Giannis and Sengun Set for EPIC EuroBasket Showdown | Will Turkey UPSET Greece?

Giannis and Sengun Set for EPIC EuroBasket Showdown | Will Turkey UPSET Greece?

It is locked on NBA game night for the night of September 9th. On today’s show, Alpurn, Sangun, and Giannis will meet in the next round at Eurob Basket. Josh Giddy re-ups with the Bulls and more details about what the Raptors did not offer. Kawhi Leonard. When that final buzzer rings, you know it’s time for locked on NBA Game Night. All the postgame reactions to every game across the league, every single night with insights only the hosts at Locked On can provide. It’s the true NBA fans one stop for all the action every game, every night. It’s locked on NBA Game Night tipping off now. All right, what’s up everybody? Welcome to an offseason edition of Locked on NBA Game Night. Wes Goldberg here with Tony East. However you might be tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for making Locked on NBA your first listen every day. Jam-packed show for you today. Be recording this after Tuesday’s Eurob basket games. Turkey and Greece move on. Tony, Turkey looks amazing in this tournament. They beat Poland 91 to 77. Uh, close game until the second quarter and then Turkeykey’s defense just turns it up. They cruise to a win. Alber Shangu 19 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists in a very rare Euro basket, triple double. I think I read somewhere he’s like the youngest player ever to have a triple double. He’s 23 years old and Euro basket. He’s just one been he’s been one of the best players in this tournament, Tony. Yeah, he’s been sensational. And it’s I It’s weird because I was talking to somebody about Shenun earlier today. I was like, is this a level up? Is this what because I consider him pretty good like and close to this level, but he’s like dominating this tournament is the clear focal point, which he’s always been mostly a focal point, but not the guy. You know, it makes you really wonder what the this year’s going to look like for him on the Rockets because he’s awesome. And all it takes for him is, you know, fringe NBA guys and Shane Lark and Cheddy Osman and FK on Corkmas. And he can tear up a tournament. Like this is for many of these teams, especially with France already out and Slovenia Germany’s one of them is going to lose and uh I forget the other upset off the top of my head. There was one more. Like this is some of these teams best chance ever at a medal. And like if if if ShenGun gets Turkey to something awesome, like that’s a huge deal for them and he’s playing like he knows it. So, Rockets fans will call him baby Jokic, right? He’s got an opportunity to do something Jokic has never done, which is win the Euro. That’s a team I missed. Obviously, Joic’s team lost too. Serbia. Yeah. Uh, Joic’s team or Yoic’s team. It’s debatable, but whatever. Um, I want to read you this quote from Furkan Corkm. Obviously, Alpran Shangun’s Turkish teammate there. He said, quote, and remember Corkm, for people who don’t remember, played for the 76ers at one point. Um he says quote I think Joel Embiid was the best player best center I was playing with but I think we can tell that it’s Albrun Chenun now it’s great to be around him he’s enjoying basketball and he helps us a lot on the court both defensively and offensively I think he’s a special kid and every day he’s trying to give his maximum and this year we are also seeing that he’s playing aggressive defense too not only offense and that gives us a lot of confidence on the court has been good defensively I mean against Serbia in that big game um that they played to basically get the the I don’t know if they call it the one seated nerve or the whatever the top spot out of their group. Um he had the game-winning steel in that game. So he’s he’s been switching out defensively. He’s been obviously amazing on the boards as he always is and it’s just even more so uh against Euro basket competition. And you asked that key question, what if like if he levels up, what does that mean? He’s 23 years old. He played in his first playoff series last year, averaged like 21 points and 12 rebounds and four assists or something crazy like a really good first series where he was a very he was he was a real factor and his physical presence was a real factor I thought in that series despite the loss in seven games. Um but if he levels up on a Rockets team with Kevin Durant like that’s that’s what it is for Houston, right? Like that’s what the path would look like for the Rockets