Tough Cover Show: NFL Draft SZN Is Here, CBB Picks, NBA, and More - 02/22/25

Mark Henry Jr. and Sean Barnard talk #NBA Contenders vs Pretenders, College Basketball plays, and, yes, it's #NFLDRAFT SZN! Nick McClay joins the show to talk NFL Draft!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Right down to and the language that everybody here can easily.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Understand down to get ready for the day's action from
the sides to the totals and everything in between. Nobody
does it better than the top cover with Mark Henry
right here.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm the gambler.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
What do you see? The contams?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Cavity the coach, don't fur some balty the coach, don't.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Hello and welcome to the Tough Cover radio Show. I
am your host as always, Mark Henry Jr. You can
follow me on Twitter at Mark Henry Jr. Underscore on
the ones and twos across the other side of the
desk with me in studio here, my.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Guy Sean Bernard.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
You can give him a follow over on Twitter at
Shawn Underscore Bernard One Shawn, How are we doing?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Do well, Mark Henry Jr.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
We got a little bit of a downtime in the
sports calendar to extend some All Star weekend that we
took in. I got the news yesterday. I can now
play for the New York Yankees based on their rule
change there. So life is good here in Philadelphia. Yeah,
I don't like is my beard kept enough?

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I don't think so. Probably it's probably a little too scraggly.
I don't think I'm making the cut. Still, it would
be awesome if Aaron Judge like just grew a James
Harden beard Oh yeah, as a bit to go against
them and see, like, you know what is well growed.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I put Beard oil in here. It's broomed. It's just long.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
It would be an interesting bit for them to try
to run there. But we got a lot to talk about.
Even with it being a downtime in the sports calendar.
For me, we're gearing up for two of my favorite
probably i'll say it, my two favorite events on the
sports calendar, which are the first four days of March Madness,
which are less than a month away now. I think

(02:24):
it's March twentieth is the first day of the first round,
So the twentieth through the twenty third, that's you know,
take off days accordingly that weekend out there for March
if you're someone who takes off work. I already got
the PTO in there. But I've got a lot to
talk about leading up to that, trying to get people

(02:44):
ready big college basketball, Super Saturday here of games, and
we're gonna talk some NBA as well. Gonna keep that
in the second hour. But my second favorite event on
the sports calendar is the NFL Draft, so we have
a lot to get to it. And it feels like,
I think I talked about this with Brace this week
feels like because of the fact that the Eagles went

(03:07):
to the super Bowl and the Super Bowl, I feel
like it's even a little bit later than it used
to be growing up. It feels like the NFL Draft
is coming fast. It feels like usually you have a
little bit more time to prepare for the draft than
you do from an Eagles perspective. Now we still don't
know about some free agents. Are they entered the out.
Does that impact who to look for if you're an

(03:28):
Eagles kind of NFL draft guy. It's interesting, But we
have a lot of I think interesting conversations this year
in the NFL Draft. Do I think it's a great draft?
Absolutely not, And I'll ask Nick McClay if he agrees
with that.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Do I think it's an interesting draft?

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yes, I think that there's a lot of really interesting
one off cases, obviously Travis Hunter being the most famous
one there, but a lot to talk about there. With
Nick McClay getting into all of it, we're gonna have
him on at eleven thirty at Nick McClay twenty two
on Twitter where you can check him out. But like
I said, we have a big college basketball Saturday here

(04:08):
to talk about. I have a little bit of a wrinkle.
I have less picks than I usually do on a
big Saturday. I feel like I usually have ten to
twelve picks. I started with ten, I've narrowed it down
to seven. I've got seven picks on the day.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Weird number, you know.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I usually like to go with a six pack and
eight pack, you know, ten plus, it doesn't matter what
the number is.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Seven is a weird amount of bets, but we're going
with seven.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
The weird wrinkle about my bets, I don't have a
single bet involving a ranked matchup today. All of my
seven you could argue money in the dumpster type bets.
I have some bets with some teams involving the bubble.
But there's some top twenty five games there's you know,
probably i'd have to count them, but a good bit

(04:50):
of them here. You know, a majority of the top
twenty five playing today. Anything catching your eye over there,
Schaumbernard in terms of the big games.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
Yeah, definitely a big day of college hoops, and honestly,
right from the get go today that right at noon
we got Texas A and M and Tennessee tipping off.
I do lean for Tennessee. I'm beginning to take this
Tennessee team a little bit seriously. Their defensive numbers are
pretty solid.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
There.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
I see Mark Henry Junior still having his questions. That's
kind of one of those still open for debate for me.
Not that I'm locked in on that take, but I've
liked what I've seen from Rick Barnes squad. You're not
feeling the same way.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
It's Rick Barnes's I can't do it. He's a regular
season merchant. He always does this in regular season. If
he didn't get further with connect last year, I can't
see it happening this year, I guess. But I mean
there'll be a Sweet sixteen Elite eight team probably.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
Yeah, that's fair. I do like them over at A
and M today, although I do think that's gonna be
a battle. A and M holding two and a half
on DraftKings sportsbook there can you continue on with the
ranked matchups. I also like Wisconsin laying the minus eight
and a half that game also tipping off at noon.
That's against Oregon, their team that I think sneaky has
a chance to climb maybe as high as a one
seed if things go right. For the rest of the season,
they're right in that same mix. They're playing their best

(05:57):
basketball at the right time, so in the early games,
those are certainly who catches my eye. Also very excited
for this Houston versus Iowa State matchup. Disappointing that I
was taken bet without their top two scores there that.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Has changed the line pretty notably.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
That's up to twelve and a half Bear, But even
if they were fully healthy, I would have liked Houston
in this And my favorite bet is the team total
under for Iowa State in that game. Got it at
sixty one and a half yesterday after the news of
the injuries, that is down to fifty nine and a half.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Still like that number quite a bit.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
That Houston can just absolutely clamp up defensively, the number
one defense in the country as far as points per
game allowed. I think I got fully put on display
today against the Cyclones.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
The two ranked bets that I had on my board
that I ended up taking off my board at New
Or at one o'clock. I liked Mississippi State when the
line opened minus one and a half at Oklahoma. That
line has jumped to three and a half, and I
still would lean Mississippi State. I think you look at Oklahoma,
they are really struggling down the stretch. Lon Krueger that

(06:55):
people want him fired. I think it probably happens if
they don't make the tournament. I do thin Mississippi State
wins that game three and a half. The Missippi State
plays a ton of close games, so I struggle wanting
to lay three and a half points there, but I
would state Houston. Like you mentioned, I would lean Houston
for sure. I like that team total undershot. I do
think without those top guys against one of the best

(07:17):
defenses in the country, I always State's going to struggle.
I think Oregon's a frauds, so I would I would
lean that way. With Wisconsin. I would lean Tennessee as well,
So I would lean all three ways that you went,
the one other bet that I took off my board,
and just it's just so many points. Florida on the
road at LSU. I do think Florida probably puts it

(07:37):
on at LSU. I think that bottom of the SEC
in terms of that tupple that the LSU South Carolina
tier really stinky, and I think the top in the
mid is so good that it almost they get too
much credit at the bottom of the SEC just because
they're losing to those top teams. I don't think LSU
is any good, so I would I might end up
and I might end up betting Florida later on in

(07:59):
the day.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
But let's go to my picks on the day.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
At two o'clock, I've got wake Forest minus three and
a half.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Actually, I think.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
That line might be let me, let me make sure
that I'm giving you, guys the most updated version of
that line.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Four and a half for four four and a half.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
You can still get a four out there if you
if you snoop around. But yeah, I would still take it.
I like Wake Forest. I got it at three and
a half. Wake is sixty first and Ken Palm one
hundred and thirty fourth or one hundred forty thirty fourth
in offense. The thing is they're twenty fourth in defense,
NC State, one hundred and fourteenth in ken Pom even
worse on offense at one hundred and fifty first. The

(08:37):
difference is they're one hundred and fourteenth on defense instead
of twenty fourth one in ten in their last eleven
games one hundred and eighty sixth in offense. In that stretch,
Wake Forest also smoked them by eighteen at home, held
them at fifty nine.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I know it's in NC State.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
I don't think, you know, are the NC State fans
really showing up after going one to ten in their
last eleven games. I'm not sure. So I think Wake
Forrest probably gets done. They're a team that's right there
on the bubble. I think currently lun already has them in.
That was as of yesterday I was looking. But yeah,
as of Wednesday they were minus money on DraftKings again.
And I know I wrote it did a little right

(09:14):
up on that, so still kind of have the inside track,
but fully depends on how the season ends.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
No, and this is a game you cannot lose. Yeah,
if you're way far at this is a Q three,
q Q four type loss. You absolutely can't lose the
NC State here if you want to make the bubble,
even though it is an incredibly weak bubble. And speaking
of that, at two point fifteen, my best bet of
the day is Pitt minus one and a half at
Notre Dame. I've been fading Notre Dame all February and

(09:41):
it has been a boon. Notre Dame ninety eighth in Bartrovic.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
But that's a little you know, that makes it seem
like they're in, you know, just in a blow average team.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
This is a different team in February. Over the last
seven games, going one and six, they have dropped to
one hundred and ninety eighth in Torvik and Bartrovik in
that stretch with the two hundred and fifty third best offense,
Pit fifty second and ken pomped in Notre Dame's ninety seventh.
I don't think Vegas has properly adjusted for the tailspin

(10:11):
that Notre Dame is in. They can't buy a bucket,
and it just goes to show you look down the
February list here, Losing to a bad Miami team is
a seven and a half point favorite, Losing to a
bad Florida State team comfortably losing to a bad Virginia
Tech team is a seven and a half point favorite.
Failing to cover against a bad Boston College team as
a favorite, that's their only win. It was an overtime

(10:31):
getting punked out by Louisville, good team, No shame in
that and SMU at home, where Vegas gave them too
much credit in both. The thing about that is Shrewsbury,
Mikah Shrewsbury, who came from Penn State, was the coach there.
Went to Notre Dame, had to freak out before the
SMU game and a presser, and I think people expected
maybe a passionate effort. They were down thirty and ten

(10:53):
minutes in that game to SMU at home, stayed down
twenty four. Pretty much the whole way. Pit's nothing special
and has swooned in late January early February, but they've
taken care of business here recently against.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Bad Miami and Syracuse teams. They're covered.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Against North Carolina they lost by one on the road
in that game. Not a great North Carolina team, but
another bubble team. They got blown out at SMU, but
SMU blew out Notre Dame in South Bend, So I
don't think that that's some disqualifying thing here. Lunardi somehow
has pit on the like the next four out on
the bubble. This is a sixteen and ten ACC team.
I don't think they should be on the bubble at all,

(11:29):
but they see it. They see they're on the bubble.
This is some sort of motivation for them. This is
more about Notre Dame than Pitt. My shout out to
my buddy Heath Fieman. Pitt graduate told me not to
bet Pit. This team stinks, but I have to ride it.
I have to bet Pit. This is more about Notre
Dame than Pitt.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
Can I rewind a little bit? What was that metric
you use Bartovic Bartrovik?

Speaker 4 (11:50):
It's just a different Ken Palm and Bartorvik are just
two different ways to measure offensive and defensive efficiency combined.
It's like an on off if you go on Basketball
Reference and go to on offs. Kind of like that,
almost a little bit to the just for a team perspective.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Interesting.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
I now here's here's a good question. I'm sure I
could google it. I'll google it at the break. What's
the difference between ken Pom and Bartrovik. They're mostly the same.
You'll see you'll see a team that's like five to
ten spots different in ken Pom and Bartrovik. I wonder
what that is. And that's that's actually an interesting thing
for me to look into. Really the reason I like
Bartrovic ken Palm is I think the they use ken

(12:26):
Palm like frequently. For sure in the selection committee, like
those metrics get brought up. But Bartrovik what's nice about
the website is you can filter it to a date, okay,
like ken Palm is just giving you the full year.
If I want to say, in the last month, how
is the how is this team stacked up? And that's
what a lot of my bets are today. So you

(12:47):
can actually thank Bartrovik for a lot of my bets
because a lot of my bets today are just fading
teams that have been really bad down the stretch or recently,
like I said, NC State one and ten in their
last eleven one hundred and eighty six then offense stretch
Notre Dame, they're ninety eighth in Bartrovic on the ear,
but if you filter that to February, they're one hundred
and ninety eighth with two hundred and fifty third best offense.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
That's why I.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
Think Bartrovic more than any more than anything that I
have about the difference between whatever the metrics are, I
like it just because you can filter more on it.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
It's more user than Yeah. Interesting.

