NBA MLK Day Recap, Two Rookies Commit To Dunk Contest & Jimmy Butler's Truth
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Yo, what's up man? Um, how cold is it outside today? It's 26 degrees. Feels like 11. So it's 11? No, shh, that's just the wind. The wind makes it feel like that, but it's not. Is it gonna snow? It'll start snowing at 2 p.m. By 20% chance, maybe not. Yeah, but you just said that. No, but that's just how it feels. Is the air safe to breathe outside? Air quality is good today. Better than yesterday.

But yesterday was like really bad. I don't know. It depends on how it feels. Just feel. Okay. Good morning, sweet world. And welcome to the No Dunks podcast on the Athletic Network. It's Tuesday, January 21st, 2025. I'm Jay Skeets here in the Classic Factory. And alongside me, as always, Tass Mellis. Podcast listeners, this is for you. Next to him, it's the bearded one, my top shot hot boy, Trey Kirby. Heyo. Heyo.

And over yonder, making the magic happen, super producer JD. Hello. There he is. Here we are. He's got a new switcher, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. We're back, baby. Yes. That was a gift to ourselves for our 19th anniversary. Happy anniversary. Over the weekend, we celebrated our 19th year of podcasting.

starting way back in JD's living room as the Basketball Jones. So thanks everybody for the kind comments over the weekend. I was looking for some third place finishers from the Olympics, maybe getting rid of their medals online to get you guys.

Because it's bronze for 19. Oh, bronze for the 19th anniversary. It took me a while to get there, didn't it? But I got there. Yeah, lift it up. Bronze. Anyway, the next year, that'll be the big one, the 20th anniversary. We had some wedgies. Number 21 and number 22, Sunday and Monday of the long weekend for us.

Peyton Watson blocking Tristan Da Silva's layup attempt. He actually drew blood on Da Silva. Was gushing there. There might be some on the ball there. Could see it there for a second. And then on Monday, on MLK Day, that was Miles Bridges sticking the three-point wedgie at the end of the shot clock. It actually sort of worked in the Hornets' favor, believe it or not, because, you know, it was a prayer. Likely wasn't going in, but they had a chance to get it back. Eric Collins didn't scream wedgie, though.

That was weird. He was breaking it down. He was more excited that they got a wedgie and they got a jump ball because of it. Their center got to have a jump ball, which they won with a minute left. Yeah, it was kind of good for them. That blood on the Watson-Swatson was fantastic.

pretty cool. I think that's a first. Never seen that before. No, no. So blood on the wedgie floor. In 19 years. Never seen a wedgie with blood, but it happened. No. All right, we got tons to recap here. We'll do our best to go over the last four days of NBA action. We start with yesterday, Monday, MLK Day in the NBA. Had games on throughout the day. Pick

a few games of note to get you guys takeaways from. Let's start with a really entertaining one. These two teams have played some good games, but it was Jaron Jackson Jr., it was Desmond Bain leading a rally as the Grizzlies beat the Wolves 108-106. TK, we'll start with you here. What surprised you from this comeback here?

Not the Grizzlies and the Wolves playing a close game. These teams are always locked in right now. Grizzlies were my league pass team of the week last week just because they keep playing these close, exciting games. Minnesota, they played the most clutch games this season, so it feels like it's always going to go down to the last couple of possessions here, and it did in this one.

but only because Minnesota kind of blew this game. They were up seven with six minutes left, and then the Grizzlies just decided to get inside every single possession. Floater, free throws, layup, a foul on a three-pointer after a driving kick, foul on a layup, layup, free throws, free throws, jump hook, misses inside.

They just put their head down and started getting into the lane. Ja was doing some of it, hitting some crazy shots. Desmond Bain was getting to the rim and finishing, and Jaron Jackson Jr. was just throwing around whoever was trying to guard this guy. Pretty impressive performance from him. The Grizzlies are just a balanced team. It feels like they can get 20 points per game from Bain, Jackson, and Ja every single game. Not bad.

35 or 40 that they need, but at times, certainly that's the case. But just very impressive for the Grizzlies. The thing I was most interested in was the closing lineups from the Timberwolves because I feel like Chris Finch is kind of casting about to figure out

to actually win these games because right now they're 12 and 16 in clutch games. Minnesota is. That's the most clutch games, like I said, in the league, but they're 22nd in win percentage and it feels like they got to get lucky to win sometimes in the fourth quarter. They started with Nas Reed and Rudy Gobert in the fourth quarter. Julius Randle has been seeing the pine a little bit more in these closing minutes, but at

At one point, Nas Reed got very angry at a foul call, so Chris Finch had to sub him out. He brings in Julius Randle, and I got to say, the offense looked better when Randle checked in for Nas Reed. He's getting inside. He's making plays. Of course, on the other end, they're going at Randle every single time. Jaron Jackson Jr. putting him in the basket and finishing. Eventually, Rudy Gobert catches a pass in the middle of the lane six feet from the hoop. He could have dunked it, passed it out, and Chris Finch said, no, not you.

either. And then it was like, okay, we can't score and we can't play defense. It was just a disaster class. I thought for Minnesota in the stretch run here. And that's why they're not good enough. Anthony Edwards yet to make a game tying or game winning shot in his career. Another step back in this one, bricked it off. That's how it goes. He fell in love with the three point shot down the stretch here. He kept searching for it and it wouldn't fall, but yeah, not, not great closing minutes here.

from the Wolves. Dante DiVincenzo, he's out with a toe injury, I believe it is. He's missing a couple games here. Big toe, big injury. Yeah, that's important that he is out. A couple weeks ago when they played the Grizzlies, it was awesome. He was awesome and went down to the wire. Now Rob Dillingham is coming in for him. He had a really good game. 15 points, 6 of 8. But,

It all came down to the last few minutes, and the Wolves just don't have a clutch time offense. They're 29th in clutch time offense. They're pretty bad last year when they went into the playoffs against Dallas Mavericks. Yes, they were. They figured it out last year. But this year it did come down, or excuse me, in this game it did come down to Anthony Edwards. They're up nine with a few minutes left, like halfway through the fourth quarter, and then he had a couple back-to-back threes with

between three and four minutes left where he just said, it's one on five. Even Grant Hill on the broadcast said, those aren't good shots. And Grant Hill is the nicest man I know. That's so true. You know when Grant Hill is saying that, you're taking some questionable shots. They're bad shots. And Nasrid was bailing them out. He had 15 points in the fourth quarter. A great fourth quarter for him. But,

Literally, it just came down to those shots. As I said, the minutes, the Grizzlies, those fresh Grizzly players, those guys went 12 deep. Gigi Jackson is back. So they had seven guys off the bench, extremely fresh to be able to beat Nas Reed, who was going up against Jaron Jackson Jr., who also had 15 in the fourth quarter and just came down really to the last couple of possessions. And it came down to when Anthony Edwards grabbed a defensive board about seven seconds left and

