July 6, 2023 • 40 mins
In the best of The Ben Maller Show, Ben starts the show off with a rant about DeAndre Hopkins and where he will end up this fall. Ben touches on how excited the Mavs should be getting Grant Williams... Also big NBA news around the league including the big topic of hour number 2 talking about the disaster brewing in Philadelphia with James Harden. Lastly, Ben discusses the exciting expectations of Victor Wembanyama leading up to his first NBA Summer League game tomorrow.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening to the Ben Maler Show podcast.
It's me Ben. Be sure to catch us live every
weeknight from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Still hopping around. Welcome in the beginning of another hour
and another edition to the Ben Malors Show. We are
in the air everywhere in partnership as we blab in
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free shipping, free road hazard protection at over ten thousand
that's a lot recommended installers. Tyre rack dot com. The
way tirebuying should be so our lead this hour coming
from the NFL. There's never a bad time to talk
about the NFL. And we're still a couple weeks away
from training camp. But there's a few stories that have
(01:37):
popped up on my sonar that I want to chat
with you about and chew over a little bit like
some like a nice big wad of bubblegum. We'll chew
over these things. Now. We'll start in a place which
is always good for talk radio, the unemployment line, The
life and times of Deanre Hopkins fired dismissed excommunication from
(02:00):
the Arizona Cardinals that happened earlier this offseason. You're aware
of that, right, We are all aware of that Hopkins
is still on the beach, at least in radio. When
you lose your job, they say you're on the beach. Well,
he's still on the beach. And if you've not heard
the latest, perhaps not a couple days ago, we were
told that Hopkins was going to likely end up with
the Patriots. Well, now a zig and a zag, and
(02:23):
now we're being fed that the Tennessee Titans are quote
well positioned in the DeAndre Hopkins sweepsakes and Mike Rabel,
who was part of the Texans coaching staff, has a
relationship with DeAndre Hopkins, and he's looking to recreate the relationship, right,
make the magic happened, Cuddle up again, however you want
to say it, with this new receiver. Now they are
(02:45):
intrigued about putting Hopkins in the offense to try to
unlock Ryan Tannehill. Good luck on that, all right, So
let us discuss the question the Tennessee Titans. This latest
report saying that they are well positioned to get in
on DeAndre Hopkins. Is that based in reality? So I
(03:05):
have set menu, Hannah Barbera and Golden baton, and we
will combine all of these things together and we will
make you dizzy. Well, try not to, but I've been
told we do make people disney. So a Tennessee is
that they're on the clock, right, Patriots and Tennessee are
(03:25):
on the clock. But Tennessee is clearly on the dance
floor here with DeAndre Hopkins. So it's not a case
of well positioned. I don't buy that they're well positioned
because Hopkins, by all accounts, thought that he would be
prime real estate in Haynes City or Buffalo. He thought
(03:47):
he was gonna slide in there and one of those legit,
big time Super Bowl contenders. But those teams so far
have said, don't call us, we will call you. They
have punted on Hopkins. So if you look around, all right,
and if you're blind, just listen around. It is a
set menu. Hopkins has limited options, and it's one of
(04:09):
those menus that you can't take the lettuce off the burger.
It comes the way the menu says it does, and
if you don't want the lettus, you gotta take the
let us off. There's no alterations. It's the Titans or
the Patriots. That's it. That's the list, period, hard stop,
and that list unremarkable, unremarkable. Neither one of those teams
(04:32):
guaranteed to make the playoffs. Jacksonville said to be the
team on the come in the AFC South and Tennessee
going the other direction. And then you look at the quarterbacks.
You talk about middleweight contenders, Ryan Tannehill, who for the
last couple of years the Titans have drafted quarterbacks hoping
to get rid of Tannehill. He's still there. And you've
(04:52):
got Mac Jones, who's also not guaranteed. To be the
guy with the Patriots, and they could get Zen the Pats.
So a couple of non essential quarterbacks, all things being equal,
as we've said, and I'm not changing my take from
last week or I guess the week before, Hopkins, all
things being equal, if the money's the same, you go
(05:14):
to the Patriots. Why because Derrick Henry is going to
get seventy five percent minimum of the opportunities to dominate
for the Tennessee offense. And plus you want to plan
some high profile games. You sign a one year contract
and that's most likely what Hopkins is gonna get. You
want to end up playing in a high profile situations.
(05:36):
You get more exposure and all most of these guys
get exposed to anyway. But the Patriots, even though they're
not that good, neither of the Titans. There's more opportunities
in the AFC East because you get two games with Buffalo,
two with the Jets and Aaron Rogers, and then the Dolphins.
So those will all be games of varying degrees of interest.
Tennessee playing Tennessee bad Colts team Jacksonville doesn't have a
(05:59):
lot to juice, even though they were better last year.
It's a smaller stage. Now page two. Here, let's pivot away.
We'll talk about Michael Vick for the second time in days.
We talk about Michael Vick, the former NFL star, occasional
pigskin pundit, Michael Vick, who recently had a number of
(06:20):
things to say. We talked about some of them. We
did not talk about this. He recently said that the
Dolphins quarterback to a tongue of Bilawa needs to do
a couple of things to improve his health status. And
what did Vic say? Vic said that tugue Byloa needs
to bulk up a little bit, get him some cheeseburgers,
get him cheeseburgers in Paradise, and he's got to get
(06:42):
a little bigger, a little stronger. Has to grow into
your man body. Michael Vick said, that's what needs to happen,
and he talked about ten or fifteen more pounds of weight,
and then he also said, don't get hit, don't get
knocked around, which just seems like all you need to do.
Don't need to gain any weight. If you don't get hit,
who cares how thin you are, how fat you are.
(07:05):
So let's talk about this. Michael Vick wants to a
tongue of by Law to bulk up, gain ten or
fifteen pounds to avoid injuries? Is it that simple? And
you can't see me, but I am. I'm hitting my buzzer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All these kakamami solutions that have been flying around all
off season, I find them amusing. Some of them are bewildering.
The story that's been bouncing around a lot has been
Tongue by Law has been studying jiu jitsu, and he's
had every quack in the free world give him advice.
I'm convinced our resident quack on the show, Doc Mike's
probably down there in Miami right now saying, Hey TOA,
(07:42):
I got this little orange power drink. It's actually yellow.
It's not orange, it's a yellow power drink. You want
to have some? Yeah, but all of this is just static.
I have the answer. The Mather think tank is activated.
Here all the things that have been said background noise,
I am going to say right now, this is a
Fox Sports Radio exclusive. What to a tongue of BYLOA
(08:04):
must do? It does not involve gaining weight, It does
not involve losing weight, It doesn't involve jiu jitsu. None
of that, he needs to go to a tongue of
byloa Hannah Barra. Old school what does that mean? Old school? Cartoon?
Quick draw McGraw and now hold on there. If you
(08:25):
simply make quicker decisions, you can never eliminate all of
the hits. However, your odds go up, up and away.
If you look at the quarterbacks who have had long
chevy and these guys have had injuries, they're not no
longer playing. But Tom Brady and Drew Brees, I would
say more Drew Brees than Tom Brady. And Breese had
(08:47):
a major injury when he was playing for the old
San Diego Chargers. But those guys mastered the ancient art
of treating the football like an old party game, hot potato,
Read and react, get rid of the damn ball. And
if you simply throw within the shortest amount of time
I am talking trimming off half a second or a
(09:09):
full second from snap release, and that's it. You're not
gonna get hit. The NFL's insulated the quarterbacks. It is
not the game it was when I was a kid.