to somehow make it out of the Western Conference is for Shenun to build off of this and play like this. Yeah, I agree. The thing you said about his defense is interesting because the FIA rules make him like more capable of being a good defender. That’s not to take away from what he’s doing because he is playing in a FIA setting and looks awesome. He needs to take that to a more spread out NBA and that’s where he could really level up if it’s like oh he’s like a really awesome positive defender like watch out because of what you just said. He’s with Kevin Durant now and you could say Kevin Durant at age I forget if he’s 38 or 39 but older, right? and Shenun who’s ascending like neither of them are maybe like your ideal top 1A option right now for a contender but if you have like the ve two very best onebs together on an elite defensive team otherwise like that is a a setup that works very well and of course we did you know our verses a couple weeks ago with Houston and Denver like I would have to rethink how I feel about you know who the the second best player on the Rockets is and who you know all that stuff if Shenun is really this good and can be like the all the time engine and I guarantee there’s Rockets fans listening who maybe have already commented like you idiots he’s always been this good and like a lot of people have said that and they’re probably right. I just feel like personally in my time watching him this is the best that I’ve seen him play and he’s had to carry this turkey team and has done it literally every game. Like he’s almost averaging a triple double in a 40-minute game right now. He’s 22 11 and seven. So I thought he leveled up in the playoffs last year. He was good. And I don’t care what Rockets fans tell you. Oh, he was always No, I I don’t know cuz that was his first playoff series. I have no idea if he was always able to do that. Maybe you thought he was, but we didn’t know until we actually saw it. Um I tried to rattle off the stats. I was really close. Uh I was uh I said 21 points and like 12 rebounds. It was 20.9 points and 11.9 rebounds per game in the playoffs. I had that. Um five points. So I I unders I undersold him on the assist and 1.9 steals per game for Houston in the playoffs last year. He was really good. Now the shooting percentages weren’t awesome. 45% overall. You’d like that to be a little bit better the way that it’s been in Euro Basket. But um I all I know is that his physicality translated and that’s the biggest question I have with especially with young bigs is can you be this physical? Can you play this level of playoff postseason type of basketball when everything is more physical? And for me, Shangon answered that last playoffs and I think that is maybe what he’s carrying over into Euro Basket and he’s just going to carry that over. It’s just a bridge right into what could be a really big season. We’ve already seen Kevin Durant talking him up on social media and stuff and I think it’s fair to say he’s the best center already that Kevin Durant has ever played with and I do wonder what that just looks like. Uh Kendrick Perkins. I’m so funny. Um yeah, I agree. They were and Poland’s good, man. Like to beat them handily is impressive. I would like to close us with a salute to Jordan Lloyd for balling out this tournament. uh barely made the NBA. News breakers are news breakakers are talking about where he’s going now. He played that well for Bullet. I love it. He averaged 224 points per game on 49% shooting. Salute to you Indie uh at one time guy Jordan Lloyd. Congratulations on your international taking those deep step threes in these games. I love it. Like I love the swagger. Um let’s talk about the other game. Greece beats Lithuania 87 to 76. This one was closer than they wanted. They had to play Giannis basically towards the end all the way to the end of this one because Lithuania kind of battled back. It was like a six-point game. I think it was like 76 to 70 at one point with like three minutes left, but Greece pulls away. Um, shout out again. Salute to Lithuania. What a run. Jonas Valentunes was awesome for them. 24. No sabonis and they did this well. Yeah. Yeah. And Valenunis filled in those shoes, right? 