They're down three. He starts pushing it, and Chris Finch says, he calls timeout, and then he had a shot to try and tie it with two guys all over him. That didn't work out. Now, would he have gotten a better shot? It sure looked like. Jalen Wells was on him, but...

when you've got Anthony Edwards, an extremely athletic guy being able to go at you from 50 feet, you're probably going to get by me. You probably get to get a better shot. Scattered a little bit, trying to pick up guys. Exactly. I mean, that's the scary thing is for the wolves really comes down to those last few minutes, every single time. And Anthony Edwards has not been able to figure it out. I mean, he had a good game through the half. He was awesome through the first half scoring, but only three points in the second half for him. Um,

or excuse me, in the fourth quarter for him. It just was not right. And then you see on the other side, like, John Morant, this looked like two weeks ago when he had that winner over Rudy Gobert from the baseline. He did it again, another floater towards the baseline. I mean, he's just awesome, and he's extremely fresh, and they're fresher. I'm just trying to find an excuse for why the Wolves' clutch time offense is bad. It's just bad. Yeah. We're going to find out the All-Star starters, I guess, later this week. On Thursday, those will be announced, and then I guess the following week, we learn the reserves. Is Jaron Jackson Jr.?

He should.

as a reserve for the Grizzlies. I think so. I mean, they're a half game out of second place in the Western Conference, and he's been their best player the entire season. Yep, that's right. With Ja Morant missing a bunch of time, Desmond Bain starting slow. Yeah, but I think Triple J has outplayed Ja when they've both been on the court, too. He's been awesome. He's a...

grown as a player he's gotten so much stronger his handle is better you're seeing him take the ball off the glass and push it full court and score inside stuff you didn't really necessarily see from jaron jackson jr early in his career but they've got three guys who can go and get their own basket now and that's a little bit different for the grizzlies yeah you got some zach randolph flashbacks watching jaron jackson jr be able to just plow i mean he never he didn't take the three-point shot uh

as much the last couple of the games, he's just literally plowing. He's going from the fourth, from the third three-point line and just going into it. So to have a 15-point fourth quarter like that, zero three-point shots, three-point makes,

I mean, he does look like a different guy. He looks like a different player. Do you keep saying plowing because we're expecting some snow flurries again here in Atlanta today? I don't buy it. No? No. It's cold, but yeah. I don't buy it, and Atlanta doesn't buy plows either. That's a good point. I don't know if your kids have no school today. Mine do. Yours do. They do have school. No, they do not. Sorry. They got the call. Late call.

Cold day. Ours was yesterday, middle of the day. They're like, sorry, it's going to be cold again. It's cold. Not snow day, ladies and gentlemen. Cold day. Yeah, and I said, because we got some facilities problems down here. Yeah, we do. In our districts, you know. And I'm more from the north where there's more like a 10% chance. Down here, it's a 3% chance. So I wasn't sure if maybe they sent your kids to school. They had the guts. They don't in the north. No, no. Come on. In the north. North Atlanta.

Or Atlanta, he is for sure. All right, let's keep it moving here. Crazy comeback from the Pelicans. CJ McCollum scored six of his 45 points in overtime as the Pels orchestrated the largest comeback in franchise history, overcoming a 25-point deficit to beat the Jazz, 123-119. I smile and laugh when I say Jazz because, man, they are...

They're not even being sly about the tank job they're doing in terms of resting guys and who's playing. But anyway, McCollum has scored 45 or more points twice in 10 games here. Remember he had a 50-point game against the Zards back on January 3rd. Just a great performance from him and a huge comeback. I mean, you don't want to be down 25.

to the jazz. But if you are come back and get the victory in OT, I don't know what your, your takeaways are here. TK. This was not an exciting comeback. No, it was a 25 to three run and no offense to either of these teams, but I didn't watch this live. So I was like, okay, I'll catch up on this run. Yeah. And I was treated to fricking Carlo Matkovich versus drew you banks on MLK day. It's like disrespectful. Yeah.

But yeah, 25-3 run over the first and second quarter. When was this? I don't even remember. Third quarter? Yeah, third quarter for the Pelicans. They didn't barely shoot 50% during their run. They went 8-15 from the field.

Whereas the Jazz went one for 11 and looked like they could not possibly get a good shot. Isaiah Collier, I think, had a layup. Three turnovers during that stretch as well for the Jazz. My big takeaway from this one was that this was a good tank loss for the Utah Jazz.

New Orleans has won four straight games. Watch out. Yeah. The Pelicans are hot. They're up to 12 wins, which is good for the Jazz because they've lost six of their last seven. Their one win was in overtime. They've only got 10 wins, which is tied with the Raptors for second worst in the NBA right now. And the Jazz really need a hit.

They really need somebody because this is year three of a rebuild for them. And they've got nobody. They've got nobody who's a star for this team. They've got guys who look like they'll be solid role players. Like Filipowski looks like he could be a fifth starter or a good bench big. Same with Keontae George. Same with Isaiah Collier. They've got some nice sixth and seventh men, but they need somebody who's going to be...

A marquee name. I mean, I'm not necessarily putting Cooper Flagg there. Obviously, no team would be happier to get Cooper Flagg than the Utah Jazz. But they need something. They need some sort of a hit because they're not fun to watch. They're not good on either side of the ball, and they have no exciting players. So good for them to figure out a way to lose this game. An important loss in the standings. Somehow they lost this game despite a rebounding New Orleans 63-45. They had 23 second chance points, and they outscored the Pelicans by 20 in the paint. And they still lose this game.

I mean, they want to, but they're pretty impressive. They play for Will Hardy, that is for sure. They're up 20 points in the first half, which is pretty impressive when they sit Larry Markin in and they sit Colin Sexton for rest. I saw the injury report and I saw Colin Sexton rest. I checked the schedule.

When's the last game they played? They had two days off coming into this game. They have to be fine. Right. No, they didn't play until like last Friday. Was that right? Yeah. They had the weekend off and he sat for rest. That doesn't really make sense. When the NBA was cracking down on this.

You know, mere years ago when they were looking to sign a new TV deal, they got that TV deal. And this is just flying under the radar because it's the Utah Jazz. But it should not. It really shouldn't. I mean, they are tanking. They play extremely hard for Will Hardy. There is no doubt about that. But yeah, without a Markkinen, without a Colin Sexton, without a John Collins, it's

How are they going to win? And no Zion Williamson for the Pelicans. He had recently returned from the left hamstring injury, but he couldn't play on Monday because of an illness.

which I think someone else had an illness too on the team. So it's sort of going around. Yeah, that's allowed to go around. It is going around. That's for sure. Well, I mean, I guess I bring that up because why wouldn't you just say that for Sexton? Yeah. Just say, hey, give me a cough. Ooh, that sounds bad. It said rest. Cough and Sexton. Cough and Sexton. Just rest, exactly. They don't even care to hide it. No, absolutely not. That they're like leaning into. Very weird. Also, CJ McCollum after that big game, he gave me one of my favorites.

quotes from sports right now. I've heard it like more times in the past, I feel, two months than I heard in my entire life.

