Speaker 1: I time the Uncrustable perfectly today, just like you could
Speaker 1: not have done it better. I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes twenty five minutes, but if you can
Speaker 1: get it when the jelly is still a little bit
Speaker 1: cold and it's like a little crunchy, o oh, man,
Speaker 1: knocked it right out of the park. I usually save
Speaker 1: until three, but I tried something new today and I
Speaker 1: think I'm onto something grape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, okay, I'm all in on the grape man.
Speaker 1: Like I've now only started to buy only grape. I
Speaker 1: don't buy the strawberry yet. Really, I haven't tried it.
Speaker 1: There's like new flavors, but I'm all in on the grape.
Speaker 3: There is quite a few. There's like a honey one.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's be clear, it's not anything groundbreaking. This
Speaker 3: is a peanut butter and something else sandwich. There's honey ones,
Speaker 3: there's strawberry jamda. The Uncrustables, though they don't miss well, I'm.
Speaker 1: Just afraid that they're, as the kids would say, they're
Speaker 1: doing too much. They're trying too hard. Just stick with
Speaker 1: the basics. At least that's my opinion. We've got doney
Speaker 1: on the program today RSL was able to get a win.
Speaker 1: The Voice of the Utes, Bill Riley, stops by Sam
Speaker 1: Monson for some football. But on a Monday afternoon, it's
Speaker 1: always going to start a week with my buddy Tom
Speaker 1: Haberstrow to talk a little pro basketball.
Speaker 4: Tom.
Speaker 2: Happy Monday, buddy. How we doing.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm doing great. FCC champion Staples Wreckers. You're talking
Speaker 4: to an alum of the raining champion FCAC Staples Wreckers.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's right, Spence. I had that in my
Speaker 4: back pocket before I came on.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to rub that in.
Speaker 1: I'll just encourage you to go look at the box
Speaker 1: score from nineteen ninety six at Staples High when your
Speaker 1: boy just took Pete Van Sicklin and Ernie Verina to school.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if you know this, and it
Speaker 4: is for another time, but the suburban teams in the
Speaker 4: FCAC are now raining. They're now dominating the FCAC, which
Speaker 4: is very different than when we were growing up. But
Speaker 4: I digress. That is another topic for another conversation. And
Speaker 4: I am here in Portland. I am in studio for
Speaker 4: this four game trip that the Blazers are on the road.
Speaker 4: And they just finished up a game against the Cleveland
Speaker 4: Cavaliers in overtime. It was an amazing game. And the
Speaker 4: reason why we had pearl Jams starting up is because
Speaker 4: I am here in the Pacific Northwest coming to you
Speaker 4: live from Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of the PMW as those of
Speaker 1: us out here like to call it?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And it's there's such a great food scene
Speaker 4: and people are very friendly. It's just there's like so
Speaker 4: here at the hotel, there's a you know, a purel dispenser,
Speaker 4: like a hand sanitizer dispenser, and it says, spread joy,
Speaker 4: not germs. Love. To me, that is Portland in a nutshell.
Speaker 4: Is there's just on something as just random and basic
Speaker 4: as a hand sanitizer machine. They gotta make it weird.
Speaker 4: They got to make it fun. Spread joy, not germs.
Speaker 4: Worse to live by.
Speaker 1: Keep Portland weird, man. I'm telling you, I've got buddies
Speaker 1: up there. And if you watch like propaganda news, you
Speaker 1: believe that the city is dad.
Speaker 2: It's not. It's very much great.
Speaker 1: Do not watch the news and believe what they tell you,
Speaker 1: Just go and experience it. How often are you able
Speaker 1: to get up there, because usually you do all this
Speaker 1: stuff via zoom right or in the studio in your house.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I come up a couple times a year,
Speaker 4: and I got a cousin, one of my close cousins
Speaker 4: here in Portland, so it's always great to come. The
Speaker 4: food scene is outrageous. I have that Top Chef podcast,
Speaker 4: Pack your Knives. If you're a big fan of that
Speaker 4: show on Bravo Top Chef, you can listen to that.
