This is the Downbeat on ninety seven one the Freak. It's got a delicious
food delivery and here from Zabala's. We'll talk to Joe here in a minute
about all that. Oh yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna be an
hour of delicious foods in our mouth. What the hell? And uh yeah,
a great day. Make sure you go check out Zavala's. We're on
that about ten minutes or so right now. Joined and buy our buddy from
dallasmaths dot com of course, Studio forty one, our good friend and MAVs
expert Bobby Corilla. Good morning, Bobby. How are you, ma'am?
I'm fantastic, my friends. How are we doing? What were your thoughts
when I texted you last night? Hey man, can you pop on?
Were you like real busy and doing stuff and didn't want to do it?
Uh? Trying to learn as much as I can about the Charlotte Hornets and
the Washington Wizards over the last few years. So you did get me in
the middle of something. But no, we're all good man. I'm ready
to talk some sports. We love talking sports, especially with you, especially
basketball sport. We've had you on plenty of times anytime there's big map stuff,
and we kicked it around earlier this morning, but we wanted to have
you on nine o'clock hour. So were you surprised? I mean, TikTok.
We got off the air at ten am yesterday and it was sort of
like, well, crickets, no news. About the time I got my
car, it was breaking, right, and then it was breaking with the
Gafford deal, and then the Washington deal comes through. I guess, first
were you surprised, and then your initial reaction to the acquisition of these two
players. To be honest, I was pretty surprised about the Gafford deal.
You know, the MAVs have been linked to Wings for basically, I mean
for years, but this crop of Wings for months now, you know,
going back to even November December. So I wasn't surprised that they made a
swing for PJ, But for Gafford, I was, you know, I
didn't really think that they had the necessary amo to go make two or three
deals the way that they did, and especially you know a lot of the
insiders were kind of pitching this year's trade deadline as well. It's gonna be
kind of a snoozer, guys, I don't even know if you want to
like tune into our podcast, it's gonna be so boring. And then here
the MAVs go, you know, making two of the biggest deals of the
day in like half an hour. So, you know, I was pretty
surprised by the MAVs aggression, and I was also pretty surprised by, you
know, the fact that other teams. Now granted, Charlotte did get a
first round pick for PJ and Washington got a first round pick for Daniel Gafford,
but I was pretty surprised that these other teams were willing to make those
deals at the prices that they were considering how it was sort of pitched to
us by the National guy saying like, it's gonna cost you an arm and
a leg to get a rotation guy. And then here the Maps go getting
two guys without giving up really any of their core players. So, you
know, I was both surprised by the level of gression and also the cost
that it took to get them. Were you surprised at the creativity that was
involved in this? And that's kind of a question one to predicate the second
question, which is what is the hierarchy of a trade? Like this being
presented. Is it Nico saying, look, I have this idea, He
goes to Cuban, they crunch numbers, they talk it through. And then
added to that, how much is Luca Kyrie involved? How much did they
know leading up to that? I know it was a lot to ask,
but you know, pick apart what you want. Yeah, I mean,
Lucas said after the game last night that he had wanted a backup center for
years, and so I think that he was probably banging the drum a little
bit now. I don't think he's going to like barge into Nico's office and
demand you better go get Daniel Gafford, buddy, or else I'm gone.
