Warriors Stun Thunder, Clips Frustrate Wemby & Put Beef Stew In The Royal Rumble
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where we're gonna dwell! Just a peck! On the neck! A quick check of how we smell! I'm diggin' it, I'm diggin' it, I'm diggin' it, yeah! Take a bow and then a nibble! I second that, no quibble! Give the beaks a little jiggle! And then the pits a little sniffle! Woo! I'm ripe! Yeah, you are! I'm the ripest! All by far! Is that an old car? Are we? Sword fight! Oh, jeez, where's my keys? I gotta disarm the alarm! Too late, too late, everyone's awake! Oh, darn! Build a big mouth-to-mouth! Hand-to-hand! Hand-to-hand! Hand-to-hand!

That's the funniest cold open.

Good morning, sweet world. I can't even get it out. Welcome to the No Dongs podcast on the Athletic Network. It's Thursday, January 30th, 2025. I'm J.E. Skeets here in the Classic Factory and alongside me, as always, Tass Mellis. Podcast listeners and YouTube viewers, you gotta see the bird.

I really appreciate it. This one's for you. Next to him is the bearded one, my top shot hot boy, Trey Kirby. Hey-o. Hey-o. And over yonder, he's back from Paris, and he's back from the dead. Yes. It's super producer JD. Hello. And what a way to come back. Oh, yeah. I had that in the bank. Like...

I knew I was coming back. I had to come back strong. That was gold. Yeah. It somehow got funnier and funnier and funnier as it went on. Great cold open. Hello to everybody joining us live on YouTube. Hit the like button, subscribe. Podcast listeners, leave your boys a five-star rating and review if you haven't done so already. All right. Lots to talk about.

Here on today's No Dunks Pod, we'll play a little Is This News with some headlines from the last 24 hours. But a lot of games on last night, so let's do a few rounds of drafting last night's best games. All right. Our biggest stories or whatever you want to touch on for whatever your reason.

Tass, you have the number one pick. The board is yours. I'm taking the Golden State Warriors beating the Oklahoma City Thunder for the second time this season. And yeah, you might think I'm going to start with Shea in his 52, but I'm starting with the Warriors because they were able to just ask for some points from the other OKC Thunder and they just couldn't do it.

It looked great for the Thunder to start. Shea had 31 at half. They're up double digits in the first half. But then the Golden State said, all right, we're throwing the zone at you. Other guys are going to have to score. SGA was scoreless for the first six minutes of the third quarter.

and scoreless for the six minutes of the fourth quarter. And the other OKC Thunder outside of SGA were 24 of 70 in this game for 34%. That ain't good enough. It just ain't. And that's including Jalen Williams, who did end up having a good night, had a 7-0 run late in the fourth quarter, but it was just far too late. 26 overall.

because the Warriors were just getting so many points from other places. Now, Shea, it's great. I know that he is the headline. He didn't have a 50-point game in his career until last week. Now he's got two in a week. It's pretty cool for him. But just look at what this Golden State Warriors team has become recently. A second night of a back-to-back in the last six minutes. This is their order of baskets in the final six minutes.

Dennis Schroeder, Andrew Wiggins, Pajemski, Kyle Anderson. What kind of shot was that? Kevon Looney, two free throws. Then Steph. Oh, yeah, that guy plays for them. Hit a three. Then a Wiggins three. Then a Peyton dunk on Isaiah Hartenstein. Then Peyton, two free throws. That's the entire freaking team scored from them, basically, in the final six minutes. So quite the opposite of what OKC could do in this game.

It would be different if Chet was there, sure. But outside of Shea, the Warriors were doing a great job of just forcing the shots to come outside the mid-range where Shea does his thing with that zone. No Draymond, no Kaminga in this game. Second night of a back-to-back. And Andrew Wiggins is their lead scorer with 27 points. It's surprising that this Golden State Warriors is that team that

Was that by unity, by everybody coming together like at the beginning of this season? This is who they are. This is who we kind of expected them to be. They're back, maybe. Kind of. We'll see for how long it lasts. Maybe one of their best wins of the season. Sure. Twice at least over the last couple months. They can play the Thunder.

Yeah, they had great games last season as well. Came down to the last second. Felt like a don't trade me kind of game. Getting 27 from Wiggins, 15 from Peyton, 18 from Looney, plus four blocks, 11 from pods. Like these are all the guys on the table to get shipped out of Golden State right now. They showed up for the win in this game. Meanwhile, the Thunder just didn't get anything from anybody outside of SGA and J-Dub. They scored 88 of OKC's 109.

Thunder were being dared to shoot, I thought, in this one. 9 for 39 from 3. They obviously couldn't knock it down. And then the long rebounds were turning into fast break points for Golden State. 18 to 5 advantage for them. I thought a good game plan from the Warriors to be the faster team out there. You don't expect that against a Thunder team that forces turnovers and gets out in the open, but...

They're going to have to knock down shots in the playoffs because that is going to be the recipe for beating the Thunder is pack the paint, try and keep Shea out of there, try and keep him off the line. Didn't work last night. 18 for 21 of his 52 points. Jalen Williams was getting where he wanted to, but nobody else was able to hit from the outside. So you're going to need reliable three-point shooting from Dort. Caruso went down with an injury in this one. Isaiah Joe was hitting for sure. He had a nice game. He was the only guy, but they're going to have to knock down threes when it comes to playoff time. Yeah.

I'm glad you slipped him in there, like, you know, amongst Wiggins and Curry hitting the big shots and even Gary Payton the second. I thought he was awesome. He was. There's been not many great Looney performances this season, but, yeah, getting to the free throw line, knocking down clutch free throws, obviously sort of rejecting guys at the rim, whoever was coming at him. You had the crowd, like, giving the Looney.

doing all that type of chant. So he was huge. He was instrumental, pulling 25 minutes off the bench for them. That's a good matchup for them. Yeah, especially. I mean, different when Chet's there and obviously extends the floor and stuff like that. It's a different look, but good win from the Warriors to get above 500. Yeah, back above 500, 24 and 23. I think they're like right there with the 10th spot now. Yeah, and they helped produce a good version of our series, NBA Conspiracies. NBA Conspiracies.

Because the Warriors called the Miami Heat and they said, if we have to include Andrew Wiggins, we are not doing it to get Jimmy Butler. We are not including Andrew Wiggins. Yeah, this is just me. It's totally an NBA conspiracy. This actually did not happen. Oh. Yeah, no, this did not happen. That's the conspiracy. That's the conspiracy. They didn't call? Well, no, no, they called. That's the conspiracy. Oh, okay.