Speaker 4: And I got to eat at one of these Top
Speaker 4: Chef restaurants called con Gregory Gordat, And like, man, every
Speaker 4: time I come to Portland, I'm just blown away at
Speaker 4: the food scene, the beer scene, like all the arts
Speaker 4: here in town. It's just a great I love coming here. Besides,
Speaker 4: you know, this is the only pro sports team in
Speaker 4: the four major sports here and they really care about
Speaker 4: their Blazers. And I know Salt Lake, you guys are
Speaker 4: experiencing this too. Is just like they're adding, you know,
Speaker 4: they're adding an team there, and I gotta imagine, does
Speaker 4: this mean that the Jazz lose some of their real
Speaker 4: estate in the sports conversation, I'm wondering. I'm curious.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, and you know, I've often drawn
Speaker 1: parallels between Salt Lake City and Portland. You know, they
Speaker 1: have an MLS team, and their soccer fans are are
Speaker 1: very intense and it's a really cool soccer experience like
Speaker 1: we have here right now. The hockey club's presence has
Speaker 1: not seemed to dilude the fan base when it comes
Speaker 1: to attendance for the Jazz. You know what's interesting, Tom,
Speaker 1: is we got some TV ratings data a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago. And when you know the Gobert, Mitchell Quinn teams,
Speaker 1: when they were at their peak, the Jazz were second
Speaker 1: in the entire league in local NBA ratings, the Warriors
Speaker 1: were won and this was like two three years in
Speaker 1: a row. And now the Jazz are like third to
Speaker 1: the bottom and they have the second worst drop as
Speaker 1: far as ratings go locally. So there's information available to
Speaker 1: indicate people aren't watching the games at home as much
Speaker 1: as they typically do. But I think I've been to
Speaker 1: maybe nine or ten games, and every game I've been to,
Speaker 1: and look, I will admit to being a snob. I
Speaker 1: only go to the games where the good teams are
Speaker 1: actually playing on the other side. Because the Jazz, you know,
Speaker 1: we know the deal. But every game I've been to
Speaker 1: Tom that Arena has been packed. The Jazz fans continue
Speaker 1: to show up. At least from my vantage point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Blazers fans too, is that even though they're
Speaker 4: going to this rebuild, the attendance is strong. And we
Speaker 4: just on the broadcast side, have the highest increase in
Speaker 4: year over year audience numbers. The ratings have increased by
Speaker 4: see something like sixty percent. And you know, the team
Speaker 4: right now has the second best defense in the NBA.
Speaker 4: The Blazers do since they made this lineup change Shade
Speaker 4: and Sharp out of the starting lineup. Timani Kamara is
Speaker 4: a beast and Will Hardy has talked a big game
Speaker 4: on to Monic More loves that guy, and it reminded me,
Speaker 4: you know, like the Jazz, they would love a player
Speaker 4: like that. And I've always said that Hammani Kamara is
Speaker 4: like the Walker Kessler of the Rudy Gobert trade. Is
Speaker 4: like a kind of like an afterthought, a throw in
Speaker 4: that people aren't really excited about at the time of
Speaker 4: the trade because they don't they're not familiar with his game,
Speaker 4: and then later on they're like, oh, like long term,
Speaker 4: like Walker Kessler's he's a real piece. Like he's a
Speaker 4: really good young player in the same way that Tammani Kamara,
Speaker 4: who's this all World defender on the wing, second year
Speaker 4: player for the For the Blazers, he's like the real
Speaker 4: gem of that Damian Lillard trade, where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: he's not as good as Drew Holiday right now, but
Speaker 4: down the line, if the Blazers can get Timani Kamara
Speaker 4: to develop on the offensive end, they've got a real
Speaker 4: like Jimmy Butler type, Derek White type and at the