Sometimes it's not X's and O's, it's Jimmy's and Joe's. I keep hearing this all the time now. That's a great one. And I swear I went like 40 plus years not hearing it all that often, but it's having a moment right now. Don't worry about the X's and O's, it's the Jimmy's and Joe's. Well, Jimmy and Joe were both wrestling for the pass. No, sorry, that's Johnny. Johnny Juzer. Right, right.

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Alright, next game here. Cade Cunningham scored 32 to lead the Pistons over the Rockets. 107-96. Quality win here from Detroit. Cade took over in the third quarter. He had 19 of his 32. If you weren't convinced he's going to make the All-Star game, I think this is the one that stamped it. He'll be selected. They have a good record. He's been pretty dominant. He had a lot of turnovers. There's a lot of turnovers in this game. Many. But he did look very comfortable against really good defenders in Brooks and Thompson that were on him. He was still getting space and

Just caught fire in the third. Yeah, somehow the Pistons still win games even though they turned it over a ton. Great bounce back game, I thought, from Jalen Dern. Watched him in the previous game against the Phoenix Suns. He just looked absent in that game. And a huge one from this one. 16 points, 14 rebounds, 4 steals, 2 blocks. He was playing defense. Unlike that Phoenix Suns game where Nick Richards, the new Phoenix Sun, was getting all over him. And just to jump over quickly to Nick Richards' first start

with the Phoenix Suns. They just got him from Charlotte. He made his first start on Sunday, or excuse me, it feels like a Sunday, on MLK Day against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was rough in his first start. In guarding in space, guys were just going at him, whether it was Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell, and he just looked like he was backpedaling the entire time. He didn't look like he was seven feet from my TV. He looked teeny tiny, like he couldn't block shots. There was no possible way, so guards were just finishing over and over and over against them.

I don't know what the Phoenix Suns do here as we get to two weeks from the trade deadline, but it's dire. Kevin Durant, after the game, after playing the Cleveland Cavaliers, he said, you know, it's kind of hard to play against a zone defense. We don't even have a zone package.

The guy just called. He just called. Come on, coach. Yeah. We don't have a game plan. Look, it's not in here. Yeah. He's calling out Mike Budenholzer. I mean, would it be shocking to see the Phoenix Suns fire two coaches back-to-back years at something? They fired Frank Vogel. Why wouldn't they fire Mike Budenholzer? Because they don't have an answer via trade. Like, it sure doesn't seem that way. So they got to do something, right? This Bradley Beal talk.

is happening right now. It is possible, I suppose, that he waives his no-trade clause. Fred Katz with an article on The Athletic about that Beal, according to sources, would be okay with waiving that no-trade clause, TBD. He's like, I want to get out of here. We don't know what to do against the zone. No, no.

We don't have the zone package. You said the zone package. That sounds like you watch football or something. I don't have the zone package on TV. You know what I mean? The red zone, yeah. But I guess a lot of teams don't have zones, so maybe it's okay for who knows. I know how to beat a zone. We learned that in high school. I think Kevin Durant does as well. I know. Well, they stink. We all got a package. Anyways, Nick Richards was good at the game before, but in this one.

Anyways, he was bad. But let's circle back here to the Pistons. I do want to get your take on Cade there, TK, who filled up the box score again. Maybe too much when you got into the turnovers section there, but otherwise filled up the rest of it as well. Ten turnovers is too many. I'll start by saying that. Twelve makes, ten turnovers. It adds up to a decent game, but it's just because Cade is a little overtaxed from a ball handling standpoint, which is why I thought Marcus Sasser actually gave him good minutes in the fourth quarter. He hit a couple of big shots,

in this one. But yeah, you mentioned it. 10 turnovers for Cade, 23 total for the Detroit Pistons, but they also forced 17 out of Houston. And the defense was pretty solid all around for Detroit. Houston shot 39% from the field, 28 from three, and 69% at the free throw line. That's not nice. Not nice. Not nice at the free throw line. You gotta be over 80 easily, but the offense was pretty bad, I thought, for Houston. Like, Van Vliet couldn't really get going. Jalen Green, inefficient. Shangoon was just kind of out of it. Maybe it's because Duren was playing so well. But Detroit...

did the best offensively because they scored 28 fast break points. And it looked like it was a commitment to run every single chance they got because they know if we set up in a half court scenario, that gives Houston an advantage. And obviously they were forcing their turnovers and they were playing good defense as well. So good job by Detroit and Cade to just get out and run on the Houston Rockets. Like the Rockets are a super athletic team and they look slower.

So good stuff from the Detroit Pistons. Yeah, I think that's an important note about those non-Cade minutes because they have been rough since Jaden Ivey went down with the fractured fibula, I guess he had. They don't really have a traditional point guard off the bench to take those minutes, but when Houston had cut that lead to something like five there a couple minutes into the fourth quarter, Marcus Sasser...

He was good. He had a jumper. He had a three. They did play great defense. They went on a little run, and that was enough to take over the game. I thought that was really, really good from him. But Cade, man, go watch the third quarter highlights. He was in the zone. I don't think any one of his shots hit the rim besides the dunk that he threw down after sort of stumbling through, splitting through two guys and then throwing it down. Every shot, every three, every jumper was pure.

and very, very pretty. He will be an all-star. Final game of note here from MLK Day. Celtics...

Crushed the Warriors. Gave them their worst home loss in 40 years. Built a double-digit lead early. Put the game away in the third quarter when they outscored them 43-24. Just a spank job here at TAS. On national television, you know, this was the last game, I guess, on TNT on MLK Day. Embarrassing here from the Warriors. Absolutely. They're without a lot of guys. No Draymond Green, no Kaminga, no Pajemski, no Kyle Anderson.

But to get crushed by that many points during this very bad stretch is not good. Yeah, it's a great comeback win. We'll get to the Celtics weekend and how it started poorly. And actually, Joe Mazzullo was happy that it looked poorly. Anyways, we'll get to how that turned. But Draymond Green...

in this game. He'll miss this next coming week with games against Kings, Bulls, and Lakers, and I start to mention that because we got two weeks till the trade deadline, and Steph was in this place where he said, this is a make-or-break part of the schedule, and it's going to determine what we do at the trade deadline, and he said, we've had to run down the second half of the schedule before it can wear you out, and I say...

Draymond Green's going to be out these next few weeks. Kuming is going to be out even longer. Pujamski's out. Kyle Anderson is out. And Steph looked sad after the game, you know, to lose by that many, to lose by 40. He said, quote, a big part of our season has been when we can't score, we lose spirit, we lose life, we lose competitiveness. You know, we've said he's

on the front office to make a trade. Then he comes back and he literally says, you know, I care about this team's future. We're not going to trade a bunch of players for a two-month attempt. And now we're here two weeks before the trade deadline and things look extremely bad. I don't see how they're going to turn it out with Kuminga out, Draymond Green out, and so many guys out. The offense, as Steph mentioned, ain't going to turn around. I feel that. It's hard to...

