The NBA’s Injury Epidemic, Rookie Review, and Ty Jerome on the Grizzlies!

All right, coming up on the Zacklow show, it's Thursday. We got a loaded show. Tide Jerome is here. My old Grandland buddy, Jonathan Abrams is here to talk about his book on the Oklahoma City Thunder of the KD Russ James Harden era. It's fantastic. But first, I'm going to go solo for a bit just rolling through all the big stuff going around the league. And of course, the biggest news is the wave of injuries that started with Oklahoma City's just double devastation of jail and Williams and case and Wallace and his ripple through Minnesota and Utah and Indiana and Orlando just since our last episode and Kawaii's injury is even more mysterious in terms of timetable than it was when we last recorded going to talk about each of those situations in terms of its impact on the team. And just like, what's happening here? Is it is it long past time for a real look at what's changed about basketball? Why are there so many injuries? What should be done about it? And then we've got AJ DeBanson made his debut, rookie of the year race with the Axel Landiborre heating up. I mean, it's too early for a race, but you know what I mean? It was exciting to see DeBanson. You look great. We're going to talk about him. The other big storylines, Tatum Brown feud just keeps on feuding stoked by people who are saying funny things on television or at least think they are. And then we're going to say something about Ernie Johnson who announced his retirement at the end of this season from inside the NBA and TNT. And we'll talk a little bit about the Milwaukee Brewer is winning the World Series plus Ty Jerome. Yeah, that Ty Jerome, the guy who's making floaters and talking shit every night and Jonathan Abrams, they're all here. That's all coming up on The Zach Lo Show. Welcome to The Zach Lo Show. It's Thursday. We have a quiet night in the NBA after a very loud week. We have Ty Jerome coming up on the show and Jonathan Abrams coming up on the show. So I'm going to start off by just going solo for a bit, rolling through the big news of the league. First of all, the big news of tonight. We have the Jama Randball Memphis versus Portland. Both teams are undefeated. Someone has to lose and perhaps more exciting. I had an agent text me, should we call it the incompetence ball? Kings, Pelicans tonight. Someone has to win. And let me just reduce Sacramento's schedule after tonight. Should they lose this game on the road into Orleans? New Orleans has some easier teams coming up Sacramento at Memphis on Halloween. Memphis is undefeated. At Dallas looks pretty damn solid. Cooper flag looks incredible. Kyrie's back. They're big. They're nasty. They're hard to play against home against the Lakers home against San Antonio home against Miami who got off the Schneid finally with BAM having a good game with the honest last night against Atlanta who's quietly two and three home against Orlando. Okay. Orlando's got a lot of injuries. We're going to talk about that. But you know, it's still it's still Orlando. There's still there's some hope home against Portland home against Oklahoma City home against Phoenix at the Lakers home against Boston home against San Antonio at the Warriors home against Minnesota and then all the way down on November 30th. They host the Pelicans again. I'm just saying if the Kings don't win tonight and they have been rolled in most of their games three of the four, I would say or two and a half of the four. There's an all in something possibility here. So stay tuned for that. Okay. Big story line number two, AJ DeBanza made his debut last night for the Wizards in a very exciting loss to Cleveland Cavaliers on the road and looked just every bit the star rookie that we expected him to be big, rangel defended James Harden well right off the bat. And in the first six minutes, I clocked it right away, first possession of the game, inverted DeBanza, Trey young pick and roll. He gets to the rim and draws fouls, draws a free throw rather, uh, blows by Harden on an isolation and kicks to Alex Sartre for three Alex Sartre found they had a good game. He hit a step through floater on the baseline that was like, whoa, boy, that's a big NBA move. Hit a spot up three pointer around a Trey young Sartre pick and roll. He's going to have to do a lot of that this year. He looked a little hesitant on a couple of threes in the second half, but the stroke looks decent. Um, and then later, he ran his own pick and roll at empty side pick and roll hit a mid-range to I think you finished 8th 12 19 points. He looked great. Interestingly, um, well, I'll call the ball. He got moved to the bench and just dunked like 17 times. Uh, Trey Johnson DNP will Riley DNP Wizards are two and three. Kind of an exciting little start for the Wizards. There's a lot to figure out. Uh, notably the Sartre Davis fit has been a little clunky on both ends of the floor. The Wiz are minus 25 total points so far with them on the floor together. Obviously early. We'll see what happens. Um, love Kishan George couldn't love him anymore. That dude's going to be a winning player in the NBA for a long time. And they throw out these gigantic lineups when Trey's on the bench and sometimes Bob Carrington, who's like nominally the backup point guard is also on the bench. And it's just like Kishan George, AJ DeBanza, another big wing, Sar Davis or Aiton is getting involved in some of these lineups. They're just like absolutely giant lineups. Uh, as for the calves, three in one, um, knocked the most convincing start to the season despite the three in one record, but you bank the wins when you can bank them. They just got a lot of questions to answers. We've talked about a lot about who fits with who, how all inner they on this double big combination. Is it just like a cameo at the beginning of each half or is it part of what they do? The Watson fit will come and go, but you know, in general, the Malik, the Malik Thomas thing is interesting for them. He looks good. He's got a little secondary pick and roll juice to his game. Obviously he can make shots. Um, you know, their defense last night was kind of gross for the first two and a half quarters. A lot of transition breakdowns or no shows, a lot of breakdowns on communication and a half court. Cleveland's three in one. They're going to win a lot of games. Their floors high. I still have the Fox molder. Trust no one outlook on them in the playoffs. Okay. Storyline number two, speaking of rookies, Yaxel lendabord, another sensational game for the warriors who have won two in a row, trying to sort of salvage something out of the season that looked hopeless right out of the gate. He is averaging 22.6 points, nine rebounds, four assists, three points, six turnovers, seven last night on 48% shooting, 35.5% from three, 55% from two. Just looks amazing right off the bat. Who knew like a 24-year-old season, college guy who won a national championship, who's gigantic and guard a lot of different positions, or at least sort of credibly semi-defend a bunch of different positions, handle it, shoot it, running inverted pick and rolls with Steph Curry. And look, the warriors, I said it before the season. I took the under on them. I think they're kind of dead on arrival because of the porzinga thing. And I don't know how many more stories we need to read about according to sources. It's unlikely porzinga is ever going to play for the warriors. It's just unlikely he's ever going to play for the warriors. We know this. I said it before the season, though, they're like when they have everything humming, like Steph plays well and you have 44 points last night, the student is unbelievable. Dremon does Dremon stuff. I mean, he can't score anymore, but he can do a lot of other stuff really well. And they have enough minutes with a semi-credible stretch five. Sometimes it's going to be horror for him. He's not going to play every game. Obviously porzinga is gone. Georgian is sort of masquerading as a stretch 4.5 in some of these lineups with Dremon. He played pretty well last night. And they're just annoying to play against. Their system is hard to play against. The cutting, the ball movement, the split game. We've seen it a million times no matter how many times you play against it. You're going to make some of the same mistakes over and over again, because it's unusual. And it involves the greatest shooter of all time, a shooter who moves around the floor like no one ever in the history of the NBA, one of the greatest big-man pastors of all time or whatever you want to call Dremon. And Yaxl fits right into that system. He's fits perfectly. He's cozy. He knows all its nukes and crannies already. He knows how to just move a little bit over here, move a little bit over there. When to set up a dribble handoff. When to set a flare screen. When to set a pin-in in transition, which is a big warriors thing. This rookie of the year race is going to be awesome between all of these guys. I saw enough from DeBanza last night that I'm ready to just, I'm penning in four of the five first team all rookie spots. Yaxl, Caleb Wilson, who's just going to put up monster numbers and play, you know, there's been some hiccups on defense in terms of coverages and communication and sending guys the wrong way on the picking role. Yeah, that's like teenage NBA stuff, but he's going to be a defensive playmaker right off the bat. Cam Booser, once he starts making shots, it's just going to be outrageous how good he is. And DeBanza, I'm penning in. Those are four first team all rookie guys. The fifth one's going to be interesting. Darius Acuff is going to put up monster numbers and take a gazillion shots. And I think he's actually considering he's doing that for an absolutely abysmal team has looked okay, despite the efficiency being met. I mean, that's just what it's going to be. He looks like he belongs in this. I mean, this is too high usage of a role for him for any rookie really, but he's got a very sort of professional mature three level or at least mid-range and out kind of game and a lot of creativity and a lot of herky jerky vision to his game. The Darren Peterson is thing is going to be interesting. He got benched last night late in the fourth quarter and over time in Utah's lost at home to San Antonio. I mentioned last episode that over half his shots have been floaters, which is fine. That's a good shot. for him, but you want him to get to the basket a little bit more, take threes, a little bit more. And the chemistry with him in Kianta George, who's been great, by the way, has just been kind of so-so. Interestingly, Will Hardy is sitting them together a lot in these games, at least for little stints here and there. I expected them to be a full sort of stagger situation. So I just have my eye on that. That's the rookie of the year situation. Yaxel's incredible. Okay, next big storyline. I hate everything about the Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, fake slash real slash whatever feud this is. And it's heating up and it's heating up ahead of their game in a couple of weeks in Philadelphia, which I will be at. I cannot wait to be at that game. I expect, I mean, look, Jalen Brown said, be ready at all times. I'm ready at all times. I'm going in the arena. I'm ready. I got my head on a swivel. Couldn't be following where Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum are. I'm going to be looking for some mean mugging. Oh my God, did they not high five? Did they not make eye contact? If Jalen Brown has a runway to the rim and Jason Tatum is anywhere nearby, I'm going to jump out of my seat. I'm ready. So just like, let's recap what's happened in the last week when they haven't played each other and they should really be in the news for anything. Brian Scalabrini on his show with Frank Isola, I believe, said that Jalen Brown demanded a trade. That made a lot of news. He immediately walked to that back on the Celtics broadcast that night, saying he technically didn't demand a trade, but he kind of made his unhappiness known and may have made a list of demands, requests, whatever of the Celtics that have been a certain unhappiness about his status, visa of E. Jason Tatum. After, of course, Jalen Brown got the car keys to the whole team last year, was sensational, a legit first team, second team, wherever your preference is, all NBA season, and a first round flame out where he did not play very well against the Philadelphia 76ers. Jalen Brown's representative for Jalen Brown, i.e. his agent released a statement to somebody, I'm just looking at the ESPN story, saying that he a thousand percent or whatever did not, 10,000 percent, actually, I want to get the percentage accurate, 10,000 percent, a lie that Jalen Brown demanded a trade. Jalen Brown reiterated that last night after Philadelphia is a little too close for comfort win over the banged up Pacers, we're going to get to the injuries, and then said there was no list of demands or ultimatums, okay. In that same