Speaker 4: time just a second round pick, no one thought anything
Speaker 4: of it, but just like Walker Kessler, a real deal player.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up Walker Kessler because I wanted
Speaker 1: to revisit a topic that you and I covered to
Speaker 1: start the year and having kicked it around lately, because
Speaker 1: it's just been difficult to create interesting narratives for a
Speaker 1: team that's unserious about winning. And you know, Jaden Springer's
Speaker 1: signed a three year deal. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: means that they're super high on him moving forward or
Speaker 1: they just need players on the roster, But to start
Speaker 1: the year and to start the season, for me, whenever
Speaker 1: I would go on a different radio show or a podcast,
Speaker 1: I'd get pretty much the same question, which is who's
Speaker 1: around on the team when they're good again outside of
Speaker 1: marketing and look, they have a lot of work to
Speaker 1: do to make sure that they're good in the next
Speaker 1: four years, or they have Lowry like they are more
Speaker 1: than one or two pieces away. But just generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I mean, Walker clearly has played himself now to that conversation,
Speaker 1: he's been so good this year. If there's one real
Speaker 1: positive development for Jazz basketball twenty four to twenty five,
Speaker 1: it is Walker Kessler. So I am more than willing
Speaker 1: to put him on that list. But if we look
Speaker 1: at this group of first and second year guys Keante
Speaker 1: George and we take Walker off the table and we
Speaker 1: place him next to Lowry, is okay, we know we've
Speaker 1: got something with you.
Speaker 4: Two.
Speaker 1: Caanta has been better since well we asked him to
Speaker 1: come off the bench. There's a lot to like about
Speaker 1: the progress Isaiah Callier has made. You can't shoot twenty
Speaker 1: five percent from three and be a lead Garden Pro basketball.
Speaker 1: Taylor Hendrix's hurt, We'll put him on the shelf.
Speaker 2: Cody Williams. It does not look good at all.
Speaker 1: So if you look at these first and second year players,
Speaker 1: if we say Tom that Lowry and Walker are around,
Speaker 1: is there anybody else you're willing to put in that
Speaker 1: category as of now?
Speaker 4: Not right now. No, I don't have the confidence yet.
Speaker 4: I'd have to see more of Cody Williams. He looks
Speaker 4: just too thin, too unsure of himself. He looks like
Speaker 4: a child out there a lot of times. And I
Speaker 4: think without Jdubb, I'm not so sure I'd have the optimism.
Speaker 4: JDub being Jalen Williams's older brother who's an absolute star
Speaker 4: in today's NBA, who had forty plus points, and just
Speaker 4: the Oklahoma City Thunder are not where they are without
Speaker 4: Jalen Williams. But Cody Williams hasn't inspired me to make
Speaker 4: me believe that he's a real deal player. But you know, look,
Speaker 4: last year, we had a lot of questions about Scoot Henderson,
Speaker 4: and I kept coming back to the point that he's
Speaker 4: super young, and it's hard to grade these guys when
Speaker 4: they're nineteen, when they're twenty years old, And that's what
Speaker 4: I think is the deal with you know, Cody Williams
Speaker 4: is that when he started the season, he was nineteen,
Speaker 4: and I just don't think he's there yet. I don't
Speaker 4: think he's an NBA player yet. But these guys we
Speaker 4: need to grade them in year three or year four.
Speaker 4: And Walker Kessler is another example of he had a good,
Speaker 4: good rookie season, but to really see what they're gonna be,
Speaker 4: you need like three or four years before you make
Speaker 4: that evaluation. And Cante George, I'm not there yet. Cody
Speaker 4: Williams not there yet. Isaiah Collier, like you said, has
Speaker 4: to be more efficient, but you really love the playmaking
Speaker 4: and the attack mentality that he has. But for me,
Speaker 4: it's Walker Kessler and Larry markinhen.