Speaker 5 (13:19):
I was not familiar with that one, so obviously ken
Palm's thrown out there pretty often. I'll have to dive
into that a little bit. They're interesting metric.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, I would just say it's similar to Kemp palm
in your brain. Yeah, it's just for whatever reason, this
guy probably has a couple different algorithms, a couple different
things in the algorithm. I'll look it up. I'm curious
which one I should. I'll make a distinction which one
is the true the true metric after this when I
read into it at four o'clock. So yeah, that's my

(13:48):
two of my favorite bets of the day. My favorite
bet is Pit Wake Forest two unit play. Pit a
four unit play at four o'clock. This is one that
wasn't on my card last night when I first went through.
I just missed it, didn't see it first. But I've
been riding Virginia overs and I'll keep riding them until
the wheels fall off. Give me over one forty one
and a half Virginia, North Carolina today. That's a three

(14:09):
unit play. It actually ended up. I think it's my
second favorite play of the day, after not finding it
until this morning, eight and two in the last ten,
eleven and three in the last fourteen for the over
for Virginia, Tony Bennett not walking through that door. For
all their awards, UNC is still thirty seventh in offense,
so I think they can take advantage of Virginia's one
hundred and twenty seventh defense. UNC has hit for their

(14:33):
last five overs as well, so over one forty one
and a half.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
I thought this would be up at like one point fifty.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
I still think and a lot of what I'm doing
today is I feel like I'm trying to and maybe
maybe I'm gonna swing and miss on some of these.
I feel like instead of trying to bet these top
twenty five matchups and I'll go through some of them.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think the lines make so much sense.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
I think the lines are properly set on a lot
of these top twenty five matchups. I'm trying to find
things that Vegas is not factoring in, like these teams
that maybe they're looking at their Ken palm and making
these lines based on how they've been the whole year.
And I feel like Virginia is a different version of that.
And I felt this way, and I think that's why

(15:12):
they're eight and two in the last ten to the
over eleven and three in the last fourteen. I still
think Vegas is treating Virginia like Virginia. Yeah, like this
low scoring team, and Virginia's scoring more points. The problem
is they're giving up astronomically more points than they used to.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
So I like the over there. It's one of my
favorite players of the day, Marky acc my first three
plays of the day.

Speaker 5 (15:31):
Yeah, I like it there and Virginia specifically, it's pretty
embarrassing to see what the defense has fall into. We
obviously know the Tony Bennett led squad that had such
a clear identity and in life past him. The defense
is worse than it has been at any point while
he was there. We're talking about metrics that they have
not touched since four to five, some of these numbers
that they're letting up, and it's pretty embarrassing. Year earlier
this week watching Tony Bennett take in a game as

(15:52):
they're just getting picked apart defensively, it hurt me a
little bit to see that. So I'm certainly not arguing
against that. Don't have a strong play for that one,
but I have just about zero faith in this Virginia
team this season and honestly maybe moving forward unless there's
some pretty significant changes.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Was that against Duke? So yeah, yeah, so yeah, I
had Duke's team total over. Yeah yeah, definitely easy easy
cash there from Duke. And that's an interesting wrinkle here.
I was thinking about taking the UNC team total over
instead of so that if you want to do that instead,
if you don't want to trust Virginia, you can get that.

(16:27):
It's mostly seventy five and a half. You can find
a seventy four and a half out there if you
want on UNC team total over. They've scored ninety seven
and eighty eight in the last two games now, before that,
sixty five, sixty seven, seventy That's why I kind of decided.
And in those games they gave up eighty five, eighty six,
eighty seven, So that's why I kind of decided to

(16:47):
go with the whole game total.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, wow, I got a bad number.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
You can actually get that at one forty and a
half now, So I got a bad number at one
forty one and a half.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Their boohoo.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
Also at four o'clock Washington plus seven and a half.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
I think I got a good number here.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
I think that's down to six and a half actually,
But Washington plus seven and a half at Iowa. Iowa
was two and eight in their last ten games and
two hundred and forty first in defense in Bartrovic in
that stretch by Washington.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
By the way, for Bartrovick, did a little bit of
googling here.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
It looks like they try to filter out garbage time
is the biggest interesting for Bartovic compared to Kent pom Interesting.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
That's probably a good maybe that means that the Ken
Palm out with Ken Pomroy in with Bartarvick could be.
But Washington plus seven and a half at Iowa Iowa
two and eight in the last ten games, two hundred
and forty first in defense in that stretch. Washington three
and seven in that stretch, but thirty spots higher in
Bartrovick than Iowa in the last ten games.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Seven and a half is just simply too.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
Many points for Iowa to be favored against anybody right now.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
This team stinks.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
Sam Austry was telling me, I think you better bet
someone against Iowa last week and was telling me how
much Iowa stunk.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
But he was right, and I been checking in on it.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Since then, I think I'm gonna start feeding Iowa more often.
That's a one unit play though, Washington going, you know,
halfway across the country to Des Moines eight o'clock. Give
me the over at one forty seven and a half
in Butler de Paul. I know everybody's gonna be locked
in on Butler to Paul, but there's money in the
Big East Dumpster. Total is fifteen and twelve in the

(18:22):
last twenty seven to the over at De Paul totals
nine and two to the last eleven to the over
for Butler. Last time they played. I like to say
close games driveovers. You get fouls, you get the potential
of overtime. I didn't close games drive overs. But last
time they played wasn't even a close game. Cruised over
at eighty six sixty nine. So give me over one
forty seven and a half. Probably a closer game. I

(18:44):
would assume Butler four and a half point road favorite.
I was actually looking at De Paul a little bit.
I didn't end up pulling the trigger to Paul stinks,
but Butler's not very good either, so I think it's
probably a close game. I think that helps the over there.
I'll skip my last one ten o'clock. I like Colorado
State minus two and a half at UNLV. Shout out

(19:06):
David Roddy, Shout out David Roddy. He's a boat, He's
got a boat in his gut. Shout out Michae Levin.
But Colorado State smoked UNLV at home eighty four to
sixty two. You look at UNLV, they really struggle offensively,
and you look at Colorado State really good offensively. So
I think he's gonna be a little bit of a mismatch.
I could go into the numbers. People don't want to

(19:26):
hear Colorado State UNLV numbers. Let's be honest. Eight thirty
Texas at South Carolina. This is my second or third
favorite play.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Of the day. Tie with that over in Virginia.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
I love Texas here, and I'll be honest, it scares
me to love Texas as much because I think Rodney
Terry aka Gus Fring from Breaking Bad Exact, one of
the biggest frauds in the history of frauds, just an
absolute loser.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
He's like gotten upset with people.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
For getting excited after the games, and then he'll go
through Leo or he'll go through handshake lines like fist
pumping and yelling at the crowd.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
He's just a hippo in a fraud.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
And he had that one deep tournament run I think
two years ago, and I think he's got the interim
job and kept it because he went on a tournament run.
And I think that was probably a mistake for Texas basketball.
And this is in while I'm wearing a Texas shirt
and endorsing betting them, but this is again not about Texas.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
All my bets.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
It feels like not about the team I'm betting on,
which is in college football, I like to say that
that's a that's a red flag, but I'm betting against
South Carolina. South Carolina hasn't won in twenty twenty five.
They're own eleven cheese Ohn eleven in twenty twenty five.
The SEC is awesome, so you get it. So they're
winless and conference play, but they did just get blown
out by another bad SEC team in LSU by twenty,

(20:43):
lost by at home, lost by eleven to Georgia in
January twenty to Oklahoma in the middle of their swoon.
They have the one hundred and ninety fifth offense in
twenty twenty five. If you filter out last year, they
were actually pretty good in non conference they be Clemson,
really good Clemson team. And otherwise though since start a
conference place since twenty twenty five started, this is not

(21:05):
a team that I think should be only a two
and a half point underdog against anybody who's on the bubble. Again,
Texas right now in the bracket for Leonardo, you lose
this game, you're out of the bracket. You're still on
the bubble, but you lose this game, I think you're
out right now. I think this must win for Texas,
So hook them horns.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Horns up.

Speaker 5 (21:26):
And by the way, as far as like Texas underperforming,
they've cycled through some like real deal NBA talents that
have come through and still kind of underperformed a lot
of this situation, so I certainly don't think this is
an example of maximizing talent. I'm also sure everyone will
be locked into the Sixers NETS game around seven thirty
at this point, so maybe not as much love for
college basketball. A quick note on that game is the
Sixers don't deserve to be double digit favorites against literally

(21:48):
anyone right now. It's insane to me that they're getting
eleven and a half for this game. But to keep
it on the college basketball at one more pick that
sticks to your theme of fading bad teams. Oklahoma State
plus fourteen and a half against Kansas of a similar outlook.
I'm not banging my fist saying Oklahoma State is a
great basketball team. They're sitting at thirteen and thirteen on
the air. But Kansas is as dead as a team
can look to me, and one of the biggest disappointments

(22:10):
that I can honestly remember in college basketball these past
two years. This was a preseason ranked number one team
that like looks straight up lifeless out there. It's a
fourteen and a half point spread. I think the stay
is eight within ten points pretty much throughout the duration
of this game. I just think that GAP's a little large.
I'll take Oklahoma State to cover the fourteen and a
half pack.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
I don't hate that at all. Kansas stink's Hunter Dickinson,
total loser, intal, stone cold loser, like attitude player, everything
you could say about Hunter Dickinson, stone cold loser.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
I like that. I might end up adding that with
time four o'clock eight or not for you right here, o'clock.
I'm gonna look into that.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
I don't know enough about Oklahoma State this year, to
be honest, I don't think I bet on an Oklahoma
State game this entire season, which is interesting.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
I don't think they're great, but I do think Kansas
is dead, Like, yeah, they're as lifeless as I can
a college basketball can be team can be at this point.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
This is interesting on this game specifically. There was a
rumor yesterday that came out Bill self looked into leaving
for Oklahoma State last offseason, but didn't because the sanctions
ended up being really really strong for Oklahoma State for
the last coach who ended up leaving. So Bill Self
ended up staying at Kansas. But it does seem like
he's been checked out. I remember last year. Remember at

(23:20):
the end of the tournament, he was like, I've already
been looking forward to next year.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, Like, what are we doing here? Man?

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Weird weird stretch for a guy who's like a Hall
of Fame coach there in Bill self going through the
top twenty five games. We didn't mention before we cut
a break here. Louisville thirteen and a half point favorit
against Florida State wouldn't touch it.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
Florida State stinks.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Texas Tech eleven and a half point favorite against West Virginia.
West Virginia team on the bubble. That does not excite
me at all. Like they might make it in. That
doesn't excite me whatsoever. Mississippi State Oklahoma. I already mentioned
that we touched on that ole. Miss Vanderbilt. I know
Beef loves Vandy here, gotta have it game for the Commodoors.
Georgia Auburn. Auburn fifteen and a half point favorite are

(24:00):
too many points for me. Clemson SMU another got to
have a game that Beef likes for SMU SMI really
has impressed me as of late, and I know the
ACC is bad. They're a team that I think belongs
in the tournament right now, playing really good basketball. Wouldn't
touch that game because I really like Clemson. I think
Clemson is one of the ten best teams in the
country ranked eighteenth.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I think they're a team who can make the Final four.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
Florida LSU I mentioned that I like Florida Kentucky Bama.
That line's ballooned up to eleven and a half. I
wouldn't touch it.

Speaker 5 (24:27):
I still would touch the over though, by the way,
I think, yeah, I still I think there's a pretty
likely chance, like these teams both hit double digits.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, you're probably yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right.
I can't do it. I can't go that at Duke
Illinois fun one in Madison Square Garden. Illinois has been
just like the most snake bitten injury and illness team
of all time.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
And something we were talking about.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
Kaspar's jokashunis really just really been so up and down.
Like one game he looks like Luka Doncic. In one
game he looks like Dragon Bender. Yeah, but it's really
to me, it's less of like him looking bad. He
just disappears like it's like, oh, he's on the floor
and you don't realize it. I don't know if that's
an Illinois problem or a Hymn problem. I don't think

(25:12):
Brad Underwood's a good coach. Even when I was pushing
Illinois earlier in the year, I was saying, like, kind
of makes me nervous. I think Underwoods a boso. But
Missouri Arkansas this I want to bet Arkansas. I just
looked so dumb betting against Missouri earlier this week that
I don't think I can do it.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
I still don't think I believe in them, but they
looked so good against Alabama. I can't. I can't do
it again, like right away. I do like Arkansas.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
I do think Arkansas, compared to the rest of that bubble,
Arkansas playing really good basketball.

Speaker 5 (25:40):
Their Davis, the whole team is pretty loaded, and then
obviously coach Cal in the mix there, so they haven't
really hit their stride yet.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
But I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
I have my eyes on Arkansas as a team that
could make a sneaky run if they get the chance.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Ten o'clock BYU at Arizona, Arizona six and a half
pint favorite. I lean with the Mormons. I lean with
the Mormons. I'm not gonna take it. But is McLay
tuned in and ready to go?