statement that Jalen Brown's representative released, let me make sure I get it carefully. Yes, according to the representative, the only other request Brown made to the Celtics, while he was in Boston, was that both he and Jason Tatum were treated equally. All right, so what does that mean? Is that that has to mean something? Like, there have to be specific things underneath that. Is that a list of demands? Is that a list of ultimatums? I don't know. I don't really care to like litigate the specific language of what actually constitutes a trade request, what doesn't constitute a trade request. At some point, if the tension is so obvious, and there's just unpleasantness, tension, whatever, like, I don't think a trade request is really even necessary for everybody to just sort of understand. I think we've arrived at a point where given the salaries, given the playoffs, given the general order of everything around, maybe it's time to explore other opportunities. Here are some other things I think are lame. I think it's lame that Jalen Brown, when he was asked about why he put the blue hat cap emoji under Jason Tatum's Instagram video, where Jason Tatum is seen being surprised that Jalen Brown was traded, and specifically traded to the Sixers, that he decided he didn't really want to explain. It says Brown declined to address why he posted the cap emoji under Tatum's post. Instead saying he and Tatum are focused on what's ahead. Just explain what it is. We know what it is. You know what it is. Don't just do your own version of the walk back. Just own like, hey, this is what I meant by it. Another thing I think is lame. Two straight games. And look, I liked Drew Carter. I don't know him very well. I've met him a couple of times. I think he's fantastic in a rising star and broadcasting. Scalz obviously been a guest on this podcast multiple times. He's awesome. He's like a plus plus broadcaster. Two straight games they've taken little pot shots at Jalen Brown. They've kind of mocked his comments about Jason Tatum having a great PR team. They've mocked his comments about it's not beef, but it's lamb chops and graveyard, whatever. And then Scalz had a comment where he said something like, well, if Jason Tatum really had a great PR team, he'd be talking about or they'd be talking about who led the league in turn over his last year, that was Jalen Brown. This is my least favorite thing about local broadcasting. I call it the Montaelis effect when a player leaves a team under good or bad circumstances. And all of a sudden, the local broadcasters of that team suddenly realize or discover all the flaws this player has had all along and decides to point them out very loudly. Sometimes in context, sometimes not. I call it Montaelis because all of a sudden when he got traded from the Warriors, their broadcast team was aware out of nowhere that he's undersized so so to minus defender, sometimes kind of a ball hug after extoling the greatness of Montaelis for God knows how many years. Just like, be a little classier than that. It's lame. The whole thing is lame. I can't wait until these games are over with. And meanwhile, by the way, they are seven and two combined, the Celtics and the Sixers. Sixers are four and one, weirdly 25th in offense. A lot of that is shooting luck. They are dead last in effective field goal percentage when you exclude garbage time. According to cleaning the glass, they're not getting any offensive rebounds. That's obviously I'm not worried about their offense. I've never been worried about their offense. They're got some stuff to work out. Like any team that's got a lot of stars, they'll be fine. I guess encouraging that their third in defense, although they have the reverse sort of shooting luck at helping them there, but they're playing hard and Beade looks pretty good. All things considered. And Edgecom is a monster defensively and they'll get some of their death back now that Dean Wade is healthy. And Boston, just doing what Boston does, they're three in one. You know, taking tons of threes, Tatum is looking very good. They are making mincemeat out of defenses with these flare screens and away screens. They call them off the ball when they're rushing the ball up in transition. And Jason Tatum doesn't have it. And he'll fly off a pin down so he catches it on the move or he'll take a flare screen from a smaller guy, get a mismatch and go to work. I mean, they are just making mincemeat out of teams. The Mitch Robinson, Cata, those guys are coming along. Gars has been good for them. They're actually getting to the line more by their standards, forcing more turnovers by their standards and getting to the rim a little bit more by their standards. So maybe this whole idea that they're going to diversify a little bit is actually going to hold true. These are rock solid teams. Boston, I think, more so than Philly, just because of Philly's age and injury risks, but it Philly's healthy, like these, these teams should say pretty solid. And I say that as someone who had Philly is seventh in the play and I mean, we'll see. It's a long season. Remember what I said about the Warriors, like when they have everyone rolling in golden state and they have their full complement, it's going to be tough to play against. Steph Curry's 30 years old, Al Horford's 40 years old, Jimmy Butler's still injured. Christophe Spursingus is gone. I still think the most likely scenario is the season doesn't go great and they keep their lottery pick and hope that it's good and they should not do anything crazy either way to like snap upgrade the team mid season, but we'll see. It's going to be the same with the sixers. When they have everyone, they're going to look real good elsewhere, among the sort of East prime teams, the mix of one, two in a row, sort of settling themselves. Jalen Brunson found his shot from both two and three against Chicago last night. I was at their win against Detroit the other day on Tuesday. There was a very clear switch that was flipped at half time. It was like, guys, do you want to win? Do you want to like get off the Schneider and end this noise that's going to be pretty loud if we're like o and four or o and five? Start defending with the kind of tenacity that you're capable of and all of a sudden, Kat was up a little higher on the pick and roll, even blitzed a little bit. Josh Hart and Anobi, Bridges, they just got their hands on everything. They were flying around defensively deflections and all of a sudden it's like, oh, yeah, here are the next. Still kind of forcing it a little bit on offense sometimes, rather than letting the system flow. But when it flows, they get good shots. And Anobi, you want to see this guy play defense. There's one possession late in the second quarter of that game against the pistons where he helps on Cade on a drive, backs up, jumps and breaks up and out of you to John Collins, lands, immediately blocks a Cade lay up at the rim against like this guy's just sensational defensively. And Detroit, Rock solid, four and one despite Jalen Dern being injured and they just are going to win a lot of games. Their defense is awesome. Okay, that's it for these. Now let's get to the real thing. Injuries. You know, this is the story of the season so far, obviously. Here's just what's happened since the last episode. Kawaii Leonard is out for a certain amount of weeks. The Raptors are three and one. They destroyed the magic, the injury riddled magic at home in Toronto last night. Here is a They had the sideline reporter on the Raptors broadcast say that she had talked to a team official from the Raptors, and they don't, according to the team official, anonymous, of course, because it's quite no one can speak clearly ever about an injury. The official told her that the team does not want to talk about this as a quote injury, but they want to call it a conditioning issue, that it's just wear and tear on a joint that's had some issues in the past, and that water is getting into it, and that's what's causing the knee to swell. Congratulations to the Raptors. You already sound like the Clippers. You already sound like Lawrence Frank and Tai Liu explaining a Kauai injury with a word salad that makes no sense, with a timetable that is mysterious, with an origin that is mysterious, and it's just like, I guess he'll play when he plays again. I don't know. Meanwhile, Jakob Burtle is a walking disaster. He does nothing on offense. He looks immobile on defense. He had 5,000, like, what seemed like 45 seconds last night against Orlando. Thank God for Colin Murray Boyle's, Trace Jackson Davis came and gave him representative minutes. Jamal Shed looks like he's gotten an injection of like extra confidence on offense, and I just want to shout out a guy who's going to have to play more power forward, actually guarded some centers last night against Orlando. RJ Barrett lives in the trade machine, has a condo in the penthouse of the trade machine. 22 points a game on 51% shooting, 6 rebounds for assists. Not a great defender, specifically on the perimeter, but can defend up in size pretty well. Yeah, he's not like the perfect complimentary player. Well, now he has to be something more than that with Kauai out already. He's just pretty good at a lot of things. I understand you'd like a player who's a third or fourth option to be a little bit more reliable as either a three point shooter or a defender. And great. He's not perfect, but he's just really good at a lot of stuff, and I would just be pretty careful accelerating the RJ Barrett trade machine process. So that's that. Jerry Jackson, Jr. out six to eight weeks with a torn MCL Utah now. I probably they're one and four, by the way, and it don't take long for a Defcon to reach like Defcon three or two in the NBA when your goal is try to sniff around the six feet and at least make the play in in the West, they should be fine like they just let Lowry market and also Miss last night's game. That's going to be a minor thing, apparently, I think it was a risk issue. But you know, look, Utah probably envisioned a three man big man rotation of use of Nurketsch injured. Jerry Jackson, Jr. perpetually injured at Lowry market and with a little dollop of Jackson Hayes and Kyle Filipowski here and there, well, two of those three guys are now injured and you're playing a lot of Jackson Hayes, Filipowski didn't play much last night if at all, I don't know. And you know, the George Peterson thing is just okay. There was an enormous amount of bright sense of all happening late in that game, and I love a good dose of bright sense of all as much as anybody else and a ton of Moe Bomba. Just way more Moe Bomba than anyone envisioned, and he's been all right for them, but it's not going very smoothly for Utah. And it doesn't take too long for AC's into kind of get out of control. Their opponent last night, the spurs now three and two after a so, so start, ninth in offense, eighth in defense, Tobias Harris hasn't played yet. And the whole thing is sitting there for them now with what's happened to Oklahoma City and Jalen Williams out, Kason Wallace out Alex Caruso didn't play last night. They got ruled in Dallas with the, I mean, they still had AJ Mitchell, Jared McCain and Shay. Shay's numbers are kind of down a little bit. Everything's sitting there for the spurs. The Western Conference title, the one seed, I mean Houston's undefeated and they look incredible, so we'll see what comes of that. The MVP for Wemba Nyama, it's all sitting there despite the fact that, you know, I remain unconvinced that this triple point guard thing is the way they should start or finish games. But I think actually finish is going to be the more complicated question for them than start. It's pretty easy to start them. And you know, it's like none of them are great outside shooters. Fox is going to have the ball the most when it's when Wemba is in there and it's like a Fox Wemba Nyama two main game. One of those other two guards is going to be in the dunker spot sometimes. The other one's going to be on the perimeter not being guarded so well. And I think Castle, who's three point shot got off to a rickety start and Harper will eventually make a pretty representative amount of spot up threes. I don't know if it's going to be enough to change the way defense is guard that trio. It's easy to start them and then read you go to the rotation. They play eight minutes a game, 10 minutes a game finishing finishing is going to be fun. When Tobias Harris is back and Devon Vassel, I mean, their best play last night against Utah was the Devon Vassel Victor, Wemba Nyama, empty side, handoff, pick and roll, catch and go for Vassel, he just rain to mid range jumpers all over this verse. It just feels a little better when there's a little more shooting out there when like there's two of Vassel, Champeni, who had made a million threes the other night. And Harris when he comes back and we'll see who else kind of fits into that vision. Look, first world problems, you're going to have to