Okay, okay. You're saying they called and said this, but we don't know it yet. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't know it. Maybe they have. Maybe they haven't. We'll never find out. And then they called Jimmy Butler's agent, and they said, Jimmy, you have got to destroy your relationship with Pat Riley in the Miami front office so we can get you for anything. Because, yeah, we're not including Andrew Wiggins in a deal. You remember when Kobe said he wanted to go to Chicago and Luol Deng was part of that deal, but...

He wasn't going because Llewellyn Dang was part of that deal? Just pretend we're Kobe. We are not doing it if Andrew Wiggins is a part of the deal. There's your NBA conspiracy. Okay, okay. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Clip it. And ship it, Ash. I know you said there's so many guys produced. I mean, then you think about it, they are going to have to include somebody in this deal. But yeah, the Wiggins one is the biggest one, I would say, of all.

all those dudes as the one they want to keep the most. You think because of his importance to the team. And, you know, the Kaminga part is obviously a big part. The guy's not even freaking playing right now. It's an interesting time. Seven days remain. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. We are a week away, baby. And we'll have some fun next week on Thursday. Probably a couple shows during the day, obviously ready to go live if a big deal happens. So we'll get to that next week. All right. Number two pick.

From the night. TK, where are you going? For me, it's Jalen Brunson and the Knicks smoking the Nuggets in MSG. Jalen Brunson, great in this game. 30 points and 15 assists. He had 30 points through three quarters. Only took one shot in the fourth as the Nuggets were getting a little bit bolder about trying to take the ball out of his hands. So Brunson just had seven assists in the fourth quarter. Zero turnovers. He made every single play in this game. They

had no answer for him, basically at point of attack. He was in the lane the entire night. The Knicks are rolling right now. Their last 10 games, their second in points per game, first in offensive rating. Though I will say...

I'm more disappointed in the Denver Nuggets after watching this game. Terrible effort on defense, back-to-back games. They got smoked by the Bulls as well, and it really starts with Nikola Jokic. He didn't want to defend in this game. He got two quick fouls early on. First was a pump fake from Carl Anthony Towns. Fair enough. Towns pump fakes and drives all the time. Second one was brutal, though. The reach inside after I think it was a dish from Brunson just tried to slap at it, and that was Jokic's defense all night. He obviously subbed out after the two fouls in the first minute and a half. Didn't play much in the first half.

But in the second half, it was the same. Anytime a ball was getting near Jokic and the Knicks were trying to score, he was just slapping at it. He wasn't moving his feet. This looked like the Jokic of old. Before he started winning MVPs, he would have these stretches where he's just not very into the game. And that's what's happening right now on the defensive end, at least for the Nuggets. The Knicks were great at taking advantage of it, though. 25 fast break points, 14 threes, 33 assists. I don't know how many one-on-zero layups they had. Probably five. Mm-hmm.

That should be a number of zero in an NDA game. But they had at least three in the first quarter. It was ridiculous. Just throwing it out. Easy stuff. So...

I thought it was a pretty great performance for the Knicks. Kat did a great job on Jokic. The foul trouble kept Nikola out in the first half, but only 13 points on 12 shots in the second half. He had some weird misses in this one as well. Like, he missed a wide-open layup. Have you ever seen that from Jokic? He missed back-to-back threes. Percentage-wise, that shouldn't happen. He just didn't seem like he was completely into this game. And when your leader isn't leading, you look bad.

And the Nuggets have looked bad for their past couple of games here. Oh, yeah. I mean, they are giving up a ton of points. They've given up 133, 129, and now 122 to the Knicks, which obviously we have some garbage time there, too, on this road trip. So, I mean, good luck. It's going to be tough to win any of those games when that many points are being put up. But I'm with you, Trey. It's been very rare instances over the last couple seasons to see Jokic disengaged or sort of checked out or sort of just like his heart not feeling into it. Yeah. That.

was one of those games and credit to the Knicks for maybe putting him in that situation but yeah it's sort of like he had sort of just had waved the white flag early it felt like and you're agreeing here with that yeah they probably could have got spanked by 40 points in this game if Jamal Murray didn't have a good game he did look like that Jamal Murray that helped him win a championship that's for sure 33 from him but Jokic didn't look like that guy

That was extremely weird to see him play only nine first half minutes because of the foul trouble. But also, yeah, he just was not into it. As you said, Knicks were just getting into the lane, getting into it.

very easily and we know Jokic is an above the rim protector but he is always beside the guy who will hit a layup and in this one he just was not there was so much space and so it's hard to say great game for the Knicks or just terrible game for the Nuggets which one you you kind of favor or go with because the Knicks have been rolling 143 143 and then this one uh 122 in their last three games that's monstrous I heard somebody say that's their

highest total in three games for like 70 years the last time they did it. I didn't want to look that up because that just isn't... I mean, it doesn't really matter all that much. You know, against the Kings and Grizzlies especially, yeah, it didn't matter. But against this Nuggets team, I thought they'd score more, quite honestly, the way it was so easy for them. All right, let's keep it going here. I got the number three pick overall, and I am going to take...

Siakam scoring 37. Halliburton adding 30 to lead the Pacers past the Pistons. And we'll get to beef stew here in a second. But these guys were awesome, especially Siakam. Oh my God, was he cooking in this game.

He had every shot in his bag. He was hitting that crazy step back that he does when he like just takes a wild one step back around the free throw line. He dunked one. He was just attacking as he does. A lot of ethical buckets from Siakam. Him and Halliburton had 43 points on 16 of 20 shooting in the first half.

Both of them. Lights out. And here the Pacers are, man. They started this season 10-15. Since then, they've looked a lot more like the Eastern Conference finalists from last year. They've won 16-21. They've won 10-12 in January.

They're now 26-20. They're only a half game back from the Bucs, who have the four seed. So it's been sort of funny, right, as the magic sort of trailed off a little bit after their hot start and all the injuries started to pile up. Here come the Pacers. They've really sort of clicked it into another gear here, especially in the new year. So just a really strong performance. But let's get to what everybody's talking about from this game. Early in the second quarter, Aaron Neesmith, he pulled up for a mid-range jumper. It didn't drop, and instead of boxing out Thomas Bryant...

Isaiah Stewart of the Pistons just dropped his shoulder, his forearm into Bryant, knocked him to the ground. And then, you know, obviously Bryant popped up. He wanted a piece of him, had to hold him back. So the referees, the referees appeared to eject Stewart almost immediately. They did go and look at it and they're like, yeah, that's a non-basketball play. Pretty unnecessary. Definitely excessive. You're out of here. And then I guess to make matters worse, you know, Stewart, while he's like,

getting sort of escorted off the floor. Appeared to make sort of a gun gesture in the direction of the Pacers bench. It was a quick little finger gun there, but then he's gesturing toward the crowd and he's walking off. He starts, you know, flexing with the jersey and stuff as he hits the tunnel here. You know, it's funny. I

You immediately get a little uneasy when it's the Pacers and Pistons and anything like this is going down because your mind goes back to the mouse in the palace. But I guess we'll just see if he gets a suspension for how this all went down because of his history, which would come into play here. This is the second time I believe he's been ejected this season with the flagrant two foul. The one he pulled down Giannis.