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Here?

Speaker 5 (26:03):
He is.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
I can pop him on poppable and let's not go
to break. Let's get it going. Let's get McClay in
here right now. Probably would work better if I had
my headphones on. Let Yes, let's bring him in, Nick McClay.
You can follow him on Twitter at Nick McClay twenty two.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
We call him.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
Let us in the Gambler group chat, nick how are
we doing?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
What's up? Boys? How are we? How are we?

Speaker 4 (26:25):
We're We're hanging in there and we're watching college game
day here. We're seeing Houston.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
Your cyclone big underdogs today, Nicky.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Either way, I think they're getting killed. So we got
an excuse. Now we got an excuse. Two guys out.
But yeah, I mean Houston is just on another level
this year. Their defense, as always has been unbelievable. Great coaching,
great guard play too. They're just unbelievable. I think they're
in that upper echelon of like those top four teams

(26:58):
that could eat like Duke all or and then you
could probably I'm not too high on that Florida team,
but I think they can make a run. But Houston
is in that mix that will make a run in March.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Yeah, I was actually just gonna ask you that because
we're gonna talk NFL Draft mostly.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
But I do want to.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
I feel like Auburn and Duke for a lot of
the year have been kept above everybody, and for a
portion of the year Bama stuck in there.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
And I still kind of believe in Bama long term.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
They're skidding right now, but They've had such a gauntlet
of his schedule, and I know Auburn's made it through
that gauntlet, so maybe that's why they're on a different level.
But I feel like Houston hasn't been mentioned enough in
that top echelon. Do you think there's anything separating Auburn
Duke from Houston or is Houston really like is it

(27:51):
one A, one B, one C, Like they're right there
with them.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
I personally think they're right there with them. We to
just think Auburn and Duke really are just like it
was flashy, like funner to watch teams that will get
talked about more, and Houston is just a dirty, grinding
team that will bury you just throughout the game, just
wear you down defensively, like Bernard said, best in the country,

(28:16):
and I feel like they've all they've been the best
defense in the country for the past like five seasons,
So they're always going to bury you defensively, and if
they can get their offense going in any game, which
they have been all season, they're scared team.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
What are you?

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Where are you at on that? Bernard? Yeah, I like it.

Speaker 5 (28:31):
It's interesting, like I think Houston and Alabama are basically
like opposites of each other as far as team construction,
So I'd more like subscribe to the theory of the
way that Houston builds that I do believe defensively is
the way to go. I think for Alabama that you're
gonna run into some issues with like you're not always
gonna be able to outscore them. Yeah, it does look
like that, but there comes a point where you got

(28:51):
to get stops, and I think Houston's better than that anyone.
So I certainly would have them above Alabama. I would
comforillby put them as like that third team. I'm with
you guys that I don't quite see the whole vision
with Florida. Have seen them have some ups and downs,
and it surprised me the seeming like collective buy in
that there is supporting that team. So ultimately I probably
would rank Houston above them, I do think, and they're
in that same exact tier of the dukes in the Auberans.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
I almost think the buy in on Florida is because
we haven't seen this like coach and Florida fail like Tennessee.
Everybody has that built in where it's like I don't
believe in Tennessee or you know, you could throw that
out there with a lot of coaches, but I feel
like Florida people are buying in because it's new.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
It's like the hot new thing.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
But any other big games on the slate today, Nick,
that you're looking.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
At, you guys already kind of touched on most of them.
I do. I am Roden Beef on the Vanderbilt that
get back game. That gotta have a game. I love it.
I also like sm U against Clemson tonight. Earlier games,
what did I take? I took Let's see, we had

(29:56):
A and M in Wisconsin. I I love A and Tennessee
has killed me all seasons. So this is one of
those games where if they win, then what I'm never
touching the Tennessee game the rest of the year. I'm
always on the wrong side of them. So this is
a game for me that Tennessee wins and I'm done.
I'm done in Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Well we're head to head on that one, Nick McLay,
So we'll see.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Yeah, Tembard's pushing Rick Barnes to the to the championship.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Tennessee's gonna win at all. We'll pump the brakes on
that a little bit. But I do.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
I do like this balls team. I mean, we'll see
how it shakes out. This is gonna be like this
is a matchup. I'll be tuned in for that. Like
I think A and M is absolutely right and kind
of that that same mix of teams. So let's see
how these guys stack up. But I do lean towards
Tennessee today.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
I think Bama Kentucky's the most fun matchup of the day, definitely,
and that's gonna have so many points.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Tennessee.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
A and M's right there with it in terms of
importance obviously, six seven versus four to seventeen. I do
think Kentucky's upside like when they are on that's a
team that could go on a run in the tournament,
just as well as Tennessee and A and M.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
I think. But let's move it over.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
Let's talk some NFL draft, And like I was talking earlier,
it feels like now with the Eagles going on the
Super Bowl run, feels like it's truncated this kind of preparation,
especially from an Eagles perspective. We don't know which free
agents are going to be around, what positions should we
be looking at for the Eagles. But let's look at
it from an overall standpoint, and I'll just ask you.

(31:26):
I think I've started taking draft prep pretty seriously around
like twenty twenty so, and I could talk some about
before then in this stretch since twenty twenty. This is
the least excited at this point of the year I've
been about a draft class.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Is it fair to say this is a lackluster maybe
a bad draft class.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, I don't know how many of these players will
really make that big of an impact on a team.
I think this draft is more about filling holes and
getting depth and getting stronger throughout your line. I think
the top half is pretty good. It's just there's such
a big fallout. There's mainly just like positions that are stacked,

(32:09):
and then there's all those positions that have nothing like
the edge rushers are crazy, defensive lines, crazy quarterback, terrible quarterback,
is a terrible class. Running back I think is pretty deep.
I think this is a good tight end class as well.
But overall, I think this is not the most exciting
draft whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
Yeah, it's it's kind of being saved by a couple
interesting conversations, and I think the most interesting one, and
you know, the two most interesting probably come from Colorado.
So Travis Hunter and I'll just throw it to you,
where is he gonna Where does he slide in for
you in terms of where you would have him in
your big board? And then how high do you think

(32:49):
he goes in the draft?

Speaker 1 (32:52):
I have him too, or yeah, I have him too.
I have Abdua Carter one. I'm a big Carter guy.
If I'm the Titans, I'm taking one of those two guys.
Whatever you think will fit in your defensive scheme better.
But for quarterback play in my big board, I don't
have one until like twenty five. Really, I don't really
see I don't really see either of these the shoutre

(33:15):
or cam making that big of a difference. I think
they could probably be sustainable. They could probably win you
a few games. I don't really think they'll change you offensively.
I'd rather go for the cornerstone defensive player. And for
Travis under I just can see him playing like ten
to fifteen snaps on offense. Throw him in in the
red zone, maybe make some you know, sweet plays, package plays.

(33:39):
So he's a guy that's very intriguing. But if I
were the Titans at one I'd be going Hunter or Carter.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
See.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
I think it would be malpractice for Abdul Carter get
drafted within the first thirty one picks here. I think
the stars must aligned for this man to play for
the Eagles, because he is more openly campaigning than just
about any player that I can remember here. I don't
know if we need to, you know, go down the
Laramie Tons route or what needs to happen to make
this possible, but I would absolutely love it. It is
a pipe dream. I think there's zero chance but actually

(34:06):
going down. But it is kind of cool to see
Carter like actively campaign how his support for the Eagles,
which you don't really see from a prospect.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, the Abdul Carter things weird, like, especially since the
Giants like are one of the most likely teams to
end up with Abdool Carter right after the Saquan thing,
and the optics of it.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Are certainly weird. With Abdul, I have a weird and.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
We'll kind of get into this because I want to
talk about the top guys first, but more than ever,
I feel like my rankings are so much weirder than
consensus and so much different than the Jeremiahs, the Kuipers,
the mcshay's, the guys that I look at, and I
don't know if that means I'm an idiot or if
the rankings are just weird this year and after the

(34:52):
top five to ten guys, it's a lot of you know,
personal preference. I'm pushing back against group think and just
gonna go with what I have this year. I'm not
going to just like adjust my board to consensus. I
have Carter at three. The controversial take that I have
is I actually have a Hunter at six overall. And
the question for me is, just like you said, you

(35:15):
ten to fifteen offensive plays.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
He's a really good corner.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
If he didn't play any receiver, if he was just
a corner in college, where is he being drafted.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, I think you would be right around that six
or seven spot, just because he would be really only
that one. I mean not only, but I think he's
the best corner in the in the draft, so I
think you will be getting a game changing, a game
saving cornerback that can clamp up really your best receiver.
I know he's not the most physical guy. He's a
guy that smaller, thinner frame, but you put him in

(35:50):
an NFL system, he could be fuck a little bit,
get a little stronger at the line of scrimmage. His
instincts are amazing. Play recognition is one of his football
IQ was believable. Just watching him go through his schemes
and coverages. It's been very impressive to watch great ball
or playmaker when the ball is in the air. So yeah,

(36:10):
I think he could easily come into any type of
defense and make a difference instantly.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
My only pushback is that, and I'm I'm on an
island here because it seems like Will Johnson is fading
into the top fifteen, maybe top twenty. He's my number
one player in the entire class. I love Will Johnson.
I think he's the safest corner prospect I've ever evaluated. Like,

(36:37):
I don't see a scenario he's not the best. I
think Sauce was a better corner prospect. I'm trying to
think of some other guys, but I think there's just
no scenario to me that Will Johnson isn't going to
be a starting corner in the NFL six to two
long arms, nine picks in three years. Like he's shown
the ball skills, the passer rating, the last two years,

(37:00):
targeting him thirty point nine fifty two point six, like
he's allowed thirty three catches in two seasons. I just
feel like there's less of a You've seen Travis get
beat a couple times, and maybe he's a little more
aggressive than Will Johnson. I feel like Will Johnson isn't
doesn't have to be aggressive and has as many picks
as Travis does over the last couple of years here,

(37:22):
So I lee Will Johnson.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
He's also a little longer.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
I'm gonna be I'm gonna look crazy when Travis Hunter
goes second and Will Johnson goes twenty fifth in the
draft and I have him first, and you know the
guy have second. Ted McMillan's gonna go twentieth. But I'm
gonna stick with it. What's your take on Will Johnson?
Where do you have him on your big Word?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
I love Will Johnson. I don't really understand why he's
falling down these boards. If anything, I think he should
be rising up the boards. Like you said, the size
that he has and he has nine picks in three seasons.
His production has been unbelievable. Great frame lank six to
two hundred. I think I saw it. He's the definition
of a difference maker, an impact player. He will shut

(38:07):
down your number one and he's he's physical too, Like
he's not afraid to tackle either. He does gamble a lot,
but that's what you get with a cornerback of his caliber,
his athleticism, and he gambles and he succeeds a lot
with the nine picks. So I have him. There's a
lot of comps with him in like Pat certained, and
I see that and if he can come into that player,

(38:29):
then that defense is going to be very happy for
years to come.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
And I mean as far as Mark kind of talking
about the unique draft to the positions that I've seen
jumped out as far as depth have been both running
back and tight end. Here, I guess this is like
a little bit of an eagle specific question here, but
like the tight end specifically, it feels like when you
look at the the timeline of Howie Roseman that it
might be time to add a tight end to the
chamber and start having that Dallas Goddard plan for the

(38:55):
future to pass the baton that way, Are there any
guys in the tight end spot that jump out to
you or to give a little positional break down there.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, I mean, obviously the top two guys and Warren Loveland,
I don't think they're gonna be or I don't think
they're gonna last to us or we even take them
in the first round. Melie Howe's background. But there are
a lot of guys down the board too. We obviously
know Bowling Green, Harrold Fannin put up an insane year,
same production. But I like that. There's Elijah wor out

(39:23):
on Miami. He had a great Senior Bowl. He's been
rising up a lot of boards, and even from Gunner
Helm and Mason Taylor, they put him some good they're
good blockers as well. I think down the board you
could there's a lot of tight ends that could make
a difference on any NFL roster, even if you put
them in a two tight end set. I think there's
a lot of guys Jake brings from Clemson, he's a

(39:43):
great guy too. I think there's a lot of guys
down this board that can become that second Dallas Goddard,
you know, replace me.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
He just went through my tight end list in order.
There went Warren Loveland, Fannin, Arroyo Helm, and then Mason Taylor.
Those are the six guys that I have in my
top one hundred. Those are the only six that it
made my top one hundred. But I think six tight
ends in the top one hundred is probably more than
more than most years, to be honest. And Fan and

