June 23, 2023 • 42 mins
On the Friday edition of The Best Of The Doug Gottlieb Show: Doug gets into why the NBA Draft has lost it's luster and what the NBA should do about it.
Doug talks about what Portland is likely to do with star Damian Lillard and how this has turned into a staring contest, no one wanting to be the bad guy.
NBA Insider Marc Stein joins Doug to talk about the NBA Draft, Damian Lillard and all of the other major headlines around the NBA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
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Find your local station for The Doug Gottlieb Show at
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Doug Goblieb Show. Fuck Sports Radio Man, I hope you're
(00:26):
having a great day. The Doug Gottlieb Show broadcast live
every day from the tyrag dot com studios. Tyrec dot com.
Wet me get there on match selection pass, free shipping,
free road has a protection over ten thousand recommends tellers
tyret dot com the way tire buying should be. I
want to do something a little different today. Okay, so
(00:47):
here's the deal. I don't know, John, You and I
weren't texting last night, So if you weren't watching, totally understand.
Because you have kids, you coach softball, Lucas Scott baseball.
It's the summer. I know that Bier was watching because
he's like me, like we can't get enough of this stuff.
And I know that Jay Stu was watching because now
can he not give it? But he asked me some
(01:08):
really really good questions, and I also know that, uh
this is like a this is great. Here here's the
parallel I'll make. You ever have something in life that
you know a lot about, it's just like this random
Cliff Craven now me, I know this right, Like you
(01:32):
know about something that other people don't know that much about.
And then there's that you walk into a conversation and
all of a sudden your brain lights up. Like the
first time I experienced this was my daughter Grace. Oh man,
hell od was she? She was probably she was probably
like eight at the time. And we go to Hawaii
(01:54):
and we go on a on a boat and we're
going like, we go watch dolphin, we go swim with
the you know, we see the dolphins, and then we
go storre cling right, so they start talking about spinner
dolphins and she's like, uh, she's like rain man, like
they're nocturnal, like, and she knows all these all the
different dolphins are like, how does she know all this stuff?
(02:17):
And at some point she went down the rabbit hole
of the internet and was fascinated by dolphins and literally
can tell you everything you need to know about dolphins.
I'm sure you have something like that in life, right.
Sometimes it's a city, you know, have you ever been
to Boston? Yes, I have been to Boston, matter of fact,
Johnny Tremaine and YadA, YadA, YadA. I have some things
(02:40):
like that, like things that I know a lot about
for no particularly and the basketball NBA draft is a
big one. NBA Draft is a big one. So we're
broadcasting live from the tyret dot com studios tyrect dot com.
But you get there unmatched, fast, free shipping, free road
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ass protection, over ten thousand recommends dollars, tirec dot com
the way tire buying should be. I do feel like
this is something that I do, I know a lot about,
and it's like it's one of those things also that
not really always to place in doing a national sports
radio show to get too much inside baseball and tell
(03:23):
you about things you don't know about. But there are
things in what you're watching you're like, hey, I don't
this is different. I don't understand. So there's a bunch
of elements to last night which were really interesting. There
were two different broadcasts from the same company. One was
a network TV broadcast. One was a cable TV broadcast,
And I don't watch TV differently, but apparently people do,
(03:45):
and that's why they did it differently. There's the We've
always had teams play on players from foreign countries that
we don't know about, but now we have we have
American athletes playing in our kin and we don't see
them even though they're not playing in high school. And
we had a bunch of those guys drafted to G League.
(04:06):
I Knit had four players drafted, Overtime lead had the
Thompson Twins drafted. So what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Eight seven seven ninety nine one fox? Is that the number?
If you have a pertinent, poignant question, feel free? But
I know Ramos did buyer has questions and opinions as well,
But it's it's amazing that and you get this question
all the time. How can the same company, ESPN, how
(04:36):
can they have two drafts and they feel completely different
from one another? How can that be? Like ESPN has
done the NFL draft forever for our entire adult lifetime
and most of our like you know, how long did
you have Boomer?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I have some really musical reference and you go to
Melchiper Junior and now over the last probably fifteen years,
you've had Todd mcshade there as well. And then you know,
they've had guys from Mike or and you name it.
They slide other people in a round. But those have
been and they are the staple for how to do it?
How do you go from that to the same network?
(05:20):
And last night was just kind of weird. It wasn't bad,
It wasn't good. And oh yeah, by the way, like
our need to have parents involved, and I actually get it,
like most of those stories of parents are beautiful stories
(05:44):
and having them there is awesome because I can tell
you and I know this is not My daughter is
an athlete. My son is an athlete. But and I
coach an AAU program, so I've been around this. So
parental involvement. Forget about what you read. Okay, that doesn't
(06:05):
break down to race, because like, you're not going to
be anything these days unless you have somebody who helps
you get to where you're going. I mean, that was
honestly the thing my dad did for kids for years,
God rest his soul was he would drive. That's my
(06:26):
whole childhood. It sounded like from like fifth grade on
was get in the car with my dad after school
and we drive to San Diego, meet meet Adam Walton's mom,
Sally Walton, to pick him up for practice. Sometimes go
halfway to Bakersfield. A guy named J R. Henderson played
at UCLA, play in the NBA, played forever in Japan.
(06:47):
Now coach, we meet to the like we'd go wherever
because kids couldn't get a ride to go to practice.
And if you can't practice, you can't win. He won't
get any better. And there just weren't good enough players
where I dedicated enough guys that could get you kind
of give you a good enough team to compete at
the highest level. So this is something my entire life
has been around AAU youth basketball whatever. Obviously I have
(07:10):
covered college basketball forever, cover NBA basketball for twenty years.
Many of the guys that I grew up playing with
are now coaches or in the front office. And this
is one of those like, yeah, there's a lot that
I know about and still some things that don't make
sense to me and things that have changed over time.
So Jay Stu hit me with you didn't know what
(07:32):
overtime elite was, and you didn't know what the G
League IG Nite was.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Correct, Yeah, whichever team is in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's an overtime elite that's in Atlanta, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And then yeah, the other wherever Scoot went.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
He went to the G League A Knight, which was
in northern California. Though I think they're changing locations to
maybe they're in Henderson, Nevada now, but they were. They
were what's that area called shoot I can't remember. It's
over the hill from Oakland Man Walnut Creek. They used
to be in Walnut Creek. Now they're in Henderson, Nevada. Right,
(08:07):
So you didn't know about Okay, So the G League
I Knight, the G League Knight is, and again the
NBA is in this weird spot where they were trying
to create a model that mirrored Europe's model. Here's the
best way I can express it, Okay, G League Knight is.
You skip college, you go straight to the G League
(08:29):
A Knight, You play against other G League teams. You
are coached by Jason Hart who Jason was a longtime
NBA point guard, become college assistant at USC. Of course
played at Syracuse. And so you're playing against G leaguers
and half your team is made up of guys that
would be freshmen or seniors in high school or would
(08:51):
be freshman in college. And then half of it is
a couple guys like that named Pooh Jeter who played
at the University of Portland and then was a legend
of overseas and now has moved into an executive role
in the NBA. But you'd have like an old head
or two that would help kind of guide these guys
on their path so they're playing against g leaguers. Overtime
(09:11):
Elite Overtime was I think it started as a website
and then it was as a Twitter and Instagram handle
that had millions of followers. I think it really made
hey when they had when Zion Williamson was in high
school in aau and with the money that they made,
they built this beautiful facility and they became a landing spot.
