This is a downbeat on ninety seven to one the freak internal not muslat socked
me, don't I bush so lushy, that's hot. I think it's National
Pancakes Day. It is Natural Pancake Day. So why didn't somebody bring us
all these flat jacks? Corner Bakery? Okay, the other iHeart Stations pancakes,
five trays of pancakes, one huge tray of bacon, bacon, audios.
Acon was good for me, bacon. Those pancakes are delicious, the
hardest I've had four pancakes so far. Go go to short stacks eight.
No, no, that's it, but thank you the cutoff. Yeah,
yeah, I'm good. You need to have twenty five pancakes for Lucas twenty
fifth birthday. Are there? Is there Hooty and Blowfish tickets at the end
of this Yeah, I'll give you a pair. End of this journey,
there's not before we do Luca than guys, say thank you to all the
listeners who came out and met me and Mikey and gave a We were giving
away these vote ninety seven to one the freak signs, and we only made
a hundred of them. And there's a whole contest. If you go to
the Freaks, it's at ninety seven to one in the Freak. On Facebook
and on Twitter and on Instagram, I posted the rules for all contest.
We'll do a drawing next week on that. But I just wanted to say
thanks to everyone who came. I met a lot of people. It wasn't
like, you know, you met some listeners that you kind of knew,
but there were some that I'd never met before. Yeah, and can we
got their signs and they were out posting and putting these at all the election
cycle, I mean all the election polling places because it's a primary week.
I was driving home and I was gonna I kept one in my car for
me, and I was going to put it at the Richardson Life Ibrary,
right near my house where there's a big pole polling location. And sure enough,
as I was getting into that turn lane there, I saw the big
Freak sign right there, and I was like, yes, is that it
take it somewhere over there? Yeah, already there, already marked. So
if you have them in obvious you can pull one in your front yard you
want to keep it or whatever. But thank y'all for doing that and continue
to doing that. Different polling places take the pics, post them. That's
great. Helps us out a little bit. I think I was surprised because
you know, this dates back even weekend showed up my previous sit. You
never know if anyone's I just hope people are listening and reacting to what you're
doing. And then we went down there and those things just flew, all
hundred of them. It's not like stand up comedy where you can see the
crowd. Yeah, that's there, you know. And we have some hot
listeners too. Yeah, how's that? You said? Have one guy,
dude, Paul perfect teeth. He must have gone seen doctor Troy. Incredible
that one guy. There's another guy too, his names Red, and he
goes, he goes, I'm gonna go to Andrews American Pizza Kitchen for long
munch. Yeah, double whammy. Good job he took off. So thank
you everyone. That was a lot of fun. And it's not over by
any means, obviously, those signs still stand. I can't wait to drive
by and see if it's still out there. Make sure no some nerd election
official, yeah, gitting passed out. No, can't have it. Not
a real candidate, hopefully, this kid's still in the car. Birthday shout
out seventeen year old Harrison Light in rock Wall. Hey, kiddo, you're
seventeen years old. Now you're a man. Maybe tomorrow or next year.
I don't know how it works, but you need to listen to the station
twenty four to seven. Okay, Harrison, Tell your man friends, Tell
all your man and woman friends. That's the most important thing for real.
Happy birthday, Happy seventeenth Harrison. Good name too, Harrison Light. That's
a presidential candidate in the future, right there, rock Wall's finest or the
name of a bad regional beer. Yeah, I don't know. I guess
I'll go for the Harrison Light. It was forty cents cheaper. Yeah,
sure, I'll take the Harrison line. Is that coming? Is that on
draft? No? I'd find can can me? Okay? So we're forward
celebrating Luca's birthday. Can I take you guys back to the year twenty eighteen
real quick? Because and Luca was born in ninety nine, right, he's
twenty five years old, but twenty eighteen, and the NBA Draft is happening,
and at the time I was doing we were all at different stations at
the time, me and Ben and Skin were doing a show in the American
Airline Center and Donny Nelson cut Pops on the show and he jokingly goes,
oh, we're gonna take DeAndre Ayton. Now, the Mavericks had at the
time the fifth pick in the draft, and the names that you were constantly
running into were DeAndre Ayton, Marvin Bagley, Jared Jackson, Junior Trey Young,
Mobamba, Wendell, Carter Luca, those are a few names. So
that happens, and he's kind of okay, eight, we're not getting eight,
and we needed a center, a big man, so good aiighting story
of our lives, Phoenix is number one, and we're like, wait,
are they going to trade for Aighton? Like what are they up something?