(40:14):
Arroyo are gonna be interesting, probably like second rounders, I
would say, and then I'd say the other guy's probably
more like third fourth rounders. But Loveland's a guy I'm
way higher than consensus. More and everybody kind of has
top ten to fifteen. I've got Colston Loveland tenth. You
look at what he was able to do with just
terrible quarterback play last year and even the year before

(40:37):
with JJ not an offense that was designed towards the
passing game, and I think Loveland was just really impressive,
not just being an elite blocker in a run scheme there,
but I think he would really fit the Eagles in
terms of his being able to block and being able
to go out and run for passes. I think he's

(40:57):
there's a lot of goddard to him, to be honest.
I think Howkinson was my comp but you know how
different are Hockinson and got It they're not that creferent realistically.
So uh, let's move on to the quarterback position because
that's the big ticket. I want to get to this
the fun stuff I want to talk about, but everybody
else wants to hear a quarterback. I just did a

(41:18):
quarterback rankings pod on my NFL Draft Pod with Shane
Half with dives and with Ryan Reese, and I know
Nick just did his quarterback pod with Beef Ryan Coyle.
You could check out that we're airing that on The
Gambler Weekly.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
And I have another.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
Takeaway with the quarterbacks I want to ask you about.
But I was the only one on my panel of
four that had Chador over ward, and I think that
that's starting to be an industry standard. Is that everybody's
word over Shadoor. If your ward over shad Or, what
am I missing that short? That word should be drafted
before Shoudor.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I really think they're just one a one. Babe came
More just has that home run, big playability that we've
seen and we really the only reason we really haven't
seen that with Shadors because he has no time to
throw the ball. His O line has literally been like
us out there, like they're just letting holes and he's
running around aimlessly. But I really I do have cam

(42:19):
over him, and mainly just because like that home run
of play ability and the flast plays that he has had.
We've we've seen him do it throughout his whole six year,
seven year college career. But then there's those plays where
you're like, what are you doing, man, Like he's you're
running out of the pocket, whether where he doesn't have

(42:41):
to throwing the ball into trouble coverage, and then we've
seen him be like not lazy but like real cool,
calm collected in the pocket. But I feel like that's
also hurt him being like that too, lazy in the pocket,
being aimless with the ball. But overall, I really just
think it's one a one big. You're not really getting
too much of a difference production wise out of these two.

(43:02):
So I just think teams will probably put cam Ward
more over the shd or type.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
Yeah, And the only thing I'll add to that is like,
I think interviews are going to matter a ton for
these guys, because I do think that there is a
couple questions for just like what is the outlook for
schadur or like obviously a little different upbringing when your
dad is basically along for the ride in the way,
and obviously Deon Sanders isn't exactly fair just classify just
a dad in this case, but the point being there
that it is a much different track. I really love

(43:29):
cam Ward's path that he took, starting an incarnate Ward,
going to Washington State, and obviously taking his game up
another level at Miami this season. I thought he was
really impressive. He faded a little bit down the stretch.
I thought that I was more impressed at the beginning
half of the season. But I do think from a
pure talent perspective, it is really neck and neck, and
I think this very well could be a case where
this comes down to just the team's specific dealings with

(43:49):
that quarterback that answers to questions and the personality type.
I think it's going to be more of a difference
maker in this specific case than we typically see at
the quarterback spot.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 4 (43:59):
I'm really low on cam Ward comparatively to I think
most people.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
I'm forty seventh overall.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Oh wow, so I was pretty I mean I have
Shador twenty eighth, sir, maybe even maybe twenty ninth. I
have to look at it, but low low first round grade,
and honestly, I think I only have like twenty first
round grades. Realistically, there just has to be a top
thirty two. So I'm pretty low on both of these guys.

(44:26):
I do think just I think Shadoor is if you're
gonna say if either of them are elite at anything,
I think Shador has elite accuracy. And I think that
the thing that I have to say above everything is
when I'm watching the both of them, I have to
factor in how terrible Shador's offensive line was and how

(44:46):
bad of a situation Shador dragged into being relevant towards
the end of the year and into being one of
the better offenses in college football. And I'm choosing to
because of that, maybe ignore some of the pocket away
and ignore some of the taking too many sacks and
things like that. But I think with kim Ward, I

(45:07):
don't know what he's elite at.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Is that a fair question?

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, I'd say is arm talent is up, There is
velocity his mechanics, But the elite word is I feel
like we throw around elite a lot more than we
really should, agree, and especially in a class like this,
I don't really see any elite traits that really are
eye popping to me.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
I do think Shador is like the accuracy is elite, yes,
but that that I'm not even the most like if
you look at my like the guys I fall in
love with the NFL draft, accuracy is not like the
thing I'm keying in on. It's like, that's my number
one straight But I do just think Shadoor is able
to the ball placement is unbelievable. And I'll be honest,

(45:56):
I think there's a part of me that Travis Hunter
looked a lot better because the Chador as a wide receiver. Like,
I don't know where Travis Hunter would be going as
a wide receiver in the draft if he didn't play corner,
like just with Colorado, probably a late first i'd say,
if he was elsewhere, I don't know if he's like
a Day two pick as a wide receiver.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Maybe that's crazy. I mean, he was number one recruit
before this as.

Speaker 5 (46:21):
A corner though, right, Yeah, as a corner, Okay, I
get what you're saying now, so just wide receiver you yeah, Oh.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
He's a great corner.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
I will say he took a jump from twenty three
to twenty four. If you look at the stats like
when quarterbacks targeted him, I think it's passer rating was
actually like eighty nine, which is high if you're talking
about elite corners in the draft. Most of the time
you're seeing like Quinyon Mitchell NFL numbers, But he was
eighty nine last year. I think he dropped like thirty

(46:50):
something this year in terms of passer rating allowed. Not
to that's the end all, be all stat or anything,
but just a metric to use it by. But let's
let's I mentioned earlier there's guys that I have just
so much different than consensus, and that's guys like Dio
and Walker, who I have seven through are outside the
top fifty for others. And that's also guys like Shamar

(47:13):
Stewart who I don't see it with.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
There wasn't the production.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
Obviously, the bodies there, the traits are there, but he's
probably gonna go top ten to fifteen. And I'll ask
you about both of those guys. But for you, what
rankings are you seeing that just don't line up with
what you're watching When you're looking these guys, you're looking
at scouting reports, who are.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
You way higher on or who are you like?

Speaker 4 (47:37):
I don't get why this guy's being mocked in the
top ten to fifteen.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Well, first off, the two you just named. I think
we're in the same boat with Dion Walker, and I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
I forget Shamar Stewart. I think you're in the opposite
But I think you loved Stewart.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
I love Schamar, I honestly do. I know the production
wasn't there, which is very eye opening, but his frame
is amazing.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
But I'm loving the safety out of South Carolina and
Nick and man worry. He is unbelievable. His his friend
is six three two something. He is a hitter. He
comes downhill at all times. Great production too. I think
he had about four picks, maybe three or what do
he have? He had four picks last season. He reminds

(48:20):
me like a Jakwan Briskert type, like just downhill, can
play in the box. He's like a linebacker hybrid safety
that could run around athletic six three two twenty five.
I'm seeing right here, good tackler in space. I think
he should be going a lot higher. But also I
know we talked about it before, but safeties don't really
get value that high, like, which I don't really understand why,

(48:42):
because we've seen the Kyle Hamilton the Brian Branches completely
changed defenses like, so I don't understand why these athletic
safeties aren't really getting talked about. So I'm very high
on the safety class, and even your boy Xavier Watts,
I'm very high on his as well.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, I like all three of the top safeties.

Speaker 4 (48:59):
I'm back actually probably like a little lower on Malachi
Starks compared to like I think PFF has some sixth here. Overall,
I think I had Watson Starks like low twenties, and
then I had a man wear he like thirty five.
So I think all three should be drafted like right
in that mid to late first, early second. And but
I guarantee at least one of those three guys are

(49:22):
there at like pick sixty. Every year, the top safeties
just fall down the draft. Hamilton down to fourteen or
wherever he went. After we took Jordan Davis and you
had Brian Branch, like you mentioned, fall fell all the
way to the second round.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Of Detroit ha ha, Clinton Dix Hack Clinton Dicks back
in the day.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Yeah, I just in general, safeties always go lower than
we expect before the draft, So I agree with you.
There anybody you're seeing that's ranked really high on a
lot of big boards, and You're like, I don't think
that I would be the team that would take this
guy in the first round or in the top fifteen.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
I'm seeing a lot of like Jack Sawyer up at
the top, and I'm not really too high on him.
I like Jack, I'm seeing him go in the first round,
and I'm like, there's so many edge rushers that I
think I would take over him. I mean, I know
he's had that long career at Ohio State, he's loyal,
he's has a fun story, but I just think there's
so many other options better down the line, like Land

(50:24):
and Jackson Princely. I think Donovan I'm not even gonna
try to say his last name from Boston College. I mean,
there's a lot of edge rushers that I think can
go over him, but I'm seeing a lot of mocks
have him into the late late first.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
I like Sawyer a lot.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
I think he's a guy you can like, a three
down guy, like a good run defender. Eighteen sacks over
the last two years, but he took a jump from
twenty three to twenty four in terms of like hurries
and pressures. He was getting way more, way more pressure
on the quarterback. But you mentioned it's funny My edge
rankings are bizarre because Abdul and Pierce, I think, are

(51:02):
a lot of people's top two. After that, most people
have Skrton, Michael Williams, Shamar Stewart. My number three is
Landon Jackson. My number four is Princely, So you named
two guys that I love. My number five is actually
Jack Sawyer above Mike Green and Nick Gorton and Donovan
Azaraku and Michael Williams and Shamar Stewart. I just I

(51:25):
feel like I'm maybe this year defaulting a little bit
too much to production. I feel like in the past
too often I've fell in love with too many ed rushers,
just trait wise, and so maybe that's me over correcting
to be honest for past stuff.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
But let's go real quick.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
One last question to the receivers, because I think there's
so many teams I was going through team needs. So
many teams need a receiver, and so many teams need
at least to take like a bite at the apple
at finding a top receiver, and I don't know how
many of those are in this draft.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
I think Ted McMillan is.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
But it feels like so many fan bases are relying
on like, oh, we'll pay T Higgins one hundred million
dollars or whoever. And well that's a whole other that's
a topic for another today. He's the most overrated player
in the NFL in my opinion, But it feels like
there's so many teams you need receivers, there's just McMillan.
Is there anybody else besides McMillan to you that you

(52:22):
think has the upside to become like a guy, like
a you know, a real top ten, top fifteen receiver.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Yeah, there were a few. I I'm in love with him,
that buka. Okay, three years, I've gotten a lot of production.
He's in. He's my third receiver in this place. I
think he's been just a reliable target. He reminds me
of like a Terry mcclaurin, or like rats. He's smooth,
he's he's fun to watch too. His elite route running

(52:50):
like his Rats, are very defined, good spatial awareness, sits
in zones. He's he's I think he's one of the
better out of receiver prospects in this drift, So I'm
very high on him, and I'm i gotta go with
my two Iowa Staples and Jalen Nole and Jaden Higgins.
Them two, they've just been productive throughout their whole career

(53:12):
there with not the best quarterback play. Honestly, I think
Nol can be a fun little gadget guy slot guy.
And Higgins was one of the highest PFF wide receiver
rankings this year. He may have been honestly won, but
I think both of those guys can make a difference.
Higgins is one of those guys red zone. Just throw
it up to him, He'll make a play on it.