(09:33):
And this was talked about from a lot of different
angles of Hey, how can we get high school players
that want to be NBA players and don't really want
to go to traditional route and so they do have
some educational courses. You can supposedly go to college from it,
But I don't think anybody's gone to college from overtime
elite and you play against other prep schools, so you're
like paid to go to prep school and all you
(09:55):
do is basketball for the most part. So those are
the two different places that we're discussing. Did I leave
anything out? Is or anything else you need to know about.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Those two I mean the reason why I asked is
because I consider myself a pretty good barometer of like
your average viewer of the draft last night, and them
having to do introduction vignettes, introduction packages to get people
to know who these people are speaks a lot to
the general interest of the draft because nobody really knows
(10:23):
these kids. And then when they talked about these ignite
teams and whatnot, exactly what is that? Why did they
choose that path? Why is that better for their development
and their profile than the college game. I just had
all these questions to ask of you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You know, yeah, I would say, oh, man, I would
say this, Uh, the NBA, I there was a time
when all this started. There's never been a great relationship
(10:58):
between the NBA and the NCAA for basketball, right and
this is you go back and when Adam Silver took over,
he wanted to mirror the model of European clubs, and
European clubs they have junior teams where they develop players.
The problem with it is that the European professional basketball
(11:22):
model is completely different than the college basketball NBA model here,
and the missing piece to it is there's a promotional
tour tool. There's also an educational tool, which it may
not be needed for kids that are good enough to
play and you can identify them at sixteen seventeen years
(11:43):
old pretty easily. But for the vast majority of them,
it's a great opportunity to do both. And you don't
have that overseas. You don't have necessarily the you don't
have necessarily the imbalance and inequality, if you will, of
(12:05):
education overseas like you do in the United States. It
reminds me, honestly of when people try and compare like, well,
you know, in Denmark, Okay, they have universal health care
and they charge sixty at sixty percent tax rate, and
yet everybody's happy, nobody has cancer, blah blah blah' Like, dude,
it we're not Denmark. We have one hundred years of
(12:26):
doing it this way and you can't slide into doing
it a different way, especially when part of the big
like last night was a promotional tool, but tour tool.
But instead of being a promotional tool, it's an introductory tool.
Because you had how many college basketball players were taken
in the first round, and even of those college basketall players,
(12:48):
how many could you actually name? How many of you've
seen play? Dan Bayer, you love basketball, love basketball, golf,
NFL football, and I feel like college basketball. I could
be wrong. That's as much of a passion for you
as anything outside of NFL football and golf. Is that fair?
(13:09):
I do enjoy college hoops, yes, okay. How many of
the first round picks in the NBA draft have you
actually seen playing? Probably less than than six.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Grady Dick obviously was a name at Kansas, but yeah,
for sure, handful of best.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And that's a college basketball fan. I'm just I'm not
saying this because I love college basketball because it provided
me everything that I need. Okay, everything that I need,
everything that I've done in life has been provided to
me because of college basketball. Everything. It's it's because I
(13:55):
also am far enough from the forest I can see
the trees and there is no buzz, no hype outside
of Victor Webbin Yama and it's not just these number
one pick and he seven foot five, but they did
everything in their power to tell you this guy is.
Like I saw Jason McIntyre tweet he's gonna be top
the All NBA. What like for Victor webin Yama to
(14:21):
be All NBA in his first year, Okay, that means
he has to be a center. Okay, the top three
centers this year in All NBA. Okay, we're Demantas Sabonis,
We're Nikolie Jokic, and we're Joel Embiid. Anthony Davis is
not listed. There's several others like he's not going to
be All NBA, Like the hype is, it's not very
(14:45):
likely at all, But we're just we feel the need
to massively over hype guys because otherwise, why would you care.
They're all eighteen, nineteen years old. They're not gonna help
or play or do much of anything on winning teams
teams actually pay attention to for a couple of years.
That's the reality to it. So I think it comes
(15:05):
down to where the NBA is kind of halfway in
between trying to copy the European model and trying to
stick with the traditional system and the European model, though
it has produced some very good players and maybe refined players,
and it cuts out the educational piece, which people don't
seem to value nearly as much anymore. It's for a
(15:26):
different like, for a different style of basketball, for a
different thing. It just is, you know, foreign teams and
their success is or financial success is not based upon
their TV revenue or their TV deal. It's not. They
get money from sponsors, and they get money from sponsors
(15:47):
based upon their location and if they win. Now honestly,
like season tickets aren't nearly as much of a driver
for them financially as they are here. It's such a
different and system anything else, Jason, I can be of service.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
With no, No, You're good. I think Dan had.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Something, Yeah, I Doug. I took My takeaway from last
night was it was an interesting crossroads of what you
expect from a draft broadcast of what the NBA was,
what the NBA is, what college basketball was in is.
And the reason I say that is I think that
as a college basketball fan and someone who grew up
(16:30):
loving the draft, it is not the same draft that
it that it was twenty or thirty years ago. But
that's nothing different what I thought was was so unique
last night, and ESPN has done this with the NFL Draft,
but it's easier to actually do with the NFL Draft
when you split broadcasts. What I found last night was
you really didn't have anybody there to fit the true
(16:52):
need of what you needed from the broadcast outside of
J Billis, and only J Billis could do so much
because of the different avenues all these players come from.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
There, there was.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Like, that's the toughest part about it is it's good,
it's not It's not what it once was. So when
you have players that you don't know, you have players
coming from different directions, you have players coming from from Europe,
there is no one there to tell us about them.
And I would even argue, as we've talked about on
this show many times, how the NBA is changing. Now
(17:28):
we're wondering who's going to help a big three, when
the conversation should be, you know what, who's going to
be the Christian Braun of the Denver Nuggets. Who is
going to be that player that is going to be
able to have that current impact on a team. Right now?
We have player comps, we have projections, and it's just
to me it was really tough to hit the moving
(17:51):
target last night.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, I agree, there's also no debate, right, It's like
j Bill says it, and that's what it is. Like
what like huh? And there was no negativity, right, none?
Like I mean, look, Jet Howard gets drafted really high
(18:12):
by the Orlando Magic, right, didn't they move up to
draft him? They draft him very early, and I think
you would have been around late in the first round,
and like, you know, I get it, Like we all
loved watching Juwan Howard play is great, dude, there's no
negative there. But like I saw him play, didn't guard anybody,
didn't move great. Two thirds of his shots are threes, right,
(18:33):
and not a rebounder for his size. So I thought
Orlando massively reached. And why are you taking a guy
that high? Right, or even the okay Scoot Henderson versus
Brandon Miller, Like that's a that's something I mean, I
would love. Who wouldn't love to go and spa on
that one?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And then you're like, wow, do you take Scoot considering
you have you have a LaMelo ball and how does
that work together? And my argument would have been like
if you like him better, then you take him because
it's not like the horns are good anyway. At least
they're entertaining, and then it kind of all fits. It
works itself out over time. But yeah, I agree with you.
(19:13):
It was not you put people. You didn't put enough
people in position to succeed because you tried to please everybody.
When you please everybody, you please no one.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
This is the.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Best of the Don dot Leap Show on Fox Sports Radio,
What Up with You?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio. The Doug Gottleep Show
broadcast live every day from the ti rac dot com studios,
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(19:54):
It's the way that tire buying should be. Do you
know what was wrong with last night? Well, what was
wrong with last night is the same thing I think
that's going on in Portland. It's that uh uh. And
(20:14):
I'm super into the show Succession now, Jase, do have
you watched all the Succession?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I have, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Okay, I'm almost done. And are you are you?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Are you past the big the big incident that everyone
talked about, the big spoiler, incident.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Which big spoiler incident.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I don't want to spoid for the listeners who haven't
gotten there, but it's the big one. The big guy dies.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, you're by that. Yeah okay, cool, yeah, yeah,
very much past that.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But a lot of people said after after he died,
I lost interest, like he was the reason I kept
watching the show, and the kids are a little bass
I don't like to watch them. So that was kind
of a feeling out there on social media.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Weren't they little bastards the entire time?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
They were? But I guess the old man kind of
kept kept you watching, you.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Know, Okay, I mean I guess. Well, look, there's a
there's a bunch to it. Let's one of the things
I like. One of the things that's interesting about that
show is how there are some people who do and
some people don't like to fire people, right, like to
(21:31):
fire people like it's just a heart. Everyone wants to
be in charge. Okay, part of being in charge is
you're gonna have to fire somebody. Now, you don't want
somebody who takes joy in firing people, as that's the
case in that show. That there are some people that
take joy in firing the people. But I do think
that it's really fair to say that that's a challenge
(21:55):
that a lot of people go through when you want
to be in charge. You want me in charge some good,
you know, it's not just an You got to do
the tough stuff too, and the tough stuff is firing people.