It's not and it's a soft man's game now in
the NFL. That's the way it is. Now last word here.
So we're gonna go away from Miami. We already went
(09:31):
earlier to Tennessee. Now we go to the Bay Area.
So I read that San Francisco has a plan. I
love when people have plans. I had plans to look
at me now, But San Francisco is looking to downsize
a downsize. The immense focus on George Kittle. They're tied end.
(09:53):
This is a story bouncing around the Kyle Shanahan and
the brains there in the Bay Area are planning on
a spread things around, a little more spread that peanut
butter all over the slice of bread. So I want
to talk about this one. Is it wise? Is it
wise for the forty nine ers to reduce George Kittle's
workloub And I am shaking my head. No, the way
(10:18):
I would approach this, And honestly, I'm a Rams fan.
So I hope the forty nine ers do the wrong thing.
But if Kittle gets hurt, that fine, he gets hurt.
But to artificially manipulate things, Nope, bueno. This is one
of those ideas which is better in theory than in reality. Yeah, you,
(10:39):
George Kittle always worked a lot. We want to spread
the offense around. We don't want to be hyper focused
on George Kittle, the fly in the ointment or the
turd in the punch bowl. The forty nine ers are
lacking a dominant quarterback. Joe Montana is not walking through
those doors. Steve Young not walking through those doors. Even
Jeff Garcia is not walking through those doors. Now, that
(11:01):
would be a very crisp move if that happened. But
Brock Purdy, who played above his means, he was above
his means last season as mister Irrelevant played well, but
he had a medical procedure this offseason. He's still unknown.
And the other quarterbacks are Trey Lance and Sam Darnel. Yeah,
(11:21):
you need smelling salts with those guys, so I don't
really get your blood flowing too much. Maybe maybe if
you're related to them, they do, but I'm not, so
that's not the case. And the issue when you talk
about the lack of a dominant quarterback is because what
becomes the safety blanket for the mediocre quarterback. It's the
tight end. And George Chittle's a good tight end, but
(11:44):
that's essential when you have a possibly wobbly quarterback check
down through the tight end. Usually the tight end's open.
But look at the golden baton. If you're going to
cut the targets of George Kittle, who's going to take
the gold in baton and run with it? Now, you
should get more out of Deebo Samuel Okay, but how
(12:06):
much more? He said? He did not play well last year.
The numbers were down. Brandon Ayuk is a nice player,
but he's not shown to be an elite, elite wide receiver.
And then you look at the other tight ends and
you're like somebody named Charlie Warner, I believe, and I
don't know. I don't know who these other people are.
I don't know who he is. Yeah, George kill is
(12:28):
going to turn thirty years old, which in life is young,
but in sports you're starting to get a little a
little old in the NFL. But he's your twelve million
dollars a year tight end. You ride the car until
the wheels fall off. That's the move there for Shanahan
and the Niners. It is the Ban Mallord show. You
(12:50):
want to comment on any of that or anything else.
We are what we're open for business. Yeah, it's the open.
We never closed this. I mean, I wish I were
to the store that closed. We don't close. We're always open.
It's a smashing success eight seven seven ninety nine on
Fox eight seven seven nine nine six sixty three six ' nine.
(13:13):
And you've heard of the Mile High Club. Oh there's
a different kind of club, not quite the Mile High Club.
It's the Sea Level Club. But oh what a club
it is. We'll get to that and we will do
it next.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
It is horse trading season. Well come in the beginning
of another hour of the Ben Mahler Show. We are
in the air everywhere, shoulder to shoulder as we are
posting and toasting unless we're not hanging out here coast
(13:59):
to co port, of the border and beyond on the
mast and smashingly powerful microphones of fsre ammnating live from
the control room as in Cruise Control all night, all night.
Here we are broadcasting live from the tyraq dot com studios.
Tyraq dot com will help you get there in unmatched selection,
(14:22):
fast free shipping, free road hazard protection at over ten
thousand recommended in stallars tyraq dot com. All wait, tire
mind should be in our lead this hour coming from
the trading Post. Who has Damian Lillard been traded? No,
(14:44):
he is not. He has not been traded. But we
did get a trade. We did get a trade, and
anytime you get a trade, you get excited about that,
especially in the month of July. So or lead this
hour coming from pro bouncy Ball. A bevy of hoops hysteria.
Now the volume not that high on the hoop asteria.
(15:04):
But we had a sign in trade, this one coming
out of Boston. And if you're listening last hour, you
heard our favorite red breast inebriated caller, Paul from Rhode
Island call in devastated because the Shamrocks made this trade.
If you didn't hear, the Celtics are trading forward Grant
Williams to the mav Rex in a three team sign
(15:29):
and trade deal that will send the well traveled. That's
a nice way of saying you're a journeyman. Reggie Bullock
and draft picks to the Spurs, while Boston will get
just two second round picks for a guy they drafted
in the first round. In Grant Williams, and Williams gets
to eat as much text mex as he wants, and
(15:52):
he can go hang out of cowboy games and all
of that. A restricted free agent, he agreed to a
four year contract for fifty three million. Dead President. Grant
Williams got fifty three million, and he'll live in Dallas.
The mav Rex also getting two second round picks in
(16:13):
the move, and the Spurs getting an unprotected pickswap, which
is really exciting. You don't like the pickswap? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I love It's like picking a burger out of your
nose and swapping it for another booger? How great is that? Anyway?
That won't be till twenty thirty. The Celtics also got
a trade exception exception, which is or exemption whatever exception wonderful.
So let us discuss the question. Here's the question. How
excited should the Mavericks be with Grant Williams and this trade.
(16:47):
So on the Malar scale of excitement for Dallas one
to ten, with ten being basketball utopia, this is and
I'm being generous on this, this is a three to
the casual observer. You gotta go on Basketball Reference to
look up Grant Williams. He is not a household name.
(17:10):
So I've got target, optometrist and side car, and we
will lock all of these things together and we are
gonna make the Baba Ganoosh. We're gonna make the Baba
Ganooshe now number one. Grant Williams is on the no
(17:31):
name list, And I know that list because I'm on
the list right. Nobody knows who the hell I am either,
so I know what it's like to be someone that
no one knows who you are. Grant Williams is not
somebody that clearly moves the needle. But when you see
the return the Celtics got, you know this is a
guy does not have a lot of value. And Williams
was tossed in the transfer portal for a myriad of
(17:54):
second round picks, washed up Reggie Bullock and a pick swap.
Whoopedee do. And now Dallas is betting that Grant Williams
will progress and that Kyrie and Luca will unlock the
hidden treasures that Grant Williams has. Let me ask you
(18:14):
a question, and maybe you're not a big basketball fan.
I like the NBA. I like it more in the
playoffs I don't really care for the regular season anymore.
I've grown out of that as I've aged. But when
I watch the NBA, okay, has Kyrie ever made anyone
better around him? Because if that's happened, send me a message.
I don't recall it ever happened. And I don't think
(18:35):
Luca does either. Those guys are great individual players. They
put up big stats. They're wonderful if you play fantasy basketball.
It's not like they make other people improve their performance.
And this guy, Grant will was gonna have to make
giant strides at this point. He is a what we
call a market pantry player. If you've ever gone to target,
(18:57):
the store brand for food at targets called Marky market pantry,
that's what this guy is. He's a store brand player,
generic brand Williams. I mentioned it was a first round
pick and he's been with the Celtics since twenty nineteen
and in that time he started fifty eight games. That's it.
That ain't a lot. And last season he played more
(19:17):
than he usually does and he averaged eight points and
a little less than five rebounds a game. So that
does not give you a tingly sensation, but good for him.