You know, I don't think he's that kind of player. You know,
he's not posting hourglass emojis on X. But you know, I definitely think
that Luca and Kyrie were involved to a degree. With every passing transaction cycle,
I think we're learning a little bit more about the kind of vision that
Nico Harrison has for the team, and it's definitely different than how the Maps
were building their team a few years ago. And I know, obviously the
the general manager has changed, the head coach has changed, But I also
think Mark's level of involvement has probably changed a little bit. I think he
certainly trusts Nico more. I mean, the MAVs just made two big trades
yesterday, one for a center who they also used a first round pick on,
you know, a few months ago, and neither of those two guys
can shoot. Now. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I
think that kind of lends itself to the idea that Nico wants size, rebounding,
interior presence at both ends of the floor, physical toughness, guys with
a bit of an attitude, a bit of an edge. In Derek Lively
and Daniel Gafford, and then in PJ. Washington. You know, he's
this guy that has relatively plus size and length for a power forward, and
he's much more of a not interior score in the way of like only around
the rim, but he can shoot twos. He can operate from the mid
range and pull up and knock down floaters and stuff. He's not specifically and
kind of almost exclusively a three point shooter in the way that some of the
wings that they've targeted in recent years have been. So you know, I
think we're learning more about Nico's vision. I think these moves kind of reflect
that they want again physical physical toughness and size in the middle, and then
on the perimeter, they want guys with diverse skill sets. They don't want
just like kind of like a niche specialist players that can only shoot threes,
that can only do X, y or Z. You know, he wants
kind of length and versatility on the perimeter to compliment Luca and Kyrie. It
is Bobby Corilla from mav Studio forty one, Dallasmavs dot Com. I thought
that this trade wreaked a couple of things. I thought there's a little bit
of desperation to it and that we need to fix things fast, which I
agree with getting aggressive, but also I think it's got this kind of less
like here's some a list celebrities coming in to fix the thing like Kyrie,
and more of like a good deep run, playoff balance type of feel to
it. Are you feeling the same way, yeah? I mean, you
know, they they really needed to address a couple key weaknesses. They needed
more size in the middle, they needed a better backup big man, and
they needed to create not just like a not a hierarchy in the sense of
like you have Luca and Kyrie and then you have everybody else. I mean
they needed to create a sense of rotational hierarchy because over the last few months,
you know, injuries have really played this team. Of course, guys
have been in and out of the lineup, and that includes Luca and Kyrie
unfortunately at various times. But we've seen time and again like when one guy
is out, it throws the whole rotation into chaos. You know, Grant
Williams, I think they acquired Grant Williams with the belief that he would be
kind of a power forward or a small forward. He spent most of his
time with the MAVs playing small ball five, which is not the position that
he's meant to play, but he had to do that because Derek Lively was
hurt, Maxi Kleeba was out, and so like the whole thing was just
kind of in disarrayed. But by getting gaffered, now they have a very
established pecking order at the center position. They got Lively, they got gaffered,
they got Dwight Powell, and then if they want to play small they
can play Maxie at the five. You know, assuming that he's healthy and
everything. And also, by the way, PJ Washington can play the five
as well. And then the carryover effect is, now you get PJ Washington.
I assume he's going to be your starting power forward. I assume it's
not going to be kind of a Grant situation where they try it and it
doesn't work out. You know, so PJ will be your four. MAXI
Kleeb is your backup, and then hey, you can also throw Derek Jones
or Luke out there, or you know, you have a couple other options.
So it was really important for them to have more depth but also more
just like playable guys that are natural fits at their position. And you know,
I think another surprising element about this trade deadline was that, you know,
and this is no slight to Grant Williams. I think he's a really
good player, but he just didn't really fit here. The fact that they
were willing to move on from that move so quickly, given what it took
to get him this summer, you know a lot of gms or coaches or
whatever will say like, no, we got to give this guy a chance.
They identified that it didn't work. They recognize that by trading away Grant
they could get a better fit for what they were looking for. It went
out and did it, So you know, that takes a level of kind
of a level of guts and moxie to say like, yeah, this move
that I thought would work, it didn't, and I'm not gonna waste any
time. You know, I'm gonna go try and upgrade. Regardless. You
brought up Grant Williams and you said maybe not the best fit here. So
that have to do with the on the court fit because we're seeing a couple
of sources, SI reported on one saying that he was kind of a locker
room rub, like his personality was becoming a bit too much for the team.
Is that something that you were aware of, and if so, is
it something you could speak to? Honestly, that's the first time I'm hearing
that, to be totally honest. I mean, it seemed like in Boston,
like everybody liked him. You know, obviously, every team is different,
every culture is different and stuff, so you know, I can't really
speak to it. However, I did play chess against Grant Williams and that's
on the Maps YouTube channel, and he seemed like a real wonderful guy.
So go check out that video and help us defeat the algorithms. But I
can definitely talk about that uncourt fit. And you know, unfortunately, with
Grant being like, you know, six five six six and not the super
longest guy, whenever you're playing next to Kyrie and Luca, you know,
Luca's got pretty good size, but he's not like the strongest, fastest dude
in the world. And Kyrie obviously is only six foot one. And so
the MAVs were already very small in terms of height and length and just like
uh girth strength whenever they got Grant, and then you're playing this guy who's
like kind of an undersized four or even at times again like an undersized five,
and the maps were just so small, you know, they they just
they did not have the height necessary to bang against these bigger teams. I
mean, even like Aaron Gordon and Pascal Siakam. Now these are two really
really good players, you know, all star caliber players, but they would
just eat up the maps every single time they played, and they just they
needed more size, particularly at the four spot. And so you know,
the on court fit in terms of height and skill set just wasn't quite there.