And I think part of firing people is you're the
bad guy who wants to be the bad guy. Lebron
James is, without any question, one of the greatest athletes
in the history of American sports. The number one thing
(22:17):
he struggled with during his time in Miami was he
wore the black hat. He was the bad guy, right.
It's one of the things that it's one of the
benefits of Draymond Green can bring to your team is
he can be the bad guy. Now, he doesn't have
the top end of some of the others, but that's
something that he actually does exceptionally well. And I thought
(22:40):
that was the thing that's missing from the NBA Draft
last night. There there was nobody that wanted to be
the bad guy. Nobody that stepped up and said, like,
you know, I mean, you got a little bit of it.
With Adrian Warzanowski, trying to explain why Cam Whitworth sat
so long in the green room despite having a very
(23:01):
well regarded high school career, AU career play with Team
USA basketball. People at Villanova talked about how talented he was.
He was injured part of the year. Now I was
told most of it was actually his medicals, but apparently
there's a he didn't have a great attitude some of
these workouts. He didn't give off the persona of somebody
(23:23):
who no matter where he went, that's where he wanted
to be. But there just wasn't anybody on that dais
that was willing to be the bad guy. Everybody was great,
Everything was great, They're great. Why is it sitting. I
don't know. He's great. He's great, He's great, animate great TV.
You know, it's one of the things about Simon Cowell
(23:44):
that he was able to lock in on right. Simon
Cowell made a career on saying that's terrible. That's the
worst performance I've ever seen. But like, look, you're gonna
hurt people's feelings. And oh yeah, by the way, if
you say this guy can't play, that guy can't play,
he's going to be about what happens. Oh you could
(24:05):
be made to look a fool. Look, dude, I nailed
in the eighty eighty five percent of predictions on what
somebody could ultimately be in the NBA. But they're in
a they're in a week that goes by that I
talk about the NBA or NBA draft that somebody doesn't
(24:25):
bring up and by the way, they don't contextualize it correctly.
That I didn't think Steph Curry was going to be
as good it had the ceiling as a pro of
Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio, I was wrong. If you
want to find somebody that bats a thousand, good luck,
(24:46):
but it's easy to sort of bat a thousand if
you say everybody's great, right, that makes it really really easy.
So people ask what's going on in Portland? Same thing,
same thing. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody
wants to say, you know what, Dame, you've been awesome,
(25:07):
but we can just get a killer deal for you.
So right now, you say, anybody who calls, we're not interested.
You just heard from Mark Stein. They're gonna wait until
somebody until Damian Lillard says I want to be traded,
and Damian Lillard wants to wait until they trade him,
(25:28):
and the second he hears any sort of change in
their stance, that's when he's gonna Damian Lillard doesn't want
to be the bad guy. He's got so much equity.
He's incredibly popular, and I actually sympathize with Damian Lillard.
Sympathize with him, which is like, you have so much equity,
(25:51):
there are so many people who think you're awesome. He's
one of the most popular players in the league with
other players. He's one of the most popular players in
the league with fans. It's crazy, like Carmelo Anthony, that
Carmelo Anthony was an incredible score incredible, didn't play defense,
(26:14):
called off other dudes on rebounds, but best scoring league.
But you know, he just wasn't necessarily beloved. A lot
of people still like Carmelo though. But if you raise
a stink, or if you asked to be traded, or
(26:35):
if you chase a ring, as people want to say,
you chase a ring, Like look what happened to Kevin Durant.
When Kevin Durant, Okay, when Kevin Durant won the MVP,
it was one of the most beloved moments in the
history of that award. Remember he gave it up to
his mom. You're the real MVP, like man, I love
(26:56):
Kevin Durant. Then they're up three games one against the
Golden State Warriors. In Game six, he didn't play well,
Klay Thompson plays incredibly well. They lose to a tremendous
team who, by the way, ends up losing after being
up three games to one in the NBA Playoffs. In
(27:17):
the NBA Finals and as a free agent, much like
Lebron James, he chooses to leave. Now there's a lot
of different things you could say about it or think
about it, But like, if the decision is you get
to go to a place you want to live and
you want to be successful, is there anything more successful
(27:38):
than being somewhere for three years and going to three
NBA Finals and winning two championships And the only reason
he didn't want a third was because you were injured.
But what happened He became the bad guy. Not everybody
is built to be the bad guy. Not everybody likes
being the bad guy. And there are lots of people
(27:59):
who say I want to be the bad guy. I'm
okay being the bad guy, And the truth is there
not and the perfect example of it in your life
is everybody wants to be the boss. Okay, if you're
the boss, you don't just get to hire and make
good decisions and give people raises and you're gonna be
the boss. Cool. First thing you gotta do is go
(28:21):
fire that dude. Oh hey, you gotta go fire a friend.
Maybe you got to go hire and fire some people,
somebody who you were competitive with. But because you're in
the same position, you both made it work. YadA YadA, YadA,
YadA YadA. What's going on in Portland? Nobody wants to
(28:42):
be the bad guy. Remember Damian Lillard has that no
recent communication with the team that the general managers come
out and said, hey, you know, I want to hold
on to Damian Lillard like he's our most important asset.
And there's no doubt they're going to try and package
some of those guards, maybe one off or move them
(29:02):
a bunch of different places and try and get other
players right guys on sign and trades like all of
this stuff makes sense. But the end of the day,
like the best possible scenario, the smartest thing to do
is trade Damian Lillard and go build yourself a team.
Start over. It's really hard to be the bad guy. Nobody.
(29:27):
The bad guy is the guy that trades away a
Hall of famer. Damian Load's a Hall of famer.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
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slash match. Mark Stein joins us. Of course, he's covered
the NBA for whooah man, you're talking about twenty years.
He cos the podcast, which is great with Chris Haynes.
(30:05):
It's called This League Uncut. It's got the biggest topics
and more than just what they tweet or what they write,
really really in depth stuff. It's called This League Uncut.
Download wherever you download your podcast. Mark, thanks so much
for joining us. I've said this all week. I think, Look,
do I think Victor webbin Yam has a chance to
(30:27):
be a great player? I do. I think a little
bit of the oversale of even his floor is because
the NBA is trying, especially ESPN or both of us
used to work there. They're trying to get attention to
a product in the NBA draft where most people have
never seen any of these kids play. It's like more
of an introduction than a selection, and it's their way
(30:48):
of kind of overcompensating for the lack of hypes surrounding
the entire draft. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I think I fall between what you're describing from our
old friends in Bristol and where you are.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
I certainly, to.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Me, it's perfectly fine and should be quite complimentary, to say,
most anticipated and most highly rated draft prospects since Lebron
in two thousand and three. To me, that's pretty teddy talk.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
That would be enough.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
When we start hearing best prospect in pro sports history,
that's when I agree with you, because you know it's
a frequent comp that is thrown out as he shoots
like Durant.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
He doesn't shoot like Kevin Durant.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
He has easy range. I like the way Nikola Vatuma's
countryman describes it. He has easy range like Porzingis. But
the last two years in the French League, he shot
sub thirty percent from the three point line. And we
know the three point line is closer in Europe.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Than it is in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So the hype is largely justified. But I'm with you,
it is it has been over the top too much.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, I just think that, like they're tru the idea
of trying to create a system which mirrors Europe. Right,
that's overtime elite, that's G League, ignite you. And I
know this better than anybody, that European basketball is. There's
not hype there. They don't need it. That's not how
they sell tickets, that's not how they keep the lights on.
