Speaker 1: Yeah, the Utah Jazz have a game tonight.
Speaker 2: Of course, we have been reacting to the news that
Speaker 2: Craig Smith has been relieved of his duties is the
Speaker 2: head coach of the Utah men's basketball team. As you're
Speaker 2: proud home at the University of Utah, But the Jazz
Speaker 2: welcome in the Blazers. Our next guest knows a thing
Speaker 2: or two about the Blazers. Tom Haverstraw on Monday, Tom,
Speaker 2: Happy Monday, sir.
Speaker 1: How are you the Blazers.
Speaker 3: Who just put a fifty three point SmackDown on the
Speaker 3: Charlotte Hornet. It's a franchise record. Watch out for the Blazers. Huh.
Speaker 2: Well, let's you know, let's pump the brakes a little bit, Tom.
Speaker 2: But you know, two teams in a similar position. First
Speaker 2: of all, I don't even know this. Do you travel
Speaker 2: with the Blazers broadcast team. I probably should know that
Speaker 2: about you.
Speaker 3: It is a post COVID era where remotely I do
Speaker 3: this out of my house. They put up a studio
Speaker 3: in my garage, like I've had a garage apartment up top,
Speaker 3: and I do it from here in Charlotte, which is crazy.
Speaker 2: Huh, that's awesome. How do I get that gig. I
Speaker 2: need to get a side gig like this, Tom, how
Speaker 2: do I do that?
Speaker 3: Well, you got to talk to the jazz. You gotta
Speaker 3: gotta talk to Danny. You gotta talk to Justin, maybe
Speaker 3: Will Hardy. You give a you know, you got to
Speaker 3: talk to them about that that gig where you can
Speaker 3: do it basically TV from your uh, from.
Speaker 2: Your house, probably going to be probably need going to
Speaker 2: be a different team, Tom, But you know we could
Speaker 2: probably talk about why you know another time. But I
Speaker 2: appreciate your time, man, appreciate your time. So before we
Speaker 2: get to Jazz Blazers, let's kind of jump around a
Speaker 2: little bit, do some big picture of NBA stuff. Since
Speaker 2: I've been able to talk to you since the All
Speaker 2: Star Break, and of course since we're both NBA media members,
Speaker 2: we have to do the topic on the show. How
Speaker 2: did you digest the All Star Break and what do
Speaker 2: you think about, you know, the conversation surrounding it, and
Speaker 2: is it even a game that we need to have anymore?
Speaker 2: And your thoughts on the new format. I just need
Speaker 2: the Tom Havers show taking on All Star weekend.
Speaker 3: Well, the All Star Game died a long time ago, yep.
Speaker 3: And That's true for every sport, not just the NBA.
Speaker 3: So save me the whole. You know, the NBA has
Speaker 3: lost the plot. The NBA doesn't know what it's. It's
Speaker 3: it's NFL. Major League Baseball and NHL have had to
Speaker 3: do away in one form or another with the thing
Speaker 3: we all grew up on, which is watching Michael and
Speaker 3: watching Kang Griffey Junior and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire
Speaker 3: watching all these stars come together for the first time
Speaker 3: all season and having this like spectacle. That's all gone.
Speaker 3: We need to not hold on to the nostalgia of
Speaker 3: it all because two things have changed in the NBA specifically,
Speaker 3: one is the player empowerment era. We don't have the
Speaker 3: same sort of regard for the novelty of seeing all
Speaker 3: the best players play together. You know why, because they
Speaker 3: already are. Luka Danciz just got traded to the Lakers,
Speaker 3: and Lebron has now played with Luca, Anthony Davis, Kyrie, Irving,
Speaker 3: Kevin Love, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh. You go on, Dowt
Speaker 3: ray Allen. You don't get the same sort of dopamine
Speaker 3: hit of seeing these guys play in the All Star
Speaker 3: Game together because they already have played together, and it's
Speaker 3: a different era in that respect. And secondly, the social
Speaker 3: media cell phone era has made it so that we
Speaker 3: have instant access to all of these guys, all of them.