If you remember back in November, like mid-November, he like tugged on Giannis there in that game. And that got him out. But he's had other ones where he popped Clowney in the neck. Got a flagrant one for that. Punched Drew Eubanks in the face before a game. That was last year. That's right. That got him a three-game suspension. And I think he got into it with Dale and Terry this year. And obviously LeBron back in the day. That's the one. That's like way longer ago than I thought. It's like 2021 at this point. Really? I think so. Wow.

It feels not that level. But yeah. Anyway, this guy, get him a Temper Boy shirt. I mean, he just like sort of snaps. Get him a new sport. This guy should be a football player. He's got like a boxing background as well. He's on a Royal Rumble thumbnail for this very show. That was not basketball. What Isaiah Stewart was doing. It was funny when he told Miles Turner, you play with Legos.

That was funny. These guys got into a beef like last week. That was funny. This is not funny. So he's going to get suspended because of the history, because of the hit he did, and then because he was doing a finger gun at him. It's like that's three things stacked against you, so he's sitting for at least two games probably. Okay. Do you think he'll get a game or two at least here? Yes. The gun, I throw it in air quotes because we are unsure if it was a gun or not. Just the fact that it was potentially a gun.

leads you to believe that it was something that would get him suspended. But yes, it's more of the history because he just went off.

events in this guy's career that have been extremely physical. It's Isaiah Stewart. I mean, look, they were beefing throughout this game. You know, Beef Stew, okay? That's his name after all. But tensions were stewing. Yeah, tensions were stewing between Tom and Spry. Like, there was a lot of chirping going on. They had just played not long ago. I'm sure that was a bit of a carryover. That's great. We love to see that. It was just like, it was a little odd that

just what he did like where he suddenly is like I'm not even going to go for the rebound I'm just going to turn around and truck the guy and then he seems like okay the referee is sort of like okay get to your bench he sort of you know swats at the referee's hand okay who cares sort of like just leave him alone and he's

Then he seems like he's okay, right? Like he does. He's sort of just standing there. He's talking to his guys and then obviously gets tossed. And then he's got a lot more of his antics with either the finger guns and the gestures and obviously engaging with the crowd, which I think the NBA really does not like because that's the worry where you go. You do that stuff and you're going to like ignite another mouse at the palace with fans. Yeah. Yeah.

And it fits the definition of a beef stew. It was stewing for the first quarter, and then it just continued on. So, yeah, that's Isaiah Stewart, baby. Quick note on Pascal Siakam dropping 37. Made us look good. Yeah. For selecting him to our list. Is it too late for the...

to see. They probably aren't. He'll be there. He'll be there. I imagine. Because you said it. There's not many frontcourt players to pick from. Mobley's a lock. And then it was like, Siakam's probably the next lock as a big. Yeah, but Jalen Brown is a forward. So maybe. He'll be there too. Yeah. Don't worry. We got them right. I feel confident we got the forwards right. Mobley, Siakam, and Jalen Brown. Yeah. I think they'll be there.

There are coaches who will say Halliburton is the guy on that team who runs that team. But as you said, the forwards thing, they do have to take three forwards. So maybe it is Pascal, a respect for Pascal Siakam.

huge 37 point game he didn't even have a 30 point game this season until that one and that's his pacer high since he got there so good for him yeah and you know what it's like Halliburton was really good in this too like 30 and 8 is awesome and he's been better after a slow start it is it has become a little bit more of like sort of a Siakam Pacers team or at least a little more evenly split yeah between him and Halliburton than it was when it was Halliburton's team and

Right now it's working because that was some of the best Siakam I've seen. We saw a lot of Raptors Siakam, and he was good. He got better and better and better, but holy crap, that game last night, he was...

jail Endurin it was like a joke putting him on him too fast and then he got Kade switched on him a couple times too small Fantechio had to go at him no chance you got Buckner on the call I love when Siakam gets matched onto a smaller guy Buckner loves to say he can't stop you he can't stop you and he was right most of the time because nobody could last night yeah I was wondering where's Asar Thompson

Yeah. That's the guy I would guess would maybe have the best chance, but there was really no answer for the Pistons last night. I did like the stewing tensions in this one. It was cool. Like you had Halliburton and Malik Beasley were jawing at each other, and Halliburton hits a three at the end of the third quarter. He did the Malik Beasley shimmy. It looked crazy, man. Yeah.

It looks a little stylish, I feel like, when Malik Beasley does it. Like he's actually a dancer. And Halliburton looks like he got electrocuted. Thought it was cool. Unfortunately, they can't play each other in the playoffs. Like it's pretty unlikely. Unlikely. Just where the matchups are going to go. But they've played some games where you can tell they don't like each other. So, fun. Pacers lining up with the Bucs again.

It is looking more and more like they will play each other. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. They do not like each other either. No. That's for sure. Nope.

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Well, wherever you spend game day, remember, it pays to discover. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report, learn more at discover.com slash credit card. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Allbirds or Skims, sure, you think about a great product.

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I am taking the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard beating his old team, the San Antonio Spurs. Going to San Antonio, you heard it in the introductions. They really gave it to Kawhi Leonard. Then he came out there and he was guarding Chris Paul immediately, who had a very quiet game because Kawhi looked great on that side. And then the scoring was happening. He was going great. And...

My man, Law Murray, was breaking it down on the athletic end. I mean, this is Kawhi. He was just so mechanical. In his seven second quarter minutes, the Clippers outscored the Spurs by 14. Kawhi was doing it with assists. He had beautiful assists. Three sweet assists. One to Kevin Porter Jr. underneath. Three of his season-high seven assists. And then mid-range Kawhi took over. This was...

It was fun to watch this. You speak of Raptors. A lot of Raptors flashbacks watching the basketball last night. No wonder James Borbath is in the stream. And I'm sure Spurs fans were also having flashbacks to their Spurs days. He was 7 of 11 in his mid-range shots. Won over Wemby, which was a fade at the baseline as Wemby had his hand up. But Kawhi still has ups. He does. Even though he gets injured, he still has ups. And he played over his minutes restriction in this game. And...

Ty Lue put him back in with three minutes left in this game. This was his second fourth quarter of the season. And he helped lead a 13-0 run in the fourth quarter. He looked great. Season highs, 27 points.