24 points, 15 rebounds in this game. Was awesome basically the entire tournament. But Giannis has just been arguably the best player in the tournament. him, Shangun, Luca, like those are the guys. Uh, Giannis 29 points on 60% shooting in this one and a couple of yams. Like some real serious yams in this one, Tony. Yeah, Kosas was good, too. And on to the Kmpo game today. But yeah, they look Giannis has been they they even rested him because they wanted to dominate. Like he’s making like seven or eight out of every 10 shots he’s taking in this tournament, especially from inside the arc. Today was actually like a down shooting game for him and he was nine for 15 from the field. 60. So it looks unfair sometimes like it does. Does I at the NBA level it look unfair sometimes to be fair right to the to the competition but like in the NBA it’s it looks unfair when he just gets the ball in the open court and it’s just either like a steal and go or something like that and there’s just nobody around him. He’ll get the ball and there’ll be like three guys around him and it looks like there’s nobody around him. He just does like one dribble move and next thing you know he’s like dunking over the entire team and it’s just it’s crazy. But here’s the exciting part. Giannis versus Shenun in the next round. Greece versus Turkey. Um that’s going to be awesome. Turkey is the better team. Giannis is obviously the superior player. Although Shenun has been awesome, right? Not not taking anything away from him. But what’s interesting here is that Chenun has or Turkey has so much length that where none of these teams could sort of build the wall that NBA teams will talk about when playing the Milwaukee Bucks. Turkey can kind of build that wall. So, I’m interested to see how this goes. And for a shot at the title, right? Like I don’t know what you think. Maybe it’s Luca, but like Germany loves these international tournaments and they’re awesome. I’d say Germany’s probably the favorite left. Luca’s if they win would be the favorites left. the winner of this game’s like maybe a silver medal favorite. Like that’s a huge thing for these teams in these kind of tournaments. Like Greece had an okay, they were in the Olympics, right? They were just okay. Turkey was not in the Olympics. So big opportunity ahead for both of these teams and two stars are absolutely dominating right now. And it’ll be really fun to see them go against each other in that stage. Yeah, I mean it’s a good point. Like the winner of this looking at the bracket like the winner of this this might be it. This might be the championship game. To be clear, the sides did work out where like most of the good the best teams were on the same side of the bracket and this is not that side. But I do think these are the two best teams uh apologies to Denny who bought I guess Germany Germany is is good. Germany is so good and they they like are crazy because all their team dudes spread out and they’re not in the same league or on the same club teams and they come together every summer and it’s the same eight guys just kicking butt over. It’s crazy, man. They’re awesome. Sylvania is not good. They only have Luca. the rest of that roster is aggressively bad and every game they’ve every game they’ve played has been way too close. So I think Germany beats Slovenia. Then we got Finland versus Georgia. Larry Markin, shout out to him. Rico I mean his trade value. Um so it’ll probably be Finland Germany then Germany probably wins that. Although Finland No, no, no, no, no. Goa, Goa and Sandro are gonna keep it going for Georgia, man. They’ve been Georgia. Go to FanDuel.com uh to go ahead and do that. SEC bias. Spurs and Mavericks. The Spurs and the Mavericks have two of the great young players in the NBA, but which Texas team is better? Talk about that next. Today’s episode of Lock on NBA Game Night is brought to you by 5Hour Energy. Time to fuel up and turn it up with 5Hour Energy Transfusion. This grape, ginger, and lime flavored shot brings the iconic taste of a golf course favorite to a non-alcoholic boost. Perfect for sinking birdies or making great memories with friends. It’s a hole-in-one for your energy game. Whether you’re out on the course or just need a little extra push to power through your day, 5-hour energy transfusion delivers the clubhouse flavor you love without ever leaving the green. They say the game of golf is a good walk ruin. But not if you’re doing it right with 5-hour energy. Who cares about how many strokes you have? What was the first paragraph of this ad copy? 