answer this question. It's going to cause some some hiccups here and there when you maybe play those guys a little bit more than the numbers that you should. And there'll be some hurt feelings when someone is benched down the stretch. I actually thought they were going to bench Harper down the stretch last night. He wasn't on the floor in regulation, but he was again, and over time they had to trip a point guard look. And those guys are plus nine and a half per 100 possessions together so far, mostly because they play a lot with Victor and the defense is absolutely halacious when Victor Castle and Harper are all on the floor. And I'm just just flagging this. I mentioned Vassel, women, I'm a down the stretch in that game, Wembee had a one on one post move against Jackson Hayes that turned into a little like eight foot push shot that he missed. But I absolutely loved the shot. It looked clean. It was like he was somewhere in the sky in Jackson Hayes was on the ground. He could he didn't even see anything, he just missed it. And then he had like a little 13 foot jumper on a wasn't a pick and pop. It was like a pick and half roll with Fox that looked smooth and went in and like those are the kind of shots. I like those more than I like the threes are fine four or five of a game eight nine unless he's rolling. I don't like, but those shots go two shots late. Those are scary. Anthony Edwards scored 47 points against Cleveland and then had knee surgery apparently. He's going to be out two months. All right, Lamella ball. The goal is clear here. Stay in the top six. Don't fall into the play in the wolves. I believe are what are they three and two? They are three and two. They got they lost last night to Yaxal Lendaborg and the Warriors. And that's that's the goal. And this is not a deep team obviously like if they have no other injuries. And that's a big if I think they should be fine ish like 500 ish and that would be enough to have them in the mix to stay in the top six. And gets back assuming it's really two months assuming he looks like Anthony Edwards when he comes back. Because their deep bench is a little scary after the you know you insert IO and go from there. But he's great. I was great. Don't get me wrong on that. I love tearing Shannon junior like a like a fucking bad out of hell with the ball. Just straight lines, reject screens gets to the room whenever he wants has been running a fair amount of pick and roll on second. It's love him. He's making shots from three. Fine. But we saw the first real jail in Clark minutes last night. He's a defensive menace and then it's Cody Williams Isaiah Evans. Dante even chenzo who's injured. And then two way guys, Rocco Zakarski is one of them. I think he just had a nice two year stint as a defenseman for the Detroit Red Wings and now he plays for the Timberwolves, Rocco Zakarski. The only good news for the Timberwolves is if you look at their schedule and look at like the most difficult teams around the league. It is fairly backloaded. I guess you would say that's good like it's a little bit no one in the West has an easy schedule ever. It's a little bit easier during this two months than it and then gets real hard once the income is back. I guess you'd want the hardest games when you're at full strength. So there's a little bit of that. But they're one injury away from a crisis, obviously. And it's on the mental now like these are serious games. You're the guy. It's not disputed. Like you got to figure this out and Rudy go bare you can't have another goose egg. And then Tyrese Halliburton out at least two weeks with a calf strain anytime there's a calf strain on a guy who's had an Achilles tear. It's a different leg, I believe. But you got to take it seriously. If he's a zoo bot, he's already injured with a minor thing. I think an ankle, TJ McConnell hasn't played yet. And we've seen what the pastures are without this star, the straw that serves the drink in Halliburton and you add in these injuries. It could be ugly. They're two and three and here are there's here's their schedule after this, after they lost to Philly last night at Miami, home to the nets, better with that game. Although the nets have been frisky lately, should have won the game and lost the other night. Home to Atlanta at Memphis, home Denver at Dallas, home Washington, suddenly a real game. Home Knicks at Philly at Houston at Cleveland at Knicks, home Thunder, home Sixers. It just never ends just it absolutely halacious scheduled while Halliburton's out. And the east is so deep that everyone in the east is going to have a hellish schedule all the time. But like that's a nightmare. And on top of that, you know, Lukadánchez sat out of back to back for the Lakers, they still beat the Clippers. And the magic I mentioned, the magic. at one point last night played a line up of Javon Carter, Tristan De Silva, Jamal Keane, Franz Wagner, and Nicole LeVuchavitch. They even played Nicole LeVuchavitch and Wendell Carter Jr. together. Good luck, Sean Sweeney. It's going to be tough. Okay, let's talk about the injuries. This is, you always have to be cautious when stuff happens at the beginning of the season because it's all fresh, it's new, and it's the same thing with wins and losses. A four game winning streak at the beginning of the season seems so important because it announces what this team might be about. And then a four game winning streak in January, same quality of opponent, same team kind of goes under the radar. The same could be true of injuries. Like, are we over indexing on this, overreacting to it because it's early and we're all just getting back into the NBA. Guys are already hurt. Or is this a legit thing? Like, this would be a big wave of injuries at any point in the season. I think it's the latter. I think it would be a big wave of injuries at any point in the season. And it's time for the league for Adam Silver and the union too because they have a say in all of this. Like, I'm just so tired of every press conferencing. Like, we're studying everything. You know, there's no evidence of this. We're studying this. We're digging in. We're forming a committee that will form another committee to anoint another committee to look at hamstring issues. And yeah, you know, I, you know, we're open to everything. Even any two games is not set in stone. I think Adam Silver said 82 games is not set in stone twice a year for the last 15 years. Maybe it's actually said in stone. Maybe just admitted it might actually be said in stone. But anyway, I spent a lot of yesterday talking to sports science people, coaches, agents, people all over the landscape who've studied this stuff. Here, here's, here are some things that everyone agrees on that may be contributing to an uptick in injuries and particularly soft tissue injuries. Well, number one, you have to remember, some of these things are flukes. Some of them are not soft tissue injuries, jail and Williams. That's a fluke. Case and wall is tearing his labor. I'm getting around a screen. That's a fluke. You're always going to like step by guy steps on an ankle, turn, steps on his foot and turns an ankle. That's a fluke. So you always have to remember like as much as this seems like a coordinated wave of stuff, case by case, it's a little walkier than that. Number two, this is universal. Like, I can't find anyone who really disagrees on this. The pace of the game, the width of territory that you have to guard now with how many teams shoot three's and how often they shoot them. The physicality of the game, the starts and stops it, everyone has to do the decels, the accelerations, the cutting back and forth on defense when you got to rotate in the pain and rotate out. The demands to both crash the offensive glass, which is back in vogue and also sprint back on defense. It's just a different, it's a different game. It's a faster game and it's just the chance of wear and tear and injuries is higher. Everyone agrees on that. Everyone agrees that early specialization in youth sports is bad and I think it's bad on like every possible level, but bad specifically for health. I forget like the development of skills, making friends, sports should be a fun thing and not like a vehicle for a college scholarship from the kid time your kid is eight years old. Forget all that. From a health issue, everyone agrees it's not good. Number three that people agree on. Something is missing in the summer off season to ramp up for the season process. Nobody quite agrees what it is. I found some sports science people will tell you guys just play too little basketball or do too little of anything in the off season and the ramp up is too sudden and the body reacts as it does. Some people will tell you they actually do enough or they do a lot of work on the court. Too much of it is skill work, individual work, not enough of it is like actually playing basketball in the sort of same shock to the body happens. Some people will even say the like almost the opposite. Like some players do too much work in the off season and more of them should do something maybe not quite as extreme as the Andre Miller program where you just like literally do nothing for three months and Andre Miller never got hurt ever. So there's some sort of disconnect there and stand by and Gundy weighed in on this on sub stack commenting on one of my stories and he says he wants to have an even more in depth discussion about the injuries because he doesn't think it's about the amount of games or the amount of minutes that players are playing. He sort of preemptively rejects that and you can find sports science people who will say the same who will like shockingly kind of say the 82 games things silver bullet ideas like it's not we can it's it's about how we manage players to prepare for those 82 games and to prepare for their minutes load more than the back to backs more than the minutes where you can find people who say that me personally I find it hard to believe that the amount of games and the amount of back to backs has no impact on any of this and by the way the 65 game rule is attached to all this I'm not even going to get into that for today. I just find it hard to believe that fewer games excuse me would not be good for player health and and even leaving aside that it would probably be good for the league in terms of every game feeling more important in the quality of games feeling more urgent and all of that. I just find it hard to believe that it wouldn't help players stay a little bit healthier. It's time again like everyone again 82 games is not set in stone. Is it or not like do you actually want to have a real discussion about this or not like I think there should be fewer games most people think for whatever reason there should be fewer games and we all know why there isn't a real discussion about having fewer games it's about money and it's the owners and the players association too because the the BRI and how they split it up it's either time to just tell people we're never doing it or like let's actually sit down and talk about a number that makes sense a timetable that makes sense because I'm just tired of hearing this like 20 years of lip service. That's not set in stone. I don't know personally like what sort of stylistic solution there could be like I don't really think viewers want a slower game. I don't really think like moving the three point line out or in I mean moving it in would would decrease the amount of territory these guys have to cover is is that really a realistic thing do we want an easier shorter three point shot moving it out which was a sort of solution to your to the there are too many threes issue that kind of is quiet and down people have just accepted both for the most part of the set it's going to be that seems like it would cover more territory require players to cover more territory do you want like how would you slow the game down well like do you want a long do you want a 35 second shot clock or something I don't think anybody wants that I mean college basketball when it had that was like borderline unwatchable and even 30 is long I you could you could really just have a sea change in officiating where we are going to just take way more of the physicality out of the game in in order to sort of ease that part of it the collisions the violence and all of that but then you'll have the same thing we had three years ago and there's a wave of 70 point games and the defenses are helpless and what can we do and blah blah and by the way how about the flopping uptick this week I'm all for a flopping enforcement regime like I hate flopping everybody hates flopping some of the flocks they're calling are just straight up not flops I think it was Lucodontius just hit Tumani Kamara with a shoulder and Tumani Kamara backed up and did what you do when you try to keep your balance which is get your arms out and kind of like circle them like that while you're backpedaling and stumbling and I realize arms flailing is a is a red flag for the officials that was