Grant Williams just won the Texas Lottery, And to think
that fifty four million dollars is now the going rate
for a baseline forward in the NBA. Mazeltov, they're doing
(19:42):
something right over there now, Page two, Moving to Philadelphia,
that we've learned these seventy six ers are sitting around
and they're waiting for the phone to ring. The phone
is not ringing. They've not been able to find a
robust market for the beard. Last week he saw the beard.
He was hanging out at a party in the Hamptons
(20:03):
with the Sixers owner. But it's kind of like a
nice mild winter in Siberia. The trade market for James
Harden at Philadelphia, if the news going around and the
word on the street going around is accurate, that Philly
has been offered varying degrees of handy downs and also
(20:23):
a mix of has beens and nobody's okay, that's what
you The Clippers, God forbid. The Clippers are said to
the team be the team that has the most interest,
but the Sixers would like to get Terrence Mann. There
goes that man again. Unlikely unlikely to be the case.
(20:44):
But from your vantage point, what is going on with
the Sixers and these James Harden trade talks. So from
this side of the microphone, Philadelphia appears to be the
chef disorganized. And I would recommend that they visit an optometrist.
(21:06):
And here's why they failed to read the room. Bad eyesight.
You know when you go to the DMV and you
got to read the reading chart and all they can't
see all the letters. They thought that Z was an S.
It's a bad job by them. But Darryl Morey, the
smartest man in the room. If you don't believe me,
just to ask him. He thought that by trading his
(21:27):
buddy James Harden, it would be a easy and B
he would get in return a Kobe steak and a
nice expensive bag of potatoes, those Bay of Biscay potatoes there.
And at this point, barring some unforeseen change, the Sixers
will be lucky if they get back a three day
(21:48):
old piece of meat loaf from Artesa's kitchen in Milwaukee
and some leftover General Sal's chicken from you know that
box of the China He's takeout box in the back
of your fridge. Yeah, So the market is flaccid at
this point and James Harden does that. Boy, if he
(22:09):
ends up with the Clippers, holy crap, here we go again,
Here we go again. That does not get me giddy,
does not, And he would just be another player with
the Clippers who's guilty of truancy in the playoffs all
unlike some of these other guys like Harden will go
forty points fifteen rebounds in a game, and then the
next game he'll go twelve points on five of eighteen
(22:32):
shooting and like six rebounds, and you never know what
you're gonna get. It's like a box of chocolates. But
how many playoff games has he gone?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Missing?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And Houston in I mean, everywhere's been, everyone's been all right.
Final point. We now moved to all calme Toronto. And
there is noise that Pascal see to make sure I
said that properly because of our friend, Well, this guy
(23:04):
in Brooklyn that calls, he pronounces his name differently, and
I don't want to pronounce it like that because his
name's Marcel. But he's not calling today. But there's some
noise that Pascal Siakam, the leading scorer for Toronto, is
about to be traded. Oh my god, he's about to
be traded, how exciting. He'll certainly be traded before the
(23:25):
start of the season. Now, how much value does the
star player of the Raptors, Pascal Siakam have on the
trade market. So examining the situation here, Siakam is still
considered a swanky pickup. He's not an extravagant pickup. There
is a difference between swanky and extravagant, but a force
(23:50):
multiplier in a pigeonholed way, all right. So that makes
fain like I can see a team like Atlanta who's
trying to shake things up a little bit. Sounds like
they're going to keep Trey Young, and they're said to
be hot and heavy interested in Siakam, and that would
be a pretty good fit, depending on what the Hawks
give up, because Trey Young clearly is going to be
(24:13):
the number one guy, and you look around at Siakam.
He's the epitome of a side car player, you know
what I mean. It's like Trey Young rides the motorcycle
and then the nice little sidecar and he's got the
leather hat on and he's got the goggles just like
(24:33):
the movies. Is Pascal Siakam, And it's unpleasant he's getting
paid a lot of money. However, and when he's in
the number two chair, good things have happened as a
supplementary player, Pascal, he's twenty nine, he's got one year
left on his contract and he can be yours if
(24:55):
the price is right. And he's also as a secondary
player number two, he's getting thirty eight million dollars.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Pretty good, pretty deep, pretty good?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
In Toronto holding a bonfire, Will the last person left
in the Raptor locker room turn out? The last the
parties over? They have an urge to purge the Raptors.
It'll be what do you think another thirty years before
they sniff a big playoff run in Toronto a generation.
(25:30):
I'm gonna go yes on that. I'm gonna I'm gonna go. Yes.
I know you didn't ask me, but I'm gonna go. Yes.
It is the Ben Malord Show. If you would like
to be part, here's how you do it. We are
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(25:53):
want to call in, have your voice heard. Let the
unwashed here, you the other people that are up late
all night here eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox.
That's eight seven seven nine nine six six three six nine.
Will take your phone calls straight ahead, the Jaws of Life,
the Jaws of Life. We'll get to that and we
(26:16):
will do it.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Next. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben
Maler Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Call them the wemby wacka Doodles. I guess what else
are you gonna call them? Welcome in the beginning of
another hour of the Ben Mathers Show.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
We are in the air everywhere, me here, you there,
as we are rumbling, bumbling, stumbling all over our words
coast to coast, border, the border and beyond on the
vast and.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Bodaciously powerful microphones of fs are emmating live from the blanket,
the safety blanket that is this show. Unless it's not,
we are broadcasting live from the tire rack dot Com studios.
Tyre raq dot com will help you get there and
unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection, and
(27:17):
over ten thousand recommended installers tyre rack dot com the
way tire buying should be. Hope all is well with you.
We're back at it again here and later this hour.
If you stay with us for the full hour, you
will get ask Ben. Your questions are answers. You can
send those questions in on the Twitter machine at just
(27:40):
hashtag ask Ben. Very simple, should be interesting. Ethan will
be the reader of the questions. We'll see how that goes.
But hashtag ask Ben. Send those in and knock yourself out.
But are lead this hour coming from Lost Wages, Nevada,
and that is where the Summer League is going on.
I know you're excited about that. The NBA dropping some
(28:03):
news about the big event happening in the month of July.
It's gonna happen actually on Friday. That would be tomorrow,
seven to seven. It's kind of cool day seven to seven.
If you haven't heard yet, maybe not. In what has
been dubbed the most anticipated NBA Summer League game in
a generation, Wink Wink, nod nod, the game of the year,
(28:29):
the San Antonio Spurs, with their number one pick, Victor Wembanyama,
set to make his first appearance in San Antonio laundry.
Although it'll be in Vegas against the Charlotte Hornets. Every
single ticket, everyone will have a man, woman or child
(28:50):
in those seats as they have sold all of them.
For the matchup at the Thomas and Mack Center in Vegas,
it will be packed to the gills, the home of
the Run and Rebels. So let us discuss the question.
Victor Wembanyama, the spurs number one pick summer League debut
sells out. What does that mean? So I've got Jacuzzi,
(29:14):
Bob Ross and carrots and we will combine all of
these things together and will lock them in place like legos.
Is what we're going to do. So, first of all,
my initial thought on this, it means Victor wen Manyama's
first game selling out. It means the Razmataz has been successful.