28 minutes and 39 seconds, also a season high. And the starters just looked really good together because Kawhi is just a part of that unit. They outscored the Spurs by nine when they were out there. Four Clippers scored over 20 points. Yeah. That is teamwork. And it was led by Ivica Zubac's 21 points and 22 rebounds. That's a lot of roast beef. It is. A lot of beef from the Clippers. They out-rebounded the Spurs 57-30.

I'm not sure how that happened. And Zubats was frustrating Victor Weminyama. This man is a bully. Oh, yeah. He basically apologized even after the game. He was like, okay, maybe that was a little too much when he came and shoved him in the back there. But Wemby frustrated all night. Wemby's like, this frustration's been building the way he's being called and not getting calls. I saw it even in the Paris games. There was a couple instances where you could see like,

You sort of have to test him. That's the sort of one advantage these other NBA guys have on him, right? In some cases, just size and sort of the physicality, you're going to test him, push him a little bit. And it's starting to... You can tell he's starting to get tired of it and can't blame him. Well, yeah, and I mean, literally, that's going to be the game plan until he bulks up. That was the game plan with Giannis, until he bulked up and now nobody pushes Giannis around, right? But right now, Zubats has what?

60 pounds probably on Wemby. There were times where he had him folded over in half, pushing him around. So Zubats is like that though. He's a big, huge dude and he's got skills. So like 20 points ain't nothing for Zubats. He was really, really good. The thing I hate about Kawhi is he doesn't play. The thing I love about Kawhi is that when he plays, he's a hundred percent. Like he is one of the best players on the court. As soon as he's healthy, it feels like he never has a drop off. Like,

I'm sure it's because he waits until his body feels perfect before he's actually going to play. But when he plays, he's a top five player out there on both ends of the court. So, yeah, I want to buy in on the Clippers. You know I want to, Skeets, but I ain't going to do it. I ain't going to do it. We'll see what happens come playoff time. As for the Spurs, they are in 12th place right now. They're 2-8 in their last 10. Maybe not an ideal time to push in everything for, like, the eighth best guard in the league. Yep.

Especially if you want to like, maybe you like your chances of even in free agency down the line, getting that player. A lot can change, obviously amidst that, but yeah, maybe it changes the equation a little bit. I guess the counter to that is like, you know, as we've talked about, like you do have one, but Yama, this guy looks like, well, he's already one of the best players in the league, whatever top 20, top 15, top 10, wherever you want to put them. It won't be long until he's top five, top three. And like,

You get going. Like you speed up sort of the transition to like getting real talent around them. That's the counter to it, of course. Yeah. But the Spurs like to play it slow. Like a stew, they play it slow. Like a crock pot. All right. Right? Yeah, a crock pot. You guys use the crock pot at home? No. Often? No. Not very often. Yeah, you do? Good. Good.

Every other week, I would say. Good for you. Chili. You might put like a salsa verde chicken in there. Skeets, you love to make a pulled pork. I haven't made it in a long time. Yeah, bring it back. Should bring it back for the rumble this weekend. Okay. You love eggs. You can make eggs in a crock pot. Excuse me? Yeah. I don't know about that. Wait, what? I went to a different pot.

Well, I'm just wondering why. You're like, I want eggs in 12 hours. It doesn't take that long. It does not take that long. But you're not talking about a crockpot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can crock it. No, sorry, an Instapot. We're talking eggs specifically. You're just the opposite of a crockpot. Yeah, yeah, we're talking eggs specifically. My bad, my bad. I'm not a cook. I watched Danielle make it happen. Sure, sure. Yes, the Instapot. There's so many names out there for pots. There's too many pots. But anyways, I think we made it. It was a late night, it was a midnight egg from an Instapot. You were there. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was a midnight egg. It's very weird to see eggs going in a pot like that. But they were delicious. My man Jared Dent really enjoyed it. I remember that. They were damn good. You might see them this weekend. All right, TK, let's get the fifth pick overall. Still lots left to pick from. A lot of games last night. I'm going with Tyrese Maxey and my 76ers.

Beating the Kings for their fourth straight win. What? You're 76ers. All Bulls fans are 76ers fans right now. Oh, right. Okay. Four straight wins for my 76ers after seven straight losses. They beat the Nuggets. They beat the Bulls. Yeah, they did. They beat the Lakers. And then they beat the Kings here last night. The Bulls destroyed by the Celtics. So a virtual tie for 10th place in the Eastern Conference right now. I think the Bulls are technically ahead based on win percentage, but...

Only time will tell. Tyrus Maxey, though, continues the heater. He's been on lately 30 points in this one, four rebounds, eight assists. That comes after 43 against the Lakers, 31-9 against the Bulls, 29-7 against the Cavs. 12 straight games for Maxey with 25 or more points. I saw John Hollinger had him as an all-star in his reserves last year.

His name maybe got brought up by us yesterday. It got brought up. It got like a toss of a mention here, but he should at least be in the mix, I think, with all these guards who could be the last guy chosen, like a Trey Young or a Zach Levine, teams that are in the double-digit seeding range, but the guards are playing really, really well. Harden's gone.

Embiid has been out. Paul George isn't playing right now. Diminished when he has been. So a different role for Tyrese Maxey. He started really slow this year, but he's up to a career-high usage, and he's playing really well. And I think part of it is that Eric Gordon is hooping right now. Caleb Martin went down with an injury. Eric Gordon steps into the starting lineup. He's shooting 49% from three in January. They need shooting on the court, and this is what Daryl Morey, I'm sure, was hoping would come when he signed Eric Gordon. Three for four last night. He's had three or more threes in the last year.

in the last five games for the 76ers.

They probably don't want to be winning these games. Or maybe they do. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. It's a weird spot for them. It's impossible. I think their pick is top six protected to the Thunder this year. Yeah. It's tough for them to get into the top six unless they hit it in the lottery. They're not going to be able to win or lose that many games. So I guess it makes more sense to try and win, which is what they're doing. Yeah. And they're winning right now because Maxie's playing pretty well. Yeah. Eric Gordon, by the way, have you seen the graphic going around his stats recently?

Prior to his wisdom teeth being removed and his stats since, he missed a game or two because of that. Yeah, he's feeling better. Absolutely. The teeth? Yeah. I mean, we're talking Eric Gordon here. But the three-point percentage, the scoring, it's ticked up since the wisdom teeth removal. And, I mean, Maxie's the real reason they're winning a lot of these games. And Tom Zillard also included Maxie on his All-Star team. Oh.