not a flop um that's like a normal person trying actually to not flop so I mean cool that you're trying to enforce it but like it's getting a little crazy how about like and and I've seen some calls of this the flops I'd really like to see are the the jump shooter who jumps sideways and gets rewarded with a call or kicks his legs out and gets and the leagues gotten better at that but some of the flops they're calling are like not the flops that are a problem that's a different thing so again stylish the way I don't know what to do one thing I will pitch 2013 13 years ago at Grantland.com I wrote a column kind of throwing out the idea of should the NBA move to a 40 minute game and I talked to tons of people about it they're all quoted in their luminaries from a Phoeba or who grew up in Europe like Dirk Novitsky was quoted in it because Phoebe uses a 40 minute game and I like the idea of like aligning college basketball Phoeba basketball NBA basketball um ironically the impetus for that story was you would have playoff games in the NBA that were lasting like two hours and 58 minutes and it's just like it's just not this shouldn't be like Yankees Red Sox 2003 it's basketball it should be fast it should be more like a Phoeba game which is really fast and the NBA decided well that has not decided like they've tried to chip away a lot of things get out of time outs faster get the review process faster um you know like take away certain tactics that can stop the flow of the game um all of that kind of stuff that they've done and and and I think you had a lot of people who said to me back then look if you go from 48 to 40 the historical numbers all get wonky we have to have a respect for the history again we should try all these tweaks before we do anything else and I and I get that even in the g league they have done one free throw for all the points or with in summary they did I think maybe both I hate that that felt very gimmicky um but that was why I wrote the 40 minute game piece and the and the trickled on effects were games would be more unpredictable, I think that's probably good. It would make the season more unpredictable. And they would be shorter, and players would have to play fewer minutes. That was like a side piece of that argument that I made. You had counters about history, about, well, why doesn't feeble align with us? And about minutes, and the counter for minutes was, wait a second, maybe all players would not play fewer minutes. Maybe what would happen is the stars, the best players would just play the same amount of minutes they're playing now. Only that would take up a large proportion of every game, which would maybe mitigate against those games being more unpredictable because whoever had the most stars would win. It would probably hurt contractually the middle class and the minimum kind of tier of players and the tiers below that because if you're going to play your stars 36 minutes or 35 minutes, that's almost the entire game. I actually think that would change and teams would sort of reorient their rotations so that stars would play the same percentage of games they're playing now. But over 40 minutes, I actually still think this is kind of a good idea. I get why there's a knee jerk like what about the history, what about the physics, and I'm not saying it's a failsafe and then I'm definitely for it. I would just like pitch it as maybe we should discuss it in light of all of these other things. Maybe it should be like actually look that maybe there should be a committee to form a committee to form an ad hoc committee about a 40 minute game. I don't really I'm I'm would love to hear more solutions, more ideas because I do think something real is happening and it's bad for the product, it's bad for the players, it's bad for the fans, and this is just a shitty start to the NBA season when every single headline is more or less injuries or guys sitting out for rest or guys sitting out for back-to-back. The 65 game rule doesn't appear to be like that much of a deterrent. Maybe it will be as we get down to the season, but Anthony Edwards having surgery, like he's out for all that stuff and that's a massive impact on the kind of extension he can sign, which is an internal massive impact on the table. It's a different story. I'd love to hear more solutions, bring them to me, contact us all that, and with that, let's bring in Ty Jerome and Jonathan Abrams. Does that close show is brought to you by Fandool? The NBA is back and this is your most rewarding season ever on Fandool. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than a half-court buster meter. More rewarding than a 29-point comeback. Maybe even more rewarding than a center knocking down the three. I mean, come on, everybody loves it and the big man lets it fly. In this NBA season, that feeling doesn't stop on the court. Look out for Fandool Rewards Club exclusive offers surprises and more. So every week check the Fandool app to see what's waiting for you. Make this your most rewarding season ever with Fandool. Download the app to get started. 21 over and select states are 18 and over in DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem called 1-800-Gamber called 1-888-789-7777 or is it ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Sam's Club. During the holidays, everyone's in a club. The last minute gift givers club. The cool ones club. The food coma club. Whatever holiday club you're in, Sam's Club is the club that helps you pull it off. Did you get a meal on the table in two hours? Done. Shopping for the brands they want. Lake Ruse and Vizio without blowing your budget. Check and check. Sam's Club helps you make the most of the holidays. Come join us. Sam's Club. Well, look who it is. A special guest averaging 30 points per game for the currently undefeated Memphis Grizzlies. I don't know if you're a point guard, a scoring guard, a guard, just a guard guard. Tide your own is in the house. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. This is a big moment for the Grizzlies. It's a big moment for me. I have as long time listeners know I have a hard time with the University of Virginia. I had some bad times there. This is me bearing the hatchet. I didn't like dressing up for football games. I dated a girl there. I went badly. This is a big, this is a growth moment for me. It's a big moment for you. I don't know why you're on this show because you're on the kind of run now where like PTI calls or good boarding America calls or like hot ones calls. What is like who's been in your maybe Tony Bennett has reached out to you like who's been in your phone? Yeah, tell me actually something the funniest text I've probably gotten after the first game you know a bunch of text messages coming in and his text was I just want to know how well you defended. What did you say? I said you probably would have been mad at me a few possessions. Have you this is that you are playing the Blazers to by the time this airs it'll be today. We're recording this on Wednesday. So tomorrow. Now I'd be honest with me has the topic of John Moran come up amongst your teammates. Not I'm not saying in a bad way in a good way like you've there has to be some I know the polite thing to say is just another game one out of 82 but there has to be some discussion about this. They're truthfully hasn't been man honestly I think we've been so like we've been doing a really good job of staying in the moment obviously his name will be on the scout in a in a major way um and you know probably come out being super aggressive so like from a scouting perspective his name will be on it um but us players we we still have really relationship with them like us players have no type of the phrase and like that like we're all still super close to them I think Scotty just want to hang out with them today like I don't think there's nothing like that um from a player to player perspective that's not the political answer that's the truth like um I would tell you so yeah there's nothing like that but I'm sure tomorrow you know coach will give us a little rundown of the scout and we'll probably tell us that he's going to come out trying to be super aggressive. There you go um I I don't know that I've ever seen any NBA player make so many awkward looking floaters at such a high rate I mean flat footed off the wrong foot on the way up on the way down from 18 feet from 12 feet I mean that I I guess they're easier for you than they'd look but did you how can one I mean I can watch you in warm-ups and you practice floaters but like how did you get good at this how did you realize this was an efficiency and a skill that you had and and then how do you train it because some of the shots you make I mean they look like that that just shouldn't go in and they just go in over and over again yeah my trainer and college actually a Damon Alzheimer he's right next to you the he's actually got a job with the women's team there now but we would rep out floaters like how people rep out threes so like how people shoot spot threes or off the dribble threes like we would spend time just wrapping out floaters and um figured that could be like a separator for me at this level I was not the most athletic not the best at the rim so if you don't have any type of you know dominant paint production at all it's going to be tough to be a high producing guard in this league the way the way the where where the league is going so that's just been something since college that I've been wrapping out a lot um just being awkward with it putting defenders on me like in the summer and just trying to wrap out you know awkward like you said awkward finishing because if the defenders can't time you it kind of takes that let us about the out the picture um one of my favorite things about your game is you are or have become the perhaps you were always like this early in your NBA career when you weren't playing as much I didn't see it an absolute unabashed shit talker just you're in everyone's face all the time you are letting everyone hear about it when you're rolling um have you ever had I'm sure you have but like what's the most memorable or most recent uh or whatever of a player on the other team actually kind of getting a little irked at you or giving it back to you or like maybe even hitting you with an elbow like someone who was like I've had enough of this guy honestly I I usually don't start it I usually don't like it doesn't take a lot for me to get to that point like I can find like usually it's like if I hear something or I I rarely start it like I'm not the guy who like wakes up and just say I'm gonna talk shit today I rarely do start it um the most recent one was probably I mean two games ago or three games ago and then how we were in gold state in that game got a little chibi um but drama definitely was the one that started it so like I said I didn't start it um he did and he's also a Hall of Fame shit talker so you know we had we had some fun now that was the filmer what do you say um man I like to leave that on the core come on I can uh I can't I play that's a that's part of shit talking you can't go run with it and okay let's let's see if we can maybe pinpoint it to a genre was it basketball related was it family related was it um I I don't even know what else related that I want to say it was it was basketball related it was all basketball it rarely do I I ever want shit talking like cross a line you know okay I never want to get family related never personal like at the end of the day 99% of us aren't gonna fight and aren't trying to fight so like basketball related 99% of the time it happens and you leave the game and you're never thinking about it again you know you have you have one of the one percent on your team uh does it does it feel good to have one of the one percent on your team oh no obviously I'm talking about beef stew you know I know you're talking about it does it does feel good but we're also trying to get him to you know we're trying to keep him we need him on the court we need them on the court so we're trying to keep him in a good headspace too but you know if shit hits the fan you got him on your side so you know you can let loose a little more so I was talking to a couple people in Cleveland who were there with you and they were like we could not believe what a swashbuckling trash talking score he turned into with us. They were like, we heard from everyone in Golden State that he was trying to be like the caretaker, feed everybody, traditional point guard over there on his, you know, best point guard behavior. And then he came here and it was like, one of the coaches like, we called it, I called it tisantity. Like it just, it just took off and he would go on these scoring benches. So like, was that, was that always in you? And is that accurate that you were kind of like, like shoving that part of your game down in Golden State because maybe you thought that's not the way for me to stick in the NBA? Yeah, that was a balanced earlier micro that I