(29:37):
This is a feather in the cap of the NBA
marketing arm. For a couple of years now, there have
been people associated with the NBA that have been pumping
up the tires on Wemby, the Wemby Mobile, and they've
been puffing the Parisian prodigy. And now he's arrived. He
(29:58):
hadn't played a regular season year yet, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whether he's great or whether he sucks
or is just average. The question is can you convince
the congregation of basketball fans to follow? And when you
look at the KPI on this, the answer is a
thunderous y e s yes. The key performance indicators show
(30:25):
that the great unwashed are bathing in a jacuzzi of
Victor Wembanyama hype. Right now. They're in the jacuzzie and
they're bubbles and they're enjoying the bubbles there Wemby bubbles. Now,
I understand a little bit about marketing and sales, and
we basically in the sales business. When you do a
(30:48):
radio show and the most important part are the commercials,
my part is very unimportant. That's why I've kept the
job because management knows they don't really care. It's all
about the commercials. But humans are are hardwired, like Pavlov's dogs,
to look for the next big thing in whatever that
might be. Well, you want the faster car, you want,
(31:09):
the better car, you want, the better computer, you want,
the better phone you want. When you're dating, you want
the better other significant other. Right until you lock one down,
it's only going to empower the marketing. Weasels at pro
bouncy Ball. This guy's been building as the next big thing.
Hoop fans have been bombarded from all sides. Sensory overload,
(31:32):
I'm talking touch site, hearing, smell, and taste have been
all of those things have been submerged with marketing. And
now here's the return on investment. Not really a summer
league game that matters. It's regular season ticket sales. It's
also merchandise. It's television ratings, its advertiser engagement. All of
(31:53):
those things are what matters, and things are certainly promising
at this point. All right, Moving away from that, on
page two, heere, I want to go to Memphis, where
everyone's favorite gun toting NBA player, Jah Morant, who is
currently on exile, is exhilarated to have Derek Rose in
Memphis with him next season. Now, first he has to
(32:16):
serve the twenty five game suspension of the Who's Gal
for playing with guns on social media, And ironically, it
was a social media post by veteran guard Isaiah Thomas,
not the Pistons Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics version of Isaiah Thomas,
and that posting proclaimed that Ja Morant would be backing
(32:37):
better than ever next season. And it was posted by
Isaiah Thomas, the old Celtic who had that great year
back in several years ago. Now, but he was pumping
up John Morants and he said that d Rose President's
going to have him on some MVP and then he
said the S words, so we'll say crap and then
(32:58):
he said watch now. That posting caught the attention of
Jahn Morant, who chimed in himself, of course, and he
quote tweeted Thomas the original comment and said, quote, I'm
gonna read this word for word, so don't goof on me.
Here's what he wrote. This is Jahn Morant. He said,
you too loud og. They gunna actually said they gun
(33:22):
but gon they gun feel me. Fascioh Yeah, that's what
he said. Fa sho. Yeah, So that's what he wrote.
I'm just repeating. I'm I'm the messenger. So how did
you interpret the Jah Morant excitement to play with Derek Rose?
And you're gonna feel Jamran. So this tells us that
(33:47):
nothing has changed yet, that Ja Moran is still lurking
in the gutter that is social media, in the shadows
that he has not taken some kind of hiatus. I
know he's addicted. I get it, I understand, and that's
the public square. But this also means sooner than later
he's inevitaly gonna screw up again. He's gonna post a
(34:10):
video or one of his buddies is gonna post a
video of him looking like Rambo. I'm talking bullets around
the neck. I'm talking a gun on the shoulder, one
gun in the right hand, another gun in the left hand.
And Adam Silver is going to have a coronary when
he sees that particular posting, and it will not be
(34:32):
relatable to polite NBA society, where that is taboo. So
nobody has ever questioned that Jah Morant as a basketball
player is amazing, what a great talent. It's kind of
like painting, you know how. You have some painters that
are into portraits, or some are into landscape or still
(34:52):
life or abstract or whatever it might be. Jah Morant
on the court, he's a landscape artist. He's like Ross
on the hardwood. Every single performance, for the most part,
is a masterpiece. Off the court. That's where he is
no longer a landscape artist. He would be compared to
(35:13):
your child in kindergarten finger painting. A lot of not
so happy little mistakes. That's the rub.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
As for d Rose, I don't get the excitement. This
is one of those things when the legend becomes the fact,
you go with the legend. The legend of Derek Rose
as an MVP for the Chicago Bulls has lived on.
It's got a shelf life. Derek Rose as an NBA
player these days is a shell of his former self.
For example, he was in the doghouse with the Knickerbockers
(35:45):
last year, played twelve minutes a game on average, and
he didn't play that many games last year, last couple
of years. Rose is going to be thirty five next season.
It's been seven years, seven years since he played thirty
or more men. And it's a game. He's a part
time player, and at this point he's about a fifteen
minute a game guy, and he gets hurt a lot.
(36:08):
I'd say the smart money is that Derek Rose ends
up injured prior to John Moran coming back. All right,
final thought, So the NBA also leaked that, and we
talked about earlier. If you were listening, the NBA leak
that this new Fughaysee in Season Tournament Final four will
take place December seventh and ninth in Lost Wages, Nevada
(36:30):
in Vegas, Sin City, and we are told that the
statistics accumulated during every game in the tournament will count
towards the regular season, except for the championship game. Now,
it is interesting to note that the NBA has an
equally fugayse play in tournament, where those stats don't count
for the regular season and don't count for the postseason.
(36:54):
They just kind of float in the twilight zone. So
why is Las Vegas hosting the NBA's in season tournament. Well,
this is rather obvious. I don't think you need me
to tell you. It is telegraph. It's it's like carrots.
It's an extra motivator to carrot on a stick. It
is incentive to motivate the players. Adam Silver knows that
(37:18):
these guys don't give a rats took us about regular
season games. He's more aware than anyone because he supported
them and their mouthfeasance. So why would they worry about
a play in tournament? They answer is they won't. However,
the lure of an extra trip to Sin City that
(37:40):
your employer is going to pay. Sign me up for that. Now,
over the weekend, we are told the NBA will also
release specific details about the in season tournament, the full
list of dates, the group drawings, the locations, the trophy,
unveiling all of that. They're doing this on a Saturday. Now,
(38:01):
why are they doing that on a Saturday. They're doing
it on a Saturday because they know that very few
people care about this. It's called a soft launch. It's
like opening up a restaurant saying you're gonna open up
the restaurant on Friday, but you actually open it up
on Tuesday, and you open it up at like two
o'clock in the afternoon, past the lunch hour rush, just
(38:24):
so everyone gets on the same page. It's a soft launch. Well,
this not a soft launch. It's been around for a while.
The Ben Malor Show. If you would like to be
part of the program, you can join us here. We
are well we're talking to Talk Radio, I Talk and
then you call in if you want to talk. You
can talk as well eight seven, seven ninety nine on Fox.
(38:46):
If you want to be part also on Twitter, we
are on there. You can be part of that at
Ben Mather. We're now on something called Threads. I don't
really know what that is, but I'm on there, so
you can follow me on Threads. And that's Ben Mahllor
on Fox, which is my same name that I have
on Instagram. And the great thing about Threads, I already
(39:08):
like it, even though there's nobody on there. It's like
a ghost town. I kind of like it because I
didn't have to pay eight bucks a month to be verified.
I'm already verified. So I would like to thank the
people over there for doing that, because Elon Musk wants
me to pay eight dollars a month and his product
is not worth eight dollars a month now. Neither is Threads,
by the way, But I didn't have to pay anything,
so I'm okay with that anyway. We'll press on time
(39:31):
now for the Mallor Riddle of the day. The mallor
Riddle of the day, we go back to the All
England Club at Wimbledon. At Wimbledon, a match was halted
earlier this week after two protesters stormed the court and
began throwing blank again. A Wimbledon match was stopped earlier
(39:53):
this week after a couple of protesters stormed the court
and began throwing blank. That is the Mallory riddle of
to day. The answer we'll get to. What we'll do
it next,
Hey, thanks for listening to the Ben Maler Show podcast.