(53:33):
And Noel's more the gadget guy punt returners, sweeps and
slot guys, so I think them too, and like Buka
could be good down the line. And I'm a big
fan of you got the shirt on Matthew Golden. He
has throughout that playoff run. He was very reliable for
Quinn or was he was fun to watch. He was
cooking guys on the outside, so that was that was

(53:55):
fun to watch. But those guys I'm looking for as
wide receivers that could make something in this year's draft.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
I like Higgins.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
I think I had him as a second rounder anything
on Trey Harris. He's a guy that like he's being
ranked outside like the top ninety, top one hundred.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
He's like a first round guy for me, potentially.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
I love He's gonna be awesome. I loved him, and
I love that he's getting the Courtland Sutton's Courtland Sutton
comps because Courtland Sunn has been my guy all year,
so he can come out anything like him. He might
be my guy. He might be my other guy other
than Courtland.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
That makes a lot of sense. I like that comp
a lot. Actually, by the way, this is a lazy comp.
And it's funny that I just called him the most
overrated receiver in football, Jadan Higgins a little T Higgins fish.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
It's yeah, that's a funny comparison there.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
But Nick McClay, you can check him out over on
Twitter at Nick McClay twenty two. Check out all the
stuff he's got going on, and he's got the weekly
NFL Draft show he's doing over there with Beef right
here on the Gambler.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Thanks so much for coming on.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Nick, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
I always found it always good to have one of
our favorites here from the Gambler Lettuce on the show.
Let's take a break and on the other side, we're
talking NBA. We're letting Sean Bernard out of his cage.
Oh yeah, and we're talking some National Basketball Association on
the other side.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Oh, let's go ha. I needed some with Bobby. Let's
go after the passing with that blund and my West
swerve and that cop in.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
Welcome back to the Tough Cover Radio Show. I am
your host, as always, Mark Henry Jr. Second hour Tough
Cover radio show, closing it down here and we we
we hit on all things college basketball. We hit on
the NFL had our main man, Nick McClay on. You
can follow him on Twitter at Nick McClay twenty two.
But let's let's talk some NBA where we're past the

(55:50):
All Star break, obviously past the trade deadline, a little
bit more clarity on uh. I think what the playoff
picture is gonna look like. I'd even go as far
as to say, we know the ten teams that are
going to be in the West at least in the playoff,
and the play in you have in the play in,

(56:11):
you have Minnesota as the seven, Dallas is the eight,
Golden State is denying, Sacramento is the ten. Sacramento is
a game and a half up on Phoenix, who seems
to be quitting, and.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Three game mess.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
They're a mess, terrible. And there are three games up
on San Antonio, who just lost Wenby. It's hard to
imagine san Antonio making any sort of push at this point.
Five games up on Portland. So I think we know
what the ten teams in the West are gonna look like,
and we can open it up to an NBA discussion
as a whole, and you know, throw Boston and Cleveland
and New York and anybody.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Else who might belong into the mix. But Western Conference.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
I heard you on the other day with Sam Austrey
and Sean Brace, and Sam Austrey said that Golden State
was his number three team if he was kind of
power ranking the contenders of the West. Then I think
it's an interesting conversation because I thought about it and
wanted to get you your take on it and see

(57:07):
where the West kind of stacks up if we ranked
this out in terms of power ranking. So let's just
start at one, and I guess we could start at
one and two. I'm assuming we both think it's okay.
See in Denver, yes, as the top two, Denver creeping
up and.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Now tied for the second one. Did they play last
night Denver? It's a good question. I believe so they
last night. Yet no, no, it did not play.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
I saw the nine in row yesterday and I didn't
know if they if that was ten now, but yeah,
still nine in a row then, and they played today
against the Lakers. But they are the They're now tied
for the two seed. I would bet Denver finishes that season,
finishes the season higher than Memphis and finishes as the
two seed. But okay, see in Denver. How much of
a gap is there between the two? Is Denver right

(57:54):
there with them? Who would you pick to win a
series right now? Kind of break that down for me.

Speaker 5 (57:59):
So the biggest thing that I'll point two for the
turnaround for Denver, because there's certainly with some stretches of
uninspiring basketball to start this year, Jamal Murray looks like
Jamal Murray again, and that's the biggest thing to me.
I was kind of skeptical that watching him early on
in the year, and even dating back to the Olympics
with Team Canada. He was pretty disastrous there. What was
missing was like this athletic pop. And it's interesting when,
like when you have these archetype of players, these shot makers,

(58:20):
these perimeter guys, they're always like labeled as going to
age great, that they can play great into their career,
when the reality is that's not always the case, Like
when a guy loses a little bit of that shaker,
a little bit of that athleticism. And Paul George is
another guy that I would point to for a clear
example of this, every shot becomes more difficult, and that's
what we were seeing with Jamal Murraley Jamal Murray early
in the year. So I don't know if it was

(58:40):
rest him kicking off for us, if he got in
the gym a little more, what the deal is, but
I am seeing him create a little bit more separation
and that changes a lot within this offense. With all
that being said and being complimentary of Denver, I'm not
gonna rule out who Nikole Jokich is a guy who
you could make a case is playing the best basketball
of his career and he's got three MVPs in his
back pocket. I still think there's a pretty decent gap
between ok Okay see in Denver. Just the fact that

(59:02):
how defensive first they are as a team, you can
make and there will be a case made for several
players of this team having a defensive Player of the
Year campaign. Lou Dort will certainly certainly be in that mix.
Chet Holmegen I think would be the front runner if
you have played enough games. Jalen Williams competes on every
single night on that side of Florida, every position and
shake goes. Alexander himself takes care of business on that end.
So I think the defensive first nature of Okase does

(59:24):
make them the clear cut favorite in the West of Me.
But I do think Denver has done a nice job
closing that gap and really quickly.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
Yeah, it's just I look at Denver and it seems
like they're deep in a way that they haven't been
the last couple of years or and Christian Braun has
really become a guy. It's really frustrating to see how
good of a guy they were able to find and
how good he's been lately. In February's averaging nineteen a game,

(59:51):
averaging nineteen seven and a half and three and a
half and he's shooting fifty eight percent from the field,
doing it like, it's pretty unbelievable, shooting really well from
three and shooting it often from three. Christian Brons turned
into a great player. Michael Porter Junior is better than
he used to be, Like he's up and down still
he's his numbers are pretty unbelievable like I was in

(01:00:12):
nineteen and seven. And now he's shooting fifty two percent
from the field, forty two percent from three, Like the
numbers are pretty that's great, pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Russell Westbrook doing what he's doing. I have been impressed
with that.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
By the way, I think Russell Westbrook finally hit the
I am who I am at this stage in my
prayer and like I mean, playing next to NIKOLEA. Jokich
number one, I think Westbrook looks like more willing to
defer than I've really seen him really at any other
point in his career. And we see how effective Yokic
is from just off ball cutters. That seems to have
clicked in Westbrook. So his combination of accepting the role
that he is who he is at this point his career,

(01:00:47):
what's being offered to him, in Denver and then Jokic
just elevating him. It has worked, and I was really
skeptical that it would gives them transition. Yeah, the energy
effort pace, like a lot of things is it's a
nice little just like button to be able to push
within that offense.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
It's almost like him and Aaron Gordon are the only
guys on the team that really I mean maybe a
little Jamal, but they didn't really have a lot of
a lot of transition guys before, so Russ kind of
could be his own one man transition.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Yeah, averaging thirteen thirteen, six and a half and five.
It's in twenty eight minutes and not that inefficiently. So
Eric Gordon, you know, he's doing Eric Gordon stuff. He'd
probably be irrelevant anybody or anywhere else in the league,
but he plays perfectly off Jokic.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
Strawther's been I think like a pretty nice rotation piece.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Is a good guy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Same with Peyton Watson. You don't have to back up
big figured out. But I think right now I'm taking
Denver like over Okay. See, yeah, if I think if
it was a playoff series, I think I'd be picking
Denver to win.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
See.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
I think okay See has the skill set or the
personnel to have to get the plan of attack that
you can stop Jokich, and what that is is basically
like you got to front him and throw one of
the You basically gotta leave a guy to patrol the
paint and roam behind him, which they can do with
either Hartenstein or chet Holmgren, and put a guy that's
just gonna be a dog on top of him, and
that can be Lou Dort, that can be Jayalen Williams.
I think Williams will likely get the first DIBs at that.

(01:02:05):
I think there's a way where Okac can set it up,
and if you can do that, that's really your only
chance of beating Denver. So I think I still like
Oklahoma City.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
I guess it's just interesting to figure out what the
recipe for beating Denver's going to be, because I don't
think we know it yet because last year Minnesota did it,
but that was by having three bigs, and they threw
that recipe away for some reason this offseason. But they
had Gobert to throw at him, and Gobart stepped up

(01:02:35):
big in that series. They had a cat that throw
him Cat stepped up big defensively, and nas Reed played
a role as well. I don't think anybody has that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
I think, okay, SE's as close as you're gonna get.

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
Yeah, but Chet, I mean, Chet's not gonna be a
physically imposing presence. What I see it is like that
back line of defense. Like I think it's gonna be
more Jaylen Williams than Loud douor. Like think about what
the Sixers did with PJ. Tucker being the guy guarding
and then in b kind of roaming behind. That's the
sort of tactic that I see in place. You're it's
it's not easy. You're not gonna fully shut the guy down.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
He just feels like then he's gonna dish it everybody else. Yeah,
But with jokicch it feels like that's not the same
gambles with most guys. With most guys, it feels like
that's like I almost would I almost wanted like dare
him to score, and teams have taken that approach for
I know, I almost.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
Would rather like not double him and and kind of
just make sure you're not kill one hundred. And that's
that's why I'm picking them. And I hate to say
it because I'm an a s G A guy. I
would love, I would love, okay see to get it done.
It just feels like to me, so often we we
think we know the finals, and it feels so often

(01:03:48):
that it doesn't become the finals. Like last year, I
think that was Denver Boston, Like everybody thought, oh, Yoka Celtics,
that that'll be amazing, and then Minnesota takes care of Denver,
and then Minnesota loses obviously to Dallas. I feel like
there's other examples of that. Obviously I won't go into
the list of there, but now it feels like we've

(01:04:10):
been assuming thunder Celtics for a long time and I
still think the Celtic's gonna be there. So I guess
maybe I'm looking at the West to look for that.
But I do think Denver just provides these matchup problems.
And we talk about it with the Lakers, and I
guess we'll get into that. But my rebuttal with people
like the problem with the big with the Lakers, especially

(01:04:32):
against Denver.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Definitely against Denver, But how different is it than ever
what every team has?

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
Yeah, I mean what I think is different is like
Lucas specifically, it just needs that arc type of lob
catching Derek Lively type player. And don't get me wrong,
Jackson Hayes isn't like the worst version of that. He's
just not a guy that you're gonna be able to play,
you know, thirty minutes a games starring caliber center minutes.
So I would I think if they that Mark Williams
trade had been completed, I probably would pumping the stock

(01:05:01):
of the Lakers significantly higher than I am.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
But I am a Mark Williams guy.

Speaker 5 (01:05:05):
I think his best basketball is still to be played
as long as he can escape all the injury issues
which continue to cloud him. He's also been pretty open,
and if I want to go conspiracy brain here, I
kind of think the Lakers sort of knew that this
trade wasn't going to go down, and this was a
little bit of an effort to please Luca, sort of,
look what we're trying to make happen, all these type
of things. I could see a case where that's what
ultimately went down. I know Williams himself has been very

(01:05:26):
vocal about there's no reason I should have failed a
physical or anything like that. But the bottom line, the
roster is what it is Alex Lenne, I have way
more concerns about than I do. Jackson Hayes specifically here
center is a minimized spot, but when you move a
player of that magnitude, it takes some pretty significant roster retooling.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
I just don't think they're quite there this year. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
I guess my thing is that you look at Jackson
Hayes in his minutes this year, they're actually four and
a half points better. But he's on the court as
opposed to off, and that's in it. That's a lot
of that is with Davis off and him on. Yeah,
a lot of those hats he played with Davis too.
But and I thought that that was interesting. I dove
into it. The offense actually stays the exact same when

(01:06:04):
he's on the floor, but the defense is four and
a half points better when Jackson has is on the floor.
I think if Jackson Aes is able to give you
twenty five minutes, you sneak five to ten minutes a
small ball against whoever. I think you're just gonna have
to figure out that like thirteen to eighteen minutes of
And I don't think it's Alex Linne.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
I agree there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
I think he sucks, but and I don't know if
you could find that guy. Now, maybe maybe you search
the G League for every big that's in there. Maybe
you scour the buyout market for any big that's still
remaining that even could potentially you know, shake free.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
But what do you mind?

Speaker 5 (01:06:37):
Where we were sending back back and forth European names
so of guys that are balling overseas that the Lakers
might be able to add this week.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's what they should do.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
They should take a chance because it's literally just you
have to finish. I really just think you have to
fill thirteen to eighteen minutes. Yeah, and I think you're
gonna get seventy five a game from Riez, Luca and Lebron,
and they're going to distribute to the other fourth guy,
whoever that is that's on the floor with.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Them, Tori and Finney Smith, Yeah, whoever it is, and
they're gonna get twenty to thirty points. You don't need
much from the center position.

Speaker 4 (01:07:09):
And that's why I almost think my thing with I
would almost just rather Yokic, you know, let him kill me,
instead of dishing for wide open threes constantly. I almost
think the Lakers might be able to do that, but
it is a terrible matchup for the Lakers. But I
think my point is I think it's a bad match

(01:07:29):
for everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Yeah, I think that's definitely true.