fought a lot. Steve actually would always encourage me to shoot more like when I was in Golden State. He would be like, look at Stephanie Clayman, like they come off and they're pulling like you know, I mean, defenders like a certain point going under my ball screens and I was being hesitant and he'd be like, come on, you got to shoot that, like you can really shoot, you can score. And when I got there though, like sometimes I'd be on the court with Steph or Clay and it's like, you know, I'm get them the ball if I could. And then I just watched a lot of basketball and we watched how the league was going and you got a guard shooting 15, 20, 25 shots at night. And I'm just watching the games like, man, I can shoot as well as him and him and him and him. It's like, I got to get to my spots and then get these shots up. And I think from there, it's also makes play making easier. So for sure, I think over time, like just watching the watching basketball where the NBA was going, you can probably count the true point guards on one hand now. You know what I mean, everyone's kind of a scoring combo guard. So just like if I wanted to stick, especially not being like a premier defender, you know mean, you got to have something that's like, all right, we have to play this guy. So that's where that's where my mind went. Were you were you surprised that you didn't resign with Cleveland or they didn't resign you or whatever terminology you want to put it out there? Because obviously that was your break out season six man of the year candidate and they end up kind of, it seemed like it was you were Sam Merrill at the Sam amount of money and they chose Sam Merrill or you chose Memphis, but like, were you surprised that you parted ways? Yeah, I was actually surprised up until the second Lanzo got traded to the cast. Yeah, the whole time I was going to go back there and then as soon as that trade happened, my agent called me and was like, yeah, by the way, Cleveland's not making you an offer. I was like, oh, okay, got to move on, I guess. I did hear you had other offers at like pretty comparable levels, maybe even a tad bit more than what Memphis offered, but that something about Memphis and Chihuahua's Esolo system appealed to you specifically. Is that is that true? Yeah, that is. There was a few, I mean, it wasn't like an outrageous amount more, but it was a tad more to go to certain places, but when I was breaking it down, we were watching it. First of all, like, the way Zach climate RGM was talking on the phone, just a confidence, like, he seemed like he had in me and the way he spoke about my game, I was like, okay, he gets it. Like, he understands, like, he was talking about my game, how I would talk about my game. And I was like, okay, because the one thing I learned in this business is like, you want to go where you're most wanted. And then I was watching like Tom Austin, how he coaches and his system and the ball, the point guard gets 15 ball screens a game at least, you know, maybe more. And it's like, okay, what better system is that for me than that? You know, I mean, so those two things, I was like, that seems like the perfect situation for me. At the time, I thought, you know, Joe's going to be here, we're going to play it together a little bit. You know, I can, I'm a little bit of a combo that can play both. And then, you know, I would obviously be on the court when he's not. And I get it later, you know, he, he left and now it's, it's like this. By the way, speaking of Thai sanity, I have, I have a tweet about you from January 20, 25 that I think your agents just showed you, because I told them to that every time you have a good game, it gets, or a big game, I should say, it gets thrown back at me. And I'm just going to read the tweet that people will see it on Spotify. This was, this was like when it was really first starting to happen in Cleveland and you would go on these runs and I'd be like, I can't believe these shots are going in. The tweet is, I called it the Thai Jerome cycle and it was my cycle of experiencing Thai Jerome. Step one, there's a lot of Thai Jerome going on. Step two, maybe this is too much Thai Jerome. Step three, this is the right amount of Thai Jerome. Step four, there is never enough Thai Jerome. Step five. Okay, maybe that one play was too much Thai Jerome, but who cares? Do you feel like that is an accurate appraisal of the Thai Jerome experience? That you're in Cleveland, maybe, you know, I think as like a six man microwave score, that's how it goes a lot of times when you come in the game and your kind of like your job is to put points up in a hurry, right? Now my role, I try to manage the game a little better. It's not just like score, score, score, score, but yeah, you know, at the time for sure. And then especially when like, people don't believe you're going to do it, they're like, "All right, what's going on?" and then, you know, but the best part was that last sentence, right? Because like if you make five in a row, then you take like a terrible shot and you miss it. It's like, "Hey, you made five in a row though, so it's okay." So yeah, that's always a good place to be. I mean, this is a layup for you, but like, it's only four games, but you're healthy. You were dealing with cap stuff most of last year. The team is off to a good start. The playoffs didn't end the way you wanted in Cleveland. And last year didn't go the way you wanted health wise. How fun is this, and you have this young, deep team, you have like 14 guys that can get on the court and play any game? Is it as much fun for the Grizzlies right now as it looks and for you personally? Yeah, 100%. And that's fun for us started, truthfully in August, like with all option, optional voluntary stuff, of course. And we weren't all together, but, you know, like, three of us, like me said, Cedric Coward and O-Max, like we were all in LA at the same time, so hey, let's go on the court together. So we built a close knit group starting, you know, back in July, when everyone was drafted and, you know, talking and working out whenever we could in the same cities and conditioning together, like in the summer. So our fun started back then, and like, we had a great training camp. We had a great build up the training camp. So it wasn't just like, hey, training camps here, and now we're going to go have some fun. Like, as a young team, don't have a ton of vets, don't have a ton of experience. We knew to come out and win some games that we would have to be in better shape than everybody and play harder than everyone and be connected. So our fun and our camaraderie, our team building, it started in July. And right now, we're reaping some of the benefits of that, but like you said, it's early. So yeah, I just continue to get better and continue to double down on what's gotten us some early success. You are playing with two of the most interesting, young big guys in the NBA right now. I start with Zach Edie. I don't think you played a single second with Zach Edie last year. He's obviously a pretty unique player, size wise, and how his game works on offense. What have you learned about how to play with him as a point guard so far? Yeah, we're me and him. We talk all the time. We're still trying to, like, get on the same page, starting plays. He's not like a dynamic roller, but when he seals and gets positioned, it's really two points usually. So me trying to time it up so I can get him to that deep pain and try to figure it out. We're still trying to get on the same page daily because you said we didn't play together at all last year. But just honestly, him being healthy and him being on the court, you automatically have paint protection. You automatically have a good chance to win the rebounding battle every night. And you have a remittac on offense. So he gives you like three of the most important things on the basketball court just by being on the court. So making him everything else we can do now is like icing on the cake and we're still trying to get on the same page because it's early and we haven't been able to play together at time. Cam Bouser, third pick in the draft, one of the most well-rounded rookie big men to come into the NBA in a long time. My guess is you are a little bit of a college basketball watcher and junkie considering the success you had at UVA, national champions, all that. What did you know about him coming in? What has surprised you about, I mean, he's not even shooting that well yet. That's the crazy thing about your four-nose start. But what has surprised you about his game and how you can like mesh with it so far? So I usually only watch March Madness now because of how much we're playing and then I'm watching more NBA than college obviously. So I really only watch March Madness, but back when last year tournament, I'm in a group challenge. All my boys are watching March Madness and I'm just like, guys, Bouser's for sure the number one pick, right? They're like, no, he's not going to translate. And I'm like, are you guys watching what I'm watching? Like, he's 100% the best prospect in draft. Like, I'm like, he can do everything on offense. He can guard one through five almost like, like, he's the best prospect. Then fast forward, obviously, he'd be draft and I'm like, oh, this is perfect. And speaking to like, he just, he's probably the most mature rookie I've ever been around. Like sometimes you forget he's 19, the way he carries himself off the court, the way he carries himself on the court, his poise like in these NBA games to start the season. Like, hey, game one, I think he was like two for 15 and during the game, I'm thinking he's like having a great game, you know what I mean? That's extremely rare for anybody like a little, let alone a 19 year old. And every shot, every shot was like in and out deck game. I was like, mate, he's these are not far off from being makes. They're not. And even if he's making your missing, he's still rebounding. He's still demanding attention. He still can pass out of the short role. He can pass out of the post like he's super complete. So he's he's been a really, really, really fun player to play with, really, really fun player to, you know, hang out with off the court. So he's gonna be a really special player, and I'm glad I get to, uh, she had a quarter with him. Who's in this group chat that doubted Kampusers NBA, like that he was gonna translate to the NBA? I mean, you got it. Like are we talking to your VAT, man? It's like the Andre Hunters in the NBA. So is he, what's going on with him? It wasn't him. It wasn't him. It was actually, my little brother was actually one of them. So, oh my god. Yeah, I'm gonna throw him out of the bus. He was actually one of them. My little brother and just two or two of my boys and a bunch of them, uh, they were just, I don't know. I don't know. Some people don't have the eye for it, man. Did you, did you, um, does UVA hate Duke? Did UVA hate, did you, did you hate Duke? And in college, is everybody hate Duke? Or do you do not have no animosity for Duke? I have none. I actually grew up a Duke fan. Okay. It's hard for me. Like, yeah, like half a Tony Bennett's pitch was, you know, Duke didn't really recruit me. Well, I committed myself from my year high school. So, I didn't give time for a lot of schools to recruit me. But, um, they didn't recruit me. Tony Bennett's half of his pitch was like, Hey, you come here. You can have a chance at beating Duke and UNC. And I was like, yeah, it works for me. Uh, speaking of which, I watched a YouTube interview with you where it looked like you were standing on the East River and Long Island City for the interview. I used to live in Long Island City. You remember this interview? I do. Yeah, I do. Uh, one of the questions in the interview was, um, who would you model your game on in the NBA? Like, if you were in the NBA, if you get to the NBA, who do you think you'll, you'll play like? And you thought about it. You thought about it. You were like, wait a second. Why can't I just pick me? Can I just mod, pick me? Is my NBA model? That was like a good early example of your, of your bravado. And you eventually, like, he kind of go to you into saying Steph Curry. You wanted to say Kobe, but you thought Kobe was too mean. And you meant it in a, in it like a mean basketball, like Jordan, you mean kind of way, I think, but you said you just straight up were like, how about me, tied your own age 15? Can I just pick myself? Yeah. I mean, it goes back to what we were saying earlier, right? Would like the awkward floaters and the awkward finishing and the, I think you got to double that out of what makes you good. And in this league, if you're not confident enough to stand on that, you have no chance. Um, so that's, that's kind of always in my motto, um, through whatever it's, you got to be confident enough to stand on what you work on and, and what you didn't make she really good. According to everything I found online, all the research I did, your full name is Thai. Thai is not