And then Skin kind of starts, you know, working his connections. Ben
starts working his connections. And then I see a tweet from an unverified guy
in Atlanta and it's a guy i'd never you know, some mass fan or
retweeted it into my timeline or whatever, and I get a hold of him,
get him on the air, and he starts laying out an hour before
it happens. Discussions that have been made why Atlanta really wants Trey Young in
this draft draft. Their new GM had a Golden State Warriors background, and
Steph Curry Tray Young. You can make the connection there if you want to.
And he starts laying out that Dallas is a team that they had talked
to and this is just a TV reporter. So you're sitting there going,
Okay, this guy really know any things. He's just starting stuff. When
we get him on, he lays it out and then the wheel start turning
and things start moving live on the air, and it was really exciting as
it's happening. Trade goes down. We just traded up to number three.
Okay, what are we trading up to number three? Four? Well,
this guy says, we're trading up for Luca. This guy in Atlanta,
the skin's kind of working his connection still, and it moves on. Sure
enough, the trade goes through. So eighton, Marvin Bagley goes to Sacramento
and with the number three pick, the Atlanta Hawks select Luka Doncic and the
Mavericks at five select Trey Young and they ended up making the trade. And
it was just like wild how that all happened, because that day, I
don't think any of us knew that day that it was happening. He was
very unknown what the Mavericks were gonna do. At number five, you're almost
waiting and hoping a team passed up on a player you liked in the top
four, and they ended up getting there because of a trade that they made
with Donnie Nelson, and he deserves a lot of credit for making this happen.
So they were targeting Luca hard. And I remember before this draft when
Jake Kemp and Mike Marshall too with my basketball basketball leaders were hot on Luca.
But there is still just an element of the unknown, you know.
I mean there have been very high drafted Europeans that are busted. It just
don't work out. And it is also weird that Luca was drafted by the
Hawks and Dirk was drafted by the Bucks, right, Yeah, that's just
kind of strange. I remember, I remember like that was it trailer?
Yeah, but they knew what they wanted. They made it work as in
peace and then you get this kid and it's like all right, here we
go. And we saw what was it on some documentary or something just not
too long ago about his first day with the with the team practicing at the
practice facility. You know, they're like shaking hands meeting you, and they're
like you could tell pretty quick that he wasn't intimidated by the whole thing.
And you know, it's been spoken about ad nauseum, the whole experience of
being a pro in Europe. I mean, it made him very rude for
this, and he just had it from like minute one special and the fact
that we are where we are now. I've credited Korby for this before where
he wants to one of the singing events saying Novitzky Numb to Comfortably Numb by
Pink Floyd, and I thought it was a great song, but a great
point, like we've become numb to what Dirk does every night. And I
was saying this to Kevin just yesterday. It's like whatever last night's game.