(32:24):
It's a completely different way of doing business. And it
is here. It is important here, And like we keep
diminishing college basketball. But one thing the college basketball, much
like college football, has done, is it promotes the players
time and again many times above their actual level of skill.
(32:45):
And that the NFA, NBA benefits from it. And because
it's been diminished and because so many fewer prospects playing it,
that they're struggling to have that same level of attention
and hype at the NBA.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, the case of web Minyama, though, it is so
unique in terms of you know, this is the league
that you know, just hates the word tanking, hates the
concept of tanking, hates the discussion of tanking.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
You saw what happened to the.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Dallas Mavericks, who you know, were find seven hundred and
fifty K for tanking a game or two at the
end of the season. But when Benyama's games were shown
on the NBA app, the league's official app, all season long,
it's never happened. The NBA has done as much to
(33:38):
fuel the attention that ween Beyana that when Benyama has generated.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
I mean, they've been a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I mean, I think one of the most amazing fats
of the twenty twenty two to twenty three seasons is
Victor Wen. Benyama finished eighth among all players in views
on the NBA's official social media tanels, having played zero
minutes in the NBA.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
You don't see that every day. We've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And look, he is good enough to justify funs of it.
We've never seen a big guy move like this, and
we've never seen a big guy with.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
His offensive skills.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But he relishes defense wants to be a defensive anchor,
is already a proven difference maker.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
On the defensive end.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So, like I said, I'm not trying to this guy
is a generational prospect. But you know, when I hear
like you, when I hear he is the greatest prospect
that we've ever seen across professional sports, and we just
dial it down a touch a little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You do a podcast, Mark Steiner's podcast with Chris Hanes
Okay and Chris Haynes. Is he's actually a remarkable personal
story right in his rise to prominence and now doing
this podcast, doing sidelines for TNT, writing for Yahoo Sports,
all that stuff. But Chris Haynes kind of came up
in northern California, right, And Damian Lillard's from ok most famously, right,
(35:01):
So there's obviously relationship there. And so the most recent
Chris Haynes's tweet is that there's been zero engagement or
discussion between Damian Lillard and the Portland trivilege. This is
like the we're all waiting for that inevitable conclusion that
Damien wants out of Portland after what they did last night.
Where does that stand from your insider knowledge?
Speaker 5 (35:24):
I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I think the whole league is waiting to see it
because the Blazers have made it quite clear they are
not going to initiate a Damian Lillard trade. When teams
were calling this week, they didn't want to engage in
the hypothetical of Damian Lillard becoming available. It's going to
take Damian Lillard going to them and saying that he wants.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
To be moved.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And to this point still, you know, I've said it,
I don't know how many times this month, but it
is where we are on June twenty third. He has
not made any declarations or applied any pressure on the
Blazers to move him. Is that forthcoming? I can promise
you Chris will know before I do.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
But I would also say this is.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know, the Blazers are in a pretty enviable position,
as dire as that might sound, because they drafted a
guy who, by all accounts and Scoot Henderson does have
franchise player potential everyone in the league thinks.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
So they call it a three star draft and he
went third.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And you know they do have Jayden Sharp there, Anthony
Simon's there. If Dame decides, if underline, if game decides,
this is the.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Time to seek a trade.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
They're pretty well positioned with what they already had and
what they would be adding in a trade, and Damian
Lillard still has tremendous trade value.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
So I would say that the Blazers are.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
In a very good position and had a tremendous night,
even though we really don't know where this goes from here.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Okay, let's let's get to some of the stuff Golden
State Warriors that was It felt like a lot of
financial moves that Mike Denleavy Junior made right where you
get Obviously Jordan Poole there was more to it than
just the finances, but his extension kicks in this year
that changes their salaries dramatically and allows them to potentially
(37:26):
re sign Draymond Green, and then some of the movements,
some of the other movements they made. What's the league's
reaction to Chris Paul, who's a former rival, heated, hated
rival even this year now being steps back up.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Just like with Dame.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Everybody in the league wants to see what happens here,
because it is hard to picture Chris Paul just sauntering
in to the Warriors' locker room and everybody just putting
the paths aside and let's hoop.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
I mean, it is hard to picture, but.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The first thing you said is what's to play here?
This is at its core, it is about finances, and
it's not just Golden State. It's a bunch of teams
around the league. And you're you're going to likely see
more trade activity before free agency starts because teams are
trying to get in front of the new collective Bargain
agreement that takes hold on June thirtieth slash July first.
(38:24):
And the Phoenix Suns they've decided to just blow pack
the first tax apron, the second tax aprons, and they're
prepared to deal with whatever restrictions there are in terms
of putting guys around. What's still a quartette of Durant, Booker,
Ayton and now Bradley Beal. But nobody else wants to
(38:45):
do it the way.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
The Suns are doing.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The Warriors want to keep their step Stephen Curry, Clay Thompson,
Draymond Green. They want to keep that trio together. To
do it, they had to shed some salary, obviously, given
all detentions last season after the punch in practice, it
made sense that Jordan Poole with his contract with all
of the Teton that lingered last season, that he would
(39:09):
be the one to go if they could find a
trade partner. And I actually thought they would have a
supper time finding a trade partner. But they could have
sent Jordan Poole elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
So interesting that.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Washington, when they're in the middle of cutting all this salary,
that they're the team that decides to snap up Jordan Pool.
But you're going to see more of these moves that
have a financial basis to it because the landscape is
changing dramatically because of this new collective bargaining agreement.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Is Andrew Wiggins a Warrior next year?
Speaker 5 (39:41):
I think so?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I think this is the big change. I don't see them.
I don't see them drastically changing the core further because
part of this also is look, Ramont Green declined a
player options. I think he's staying with Golden State. I
have struggled to imagine any scenario that he leaves. You know,
(40:03):
Draymond Green has been as vocal as anyone about his
desire to resign there. He said it on his podcast,
he said it on our podcast with Chris Haynes and
I he wants to retire a Warrior.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
He wants to ride out with the guys.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
He wrote in with but saying all that Sacramento, after
what they did on Draft night, has created a lot
of cap room. There might be another suitor or two
because Draymond Green is an unrestricted free agent or he
will be on June thirtieth, and the Warriors just don't
want to take that chance. And they needed to create
some additional flexibility to make sure that they can resign
Raymond Green.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
So that was another element of this track.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
As far as Chris Paul becoming a Warrior, I mean,
Chris Paul is one of the smartest players ever.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
They it's a smart team.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
They have the ability to figure out the x's and
oh's you all.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I mean you know this.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You played the sport at a high level and I
have it. Smart guys know how to play. Are going
to figure it out. Yes, the curiosity is not going
away at the snaff of some fingers. We need to
see this, We need to see what this looks like,
what it looks like to have Chris Paul out there
in a Warriors uniform.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
The last thing kind of quickly is this what the
Celtics will look like when the season starts next.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Year, they're still going to pursue some changes. But I mean,
this is already a dramatic change, and I think it
was called for. I think they needed to do something drastic,
and to me, breaking up the two Jays.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Would have been too drastic.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I know Marcus Smart is a beloved Celtic and he's
been there for nine years, but I.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
Applaud the Bold Swing.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
It's the riskiest move Brad Stevens has made since he's
taken over, and Porzingis had a career season, but he
did it in Washington with a team that was really
going nowhere in now expectations. He's stepping up considerably, taking
a huge step into the scrutiny fakes.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
I mean that the attention and screwedin me.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I mean, the Celtics are expected to win a championship,
so let's what.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
He can do for them.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
But you know, I like, I like seeing the Bold swing.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Awesome stuff is this league uncut? Download it, listen to it.
You just learn all the stuff you wish you knew
what was really going on. That's the podcast to download.
