we're instantly behind
the eight ball and you know we're down. We just
couldn't stop them. I mean, they're driving kick, they're splashing threes.
(20:34):
I mean, these guys are really really good players. So
we're down like eighteen in the third quarter, and I decide,
all right, listen, let me see if I can give
my team a spark. Let me see if I can
go in the game. I didn't play in the first one.
Let me just see if I can go in the
freaking game and do something, do something to wake our
(20:56):
team up, because we were constantly we're down like eighteen.
So so I go in and I inbound the ball
and they instantly double team the guy who got I
might have been Danny Green, and Danny Green passed it
to another guy passed it to me. They're not even
guarding me. I don't even know if they knew I
was playing. I had the jersey guner everything, and I'm like,
(21:16):
oh shit, I'm wide open. I gotta shoot this. So
I fire up at NBA three. It's right online, felt great,
front rim, back round bounces off. I'm like, oh that
was that was like my thing. Literally ten seconds after
I got on the game. So I raced down the court.
I'm like basically face guarding my guy, kind of doing
the jersey grab. But with three refs, you can't do
my usual techniques, which are like really up on the
(21:38):
guy and like grab his jersey and all this stuff.
So I'm just in my head, I'm like, oh man,
I hope this mffort does not go screen the ball
and I get switched onto the ball. I do not
want that, and they have like you know, people watching,
there's an announcer. I was nervous. I'm not gonna lie
guys and nothing. You know, some guy takes a shot
(22:01):
and misses or whatever. We get the board. I just
race down the court. I just start setting screens. I'm
not even really I'm I'm just calling hey, screen setting screens.
I set like three screens in like ten seconds. I
just wanted to move the active hustle. One of our
guys misses. I raced down the court, find my guy again,
guard him, guarding him, and then one of their other
guys scores or no drives to the basket, is fouled
(22:22):
and misses. At this point, honestly, this is like four
trips up and down the court, I'm absolutely gassed. I
was nervous and I was gassed. So I walk over
our bench and I go to one of our guys
at like, E come get me, and I'm like breathing hard.
I'm like, what the hell. It was just one of
those moments where it was and I've done every sport. Guys.
I've played really good tennis players, obviously, nobody on the tour.
(22:44):
I played soccer at a high level against good players.
This was different because I'm older now and it didn't
really give us a spark. I think my plus minus
was minus one because the guy made one of the
free throws and we didn't score in the two trips
where I was there. But of course the fourth quarter
starts and I'm like, guys, we just got to get
five stops, and we're right back in this freaking game
(23:06):
where we get five stops. We ended up going on
it eighteen to two run cut the lead to one,
and we had a couple chances that we end up
losing by one to the defending champs. But i mean,
you know, they were pretty much at full strength. They
didn't have this guy. If you follow basketball out here,
you know this guy Frank Nitty, who's like this playground legend.
He wasn't there. But we were also missing two guys.
(23:28):
So we've lost to the defending champs and then the
team that won the championship two years ago, and then
we're two and two. But I'm just telling you, this
is one of the most fun things I've ever done.
It was exciting, and of course the league is thrilled
that we've brought Danny Green to the table. And here's
the best part, and this is the only reason I
mentioned it. So since our game, we've had three guys
(23:50):
reach out to us, Hey, can I run with you? Guys?
They want to switch off their team to come to
our team. I'm guessing partially because of Danny Green, and
we have you know, there's word is out now We've
got some other guys coming. But it's like, we're fun,
We're not ballhogs. We play the right way. Guys. It's
awesome now as long as I don't get injured. And
if we win the chip, which is worth fifty K,
(24:11):
that would be certainly a career highlight. Anyways, so I'm
off for a couple of days, obviously, back for the
free agency chaos. If Jannis gets dealt or Lebron backs out,
I guarantee you I will do a podcast from wherever
I am. Have fun on July fourth. Be safe out there,
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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