Speaker 3: If you wanted to get highlights or see these guys
Speaker 3: in their you know, normal behind the scenes, their personality,
Speaker 3: we already get it. All that used to be where
Speaker 3: you got to see you know them hanging out and
Speaker 3: get this behind the scenes access access is now everywhere.
Speaker 3: And so we used to get a to see all
Speaker 3: these guys and around the court and all, look there's
Speaker 3: Shack with his camera out, and look it's KG. Oh,
Speaker 3: there's Kobe, that Michael like. That was such a novelty
Speaker 3: back then, but now it's not. And so I think
Speaker 3: I think everyone has to come with the grips on
Speaker 3: the grips with the idea that the All Star Game
Speaker 3: is now obsolete and every sport has figured this out,
Speaker 3: and the NBA needs to understand and they've come around
Speaker 3: to the idea that like three point competition is probably
Speaker 3: going to be the main event going forward if there
Speaker 3: is a one on one tournament. Okay, but I do
Speaker 3: think that the All Star Game as we know it
Speaker 3: that thing died many, many years ago, and that's true
Speaker 3: for all sports.
Speaker 1: Hum.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because I have not talked to
Speaker 2: you since the All Star Break, and it's exactly how
Speaker 2: I feel about the game. And I'm only aware that
Speaker 2: the reason I had bitch and moan about in belly
Speaker 2: ache about it is for thirty years it was the
Speaker 2: best pickup game in the world, and it was awesome
Speaker 2: for a number of years.
Speaker 1: But to your point, it's a long time now.
Speaker 2: That it's since it's been like that, maybe two decades.
Speaker 2: Quite frankly, you know, if you want to go back
Speaker 2: that far, is there any meat on the bone? And
Speaker 2: we've seen international versus domestic before, but with the evolution
Speaker 2: of you know, I don't know, however you want to
Speaker 2: rank it, maybe five of the top seven or eight
Speaker 2: players in pro basketball being international players. Yanna's talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe doing this overseas or something. The problem
Speaker 2: with it, as I'm talking and I'm listening to myself
Speaker 2: out loud, is that I don't think you're going to
Speaker 2: get these guys to give a rip about it if
Speaker 2: it's played in Paris or Salt Lake or wherever.
Speaker 1: But is there any meat on that bone to.
Speaker 2: An international domestic competition played overseas.
Speaker 3: I think there is. I'll tell you what I was watching.
Speaker 1: Court of Gold, so good, so good, tom awesome.
Speaker 3: You know, I talked about access, and I talked about
Speaker 3: how rare it is. You know that we used to
Speaker 3: never see these guys together and now we see it
Speaker 3: all the time. This was a different kind of access
Speaker 3: where you're getting in ways that like they don't normally
Speaker 3: do it with the NBA, Like there is no hard
Speaker 3: knocks NBA. But this Court of Gold was really special
Speaker 3: behind the scenes, getting these guys to talk candidly about
Speaker 3: how big this all felt, and there is a sense
Speaker 3: of pride. Kevin Durant was so emotional that it brought
Speaker 3: him to tears thinking about what this game has brought
Speaker 3: him and how cool it is that there's twenty seven
Speaker 3: thousand screaming fans saying USA and backing Team USA and
Speaker 3: how important that meant to him. He was brought to tears,
Speaker 3: And there is a sense of pride, and I think
Speaker 3: there is something to unlock. There is the idea of
Speaker 3: where you're from and if you were call what Kevin
Speaker 3: Durant was talking about was I came from nothing, and
Speaker 3: how hard it was to survive my neighborhood, and basketball
Speaker 3: gave me a ticket to getting out of that that
Speaker 3: hard life where you're just going to become a statistic.
Speaker 3: And his mother didn't want him to become a statistic,
Speaker 3: and the gave the game gave him life. And I'm
Speaker 3: wondering if it's not USA versus World, I'm wondering.