With the NBA and of course our our good friend
Mark Stein, along with Chris Haynes. That's their podcast. Mark,
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
You got it, sir,
Thanks for listening to the best of The Doug Gottlieb
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
three to five Eastern twelve two Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Find your local station for The Doug Gottlieb Show at
boxsports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day
on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR BOO, what Up America,
Doug Goblieb Show. Fuck Sports Radio Man, I hope you're
(00:26):
having a great day. The Doug Gottlieb Show broadcast live
every day from the tyrag dot com studios. Tyrec dot com.
Wet me get there on match selection pass, free shipping,
free road has a protection over ten thousand recommends tellers
tyret dot com the way tire buying should be. I
want to do something a little different today. Okay, so
(00:47):
here's the deal. I don't know, John, You and I
weren't texting last night, So if you weren't watching, totally understand.
Because you have kids, you coach softball, Lucas Scott baseball.
It's the summer. I know that Bier was watching because
he's like me, like we can't get enough of this stuff.
And I know that Jay Stu was watching because now
can he not give it? But he asked me some
(01:08):
really really good questions, and I also know that, uh
this is like a this is great. Here here's the
parallel I'll make. You ever have something in life that
you know a lot about, it's just like this random
Cliff Craven now me, I know this right, Like you
(01:32):
know about something that other people don't know that much about.
And then there's that you walk into a conversation and
all of a sudden your brain lights up. Like the
first time I experienced this was my daughter Grace. Oh man,
hell od was she? She was probably she was probably
like eight at the time. And we go to Hawaii
(01:54):
and we go on a on a boat and we're
going like, we go watch dolphin, we go swim with
the you know, we see the dolphins, and then we
go storre cling right, so they start talking about spinner
dolphins and she's like, uh, she's like rain man, like
they're nocturnal, like, and she knows all these all the
different dolphins are like, how does she know all this stuff?
(02:17):
And at some point she went down the rabbit hole
of the internet and was fascinated by dolphins and literally
can tell you everything you need to know about dolphins.
I'm sure you have something like that in life, right.
Sometimes it's a city, you know, have you ever been
to Boston? Yes, I have been to Boston, matter of fact,
Johnny Tremaine and YadA, YadA, YadA. I have some things
(02:40):
like that, like things that I know a lot about
for no particularly and the basketball NBA draft is a
big one. NBA Draft is a big one. So we're
broadcasting live from the tyret dot com studios tyrect dot com.
But you get there unmatched, fast, free shipping, free road
(03:01):
ass protection, over ten thousand recommends dollars, tirec dot com
the way tire buying should be. I do feel like
this is something that I do, I know a lot about,
and it's like it's one of those things also that
not really always to place in doing a national sports
radio show to get too much inside baseball and tell
(03:23):
you about things you don't know about. But there are
things in what you're watching you're like, hey, I don't
this is different. I don't understand. So there's a bunch
of elements to last night which were really interesting. There
were two different broadcasts from the same company. One was
a network TV broadcast. One was a cable TV broadcast,
And I don't watch TV differently, but apparently people do,
(03:45):
and that's why they did it differently. There's the We've
always had teams play on players from foreign countries that
we don't know about, but now we have we have
American athletes playing in our kin and we don't see
them even though they're not playing in high school. And
we had a bunch of those guys drafted to G League.
(04:06):
I Knit had four players drafted, Overtime lead had the
Thompson Twins drafted. So what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Eight seven seven ninety nine one fox? Is that the number?
If you have a pertinent, poignant question, feel free? But
I know Ramos did buyer has questions and opinions as well,
But it's it's amazing that and you get this question
all the time. How can the same company, ESPN, how
(04:36):
can they have two drafts and they feel completely different
from one another? How can that be? Like ESPN has
done the NFL draft forever for our entire adult lifetime
and most of our like you know, how long did
you have Boomer?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I have some really musical reference and you go to
Melchiper Junior and now over the last probably fifteen years,
you've had Todd mcshade there as well. And then you know,
they've had guys from Mike or and you name it.
They slide other people in a round. But those have
been and they are the staple for how to do it?
How do you go from that to the same network?
(05:20):
And last night was just kind of weird. It wasn't bad,
It wasn't good. And oh yeah, by the way, like
our need to have parents involved, and I actually get it,
like most of those stories of parents are beautiful stories
(05:44):
and having them there is awesome because I can tell
you and I know this is not My daughter is
an athlete. My son is an athlete. But and I
coach an AAU program, so I've been around this. So
parental involvement. Forget about what you read. Okay, that doesn't
(06:05):
break down to race, because like, you're not going to
be anything these days unless you have somebody who helps
you get to where you're going. I mean, that was
honestly the thing my dad did for kids for years,
God rest his soul was he would drive. That's my
(06:26):
whole childhood. It sounded like from like fifth grade on
was get in the car with my dad after school
and we drive to San Diego, meet meet Adam Walton's mom,
Sally Walton, to pick him up for practice. Sometimes go
halfway to Bakersfield. A guy named J R. Henderson played
at UCLA, play in the NBA, played forever in Japan.
(06:47):
Now coach, we meet to the like we'd go wherever
because kids couldn't get a ride to go to practice.
And if you can't practice, you can't win. He won't
get any better. And there just weren't good enough players
where I dedicated enough guys that could get you kind
of give you a good enough team to compete at
the highest level. So this is something my entire life
has been around AAU youth basketball whatever. Obviously I have
(07:10):
covered college basketball forever, cover NBA basketball for twenty years.
Many of the guys that I grew up playing with
are now coaches or in the front office. And this
is one of those like, yeah, there's a lot that
I know about and still some things that don't make
sense to me and things that have changed over time.
So Jay Stu hit me with you didn't know what
(07:32):
overtime elite was, and you didn't know what the G
League IG Nite was.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Correct, Yeah, whichever team is in Georgia.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's an overtime elite that's in Atlanta, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And then yeah, the other wherever Scoot went.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
He went to the G League A Knight, which was
in northern California. Though I think they're changing locations to
maybe they're in Henderson, Nevada now, but they were. They
were what's that area called shoot I can't remember. It's
over the hill from Oakland Man Walnut Creek. They used
to be in Walnut Creek. Now they're in Henderson, Nevada. Right,
(08:07):
So you didn't know about Okay, So the G League
I Knight, the G League Knight is, and again the
NBA is in this weird spot where they were trying
to create a model that mirrored Europe's model. Here's the
best way I can express it, Okay, G League Knight is.
You skip college, you go straight to the G League
(08:29):
A Knight, You play against other G League teams. You
are coached by Jason Hart who Jason was a longtime
NBA point guard, become college assistant at USC. Of course
played at Syracuse. And so you're playing against G leaguers
and half your team is made up of guys that
would be freshmen or seniors in high school or would
(08:51):
be freshman in college. And then half of it is
a couple guys like that named Pooh Jeter who played
at the University of Portland and then was a legend
of overseas and now has moved into an executive role
in the NBA. But you'd have like an old head
or two that would help kind of guide these guys
on their path so they're playing against g leaguers. Overtime
(09:11):
Elite Overtime was I think it started as a website
and then it was as a Twitter and Instagram handle
that had millions of followers. I think it really made
hey when they had when Zion Williamson was in high
school in aau and with the money that they made,
they built this beautiful facility and they became a landing spot.
(09:33):
And this was talked about from a lot of different
angles of Hey, how can we get high school players
that want to be NBA players and don't really want
to go to traditional route and so they do have
some educational courses. You can supposedly go to college from it,
But I don't think anybody's gone to college from overtime
elite and you play against other prep schools, so you're
like paid to go to prep school and all you
(09:55):
do is basketball for the most part. So those are
the two different places that we're discussing. Did I leave
anything out? Is or anything else you need to know about.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Those two I mean the reason why I asked is
because I consider myself a pretty good barometer of like
your average viewer of the draft last night, and them
having to do introduction vignettes, introduction packages to get people
to know who these people are speaks a lot to
the general interest of the draft because nobody really knows
(10:23):
these kids. And then when they talked about these ignite
teams and whatnot, exactly what is that? Why did they
choose that path? Why is that better for their development
and their profile than the college game. I just had
all these questions to ask of you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
You know, yeah, I would say, oh, man, I would
say this, Uh, the NBA, I there was a time
when all this started. There's never been a great relationship
(10:58):
between the NBA and the NCAA for basketball, right and
this is you go back and when Adam Silver took over,
he wanted to mirror the model of European clubs, and
European clubs they have junior teams where they develop players.