It's me Ben. Be sure to catch us live every
weeknight from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three
am Pacific right here on Fox Sports Radio. You can
find your local station for the Benmaler Show over at
Foxsports Radio dot com, or stream us live every night
on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Still hopping around. Welcome in the beginning of another hour
and another edition to the Ben Malors Show. We are
in the air everywhere in partnership as we blab in
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ammnating live from the flight deck as we soar on
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broadcasting live from the ti raq dot com studios. Tyraq
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free shipping, free road hazard protection at over ten thousand
that's a lot recommended installers. Tyre rack dot com. The
way tirebuying should be so our lead this hour coming
from the NFL. There's never a bad time to talk
about the NFL. And we're still a couple weeks away
from training camp. But there's a few stories that have
(01:37):
popped up on my sonar that I want to chat
with you about and chew over a little bit like
some like a nice big wad of bubblegum. We'll chew
over these things. Now. We'll start in a place which
is always good for talk radio, the unemployment line, The
life and times of Deanre Hopkins fired dismissed excommunication from
(02:00):
the Arizona Cardinals that happened earlier this offseason. You're aware
of that, right, We are all aware of that Hopkins
is still on the beach, at least in radio. When
you lose your job, they say you're on the beach. Well,
he's still on the beach. And if you've not heard
the latest, perhaps not a couple days ago, we were
told that Hopkins was going to likely end up with
the Patriots. Well, now a zig and a zag, and
(02:23):
now we're being fed that the Tennessee Titans are quote
well positioned in the DeAndre Hopkins sweepsakes and Mike Rabel,
who was part of the Texans coaching staff, has a
relationship with DeAndre Hopkins, and he's looking to recreate the relationship, right,
make the magic happened, Cuddle up again, however you want
to say it, with this new receiver. Now they are
(02:45):
intrigued about putting Hopkins in the offense to try to
unlock Ryan Tannehill. Good luck on that, all right, So
let us discuss the question the Tennessee Titans. This latest
report saying that they are well positioned to get in
on DeAndre Hopkins. Is that based in reality? So I
(03:05):
have set menu, Hannah Barbera and Golden baton, and we
will combine all of these things together and we will
make you dizzy. Well, try not to, but I've been
told we do make people disney. So a Tennessee is
that they're on the clock, right, Patriots and Tennessee are
(03:25):
on the clock. But Tennessee is clearly on the dance
floor here with DeAndre Hopkins. So it's not a case
of well positioned. I don't buy that they're well positioned
because Hopkins, by all accounts, thought that he would be
prime real estate in Haynes City or Buffalo. He thought
(03:47):
he was gonna slide in there and one of those legit,
big time Super Bowl contenders. But those teams so far
have said, don't call us, we will call you. They
have punted on Hopkins. So if you look around, all right,
and if you're blind, just listen around. It is a
set menu. Hopkins has limited options, and it's one of
(04:09):
those menus that you can't take the lettuce off the burger.
It comes the way the menu says it does, and
if you don't want the lettus, you gotta take the
let us off. There's no alterations. It's the Titans or
the Patriots. That's it. That's the list, period, hard stop,
and that list unremarkable, unremarkable. Neither one of those teams
(04:32):
guaranteed to make the playoffs. Jacksonville said to be the
team on the come in the AFC South and Tennessee
going the other direction. And then you look at the quarterbacks.
You talk about middleweight contenders, Ryan Tannehill, who for the
last couple of years the Titans have drafted quarterbacks hoping
to get rid of Tannehill. He's still there. And you've
(04:52):
got Mac Jones, who's also not guaranteed. To be the
guy with the Patriots, and they could get Zen the Pats.
So a couple of non essential quarterbacks, all things being equal,
as we've said, and I'm not changing my take from
last week or I guess the week before, Hopkins, all
things being equal, if the money's the same, you go
(05:14):
to the Patriots. Why because Derrick Henry is going to
get seventy five percent minimum of the opportunities to dominate
for the Tennessee offense. And plus you want to plan
some high profile games. You sign a one year contract
and that's most likely what Hopkins is gonna get. You
want to end up playing in a high profile situations.
(05:36):
You get more exposure and all most of these guys
get exposed to anyway. But the Patriots, even though they're
not that good, neither of the Titans. There's more opportunities
in the AFC East because you get two games with Buffalo,
two with the Jets and Aaron Rogers, and then the Dolphins.
So those will all be games of varying degrees of interest.
Tennessee playing Tennessee bad Colts team Jacksonville doesn't have a
(05:59):
lot to juice, even though they were better last year.
It's a smaller stage. Now page two. Here, let's pivot away.
We'll talk about Michael Vick for the second time in days.
We talk about Michael Vick, the former NFL star, occasional
pigskin pundit, Michael Vick, who recently had a number of
(06:20):
things to say. We talked about some of them. We
did not talk about this. He recently said that the
Dolphins quarterback to a tongue of Bilawa needs to do
a couple of things to improve his health status. And
what did Vic say? Vic said that tugue Byloa needs
to bulk up a little bit, get him some cheeseburgers,
get him cheeseburgers in Paradise, and he's got to get
(06:42):
a little bigger, a little stronger. Has to grow into
your man body. Michael Vick said, that's what needs to happen,
and he talked about ten or fifteen more pounds of weight,
and then he also said, don't get hit, don't get
knocked around, which just seems like all you need to do.
Don't need to gain any weight. If you don't get hit,
who cares how thin you are, how fat you are.
(07:05):
So let's talk about this. Michael Vick wants to a
tongue of by Law to bulk up, gain ten or
fifteen pounds to avoid injuries? Is it that simple? And
you can't see me, but I am. I'm hitting my buzzer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All these kakamami solutions that have been flying around all
off season, I find them amusing. Some of them are bewildering.
The story that's been bouncing around a lot has been
Tongue by Law has been studying jiu jitsu, and he's
had every quack in the free world give him advice.
I'm convinced our resident quack on the show, Doc Mike's
probably down there in Miami right now saying, Hey TOA,
(07:42):
I got this little orange power drink. It's actually yellow.
It's not orange, it's a yellow power drink. You want
to have some? Yeah, but all of this is just static.
I have the answer. The Mather think tank is activated.
Here all the things that have been said background noise,
I am going to say right now, this is a
Fox Sports Radio exclusive. What to a tongue of BYLOA
(08:04):
must do? It does not involve gaining weight, It does
not involve losing weight, It doesn't involve jiu jitsu. None
of that, he needs to go to a tongue of
byloa Hannah Barra. Old school what does that mean? Old school? Cartoon?
Quick draw McGraw and now hold on there. If you
(08:25):
simply make quicker decisions, you can never eliminate all of
the hits. However, your odds go up, up and away.
If you look at the quarterbacks who have had long
chevy and these guys have had injuries, they're not no
longer playing. But Tom Brady and Drew Brees, I would
say more Drew Brees than Tom Brady. And Breese had
(08:47):
a major injury when he was playing for the old
San Diego Chargers. But those guys mastered the ancient art
of treating the football like an old party game, hot potato,
Read and react, get rid of the damn ball. And
if you simply throw within the shortest amount of time
I am talking trimming off half a second or a
(09:09):
full second from snap release, and that's it. You're not
gonna get hit. The NFL's insulated the quarterbacks. It is
not the game it was when I was a kid.
It's not and it's a soft man's game now in
the NFL. That's the way it is. Now last word here.