Speaker 1: All right, just for our Jazz fan listeners who are
Speaker 1: very interested in the current landscape of these prospects rising
Speaker 1: up draft boards. Now, ultimately the bottom three teams will
Speaker 1: all have about a fourteen percent chance, and the Jazz
Speaker 1: should be in that bottom three. We'll see what happens,
Speaker 1: but they're clearly trending in that direction. They're resting their
Speaker 1: vets every night. It seems to me, Tom that it
Speaker 1: is Cooper flag and then there is a massive gap
Speaker 1: between everybody else.
Speaker 2: But are we.
Speaker 1: Going to have people like some of the ziggers when
Speaker 1: people zag, like when wembin Yama was available, and people like, well,
Speaker 1: I kind of like Scoot, You're like, no, it's stop
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 2: It's him, right.
Speaker 1: Is there anybody else that's in the Cooper flag cul
Speaker 1: de sac or is it Cooper Flag and then everybody
Speaker 1: else in this draft process?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's Cooper Flag and everybody else to me, you know,
Speaker 4: some of these guys. I got to see Duke in
Speaker 4: person a few weeks ago at Cameron Indoor and Mallley
Speaker 4: Walk the big man and seven foot two. He's he's
Speaker 4: going to be a really good NBA player, But he's
Speaker 4: not even in the same stratosphere as Cooper Flag. Cooper Flag.
Speaker 4: The fact that he's averaging, you know, twenty two nine
Speaker 4: and five per thirty six minutes, you know, to keep
Speaker 4: the grade on that scale for all players in college basketball,
Speaker 4: no one has the productivity, no one has the upside.
Speaker 4: And by the way, he's the youngest guy in the class.
Speaker 4: That's what I don't think people realize. He's eighteen years
Speaker 4: old and doing this. He just turned eighteen, So he's
Speaker 4: not only the best player in college basketball. And dude,
Speaker 4: like the dude from Auburn right, he's like twenty four
Speaker 4: years old. They're in the same conversation for Player of
Speaker 4: the Year. And I'm just sitting here, like they play
Speaker 4: two different leagues. Like the fact that that guy, and
Speaker 4: as good as he is, he's like four or five
Speaker 4: years older than Cooper Flag. So what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: I know this isn't like who's the number one overall
Speaker 4: should get Player of the Year, but it's just amazing
Speaker 4: to me that Cooper Flag is playing head to head
Speaker 4: with a guy who's like five years older than him
Speaker 4: and still putting up extremely good numbers. Look, you know,
Speaker 4: the Blazers fans, they're kind of in this very difficult
Speaker 4: position is they know that Cooper Flag is right there
Speaker 4: in the next year's draft pool, and yet the Blazers
Speaker 4: are one of the best teams in the NBA over
Speaker 4: the last month, and so it is this kind of
Speaker 4: like I just I just hate that this is the
Speaker 4: conversation for the NBA is like, when you have a
Speaker 4: good team, I don't want to have to be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but they're missing out on Cooper Flag. And that's a
Speaker 4: tough thing. With the incentive structure, as you've lived it
Speaker 4: there in Utah is there should never be a system
Speaker 4: in place that makes fans feel bad about winning, and
Speaker 4: that's unfortunately what we've created with the draft. And even
Speaker 4: though they've done those those flattening of the odds to
Speaker 4: curb tand and to disincentivize teams from trying to lose,
Speaker 4: it's still unfortunately a big part of the conversation is
Speaker 4: whether teams like the Phoenix Suns or the Miami Heat
Speaker 4: the Golden State Warriors, should they really go for the
Speaker 4: playoffs or should they tank for Cooper Flag And unfortunately
Speaker 4: we are still in that conversation no matter what the
Speaker 4: league has done in the recent years to curp tanking.
Speaker 1: One more Jazz thing here if we operate off a
Speaker 1: fun hypothetical and say, okay, finally, Lady Luck shines on
Speaker 1: Salt Lake. Finally, the Utah Jazz received the lottery luck
Speaker 1: that they've never received in the history of this organization.