Speaker 5 (01:07:31):
The only other part I'll add from like the Lakers
perspective here is like with Luca and I've been a
guy who's stuck up for his defense, I still think
it's like it gets a worse reputation than it deserves.
But he's also a guy that certainly will never be
cracking any all defensive teams here. When you look at Dallas,
they were very calculated and having their big man, the
Dan Gaffords, the Derek Livelies have basically making up kin

(01:07:53):
covering for him. That's what I don't see Jackson Hayes
being capable of doing. And even that Charlotte lost the
other night, it was very clear they're going at Luca,
gonna make him prove that he can defend. And while
I think like there he will have better moments than
he showed against Charlotte, I'm not overall worried about this
in the long haul. For the short term, for this
specific season, I think Los Angeles gonna have some real
difficulties making that happen, and that could ultimately be the

(01:08:14):
Achilles Hill that bounces them out of the playoffs because
they have not had time to properly set the roster
behind him. So I don't think Jackson his is that
Guy's my point. Here's a question for you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
If let's say that the bracket breaks out the way
it is right now, the Lakers are the five seed,
they play Houston round one, and okay See's the one
Let's say okay, Or let's say that the Lakers go
to the sixth seed and they let's say either way,
the Lakers win their first round series against whoever they
play in the second round. If you're the Lakers, would

(01:08:44):
you rather play Denver or would you rather play Okay Say, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Gotta be okay See.

Speaker 5 (01:08:47):
Unfortunately, Yeah, the Jokic factor is that Notable specifically had
such a clear weakness on their team. So I still
think okay See's the better team. But if you're the
Lakers and kind of plotting your path here, okay, so
he's the one you want to head down for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
And I think it's one of those things too, where
okay See obviously the inexperienced team, and they were there
last year second round seven game series with Dellas six
games seven, I'm pretty sure seven. And who was the
reason they lost that series? L Luka Doncic was the
reason you lost that series? Where is he now right

(01:09:21):
there in the purple and gold? And you got a
guy who I think I think they might have another
guy who's got some playoff experience just in LA a
little bit of playoff experience. Yeah, Austin Reeves obviously, but
no Lebron. I think you put two guys like that
against an OKC team who I think it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
I think they're unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
But there is something to be said for It's it's
you know, it's playoff time and you're going against Lebron
and Luca and you never really want a big series
in your lives as a unit. I think there's something
to be said for that. Whereas if it's Denver, Denver's
gonna feel like we've beat the Lakers so many.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
Times it doesn't matter. It's just Luca instead a day
where if it's okay, see the Lakers.

Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
I think that series going seven, I really do. I
think that'd be one of the more fun series in
recent memory. Same with Denver.

Speaker 5 (01:10:08):
Ok, yeah, both are gonna be The West is gonna
be a I mean, I think all this entire playoffs
is gonna be pretty sick how it shapes out.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
The West specifically is gonna be more fun.

Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
So obviously, with the way I'm talking, the Lakers I
have is my number three in the West.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
I think you differ there, Yeah, I do.

Speaker 5 (01:10:23):
And I'm still a little bit fluid in these Memphis
is weird to me. I'm not gonna put them there.
I don't know what more they could do to like
earn our trust there. I mean, John Moran's been in
and out of the lineup, but I mean they're thirty
seven and nineteen. The numbers don't lie. I think I'm
still gonna give Houston the respect.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
I do see the Warrior's case.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
That Sam Austri is making, and frankly, I do think
Jimmy Butler moves the need a little bit more than
I initially expected. But I'm gonna give the love to
Houston here that I'm gonna lock them in forward to
the third. I still have questions about their clutch time stuff.
They I mean, they have won somehow the most clutch
games all year, but when I've watched these games, like
I just don't feel comfortable with the way they operate
in those. It's a lot of Fred Van Fleet, it's
out of Jaalen Greenoay that I don't think those guys

(01:11:02):
are quite capable of take on.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
But results are results.

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
So there's enough depth, there's enough talent, there's enough of
a defensive commitment that I think could cost some real
matchup issues in some of these. So I'll lock Houston
in for three, even though I really don't see them
making a real championship push this year.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
I have Houston a little bit further down the list.
Who do you have a for four?

Speaker 5 (01:11:19):
I'll go to the Golden State take here that I'll
lock them in. I'm loving what Jimmy Butler's doing for it,
and I can't believe that I'm saying this. I can't
believe I'm talking myself. But this is when they make
that type of trade, what they're looking for. If you
get one stretch of Jimmy Butler playing I'm the Baddest
man on the planet basketball, that's gonna result in some
pretty positive looks. I think Steph Curry has another run
in him. He has stretches and he has not looked

(01:11:40):
like himself for the larger duration of the season. But
you still see the flashes where he's got it. If
you get one of those at the right time, you're
in good shape. And they still got guys like Draymond
kicking around. These are high IQ guys with a lot
of experience. I see it clicking, and I think for
Butler specifically, he's almost like the fully evolved version of
like that Gary Payton type role in which he can screen,

(01:12:01):
he can roll, he can create for others and attack
the basket himself. I really like how it's working out,
and Steve Kerr is gonna get them cooking, so I'll
go Golden State four.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:12:09):
No, I think you just look at what they gave up,
and it was Jimmy Butler, or it was Andrew Wiggins,
and he stinks.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
So Jimmy Butler did the fit. You know. Was I
always sure that it would be as good as it is?

Speaker 4 (01:12:23):
No, but was I sure that it would be a
heck of an improvement on Andrew Wiggins. Absolutely, especially a
motivated Jimmy Butler, even though I'm like you necessarily haven't
been the highest on Jimmy Butler long term, you have
Steph Curry next to it, it looks a little different. Yeah,
and especially when you have to Steph Curry and I
Sam hit it perfectly to Steph Curry. We've gotten since
Jimmy got there is it looks like he's rejuvenated a

(01:12:44):
little bit. It looks like he's Steph Curry again. Because
I can tell you I owned him in fantasy. He
hasn't necessarily been a consistent, you know, a fantasy superstar
in the way you know, we're just talking numbers, a
fantasy superstar in the way that he has been in
the past. He has slowed down here a little bit.
I guess he had twenty last game, twenty seven and

(01:13:06):
twenty five the tea games before it, but before that
thirty eight, thirty four, thirty seven, thirty two. I did
accidentally look at his Team Chuck and Team Candice numbers
for a second there, but twenty points seven for he
was seven for thirteen again second round, so he was
still still effishing and they still won that game. I
think Golden State's right there for me. I think they're
four and if you're if you're Denver, if you're OKAC

(01:13:30):
and you have to deal with.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
Them coming out of the play in.

Speaker 4 (01:13:32):
I think you're furious, and I think you said either
five and one with Jimmy now for one, I think
it might be five.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
And maybe it just five and one. Now I have
to check, but i'll check. But yeah, who would you
go with at number five? Next? I'll go to the Lakers.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
I'll give my respect here, and as I mentioned, if
that Mark Williams trade had gone through, I think I
would have them a notch higher that I'm a Mark
Williams believer. I think that was the right target. We
are getting a little love for Christian KloCo in the
chat there on the Lakers roster. I do like Christian
KloCo quite a bit, loved him since his days at
Arizona and has lost some significant weight throughout his NBA trajectory,
So shout out to him for working on his game.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
The experience speaks for itself. You're gonna have.

Speaker 5 (01:14:07):
Probably the best two players on the floor in a
lot of matchups that they're going to potentially face. So
I can't count out the Lakers. I'll keep them locked
in for five.

Speaker 4 (01:14:14):
Yeah, I had the Lakers at three I had golden
or golden stated four number five check it in for me.
And this is hard to put them above the team
you had three, but I'll go with the Clippers. They're
ten and six with Kawhi. It's still a small sample
size that's better than the twenty one and eighteen without him.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
But I will say bravo James Harden. Yeah, the fact
that he was able to go twenty one and eighteen,
and it's not just him. Norm Pale stepped up.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
Other guys on the team stepped up and awesome he
has been and Harden probably missed some of those games,
so I don't know. I'd have to check how many
of those games hard and played, but he You have
to give them credit as a team that's sitting here
twenty and thirty five, mostly because a lot of our
players have missed a lot of time. You've got to
give a Clippers team credit for figuring it out without Kawhi.

(01:14:58):
You gotta give tylu right out there for coaching them
to twenty one and eight team without Kawhi. Now ten
and six with Kawhi. You'd hope that'd be better, I guess,
but still better pace than they were on without him.
So it's just the upside there I think is higher
than an upside with a Houston or a Memphis still
to me, And maybe that sounds funny to say. With
Harden leading the way with his playoffs struggles, but with

(01:15:22):
Norm Palace stepping up the way he has Kawhi stepping
up the way he has, if Harden could settle into
a distributor role in the playoffs, and that's what you're.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
Looking for him to do, and I think that's what
he wants to do. Honestly.

Speaker 4 (01:15:33):
Yeah, I think that if you put the Clippers up
in a series against Memphis ho Houston, I think I'd
take the Clippers.

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
I'm in agreement. I also got the Clippers in the
six spot here.

Speaker 5 (01:15:42):
And to give Harden a little bit more love, He's
played fifty two of a possible fifty five games so
far this year, so he has been the guy on
the floor and getting the getting the job done. But
we do know the ebbs and flows of James Harden,
and kind of my take has consistently been, even when
he's not the best player on the team, your season
is fully decided by James and what he brings to
the table. And because of how high usage he is,

(01:16:03):
I expect that to be the way things go in
the playoffs. But with that being said, this is probably
the best defense that he's ever been a part of.
That when you look at the guys surrounding him, I
do think this is a championship caliber defense for the
Los Angeles Clippers. I don't think there's quite enough there offensively,
and I think that's ultimately where things go down the floor.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
But I do give this team a punchers chance.

Speaker 4 (01:16:19):
I think one of the Lakers, Golden State, or Clippers
go on a run. I like that, and either that
means they make the conference finals or the finals, or
that means they take Denver OKC seven and then maybe
have a real chance to win it. But don't but
six I of Houston and to me, Clippers Houston are
pretty much tied as just like Lakers and Warriors are

(01:16:40):
kind of tied for three to four. For me, seven,
I think we're both gonna have him. Here is Memphis,
which feels disrespectful. They're the two seats right now, but
I think that means no matter what matchup Memphis gets
in round one, we are going to be picking against Memphis.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
Yeah, yeah, No, you're right about that, and like, I
just don't really Minnesota. I guess, yeah, yeah, And we'll
get to them in a second here. I don't really
love any of their options defense fly Like, I know,
you've been a pretty anti Zach Edy guy. He's a
huge part of this equation. I don't think Jaron Jackson
Junior can operate as a five. He's only averaging less
than six rebounds per game. I believe five point nine
is what I saw, which just really can't happen for

(01:17:16):
a guy of his size and the way that he
plays there. You can play him next to Edie, which
certainly helps, but then that limits your ability to get
on the perimeter. I just think that they're going to
have to do a lot of these little dances on
the interior. John Morant has been on and off the court.
Feels like there's always something from an injury status for him.
He's not afraid, he's certainly not afraid Ja Morant, which
I respect, But I have doubts about the shooting and
all those kind of conversations. So I just don't fully

(01:17:39):
see it. I don't think there's enough there. It also
wouldn't shock me I see a couple of whispers flying
out if John Morant does kind of find his way
onto the trademarket a little bit, and I don't know
what that ultimately makes it way out to, but I
don't see the vision with this Memphis squad.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
Yeah, well, I feel like guy was wrong on Edie.
I think I'm willing to say that, being I mean,
as demonstrative as I was. I guess your point. Still.

Speaker 5 (01:18:01):
You can see though, like as far as like you
know schematically what you have to change up and who
you have to pair him with, like there's they have
to do a dance Memphis to make it happen. He's
been fine, but like it's not you know, the limitations
that you brought up were certainly valid.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
Yeah, And so I just wanted to look it up
because he had a great stretch in December, and again
after I was kind of freaking out about it, he
had a really good stretch in November as well. But
I know this because on the National Championship night, Trilbroduo
tried to dunk on me on some eedy on off
numbers and then he was like, oh wait forgot Notre
Dame was playing. Sorry, I'll leave you alone, But I

(01:18:36):
I since that, since like right before that, the thirteenth,
he's in the last seventeen games, he's only playing eighteen
minutes a game and he's averaging seven and a half
and seven and a half, So that's actually down from
the rest of the year only a block a game
in that and the on officer are probably not quite
as good the on aucer plus two point eight on

(01:18:58):
the year. So I'll dive into the I'll dive into
the defensive numbers just to see how different they are.

Speaker 5 (01:19:04):
And I don't have the numbers for this, but by
my eye, I think he like has to be paired
with John Moran. Like like, I think they look way
better as a duo than I've seen from Edie individually.
Some of the pick and roll stuff of job being
able to get downhill and all those type of things.
So there's something there. But like, it's a unique piece
to have as a key part of your team. It's
actually shocking. The defensive ratings actually one and a half,

(01:19:26):
only one and a half points worse, So they're one
and a half points worse when he's on the floor. Defensively,
it's actually not as big of a gap as I
would have expected.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
But it's actually not the other way too.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
It's actually not as big of a gap offensively I
thought he I thought it would.