So we're gonna go away from Miami. We already went
(09:31):
earlier to Tennessee. Now we go to the Bay Area.
So I read that San Francisco has a plan. I
love when people have plans. I had plans to look
at me now, But San Francisco is looking to downsize
a downsize. The immense focus on George Kittle. They're tied end.
(09:53):
This is a story bouncing around the Kyle Shanahan and
the brains there in the Bay Area are planning on
a spread things around, a little more spread that peanut
butter all over the slice of bread. So I want
to talk about this one. Is it wise? Is it
wise for the forty nine ers to reduce George Kittle's
workloub And I am shaking my head. No, the way
(10:18):
I would approach this, And honestly, I'm a Rams fan.
So I hope the forty nine ers do the wrong thing.
But if Kittle gets hurt, that fine, he gets hurt.
But to artificially manipulate things, Nope, bueno. This is one
of those ideas which is better in theory than in reality. Yeah, you,
(10:39):
George Kittle always worked a lot. We want to spread
the offense around. We don't want to be hyper focused
on George Kittle, the fly in the ointment or the
turd in the punch bowl. The forty nine ers are
lacking a dominant quarterback. Joe Montana is not walking through
those doors. Steve Young not walking through those doors. Even
Jeff Garcia is not walking through those doors. Now, that
(11:01):
would be a very crisp move if that happened. But
Brock Purdy, who played above his means, he was above
his means last season as mister Irrelevant played well, but
he had a medical procedure this offseason. He's still unknown.
And the other quarterbacks are Trey Lance and Sam Darnel. Yeah,
(11:21):
you need smelling salts with those guys, so I don't
really get your blood flowing too much. Maybe maybe if
you're related to them, they do, but I'm not, so
that's not the case. And the issue when you talk
about the lack of a dominant quarterback is because what
becomes the safety blanket for the mediocre quarterback. It's the
tight end. And George Chittle's a good tight end, but
(11:44):
that's essential when you have a possibly wobbly quarterback check
down through the tight end. Usually the tight end's open.
But look at the golden baton. If you're going to
cut the targets of George Kittle, who's going to take
the gold in baton and run with it? Now, you
should get more out of Deebo Samuel Okay, but how
(12:06):
much more? He said? He did not play well last year.
The numbers were down. Brandon Ayuk is a nice player,
but he's not shown to be an elite, elite wide receiver.
And then you look at the other tight ends and
you're like somebody named Charlie Warner, I believe, and I
don't know. I don't know who these other people are.
I don't know who he is. Yeah, George kill is
(12:28):
going to turn thirty years old, which in life is young,
but in sports you're starting to get a little a
little old in the NFL. But he's your twelve million
dollars a year tight end. You ride the car until
the wheels fall off. That's the move there for Shanahan
and the Niners. It is the Ban Mallord show. You
(12:50):
want to comment on any of that or anything else.
We are what we're open for business. Yeah, it's the open.
We never closed this. I mean, I wish I were
to the store that closed. We don't close. We're always open.
It's a smashing success eight seven seven ninety nine on
Fox eight seven seven nine nine six sixty three six ' nine.
(13:13):
And you've heard of the Mile High Club. Oh there's
a different kind of club, not quite the Mile High Club.
It's the Sea Level Club. But oh what a club
it is. We'll get to that and we will do
it next.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
It is horse trading season. Well come in the beginning
of another hour of the Ben Mahler Show. We are
in the air everywhere, shoulder to shoulder as we are
posting and toasting unless we're not hanging out here coast
(13:59):
to co port, of the border and beyond on the
mast and smashingly powerful microphones of fsre ammnating live from
the control room as in Cruise Control all night, all night.
Here we are broadcasting live from the tyraq dot com studios.
Tyraq dot com will help you get there in unmatched selection,
(14:22):
fast free shipping, free road hazard protection at over ten
thousand recommended in stallars tyraq dot com. All wait, tire
mind should be in our lead this hour coming from
the trading Post. Who has Damian Lillard been traded? No,
(14:44):
he is not. He has not been traded. But we
did get a trade. We did get a trade, and
anytime you get a trade, you get excited about that,
especially in the month of July. So or lead this
hour coming from pro bouncy Ball. A bevy of hoops hysteria.
Now the volume not that high on the hoop asteria.
(15:04):
But we had a sign in trade, this one coming
out of Boston. And if you're listening last hour, you
heard our favorite red breast inebriated caller, Paul from Rhode
Island call in devastated because the Shamrocks made this trade.
If you didn't hear, the Celtics are trading forward Grant
Williams to the mav Rex in a three team sign
(15:29):
and trade deal that will send the well traveled. That's
a nice way of saying you're a journeyman. Reggie Bullock
and draft picks to the Spurs, while Boston will get
just two second round picks for a guy they drafted
in the first round. In Grant Williams, and Williams gets
to eat as much text mex as he wants, and
(15:52):
he can go hang out of cowboy games and all
of that. A restricted free agent, he agreed to a
four year contract for fifty three million. Dead President. Grant
Williams got fifty three million, and he'll live in Dallas.
The mav Rex also getting two second round picks in
(16:13):
the move, and the Spurs getting an unprotected pickswap, which
is really exciting. You don't like the pickswap? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I love It's like picking a burger out of your
nose and swapping it for another booger? How great is that? Anyway?
That won't be till twenty thirty. The Celtics also got
a trade exception exception, which is or exemption whatever exception wonderful.
So let us discuss the question. Here's the question. How
excited should the Mavericks be with Grant Williams and this trade.
(16:47):
So on the Malar scale of excitement for Dallas one
to ten, with ten being basketball utopia, this is and
I'm being generous on this, this is a three to
the casual observer. You gotta go on Basketball Reference to
look up Grant Williams. He is not a household name.
(17:10):
So I've got target, optometrist and side car, and we
will lock all of these things together and we are
gonna make the Baba Ganoosh. We're gonna make the Baba
Ganooshe now number one. Grant Williams is on the no
(17:31):
name list, And I know that list because I'm on
the list right. Nobody knows who the hell I am either,
so I know what it's like to be someone that
no one knows who you are. Grant Williams is not
somebody that clearly moves the needle. But when you see
the return the Celtics got, you know this is a
guy does not have a lot of value. And Williams
was tossed in the transfer portal for a myriad of
(17:54):
second round picks, washed up Reggie Bullock and a pick swap.
Whoopedee do. And now Dallas is betting that Grant Williams
will progress and that Kyrie and Luca will unlock the
hidden treasures that Grant Williams has. Let me ask you
(18:14):
a question, and maybe you're not a big basketball fan.
I like the NBA. I like it more in the
playoffs I don't really care for the regular season anymore.
I've grown out of that as I've aged. But when
I watch the NBA, okay, has Kyrie ever made anyone
better around him? Because if that's happened, send me a message.
I don't recall it ever happened. And I don't think
(18:35):
Luca does either. Those guys are great individual players. They
put up big stats. They're wonderful if you play fantasy basketball.
It's not like they make other people improve their performance.
And this guy, Grant will was gonna have to make
giant strides at this point. He is a what we
call a market pantry player. If you've ever gone to target,
(18:57):
the store brand for food at targets called Marky market pantry,
that's what this guy is. He's a store brand player,
generic brand Williams. I mentioned it was a first round
pick and he's been with the Celtics since twenty nineteen
and in that time he started fifty eight games. That's it.
That ain't a lot. And last season he played more
(19:17):
than he usually does and he averaged eight points and
a little less than five rebounds a game. So that
does not give you a tingly sensation, but good for him.