We can talk about more if we need to, but there'll be a game
and the MAVs win, and we'll be like, man, Kyrie was awesome,
Man Kyrie did great. You know, he had thirty two, you
know, and to Timmy was shooting the ball, well, you know,
he mad four threes and it's almost like you don't even mention that Luca went
for thirty five and eleven and eight. Yeah, it's like the talking point
starts after Luca absolutely dominates and annihilates everyone that we face, after what he
he does game in, game out, because what can you can you do
it every day? Just say the guys just unstoppable and amazing and apparently one
of the greatest basketball players to ever live, Like, at least on that
trajectory. Yeah, man, it is. I don't even want to say
it's incredible. Yeah, because in what we do, it's it's kind of
incumbent am on us to come up with unique, fresh ideas and opinions and
or something that kind of spikes. It's funny that he's so consistently incredible that
the bar is so high for him that it takes a sixty point game right
for us to really draw real attention to him. It's always about what the
other guys did, because that's what he averages. Dude, he averages thirty
five and eleven and nine. That's what he does consistently and has since what
Christmas. Yeah, I mean his pace is ridiculous and this was at the
end of January. I think the average thirty five points or something like that.
It's the type of thing that we ended up taking for granted with too.
Dirk was doing this a lot and we just went, okay, now
who are the other parts? And you focus so much on the other parts
and what's going to be able to take that because you have this consistent thing,
you know, anything in our life when something's very consistent, would probably
take it for granted, and then it goes away and you're like, oh
my god, what it was. Like That's why I've never been I've always
almost rolled my eyes at the any narrative of it's not fat Luca, but
out of shape Luca, and I'm like, okay, yeah. But also,
he hasn't had any time off. He plays international ball NonStop in the
summers. The the ref thing, yeah, that is annoying, Like that's
that's the thing. And I don't think Dirk ever had an annoying trait,
you know, except for maybe what we thought of him when he was a
rookie. You know, maybe a haircut, but like you never had one.
So yeah, that that thing is annoying, the ref thing. But
I think it's becoming easier to grasp and he's happier now that they've made some
big move of scout and they're winning. And I've never been hard on the
MAVs, and a lot of people are cool in the MAVs organization, like
they've always tried, like the Mavericks, outside of not running the title team
back and a strike here well whatever, but they've always tried. Porzingis was
a big try, and Porzinkus is a damn good player. They take big
swings, Kyrie try. Yeah, as much as people are willing to come
here, they take as big as swings as anybody. Yeah, And you
know, Donnie Nelson is the one who wanted the Greek Freaks, and Donny
Nelson should get credit, Nico should get credit, Mark Cuban, they should
all get credit for finding a way to do this. There're huge stars,
and now it's like getting past the finish line because we all always want more.
And I think also living in a cowboys city has taught us that it's
never good enough ever, you know, because you're still just at their punching
a mirror because the Cowboys can't get over the hump. But that should have
nothing to do with Luca and the Mavericks. So today's Luca's twenty fifth birthday.
And I think the thing that's most interesting is that he just keeps getting
better. Yeah, better, a lot better. Here's dorkout on numbers for
one second, but I kind of looked AT's a bunch of stats. So
this year, minutes, field goal attempts, field goal percentage, three point
attempts, three point percent, free throw percent, assist, block, steals,
and more. Most importantly, points are all at career highs or really
really close. But most of those are career highs this season, and some
of those numbers that are really impactful are up very big. I mean,
three point it's kind of the biggest one is three pointers. That's why the
scoring numbers are through the roof. He averaged eight point two last year.
Attempts he's at ten point two this year. Two more per game is a
lot, and he's making them thirty four percent last year, thirty eight percent
this year. That's insane. It's a massive leap, especially when you're shooting
two more per game, and that obviously explains why the points go up.