Speaker 4: If it's BC East Coast versus West Coast versus Central
Speaker 4: where you have three you have three different American teams
Speaker 4: East versus West, and then you go Chicago, Texas and
Speaker 4: that and that hole basically the central part of basically
Speaker 4: the Central time zone, and you have basically the New
Speaker 4: York DC Crew, and then you have the LA West
Speaker 4: Coast Seattle Crew, and you go and you play basically
Speaker 4: three three American teams, and then there's an international team
Speaker 4: or you do Team Europe, Team Africa, Team US, and
Speaker 4: then Team Canada something like that. I think there's something there,
Speaker 4: but East versus West. I'm sorry these people who think
Speaker 4: that that's going.
Speaker 3: To revitalize things. No one cares. The players don't care.
Speaker 3: East versus West isn't a thing anymore because teams, players
Speaker 3: are switching teams from East to West all the time.
Speaker 3: Right now, I don't think there's a sense of pride
Speaker 3: East versus West anymore, especially in the player empowerment era.
Speaker 3: But I do think there might be a foreign Nations
Speaker 3: thing possible with the NBA. But it's gonna have to
Speaker 3: They're gonna have to thread the needle, and we probably
Speaker 3: could do eight podcasts on this concept. But I do
Speaker 3: think there is a regional aspect with Foreig nations that
Speaker 3: could be applied to the NBA.
Speaker 2: Before we move off of this, give me your thoughts
Speaker 2: on the presentation and broadcasting decisions. Like if I was
Speaker 2: playing in that format and I played my ass off
Speaker 2: to get a win, and then they came over to me.
Speaker 2: They said, you're gonna sit down for thirty minutes while
Speaker 2: Kevin Hart makes fun of sha Shaq's turtleneck, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna bring on some streamer who's.
Speaker 1: Gonna like, I don't even I'm old.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know these streamers, and I understand
Speaker 2: wanting to cater to younger audience. But they interviewed Jokich
Speaker 2: Tom and they said, so what'd you do during the break?
Speaker 2: He said, I got tight like It was beyond dumb
Speaker 2: to ask these players, some of whom Stephen Curry Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant are in their early to mid thirties, to go
Speaker 2: sit after playing and then have them play again. They're
Speaker 2: lucky somebody didn't tear a an achilles, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: rip apart of an achilles ten like, tell me your
Speaker 2: thoughts on the way they elected to go about the
Speaker 2: presentation and the flow of the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's business for president over basketball. That is all that
Speaker 3: is is that they were trying to figure out a
Speaker 3: way to lengthen the broadcast as much as they can
Speaker 3: to fulfill their advertising revenues and their advertising partners and
Speaker 3: their corporate partners. And that's tough, especially because the last
Speaker 3: couple of years I remember, Chris Paul and Steph Curry
Speaker 3: have been talking about it is like we wanted to
Speaker 3: get rid of all the pomp and circumstance, the pageantry
Speaker 3: of the intros, because they'd warm up, then they'd have
Speaker 3: an intro stand around for twenty minutes, and then there
Speaker 3: was a musical act and then they would play. And
Speaker 3: Chris Paul brought it up to Adam Silver's like we
Speaker 3: got to do something about that like warming up and
Speaker 3: then sitting for a half hour and standing around before
Speaker 3: the game. We got to get rid of that, and
Speaker 3: then they did. They tried to solve that problem, and
Speaker 3: they went right back into it this year, and I
Speaker 3: just think that it was look, I think Lebron sitting out.
Speaker 3: I had more of an issue with Lebron sitting out
Speaker 3: than a lot of the things that went on. I
Speaker 3: think the fact that he took the last minute and
Speaker 3: didn't even get into his uniform to take the photo.