Grant Williams just won the Texas Lottery, And to think
that fifty four million dollars is now the going rate
for a baseline forward in the NBA. Mazeltov, they're doing
(19:42):
something right over there now, Page two, Moving to Philadelphia,
that we've learned these seventy six ers are sitting around
and they're waiting for the phone to ring. The phone
is not ringing. They've not been able to find a
robust market for the beard. Last week he saw the beard.
He was hanging out at a party in the Hamptons
(20:03):
with the Sixers owner. But it's kind of like a
nice mild winter in Siberia. The trade market for James
Harden at Philadelphia, if the news going around and the
word on the street going around is accurate, that Philly
has been offered varying degrees of handy downs and also
(20:23):
a mix of has beens and nobody's okay, that's what
you The Clippers, God forbid. The Clippers are said to
the team be the team that has the most interest,
but the Sixers would like to get Terrence Mann. There
goes that man again. Unlikely unlikely to be the case.
(20:44):
But from your vantage point, what is going on with
the Sixers and these James Harden trade talks. So from
this side of the microphone, Philadelphia appears to be the
chef disorganized. And I would recommend that they visit an optometrist.
(21:06):
And here's why they failed to read the room. Bad eyesight.
You know when you go to the DMV and you
got to read the reading chart and all they can't
see all the letters. They thought that Z was an S.
It's a bad job by them. But Darryl Morey, the
smartest man in the room. If you don't believe me,
just to ask him. He thought that by trading his
(21:27):
buddy James Harden, it would be a easy and B
he would get in return a Kobe steak and a
nice expensive bag of potatoes, those Bay of Biscay potatoes there.
And at this point, barring some unforeseen change, the Sixers
will be lucky if they get back a three day
(21:48):
old piece of meat loaf from Artesa's kitchen in Milwaukee
and some leftover General Sal's chicken from you know that
box of the China He's takeout box in the back
of your fridge. Yeah, So the market is flaccid at
this point and James Harden does that. Boy, if he
(22:09):
ends up with the Clippers, holy crap, here we go again,
Here we go again. That does not get me giddy,
does not, And he would just be another player with
the Clippers who's guilty of truancy in the playoffs all
unlike some of these other guys like Harden will go
forty points fifteen rebounds in a game, and then the
next game he'll go twelve points on five of eighteen
(22:32):
shooting and like six rebounds, and you never know what
you're gonna get. It's like a box of chocolates. But
how many playoff games has he gone?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Missing?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And Houston in I mean, everywhere's been, everyone's been all right.
Final point. We now moved to all calme Toronto. And
there is noise that Pascal see to make sure I
said that properly because of our friend, Well, this guy
(23:04):
in Brooklyn that calls, he pronounces his name differently, and
I don't want to pronounce it like that because his
name's Marcel. But he's not calling today. But there's some
noise that Pascal Siakam, the leading scorer for Toronto, is
about to be traded. Oh my god, he's about to
be traded, how exciting. He'll certainly be traded before the
(23:25):
start of the season. Now, how much value does the
star player of the Raptors, Pascal Siakam have on the
trade market. So examining the situation here, Siakam is still
considered a swanky pickup. He's not an extravagant pickup. There
is a difference between swanky and extravagant, but a force
(23:50):
multiplier in a pigeonholed way, all right. So that makes
fain like I can see a team like Atlanta who's
trying to shake things up a little bit. Sounds like
they're going to keep Trey Young, and they're said to
be hot and heavy interested in Siakam, and that would
be a pretty good fit, depending on what the Hawks
give up, because Trey Young clearly is going to be
(24:13):
the number one guy, and you look around at Siakam.
He's the epitome of a side car player, you know
what I mean. It's like Trey Young rides the motorcycle
and then the nice little sidecar and he's got the
leather hat on and he's got the goggles just like
(24:33):
the movies. Is Pascal Siakam, And it's unpleasant he's getting
paid a lot of money. However, and when he's in
the number two chair, good things have happened as a
supplementary player, Pascal, he's twenty nine, he's got one year
left on his contract and he can be yours if
(24:55):
the price is right. And he's also as a secondary
player number two, he's getting thirty eight million dollars.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Pretty good, pretty deep, pretty good?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
In Toronto holding a bonfire, Will the last person left
in the Raptor locker room turn out? The last the
parties over? They have an urge to purge the Raptors.
It'll be what do you think another thirty years before
they sniff a big playoff run in Toronto a generation.
(25:30):
I'm gonna go yes on that. I'm gonna I'm gonna go. Yes.
I know you didn't ask me, but I'm gonna go. Yes.
It is the Ben Malord Show. If you would like
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(25:53):
want to call in, have your voice heard. Let the
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That's eight seven seven nine nine six six three six nine.
Will take your phone calls straight ahead, the Jaws of Life,
the Jaws of Life. We'll get to that and we
(26:16):
will do it.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Next. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben
Maler Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Call them the wemby wacka Doodles. I guess what else
are you gonna call them? Welcome in the beginning of
another hour of the Ben Mathers Show.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
We are in the air everywhere, me here, you there,
as we are rumbling, bumbling, stumbling all over our words
coast to coast, border, the border and beyond on the
vast and.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Bodaciously powerful microphones of fs are emmating live from the blanket,
the safety blanket that is this show. Unless it's not,
we are broadcasting live from the tire rack dot Com studios.
Tyre raq dot com will help you get there and
unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection, and
(27:17):
over ten thousand recommended installers tyre rack dot com the
way tire buying should be. Hope all is well with you.
We're back at it again here and later this hour.
If you stay with us for the full hour, you
will get ask Ben. Your questions are answers. You can
send those questions in on the Twitter machine at just
(27:40):
hashtag ask Ben. Very simple, should be interesting. Ethan will
be the reader of the questions. We'll see how that goes.
But hashtag ask Ben. Send those in and knock yourself out.
But are lead this hour coming from Lost Wages, Nevada,
and that is where the Summer League is going on.
I know you're excited about that. The NBA dropping some
(28:03):
news about the big event happening in the month of July.
It's gonna happen actually on Friday. That would be tomorrow,
seven to seven. It's kind of cool day seven to seven.
If you haven't heard yet, maybe not. In what has
been dubbed the most anticipated NBA Summer League game in
a generation, Wink Wink, nod nod, the game of the year,
(28:29):
the San Antonio Spurs, with their number one pick, Victor Wembanyama,
set to make his first appearance in San Antonio laundry.
Although it'll be in Vegas against the Charlotte Hornets. Every
single ticket, everyone will have a man, woman or child
(28:50):
in those seats as they have sold all of them.
For the matchup at the Thomas and Mack Center in Vegas,
it will be packed to the gills, the home of
the Run and Rebels. So let us discuss the question.
Victor Wembanyama, the spurs number one pick summer League debut
sells out. What does that mean? So I've got Jacuzzi,
(29:14):
Bob Ross and carrots and we will combine all of
these things together and will lock them in place like legos.
Is what we're going to do. So, first of all,
my initial thought on this, it means Victor wen Manyama's
first game selling out. It means the Razmataz has been successful.