Even me, the positive one, can't see that happening. Yeah, they went seven and a half minutes in the first half without making a shot. And when Curry's on the bench, you look at the team, you're like, this is a tanking team. Wiggins, Schroeder, Trace Jackson-Davis, Guy Santos, and Lindy Waters. That's like...

an actual lineup that was played for this team. That ain't strength in numbers. It was in the third quarter, I think, Bryan Anderson said, "They're ready to turn out the lights here midway through the third quarter." So what? The Warriors are just playing out the string. I mean, they've passed on trading for everybody. And at this point, Steph Curry and Draymond Green are basically saying, "It ain't worth it." Probably right. Like, what's this team gonna do? Make it back into the play-in tournament and lose in the first round of the playoffs?

That's what's going to happen. That feels like the ceiling right now for the Warriors season. Right. Well, I mean, you'd have to do something drastic. It has to be a big name in here. Is it Jimmy Butler? Is it another person I'm not thinking of? I mean, and then you cannot even, maybe you're not even convinced that does anything like you're saying. Well, that's what they're saying. They're like, we stink so bad we're not even going to make a trade. That seems so self-defeating to me. Doesn't it feel

Doesn't it feel like another lifetime ago that the Warriors went into Boston and beat them and were like 7-1 and they were riding high and were like, oh yeah, they're contenders. They're back in the mix. That was two and a half months ago. That happened in early November. And then they continued and got to 12-3 and since then it's been all downhill. It's a brutal record and yeah, now it's like, oh, I need help. Maybe it doesn't even matter if we get help. It's sad to see like...

Who knows how many years he has left, but if this is like just the end of the string here for Steph Curry's career, this is sad. It's just sad to see. No one wants to see it. Yeah, especially with Draymond Green. That string has been pulled to its end, and that feels like this is the year, if it was any year, that they'd go for it. But I think Steph has come to the realization that that was a good start.

But if you look at that offense, it ain't coming back. It's like them, the Phoenix Suns who started 9-2. That ain't coming back either, unfortunately, with the Warriors. And then you add these injuries. Jonathan Kuminga, who they were supposed to be putting into that sort of second role to show his trade value, he's hurt. I mean, they have a lot of injuries. And I mentioned Draymond Green because their defense ain't there. And now their offense ain't there. So it's...

It ain't working. We had another Warriors player pulling string, I just realized. Gary Payton II was pulling Jordan Poole's shoelace. I saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he get fined? I was going to say, is he going to get fined for that? No, I don't think so. He did it so playfully with his old teammates. Oh, you're saying J.R. Smith was malicious. I guess so. I guess so. Wasn't that the one that got Leo mad how dangerous it is? He was so upset. Very dangerous. He was so upset. Can't untie a man in shame. Yeah.

All right. So we'll see here if the Warriors have any move to make. You said two weeks until the trade deadline. Yeah, I mean, I'm rolling. It's 16 days technically, but close enough. Close enough. We're also getting close to All-Star weekend, and we had some news over the weekend. Two rookies, Stephan Castle of the San Antonio Spurs and Matis Bouzelis of the Bulls, have committed.

to participate in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest at NBA 2005, 2025, excuse me, All-Star Weekend here in the Bay. So, TK, got one of your bulls in this for the first time since...

Tyrus Thomas? Is that right? That's right. The Tyrus Thomas. Wow, that's 07. That's way back in the day. And even longer for the Spurs, I did read. First Spurs player to participate in the dunk contest since Greg Cadillac Anderson in 1988. Oh!

I was racking my brain trying to think of what spur you were going to possibly say. You would have never got to Greg Cadillac, because I did not either. I saw that. So anyway, Castle and Booz Ellis gets us started. There'll be, in theory, two more announced. But what do you think? Hey, sure. Cool. I'm excited to see Booz Ellis. He's got a Trey Murphy's body type.

skinny, can jump pretty high. He always does. I'm going to be dribbling it in my right hand, go between my legs. It bounces up on the right side through the legs for a windmill. That's one of his dunks. He'll definitely do it. Maybe it'll look cool.

He's got a low-key personality, but the guy can jump. Seems like a fiery competitor when he gets fired up. So I don't know. They'll probably be good. They're young. They can jump high. Sure. Yeah. I like that. I'm excited for Stephon Castle because I think he will look cool. I remember I was in bed watching Spurs Bucks January 8th. Well, I guess it was technically January 9th because it was 4 a.m. Stephon Castle threw one down on Brooke Lopez. Yeah, yeah. And I shook the bed. Thank you.

Danielle did not move, thankfully. All good. He isn't the most athletic jumper of everybody in the league. I will say that about him. So I'm just trying to bring everybody's expectations down just a touch. I mean, I've watched every single dunk of his season thus far.

That's what Twitter slash X is good for. People have put those together. Have there been anything worthy of a 9.5 in a dunk contest? I don't know. The one against Brooke was cool. Maybe they should bring a guy dunking. It wasn't all that amazing. He's 6'6". He will look cool. The twists, his hair will look cool. Splashing around. I think Buzellas may look cool as well.

There we go. We got some cool looking guys. Good start. I'm ready to lower the expectations. We got guys who... Quite low. They're low. Keep it going. Keep lowering them. Are we bringing back Mac McClung? Wow. You mean save the last two, really? Saved. Saved, yeah. He saved one of them. He gave you something. Yeah, exactly. He's unbeaten. Craig Hodges. They kept bringing him back. Wow. Are we going to bring him back? Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. He is unbeaten. Yeah.

I mean, okay, let me ask you and everyone here on the stream team right now, all the podcast listeners, who would you ideally like to see added to this roster along with Castle and Booz Ellis? Any names come to mind that you think could give it some oomph? Ahman Thompson. Okay, okay. I think he's maybe the best athlete that we got going. And who's another realistic...

Somebody who could join. Shaden Sharp? Yeah. If he would. If he would do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he can fly. I think he'd be really good. Yeah. He's been around for a while already. It's not a while, but it's like, it seemingly has to be. He'd be a veteran in this one. Yeah. Has to be rookies. So I think Ron Holland would be good from the Detroit Pistons. Okay, okay.

I know we're lowering expectations. We see John Morant make frigging art dunking. Why doesn't he join? That's the one that people will say, but it ain't going to happen. Hey, what about Zion? Yeah, that would be good. Anthony Edwards, John Morant. Sure, yeah, those would be some star names. Let's hear from Hugh. Who do you want to see in this? Are you hyped with Castle and Boozellus getting this going? Yeah, I'm just thinking what Trey mentioned about Mac McClung.

He kind of deserves to go back in it on one hand. On the second hand, he's a G League player and the expectations will be even lower. The bar, the expectations of a guy coming back from the G League. I know he was good, but you want NBA players. And the third thing is... Oh, go ahead. What else is he going to pull from the bag? That's what I was going to say. I would be a little concerned of like, he's an incredible dunker. He did put on a show for most of his two years in it, but like...

what else does he have left? And that would concern me a little bit. But then again, I mean...