Speaker 3: It seemed like a sort of statement in me and
Speaker 3: l Hassen on the Basketball Illuminati podcast, we just put
Speaker 3: it out last week and Jamie Fox's commenting on it,
Speaker 3: Draymond Scottie Pippener commenting on our podcast, because the meme
Speaker 3: was like it seemed like Lebron was trying to make
Speaker 3: a statement, like Clutch was like upset with the All
Speaker 3: Star format going bringing me All Star or sorry the
Speaker 3: rising stars into the four team competition and Lebron wasn't
Speaker 3: having it. Draymond Green did the you know the hat
Speaker 3: emoji for cap meaning it's a lie. But the fact
Speaker 3: that Lebron is opening up this conversation of why he
Speaker 3: sat out the All Star Game is not a good
Speaker 3: look and saying like my foot hurts, so I'm gonna
Speaker 3: sit out last minute. Everyone needs to care more about
Speaker 3: like making sure this is perfect and making sure this
Speaker 3: shows that the players care. And the whole weekend, it
Speaker 3: just seemed like no one is taking charge of this thing.
Speaker 3: And this is what you get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've made my sentiment known on the Lebron thing.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a clown show. Quite frankly, I'm
Speaker 2: not a Lebron hater. But he also kept money from
Speaker 2: one of his peers because you know, these all star
Speaker 2: clauses and contracts, you know, obviously they're paying out bonuses
Speaker 2: if you're named an All Star, and whether it's you know,
Speaker 2: Sabonis or Norman Power or whatever, like, if you're not
Speaker 2: going to play, just say something. Don't make it all
Speaker 2: about you all the time, Lebron, Like, we get it.
Speaker 2: But if you're not going to play, say something. Let
Speaker 2: one of your peers step in as a replacement, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And and look, he's forty years old. He gets
Speaker 3: some grace on some of these things. But he knows
Speaker 3: that he knows what time it is, like, he knows
Speaker 3: what it's what imagine if that was one of his
Speaker 3: teammates that got scammed out of a spot on the
Speaker 3: All Star team. You know, like what if it was Luca,
Speaker 3: who was not to say that he would ever be
Speaker 3: a borderline All Star candidate, But let's say it's Austin Reeves.
Speaker 3: You know, would the conversation be different for Lebron or
Speaker 3: the thought process be different if it was one of
Speaker 3: his guys who was going to get one of those spots.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it would be. So I do think that
Speaker 3: that was a miss. I get that if he's injured,
Speaker 3: he's injured, whatever, But you know, it does seem to
Speaker 3: me like that was an unexplainable, inexplicable situation that he
Speaker 3: would not even dress for the photo shoot, that he
Speaker 3: was just like so out of out of it. But
Speaker 3: you know what, they've played really well since since the
Speaker 3: All Star break. So whether that means that he got
Speaker 3: healthier and it was a good decision to take the
Speaker 3: All Star break off, or that he was trying to
Speaker 3: make a statement he was healthy enough to play, he
Speaker 3: just didn't want to play, I don't know. Whatever it is,
Speaker 3: the Lakers look really good with that with him out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I look, you know, it even continued with the
Speaker 2: whole like, hey, he's questionable the game against No, he's
Speaker 2: not like he was fine, you know, but continue the
Speaker 2: narrative or whatever. But let's move off of this because
Speaker 2: since you and I last spoke, some rough news came
Speaker 2: down the Victor weban Yama's shut down for the year.
Speaker 2: And when I heard blood Clott Tom, I thought bosh.
Speaker 2: That was my first thing, right, I thought, Chris Bosh.
Speaker 2: And you're like, oh no, Now, all of the reporting
Speaker 2: around it is there's optimism that he's going to be
Speaker 2: just fine. Of course you got to shut him down
Speaker 2: immediately with something that serious, But you've done some work
Speaker 2: on this, your thoughts on this unfortunate news in the
Speaker 2: future of Victor webben Yama's pro basketball career based off
Speaker 2: this health issue.