So it's possible. I mean, we sort of were like, well, there's like, yeah, Zach Levine, bad Bulls team. Unfortunately for Maxie, bad Sixers team. Trey Young on, oh my God, a bad Hawks team. It's like, we sort of were like, no, no, no, no, no. We leaned more towards the Lillards.

the Cades, the Tyler heroes, because a little bit more team successful. We'll see tonight at 6.30 p.m. Eastern. Yeah, baby. He might, excuse me, join one of those Eastern Conference guards that's scoring a ton. He's averaging 27 points per game. Like LaMelo or Trey that may not make the team. I should say Trey. Trey is far lower than LaMelo and Tyrese Maxey. That being said,

It was a lot of the beginning of the season that set him back a little bit, just because there was so much on his shoulders with no Embiid and no Paul George. And he was taking three after three after three, and the threes just were not falling. He's come back to who he is somewhat. The numbers aren't there quite so much, but...

Eric Gordon's helping out. A guy who's averaging 6.9 points per game this season. Hey, man. That's pre-teeth. Yeah. I'm telling you. I need the splits. Wisdom teeth, no wisdom teeth on there. The thing with Maxie is he's a better off-ball player than he is an on-ball player, which is why he had such great success when it was Harden and Embiid running the pick and roll or Embiid actually being out there. But just like Jaron Jackson Jr. with the Grizzlies this year, like,

the Grizzlies had a bad season last year, but the good thing is that Jaron Jackson Jr. got into his bag, became a go-to scorer. That's going to be the benefit for the Sixers is that this is a down year for them. Maybe they'll make a run into the play-in tournament, even get into the playoffs, but that wasn't the goal at the start of the season. But Maxie looks more like he'll be able to handle primary creation roles than he did at the start of the season. So good stuff for them. Go Sixers. Yeah. The weird thing is they're not far off from where they were last year, finishing seventh and getting into...

But they're also not far from sixth, which is really, really strange to say that. They're only four games back of both sixth and seventh because they're actually tied. So that is the goal here. Every time they're hurt, we have to get into the playoffs. Let's turn it up a little bit. And it is turning up. My last note on this one. I usually don't complain about jerseys that teams are wearing, whether they're wearing...

or home at white. I don't care. The game has changed. But last night, the Kings were wearing their Kansas City Royals jerseys and the Sixers were wearing their Spectrum jerseys. So it looked like they were playing an intrasquad scrimmage because it was like red, white, and blue uniforms on both sides. I don't like it when it's that. Yeah.

You want a little difference. If you're the road team, you should not wear the same color as the home team's floor. Okay. That's my only regulation. Okay. That's weird. It is weird. All right. I have the final pick here. Sort of went back and forth between two games. I was going to go with a very entertaining Mavericks-Pelicans game. High scoring. P.J. Washington on fire. Zion doing some things. But I'm going to leave that one.

on the cutting room floor. And I'm going to take for my number six pick, Anthony Edwards scoring 33 points and the Wolves beating the Suns 121-113. Their fourth straight win for Minnesota. Timberwolves own the Suns right now. There's sort of no other way to put it. Like, they swept them out of the playoffs last year when they took all four. And then now they're 2-0 against them this year. Now, I know what was weird about all this was the Suns

hadn't lost against the Wolves in the regular season last year. But that's six straight now. Mini did a good job getting back in this game. They trailed for a good chunk of the game. They rallied at the end of the third quarter and then good old Canadian boy, Nikhil Alexander-Walker, made three three-pointers early in the fourth quarter, pushed that lead back to 10. He had an awesome game. And this was a game, there's no Nasrid, there's no DiVincenzo, so he had to really give them something from the bench and he did 23 points. He made five of 10 from behind the arc and...

The Wolves offense, it's become a little more unlocked here in the new year. It's, you know, jumped into the top 10 there, at least when you're looking at the month of January. They shot 56% from the field, 45% if you want to round up from three last night.

Got stops, pushed the tempo, a lot of fast break points. This was good. Good Wolves game. Not good for the Suns, of course, but it was just nice to see that they're starting to remind everybody, hey, don't forget about us too. We went deep into the postseason last year, and we're still here. We're figuring some things out. That was a good win. Yeah, as you said, they have found their...

Who they are a little bit with pushing the pace. The guards helping out, like Nikhil Alexander-Walker. Also, Rob Dillingham getting more regular minutes has definitely helped. But to do it without Nas Reid, who is always contributing. And Dante DiVincenzo helped out by guys like, yeah, Dillingham. Jalen Clark. Jalen Clark getting his first rotation minutes. New Jalen just dropped. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Defensive Jalen. Yeah. I thought that was Jalen Wells.

He is well. This guy's good, too, though. Clark and Wells. He's legit. He's a bit of a dog defensively. Nice. He's got the why. He's a timber wolf. That's right. We also had Chris Finch getting ejected in this game. First time. First time for Finchie. For Finchie, yes. Big momentum ejection, I thought. Yeah. They were trailing. They got tossed, right? Yeah. Fired up squad. Yeah, and had to run in. It was like one of these, he argued both times to get both technical calls, and then that's why he got tossed. But second one, he was not happy with.

And yeah, rushed in bull rushed in to hold them back. And then Jada McDaniels got tossed right at the end of the game for like poking Devin Booker in like the head.

A lot of guys go at Devin Booker. There is no doubt. It was a weird one. Game was over. It was done. Like 20, 30 seconds left, and it was sort of a weird play where they just started chirping, I guess, and McDaniels just goes up and pokes him, and that got him tossed. But they got the victory. Yeah, and Jane McDaniels is key to also unlocking who they are. He looks more like himself. The numbers are exactly like they were last year.

He's scoring double digits in every single game in his last seven. You know, that's more Jaden McDaniels-like. They're just such a streaky team. And I think it's because they're all outside of Ant. Like, Ant's the best three-point shooter in the league this year for whatever reason. Everybody else is just so, so streaky. So they have a lot of, you go and look at their schedule on Basketball Reference, it's like three-game win streak, three-game lose streak, three-game win streak, two-game win streak. It's like, if you're playing well, you're playing well, and then it falls off. You're like, uh-oh, what are we going to do?

So if they get hot at the right time, I think the Timberwolves are still, you know, conference finals contenders at the very least if they get the right matchups and they shoot well in the playoffs. So what did we leave on the board? The Nets beat the Hornets handedly. The Raptors won again. Of course. Just crushed the Wizards.

Cleveland went into Miami. They took care of business. And then the Dallas Pelicans game, like we said. And then the Celtics beating the Chicago Bulls by 22. Porzingis. Porzingis. Big game. He had an interesting quote, didn't he, after the game? You see something, what he said? He's like, sometimes they take away your three-pointers, so I got to go get my baskets with the meat. With the meat? Yes. And then he kept thinking about it during his press conference. So he answered a couple questions, and he's like, I'm still thinking about that. Not every...