Speaker 2: It's crazy that they've.
Speaker 1: Only been to the lottery nine times for a team
Speaker 1: that plays there basketball in Salt Lake City. They've never
Speaker 1: moved up, They've only stood pat or moved down. And
Speaker 1: they are able to grab that number one pick and
Speaker 1: we enter next year, Tommy with a front line around
Speaker 1: here of lowry marketing, Walker Kessler and Cooper Flag. First
Speaker 1: of all, tickets would be flying off the shelf and
Speaker 1: they would be very popular. But second of all, from
Speaker 1: a basketball standpoint, we got something now right, Like that's
Speaker 1: now something the fan base can say, Okay, now here
Speaker 1: we go.
Speaker 2: I can see a future.
Speaker 4: And I don't think that those three guys can't play together.
Speaker 4: I mean, you look at Cooper Flag. He's kind of
Speaker 4: a Luca in the sense that he is a He's
Speaker 4: a hub of your offense and is marketing the hub.
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't think Mark I like and marketing
Speaker 4: as a tall clay like Klay Thompson. He's an amazing shooter,
Speaker 4: but he's not a guy who's gonna be ball dominant
Speaker 4: and running the offense and playmaking for everybody else. That's
Speaker 4: Cooper Flag, Like I see, that's the vision for this dude.
Speaker 4: Is like KG. Like KG was a guy who is
Speaker 4: the hub of the Minnesota Timberwolves at his peak, and yeah,
Speaker 4: the Boston Celtics. KG wasn't that guy, but man like
Speaker 4: peak KG, he very much was a point big And
Speaker 4: I see the same thing with Cooper Flag. So if
Speaker 4: you have Walker Kessler and his rimp protection, and then
Speaker 4: you have the weak side help protection that a Cooper
Speaker 4: Flag gets you overnight. If they can find, you know,
Speaker 4: some shooting around those guys overnight, the Utah Jazz would
Speaker 4: be a playoff team. I firmly believe that is the impact,
Speaker 4: the effect of Cooper Flag.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, just because you'll be good with this,
Speaker 1: you live there. I've always wondered, So, Durham, what's like
Speaker 1: a two hour drive from Charlotte roughly.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, So is there anything that would turn Charlotte's or
Speaker 1: just that area North Carolina into a pro basketball market
Speaker 1: in a way that we haven't seen? Like Charlotte's gonna
Speaker 1: be one of the three worst teams I think, along
Speaker 1: with Washington and Utah. If the Hornets get number one
Speaker 1: and they put Cooper Flag next to, you know, next
Speaker 1: to ball, is that is there anything that will turn
Speaker 1: that area into a pro basketball market that we haven't
Speaker 1: seen so far? I thought it was going to be
Speaker 1: more of a natural fit than it seems to have been.
Speaker 4: It would one percent put people back in the seats
Speaker 4: for the Charlotte Hornets. The whole city is ravenous for
Speaker 4: something to cheer about the city just got an MLS team, right,
Speaker 4: They've got this LaMelo Ball kid who's like just turning
Speaker 4: the corner and trying to be a winning player. But
Speaker 4: the roster they're breaking it down to the studs with
Speaker 4: the new ownership. And you have to remember, the Charlotte
Speaker 4: Hornets had the longest sellout streak in NBA history at
Speaker 4: one point. They were a huge market in the nineties.
Speaker 4: During the nineties with Larry Johnson, Alonzo Morning, Muggsy Bogues,
Speaker 4: they were huge, and especially so in the local market,
Speaker 4: and it was impossible to get a ticket to go
Speaker 4: see the Charlotte Hornets. So it's there. There is this
Speaker 4: kind of this this this sense that we've got a
Speaker 4: huge fan base of basketball with UNC with the Tobacco
Speaker 4: Road right here, that if Cooper Flag, coming from Duke,
Speaker 4: can come here in Charlotte and be the face of
Speaker 4: the Charlotte Hornets, it'll change everything. And he is a
Speaker 4: very very serious basketball player in the way that there
Speaker 4: are a lot of questions around LaMelo Ball and how
Speaker 4: serious is about winning. He's never been on a winning team.