Nate Robinson went in this a lot of times. One or three times in a row. There's a lot of similar looking dunks that looked cool because of his height, but maybe it got a little boring by the end. All right, well, let's hear from you guys. Who would you like to see in it? Okay, let's do sort of a quick sort of... It will be some... No, it won't be quick. That's a lie. But an NBA weekend recap. But we'll work our way backwards. So I'll give you a few things from each day and you guys can touch on whatever you want. So Sunday...

We had the Clippers winning the Battle of LA. Norman Powell was great. Zubats, 21-19. Clips defeated LeBron and co. 116-102.

The first Lakers visit to the Intuit Dome. That's right. In their own place. You know, they used to be roomies. Then they moved out, got a new place, finally had a party. Come check it out. Look at this party. It's amazing. Kawhi played, I guess, a season-high 24 minutes. So that was of note. We had James Harden within that game passing Oscar Robertson for number 14 on the all-time scoring list.

The Beard, with 21 points in the game, again, jumped Oscar Robertson. He might pass Hakeem Olajuwon, probably will, by season's end. And then OKC's Mark Dagnall earned his first All-Star head coaching nod after the Thunder clinched the best record in the West through games up to February 2nd there. Nobody can catch him. Improving to 35-7 as they beat the Nets. And we learned that an assistant coach from the Thunder,

will head coach one of the other all-star teams. So it'll be Dagnall, and then somebody from the assistant coaching staff of the Thunder, and then for the East, I'm sure it's going to be Kenny Atkinson, and also somebody from the cast. But anyway, of those things from Sunday, or maybe something I missed, what do you want to touch on? Just quickly on Dagnall. I guess he wasn't in first long enough. Last year, they were 57-25, number one in the West, but at the time, they announced. But then who did it?

Who the heck had a better... Was it Malone? Was it? No. Was it Timberwolves up there? Oh, Finch? Was it Finch? I don't know. I don't know. But it wasn't him because this is his first All-Star head coaching. Congratulations. Congratulations. We're going to see him squinting. That's so cool. In the bay, which I can't wait for. Arms crossed and a squint during an All-Star game. What coach is that here? Uh,

Oh, it is Finch. I see a picture. I don't see a name. Doc Rivers, Chris Finch. There we go. I guess it was just it came on late in the season, so they weren't first earlier. The wall is cool. I want to say that. Okay. Because Austin Reeves noticed that.

Specifically, Austin Reeves going into the Intuit Dome for the first time. We know the wall. It's those 51 rows beside the visitor's bench, but behind the rim. And apparently, according to a report here on the Athletic, Lakers fans were being either kicked out or asked to remove Laker jerseys or jackets who were seated in that wall. In the wall. Get out!

They did say that early in the season or preseason. Like, hey, it's only going to be Clippers fans in there. And we were wondering, how are you going to police that? Because they're twisting some arms in there. Take it off or get out. Right. Apparently that happened. And...

there were Laker fans in the building and they were ready as they got into their seats. There was a ton of them. It could have been 60-40, Clippers, Lakers, the thing that Steve Ballmer absolutely hates, does not want. But they couldn't be heard because the Clippers kicked their butts and they just had nothing to cheer for. But I just wanted to quote Austin Reeves about the wall. He said, it's a good idea. It kind of gives you more of like a college atmosphere to where...

I don't even really want to elaborate on it. So yeah, he just stopped his statement. He stopped it. And then he was asked, what do you mean? What can you, can you elaborate? He said, nah, that's, that's really all I got to say. I think basically he's saying they've got a fricking great arena. They got great fans who come out and show, but he didn't want to elaborate. He started and he stopped himself. It sure felt that way. Uh,

You got to read the athletic report. No bulletin board material. Yeah, he didn't want to do it. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I feel like he was doing. Or did he think he was going to get himself in trouble with Lakers fans? Yeah. I mean, well, yeah. Basically saying, the arena's better. He didn't want to say that. I would hope it's better. It's brand new.

Yeah. Also, I'm going to still go out on a limb and say Lakers fans are better than Clippers fans. Yeah, no, I'm going to say that. I think he's implying that Clippers fans are louder than Lakers fans. Well, their team is better right now, I guess. Yeah.

You know, Lakers fans, it costs a lot of money to get into that arena. Are we reaching an arena? That's what you were saying. Well, Austin said it, not me. Well, he stopped us. Streetlights versus spotlights. Oh, very well done. Do you have anything from Sunday in the NBA? Is anybody ready to talk themselves into the Clippers yet?

Four and one with Kawhi on the court. Played 24 minutes, like you said, Skeets. Nine for 13, last two games. 17 for 24. They've been a good team the entire year. You know they're going to play defense. Ty Lue always has the team playing defense.

are you willing to buy the Clippers as a Dark Horse title contender? Wow, never. You're not. No, never. But go ahead. Don't do it. I guess Kawhi didn't play last night when the Bulls crushed the Clips. Yeah, they smoked them. No Zubats either. No Zubats either. It was a weird weekend, I felt like. A team would have a really good quality win and then they would turn around and lose a stinker or vice versa. So it was like,

It's just a strange weekend overall to like, if we were doing winners and losers of the weekend, it would really difficult. But no, are you, I mean, you're more of a Clipper fan. I'm more of a Clipper fan. And when you see the lineup, when you see what Kawhi Leonard has done coming back, basically allow James Harden to work off the ball a little bit. They've shared ball handling. So Kawhi, the point guard with Harden,

Plus, an awesome Norman Powell and Derek Jones Jr. on the wings as scorers slash defenders like TJJ got the Mavs to the finals because of that. And Ivica Zubac. That looks good. And then the guys on the bench now, Chris Dunn and Batum and Porter. They are...

When Kawhi's playing. And that's obviously the most important thing. We sat here a mere, you know, it was like 10 months ago and we're like, yeah, they sure do look like a team that could challenge. And they do. They literally do. But it comes down to Kawhi playing and I guess he's not playing in back-to-backs. That's the thing. Mm-hmm.

I guess. They're still playing it, but good for them that they have a good record that they will be in the playoffs, it sure looks like, where you look at a team like the Sixers and how they obviously handle Embiid, and it's like, you've got to get in there to then have your guy in there, if he's even healthy at that point.

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Saturday, really entertaining game. Weird game, if I'm being honest. The Celtics fell to the Hawks in overtime. Drew Holiday really gave this one away at the end of regulation. The Hawks were trying their best to give it away, but Trae Young scored 28 to get that victory over the Celtics. We had Donovan Mitchell scoring 36 points. Garland added 29. Cavs took control in the second half. They beat the Wolves 124-117 on Saturday night. And then finally, a big story from the weekend was

Kevin Durant, a happy football fan there on Saturday after his Washington Commanders defeated Devin Booker's Detroit Lions in the NFL Divisional Round playoff series or game. KD winning a per diem bet, I guess. Won a couple hundred bucks from Booker. They were there because they were in Detroit and they beat them. So anyway, KD had a good

weekend or at least a good Saturday. Your thoughts? Wow, the commander is just Cinderella this season, right? Jaden Daniels. Can't faze him. Can't faze him. No. He's got a fan in Tom Brady. He's like, I love the way you prepare. Well,

Cool for them. Sorry to the Lions, but that's what it is being the Lions. The Hawks, though. Why do they play so well against the Celtics? I don't know. 2-1 this season. 2-2 last year. They went 0-3 the previous season, but they did take two games off them in the playoffs in the first round. This season, the Hawks are 2-1 against the Celtics.