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The best way to support the show is to subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app. This Tony is NBA versus where we pin two teams against the o against each other and ask which team is better. We’re going to do it by deciding four categories. best player, best co-star, best depth, and best coach. The winner of these four categories is the winner and therefore is the best team uh as decided by you and I, which is all that matters. I appreciate you just explaining it to me, which is for the listeners, but I needed it because I keep calling it the wrong thing. So, for inside baseball, I have called this the wrong thing for weeks and I’ve done it five times now. That’s okay. It’s still the offseason. It’s fine. Um, so we’re pitting the Spurs versus the Mavericks against each other. Two Texas teams. Two Texas teams around the same win total projections according to FanDuel probably will finish around the same place. Both built around Young Source, although I guess you could disagree a little bit if you’re Dallas and figure out, okay, who are we built around exactly? But um for the Spurs, we have Victor Wimyama, the Mavericks, uh Cooper Flag, and a bunch of other really interesting players on both of these teams. Where do they finish? Who is better? Let’s start at the top. Best player. This one is pretty debatable, but if we listen to the locked on top 100, it’s Victor Wmanyama there at number seven. Is the best player of this group. Do you agree? With apologies to Anthony Davis, who I think gets a little underrated because his defense is like so awesome every single year. Uh WMBB’s defense is also awesome and probably better and he’s a little better to me, but that is it is closer. Anthony Davis is probably a slightly better offensive player right now. If WMBBY comes in this year with a little more power on that end after his meeting with the Monks and Kevin Garnett and Harry Potter and everybody this off seasonason, I think any step forward from him and it’d be him, it’s already pretty close. I was surprised at the gap between them in our list that you mentioned, but I think this coming year WBY will be better despite that being pretty close. So, I agree. Um, with all due respect to Anthony Davis, let’s also remember that Anthony Davis had like cornea surgery or something. So like TBD uh also a little wrinkle. We don’t know when Kyrie Irving is coming back. So that the co-star one tough too, but yeah. So that is a big wrinkle. So how do you deal with it? Because I the the co-star in San Antonio would be Darren Fox, right? Yep. Is it Cooper flag for Dallas? PJ Washington is all healthy both teams that Kyrie is the answer to this question, right? Like he is clearly the second bet the better second best player. Sure. But I don’t know if he for the season that’s coming. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s not easy. It’s Yeah, it makes it difficult. Like, we got to We’re trying to judge these two teams on the court, right? So, yeah, I’m I’m taking Kyrie out of the equation. I just don’t know when he’s going to be back. I think that’s reasonable. Um that’s always the tricky return timeline when it’s like probably February. It’s like so late in the season. Does it make sense even? And Kyrie hasn’t been known for coming back ahead of schedule. Yes, that’s true. If if uh Anthony Davis is better than WBY, I think that increases the chance that Kyrie would come back because that means the Mavs are probably playing pretty well this year. To me, it’s Fox versus Flag and it has to be Darren Fox. Yeah. The guy we’ve seen play with no offense to Flag who could be spectacular this year. Like I you just never know how good rookies are going to be. And I know that Darren Fox can be the 40th, 35th, 30th best player in the NBA. So yeah, it’s Fox. It very well could end up being Cooper flag, right? But you we can’t in good faith Like, and if it is, right, that tilts this entire equation. But yes, you can’t in good faith sit here and be like, I know that Cooper Flag is going to be better better than Darren Fox. That’s crazy. I thought it was crazy that Cooper Flag ranked 80th on our top 100. I was like, I didn’t vote for him. I don’t think I didn’t vote for him, but not because I don’t think he’s going to be awesome. I just you don’t know. With rookies, you have no idea. I I’m very confident that he’s going to be awesome, but like we got to be realistic about this stuff. You never really know. Yeah. I probably give like an 85% chance he has a better career than Fox, but I’m not picking him right now over the Right. Exactly. So, um, so we’ve got WBY and Darren Fox. Spurs, boom. Take they take the two first two categories. Two categories left. Most depth. Spurs or Mavericks? Uh, the Spurs have a lot of good players. The Mavs have much better