The problem with it is that the European professional basketball
(11:22):
model is completely different than the college basketball NBA model here,
and the missing piece to it is there's a promotional
tour tool. There's also an educational tool, which it may
not be needed for kids that are good enough to
play and you can identify them at sixteen seventeen years
(11:43):
old pretty easily. But for the vast majority of them,
it's a great opportunity to do both. And you don't
have that overseas. You don't have necessarily the you don't
have necessarily the imbalance and inequality, if you will, of
(12:05):
education overseas like you do in the United States. It
reminds me, honestly of when people try and compare like, well,
you know, in Denmark, Okay, they have universal health care
and they charge sixty at sixty percent tax rate, and
yet everybody's happy, nobody has cancer, blah blah blah' Like, dude,
it we're not Denmark. We have one hundred years of
(12:26):
doing it this way and you can't slide into doing
it a different way, especially when part of the big
like last night was a promotional tool, but tour tool.
But instead of being a promotional tool, it's an introductory tool.
Because you had how many college basketball players were taken
in the first round, and even of those college basketall players,
(12:48):
how many could you actually name? How many of you've
seen play? Dan Bayer, you love basketball, love basketball, golf,
NFL football, and I feel like college basketball. I could
be wrong. That's as much of a passion for you
as anything outside of NFL football and golf. Is that fair?
(13:09):
I do enjoy college hoops, yes, okay. How many of
the first round picks in the NBA draft have you
actually seen playing? Probably less than than six.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Grady Dick obviously was a name at Kansas, but yeah,
for sure, handful of best.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And that's a college basketball fan. I'm just I'm not
saying this because I love college basketball because it provided
me everything that I need. Okay, everything that I need,
everything that I've done in life has been provided to
me because of college basketball. Everything. It's it's because I
(13:55):
also am far enough from the forest I can see
the trees and there is no buzz, no hype outside
of Victor Webbin Yama and it's not just these number
one pick and he seven foot five, but they did
everything in their power to tell you this guy is.
Like I saw Jason McIntyre tweet he's gonna be top
the All NBA. What like for Victor webin Yama to
(14:21):
be All NBA in his first year, Okay, that means
he has to be a center. Okay, the top three
centers this year in All NBA. Okay, we're Demantas Sabonis,
We're Nikolie Jokic, and we're Joel Embiid. Anthony Davis is
not listed. There's several others like he's not going to
be All NBA, Like the hype is, it's not very
(14:45):
likely at all, But we're just we feel the need
to massively over hype guys because otherwise, why would you care.
They're all eighteen, nineteen years old. They're not gonna help
or play or do much of anything on winning teams
teams actually pay attention to for a couple of years.
That's the reality to it. So I think it comes
(15:05):
down to where the NBA is kind of halfway in
between trying to copy the European model and trying to
stick with the traditional system and the European model, though
it has produced some very good players and maybe refined players,
and it cuts out the educational piece, which people don't
seem to value nearly as much anymore. It's for a
(15:26):
different like, for a different style of basketball, for a
different thing. It just is, you know, foreign teams and
their success is or financial success is not based upon
their TV revenue or their TV deal. It's not. They
get money from sponsors, and they get money from sponsors
(15:47):
based upon their location and if they win. Now honestly,
like season tickets aren't nearly as much of a driver
for them financially as they are here. It's such a
different and system anything else, Jason, I can be of service.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
With no, No, You're good. I think Dan had.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Something, Yeah, I Doug. I took My takeaway from last
night was it was an interesting crossroads of what you
expect from a draft broadcast of what the NBA was,
what the NBA is, what college basketball was in is.
And the reason I say that is I think that
as a college basketball fan and someone who grew up
(16:30):
loving the draft, it is not the same draft that
it that it was twenty or thirty years ago. But
that's nothing different what I thought was was so unique
last night, and ESPN has done this with the NFL Draft,
but it's easier to actually do with the NFL Draft
when you split broadcasts. What I found last night was
you really didn't have anybody there to fit the true
(16:52):
need of what you needed from the broadcast outside of
J Billis, and only J Billis could do so much
because of the different avenues all these players come from.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
There, there was.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Like, that's the toughest part about it is it's good,
it's not It's not what it once was. So when
you have players that you don't know, you have players
coming from different directions, you have players coming from from Europe,
there is no one there to tell us about them.
And I would even argue, as we've talked about on
this show many times, how the NBA is changing. Now
(17:28):
we're wondering who's going to help a big three, when
the conversation should be, you know what, who's going to
be the Christian Braun of the Denver Nuggets. Who is
going to be that player that is going to be
able to have that current impact on a team. Right now?
We have player comps, we have projections, and it's just
to me it was really tough to hit the moving
(17:51):
target last night.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, I agree, there's also no debate, right, It's like
j Bill says it, and that's what it is. Like
what like huh? And there was no negativity, right, none?
Like I mean, look, Jet Howard gets drafted really high
(18:12):
by the Orlando Magic, right, didn't they move up to
draft him? They draft him very early, and I think
you would have been around late in the first round,
and like, you know, I get it, Like we all
loved watching Juwan Howard play is great, dude, there's no
negative there. But like I saw him play, didn't guard anybody,
didn't move great. Two thirds of his shots are threes, right,
(18:33):
and not a rebounder for his size. So I thought
Orlando massively reached. And why are you taking a guy
that high? Right, or even the okay Scoot Henderson versus
Brandon Miller, Like that's a that's something I mean, I
would love. Who wouldn't love to go and spa on
that one?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Right?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And then you're like, wow, do you take Scoot considering
you have you have a LaMelo ball and how does
that work together? And my argument would have been like
if you like him better, then you take him because
it's not like the horns are good anyway. At least
they're entertaining, and then it kind of all fits. It
works itself out over time. But yeah, I agree with you.
(19:13):
It was not you put people. You didn't put enough
people in position to succeed because you tried to please everybody.
When you please everybody, you please no one.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
This is the.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Best of the Don dot Leap Show on Fox Sports Radio,
What Up with You?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Doug Gottlieb Show, Fox Sports Radio. The Doug Gottleep Show
broadcast live every day from the ti rac dot com studios,
tyrack dot com. Unmatched election, fast free shipping, free road
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(19:54):
It's the way that tire buying should be. Do you
know what was wrong with last night? Well, what was
wrong with last night is the same thing I think
that's going on in Portland. It's that uh uh. And
(20:14):
I'm super into the show Succession now, Jase, do have
you watched all the Succession?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I have, yep.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Okay, I'm almost done. And are you are you?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Are you past the big the big incident that everyone
talked about, the big spoiler, incident.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Which big spoiler incident.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I don't want to spoid for the listeners who haven't
gotten there, but it's the big one. The big guy dies.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, you're by that. Yeah okay, cool, yeah, yeah,
very much past that.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But a lot of people said after after he died,
I lost interest, like he was the reason I kept
watching the show, and the kids are a little bass
I don't like to watch them. So that was kind
of a feeling out there on social media.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Weren't they little bastards the entire time?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
They were? But I guess the old man kind of
kept kept you watching, you.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Know, Okay, I mean I guess. Well, look, there's a
there's a bunch to it. Let's one of the things
I like. One of the things that's interesting about that
show is how there are some people who do and
some people don't like to fire people, right, like to
(21:31):
fire people like it's just a heart. Everyone wants to
be in charge. Okay, part of being in charge is
you're gonna have to fire somebody. Now, you don't want
somebody who takes joy in firing people, as that's the
case in that show. That there are some people that
take joy in firing the people. But I do think
that it's really fair to say that that's a challenge
(21:55):
that a lot of people go through when you want
to be in charge. You want me in charge some good,
you know, it's not just an You got to do
the tough stuff too, and the tough stuff is firing people.