2-0 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and 2-1 against the New York Knicks. Pretty great record. 6-2 against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. 16-18 versus the rest of the league. Just shows you they played to the level of their competition. That's good against the good teams, Ian.

Everybody has a chance against the other teams. But, yeah, you're right. The Celtics kind of gave this one away. They were up two with 20 seconds left. Trae Young gets a technical foul. Poorly timed technical foul. But the Hawks got really lucky because after the free throw and the possession, Jalen Brown just caught the ball standing out of bounds.

So it ended up being a Hawks ball on the other end. A lot went wrong for the Celtics in the last couple of minutes of regulation to actually take this into overtime where the Hawks were better. Weird game, but the Hawks will do that. They will scare a team in the first round of the playoffs, I think. Yeah, they play up to their...

but the Celtics definitely played down to their competition as well. I mean, they were up to start this game. I thought in the second quarter watching this one was when they really gave it away. They just weren't clicking. Some horrible turnover. Just not reading the situation. They had a three-on-one.

A 3-on-1. That turned into a missed alley-oop. Drew Carter, who's the Celtics play-by-play man, said, what was that? Literally just yelling out, we're here, our championship team is playing that bad. They just kind of gave it away. And we've seen that from the Celtics, and we've had this discussion, what's going on with this team, and then the fourth quarter to end it, they literally...

gave it away. Although, after the game, Joe Mazzullo said, I like that. Oh, yeah. He likes that they're frustrated. He saw there was also a Jason Tatum versus Onyeka and Kong Wu grabbing the ball. It was fun. And Tatum was mad. And Joe Mazzullo says, I like that. We're kind of like we're eight and eight over the last 16 and we got some scrappiness, which is true. And then they came back and

against the Warriors and that worked. So I guess Missoula was right. I will say if we were actually doing a traditional winners and losers of the weekend, I think the Cavs maybe would have gotten it because they had two quality wins after getting embarrassed last week in OKC. They bounced back. They beat the Wolves, as I said there on Saturday. They followed that up beating the Suns handedly.

Mitchell looked great in both those games. Played the Rockets here in the next one, so that should be good. But they look good. Ant did become the third youngest player in NBA history to score 8,000 points. LeBron, KD, they reached 8,000 points at a younger age. But Ant right there next on the list. Did you take any football games in over the weekend? Well, yeah. Trey mentioned the Washington Commanders. I heard Tom Brady on the call. Well, this is like a video game.

Because the commanders are great, I guess. You know, I didn't watch. I watched the Chiefs, and somehow the Bills got it done. That was a weird one. Thank you, Mark. Big drop. Big drop. That hurt. To drop a two-point conversion. Straight up strike from Lamar. To Lively, Derek Lively's brother. Maybe. Maybe Blake Lively's brother. I watched her movie.

What's hers? Not End of Us. Not End of Us has something to do with it. It's got a name, right? Like a sentence name. Oh, yeah. It ends with us? Is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I didn't watch it. I was watching it over somebody's shoulder on the airplane. That's not watching it? No, I wasn't. But then I was looking for it on the...

On the return flight, because I didn't have enough time to end it on the return flight. I was looking for it on the Delta console, but it was such an older plane, they didn't have it on the console. So I didn't watch the end of it. Did you raw dog it? Huh? Did you raw dog it? As in? The flight? Sit there and do nothing? No, I can't pull that off. I think you could. I could see you doing it. I hate myself for it, but I could do it. Yeah.

I mean, I admire those people that have just the flight tracker on their phone. Oh, God, it's even more insane in a weird way. It is. It is. Just like watching your watch. Okay, let's go to Friday. Our final day to recap here. A few interesting things. The Heat's Jimmy Butler had 18 points in his return from a seven-game suspension. This was in a loss to the Nuggets. Jamal Murray was awesome. Jokic triple-double.

They crush Miami at home, but we can get into Jimmy Butler and some of his comments and his antics leading up to the game. We also had Anthony Edwards. He had a great game in Madison Square Garden. He went for 36-13. And we had some 2025 NBA All-Star Game jerseys that got leaked. We'll show you those in a second. I want to start with the Jimmy Butler of it all, TK, because he suited up in two games over the weekend. Again, following that suspension.

It wasn't amazing. I mean, I think he averaged like 13 points per game, played 30 minutes per game. His big quote was, the whole truth will come out. That was sort of what he said. Then there was a lot of like no comments. He did wear the Jordan 45 jersey. There was the I'm back fax from his agent leading up to the Friday game. So anyway, it didn't go well. I mean, he didn't ball out, but we're just sort of sitting here waiting for what the Heat are going to do with Jimmy Butler.

We're just sitting here waiting. And it feels like the Heat got the Jimmy Butler that we've seen so far this season. Like, it hasn't been great. He's like 16 points per game. Maybe 18 at this point. But he feels like he's become the third man on the Miami Heat from an offensive pecking order standpoint. And that kind of felt like the same spot he was in. Tyler Hero is the main perimeter guy. Bam is obviously like a dribble handoff, set a screen, switch the side kind of player as well. But those...

Those are the main two guys. So Jimmy has to get in where he fits in. And that appears to be the problem. He also said, my beef isn't with these guys. I love my teammates. They're cool. They're my friends. Yeah. The beef is obviously with Pat Riley and the beef is, uh, especially with getting paid. Uh, it does seem like, but I don't know. It feels like the best thing for the heat would be Jimmy playing, uh,

keeping up with no comments, saying whatever, we're going to talk about it eventually, right? Like him being on the court and being a reliable player for the team, even if he's not scoring 30 a game, is better than him doing Instagram stories from the brick-and-mortar shop at Big Face Coffee, right? It looks like he cares about playing basketball, which I think is good for the Heat. Maybe they can get something back, or they have to tough it out until the summer where they try and make the trade. Either way,

It means Jimmy's going to be back on the court. The main thing that I took away from the Nuggets game, though, is that Jamal Murray's hooping right now. He's playing really, really well. He's back over 20 points per game. He had 30 in this one. Could get anywhere he wanted again is what it looks like to me, and he's put together a nice string of five or so games here. So it seems like maybe he's turned the quarter on...

And we'll see. I need to know, though, if Jimmy Butler and his agent found an actual fax machine to send in the I'm back because otherwise, kind of lame. Yeah, I don't think so. I think that was just for the social media. Yeah, just a Photoshop job. I do agree that Jimmy Butler strictly playing helps his trade value. And he got better as the Denver Nuggets game went on. He shot 7 of 15, 18 points. He got into it a little bit more and dropped 7 assists against the Spurs. So I think overall the package is fine.