depth. Like not significantly, but their front court’s really spectacular. Like they’re going to have two like really really good players coming off the bench in the front court. Maybe three honestly. Like if they start Lively Davis and Flag, that still leaves Gaffford, Marshall, and PJ Washington off the bench. like that is a stacked front court and Clay is like kind of guards front court players sometimes even though he’ll be playing the two. Their guard depth is very flimsy. Uh and the Spurs have way more guard depth, but it’s also like younger and unproven. So, uh advantage Mavs for me here. Yeah, I go Mavs. Um this could really be a pretty significant Mavs bump if somebody like Max Christie or Jaden Hardy or one of these guy Brandt Williams, like one of these guys just pops, which is what Dallas is hoping for in that back court. They did resign D’Angelo Russell. Klay Thompson is still there. I count all of that for depth, right? To me, it’s just beyond the stars. Who are your other good players? And Dallas has a bunch of good young players. I’m like nervous. I’m missing a Spurs guy. There’s a lot. All their depth is like young or unproven. Harrison Barnes, Deon V. Forget L Cornet. I did forget Kelly. Congrats to Kelly Oolen. I did forget you. Yeah, I’m not sure how much that’s a factor. You got traded twice. There’s a lot of teams that think that Kelly Oolen is a good idea. like they’re going to be relying on Harper’s gonna play. They’re going to rely on him. Sohan’s still unproven. Uh Olix a TBD. Castle’s probably good but still unproven. Carter Bryant still unproven. Yeah, they’re just playing Dallas has more proven guys, right? That’s probably a good way to put it. So advantage Dallas, right? Exactly. Um best coach to me. This is obvious. I It’s got to be kid. Yeah. Sorry to Johnson. I just have only seen you coach half a season and I’ve never seen you have a training camp ever. So congrat Jason K’s a good coach. He got him to the finals. He is a good coach. He’s rubs some people the wrong way I think is a fair way to put that. Right. A little he is probably too much of a punching bag cons given his recent accomplishments because the start of his coaching career was not good at all. He does and and he has gotten Dallas to play a few different ways. Yep. and he does tend to get buyin from players and I don’t really know how the Mavericks want to play this year. I’m assuming it’s going to be based on defense because that’s what Nico Harrison wants, but um that’s what Jason Kidd can actually coach up a pretty good defense. So, and he’s got the track record for that. So, I I definitely go uh Kidd for best coach. So, it’s 2-2 Mavs Spurs. Do we want to break the tie here in some way, shape, or form? Man, it’s so tricky for me because a lot of people keep saying they think the Spurs are kind of underrated and I I don’t know how I feel about the Mavs. Like, you’re really relying on D’Angelo Russell being pretty good. I kind of am not digging either of these teams outlooks coming into this year. So, it might just be like which best player actually ends up being better as the better team, but you if you ran 100 simulations, I would guess the Mavs are better like 60% of the time, 65% of the time. Yeah, you’re probably right. They just have so much depth and we got to remember it’s an 82 game season. Injuries are going to happen. Injuries will probably happen to Webinyama. And if he misses 15 games, like that could just be enough, right? To to make them a worse team record-wise than than Dallas. I’m going to go slightly into Dallas here. My biggest my biggest concern with the Spurs is I do feel like we’re way too early on them. I feel like we’re too early. And I’m like, look, I don’t know that Dylan I love Dylan Harper. I don’t know that he’s good. I we saw five games of Darren Fox and Victor web. I got to just see more of this before I want to get super early on them. My biggest concern with Dallas is I don’t know who gets into the paint and who creates offense for them. Unless it’s Cooper Flag. And despite everything we just said about Cooper Flag, I actually have a lot of confidence that Cooper Flag is going to be able to be a pretty good playmaker for this team. If he can be the playmaker that they need, then to me, this is easily Dallas. It’s like going away Dallas. But if he’s not and if Anthony Davis misses time and if Kyrie Irving never comes back then and Victor Wyama has a healthier season than he did the last couple seasons, then it could easily be the Spurs. So I’m waffling here. Tony