Not every Latvian saying translates perfectly to English. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to use my bulk to go in there and score. He had a great game. And, you know, any NBA GMs out there, do me a favor and don't look at Nikola Vucevic's three-point shooting splits. I'm just saying. I mean, it looks good for a year-long sample right now. You're like, ooh, hey, man, 40%. This guy's on fire.

You don't need to check the splits. No reason. No? No, no. He's doing good in January. I promise you. What did you think of to circle back to the Warriors obviously getting the victory, their name coming up yesterday with the Warriors maybe...

We're maybe interested in Zach Levine even more than Jimmy Butler. Safer option. Safer option, as they put it. Yeah. Zach Levine is a guaranteed bucket. I think they should trade for Vooch and Levine. Okay. It works. They work together. I think the most encouraging thing from a Bulls trade perspective is that Quentin Post got a start for the Warriors last night and was bad. He got pulled after eight minutes, didn't play in the second half, didn't make a shot.

The Warriors saw what Quentin Post could do as a stretch five next to Curry, a player type that he's never really played for, but he's still a rookie. You know, a second-round draft pick. So two-time All-Star Nikola Vucevic, obviously a more reliable player. They've got to bring him in. Don't strike the splits. They're good. I'll promise you they're good. They look nice.

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All right, let's go from drafting games to a little is this news. A few headlines for you gentlemen. Debate whether or not they're newsworthy. We can break them down. First one from Shams yesterday.

Jalen Johnson to undergo season-ending surgery to repair shoulder injury. This broke during yesterday's show. Our guy Ash jumping in there to give us the unfortunate news. But yeah, what do you think? And maybe the impact this has on what the Hawks do or don't here at the trade deadline.

Well, I will say, of course, this is news and it's going to get worse for the Atlanta Hawks record wise. There's no doubt there are four and seven in the 11 games he's missed, but it was worse last year. As I keep saying, I do believe in this Atlanta Hawks team when Jalen Johnson plays.

Last year, he missed those 14 games after a good start. There were 4-10 in those games, and they just couldn't recover. And then they ended at 36-46. He missed a good chunk of games. This was his best year, of course. This is a bummer. And he just returned from right shoulder inflammation. Then he injures the left one. And we have the clip here. I mean, I watched it like a million times. It's just one of those really weird injuries where it's like you almost don't even see how it happened. Obviously, it's...

gets sort of locked up with Scottie Barnes going for the shot, but it's like, wow, instantaneously and went to the back, didn't return to that game, and then obviously now going to miss their season. Yeah, you almost think it's more of his right shoulder that gets impacted by Scottie Barnes. It is weird, but he is so involved with this team. We all think about Trae Young's team, but this guy is third in the NBA in passes. He passes the ball more per game than Trae Young.

Just really weird. It goes Jokic, Halliburton, and Jalen Johnson. He touches the ball a lot and makes a lot of passes. And he's just a huge part of this game. If you look at the on-off numbers...

It's bad. Without him? Yeah. With Trey on, without Jalen Johnson, they've got basically the 28th best offensive rating. They're being outscored by eight and a half possessions, or eight and a half points per possession, excuse me, per hundred possessions, I should say. Jeez Louise, Batman. Everybody knows what you're talking about. Yeah, of course. I just don't like saying that stat. Paul?

Points per 100 possessions. I hate abbreviating it in my notes. What do you do? PP100? Yeah. Fast PP? Yeah. And that's why I said it awfully because I didn't put it in my notes properly. It just says PUSS. Period. I'll help a little bit. I have this. The Hawks had 115.0 offensive rating with Trey and Jalen Big Johnson on the floor together. That's a top 10 rate.

Take him out, non-Johnson minutes, 104.1, that would rank as the league's worst offense. He is a difference maker, and it makes sense, right? A little secondary playmaking, secondary score. Obviously, he's a hustle guy up and down, and you take that out of the lineup, and there's a big fall off. So this sucks. Now, Atlanta owes an unprotected first-round pick to San Antonio from the DeJounte Murray trade in 2022. So it's not like they can be like...

Hey, we'll lean into the tank, fire up the tank, let's go. It's like, nope, that's not really an option. That's not an option at all. Yeah, you're saying they would lose the 11th pick right now. Sacramento also owes the Hawks a pick from the Kevin Herter trade, but it's top 12 protected. And right now the Kings are 12th. So the Hawks would not get that pick. The Kings also might be trading an all-star in De'Aaron Fox. I think this is good news if you're the San Antonio Spurs.

The Spurs have a 5% chance of getting the number one draft pick this year because they've got 3% from the Hawks, 2% of their own. The Spurs could end up with the top two picks this year. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? Cooper Flagg could be playing with Wemby next year. There's a chance. So I'm wondering what the Hawks are going to do here because they don't want to give away a pick this good. If they hit the lottery, it's gone. They were in a rumor for Vooch. The Bulls turned it down. They said, we don't want Capella.

Capella's expiring $22 million. Larry Nance is expiring $11 million. They're both kind of still in the rotation for the Hawks. Larry Nance starts sometimes.

But that's like $33 million worth of contract. They need to get a wing because I assume Rizashe will start now that he's healthy again. Maybe they got to start DeAndre Hunter now at this point just because he's been playing well and they need somebody on the wing there. But you look at the guys who might be available. It's like Julius Randle, Chris Middleton, Jeremy Grant. I kind of think the Hawks are going to want to have help here because there's no reason to go the other way. Mm-hmm.

And none of those names are very exciting. No, no, they're not. But they're out there. Those guys are out there. I had people asking me on Twitter yesterday, could the Hawks make a move for Jimmy Butler? And I was like, I mean, yeah, I understand the reasoning, like to try and keep you in the mix, but like, what is coming back? I'm like, put it together. It's like Capella's expiring. Bogdanovich. I mean, maybe it's Hunter. Hunter, the way he's playing, like,

Kobe Buffkin as a piece, he's injured. I mean, yeah. And like, it's, it's, I don't think that's happening is my point. No, I do not. I think the Hawks would rather slow play it with all their young guys and resushe and Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels to try and go and get Jimmy. It doesn't make sense to me. I looked back cause I did.

I did figure that through the DeJounte Murray trade to the New Orleans Pelicans that those two draft picks that they got back were some equivalent to what they gave to the San Antonio Spurs for DeJounte Murray the first time. But the picks are the Lakers pick this year, which isn't going to be all that great. And it's the Pelicans pick in 27, which could be good. Maybe, who knows? Yes, but... Not going to help you now. No, it is not. The Spurs have those two picks. As Trey said...

They could have the top two this year. Would they let Cooper Flagg drop to number two in that case? Pay him less. Interesting. For some stupid reason. I like that thinking. All right, let's move to our next headline here. Unfortunately, it's about another injury. Yahoo Sports, Anthony Davis to miss week after suffering abdominal strains.