Speaker 4: That's not the case of Cooper Flag. There are no
Speaker 4: questions about his desire to be professional, desire to be
Speaker 4: a winning player, and to do all the little things
Speaker 4: to win basketball games, and the other thing. I will say,
Speaker 4: the Utah Jazz and the Charlotte Hornets are very similar
Speaker 4: in this sense where they always feel like they are
Speaker 4: the bridesmaid, never the bride when it comes to the
Speaker 4: draft lottery. I'm going to remind the listeners here the
Speaker 4: Charlotte Hornets and the Bobcats history in the NBA draft,
Speaker 4: because it's crazy, all right. Number one in the Dwight
Speaker 4: Howard draft, who do they get at number two? Echa Okafer.
Speaker 4: The Charlotte Hornets could have had Dwight Howard, but instead
Speaker 4: they got a Mecca Okafer. In the Shaquille O'Neal draft,
Speaker 4: of course, the Charlotte Hornets didn't get the number one
Speaker 4: overall pick even though they are the one of the
Speaker 4: worst teams, and they ended up getting the number two pick.
Speaker 4: When Victor webbin Yama was the number one overall pick.
Speaker 4: The Charlotte Hornets ended up at number three. In of course,
Speaker 4: the Anthony Davis Draft, they couldn't get number one. They
Speaker 4: ended up at number two to get Michael kick Gilchrist.
Speaker 4: The fall off between these generational bigs, and the number
Speaker 4: two or number three guy that the Charlotte Hornets ended
Speaker 4: up getting has been outrageous, it is it? The fans
Speaker 4: always say, you know, there's something that the league will
Speaker 4: not let us get the number one overall pick, because
Speaker 4: look at this slew of generational bigs that come through
Speaker 4: the NBA, and we always seem to get the number
Speaker 4: two pick. And hopefully for Hornets fans that changes. Hopefully
Speaker 4: for Jazz fans that changes. But there's only one Cooper flag,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately those fan bases can't get they can't all
Speaker 4: get Cooper Flag, and so for many many fan bases,
Speaker 4: this is just gonna be another year losing.
Speaker 2: That is brutal.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard anybody articulate that draft
Speaker 1: history before. That's a baby's breath away from several franchise pieces.
Speaker 2: Goodness, all right, Tom.
Speaker 1: Let's move off the Jazz now and let's get some
Speaker 1: big picture thoughts about what's currently happening in the league.
Speaker 1: What are you willing to say about where the Lakers
Speaker 1: are at today and winning six straight games, Luca kind
Speaker 1: of taking over as the centerpiece against the Clips the
Speaker 1: other night, and Lebron really certainly not looking near his age.
Speaker 1: Are you willing to say that they need to be
Speaker 1: put in the category with OKC And I'll say, Denver,
Speaker 1: maybe that's your Tier one in the West. Are they
Speaker 1: a legitimate threat come playoff time?
Speaker 4: Now, I've got OKAC in its own tier out well,
Speaker 4: I got Denver and the Lakers in that set, and
Speaker 4: the Golden State Warriors in that second tier. So out
Speaker 4: on tomafinder dot com, I tear out the contenders by
Speaker 4: five star, four star, three star, two star, one star ratings.