Kyrie returns. It’s easy Mavs to me too because then they’ll have 30% of the season where they’re just they’re just better like on paper and in practice and then they still have your question of who gets into the paint. So there’s way more ways that the Mavs are the better team to me. There’s also like an odd I don’t this is a decent chance like 10 15 20% where we’re just like ohy’s just the best. Right. Right. The other the Yeah. The other scenario is that Webyama is we ranked him seven in our top 100 and that might not have been high enough. Like it turns out that he’s the third best player in the league. That’s not unreasonable to me. It’s not. And he’s like, “Oh, this guy just carried them to the Spurs 50 wins and then that’s it.” So, uh TBD uh coming up next, more details on Kawhai’s demands as a free agent and the team that passed up on him. giving him uh passed up on giving him what the Clippers allegedly did. That plus the Bulls get their guy coming up next. [Music] All right, it’s time to wrap up our Tuesday episode the way we always do. It’s time for buy or sell. Josh Giddy has agreed on a 4-year $100 million deal to ressign with the Bulls. Tony, buy or sell this deal for the Bulls. I like it. I like apparently I like Giddy more than I other people uh contractually. I actually had him lower than we all did in the top 100, but he made it on my list and he made it into the top 100. He’s clearly a starting level player and he’s making like 13 to 15% of the cap the next four years. And I would actually probably guess there’s some funny money in the fourth year because of how much negotiations went on here. Careful with that. Careful. How funny is this money? Oh yeah. I mean funny money like non-G guaranteed or option money, not like planting trees in Chicago money. Um, yeah. Well, you you know how this goes. Like when it’s a round number like a hundred million, it’s always like the agent is so thrilled that that it’s 100 million. It’s actually 90 guaranteed or something like that. We’ll see. Um, but I I Giddy’s fine. Like he’s clearly a starting level guard to me. He’s got to work on some stuff defensively and maybe as a shooter, although he got better in that way. So, I think it’s fine. It there’s probably more upside for Giddy than the Bulls, I would say. But it he’s young and good enough that if you’re a bad team, it’s fine. I’m buying this for Josh Giddy, right? The reports were start the negotiations started at four years $80 million. They upped that to four years $88 million. This is all according to reporting out of Chicago. Um four years$88 million. I think that was last week. And then they just bumped it to $100 million. So for in a couple months he went from an $80 million four-year offer to a hundred million four-year offer. That’s a big difference. That’s $20 million for people who are not that good at math. Um, look, I I think that Josh Gideon’s representation, they knew that the Bulls had to pay him after they traded Alex Caruso for him. They g they they decided not to trade Caruso for draft capital and all this stuff. And people, you know, crushed the Bulls for that trade in the first place. I’m like you. I kind of think Josh Giddy’s good. I I did not have a problem with that trade for Chicago. Like people, oh, they have to get a first round pick. I’m like, why? They got Josh Giddy. He was the sixth pick in the draft a couple years ago. He’s a good player. He just didn’t fit with Oklahoma City. Whatever. I thought he was really good for the Bulls down the stretch last year. Um, so they take a shot on him, but when you do that, you kind of have to resign him, right? And so I think I think Giddy and his representation knew it. They did the right way. They they did the right thing in holding out. They might be the only restricted free agent situation that actually kind of gets a W out of this summer. I bet Grimes does, but that’s just I I have no reason to think that. But I agree with everything you just said. Basically, the only thing that made me sad is going into the break you said the Bulls get their guy. It’s a little sad that that Josh Kitty’s their guy. He’s good, but it’s like that that is their best player. It’s funny that you said that because I was like, was that the right way to tease that? That’s kind of Kobe White’s better than him. Maybe, but like he’s not who knows if he’ll be on the team a year from now. So, it’s rough. Um, according to the Toronto Star, Kawhi Leonard had a list of demands for the Toronto Raptors in 2019 that included a 10% ownership stake