(29:37):
This is a feather in the cap of the NBA
marketing arm. For a couple of years now, there have
been people associated with the NBA that have been pumping
up the tires on Wemby, the Wemby Mobile, and they've
been puffing the Parisian prodigy. And now he's arrived. He
(29:58):
hadn't played a regular season year yet, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whether he's great or whether he sucks
or is just average. The question is can you convince
the congregation of basketball fans to follow? And when you
look at the KPI on this, the answer is a
thunderous y e s yes. The key performance indicators show
(30:25):
that the great unwashed are bathing in a jacuzzi of
Victor Wembanyama hype. Right now. They're in the jacuzzie and
they're bubbles and they're enjoying the bubbles there Wemby bubbles. Now,
I understand a little bit about marketing and sales, and
we basically in the sales business. When you do a
(30:48):
radio show and the most important part are the commercials,
my part is very unimportant. That's why I've kept the
job because management knows they don't really care. It's all
about the commercials. But humans are are hardwired, like Pavlov's dogs,
to look for the next big thing in whatever that
might be. Well, you want the faster car, you want,
(31:09):
the better car, you want, the better computer, you want,
the better phone you want. When you're dating, you want
the better other significant other. Right until you lock one down,
it's only going to empower the marketing. Weasels at pro
bouncy Ball. This guy's been building as the next big thing.
Hoop fans have been bombarded from all sides. Sensory overload,
(31:32):
I'm talking touch site, hearing, smell, and taste have been
all of those things have been submerged with marketing. And
now here's the return on investment. Not really a summer
league game that matters. It's regular season ticket sales. It's
also merchandise. It's television ratings, its advertiser engagement. All of
(31:53):
those things are what matters, and things are certainly promising
at this point. All right, Moving away from that, on
page two, heere, I want to go to Memphis, where
everyone's favorite gun toting NBA player, Jah Morant, who is
currently on exile, is exhilarated to have Derek Rose in
Memphis with him next season. Now, first he has to
(32:16):
serve the twenty five game suspension of the Who's Gal
for playing with guns on social media, And ironically, it
was a social media post by veteran guard Isaiah Thomas,
not the Pistons Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics version of Isaiah Thomas,
and that posting proclaimed that Ja Morant would be backing
(32:37):
better than ever next season. And it was posted by
Isaiah Thomas, the old Celtic who had that great year
back in several years ago. Now, but he was pumping
up John Morants and he said that d Rose President's
going to have him on some MVP and then he
said the S words, so we'll say crap and then
(32:58):
he said watch now. That posting caught the attention of
Jahn Morant, who chimed in himself, of course, and he
quote tweeted Thomas the original comment and said, quote, I'm
gonna read this word for word, so don't goof on me.
Here's what he wrote. This is Jahn Morant. He said,
you too loud og. They gunna actually said they gun
(33:22):
but gon they gun feel me. Fascioh Yeah, that's what
he said. Fa sho. Yeah, So that's what he wrote.
I'm just repeating. I'm I'm the messenger. So how did
you interpret the Jah Morant excitement to play with Derek Rose?
And you're gonna feel Jamran. So this tells us that
(33:47):
nothing has changed yet, that Ja Moran is still lurking
in the gutter that is social media, in the shadows
that he has not taken some kind of hiatus. I
know he's addicted. I get it, I understand, and that's
the public square. But this also means sooner than later
he's inevitaly gonna screw up again. He's gonna post a
(34:10):
video or one of his buddies is gonna post a
video of him looking like Rambo. I'm talking bullets around
the neck. I'm talking a gun on the shoulder, one
gun in the right hand, another gun in the left hand.
And Adam Silver is going to have a coronary when
he sees that particular posting, and it will not be
(34:32):
relatable to polite NBA society, where that is taboo. So
nobody has ever questioned that Jah Morant as a basketball
player is amazing, what a great talent. It's kind of
like painting, you know how. You have some painters that
are into portraits, or some are into landscape or still
(34:52):
life or abstract or whatever it might be. Jah Morant
on the court, he's a landscape artist. He's like Ross
on the hardwood. Every single performance, for the most part,
is a masterpiece. Off the court. That's where he is
no longer a landscape artist. He would be compared to
(35:13):
your child in kindergarten finger painting. A lot of not
so happy little mistakes. That's the rub.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
As for d Rose, I don't get the excitement. This
is one of those things when the legend becomes the fact,
you go with the legend. The legend of Derek Rose
as an MVP for the Chicago Bulls has lived on.
It's got a shelf life. Derek Rose as an NBA
player these days is a shell of his former self.
For example, he was in the doghouse with the Knickerbockers
(35:45):
last year, played twelve minutes a game on average, and
he didn't play that many games last year, last couple
of years. Rose is going to be thirty five next season.
It's been seven years, seven years since he played thirty
or more men. And it's a game. He's a part
time player, and at this point he's about a fifteen
minute a game guy, and he gets hurt a lot.
(36:08):
I'd say the smart money is that Derek Rose ends
up injured prior to John Moran coming back. All right,
final thought, So the NBA also leaked that, and we
talked about earlier. If you were listening, the NBA leak
that this new Fughaysee in Season Tournament Final four will
take place December seventh and ninth in Lost Wages, Nevada
(36:30):
in Vegas, Sin City, and we are told that the
statistics accumulated during every game in the tournament will count
towards the regular season, except for the championship game. Now,
it is interesting to note that the NBA has an
equally fugayse play in tournament, where those stats don't count
for the regular season and don't count for the postseason.
(36:54):
They just kind of float in the twilight zone. So
why is Las Vegas hosting the NBA's in season tournament. Well,
this is rather obvious. I don't think you need me
to tell you. It is telegraph. It's it's like carrots.
It's an extra motivator to carrot on a stick. It
is incentive to motivate the players. Adam Silver knows that
(37:18):
these guys don't give a rats took us about regular
season games. He's more aware than anyone because he supported
them and their mouthfeasance. So why would they worry about
a play in tournament? They answer is they won't. However,
the lure of an extra trip to Sin City that
(37:40):
your employer is going to pay. Sign me up for that. Now,
over the weekend, we are told the NBA will also
release specific details about the in season tournament, the full
list of dates, the group drawings, the locations, the trophy,
unveiling all of that. They're doing this on a Saturday. Now,
(38:01):
why are they doing that on a Saturday. They're doing
it on a Saturday because they know that very few
people care about this. It's called a soft launch. It's
like opening up a restaurant saying you're gonna open up
the restaurant on Friday, but you actually open it up
on Tuesday, and you open it up at like two
o'clock in the afternoon, past the lunch hour rush, just
(38:24):
so everyone gets on the same page. It's a soft launch. Well,
this not a soft launch. It's been around for a while.
The Ben Malor Show. If you would like to be
part of the program, you can join us here. We
are well we're talking to Talk Radio, I Talk and
then you call in if you want to talk. You
can talk as well eight seven, seven ninety nine on Fox.
(38:46):
If you want to be part also on Twitter, we
are on there. You can be part of that at
Ben Mather. We're now on something called Threads. I don't
really know what that is, but I'm on there, so
you can follow me on Threads. And that's Ben Mahllor
on Fox, which is my same name that I have
on Instagram. And the great thing about Threads, I already
(39:08):
like it, even though there's nobody on there. It's like
a ghost town. I kind of like it because I
didn't have to pay eight bucks a month to be verified.
I'm already verified. So I would like to thank the
people over there for doing that, because Elon Musk wants
me to pay eight dollars a month and his product
is not worth eight dollars a month now. Neither is Threads,
by the way, But I didn't have to pay anything,
so I'm okay with that anyway. We'll press on time
(39:31):
now for the Mallor Riddle of the day. The mallor
Riddle of the day, we go back to the All
England Club at Wimbledon. At Wimbledon, a match was halted
earlier this week after two protesters stormed the court and
began throwing blank again. A Wimbledon match was stopped earlier
(39:53):
this week after a couple of protesters stormed the court
and began throwing blank. That is the Mallory riddle of
to day. The answer we'll get to. What we'll do
it next,
Host
Ben Maller
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