Speaker 4: And this morning just released my newest title tiers. The
Speaker 4: Lakers are upgraded to a four star status and I
Speaker 4: look at their performance with Luka Doncic, and it's all
Speaker 4: about Lebron looks rejuvenated, Like he looks like prime Lebron
Speaker 4: right now, in the sense that he's trying a lot
Speaker 4: harder on defense. He's everywhere defensively, he's running out in fast,
Speaker 4: fast breaks, his transition game. It looks like they breathe
Speaker 4: new life into Lebron. And Draymond Green said this about
Speaker 4: Jimmy Butler the acquisition. Right after they got Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 4: he said, we're gonna win the championship you said it
Speaker 4: over All Star weekend, and it's because of belief capital
Speaker 4: b belief. And in some ways I see the same
Speaker 4: corollary for the Los Angeles Lakers as Lebron believes. I
Speaker 4: think he gets Luca on his team and he believes
Speaker 4: like he is the one, Like Anthony Davis is great,
Speaker 4: but he ain't Lukasajic. And the way that they have
Speaker 4: chemistry out on the floor is insane. They have been
Speaker 4: nineteen assists from Luca to Lebron already, by far the
Speaker 4: most the assist recipient of Luca's assists is number one
Speaker 4: is Lebron. And the crazy stat from Dean Oliver, who's
Speaker 4: the you know, the godfather of NBA analytics, who wrote
Speaker 4: the bible of NBA analytics called Basketball on Paper. He
Speaker 4: just he works for the ESPN's analytics department now he
Speaker 4: runs it, and he just tweeted out that the shot
Speaker 4: quality of Luca's assists to Lebron before he shoots the ball,
Speaker 4: an average player would shoots seventy six percent on those shots.
Speaker 4: Think about that, Luca is finding Lebron in spots where
Speaker 4: the average NBA player would shoot seventy six percent. And
Speaker 4: of course Lebron is way higher than that because he's Lebron.
Speaker 4: But do you know how hard it is to get
Speaker 4: defenses to forget about Lebron James or miss him, or
Speaker 4: lose him, or not even lose him. Just Luca can
Speaker 4: place the ball in Lebron's hands and ways that no
Speaker 4: one else can't. Like when you look at those touchdown
Speaker 4: passes that Kevin Love used to throw to Lebron in Cleveland,
Speaker 4: Luca's doing it like three times over. Like every time
Speaker 4: that Luca gets a rebound, now defensive rebound, Lebron's running
Speaker 4: down the floor and getting a wide open layup. And
Speaker 4: that's what's scary about this is that Luka Doncic is
Speaker 4: already has way more chemistry than Dwayne Wade, than Chris Bosh,
Speaker 4: than Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving. It seems like he
Speaker 4: has way more chemistry with Lebron James than any of
Speaker 4: those guys had at nearly lightning speed. So Lebron's already
Speaker 4: got this in like five games playing with Luca. So
Speaker 4: I think I think they're in the four starts here
Speaker 4: because they don't have the bigs that I think is
Speaker 4: required to beat you know, all the teams that they
Speaker 4: need to beat in order to get to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 4: But on Basketball Illuminati this week we had Brandon Payne
Speaker 4: on who's Steph Curry's trainer and one of the great
Speaker 4: coaches skills coaches in the NBA, longtime shooting coach. He
Speaker 4: was just talking about how he thinks that the Lakers
Speaker 4: are every bit a championship contender as the rest of them.
Speaker 4: Calves okac in Boston. I might not go as far
Speaker 4: to say that, but I think they're just in a
Speaker 4: tier below the Oklahoma City Thunder because of that chemistry
Speaker 4: between Lebron and Luka.