Speaker 3: I had the same reaction, Oh no, is his career
Speaker 3: in jeopardy now because I covered Chris Bosh in Miami
Speaker 3: and that scared the living daylight time of me. It's
Speaker 3: seeing Victor webin Yama the next great superstar. If he's
Speaker 3: not already the face of the league, it's going to
Speaker 3: be sooner than we think. And the key here is
Speaker 3: that DVTs vain thrombosis effect the shoulder is potentially and
Speaker 3: I say this potentially just because I'm not a doctor,
Speaker 3: but I did talk to a doctor, Brian Sutter, for
Speaker 3: an article at Yahoo Sports that went into detail about
Speaker 3: why this is different than Chris Bosh and potentially less
Speaker 3: severe of a case because Bosh the blood clot had
Speaker 3: traveled to his lungs. It started in his leg, it
Speaker 3: traveled into his lungs. He complained of chest pain and
Speaker 3: that's like life threatening situation and that also might not
Speaker 3: be a structural issue that can be fixed. Whereas Wemby
Speaker 3: the shoulder blood clot is the same thing that happened
Speaker 3: with Brandon Ingram, the star for the Toronto Raptors New
Speaker 3: Orleans Pelicans drafted by the Lakers. He had the same
Speaker 3: issue that Wemby is. From what I can tell, it's
Speaker 3: the same thing, and he had surgery to remove part
Speaker 3: of his rib to basically free up that vein and
Speaker 3: a allow the blood flow to go through okay, and
Speaker 3: by doing that he hasn't had an issue since. And
Speaker 3: so that was right before the ad trade. He had
Speaker 3: the DVT, the same thing that Wenby has, and he
Speaker 3: has he took you know, some time off, and he came,
Speaker 3: he got traded to the Pelicans, and then had an
Speaker 3: all star year the first year. So he's had his
Speaker 3: best years after DVT, which is to say that Wemby
Speaker 3: does have a very serious condition right now, a serious
Speaker 3: medical issue that if he does take care of this,
Speaker 3: like brandon Ingram situation was taken care of, he might
Speaker 3: be fine and we might not ever see the words,
Speaker 3: you know, or associate it with career threatening or any
Speaker 3: sort of thing like that. And so Wemby while he
Speaker 3: is having season ending treatment, I do think there is
Speaker 3: optimism from a medical standpoint that if this is a
Speaker 3: brandon Ingram situation, it is not a Chris Boss situation.
Speaker 3: And blood clots are scary, but it is apples and
Speaker 3: oranges in some sense where because this was a shoulder
Speaker 3: deep bay thrombosis thoracic compression syndrome, I believe it's what
Speaker 3: it's called. This is a shoulder issue, blood clot issue,
Speaker 3: not a leg one. And I think that's a very
Speaker 3: important distinction between what we're seeing with Wemby and Bosh.
Speaker 2: All Right, one question about a team out east, and
Speaker 2: that is my beloved new York Knickerbockers that can't seem
Speaker 2: to win against a you know, win a game against
Speaker 2: a really good team, you.
Speaker 1: Know, at least out that way.
Speaker 2: But you know, ultimately I still think it's a team
Speaker 2: that can obviously make the postseason win around.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but we all know that Boston is
Speaker 2: still perceived to be the best team out that way,
Speaker 2: and the Cavs just won't stop winning. So it does
Speaker 2: appear that there's a tier of two and then a
Speaker 2: drop off. And maybe it's the Knicks and get into
Speaker 2: the Box and the Pacers or whatever. But what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on, for whatever reason, the nixt inability, at
Speaker 2: least on paper as of now and what we're seeing
Speaker 2: when it comes to playing good teams, they just can't
Speaker 2: seem to get it done.
Speaker 3: One. It is a concern of mine that they are
Speaker 3: not able to play up to the abilities of the
Speaker 3: rest of the cream of the crop in the NBA,
Speaker 3: that they cannot get over the hump. And it's not
Speaker 3: even just being it's not even winning those games that
Speaker 3: they that's been elusive. It's even being competitive in those
Speaker 3: games it's proved elusive. For the new York Knicks. They're
Speaker 3: getting blown out, not just losing, but it's not even close.