I also think they needed a little more. They needed a little more
verticality, a little more athleticism to complement the way that Luca and Kyrie like
to play, and and PJ represents upgrades in that department too, So I
think just all around, I mean, and this is all projection. You
know, maybe it doesn't work out, but I think that PJ will be
a better fit with the way the Maps want to play offense and defense.
But we'll see. And also, you know, we know now if the
fit isn't there, they have no problem moving on very quickly. So I
mean they they definitely feel the burden of like expectation and pressure to get this
thing right for sure. Bob, you hit him with the English opening or
the Scandinavian defense, the Queen's gambit. Who won that chess match? Ah,
yeah, you know it was I won. I hit him with the
modern defense. I played with the black pieces, so I played. I
played one G six if you're a big chess chess guy, my bishop,
and I was able to take him down in a very close endgame. I
can concur Mikey just moments ago in a handful of pills and has been staring
at the sea looking at imaginary chess boards. That's right, that's exactly what
I did to prepare for the match too. And you ran him straight out
of town. I want to ask you something about it. I don't know
if it touches this stuff, because yeah, we did. It's funny a
guy gets run out of town. And you know, we were all kind
of looking at Grant Williams, like, come on, let's go, where's
that? You know, is he gonna figure it out? But then you
know, you hear what Danny mentioned, and then you hear that, oh
he stopped wearing Luca's shoes. He switched to the tatums and the little thing
like that. But it led to us asking the question, who's who runs
the vibe of the Mavericks locker room. We assumed Luca would have a big
role in that. Kyrie maybe is a quiet, lead by example type guy
or is it just sort of the conglomerateive dudes that have been here a while,
Luca and Hardaway and Maxie Even and Dwight. I mean, do you
have a where's the buckstop? On the vibe of the whole thing with the
MAVs. I mean, that's a really good question, because a couple of
years ago, you know, this team was kind of relatively younger, but
Jalen Brunson was the vibes guy, and then he leaves, and then last
year, you know, I don't know if Theo Pinson was like the guy
given raw ross beaches in the locker room, but he was definitely the guy
that brought that had the biggest personality, you know, the loudest personality in
the room. And now he's not here either. So uh. You know,
Luca and Kyrie are both you know, despite uh, despite how emotional
luc he can get on the court at times and how kind of fired up
he can get, they're both pretty laid back guys. I don't think that
they're gonna gonna stand up and talk. You know, Tim Hardaway does talk.
Uh. He is a big, fiery speech at halftime kind of guy.
You know, He's he's been through a lot and has seen a lot
and has been a lot in a lot of situations, and all of a
sudden, now he's like thirty one years old, one of the oldest players
on the team. So I think Tim is kind of a vocal leader.
I also think, you know, whenever you're Whenever your two best players,
whenever your two alphas openly talk about how much they like playing for the head
coach, I think that that means that the coach has a lot of respect
in the room, you know. And and j Kid might not say much
on the sideline, and he might not be the most fiery guy in the
way that like Rick Carlisle or Donnie Nelson or Avery Johnson or these coaches in
MAVs past were on the court, but his words carry a lot of weight,
whether it's in the huddle of the locker room. So you know,
I don't really know that Luca has assumed that vocal leader role, but I
do know that the kind of atmosphere he values is laid back, relaxed.
You know, good dudes that like to have fun, but that are also
very competitive and that play with a little bit of an edge, kind of
like Luca does. You know. And the two guys that the MAVs got
yesterday certainly play with an edge, but they're both also twenty five. You
know, these guys haven't been in big playoff moments or anything. Like Grant
Williams had already been to a finals, for example, But like Gafford and
PJ. Washington. I'm not sure how many playoff games they have together,
like combined in their careers, and so you know that only kind of expands
and entrenches Luca and Kyrie into this like leader role. And it does mean
that over time, I think we're gonna see Luca develop into more of that
guy. And this is a really good opportunity for him to do that because
they find themselves a couple games outside the top six in the West and entrench
in a very very difficult playoff race with only about thirty games to go.