Speaker 1: All Right, before I set you loose, I'll ask you
Speaker 1: a similar question. But we move over to the East
Speaker 1: and on Friday night in Boston, Donovan Man, when Donovan
Speaker 1: cooks like that, it's just a lot of people around
Speaker 1: here kind of missed those days. But he went for
Speaker 1: forty one, and the Calves stormed back in the second
Speaker 1: half and they took care of the Celtic. Say, look,
Speaker 1: the Cavs winning is not new, but they're fifty and ten,
Speaker 1: they've won ten straight and they're seven and a half
Speaker 1: games out of Boston. At what point do we stop
Speaker 1: with the whole Boston and everybody Else's narrative and start
Speaker 1: to talk about the Calves in a more serious way,
Speaker 1: especially with the trade they made that You've talked about
Speaker 1: grabbing DeAndre Hunter, which kind of went under the radar
Speaker 1: because you know Luca was traded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, DeAndre Hunter, I think could be the missing piece
Speaker 4: from thirty two points yesterday against the Blazers, where you
Speaker 4: know Tamani Kamara was busy locking down Darius Garland four
Speaker 4: sixteen shooting from Darius Garland and here comes Dedre Hunter, like, oh,
Speaker 4: I can carry this offense down the stretch. They didn't
Speaker 4: have that before the trade. Now they have this piece
Speaker 4: DeAndre Hunter, who's a big wing. I think he's I
Speaker 4: think he's a four. He's a natural four in today's
Speaker 4: modern MBA, and so they can go small like they
Speaker 4: did a lot in that game yesterday with Jared Allen
Speaker 4: on the bench, and have amably at the five, and
Speaker 4: that's dynamic is huge. I'd picked the Cavs as the
Speaker 4: favorite out of East right now. They're forty three and
Speaker 4: oh with a lead going into the fourth quarter. They
Speaker 4: have not lost the game with the lead, and going
Speaker 4: into the fourth I think the stat was thirty eight
Speaker 4: and one after a lead in the first quarter, so
Speaker 4: going into the second quarter with the lead. They've only
Speaker 4: lost one game this season. They're just they're relentless. Kenny
Speaker 4: Atkinson's done a great job there, and I think Cleveland
Speaker 4: is right there in that top tier. If you go
Speaker 4: to Tomdfinder dot com you can see my tiers, my
Speaker 4: title tiers that they do every week, and I haven't changed.
Speaker 4: It's Cleveland, It's Okay see, and it's Boston and then
Speaker 4: everybody else. I think Boston's really good, but man, Cleveland's
Speaker 4: coming for them, and I really believe that they should
Speaker 4: be on the same title tier as Boston.
Speaker 2: The raigning champs staying at the Nines, No.
Speaker 4: I'm staying at the highest regency by the Convention Center.
Speaker 1: Well go, what's that restaurant that haven't the Nines. That's
Speaker 1: a good spot. You got to hit that up.
Speaker 4: So the chef there, Gregory Gordet, he opened up his
Speaker 4: new restaurant after Top Chef, and that's the one that
Speaker 4: I went to when I first got Oh. Okay is
Speaker 4: con and the nine restaurant up top is very good.
Speaker 4: But the chef behind that has now has his own restaurant,
Speaker 4: and it is it is awesome. And the Blazers the
Speaker 4: Blazer there's probably something like this in Utah and Salt
Speaker 4: Lake where like the jazz players and the jazz part
Speaker 4: office guys love to go there. That's what this restaurant
Speaker 4: is is. It's called con K a n N by
Speaker 4: Gregory Gordet And that's the spot in Portland if you
Speaker 4: want to hit up a really good restaurant. If you're visiting,
Speaker 4: go hit up con if you can get a reservation.
Speaker 1: All right, my guy, where could everybody? And by the way,
Speaker 1: here that's Vaulters. It's the Italian restaurant Vaults. That's where
Speaker 1: all the NBA guys like to go. So next time
Speaker 1: you're in Salt Lake, hit that up. But before I
Speaker 1: set you loose, where can everybody go?
Speaker 2: Find your work at?
Speaker 4: Tom haraschro on x Tom Thefinder dot com, Yahoo Sports.
Speaker 4: In the Blazers broadcast, we got a Philadelphia seventy six tonight.
Speaker 4: Very exciting. Uh No, Joel Embian and who knows about
Speaker 4: Paul George?
Speaker 1: All right, buddy, thanks for the time. Enjoy rip City
Speaker 1: and we'll chat too.
Speaker 4: All right. Thanks. That's