Speaker 3 (01:19:40):
The big thing would be.

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
That they were way better offensively when he was out there.
But nah, But that kind of goes to my point
that like three is more than two. So you have
this guy out there, however good he is offensively as
a big it doesn't shoot threes. I still think long term,
I like, I don't. I wouldn't be buying stock on
Edy to be a starting center long term or anything
like that. I did kind of make it seem like
I thought he'd be, like, not playable at all. That

(01:20:01):
seems to be wrong. In the playoffs, we'll see that
might be an interesting conversation. I do think the playoffs
will tell us a lot about mister Edie in terms
of his kind of viability. Number eight, I have Minnesota,
and let me tell you what I do not want.
Memphis Minnesota Round one. Gimme, I do not want to
have to pick one of those two teams to win

(01:20:21):
a series, because I really would pick any of the
other six teams comfortably before I picked any of these
two teams. Minnesota belongs in NBA purgatory for trading Carl
Towns to.

Speaker 5 (01:20:32):
The next Yeah, I mean, I'm still an Anthony Edwards believer.
I don't see it with this team whatsoever. I think
they're gonna be a nice first round exit.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
I would.

Speaker 5 (01:20:42):
I'm in agreement with you that I do hope the
bracket alignance that both Memphis and Minnesota have one of
these teams that have an opportunity to knock them off,
and I think that team will take that chance.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
So I don't see it from Minnesota.

Speaker 5 (01:20:51):
Again, I do like Edwards, but they're just I don't
understand why you had your most successful season really in
franchise history and then just completely gave.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
Up on and yeah it's like and by the way,
who beat them in the conference finals? That wash Dallas
as well? Right, what did they do? What are we
doing NBA teams?

Speaker 4 (01:21:09):
Like why are we just giving up seven months after
like the biggest student moments in recent memory of the
franchise or franchise history, Like it makes no sense, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
The sixers, we've been we've been begging for one of
those moments.

Speaker 4 (01:21:22):
We can't even get one of those moments, and we're
clinging all on to the same style.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
It's unbelievable. Seriously.

Speaker 5 (01:21:27):
Yeah, last year I left feeling like, okay, like this
is the best spot Minnesota's ever been in, like they
got it. They're building forward here and then nonetheless cheap, cheap,
It's un unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
By the way you want this.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
This week's edition of men Lie, Women Lie, and numbers
also lie sometimes. Julius Randall is averaging nineteen seven and
five and his percentages of the are actually like better
really than most years, Like it's forty seven, thirty two
eighty one.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
He stinks, Yeah he does.

Speaker 4 (01:22:00):
I actually I'm gonna check out his on off numbers.
He is so not conducive to winning basketball. It's having
the ball in his hands is a plus for the
other team at all times.

Speaker 5 (01:22:13):
He's like a worst version of James Harden and not
nearly his skills, like you get the same sort of
like Poudy. I mean, he's even more of a powder
than Harden too, and it is that like isolation centric.
He's not good enough to generate it. I give Julius
some credit for sort of rebuilding his career. There was
a stretch where it did look like like what exactly
is this guy gonna be here? But I mean the

(01:22:34):
reality is who he is is just kind of an
empty gallery statistic guy. I think I would throw him
in that bin that I like to a sign. And yeah,
I still don't quite understand. I get it comes down
to money, but what a DISASTERUS move by Minnesota. All around, he's.

Speaker 4 (01:22:47):
Only minus one on the on offs. We have a
comment from cousin Nicky here on Jaden McDaniels. I put
up his numbers. They're about the same. He's averaging pretty
much in line with what he did the last two years.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
I guess. Yeah, he's shooting thirty three percent.

Speaker 4 (01:23:02):
He shot thirty three percent last year from three, but
twenty two to twenty three did shoot forty percent from three. Uh,
and he started off his career by shooting thirty seven percent.
It seems like he's just not that shooter that he
was at the first couple.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
Of years of his career.

Speaker 5 (01:23:13):
Yeah, I think he's a and is what it is guy.
But I think he's a good player. This is exactly
who he is. I don't see him as this guy
that's gonna keep growing into something better. He's a good player,
a useful player, but not more than anything that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:23):
Yeah, I feel like people pushed him really hard.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
When I kind of got on the scene, I never
really was like, oh, this is a guy that like
not this is dumb comparison, but like Jalen Williams deserves
that push. Like yeah, when he arrived on the scene,
it was like, Oh, this guy's gonna be really good,
and he's become really good Philip Jane McDaniels. I was like,
I think this is kind of we are seeing what
he is like Yeah, and I think he continued to
do that, except he's actually gotten worse from worse from

(01:23:46):
down beyond the arc, I will say, just out of
the play and are re expecting Golden State in Minnesota
to get in over Dallas and Sacramento.

Speaker 5 (01:23:54):
Yeah, I'm bumped because I was ready to make the
full spurs push that I like believed in this Dean
Fox and Wemben Yama ready to make some noise that
they can play themselves out. Obviously, very sad for Wemby
and hopefully everything works out fine there. That is kind
of a scary blood clot issue that he's dealing with,
So glad they're shuting him down and taking the wide view.
It's really disappointing about Phoenix too. They have so much
talent on that roster that, like, it doesn't make sense

(01:24:15):
that they're twenty six and twenty nine and eleventh place
in the West. But when you watch that, that is
a broken basketball team. Man, I have pretty much zero
hope of them getting out of it. I think you
said Golden State in Dallas was who you said, yeah
out of the play in Yeah, Golden State or no,
Golden State and Minnesota. Golden State and Minnesota. I think
there's a world where Dallas can knock them off. Like

(01:24:35):
Anthony Davis is the X factor of health, which you know,
we can play that statement over and over on a
variety of points in his career. If they get fully healthy,
that Davis is on the floor, that you have Gafford,
that you have PJ. Washington, still Kyrie Irving. I think
Dallas is my pick. Dallas and Golden States get out
of the plane. They've won five of their last six.
I can't believe that I'm so out on Dallas. I

(01:24:56):
just and I know I'm just like holding against them
the decision they made. I just I think we're gonna
see it. I think we're gonna see in the playoffs,
Like it doesn't matter like you need Luca out there.

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
You traded, you had the engine of your offense, and Kyrie,
I think was I've always said this about Kyrie. Kyrie
was made in a basketball laboratory to be a sidekick
to Lebron James, and he was able to replicate that
to be a sidekick to the new Lebron James. And

(01:25:28):
now Luca's with Lebron and he's with neither of them.
It's it's actually like a funny if it's crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:25:34):
But by the way, Kyrie worse defender than Luca, way
worse defender than Luca way worse, not even close.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
You can't even because you can't. There's no versatility in
terms of the size that he's able to guard whatsoever.
So Kyrie is to me, I would not want him
to be the lead ball handler and passer on that team.
I think you're gonna have a seat there. They don't
have a good passer on the roster in Dallas, like
you got all those defensive guys. Yeah, he's gonna have

(01:26:01):
to play a lot, a lot he's but I think
his number has actually been pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
I saw him as a seven. The other day, I
someone picked him up in fantasy.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
So yeah, I someone has a comment Hurricanes around college football,
long horns of poverty. This is for the Longhorns basketball team, sir,
this is not for Longhorns football. I went to a
Longhorts basketball game. Goddess got a little little zip up
bet on him today. By the way, they did lose
the game. I went to to Nick mcclay's Cyclones last season.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
So it was a good game. It went down to
the wire.

Speaker 4 (01:26:33):
But let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about the
East because we both ranked okay See in Denver at
the top two, and you'd say that there's a you
had Houston three, but there's a big gap between Denver
and Houston. Certainly, where is Boston in comparison to okay See?
For you, I would still and I get Boston's coming

(01:26:55):
off a championship. As far as just pure odds to
win this season, I would still put okay See slightly high,
but Boston right there, like those two are closer in
the same tier than I even think okay See in
Denver's the way I would put that. I also think
we're probably gonna see a pretty impressive stretch from the
Celtics team moving forward that it feels like they're hitting that.
All right, let's really flip the switch, let's lock in
and get it. So I think their best basketball is
still to be played this season.

Speaker 5 (01:27:16):
I mean, they're still obviously looking at their record forty
and sixteen on the year, so it's not like they've
been dropping games. So I mean, I think Boston has
a clear path to the finals. I think okay See
is a little bit better basketball team, but that is
the matchup that I expect.

Speaker 4 (01:27:29):
Yeah, I think what I was going to say is
I'm putting Boston one just because I'm more sure they'll
be there too.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
So I feel better about their chances of New York
and Cleveland getting through New York and Cleveland than I
do about you know, okay See, we're Denver getting them
because it's just a tough, tougher task. But obviously, Cleveland
last night moves to forty six and ten, smoking statement
the New York next one forty two to one oh five.

(01:27:55):
I still look at them as like equal in terms
of the playoff contention. Like I get that's kind of
crazy at this point, they're nine games behind and they
just whooped them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:02):
It was on a back to back. How is there
a big gap between Cleveland and New York for you,
I wouldn't say big gap. I do think Cleveland's like
comfortably better. I just think there's more ways that they
can win. And by the way, no Josh Hart last night,
which is a big deal for that next team for sure,
and he's been out a couple games now, so that's
something to monitor knee injury that he's dealing with there.
But Cleveland, I mean, I've been skeptical then from start

(01:28:24):
to finish that I've wanted to throw them in this
category of they could be just like a good Atlanta
Hawks team or you know Utah Jazz that's the great
excellent season team that isn't ready for the playoffs. Kind
of changed my mind on that that.

Speaker 5 (01:28:35):
I think Evan Mobley has taken a leap in a
way that I was been pretty skeptical of and didn't
believe in him to take that for several years now.
Jared Allen, I did see he battle in a little
bit of a hand issue, So make sure that's all
nothing long term there. But Donovan Mitchell is a bad man.
Darius Garland back on the pathway that he once was.
So this is a good team. I love that they
took the swing for DeAndre Hunter at the trade deadline.
I like Cleveland. I think they're They're not quite Boston,

(01:28:58):
but they're definitely as close as you're gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:28:59):
Get on pace for sixty eight wins. Pretty impressive for sure.
I they're behind Denver for you, or in front of Denver.
Behind Denver, Yeah, I would put them behind Denver as well.
I think if I was power ranking, I go Boston, Denver. Okay,
see Cleveland, New York, Lakers, Golden State Clippers, Houston, Memphis,

(01:29:25):
like it would go all straight west after the top
three in the East. But one last question before we
move on from the NBA. Besides the top three, besides Cleveland, Boston,
New York, let's say one of them were to lose
to a team outside of the top three, who would
that team be? Indiana, Milwaukee, Detroit, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
I'm not letting you say the Sixers.

Speaker 5 (01:29:47):
Now, Milwaukee would be my pick there, to be honest.
I mean, let's not forget these guys won an nd
season tournament. Not that long ago here. I do respect
for Johannis. I think he's capable of just carrying a
team on a championship run. I think Dame Liller has
been better this year and that they're there's some other
aspect Kyle Kuzma actually giving him a little bit of
jolt to life, and certainly has more in his legs
at this stage than was the case with Chris Middleton.

(01:30:07):
I think we gotta forgot about Kuzmas. He was just
out there in Washington, No man's land for so long.
He's actually a pretty good basketball player, and this guy
that like competed and was like a real deal contributor
on that Lakers team that won a championship.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
So I'd liked that they took the swing on Kuzma.

Speaker 5 (01:30:21):
If I got to pick a dark, dark horse team
in the Eastern Conference, Milwaukee with my pick for a
team that could actually knock off one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
Of these top dogs, yeah I'll go the same. Just
be honest. Yeah, it's that simple. I don't know, it's incredible.
I don't see it. With Indiana.

Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
There's so deep that there's so many guys I like,
Haliburton's just not that guy anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
No, it's weird. Halburton Halburn stuff is really weird.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:30:40):
I can't figure it out because there's some nights where
he has it again and he looks terrific, hitting shots,
creating for others, and some nights where it's like you're
not even like a borderline starting caliber point guard. Man.
So I don't know what the full story is there,
but there's gonna be a I don't I think. I
guess my analysis analysis here would be that like he
just can't be the one A of a franchise the
way that he has heavily been push to do moving forward.

Speaker 4 (01:31:01):
Yeah, I almost feel like they need to like Benhick
Mather and should be like the focus of the offense
more but love Ben Mather. Pascal is still averaging twenty one.
It's such a good team, Like they've got like nine
ten dudes.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
I really like art.

Speaker 4 (01:31:14):
Yeah, Nie Smith, you're gonna say a bench guy Mitt
Miles Turner obviously shout out TJ.