Speaker 3: So that's one thing that is the concern, and I
Speaker 3: think it's the defense, is that when you're playing against
Speaker 3: seventy five percent of the NBA, they can score enough
Speaker 3: that they can basically, in the most purest sense, outscore
Speaker 3: the opponent that they can be an average defense and
Speaker 3: get away with it. Against top ten offenses. The defense
Speaker 3: has the twenty ninth ranked defense according to Cleaning and
Speaker 3: Glass dot Com. That's absurd, like Tom Thibodau's defense being
Speaker 3: the second worst in the NBA against good offenses is
Speaker 3: unheard of. And the second part of this that I
Speaker 3: want to talk about is Karl Anthony town should not
Speaker 3: gone back in that game yesterday and he had a
Speaker 3: knee injury he could barely walk, and then in the
Speaker 3: fourth quarter he's at the scorer's table and comes back
Speaker 3: into the game in a blowout. That should not happen.
Speaker 3: And Tibbs, We've been down this road so many times,
Speaker 3: and I do think there is a Tibbs tax where
Speaker 3: he demands so much of his players in the regular season,
Speaker 3: and we're seeing it with the minutes totals he gets
Speaker 3: really great regular season results, but last year I think
Speaker 3: is more common than not where they just break down.
Speaker 3: And I'm worried about the Knicks on two fronts. One
Speaker 3: their ability to play with the best of the best,
Speaker 3: and two, I am worried about Karl Anthony Town's knee.
Speaker 3: And if they've got this investment in Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 3: and he's got a knee injury, that could be a
Speaker 3: problematic going forward. They got like four more years on
Speaker 3: that contract. And if you can go from a bad
Speaker 3: situation to a really bad situation, if there's any sort
Speaker 3: of issues there with his knee.
Speaker 2: I Tom, before I say you lose Jazz Blazers tonight,
Speaker 2: make it interesting, go.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I think when you look at the Timani Kamara, this guy,
Speaker 3: I think is going to get a lot of talk
Speaker 3: for all defense, maybe even Defensive Player of the Year.
Speaker 3: He shut down LaMelo Ball a night ago. He shut
Speaker 3: down Tyree Taliburton. This guy, Timani Kamara, He's worth the
Speaker 3: price of admission watching him what he does up and
Speaker 3: down the floor. So this guy was a second round
Speaker 3: pick traded from Phoenix in the DeAndre Ayton deal. Yusuf
Speaker 3: Nurkic Phoenix have been awful this year and Timani Kamara
Speaker 3: is one of the best defenders in the NBA. So
Speaker 3: the Blazers just put a spa on the Hornets, a
Speaker 3: fifty three point win franchise record. And I got to
Speaker 3: tell you this guy, Timani Kamara, who had a plus
Speaker 3: forty five in the plus minus column, I want to
Speaker 3: see what he does against Isaiah Collier. I want to
Speaker 3: see what he does against the Jazz because what he's
Speaker 3: been doing against the opponent's best player all season long
Speaker 3: has been worth a price of admission. So keep an
Speaker 3: eye on that dude. Timani Kamara from Belgium had twenty points,
Speaker 3: ten rebounds and six assists the other night. Watch out
Speaker 3: for this guy. He's a real gamer.
Speaker 2: Tom, you are the man. I appreciate the time. Good
Speaker 2: to catch up. Have a great call on the broadcast
Speaker 2: tonight and we'll chat soon, buddy.
Speaker 3: All right, s Bence, have a good one.
Speaker 2: Tom haberstrow busy Busy guy writes a piece for Yahoo Sports.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think he has four different podcasts.
Speaker 2: He's on the Blazers analytics team as well on the
Speaker 2: broadcast side of things. On Twitter at Tom Haberstrow is
Speaker 2: where you find him,