Lakers said 80 underwent the MRI there on Wednesday. It's going to be reevaluated in approximately one week. So he's going to miss the next three games of the Lakers road trip. They got the wizards. They got the Knicks and the Clippers though. So two tough games there. He had been playing his best ball TK recently. Like he was on a heater during that little wind streak they had. He was averaging like 33 and 15 shooting lights out, blocking shots. But is this news 80 at least going to miss a week? Maybe, maybe a little bit more. I'll say minor news. Uh,

If it's only a week or just a little bit, I think the Lakers can survive. They play at the Wizards, at the Knicks, at the Clippers. Then they're home for the Warriors and home through the Pacers. That takes them through next weekend. You beat the Wizards. You beat the Warriors. Take your chances in the other three. 500. Your love and life right there. The Lakers' defense has been better. It's been mostly against poor teams, but they got a couple of those coming up on the schedule here. We'll see how they hold up without their defensive back.

bone, but they look a little bit more physical right now. They've got more size on the court now that Dorian Finney-Smith is playing some big minutes for them. So yeah, as long as AD, the re-evaluation comes back good, it sucks, and it maybe hurts his all-star chances, but

I think he'll still get named. Maybe they replace him. But I think the Lakers can survive. Yeah, this is minor news. It's news for me to remind people that Anthony Davis plays a lot of games these days. He only missed six last season, had missed only three this season up until now, so he's going to match that six, I'm sure.

But as you said, they continue this six-game road trip. And Washington, not a problem. They should handle that. But then they get the Knicks and the Clippers, which is obviously tough. They go into that Intuit Dome one more time to play them. And yes, they have been playing better defensively. They got Vandy back as well to play some time when he can play some time. We'll probably see some more Christian Coloco minutes for them.

But he's got to get back. He's got to play. And that's, I guess, why he keeps requesting a center to play beside him. Because it helps him. It just eases his role a little bit. This is very newsworthy to me if I'm Alperen Shengun, maybe Sabonis, potentially Jaron Jackson Jr. All-Star weekend is two weeks away this Sunday. We think AD will be named tonight to the actual roster, but...

How banged up is he going to be? Are they going to want to test that in an All-Star game? Probably not. So if they do add an injury replacement, one of those guys could be helped out. Their chances, if they don't get added tonight. We felt like not all three of them are probably going to get named. Somebody's going to be left out, but maybe that helps their chances to be the replacement. So I guess they'll take it. And I sort of said that on yesterday's show. I almost felt bad. I was like, I don't think it was anything serious, but if AD's injured, it opens up another spot. And then the MRI showed it was severe enough.

Next headline. This one's interesting from Sports Business Journal. So Clark is going to wait until Indianapolis hosts the WNBA All-Star Weekend in July to enter her first three-point contest as a pro. But she said...

I don't want to do this. I think there's reports or rumors that it was going to be maybe a Clay and Steph versus Ionescu and then Kaitlyn Clark, but she is declining this option. Is this news? I mean, bummer for us, but I think this is good news for the WNBA. Yeah. That's how I read it. She wants her first three-point contest to be for the W? That's cool. She's using her star power to blow up her league.

Not her responsibility to save All-Star weekend in the NBA. Good point. Yeah. Every quote that she's had since she's became a WNBA player is always praising those who have come before her. She is always wanting to make sure that people know that this league was there before her. And so this is just her trying to help out the league and trying not to say, the NBA needs me. She's putting her league before the NBA. It's great.

Period. I love when she does her quotes, when she talks to the media, and then when I hear about her playing on the floor, that she talks a lot of trash on the floor. You know, I love her demeanor, and this is just a good move. Yes, it's unfortunate for us. Are you disappointed? Yeah. That was like the best part of All-Star Weekend last year. Yeah, can't disagree. Curry versus Sabrina. And this maybe could have replicated that and taken it to the next level. It would have. I'm not upset with her. It definitely, to me, it's like...

Kalen Zark's like, I'm sorry, I'm bigger than NBA All-Star Weekend. You definitely need me more than I need you. And is choosing to obviously compete when they do it in July. At first I was very confused. I'm like, oh, wow, Indianapolis is...

getting another all-star weekend just had one for the nba but they're doing the wmba and obviously that's her home squad so she'll do that um but some people not happy with this that she's declining i guess she's disinclined as the headline yeah that's news that disinclined is used in headlines i wasn't ready for that did a sports business journal also had the part where it's like she actually doesn't like shooting off a rack all of her uh all of her training work is

off catch and shoots or off the dribble. That's how you play basketball. There's no point to be practicing off the rack unless you're going into a three-point contest. I thought that was interesting. Oh, yeah. That is a nice little wrinkle here. All right. Final one here from Awful Announcing. Adam Silver suggests NBA could shorten games to 10-minute quarters. Tass Mellis, is this news? No, it's not news. It's not news. He's not doing it. He's not doing it. They are not doing it. There are far bigger problems in the NBA.

Should we go through them? I mean, there's too many. The bigger issue is how long games take, how many timeouts there are, how many commercials there are, the video reviews. That takes way too long. Let's look at soccer, football, not NFL football, the actual football, the world's most popular sport. Yeah, Adam Silver loves it. Yeah, he does. Exactly. They play a game within two hours, under two hours.

With 90 minutes of play. How do they do it? Running clock. And zero commercials during those 45 minutes. At least cutaway commercials sometimes. They'll throw one in, I guess, while the game is being played. But...

What you got to do is reduce timeouts and all that. And I don't buy this. Oh, it shortens the game, as Adam said, under two hours to make it more popular. I mean, the NFL, America's most popular sport. They play long games. But you know what they do? 60-minute games. Yeah, it's way over three hours. But you know what they do? They play games once a week. That's far bigger, far more important. If you want NBA players to play every single game, don't play 82. Don't play back-to-backs.

That's what they do in Europe. That's what they do in other parts of the world. That's a lot of games.

In Silver's defense, a part of him saying this was the concept of making basketball across the world uniformed, right? Sure. Where FIBA plays the 40-minute games. It's played at many other levels, college even. So he did bring up that point of maybe we go to that. But he admitted, well, what happens to all the NBA records and stuff like that? Is that all thrown out the window and there's complications? But what do you think, TK? I think it's very funny that if you subtract eight minutes from every game...

for every team in the NBA. It's the equivalent of playing a 68-game season. It's literally 14 games off of every team. Right, right.

That would be a simple way to shorten the season, but there's no way the owners will do it because that means 14 nights where people aren't coming to the stadium and buying popcorn and City Edition jerseys. So I agree with Tess. I don't think this is going to actually happen, but obviously Adam Silver's looking for ways to make the game quicker and more entertaining. When I think of a FIBA game, the first thing that sticks out to me is not the 40-minute clock. It's like the physicality, the lack of timeouts, the lack of reviews. There's other stuff besides timeouts.