I call him the package now in terms of what everybody is watching, if they're going to want to trade for him. I do want to know, the Heat's court is called the Pat Riley court. Does he hate playing on the Pat Riley court because he doesn't like playing? Wow. Because of that. But on the other end, yeah, the Nuggets look awesome. They have changed who they are, really. I mean, Jamal Murray, yes, amazing. He looks so crafty with the ball. The handoff's coming from Nikola Jokic.

way up at the top. It's even different, I think, than the pick-and-roll game that they got to the finals with. It's handoffs because Nikola Jokic can shoot threes now. You really can't play off him whatsoever. 30 points on 24 shots. But then Jokic is out there and can just set guys up with Christian Brown, who's great with the baseline cuts, Westbrook, who's good with every freaking cut. And they're so good at the fast break, the Brown and Westbrook, because they're super athletic, and that's why they lead the league in fast break points. Yeah.

it looks different with Jokic dropping passes and to Porter out there. That's their five, you know, giving those handoffs.

They're number one in assists in the NBA and they had 35 in this one. So that's their starting lineup. And Aaron Gordon is now on the bench and he is going to help that bench, which has problems. The non-Jokic minutes. I mean, he looked really good out there. He's the focus of that second unit. He's the guy. And so it's different out there. It's, it's him, DeAndre Jordan, Peyton Watson, who's shooting threes from the corner. I think that's the important part. Just like Russell Westbrook, you got to stay in the corner to get the most out of you. So those three guys and Julian Strother, who is up and down. But,

But it's a different team now. They've resorted to what they are, and they're on pace. If we're talking the Clippers as a championship threat, I think you've got to add the Nuggets as a championship threat. They look a lot better. Yes, absolutely. You've got to be ahead of the Clippers for sure. Back to Jimmy for a second. ESPN's Brian Windhorst suggested on the latest episode of the Hoop Collective podcast that Miami has actually gotten more serious, I guess, over the last couple days.

about trying to get a deal done and trying to move Jimmy Butler. Quote, this is Windhorse on the podcast, since Jimmy had his meeting with Mickey Arison on Thursday, there is no doubt an uptick in discussions around Jimmy Butler. The heat shifted into a new gear after that meeting. I even had a team on Friday call me and say...

hey, we were just talking to a couple teams. We're trying to dump a salary. And they all of a sudden had to end our phone calls to do something bigger. They said, what's going on? And I go, well, I don't know. But I speculate that it has to do with Jimmy Butler. And not just a direct Butler trade, but a three and four team trades. The point is, I do think the Heat are actually trying here. End quote there from Brian Windhorst, who's in the know.

Fingers up. And it does feel like if a Jimmy Butler trade does happen in the next couple weeks, it will involve a third, potentially a fourth trade in terms of salary moving. And I'm interested to see what those teams are that get in on the mix and what they can get out of this, you know, just by helping facilitate moving Jimmy, really.

Yeah, because there's obviously still tension there. He's saying the truth will come out eventually. Eric Spolstra is saying you're not going to get me to say anything about this. Let's just talk about what's happening in basketball. So clearly there's still problems between Jimmy and the front office of the Heat.

And it's still going to be complicated for him to get traded, especially if he wants to go to these teams that are competitive, that have high salary, cap numbers, and have to do all kinds of crazy moves to actually be able to trade for Jimmy. So, yeah, hopefully, maybe something will happen. I guess we'll see. The other thing I would say, Kahlil Ware looks all right. Yeah, he had a great game. He had 9.7 rebounds.

in Jimmy's return on Friday, but then 25-8-2 against the Spurs on Sunday. Gives the Heat a curveball that they didn't have. Like, a guy that's actually bigger than Bam and can play alongside Bam as a center. Two bigs, bit of a change-up for them. So, well, I just call it a curveball and a change-up. It's an off-speed pitch. Guaranteed an off-speed pitch. You can tell that we're out of baseball season right now. It's a slurve.

I saw the Blue Jays finally signed somebody. I don't know who it is, but I know that they finally got somebody because the Jays are always in the running for a guy and they're always the second or third guy. And they keep missing until Anthony Santander steps up to the plate. Salamander? No, just a Santander. But are they overpaying? Seems like they're overpaying. What's this guy do? He slap dingers? Oh, he's a dick daughter. Okay.

I think he was third in home runs in terms of AL hitters last year. Who the hell is this guy? He hit a lot of homers, but he's all homers. Oh, he's real. Rob Deere about it, eh? Yeah, five years and 92 and a half at 30 years old.

He may be peaking the next couple of years. So maybe it's too long term a deal. No, I hate it. But he does hit diggers. No, nothing about it. Hate it. Don't like it. No, overpaid. Let me get the number. 44 smacks last year. Wow. That's a lot of smacks. Okay, good. Now I love it.

All right, let's show you those All-Star jerseys. These apparently are going to be the jerseys in the Bay for the 2025 All-Star game. These are leaks, nothing official. I don't think the NBA has commented on this, but there are four of them. And we're showing them to you here on the YouTube. We've got a red one. We've got sort of the, I guess, dark blue one. The All-Star stylized a little differently. We've got a white one. And then we have the... What color do you call this blue? That's like...

What do you call that? It's in between a baby and a Robin. Robin. I was going to say Robin, but I was like, is that? Okay. So anyway, what do we think of these? If these are indeed the jerseys, TK? Oh, me likey.

I like them. I think they look good. I mean, they look like pretty standard all-star jerseys. We got four of them now. Apparently we got four teams. We're going to have random assistant coaches coaching. I actually think the Thunder should let Nick Gallo be the coach. Oh, yeah. Let him do the second team. Who cares? Good call. They love him. The Thunder guys love him. They'd win. They love him. Let Nick draft us. We don't want to play for Mark. We always play for Mark.

They were so mad the other day when Jared Greenberg had the post-game interview. Nick Gallo was pissed. They said, where's Nick? They literally were saying that. They like the guy. I like the blues.

Yeah. Yeah. So you don't mind them. Yeah. I don't know if it's okay to like all-star uniforms anymore because everybody, every year we got to hate them. Yeah. I would love to see them just wear their actual team uniforms one day. But now that we have four teams at all-star weekend, you got to come out with other jerseys, right? You can't just be wearing your team jerseys. If you have four teams, that feels, that feels super weird.

I do like the blue. I had to look up. You see, I'm getting into the nitty gritty how it says 74th annual. Yeah. So the 74th annual All-Star game, I guess. Because it's not 75th season. 75th season was years ago. It's got to be, yeah. Yeah. That's weird. Anyway, it's getting into the nitty gritty. I thought it's close to a baby blue, which I always love. But yeah, I guess it's not baby, baby.

Baby, baby, baby, baby. Where are they going to put the numbers on the front? I guess they won't have them. I guess not. I was wondering that too. They've got that cool little star logo. That star logo, always a banger. They make it for every single one. The Jazz had a...

