Portland Trail Blazers vs Cleveland Cavaliers Recap | Highlights | Postgame
What’s going on everybody? Welcome in to the Blazers Uprise postgame show presented by Sleeper. Today, your Portland Trailblazers get one of their most impressive wins of the season as they go into Cleveland and control the Cavaliers, leading by as much as 18 points and getting a 122 to 110 victory. Behind Denny Odia, who continues to play great basketball behind Tammani Kamar, who continues to break out of his slump and behind Shaden Sharp, who played 32 minutes today, and it seems like he’s off his minutes restriction. Maybe it’s time to move him back into the starting lineup. But he had maybe his most well-rounded game of the season. Jeremy Grant chipped in with 16 points, six assists, five boards. He actually filled up the stat sheet beyond just the points today. And this was a really good effort. Caleb Love had one of his hot shooting games off the bench. This is his one game out of five where he makes most of his shots. He makes a decent amount of his shots and he gave the Blazers a shot in the arm that they needed off the bench. The Blazers defense had some good moments in this one, holding the Cavs to only 110 points. What’s going on everybody? Hopefully you’re having a good night. Eric Brandt will be joining me in about 30 to 40 minutes or so to break down this victory for your Portland Trailblazers. Man, it’s been a rough stretch of late. The Blazers had lost 10 of 13 games. They haven’t won back-to-back games in quite a while. This was a nice victory for Portland to get against a tough Cleveland team that has been struggling a bit this year. They’re only 13 and 10 last year. When did they lose their 10th game? February. This is not the same Cavs team from last year, but it’s still a tough Eastern Conference opponent that the Blazers were able to control. This wasn’t just a close win. This was a game that the Blazers led by as many as 18 points. Cleveland being a good team, uh, you knew they were going to start to make a run at some point there. They were too good not to. And we’ve seen the Blazers get up big on good teams and then completely blow the lead so many times before. I was really impressed with the way the Blazers were able to save off every single Cleveland Cavaliier comeback that they tried to make there in the second half. There was a few stretches of play where things started to get a little bit rough for the Blazers, but they corrected. They corrected. They course corrected. And every time Cleveland looked like they were ready and primed to make a comeback, the Blazers had an answer for them. And it this was a phenomenal phenomenal game. So, let me know your thoughts on this game in the live chat. I’ll be reading off more comments while I’m solo streaming here. Eric’s been doing a good job holding down the fort with the solo streams. Now it’s my turn to show up for you guys and break down this phenomenal victory. This was a game that saw the Cavaliers cut the lead to eight with five minutes remaining. They uh they were down eight with uh 3 minutes 20 seconds remaining. They cut it to five off an Evan Mobley three with 2 minutes 37 seconds remaining, but Denny Oavdia came through, got the lead back up to seven with an and one uh or no, it wasn’t an and one. Uh he got fouled the possession after, made both free throws. So that’s four clutch points from Denny to put the Blazers up nine after a Donovan Mitchell bucket to cut it to seven with a minute and 29 seconds left. Tammani Kamar made a threepoint jump shot off an assist from Shaden Sharp. to bring the league back up to 10. That was your dagger and that was a play that I think is kind of symbolic of tonight. You had Shane Sharp finish with five assists. Like I said, it was his most well-rounded game of the season. I think in terms of rebounding and passing the ball and he had some good defensive moments, and this is after last night where I said I wanted to see those three things out of him. He also made a couple of threes in this game. Was two for five from three. That’s 40%. So, less than 24 hours after I demanded Shaden Sharp, show me more than just scoring inside the arc. Show me some playmaking. Show me some three-point shotmaking. Show me some defense. So, he showed it all tonight. And Tammani Kamar continues to break out of his three-point shooting slump as he goes three for five from three today, five for seven from the field, 17 points on seven shots, also had four assists to two turnovers. Tammani Kamara being a threat offensively changes the dynamic for this team and after struggling to start the season. The last three games Kamara is 5 for 10, six for 10, and three for five from three. That’s 50% or higher, he’s been on fire the last three games and also had some really good defensive moments in this one. I think Tammani is finally starting to uh to figure it out and break out of his slump, which is huge for this team. He’s averaging 19 points per game over the last three games, a shade under four assists, and it’s uh it’s beautiful to see him get back to himself in being the player that we know that he is capable of being after some early season struggles. Shout out to Yakob with the 50 Norwegian crony donation says, “Let’s go, Tori. So happy to see that Tammani is looking more like himself again. He means so much for this team.” Thank you, YaKob, for the donation. And I fully echo those sentiments. Tammani Kamar is is uh a huge piece obviously defensively, but there was a stretch there where teams weren’t really respecting him behind the three-point line. They weren’t respecting him as an offensive option and uh his drives looked bad. His three-point shooting wasn’t there. It all culminated in a game against San Antonio where he was four for 14, including two for 11 from three, where the Spurs just kind of stopped guarding him and let him shoot. And you could tell that he wasn’t shooting the ball with confidence. You could tell that he was kind of in his own head. And since then, he’s 14 for 25 from three. All right. Three game sample size, but you know, that is uh 56% from three over the past three games with 14 made threes. So after a night against San Antonio that looked rough, looked like his confidence was shot, now he has confidence in his shot again. You can tell he’s shooting the ball much more confidently, not thinking about it, and he’s knocking down threes, and it creates more space for Denny. Um Denny’s been having some great kickout