short for anything. It's, it's Thai. And that's it. Like, how did your parents pick that name? Do you know? I don't, but I'm happy they did, like, Tyler is too common. Like, maybe Ty wrong would have been cool, but I like Ty. Um, basketball reference lists your only nickname as milk. I don't believe I've ever heard anyone refer to you as milk. Is this, is this news to you or have people called you after the beverage milk before? I don't know why that's how reference is listing that, but I know where it comes from. I was finding that street ball tournament in New York again, a city when I was probably 15 or 16. And I'm probably the only white player in the, in the, in the game. And I could have guessed you were like, yes, the guy in the mic, that's what he started to run with. You know what I mean? So that's, that's, that's where I, that's where it comes from is a YouTube video. You can go find it and they got a screaming mail. So I think that's that's only where it comes from. I've never referred to myself as that. I've never told anybody to call me that. And I'm kind of hoping that does not become a thing. So it shouldn't become a thing. It's not, it's too uncreative. Another example of Ty Jerome's bravado, someone with the warriors told me he used to sit at the same poker table on the flights as Steph Clay and Dreymon. And we would whisper to ourselves like, he doesn't have to bankroll. Those guys have, is he getting in, is he getting in over his head? But are you, are you like a shark? Where's, where the stakes not high enough for you to be worried about it? Is, and is that true? That is true. It wasn't poker is booray though. Oh, it's booray. Okay. They actually, they actually, we weren't playing. And, but my rookie year of Phoenix, we had some good booray games like book, Tyler Johnson at the time, and Ricky Rubio down three won the play. And they were looking around for a fourth. And I played cards on my life. I like love cards. At the time, I'm like, damn, I don't know if I should be jumping into this game. You know, my rookie year, all that 24th pick, you know, not, not top five or not top 10. And I don't know if I should be jumping into this game, but then they convinced me, then take much to convince me. And so we've had some, I had some really good booray games. And I got to go and say, and I'm like, you guys don't play booray, like you guys don't play. And so finally, one day I got into flight and I'm like, guys, come on, like, let's play. And that's how it started. Do you have, who's in the game in Memphis? Who are your, who are your booray players? Sadly, we play Uno because we can't. Yeah, yeah, I know it breaks my heart every flight. I mean, Uno has really swept the NBA. I think actually Kent Bayesmore is patient zero of the Uno craze in the NBA if you remember him. But my question for, like, are you, what everyone's got a million different ways to play Uno? Are you playing traditional Uno with like the traditional deck? I prefer, I have an 11 year old daughter. We play Uno constantly on vacation. I prefer Uno flip, which is a more complicated version of Uno. I'm not if you're familiar with that. What kind of Uno were we playing here? What rules are we using? Who's traditional? Traditional Uno said is making the rules. Yeah, once I heard it wasn't going to be booray, I kind of was like, I'll play whatever you guys want. I don't really care about the rules we use. So it's traditional Uno. You can put a draw for on a draw for a draw to on a draw to all that traditional Uno. Okay, I respect that. Have you, have you dabbled in Uno flip? No, I've never heard of it. Highly recommend introducing Uno flip to the Grizzlies. It's, it's a two-sided deck with different rules for each side. And you can flip it when you have a certain card. So you can see when you flip it, what cards everyone else is holding on the back of their hands that will now be their actual hands when you flip the deck. It's another layer of strategy that I highly recommend. Very important final question. You are a New York kid, New Rochelle. Spent a lot of time in the city as you mentioned. I own a prep. Mets Yankees are neither. I don't want baseball. Okay, that's the the only answer that would have created antagonism between us would be Yankees. Mets would be answer A that we want to hear agnostic is totally fine. Last one, just take us inside. You have an off night in Portland right now. What are you doing on your off night in Portland? What is a tied Jerome off night on a road city look like? I'm out to get a massage when we get off this call. Then my wife, yeah, my, my now wife and I are going to go with some sushi and then I'll be in bed by probably 9.30. Look at that smart. Yeah, honestly, you're ahead of the curve. It took me well into my mid 30s to appreciate the importance of a good night to sleep. That's and I don't, I don't get thrown around playing professional basketball. Oh, by the way, I like I lied. One more question that you mentioned. The injuries have been the big story of the season so far. We had Halibur and he's now out two weeks. That was just an else before we got really. Yeah, just two. I mean, honestly, like that's all I'll sign up for that with a hamstring. I think it's a hamstring string. Have you guys like as players? Have you been discussing this like we have as as media members and coaches and everyone like why is this happening? Why is everyone getting hurt? How can I is this a topic of discussion amongst you guys? A little bit like I'll talk to our medical guy about it is how how they want to do your best to prevent them and that's why, you know, we're over the summer because I had a calf strain. It's start last year too and the calf strains were like huge epidemic last year. So, you know, I sat down during my when I left my fist and it's like, all right, what do I need to do this summer to build up? I think what's happening is that pace of place is becoming through the roof. You know, I'm like, even 10 years ago, I haven't looked at it, but I'm sure you might have like the pace of play is probably what tripled from I mean, it's up like the fastest team in 2010 would be the slowest team now kind of thing. Right. So like it's going to the roof like the possessions in a game, the stopping and starting. I think people's creativity. So now you're like stepping here, here and here. And I think if you don't do enough in the summer to prepare for it, like it's just going to happen where you're going to have more soft tissue injuries and knock on wood, like I think that's why you got to really ramp your body up the right way. And then sometimes it's just like unlucky. Like I feel super bad. I mean, like I fell on Jaren's leg and like his knee bed were wrong. And, you know, now he had his his knee thing. I'm not sure about ants knee, like how that happened. Like some injuries are just unlucky. Some I think you can point to the pace of play. But yeah, it's tough. Like it's tough. I think it's a relief really demanding how often we play is tough. So you have to do everything you can. Like sleep is is huge. Yeah, it's really good. All right. Go enjoy the massage, sushi combo. Tadrom, thank you for spending a little time with us. Keep up the great start. It's been delightful to watch and thanks again for your time. Tadrom everybody. Look who it is. My old grant land colleague. That was a website Jonathan Abrams. And back in the day, Jonathan Abrams, there was a Twitter thing when Twitter was fun and not awful. Abrams alert with a little siren that uh oh, a long form must read peace with all sorts of tidbits and fun stories by Jonathan Abrams is up. Maybe it's about the palace and the palace. Maybe it's about the King's Lakers rivalry. Well, I have a new Abrams alert. You just wrote this book right here when we were young and fearless Kevin Russell James and the making of the modern NBA. could also have been subtitled. One of the greatest what ifs in the history of sports, obviously it's about the big three thunder that broke up prematurely with the James Harden trade and never won a title until they finally did in their next iteration whose roots was laid in the first iteration. Jonathan Abrams, this is a fantastic book. Tell people when and where they can order it and it's wonderful to see your face. >> I appreciate you so much. The book is out November 3rd. It's a little counter-programming to what's going on that day and it's available everywhere. Barnes and Noble, Amazon. I'm very, very proud of it. >> You should be. It's a fun read. There's going to be some stuff in here that's going to get some attention. Some we will talk about today, so I want people to buy the book and read for themselves. But open-ended first question. During my, what I politely call my sabbatical or garden leave after my ESPN departure, I'll call it, when we parted ways or whenever you want to call it, I contemplated writing a book. I met with some people about it. I thought I had a pretty good idea for a book that was going to be constrained to a certain timetable or a certain subject matter like you did. And I found myself wondering, when do you know the timing is right to write about an era or a team in sports? When is it too soon? When is it too late? When is the interest expired? I was going to write something that fit within this timetable, too. What made you think like, all right, this is the time to look back. For really, I think the first super deep dive on a team that kind of we all grew up with, league past grew up with it, young fans grew up with it. Why now? >> Number one, Zach, you need to do that book. >> Yeah. >> You can't even prime us. >> Seems like a lot of work. >> We try to do that. >> It is, but once you're holding up that thing at the end, it's a lot of fun. So I look at things that happen maybe like a decade or 15 years in that sweet window where people have enough distance to be able to talk about it clearly. They know what it meant in their lives. And we hit that time frame right now. I didn't know Russ was going to retire. I didn't know that Kevin was going to go on to another team where that James is still kind of being that championship window. But I knew that enough time has lapsed. And if you look at that NBA and where we were back then, when Kevin, James and Russell first entered the league, it's a brand new different league. And I think those three guys played a central role in getting the league to where it is. >> Whenever I read a book like this, I always try to figure out who did he get for a good long period of time, who didn't participate in the book. And so you had to rely on sort of other people and also like archived interviews, other people did. In reading the book, it didn't seem like you got Sam Presty. I'm not sure if you got Russ in any detailed way. Who are the dream people that you did not get? >> You're a very good decipher of who I got and who I didn't. >> The thunder or notoriously clandestine organization? >> No, my great line about Sam is that Sam is a great person, somebody I respect and have just the greatest amount of admiration for. He'll send Christmas cards, but he wouldn't have sat down for a movie for this book. Russell, I cannot be mad at Russell because the guy didn't even talk for his own retirement video. His retirement video had Michael Beach Jordan narrating it throughout. What's funny is that I went to a Broadway play like a month after I turned in the book. I saw proof. I had a like Don Cheetle and I had a bury in it. And two rows in front of me. Russell, two rows in front of me. I didn't see anything, just let him enjoy the night. But to my left, like seven feet away from me was George Clooney. It was a crazy night. >> Wow, crazy night. >> Star studded. I would have tried to sidle up to Russ at the bar or something. If there's an intermission, I don't know if there was an intermission in proof. I'm anti-intermission, by the way. Let's just get through the whole thing. I don't want to stop in the middle. Let's get through the whole play. I want to get to my dinner efforts. Okay. So no Sam, no Russ, but you got Kevin. And the fun thing about these books is it's not even who you don't get. It's who becomes sort of the surprise star of the books. So I have four names that we're going to get to a couple of them now. Anthony Moro, role player on the Thunder, A+ appearances in the book. Sir Jabaka of the core players on the team, I thought was the most reflective and most open with you. We're going to get to him. Scott Para, who coach James Harden in high school, and then at Arizona State, is maybe the MVP of the book. And he, along with, I don't know how you found this guy, the guy who drove James Harden to the airport when he got traded in that monumental trade from Oklahoma City to use it. So I want to start because that trade is one of the main fulcrums of the book. It breaks up the team. It scars, I think, almost everybody involved in some way. It and the 2012 finals where they lose to the heat. And there's a very controversial no call