And the other thing is free throws. We kind of bitched about seventy four
last year, seventy eight this year. I mean, that's that's enough to
make it not bother The average I believe is around seventy eight. He's a
little higher than the league seventy seven something like that. You might be right,
but the improvement, you know, as he's now twenty five. Look
at the steels numbers. Yeah, no steals, he's absolutely The defensive effort
on place five per game is showing, and he was in the first half
the season. I've seen he's still banged up a little bit, right,
quad soreness. I mean even tonight on a back to back. I'm sure
he'll be questionable on the injury, but I don't know. Maybe maybe they've
already got that out and he'll be probable. But back to back when he
was carrying the entire load and Jason Kids making comments, we can't run him
into the ground playing forty minutes. Once you get Kyrie healthy, you don't
have to do that as much. And you're seeing now spots in the rotation
where Luka gets a couple of minutes here, and he gets a couple extra
minutes here, and it's in a big, big game. He's gonna play
as many as can. But that's something too. The defensive effort is there
he's moving his feet and he's moving his body and using his body. He's
a very good post defender. If a guards were trying to get mess with
him in the post, No, And like the whole thing about Luca being
they want to be more conditioned, his size, his bulk. Did he
uses that to his advantage. You're a problem with any of that. And
he s got a different body type. He's never going to have David Robinson's
shoulders and arms. Yeah, it's just not going to happen for him.
But to kind of slam that point home. Can I play something for you
as it's twenty five seconds. It's Mark Keith Morris and this is in the
middle of December when the Mavericks were Things were bad, players were hurt and
markif Morris known as a villain for what he did to Luca years ago,
right, And he's talking about Luca after getting to know him a little bit.
And I just thought this was so good, And I just remember this.
I played with some great players. But when I tell you, the
game is just so easy to him, like I've never seen nobody like damn
near walk through the game. He plays the same way in practice. This
is skill yeah, man, he's I don't see why he's not in the
number one in the running for MVP. I just don't. I don't get
it because he's doing it. He's carrying our team, you know, scoring
rebound assists on a nightly basis. That's a dad that didn't know him well
until he got here. Reset For me and maybe others, that why he
was the villain. Remember when he stepped on Luca's ankle when he played for
the Clippers. Okay, unless that was Marcus, I think it was Mark
Keith Morris, remember in the bubble. I don't remember which one it was.
I think it's I think it's him. Okay, I just didn't remember
that. But he should be number one in the MVP. I don't understand
why he's not. What he's doing, carrying the team up and down the
court every single night, and now you're here and he doesn't have to do
that. He seems happier that he doesn't have to do that. He did
it last night. If it weren't for him, they are blown out by
maybe twenty five points, I'm not kidding. They were down by fifteen,
and he went on a very Luca, give me the ball I got this.
I'm gonna get you guys back in this thing and give us a chance
to win it. And they have the lead by one with two point whatever
seconds was left on the clock. It's game over, dude, it's game
over. And it took a fifty nine foot wild running three point shot to
win that game. It's a good team with no time against a very good
team, the second best in the East. I'm sure they were disappointed,
but it probably didn't take them long to realize, what are you gonna do?
I mean, throw your hands up in the air and go all right,
good job, guys. You made a lucky one at the end.
But we were right there and we probably odds would tell us we win that
game night out of ten times with the exact same scenario playing itself out.
It was Marcus. Sorry, Marcus. The stats are all amazing, but
what's really hard to quantify is that he's just like a super nova that draws
the attention of defenses. They all crash down into him, they're sucked to
him, and then he takes all that beating and either still scores it himself
in traffic or find someone always and sets them up for a far easier shot,
making their percentages go up, their numbers go up, their paycheck go
on. Yes, Dorian Phinney Smith is the number one example of that.
I think Maxi is another good example of that too. Yeah, guys,
wide up and looks helps you in your three point percents. Jalen Bronson probably
benefited from that a little bit. I think you're gonna see PJ. Washington
benefit from that. He's gonna start knocking down open threes. I would think
that one of the most frustrating things about playing with Luca has nothing to do
with anything Luca's frustrating you with. It's the frustration within yourself because how many
times, and it seems like it's happening more frequently this season than I've seen
in the past. How many times you guys see Luca pass up on what
appear for him open looks, especially in drives to the basket to where he
out of the corner of his eye sees a dude open beyond the arc and
just laser passes it to him through traffic and it gets there, and the
guy just seeing that seeing him pass on open looks to share with his teammates,
and then the guy's got the ball going, I have to make this,
right, I have to make this shot for him. Yeah, because
if I make this shot, it's gonna make him look like an effing genius.