So this would be a really good opportunity for Luca to to embrace more of
that vocal leadership role for sure. Love it all right, Bobby Corrala,
thank you so much for your time. Be careful at work. It seems
like every day a Maverick employee is either breaking or having a bloodied nose.
So I want you to be very vigilant at your place of employment for flying
binders or books or whatever the imminent danger is to you. I think you
should just preemptively wear the mask. Wear the mask. I got like five,
I got so many on deck, I can't risk it. I feel
like you're wearing one of you sound a little like your nose is a little
restricted. I think it's smart. Keep that mask. Go on all right,
I will. I will thank you guys. Dude always find Bobby.
Thank you so much. Thank you bye, Bobby. He's the best.
Yeah, he's a great Dudeeah cool dude. He's handsome too, which makes
me kind of hate Hi. Yeah, I don't like anyone handsome. Mind
your ben and skinning. The speakeasy had a chalk taw today, chance for
you to win a TV sign up between ten and six. Got to be
there TV. Yeah, seventy five color Sports television seventy five inch. Oh
yeah, you don't even You don't have to be there to win. You
just sign up between ten and six. They're gonna draw the winter at six
and then you could pick up the TV next Friday at the station. So
that's today, chalk tall I'll be there tonight. Come hang out, join
us now in studio. Guest to guest, here we go. Well,
it's Joe Zavala from Zavala's Barbecue. Tello. Joe, You're the hero of
the day. How's it going there? He is? He wore a cape
in here, helew in. That's what heroes do, Kevin barbecue heroes.
The timing wasn't perfect because he comes in, opens everything up and then bam
the segment starts. But we had time for like one burnt ends and I
had to brace myself on the table, so I was losing strength in my
lower body, knee weakening. Delicious and I'm not kidding. What's up?
Man? How you go to you about the AAC? Right, you guys
are in the AAC. Yes, we are in the AAC. We're at
Section one twenty one for every American Airlines event to all the Stars concerts,
all of it, all the contents. Great, yeah, good for you
guys. Man. We started that back in October. It's been an unbelievable
partnership with American Airlines and Levy. How does something like that come to fruition?
I mean, are you so you obviously have a brick and mortar spot
yet So we're actually located on Brisket and Maine in downtown Grand Prairie. There's
no other Brisket Street in the world but in Grand Prairi, and of course
you guys are there. How does that work? How do you get your
way into the AAC. Do you have a like a commercial real estate person
that is kind of running point on that. So we have this huge PR
firm that we pay millions and millions of dollars because we're a small business and
we have that kind of money. Now I'm just playing right. We were
really fortunate about three years ago chef on Dress they created this local thing where
they wanted celebrity chefs to come out for playoff games. So we did a
couple of MAVs games when they did the deep run to the western Crofforce shore,
so that was really cool. We did like some prime rib forty four
farm and then we did it again for opening Night for the MAVs I believe
two years ago, and then we did a couple of Stars games for the
playoff runs last year and just built a deep relationship with the chefs out there
and also with the levy that runs everything at American Airlines Center, and you
know, they really wanted to focus on local and the American Airlines did too
a center and the MAVs and Stars, and there was an opportunity to do
that and it happened really quickly. And talk a little bit about where and
how your your beef is sourced. Because I'll be honest, I had one
bite of the end of that brisket and there's something different about it. There
is something that just feels and tastes like an elevated amount of quality. It's
not you. You're not ripping these out of Costco, is what I'm saying.
When we first started, we did get out of Costco. We were
in our backyard. This is unique, dude, there is something interesting going
on here. Yeah, so we're really lucky. We utilize forty four farm
beef. It's out of Cameron, Texas. It's all black angus, no
antibiotics, no hormones, and it's really cool because they only process about two
hundred cattle a week and that's you know, each cow has two briskets.
That means there's four hundred briskets and we get about one hundred of those briskets,
so we get about twenty five percent of the whole allocation in the world
of this beef. And you can get it at Zaval's Barbecue, but we
also serve it during the games for the MAVs and Stars. Section one twenty
one. Okay, I do recommend you go to Zavallas or if you're at
the AAC And yes, I do have a piece of turkey of my mouth
there you do. Also, I bought your bird rub and the store.
Well back, sound like you know, I'm making chicken and really like that.
Yeah, I love your bird rub in the store. It's incredible.