And I think part of firing people is you're the
bad guy who wants to be the bad guy. Lebron
James is, without any question, one of the greatest athletes
in the history of American sports. The number one thing
(22:17):
he struggled with during his time in Miami was he
wore the black hat. He was the bad guy, right.
It's one of the things that it's one of the
benefits of Draymond Green can bring to your team is
he can be the bad guy. Now, he doesn't have
the top end of some of the others, but that's
something that he actually does exceptionally well. And I thought
(22:40):
that was the thing that's missing from the NBA Draft
last night. There there was nobody that wanted to be
the bad guy. Nobody that stepped up and said, like,
you know, I mean, you got a little bit of it.
With Adrian Warzanowski, trying to explain why Cam Whitworth sat
so long in the green room despite having a very
(23:01):
well regarded high school career, AU career play with Team
USA basketball. People at Villanova talked about how talented he was.
He was injured part of the year. Now I was
told most of it was actually his medicals, but apparently
there's a he didn't have a great attitude some of
these workouts. He didn't give off the persona of somebody
(23:23):
who no matter where he went, that's where he wanted
to be. But there just wasn't anybody on that dais
that was willing to be the bad guy. Everybody was great,
Everything was great, They're great. Why is it sitting. I
don't know. He's great. He's great, He's great, animate great TV.
You know, it's one of the things about Simon Cowell
(23:44):
that he was able to lock in on right. Simon
Cowell made a career on saying that's terrible. That's the
worst performance I've ever seen. But like, look, you're gonna
hurt people's feelings. And oh yeah, by the way, if
you say this guy can't play, that guy can't play,
he's going to be about what happens. Oh you could
(24:05):
be made to look a fool. Look, dude, I nailed
in the eighty eighty five percent of predictions on what
somebody could ultimately be in the NBA. But they're in
a they're in a week that goes by that I
talk about the NBA or NBA draft that somebody doesn't
(24:25):
bring up and by the way, they don't contextualize it correctly.
That I didn't think Steph Curry was going to be
as good it had the ceiling as a pro of
Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio, I was wrong. If you
want to find somebody that bats a thousand, good luck,
(24:46):
but it's easy to sort of bat a thousand if
you say everybody's great, right, that makes it really really easy.
So people ask what's going on in Portland? Same thing,
same thing. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody
wants to say, you know what, Dame, you've been awesome,
(25:07):
but we can just get a killer deal for you.
So right now, you say, anybody who calls, we're not interested.
You just heard from Mark Stein. They're gonna wait until
somebody until Damian Lillard says I want to be traded,
and Damian Lillard wants to wait until they trade him,
(25:28):
and the second he hears any sort of change in
their stance, that's when he's gonna Damian Lillard doesn't want
to be the bad guy. He's got so much equity.
He's incredibly popular, and I actually sympathize with Damian Lillard.
Sympathize with him, which is like, you have so much equity,
(25:51):
there are so many people who think you're awesome. He's
one of the most popular players in the league with
other players. He's one of the most popular players in
the league with fans. It's crazy, like Carmelo Anthony, that
Carmelo Anthony was an incredible score incredible, didn't play defense,
(26:14):
called off other dudes on rebounds, but best scoring league.
But you know, he just wasn't necessarily beloved. A lot
of people still like Carmelo though. But if you raise
a stink, or if you asked to be traded, or
(26:35):
if you chase a ring, as people want to say,
you chase a ring, Like look what happened to Kevin Durant.
When Kevin Durant, Okay, when Kevin Durant won the MVP,
it was one of the most beloved moments in the
history of that award. Remember he gave it up to
his mom. You're the real MVP, like man, I love
(26:56):
Kevin Durant. Then they're up three games one against the
Golden State Warriors. In Game six, he didn't play well,
Klay Thompson plays incredibly well. They lose to a tremendous
team who, by the way, ends up losing after being
up three games to one in the NBA Playoffs. In
(27:17):
the NBA Finals and as a free agent, much like
Lebron James, he chooses to leave. Now there's a lot
of different things you could say about it or think
about it, But like, if the decision is you get
to go to a place you want to live and
you want to be successful, is there anything more successful
(27:38):
than being somewhere for three years and going to three
NBA Finals and winning two championships And the only reason
he didn't want a third was because you were injured.
But what happened He became the bad guy. Not everybody
is built to be the bad guy. Not everybody likes
being the bad guy. And there are lots of people
(27:59):
who say I want to be the bad guy. I'm
okay being the bad guy, And the truth is there
not and the perfect example of it in your life
is everybody wants to be the boss. Okay, if you're
the boss, you don't just get to hire and make
good decisions and give people raises and you're gonna be
the boss. Cool. First thing you gotta do is go
(28:21):
fire that dude. Oh hey, you gotta go fire a friend.
Maybe you got to go hire and fire some people,
somebody who you were competitive with. But because you're in
the same position, you both made it work. YadA YadA, YadA,
YadA YadA. What's going on in Portland? Nobody wants to
(28:42):
be the bad guy. Remember Damian Lillard has that no
recent communication with the team that the general managers come
out and said, hey, you know, I want to hold
on to Damian Lillard like he's our most important asset.
And there's no doubt they're going to try and package
some of those guards, maybe one off or move them
(29:02):
a bunch of different places and try and get other
players right guys on sign and trades like all of
this stuff makes sense. But the end of the day,
like the best possible scenario, the smartest thing to do
is trade Damian Lillard and go build yourself a team.
Start over. It's really hard to be the bad guy. Nobody.
(29:27):
The bad guy is the guy that trades away a
Hall of famer. Damian Load's a Hall of famer.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I just learned that Discover credit cards is something pretty awesome.
At the end of your first year, they automatically double
all the cash back you've earned. That's right, everything you've earned,
double cash back from trips, restaurants, all double. Seriously, they'll
see terms. Check it off yourself at Discover dot com
slash match. Mark Stein joins us. Of course, he's covered
the NBA for whooah man, you're talking about twenty years.
He cos the podcast, which is great with Chris Haynes.
(30:05):
It's called This League Uncut. It's got the biggest topics
and more than just what they tweet or what they write,
really really in depth stuff. It's called This League Uncut.
Download wherever you download your podcast. Mark, thanks so much
for joining us. I've said this all week. I think, Look,
do I think Victor webbin Yam has a chance to
(30:27):
be a great player? I do. I think a little
bit of the oversale of even his floor is because
the NBA is trying, especially ESPN or both of us
used to work there. They're trying to get attention to
a product in the NBA draft where most people have
never seen any of these kids play. It's like more
of an introduction than a selection, and it's their way
(30:48):
of kind of overcompensating for the lack of hypes surrounding
the entire draft. Is that fair?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I think I fall between what you're describing from our
old friends in Bristol and where you are.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
I certainly, to.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Me, it's perfectly fine and should be quite complimentary, to say,
most anticipated and most highly rated draft prospects since Lebron
in two thousand and three. To me, that's pretty teddy talk.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
That would be enough.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
When we start hearing best prospect in pro sports history,
that's when I agree with you, because you know it's
a frequent comp that is thrown out as he shoots
like Durant.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
He doesn't shoot like Kevin Durant.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
He has easy range. I like the way Nikola Vatuma's
countryman describes it. He has easy range like Porzingis. But
the last two years in the French League, he shot
sub thirty percent from the three point line. And we
know the three point line is closer in Europe.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Than it is in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So the hype is largely justified. But I'm with you,
it is it has been over the top too much.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, I just think that, like they're tru the idea
of trying to create a system which mirrors Europe. Right,
that's overtime elite, that's G League, ignite you. And I
know this better than anybody, that European basketball is. There's
not hype there. They don't need it. That's not how
they sell tickets, that's not how they keep the lights on.