The crowd's gonna go bananas, or the crowd's gonna get silenced if they're
on the road. But it just completes the entire uh, the high the
entire play, you know, the series or whatever. There's a good chance
he's gonna be the first Maverick ever to win the scoring title, which even
if he doesn't win MVP, I think is pretty awesome. I did look
this up, and not that it matters all that much, but do you
guys have a guess on who the last white dude to be the leading scorer
in the NBA was? Okay, Larry Bird will come, what's gonna mind?
Dirk would be there, but probably I don't think it was ever was
either one of those Steve Nash Nope, you know, I look up Steve
Nash stuff the other day. He didn't even average nineteen points per game and
either of and MVP seasons. Because I was thinking of like the white guard
that just fills it up and scores anyway they want. That's also what makes
him this weird ass unicorn. But the last white dude NBA scoring leader Jerry
West, it's Pete Maravich. Okay, I was about to go that far
back in the seventy six seventy seven season, forty seven years, and not
that that matters all that much, but I did find it interesting, and
I think it's cool that he might be the first mav ever win the scoring
Title'll be very cool. Oh yeah, man, he's already sixth on the
MAVs all time scoring list. Yeah. Today Luca's twenty fifth birthday. He's
ahead of Jason Terry, ahead of Brad Davis, and Jet played eight full
seasons for the Maps. Lucas played five and three quarters, and he's ahead
of him. I mean, he'll be second behind Dirk in about three years.
Three years. Yeah, it's all gonna happen. And then, honestly,
you can't do this, but he's at ten eight hundred or so points
in his career. You can even quit for a little bit of uh that
a little yeah, and add in some regression and basically in ten years,
you know he's going to be a give or take fifth, you know,
at these at this pace on the all time scoring list, ahead of two
guys right behind him, Michael Jordan and Drkinovitch. Health is the only thing,
no, and we're not no, no, no, But you can't
help but think look at pace and whatnot. I mean, he's that good
and we got it. He also seems he's a very cerebral player. I
think uh, And I think once he matures a little bit more, is
able to check his emotions or be able to manage his emotions a little bit
better. I think he's contrary to the amount of technical technicals that he gets,
I think he's actually pretty good about managing his emotions through play. And
you never see one single event in a game get him down to where he's
so frustrated he can't play. He uses a lot of that as fuel and
will elevate his play because of his emotions. But I think he's also that
mental mentally, that type of player that as his body gets older and breaks
down, I think he's still going to be able to put up really good
numbers just being a crafty, clever veteran player. We said, the three
point attempts and percentage have gone up, and that's what's making the numbers through
the damn roof, and there's no accounting for height. But what I just
can't get over is how he finishes, usually somewhere in the painter around there.
He just he's forty nine percent field goal percentage from a guard who handles
the ball as much as he does. He just always seems to have finish
and getting hit. I mean, it's basketball. Put the ball in the
hoop, that's the entire game. He's really good at that. He's putting
the ball in myriad ways, in many many different ways, hands in traffic.
I've said this a lot of savants a lot since he first got here,
and I know a lot of people may may have as well. But
there's something about his pace. Where do you ever get the feeling that he's
kind of playing ropodope with the other team, where he almost lulls the defense
into this false sense of I'm slow. Yeah, he lulls them to sleep.
Well, he almost his defenders weight against them, right, And I
don't know if he doesn't think about this stuff. He's just it's a subconscious
mind of physics that he's got a great grasp on. He just knows it,
we can do it forever. It's Luca's twenty fifth birthday, We wanted
to just stop down and do a little hand clap and an applaud for a
sweet boy twenty five years old today. Happy birthday to you and the people
of your home planet, Luca Dontes and Audio Luca Birthday HJ right here on
the morning show The Downbeach. Oh yeah, More birthdays, talkbacks and more next