in the Toronto Maple Leafs and a similar no-show sponsorship deal. buy or sell Toronto’s decision not to give in to these reported listed demands. So, throw in some double negatives at Hold on, hold on. Do we know that they weren’t going to or did they just not get him and not have to? Okay, correct. Right. So, buy or sell Toronto’s not doing that. Yes. For whatever reason. Well, clearly like the fact that Leonard got intertwined with three teams, right? Lakers Clippers and Raptors is is allegedly like following the tea leaves of other people who are better at reporting and more connected than me like why this got out because there were some sour grapes, right? So if the Raptors had gotten him and I believe that the same company owns the Raptors and Maple Leafs. So like wink wink if you you know blink twice if you’re okay on that one. Um if he get went to the Raptors like would both LA teams have thrown a fit about it anyway? So like just and my Messiah Jiri got fired from the Raptors. So he’s all I don’t know that he’s the source on this. I don’t know that he’s not the source on this, right? But he’s not I’m not going to guess. But it is uh look, it’s just it is a shocking amount of circumstantial evidence is all I will say. Um Uncle Dennis man just keeps asking for stuff. I’m surprised that if this is all true, I’m a little surprised that it took this long to get out. But I guess within the fraternity of basketball, there’s a sort of this like, hey, like he asked for this. That’s what I’m saying though, that it got out the first time in negotiations and then once he’s on the Clippers, like how’s it going to happen, you know? Right. It’s very strange. Um, this whole thing is very strange. Governor’s meeting coming this week. Uh, you’re going to hear a lot about that on this locked on NBA feed because you’re guaranteed to hear some uh very pissy owners about this situation. Guaranteed. All I there there better be a real penalty to this. Like I’m I’m at the point even without a smoking gun. I think they have enough like come on guys. Like I don’t like this. People act like also this has to clear some sort of like legal precedent. This isn’t the judicial branch. This has nothing to do with that. It’s you have one guy at the top who can make this decision. Literally it’s in the constitution. He Adam Silver gets to make all of these decisions. You don’t have to clear some sort of legal benchmark, right? That doesn’t exist. This is not the Supreme Court. All you have to do is say, “Hey, the public trust in our salary cap,” which is, by the way, if I’m Adam Silver, my crown jewel. It’s sort of the whole thing I’ve built my owner my my my commissionership around is this salary cap. And now I’ve got the richest owner in the world trying to circumvent it or at least seemingly trying to circumvent it. I’m sorry. Whether you did it or not, you look stupid and you’re going to get punished for it. Yeah, that it’s it’s that simple. We keep talking about like precedent and smoking guns. Like that doesn’t matter. The guy who’s so proud of the fact that all these different teams keep winning the championship. Like that’s because of this the system makes it hard to keep your team together and build a sustainable one. And the other part of that is this is the best comp I heard. I don’t remember the exact term for it, but like in college for a while there used to be a term that coach would be like, I had no idea my assistant coach was giving chips bags full of money to these recruits. It’s like not knowing is not a defense, right? You should know what’s going on in your program. And I forget the term that that was that colleges have been punished for using basically that the plausible deniability. Plausible deniability. Yeah. Like that’s a fair thing to say is like, okay, Steve Bomber, maybe you didn’t mean to have this happen, but like you should know about, you know, where the money entanglement of all this like or someone with the Clippers should know. And that was the most compelling. Like, okay, even without evidence, I think a punishment does make some sense, even though I don’t know exactly what that should be. Oh, I think you remember when SMU football got hit? Yeah. Blowing them up. Blowing them up. It was like it was the death blow to the program. Yeah. Wow. If if they truly find a smoking gun, then yes, that is 100% going to happen. Like, no more first round picks. Goodbye to Kawhai. Like, all of it. If they can’t find a smoking gun, I think plausible liability. They should still be punished. But I