Yeah, it's like this is I'll try it because I'm looking for some of
the spice of one trying to be like healthy during the weekend. So I
wish I did call it the bird rub because it's in our turkey. It's
my son's favorite thing. Heats turkey talking as we named Actually we got a
dog back in August. We name it turkey Taco. We use a bird
rub, but I use it. It's a really all purpose rub. We
use it on steak, we use it on fish, almost like a blacking
season for it. And I'm telling you it makes the best rabbis in the
world. There's a little bit of spice, a little bit of sweetness,
and it's good. Yeah. I just still it on just like some vegetables.
Sometimes I heard it's just like an oh. Yeah, I have it
in my cabinet all the time. It's great. You're fascinated in the barbecue
wars, and I don't you don't have to name anyone, but let's start
some drama, like a nemesis in your head that you think of when I
ask you somebody you want to take down and you can say it if you
want. I don't know, but man, that would be really cool.
I wish I did, because we need some barbecue drama because you know,
you know, it makes it a lot more fun, especially because as we
know, text barbecue's the best barbecue in the world. Everybody wants to be
But you know, maybe so we have this thing called bbqdis shrow dot com
where we have twenty of the top fifty barbecue joints, sire and text monthly.
We're one of those where we sell their rubs online and we do content
with them. Maybe I can stir something up and we can kind of start
a bracket of competitors and have everybody vote on it. You know, that
could be a lot of fun. But it seems like a real competitive world.
But my also assumption is also that it might be a lot like the
craft beer world, where you want to have the best selling beer, but
also behind the scenes, you know, all the people that are doing it,
and you're probably pretty cool with each other too, Yeah, because you
know, it's no matter what industry, and it's really hard, right and
especially like when you're dealing barbecue or craft beer, craft barbecue, Like you
know what goes into you know, the level effort, you know the sacrifice
you have to make for it, and at the end of day, you
just want everybody to be able to pay their bills. Rure. But yeah,
like you know, we I'm not going to tell you that I don't
want to have the best barbecue in the world, because I do, but
I do know there's other barbecue joints. I'm like, damn, that's some
good stuff there. Yeah, yeah, much respect to them, right,
Yeah, But you know, we're also in a perfect age of barbecue where
you can go anywhere in a big city and nine times out of ten there's
at least three to four unbelievable barbecue joints that are giving you that barbecue that
you're looking for. Where ten years ago it was kind of hard to be
able to find that good barbecue. You used to have to get in the
car, drive down the snows or drive down to Franklin's and it was a
trip. That's awesome, man, that's awesome. JJ's mike was on laugh
she was laughing at you. I think she was watching TikTok and giggling.
Hard to choose, nothing to giggle out their friends favorite meat on the menu.
That's hard to choose. What you're like, which one's your baby?
Yeah? So we're known for our brisket, as you should be. Yeah,
you know one of those things in Texas. It's like, you know,
you got to have great brisket. But what's really cool about our brisket
is you can see our brisket, you can taste our brisket. And he
noses of all his brisket because we're so heavy on the pepper. We use
four cups of a twelve mesh black pepper to one cup salt, so we
punch you in the face with a pepper, but it mellows out while it's
smoking. Uh. And that's the thing I'm most proud of. But I
really do think we have the best turkey in Texas. Our turkey is amazing.
It's I had a bite of that and it's incredible to and I cannot
wait to jump into the Boudan brisket. Yeah, yeah, so, Jordan
Jackson, my mentor out of East Texas. It's in at recipe. So
we utilize any of the whole briskets that we don't sell. We braise it
down with bell peppers, onions, we use some seasoning rice, mix it
up, have some juice in it, and we case it up and it's
just it's Unbelievable's one of our best sellers for sure. Yeah, there's nothing
better than the combination or the blending of New Orleans and Texas barbecue. It's
so good, Joe, thanks for coming up. Break already, go go,
go, go late. We're just gonna cram some food. Everyone can
find you. And Grand Prairie of course. Yeah, so we're locating downtown
Grand Prairie on Brisket of Maine, and you can follow us on all socials
at Zavala's Barbecue or you can find us as Aval's Barbecue dot com z A
V A l A. And of course section one twenty one at the Double
A C. Yes, which I may have us some Valentine's Day MAVs game
action. Just swing back, get some barbecue again. All right, thank
you so much for coming up, Joe. We appreciate it. Joe,
thank you so much. Thanks, we got birthdays, talk back, so
much stuff and the final segment of The Down be next to ninety seven won the Freak