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
Yeah, of course, shout out TJ. But I guess we'll
tuckle litle sixers. Well, well, we'll do some six ers
sock if I have to. Donnie Walker, Baby, Lonnie Walker,
is he is he? Comment is he playing Monday. I
believe he's expected to play today.

Speaker 5 (01:31:33):
He's at practice and he's definitely in uniform in Philadelphia
practicing all that, so I think he's back in action tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:31:39):
I saw he wasn't playing Thursday for some reason. I
thought that meant he wasn't playing today. Yeah, that'd be
nice to see Lonnie out there. Eleven and a half
my favorite, like you mentioned earlier in the show, an insane,
insane line, cause Nicky's gonna be in attendance for Lonnie's debut.
Get the Lonnie Walker jersey at the store. He's here forever.
I'm sure. Uh now, I'm joking. I mean you've heard

(01:32:00):
me on this show. I think I've called for Lonnie
Walker like five times this year.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:32:04):
I love Lonnie Walker. I always have been a big
Lonnie Walker guy. Was in my fraternity basement it cuts
down university while I was think it was the summer
before he was at Miami or the summer he was
going to Miami.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Shout out. Lonnie Walker had crazy hair back then. Oh yeah,
he had. He used that huge hair there.

Speaker 5 (01:32:21):
I will say Lonnie got a plenty of Lonni connections
as well as he's a reading guy who that's where
I went to college up there. His dad is the
leading all time leading scorer at Alberne University where I
went to school. So trying to work up an interview
to set up all there. So working behind the scenes
on that. But the bottom line for the Sixers team
is he's a competent NBA player man, and they have
not had enough of those. This dude is a legitimate

(01:32:41):
rotational guard with experience, and it's been bizarre to me
that he's just been waiting overseas this entire time. So
happy that they did take the swing on Lonnie Walker.
Do I expect this to change the season's trajectory much? No,
but I do like the option for next year. I
do hope he's back and it's at least something positive
to watch to close out this season.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
Happy they took the swing. Why the heck didn't they
do it three months ago?

Speaker 4 (01:33:02):
If the question doesn't make any sense, We had to
sit through Reggie Jackson and Eric Gordon and Kyle Lowry minutes.
It could have been Lonnie Walker the whole time. But anyway,
they played a night, big game in terms of the lottery. Yeah,
if you lose the Brooklyn. That's big for big for
the Tank, Big for the Tankathon numbers there.

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
Which means they're gonna win. By the way, they're definitely
gonna win. I do think they lost to Brooklyn recently
before the Star break. They did. George had two points
in that game.

Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
Paul George, I don't even want to talk about. There's
nothing to talk about. He's on the team for the
next five years and you deal with it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:37):
Yeah, that kind of is what it is.

Speaker 5 (01:33:40):
I mean, I have to imagine it can't be this
bad forever that I like, in fairness to him, if
I want to be complete here like this report of
him getting injections to be on the court, that he
has had the two bone bruises, the growing issue, the
pinky issue. It hasn't been like a clean season without
all being said, Man, it just has to be better,
like it just has to be more than what he's
given the team and they're looking down the barrel. I

(01:34:02):
mentioned this. I think we mentioned this already, but I
had an interview up with Yoci Goslin. You guys can
check that out. That's a roun pickswat Media on YouTube.
He called Paul George the worst contract and all in
the entire NBA, I had no no bite back there.
You just gotta kind of wear that one and hopefully
it gets a little bit more tolerable than has been
the case this season.

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
I trolled the Clippers and I said, part of me
still thinks like, if they knew they weren't gonna pay them,
they should have traded him, like yeah, the year before
or at the deadline. But they looks like they were
probably pretty smart to not give Paul George the max
that he wanted. And it makes a little bit more
sense why there was nobody else really ponying up to

(01:34:38):
get the max out to Paul George.

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):
But what are you gonna do?

Speaker 4 (01:34:42):
I probably would have I would have traded for brandon Ingram,
but besides that, there's not much more that I would
have done other than that, So it's hard to go there.
The insane thing is what's going on with Joelle and
the surgery conversation and him telling every national broadcaster that
will listen that he needs surgery, and he just continues
to play. The one benef of this season should be

(01:35:02):
that you can sit Joel and get him the time
off that he so desperately needs, and we could take
a chance at this again next year. You made a
good pick with Jared McCain. You might have found some
guys with Justin Edwards and Grimes and some young piece
Jared Butler, some young pieces to build for next year.
Why not do the best thing possible to get the
six pick. Sit Paul George and Joel down. POMPEII put

(01:35:23):
out the leak that seemed like it was an agent
leak about those guys like potentially being able to do
more harm, especially Paul George. I think they were saying,
ye can do more harm to his injury. So just
sit them down, Just let them sit the rest of
the year, and let's be as bad as possible, try
to get the pick and try this again next year.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:35:41):
I mean, I have no arguments against that at this
point in the season and where they're at. The only
thing that I'll like push back on, and not even
like in an argumentative way, is I might it's just
a fear of what if there is not the surgery
for Joel, And when I honestly hear him speak on it,
what it sounds like to me is hoping.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
Yeah, I agree, hope. It's like I hope there's something
to fix me.

Speaker 5 (01:35:58):
There's almost coping in his brain that like he's just
like blindly hoping it can get better. And that's kind
of a like pretty scary reality that that's the state
of what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:36:08):
Yeah, But to me, I think more than anything, just
time off and time stopping playing. He had this whole
routine get entirely ruined this summer where you go to
the Olympics. Nobody could tell me something didn't happen there
and then, and.

Speaker 5 (01:36:22):
By the way, would be so much nicer if we
had a complete picture of all this, which we'll never get.

Speaker 4 (01:36:26):
Yeah, we'll never get it because then as you did,
you would be admitting you lied ten other times. So
it's yeah, I mean, there's no way he didn't get
hurt at the Olympics, and there's no way that he
didn't think he could play through it. He thought it
was probably something minor, probably developed into something more major.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
I would just liking to get time off, whether that's
surgery or not.

Speaker 4 (01:36:46):
I don't think surgery would hurt at this point, probably,
Like I don't think that there's anything you can do surgically.

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):
It's gonna make it worse.

Speaker 4 (01:36:52):
Sod go in there and see what that was, an
unbelievable spin move leading into one of the best blocks
I've ever seen in my life in this sex A
and m Tennessee game to close the half.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
By the way, folks, one of the best highlights you'll
ever see. I hope they show that on replay.

Speaker 4 (01:37:06):
But yeah, I really wish they would have just had
a little bit of a little bit of foresight to
understand the opportunity that being bad gave them. But anyway,
you're gonna need to get gonna need to get that
top six pick, which really means for the people out there,
you need the top four pick, because the only way
you can if you don't finish in the top six,

(01:37:28):
the only way you can get a top six pick
is jumping into the top four. People who don't know
out there the lottery it used to be top three
is the lottery is really only done for the top
four teams, and then after that it slots in in
order of the record, in order of what the projected
lottery would have been.

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
So a little fun fact for the people out there.
So look on tangathon right now, let's pull it up. Well,
let's pull up one of my favorite websites that I've
been going on since the Hinky era. Six Ers are
sixth right now. Yep, that's a big, big, big thing
that's Tonight's a huge game tonight. It's huge. And not
to mention, you have Toronto right there three and a

(01:38:05):
half games behind. Maybe you could maybe maybe you sat there,
guys taking past Manuel quickly.

Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
Yeah, I will say I think there's like a huge
gap between being fifth or sixth, between keeping your pick,
because if you're six and anyone jumps into the top
four behind you, you're slotting down to seven. And imagine
giving away the seventh pick, by the way, and this
would be absolutely brutal.

Speaker 5 (01:38:29):
And by the way, the stems from the the Al
Horford trade. Initially for him, it turns out terrible trade
by Darryl. Yeah, it's just another reason for me to
hate Al Horford, is how I look at that one.

Speaker 4 (01:38:39):
Yeah, And at the time we all celebrated that night.
Darryl had a great night. He drafted Tyrese Maxi, He
traded Joshua Seth Curry, in our opinion, got off the
Horford contract for a bunch of fake picks.

Speaker 3 (01:38:51):
I remember that was said a lot, and I think
I'd said that it was unbelievable spot now it's turning
into this. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 5 (01:38:58):
Unbelievable that there were talking about them, you know, possibly
getting in the six pick here, unbelievable that this is
the State of the Sixers.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):
But it is what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:39:07):
Yeah, I mean, Golden State did have this dip in
the middle, Like it's obviously definitely I had a bunch
of rings before.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
But Golden State did.

Speaker 4 (01:39:14):
Have the year where they went and got James Wiseman
and then they came back and ended up putting it
together without even without that pick, and and got back
to the finals.

Speaker 3 (01:39:23):
I don't know. Here's what I'll say. I'm not as
willing as.

Speaker 4 (01:39:25):
Everybody else, just say, like Joell's career is over and
we've seen the last of like twenty five plus point
per game Joel. I think it's clear we're not getting
any version of Joel of any worse this season. Let's
try something different than we've ever tried before, and letting
him just sit for the next couple months and not
play basketball and not play not rushing back.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
Let's try something different.

Speaker 5 (01:39:48):
Yeah, I have no arguments, there are no problem with that.
Approach that it should be like this summer should be
like every single specialist in existence, every guy that you
need in the building of like, Okay, what are our options?

Speaker 3 (01:39:58):
What can we possibly do here? Because everything should be
on the table.

Speaker 5 (01:40:01):
Whether this is a surgery, whether this is a rehab plan,
whether this is you know, a lifestyle shift, whether it's
a whole nutrition plan, whatever the case may be, something
has to be switched up with Joel Embiid. There may
be a reality where that need just like there comes
a point where there's just no meniscus anymore, and that's
pretty like scary thought that that's on the table for Joel,
But I mean they have no choice but to try.

(01:40:22):
There's no option that like, there's no way you move
on from Joel Embiid and improve your chances of winning
based on what you're gonna get in return, because every
other team in the league sees the exact same things
that we do, of him missing games, of him looking
like the version of himself with that we've seen this season.

Speaker 3 (01:40:36):
So it's frustrating. But the reality that people should swallow
is we're.

Speaker 5 (01:40:40):
Gonna have to run the same thing back next year
and just hope for better results pretty much.

Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
Well, the difference is you hopefully have Jared McCain, big
difference you maybe Paul George is a little bit better
hopefully now maybe you have Yaboo next to Joel Embiid,
Quentin Grimes. Quentin Grimes probably a factor. Justin Edwards could
be a factor, Ricky Counsel could be a factor.

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):
New coach, Jared Butler could be a factor. New coach
could be a factor. There is like I actually think
the funniest thing about the Sixers, and it's so negative
right now. I was pretty out coming into this season
as everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:41:13):
I think I've made clear and I actually feel like
better about next year than I thought I could, and
I think most people do. Obviously Joelle is the big
X factor of all of that. But I actually think
they've made a couple of good moves on like the
perimeter definitely obviously Jared mcdrafting, Jared McCain's unbelievable draft pick,
just finding Yaboo the way that they did, and now

(01:41:35):
prioritizing keeping him, and I think they will.

Speaker 3 (01:41:37):
He actually think he slowed down a little bit production
wise too. As of late.

Speaker 4 (01:41:41):
I think you'll be able to keep yaboo around Justin
Edwards want to find even I'm a little bit of
an Adam Bona skeptic, He's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:41:50):
I think he is what he is. I don't think
I don't know if he's an NBA rotation player.

Speaker 5 (01:41:53):
I think he could go down the like Clint Cappella
like route, Like he's not gonna be quite that good.
But uh, I mean he's a I don't want to
say more polished version of Paul Reid because polish wouldn't
be the word I used for him, but like a
little bit more just bare bones what Paul Reid was,
I would.

Speaker 4 (01:42:07):
Say, yeah, but yeah, I mean Lonnie could be a
nice fine Jared Butler. I think it's a nice fine.
So there are reasons, I think to be excited about
next year, if you get anything from Joelle, if you
got a new coach, if you get anything from Paul George.

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
But let's leave that for next year.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
Let's talk more sixers, more more basketball down the stretch,
because I feel like it's been a football show for
the last couple of months. Obviously, there's a reason Sean
Bernard was brought in as the Coast around this time
of the year. I think a couple of years ago, maybe,
So I Sean Bernard is our basketball guy here, our
NBA guy obviously, our Sixers guy here at the Gambler.

(01:42:42):
So we are going to be heavy, heavy, basketball heavy
NFL draft over the next couple months. That'll definitely be
the focus. So a lot more coming on the Tough
Cover radio show right here on Fox Sports The Gambler
for Sean Bernard, for Mark Henry Tough Cover Country.

Speaker 3 (01:42:57):
That's right,