(32:24):
It's a completely different way of doing business. And it
is here. It is important here, And like we keep
diminishing college basketball. But one thing the college basketball, much
like college football, has done, is it promotes the players
time and again many times above their actual level of skill.
(32:45):
And that the NFA, NBA benefits from it. And because
it's been diminished and because so many fewer prospects playing it,
that they're struggling to have that same level of attention
and hype at the NBA.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, the case of web Minyama, though, it is so
unique in terms of you know, this is the league
that you know, just hates the word tanking, hates the
concept of tanking, hates the discussion of tanking.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
You saw what happened to the.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Dallas Mavericks, who you know, were find seven hundred and
fifty K for tanking a game or two at the
end of the season. But when Benyama's games were shown
on the NBA app, the league's official app, all season long,
it's never happened. The NBA has done as much to
(33:38):
fuel the attention that ween Beyana that when Benyama has generated.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
I mean, they've been a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I mean, I think one of the most amazing fats
of the twenty twenty two to twenty three seasons is
Victor Wen. Benyama finished eighth among all players in views
on the NBA's official social media tanels, having played zero
minutes in the NBA.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
You don't see that every day. We've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
And look, he is good enough to justify funs of it.
We've never seen a big guy move like this, and
we've never seen a big guy with.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
His offensive skills.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But he relishes defense wants to be a defensive anchor,
is already a proven difference maker.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
On the defensive end.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So, like I said, I'm not trying to this guy
is a generational prospect. But you know, when I hear
like you, when I hear he is the greatest prospect
that we've ever seen across professional sports, and we just
dial it down a touch a little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You do a podcast, Mark Steiner's podcast with Chris Hanes
Okay and Chris Haynes. Is he's actually a remarkable personal
story right in his rise to prominence and now doing
this podcast, doing sidelines for TNT, writing for Yahoo Sports,
all that stuff. But Chris Haynes kind of came up
in northern California, right, And Damian Lillard's from ok most famously, right,
(35:01):
So there's obviously relationship there. And so the most recent
Chris Haynes's tweet is that there's been zero engagement or
discussion between Damian Lillard and the Portland trivilege. This is
like the we're all waiting for that inevitable conclusion that
Damien wants out of Portland after what they did last night.
Where does that stand from your insider knowledge?
Speaker 5 (35:24):
I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I think the whole league is waiting to see it
because the Blazers have made it quite clear they are
not going to initiate a Damian Lillard trade. When teams
were calling this week, they didn't want to engage in
the hypothetical of Damian Lillard becoming available. It's going to
take Damian Lillard going to them and saying that he wants.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
To be moved.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And to this point still, you know, I've said it,
I don't know how many times this month, but it
is where we are on June twenty third. He has
not made any declarations or applied any pressure on the
Blazers to move him. Is that forthcoming? I can promise
you Chris will know before I do.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
But I would also say this is.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
You know, the Blazers are in a pretty enviable position,
as dire as that might sound, because they drafted a
guy who, by all accounts and Scoot Henderson does have
franchise player potential everyone in the league thinks.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
So they call it a three star draft and he
went third.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And you know they do have Jayden Sharp there, Anthony
Simon's there. If Dame decides, if underline, if game decides,
this is the.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Time to seek a trade.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
They're pretty well positioned with what they already had and
what they would be adding in a trade, and Damian
Lillard still has tremendous trade value.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
So I would say that the Blazers are.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
In a very good position and had a tremendous night,
even though we really don't know where this goes from here.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Okay, let's let's get to some of the stuff Golden
State Warriors that was It felt like a lot of
financial moves that Mike Denleavy Junior made right where you
get Obviously Jordan Poole there was more to it than
just the finances, but his extension kicks in this year
that changes their salaries dramatically and allows them to potentially
(37:26):
re sign Draymond Green, and then some of the movements,
some of the other movements they made. What's the league's
reaction to Chris Paul, who's a former rival, heated, hated
rival even this year now being steps back up.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Just like with Dame.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Everybody in the league wants to see what happens here,
because it is hard to picture Chris Paul just sauntering
in to the Warriors' locker room and everybody just putting
the paths aside and let's hoop.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
I mean, it is hard to picture, but.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The first thing you said is what's to play here?
This is at its core, it is about finances, and
it's not just Golden State. It's a bunch of teams
around the league. And you're you're going to likely see
more trade activity before free agency starts because teams are
trying to get in front of the new collective Bargain
agreement that takes hold on June thirtieth slash July first.
(38:24):
And the Phoenix Suns they've decided to just blow pack
the first tax apron, the second tax aprons, and they're
prepared to deal with whatever restrictions there are in terms
of putting guys around. What's still a quartette of Durant, Booker,
Ayton and now Bradley Beal. But nobody else wants to
(38:45):
do it the way.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
The Suns are doing.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The Warriors want to keep their step Stephen Curry, Clay Thompson,
Draymond Green. They want to keep that trio together. To
do it, they had to shed some salary, obviously, given
all detentions last season after the punch in practice, it
made sense that Jordan Poole with his contract with all
of the Teton that lingered last season, that he would
(39:09):
be the one to go if they could find a
trade partner. And I actually thought they would have a
supper time finding a trade partner. But they could have
sent Jordan Poole elsewhere.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
So interesting that.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Washington, when they're in the middle of cutting all this salary,
that they're the team that decides to snap up Jordan Pool.
But you're going to see more of these moves that
have a financial basis to it because the landscape is
changing dramatically because of this new collective bargaining agreement.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Is Andrew Wiggins a Warrior next year?
Speaker 5 (39:41):
I think so?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
I think this is the big change. I don't see them.
I don't see them drastically changing the core further because
part of this also is look, Ramont Green declined a
player options. I think he's staying with Golden State. I
have struggled to imagine any scenario that he leaves. You know,
(40:03):
Draymond Green has been as vocal as anyone about his
desire to resign there. He said it on his podcast,
he said it on our podcast with Chris Haynes and
I he wants to retire a Warrior.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
He wants to ride out with the guys.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
He wrote in with but saying all that Sacramento, after
what they did on Draft night, has created a lot
of cap room. There might be another suitor or two
because Draymond Green is an unrestricted free agent or he
will be on June thirtieth, and the Warriors just don't
want to take that chance. And they needed to create
some additional flexibility to make sure that they can resign
Raymond Green.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
So that was another element of this track.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
As far as Chris Paul becoming a Warrior, I mean,
Chris Paul is one of the smartest players ever.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
They it's a smart team.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
They have the ability to figure out the x's and
oh's you all.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I mean you know this.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You played the sport at a high level and I
have it. Smart guys know how to play. Are going
to figure it out. Yes, the curiosity is not going
away at the snaff of some fingers. We need to
see this, We need to see what this looks like,
what it looks like to have Chris Paul out there
in a Warriors uniform.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
The last thing kind of quickly is this what the
Celtics will look like when the season starts next.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Year, they're still going to pursue some changes. But I mean,
this is already a dramatic change, and I think it
was called for. I think they needed to do something drastic,
and to me, breaking up the two Jays.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
Would have been too drastic.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I know Marcus Smart is a beloved Celtic and he's
been there for nine years, but I.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
Applaud the Bold Swing.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
It's the riskiest move Brad Stevens has made since he's
taken over, and Porzingis had a career season, but he
did it in Washington with a team that was really
going nowhere in now expectations. He's stepping up considerably, taking
a huge step into the scrutiny fakes.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
I mean that the attention and screwedin me.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I mean, the Celtics are expected to win a championship,
so let's what.
Speaker 5 (42:00):
He can do for them.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
But you know, I like, I like seeing the Bold swing.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Awesome stuff is this league uncut? Download it, listen to it.
You just learn all the stuff you wish you knew
what was really going on. That's the podcast to download.
With the NBA and of course our our good friend
Mark Stein, along with Chris Haynes. That's their podcast. Mark,
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
You got it, sir,
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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