on a Kevin Durant shot that could have tied the game or free throws get a tied to game and game two. Maybe they go up to oh, you posit other people around James Harden, posit that if they win that championship, it's hard and content to kind of stay there as a quote unquote sidekick. They don't and everything sort of spirals from there. That trade is like the main event of the book. How'd you find the driver? Just doing that deep research. I don't want to give away any of my tricks, but there was there was a way where I go back and read just about everything I can from every angle. And he was mentioned in a story before. And he's still I think he's still running that limousine service to this day in Oklahoma City. Can you tell people what the driver's memory of James Harden's state of mind is as he's the trade is done? I don't even know if the trade's public yet, but James knows about it and he's on his way to Houston and what James is is upset about in the car. Yeah, so basically that night and it's one of those nights where people remember where they were in the NBA circles where when James Harden got traded, he picked up James from his house supposed to take him to to the airport. And according to him, James is just about crying. That's how shocked he is over this trade. And according to the driver, Sam gave him one hour to decide. Granted, this is the negotiations and going on for a long time. And the Rockets had to get James in order to get him a new contract within that window. So basically it just came down to that one hour window when James had to decide whether to accept the Thunder's offer or not, which was less than the max. It's four years 54, which seems quite charming now and is less than the max. But he was upset. I do you have the driver saying remembering James saying something like, I can't believe after all we went through, I got an ultimatum in an hour to make this decision. Yeah, I mean, you talk about what is and there's so many what is, you know, the Derek Rose rule where the Thunder had to pay more to Kevin Durant because of what he did on the court. I've forgotten about that that he kind of got grandfathered into that. Yeah, and they were really, really squeezed for space back then. You know, back then, we think about the NBA and the Western Conference ran through all the bigs with the Lakers with Gassal and Bynum and Odom and Dirk Navisky and Dallas and San Antonio with Duncan. They had to get big. So they needed a guy like Kendrick Perkins. They had to pay Kendrick and the NBA changed so quickly after that. There's, you know, so many what is we talk about that 2012 series when they're in Miami for the three middle games. That's a long time for that young team to be in Miami. I can go through a big rabbit hole with all these. What is they talk about that? I mean, Perk talked about that in his book about Miami and somewhere I lost the page. Ibaka talks about like for us as a young team. That was almost he doesn't really go into he doesn't really say explicitly like anyone was partying or we were up late or James was up late. I mean, James Floundering and that finals. I think turned out to be one of the omens of like, uh, oh, is there something on the big stage with this guy. But Serge talks about like, we were young. We were cool. We were in the finals. We played in a small midwestern town in suddenly. We're in Miami for a week like it kind of got to us. Yeah, that's the kids at Disneyland, especially after they, yeah, they won that first game and they think that they're on the verge of winning an NBA finals that the Miami Heat had lost in the finals a year before. I want to go back to the heart and trade. And I mentioned Scott Perra who is his assistant who is an assistant coach at Arizona State when James was there and coach him in high school. Here is an anecdote that I had never heard that you unearthed in this book. In the summer at summer league in July and Las Vegas when James is a restricted free agent. And that was the thing, right? They could have just kept him for another year. And anyway, I think they could have kept him for another year and then he would have been a restricted free agent or whatever it was. Um, Perra is there. This assistant coach is there in Las Vegas. He runs into Sam Fresty and you get him to talk about this meeting with Sam Fresty and Sam asks him, according to Perra, do you think he'll take a little less? And Perra says less than the max and Perra tells him that he's not sure. And then he remembers Fresty saying to him, well, doesn't James want to win? And then Perra responds to Fresty. Sam, let me ask you a question. Do Russell and Kevin want to win? And Perra sensed Fresty became offended. And he ends the story by by telling you, I don't even know if I've ever told James that story. And what he means by, do you think Kevin and Russell want to win is they took, they got the max, different variations of it, but the max. That's an explosive little piece of business right there. And it shows, as does what you write afterwards, that part of this decision was straight up money. They wanted him to take less. And I think one of the reasons they wanted him to take less, I'm just gonna read exactly your words. As the deadline approach, Pressedi ruminated over the decision. Discussions with the team's decision maker centered on whether James was as committed to winning as Kevin and Russell were, and willing to continue to sacrifice for the team. The franchise worried whether James would take care of himself, or if he would allow partying to become a priority during the off season. They wondered if they got a glimpse into the future through James's underwhelming finals performance in a city with a bustling nightlife. Now there's anonymous sources obviously are talking to you there, but I mean, I always thought the James Harden trade was about a little of everything. It was about money. It was about what the taking less money symbolized. It was about the boat party stuff that had surfaced that summer in his conditioning, his crunch time. It was like all of it wrapped into one. And that's basically kind of what you're saying, but that first conversation with Pera, when he told you that, you must have been like, oh boy, that's good stuff. Whenever you, whenever somebody ends up quote, what did I don't even know if I told James this, you know, that's going in. But you look at the Thunder organization and where they were coming from. There's so many experts who came over to the Thunder, right? And who did the, who did the Spurs have? They had Manu Genobli for so long. And he's a six man extraordinaire content in his role to be the six man win championships. I think that the Thunder wanted James to be Manu 2.0. He was never going to be Manu 2.0. He was just too talented and too good. And I think one of the other quotes as this book continues to report and James goes to Houston that really resonated with me is that my Dan Tony was really skeptical over whether James could keep producing the way that he could night after night and night after night. He's just, in his head, he's like, nobody can do this at the level he's doing it. And James kept doing it. And ultimately, I don't think it was James Partying or him going out that was a detractor for his own play. I think he just had this type of metabolism to where his other teammates couldn't keep up with him. And that was the ultimate thing. It wasn't James being the part of you because being able to accomplish what he accomplished. Oh, you know, it's amazing. You're not going to be off of your game and be able to produce the numbers that he did. I mean, modernize the game's offensive. Yeah, you get into the origin of the step back three. And like one of the cool things about the book and I don't want to spoil all of it is, you follow these three stars throughout the course of their career, Russus career in the NBA is now ended, but you go into James Harden and Chris Paul and that dynamic breaking apart. And then James and Russ reuniting. You follow Kevin through all of his meandering journeys around the league, which is, you know, currently still meandering in Houston, although they look very good. The other kind of focal point of the Thunder history is obviously the 2016 Western Conference Finals against the Warriors where the Warriors come back from a 3-1 lead. Clay Thompson has the game of his life in game six to save their season. They lose Golden State then ends up losing in the finals, which sort of frees Kevin to make his decision to leave the Thunder. I'm going to let you talk about Kevin's decision, but I've mentioned Anthony Morrill as one of the stars of the book. And you always get, there's always one role player in all of these books that's like showing up big, gives absolutely no fucks about what stories he's telling and like, it's just gleeful. So he's talking about after that season ends, the cabs win the title. Shortly after their season ended, Morrill visited a cigar bar with Kevin and his manager, Charlie Bell. Kevin told Morrill that LeBron James had confided in him, Kevin Durant, that he was glad that Golden State had knocked the Thunder out. The Cavaliers who advanced to be Golden State in the finals preferred playing the Warriors over Oklahoma City. I ain't making that up, Morrill said. They can get mad at me for saying it, but I believe it because it was a real intense series. You must have been like amazing. Did you get to run that by LeBron? I did not, but you know, Anthony swore on it for everything, but it's funny when somebody says, I ain't making it up. You all, that's another one. You know, like, oh, that's going in the book. If you remember how the Thunder word that season, they beat the Spurs and the Spurs were a dominant team. That was really, really a big surprise. And then they go up three, one on Golden State and they just look like world beaters at that point. It was incredible. I mean, I vividly remember. I'll just say this now, like, I texted Sam Pressy after game four. And I was like, hey, man, I know you're not going to respond to this. Like, you don't do this, but like, I can't even believe how well your team is playing. And I hope it keeps up. And I always regretted sending it because I was like, it's they haven't won the series yet. But it was awe inspiring what they were doing to the Warriors. It really was. So I think the rest of the league was very, very scared of that 2016 team. And even just going back a little bit farther about all the what is. Like, we haven't even talked about the Thunder being better in 12, 13. Then they were in 12 after they traded away. James Harden got Kevin Martin and they got Daryl because of Russell Westberg's injury when Pat Bev colliding into him. Troy Weaver, who also talks to you a lot in this book. Now he's in New Orleans with Joe Dumards, but came up under Sam Presti and recruiting everyone for in Syracuse there in that area in DC. He talks a lot about like ironically, we had our best team and maybe our best chance in that year after we traded James. You look at their offensive metrics and they were off the charts that season. Anyway, back to 2016, Anthony Moro and Kevin Durant. You mentioned before we started taping that there's some spicy Kevin Durant quotes in this book that you got from him. He talked to you as Kevin does. He's very reflective and very open with this time when he wants to be. I have some guesses as to what spicy quotes you're talking about, but you just spice it up. Tell me what you have in mind. Back then, again, it was a different NBA. So you couldn't imagine trading somebody as pivotal to your team as James without consulting with your star players. But Kevin talked about how Sam Presti didn't talk with him at all before the trade. He talked, Kevin talked about teams just not being afraid as of the thunder moving forward after they traded James at James gave them something that they just didn't have otherwise. Somebody who could provide 30 off the bench, even though that next season with Kevin Martin they were obviously excelling and doing really, really well. Kevin talked about not necessarily wanting a trophy or a statue in Oklahoma City that he just wanted to kind of play basketball and if they recognize his towns and think good, but if not, he was there on a mission. I think part of the issue too was that for so long, he really, really represented not just the Oklahoma City thunder, but Oklahoma City. And he put that city on the map like they had never been before. So that was another reason why that breakup just hit so hard when it did happen. I thought you were going to say this quote from Kevin, but the stuff about him not being involved at all in the hardest trade or not being asked, not being consulted, but bring the more jalapeno. This is him reflecting on why he left the thunder to go to the warriors. And obviously his burner accounts as you detail in the book did some self-reflecting of their own about why he made that decision. We wasn't playing the basketball that I