Looking at the clock and seeing that there's fewer minutes on there. I also think that were this to happen, were the league to want this, the players union should really fight it. Because if you play a college length game, you're going to get college rotations, which is good for Tom Thibodeau, but not good for the guys who are number eight through 15 on an NBA roster. Very true. Not a lot of minutes to go around in that case. Look, if he really wants to make...

the basketball television product under two hours. You don't have to take it from 48 minute game to 40 minute game. There are other things you can do. You guys have listed a few of them. Start the games on time. That's a start. Huge. To this, you know, you say it says seven o'clock in our schedule, but it doesn't start until seven.

7.09, 7.10, 7.15 in bigger games, so there's that. Eliminate coaches' challenges and reviews at least up until the final two minutes. There are too many. It's not needed in the regular season. I get it at the end of games. I get it in the postseason. Cut those back and then reduce some of the late game timeouts, which kill all flow of these games and really is a huge difference to the FIBA basketball, it feels like.

Also, if you want to get freaky, you can adopt the G League free throw shooting rules. If you want to like speed up the game there at the line, you know, they do the thing where one free throw is worth one, two or three points depending on the type of foul, right? So, you know, if you take a shot and you get fouled on a two point shot, you just shoot the one, it's two points. It speeds it up. And you don't, you know, that doesn't apply again in the final two minutes or overtime. So there

There are ways we can get a faster game, a more entertaining product. It's not just reducing the clock. And I love FIBA. I love the 40-minute game. I think we all do. We always talk about it when we watch it. But there are many other things here to make it a better game and a better product on television. It's the flow. FIBA's got flow, man. Yeah, yeah. When we watch it, we say, whoa, that was short. It happened really quickly. But what they also...

employee is short of commercials. Sure. Everything is faster. So that's a big part of it. Although I'm not sure how this entire interview went, but Adam Silver has talked about speeding up the end of games several times. So maybe that was talked about in this interview. I don't know. Maybe Adam was just being asked, you know, he's getting thrown some questions. So he brought it up because yes, I understand that he wants to take this game as global as possible. And so that's part of it is just saying, okay,

Every single league, every single tournament is the exact same. And so I understand that. Yeah, it definitely makes you think when the idea of this NBA European expansion and that potential league over there...

You get where he's like, let's make it the same. Whatever that is, let's make it the same. NBA games this season have run two hours and 16 minutes on average, Tess. I know you usually love this stuff. That's pretty solid. It's nearly identical, apparently, to like the last 15 seasons. What? Which is like 215, 216. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'm just saying. I guess that's from that...

10 minutes after the actual listed time. Yeah, yeah. Tip time. So that's more like 2.26. Yeah, good point, good point. Michael Malone was asked about this concept, 10-minute quarters. It's not an interesting quote. He says, I hope we don't become Barnum and Bailey or do whatever we have to do to keep viewership because there's a greatness and a history to this game and a purity to this game that I hope we can find a way to stay true to.

Again, that was Michael Malone, Nuggets head coach. He said, he also complimented Silver, like, you got to stay creative and obviously continue to grow the game and tweak the game and make it better. But, you know, don't get too insane, you know. It feels like a big change. That would be a big change. Changing the length of the game, changing the lines on the court. These are like huge changes that will have effects on the history of the NBA, right?

You could just market it. Like, there's a good game on every night. Yeah, yes. There's great players. We just drafted six of them. Everybody can shoot threes. And people are like, this sucks. These guys are too good.

It doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah, I was at the gym with somebody today that played basketball somewhat professionally and said the game just ain't the same anymore. Well, yeah, it ain't. But it's damn good. Everybody's more skilled. And that's the unfortunate part is that, yes, there's just other ways. There's other ways. Again, I don't want to go back to the NFL as I always do, but I must. I mean, it's more popular in America than basketball.

And they play once a week? No, that's it. We could do it. It's like apples to oranges here, man. They play so few games to so many games. And they get a big TV deal, which is what Adam wants. They're trying to add games. Yeah, they are. They're playing on Tuesdays now. We've got to swap games somehow. That's the real question. How many games could an NFL season add to the point where people start to go, you know what? It's not that important. I don't care as much.

It's a lot still because it does great numbers no matter who's playing and whatever the stakes in that game. But there's got to be a tipping point at some point. Don't they have bad ratings when the Jaguars play? I mean, they're better. I got news for you. They're still better than any NBA game for the most part. Yeah, that's fair. The Jags. Come on, Lawrence. Let's hear from you guys out there. What do you think about Silver's comments there about the 10-minute quarters and just everything we just talked about there? Pick them.

It's officially over, we know that. I will be paying it off in a couple weeks. I'll be paying off my January loss. But hey, I got a victory last night, baby. Sweet. I'm 5-13. Tass improved to 13-5. Trey 10-8, and then Esh is 9-9. But where are we going tonight, Tass? Yeah.

Well, I just saw this game and I got excited for it. Adam, this is a good game tonight. Houston. Yeah, started on time. Houston visiting the Memphis Grizzlies. Grizzlies are favored by four and a half points, but these two teams played two great ones earlier in January, a four point game and a two point game. The Rockets are surprisingly three and O versus the Grizzlies this season. They own them. So I said, all right.

All right. I'll just take the Rockets, as did Trey Skeets and Asher taking those four and a half points. You got to win by five with those Memphis Grizzlies. Yeah. But this was fun. This was a fun. Should be a good one. So it's on TNT, nationally televised game. Oh, I guess Adam said, well, this is going to be good. So let's put it on TNT. First game involves the Hawks.

Hawks Cavs. Bad timing for the Hawks. Hawks Cavs at seven, but Rockets Grizz. Got Lakers, Wizards, Wolves, Jazz, and Magic Blazers. And we find out the All-Star Reserve. So, you know, we'll be talking about that on tomorrow's drop podcast. Worst of the week nominees. Yes, yes, yes. Good, good, good. And we might even draft our teams once we know all the All-Stars. So join us tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern here from the Classic Factory. All right. Fun show. Uh,

We'll see you guys tomorrow. Until then, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up. Love you guys. Awesome. Thanks for joining us. And remember, we've got an NBA conspiracy short coming out. And I just assume Ash is going to edit it. And I just have to thank Dog Ate My Homework for...

giving a little motivation to make that a short happen. He gave the idea a little bit, you know, obviously it was tweaks and molded and we consulted and we, you know, did some FaceTiming together. I said, dog ate my own. No, we didn't. Either way. Another fake call. Conspiracy on conspiracy. Fake calls happening. Good call on that fake call. Brace the day people.

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