What, it was like mountains on the top of theirs. I think it was a race car inspired for Indiana last year. You got some bridge action for this one. Cool stuff. So this is going to sound very weird, but that baby blue, Robin Blue, whatever we're calling it. I recently watched the 1992 Royal Rumble, which involved Sid Justice as one of the final guys. And he's wearing a very similar color.

to that blue. Okay. Yeah, and it was one of his best looks, I thought, so I'm also a thumbs up. That's why they did it. It's in honor of Sid Justice, who got pulled out by Hulk Hogan! Do you remember that one? This is an iconic rumble. No. It's the one that Flair wins. And he wins the belt. But Hogan, what a piece of shit. He gets thrown out, and then grabs Sid Vicious and pulls him out. Oh. And like, I know, I'm sure when I was young I would have been like 11 or 12.

Yeah, Hulk Hogan, man. Yeah, yeah. Hulkamaniacs. But the more you look back on it, man, that guy was a heel. Through and through. He sucked. The ref didn't pull him back in? No. No, they were like, oh, Hogan pulled him out. Yeah, yeah. It's embarrassing, man. Just take the loss. Flair couldn't even celebrate in the ring.

He had to go get his belt in the back, though it gave us an iconic promo. That was good. But he didn't even get a moment because Hogan gets in there and Flair has to run away. Oh, man. 92 Rumble, man. I don't know about this whole Hogan guy. Yeah, he sucks. Starting to think something's up with him. We should have seen the writing on the wall. He's not about the right stuff, I don't think, Skates. No, he's not, man. He's not. Taking his vitamins. Yeah, right. Steroid diet. All right, let's go to Pick Up.

Welcome for tonight, Tass. Not a lot of games on, actually, here on a Tuesday night. So where are we going? We are going to Toronto. The Orlando Magic are visiting. Toronto is a three and a half point underdog, so they can lose by three or win if you're taking them. And I am taking them because the injuries have finally caught up to the Orlando Magic. Yeah.

Specifically, Jalen Sucks. That's really, really important to have a ball handler out there. He's missed the last eight games. They're two and six without him. And there's a lot of other guys out. Franz Wagner, Mo Wagner, Jed Howard, Gary Harris, and Goga Batase all out. Dang. And the reps have had three days off. They better cover. So, Skeetson, you and myself, we're taking those reps. Trey Nash taking the magic here in what's becoming a league.

Little bit of a tough ride for you. Yeah, we need the wraps to win tonight or cover. We need the wraps to cover. I'm running out of January. I needed that one on Friday. I guess I took the heat in Jimmy's return and the Nuggets crushed him. So I need this one to have any chance to get back into this. Otherwise, I'm going to be doing podcasts behind a bookshelf.

We'll leave it at that. Alright, we have the pick and pay off. It's gonna be weird. I think it's gonna be funny. But, uh, yeah. We'll see if I can get out of last place here.

Behind a bookshelf. We only have a Royal Rumble moment where somebody pulls you from the bookshelf. I know there's no real good comparison. I take it all back. Wow, we should do a Royal Rumble week. A new podcast guest every two minutes. Yeah. Oh, there's somebody at the door. That would be an awesome live show idea. It'd be so good if we could get 30 guests and we have a clock running. Is that Tim Bontemps music?

Will Gilbrey! That'd be amazing! We gotta do this, man! Oh, maybe we'll do that for our 20th anniversary next year. We gotta do a live show for that. Alright, I'm already looking ahead.

Alright, that's it for us here. That was a fun show trying to recap as much as we possibly could. I know we missed some things. Don't get too angry. In fact, hit the like button, subscribe, leave us a five-star rating and review. If you're angry, do that instead because we didn't talk about your team or your players. We got to get going though because JD and I are off to Paris. Look at that. Miles Turner already there.

in his cool jacket from All-Star Weekend, and he's in front of the Eiffel Tower. Is it the Eiffel Tower, or is it his Lego tower? Oh, JD, were you reading my tweets this morning? That's exactly what I said. He knows there's a video going around where he's showing everyone on his phone the Eiffel Tower that he built out of Lego. And it's 10,000 pieces, I believe. It's actually huge. Like, he's a giant man, and it went really high up on him in the video I saw. Did he...

say when he started building it like did he get the Eiffel Tower after the Pacers were announced in the Paris game I'm not sure I'm not sure I will I'll give you another note though I did see Tyrese Halliburton there of course and somebody brought up the fact that he has a piece of the Eiffel Tower in his medal from the Olympic Games remember that he does yeah yeah so he's like yeah that's pretty cool that is cool

He almost seemed like he was learning for the first time. He's like, oh, yeah, I do. Anyway, JD and I are off to Paris tonight. So we will be checking in with you guys at some point later in the week. And make sure you keep an eye on the NoDunks social media channel. We'll try to be blasted as much as we can from there. Obviously, we're going to take in the games on Thursday.

Thursday and Saturday. I think they are with the Spurs and Pacers playing. So, yeah, JD, you ready? You packed my man. Sort of. Okay. I'm pat, you know, I got a couple hours. Just pack that beret.

I think we're bringing. I have two berets packed. Okay, good. I went with the blue one and a red one from Nora. Ooh la la. Yeah. She also had a pink one and a green one, but I thought, yeah, I thought more of the French colors. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. So those are packed. That's all we need. Passports and a couple of berets. All right.

Uh, so these guys will be holding down the fort with Ash in here, uh, for the rest of the week. But yeah, again, hopefully I'll jump on a couple of times. You guys have some special guests coming in later in the week. We got guests. Yeah. You might say hello to them. You might welcome them in. No chance is what you got. Uh,

Clipper Bros! You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up. Love you guys. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. And remember, next year for our 20th anniversary, we're having a Royal Rebel. We're having a show with 30 of our biggest fans. So, I would say, I mean, I'm demanding of the 30 people who come on just basically to recite a moment or something that they've enjoyed from the last 20 years. Oh, wow. So we're not going NBA media, we're going fans. No, it could be NBA media. Like...

Oh, my God. Grandma Lana's pulled number one. Can't you go the distance? I do think that we will have a portion of the media. You mentioned Tim Bontemps. Somebody knows a moment that they enjoyed from our show. Somebody please say a moment. Well, yeah. They have to recite it. I'm obviously patting ourselves on the back with this comment.

design here. Just say something that you like. And if you know, if you're a fan out there who's heard a media member say something about us, let us know. I mean, we're already building it. It's going to take some time to have 30 guests on our show. We can do it. We got to build to the event. Storytelling is important when it comes to wrestling and live podcasts. All right, everybody. You'll see the guys here tomorrow in the Classic Factory. Hit the like button, subscribe, five-star ratings and review. Brace the day, people.

Hello, I'm Ian McIntosh and I'm the host of the Daily Football Briefing. What is the Daily Football Briefing? It's a special 10-minute daily show designed to bring you up to speed with the most important stories from across the football world. Except on Monday mornings when it's 15 minutes and we try to cram in the results, standings and stories from the top 10 leagues on the planet.

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