wanted to play in O.K.C. Kevin told me. I had history there and I was there for the longest, but I was more so about what type of basketball I were playing. I felt that we had reached our peak with that team and how we wanted to play. I wanted something new. When did he tell you that? Because you've obviously been in the business that could be from an old story, but I don't remember reading that quote. And it's pretty God damn direct. No, he told me when I went to talk to him for this book, he was still a member of the Phoenix Sons. I mean, and you have on the previous page, you have in there that he and Nick Collison, who I'm guessing did not talk to you because he works for the thunder. Bingo. Royale IV, who is a rising coach in the league will probably be a head coach soon. They all have a dinner together with Kevin after the 2016 season. And some people let that dinner under the impression that Kevin has said he's staying. And Kevin disagrees with that impression. So tell me, tell me, dig into that a little bit with me as well as what, as well as just sort of reaction to Kevin's directness about why he left. Yeah. You know, no one's Kevin, I can, or speaking to Kevin before I can probably guess that he was probably non-committal at that dinner, probably allowing people to take from it what they wanted to. As far as Kevin leaving, I think he felt like he had just reached a peak of what that thunder team could do even though the rest of the league fared him. I think they had ran up against that wall one too many times for him. And he saw what they had created in Golden State. Saw that it was fun and free-willing and happy and just pure basketball. I mean, he talked about some of the almost role players who were quoted in the book. For me, one of the big MVP's was Sean Livingston. He's great. He had a lot of good money quotes. And he was like trying to do that time in Golden State like there's a lot of games we could have just rolled out the ball in one. And that's what it was like even watching it in Golden State during those, you know, two plus seasons before the injuries happened and that third playoff run. One of the things that has always surprised me about Kevin and Rich Climbing and other people in his circle and you get into it in the book is he was and I think still is a little surprised that his move to the Warriors was never going to be accepted in this, I shouldn't say that, his achievements with the Warriors after moving there were never going to have quite the weight that he wanted them to have because that he, of him joining this conglomerate of stars and that he comes to the realization, he talks to you about this, that, you know, he's never going to be Steph Curry there, it's never going to be his city, he's always going to be somewhat of an outsider. That, as soon as he made that decision, like you do whatever you want, I don't begrudge you making the decision for your life happiness for your basketball and all that. But it's surprising to me that he still doesn't seem or didn't seem anyway to understand how it was going to be received because to me, it was like quite obvious how it was going to be received then and historically. Yeah, and maybe when you're in it, you just can't see the bigger picture from the outside, I think the modern discourse has always been so much about rings and where you want to put people and you don't want to be on TV 20 something years later, like Charles Barkley still talking about the rings you didn't win, right? Yeah, shackle hit him once every two months with a comment. Exactly. That's, you're never going to hear the end of it. So, you know, do I put Gretchen, no, and, you know, and he, he was MVP of both those finals. So it's not like he like stepped in and just, you know, was the eighth man coming off the bench. He was pivotal and crucial. Whether goal of the state would have won without him, I mean, they're damn good before. I'm going to read, I'm just going to give you a list of interesting things from the book that I just like and you can just talk, like at the end, just pick one or two and talk about them. The reason why Kevin Durantware is number 35, I had forgotten about the draft debate between Russell Westbrook and Brooke Lopez in the Thunder's front office, which I remember I had one of their former analytics people on my podcast years and years and years ago, who talked about that, but I didn't realize that it was PJ Carlisimo, capping for Brooke Lopez. James Hardin thinking about coming out a year earlier, another great what if and he probably would have been a lottery pick according to your reporting a late lottery pick and deciding not, not to do it. Wally Serbiac weirdly lobbying aggressively for PJ Carlisimo to get fired throughout his tenure with the Sonics. That's another good one. And the last one, well, this is just a joke. Clay Bennett sounding like Homer Simpson in that his dream was to be the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Homer, of course, was gifted Denver Broncos by Hank Scorpio and not the Dallas Cowboys and he was disappointed about it. And I think you might be the first person ever and this is the last one to find somebody who worked in Oklahoma City with the Thunder to say something even mildly critical about Sam Prestee's managerial style, address any of those. So the managerial style, it was that the in game announcer for a long time and, you know, Sam is very, very thoughtful about every single aspect of that organization. He has, you know, influence over everything. You look at sports and it's so rare to have that one voice for as long as the franchise has been in existence. So even like some of the in game entertainment, this guy's hearing feedback from Sam on and he's kind of like, okay, at what point do you have too much on your plate to where like I can have this responsibility to just do this and do my job and feel like I can do it okay. So I can, I can understand his position while he's urbex, he was, he was funny because he was just with that team for that short amount of time. But he said that he had worked with Scott Brooks and was very instrumental in Scott being an assistant coach and foresaw that he would be a good hit coach for that team. He was talking about, you know, like, I think Wally may still be upset about some of the offensive sets that they're running for Kevin back in the day. You still upset to Tyrese Halleward made the all-star team two years ago while he holds his grudges. Then, yeah, and PJ was standing for Brooke Lopez, the Seattle Super songs at that time had run through centers where you had like Johann Petro and Robert Swift and guys who just weren't panting out. And the way the NBA was built back then, you know, you even go back to Kevin's draft where it was a heavy, heavy debate between Kevin and Greg Oden at that top pick and Portland obviously chose Greg Oden because that's the way the NBA was built back then. Even though, by the way, as you remind us in the book, Kevin Pritchard, who is the GM of the blazers at the time, comes out talking about Kevin's workout for them. Like, it was the best goddamn workout he'd ever seen a basketball player have. And he still don't pick him because maybe he can't bench press. That's not, I don't think that was why. But it was, it was a good reminder that like, they had it right in front of them and they publicly talked about what they had right in front of them and went the other way. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Nate, who's coaching the tribulations at that time. But, you know, Brooke Lopez obviously, still in the league now is at a very, very solid career. So, you know, PJ, it was, at some point, just Sam was to PJ was like, okay, like I've heard you enough on this. I understand where you're coming from. We're still taking Russell. Well, I mean, the be going to Sam press these background as, as, you know, he was the reason the Spurs drafted Tony Parker, he'll never take credit for it publicly like that. But he was the one who fought for it. He was the one who won over people who were worried that Tony Parker wasn't ready to be picked at the level he was picked at by the Spurs. And look, I don't, I don't want to go through the whole book, but the Brooke Lopez thing, the funder center position is also one of the great woodiffs in the book. And you have more reporting on here than I can ever remember reading about the Tyson Chandler rescinded trade, which is another like, oh my God. What if they had gotten prime Tyson Chandler, they never then make the Perkins trade. Perkins was fine for them, but, you know, unready to play in the finals against Chris Bosch at center. You talk about how there were people on the staff in Oklahoma City that wondered whether Scotty was, quote, scared to bench Perkins in that series. And I remember the heat players being like, like in shock that they just kept starting this guy game. I forget like a gleeful shock. But that center position, what if is also kind of a through line in the book. And you get, this is, you get into all of this. This is a definitive account of the book. Is there anything else? Is there anything we didn't hit or anything I mentioned that as an aside that you wanted to get into or just the floor is yours? I think just quickly talking about their need to get the center that they traded away Jeff Green. And Jeff Green was really the first chip in that armor or bursting the bubble of thunder you to where, you know, there were kids just trying to get better. Just basketball was their complete focus. They weren't worried about money, about stature, about image. And then it was the reality that, oh, we can't all get paid together. We can't all be professionals throughout our career when they traded away Jeff Green. They all talked about that being a very, very, very pivotal moment. You talk about Jeff talks to you a lot too. I think for the book and he's always very reflective of his career in his time with thunder. Look, this is just like a taste. I just, I just rattle off like seven topics that are wonderfully fleshed out in the book. Scott Brooks is a great character in the book. I, I know about his journey as a player and the minor leagues that he played in, but there's a, there's a story in there that just made me laugh hysterically about Scott Brooks and I think the ABA or whatever minor league he was playing in. The book is right here for people who are watching a video when we were young and fearless. Kevin Russell James in the making of the modern NBA. And that actually reminds me of another question I wanted to ask you. You made a clear editorial decision in this book that you were going to refer to the three main characters by their first names and not their last names, which is unconventional in journalism. Why did you make that decision? Because the book was about them. It was about these three guys and their careers them coming together and what they did throughout the, the league. So I made that decision because I wanted the reader to become very, very familiar. A lot of times it's almost detached when they're using, or when an author is using the last names over and over again. So that's why it got, I was like, should I keep this like once I start talking about LeBron James, you know, James Harden, I'm talking about James Harden and using James, but, you know, I think it made sense throughout. It works. It does, it does give the book a sense of familiarity and a sense of like how young these guys are when they first come together and just think Jonathan Abrams, formerly of the August New York Times, back in the day, you would have not been able to do it. You would have been writing for the times, Mr. Harden, Mr. Westbrook, Mr. Durant. The book is fantastic. This is like everything that is on here is this podcast is like merely a teaser for the depth that you go into, and it's written in a style that everyone who's read you will know. Look, man, I'm proud to have worked with you. I'm proud to have been a part of Grandland. I'm thrilled to talk with you now, and I can't wait for people to devour this book and it to hit number one on the Times bestseller list because you deserve it all. Jonathan Abrams, you're the man, and thank you for your time. I appreciate you so much, that. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lo Show. Thanks to Ty Jerome of the Memphis Grizzlies for making some time. They're in Portland ahead of tonight's John Morampal. Thanks to my old buddy, Jonathan Abrams, buy his book when we were young and fearless about the Oklahoma City Thunder. Thanks as always to Mike, Billy, and Jonathan on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and/or watching the Zach Lociel. We'll be back Monday after a weekend of NBA action and hopefully not a weekend of any more major injuries. Thanks again, see you soon. (upbeat music) 21 over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Starkistino or 18 and over and president in DC or Wyoming. 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