don’t think you can do that without knowing for sure they definitely intentionally did this. Crushing. Uh, last thing here. During saying I would not be a good commissioner. I’d be very bad at acting on your behalf. During a summer where he’s already spent time with monks in China and Kevin Garnett, Victor Webbyama has been seen working with Hakee Elijahan. Tony Buyer Cell Webby learning a thing or two from the dream. I did not know this. That is cool. Isn’t this awesome? Wow. Yeah, he’s met everybody, man. Every pick of him this summer, I’m like, that’s so cool. What a summer for Wendy. Uh yeah, obviously he thinks he can learn something from him, right? That’s why he’s working with him. And um the dream could do a little bit everything, man. So I don’t have any like super deep nuance to take about this besides that it’s good for women to be learning. So it’s a buy. Okay. I’m buying it. Yes. And if I’m the team and I’m like I would like to be tied to trading this man. So yes, Victor Wmanyama who is incredible. Yep. but has zero postgame. Like zero footwork. Like there’s no skill. There’s no finesses. He can do it. Right. Spurs fans don’t get upset. Obviously, I’ve seen the guy. Yes. He has zero footwork skills. Okay. And that’s fine. He’s like 14 years. Whatever. I don’t know how old he is. Like if he can get 10% of what Hakee Lawan was able to do. Like watch out. Okay. Like that’s this is hu I love that Hakee Majouan is working with Victor. Were you in the building for Thomas Bryant’s like reaction to Wemby? Was that a game in Miami? You have to elaborate a little bit more. So there was a there was a play where Thomas Bryant was guarding Victor Wyama and when Thomas Bryant was on the Heat and I believe it was a preseason game and WBY just like turned around over him and kind of threw it into the basket. I do remember this. Bryant looked up and then he looked at the crowd and he like shrugged like what on earth am I supposed to do about that? And it was like not even a post move. It was just like, “Oh, he’s 7 foot five and can just turn around and put it in the basket.” Thomas Bryant is an alltime like if the game is boring, just like watch him. He came here. It was a blast. Right. Anyway, if if Wambby has like real moves to do that to people like with any sort of consistency like and then he doesn’t have to spend as much time just like my biggest thing with the Spurs last year was just felt like it was Victor Webbama’s playground a lot and he was like I’m just going to shoot this onelegged three and everybody was like cool with it eventually and everybody was and for the record I was also very cool with it. Like it was very cool and fun to watch. But at some point the Spurs are going to have to start winning games here and that’s not going to be as cool anymore. The way to do that and to spend a little bit less time on three-point line is to actually have a bag and some footwork here. He’s never going to be like the bulkiest. He’s not going to be Shaq or Embiid in the post, right? But if he’s got the size and he’s got the skill, he’s obviously got the shooting touch. If he just has a couple of moves that he can get to, forget about it, man. Like, it’s over. That wraps up Locked on NBA Game Night. Make sure you’re subscribed on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast for Tony East. I’m Wes Goldberg. This has been Game Night. Thanks for hanging out with us.

EUROBASKET STUNNER: Sengun’s Triple-Double Dominance

Alperin Sengun’s EuroBasket triple-double ignites NBA buzz. Is the HOUSTON ROCKETS center poised for a breakout season?

Wes Goldberg and Tony East break down Sengun’s impressive 19-12-10 stat line and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 29-point Greek masterclass. The duo compares the SAN ANTONIO SPURS and DALLAS MAVERICKS, dissecting Victor Wembanyama’s potential impact against Luka Doncic’s proven stardom. NBA free agency takes center stage with Josh Giddey’s $100 million CHICAGO BULLS deal, while Kawhi Leonard’s alleged TORONTO RAPTORS demands raise eyebrows. The hosts also explore Wembanyama’s offseason training with Hakeem Olajuwon, analyzing its potential impact on the rookie’s footwork.

0:00 Intro
5:15 Alperen Sengun’s impressive Eurobasket performance
10:04 Greece vs Lithuania and Giannis dominance
15:51 Comparing Spurs and Mavericks rosters
21:51 Josh Giddey’s new contract with Bulls
24:24 Kawhi Leonard’s reported demands to Raptors
28:59 Victor Wembanyama training with Hakeem Olajuwon

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