passes uh over the past month or so where there’s multiple games where he’s creating a bunch of open threes, but we’ve talked how he doesn’t have enough shooting around him when Tammani Kamar is able to be a legitimate three-point shooting threat. I it’s a player off the ball that Denny Odia needs. Um because Jet Denny creates so many open threes for his teammates and in that San Antonio Spurs game he was creating some open threes for Tommani and Tommani wasn’t paying him off. Now Tommani’s paying him off and I just got to give a huge shout out to him for figuring out whatever he figured out. He’s been rebounding the ball well lately. Has six rebounds or more the last three games. the passing. Uh there’s some interesting passes and you know, nothing too impressive, but uh I like a little bit of the playmaking he’s provided lately, but just comes down to the three and D stuff. You know, that other stuff is extra. If he does the other stuff, great. But as long as he’s playing great defense, as long as he’s knocking down threes, he’s a huge piece for this team. And that’s why his struggles to start this season were so frustrating and kind of baffling because it all kind of seemed mental on both sides of the floor. a lot of mental mistakes, a lot of getting out of position defensively. Uh the the game against the Bulls where he completely left Nikolus behind the three-point line, even though Thiago Splitter instructed the team not to help on that possession, but he still left him to help in the paint. There was a lot of mental mistakes defensively. There was a lot of three-point shots where you could tell that he wasn’t shooting the ball confidently enough. today. You can make the argument I think that this is his best defensive game in a while and offensively he’s been playing confidently. So, it seems like he’s kind of figured a couple things out mentally. Need to see him continue this stretch of play. Obviously, he’s not going to continue shooting above 50% from three for the rest of the season. As much as I would love that, that’s not realistic. But just as long as he continues to shoot well enough to be a threat where defenses can’t do what the San Antonio Spurs did against him and disrespect him as an offensive threat in order to load up on other guys in the paint and then live with him shooting threes and he goes two for 11. That was brutal to watch. Hopefully that was the turning point for him. Props to Kamara for figuring out whatever was plaguing him because he has been great the last three nights. Let’s take a look at the team stats. Your Portland Trailblazers shot a pretty dang good three-point bowl on a night where they didn’t really settle for a ton of threes. 34 three-point attempts, 85 field goal attempts. So that’s 51 shots inside the ark. We’ve seen a lot of games where the Blazers shoot more than half their field goal attempts from behind the ark. But the Blazers play downhill all game long. And this is against a good rim protector in Evan Mobley. The Blazers finished with 42 points in the paint, which isn’t a ton, but I want you to look at that free throw number. 34 for 39 for your Portland Trailblazers. This is after last night where they were horrific shooting from the free throw line. I forget the exact number. You know what? I I’ll I’ll uh I’ll bring it up because last night was rough for your Portland Trailblazers behind the three-point line. Not the three-point line, the free throw line. Um, the Blazers yesterday shot 21 for 32, 66% from the free throw line. Today, 87%. They get to the line 39 times. We’ve talked about how the best quality of the Blazers offense is their offensive rebounding. They had 12 of those today, as well as their ability to get to the free throw line and their free throw rate. And they get to the line 39 times. And there’s a lot being made about the amount of free throws that Denny Odia is shooting lately. He shot uh 15 free throw attempts yesterday. He shot 17 today. Is he Is he the uh he’s getting to the point where he might be the I don’t know how you want to describe it, but like the the most the highest free throw rate in the league. He might be getting to the free throw line more than any other player in the league because the last four games, here’s his free throw attempts. 14, 23, 15, 17. Mental math, that’s uh that’s like 17 free throw attempts a game the last four games for Denny Offio. We know he can get to the line. He did it last year where he upped his free throw rate and he had some high free throw games earlier this season. You know, he had a 15 for 16 free throw game against OKC when the the Blazers won by two. And OKC is a team that plays super physical and then he plays with that physicality. And it’s no surprise that his highest free throw attempt game was the most recent game against OKC where he had 23 free throw attempts. I think he’s getting fouled on like all these plays though. It’s not really something where he’s flopping or there’s no contact and he’s falling across half the court. It’s not SGA type of flopping or foul baiting. He definitely seeks out contact with defenders arms with like the rip through move and you know there was a play with Jaylen Tyson. He wasn’t vertical and Denny went right up into his arm. But, you know, I think there’s a difference between flopping and seeking out contact uh to draw fouls. And Denny to me, he’s not really a flopper. He’s not he’s not flopping his way to these high free throw nights. He’s one driving super hard, most drives per game in the league, so you’re going to get to the line a lot. But he’s also super physical when he drives without committing offensive fouls. And as a defensive player, it’s hard not to foul him in those situations. And you know, he is also has a couple tricks up his sleeve, but you know, there’s there’s a lot of people that will just look at the free throw attempts and and hate that he’s shooting this many free throws. Obviously, he’s a Blazer fan. I love it. It’s not quite the uh the flopping BS you see from some players across this league. I think a lot of plays he’s just legitimately getting fouled and defenses have to figure out a way to defend him without fouling, which is not easy. And we see it with with SGA where where defensive players will make sure that they don’t touch him or like they’ll get their hands up. They’ll even let him kind of walk to the rim in order to not foul him. Maybe defensive players have to start doing that with Denny Aia. I don’t know. But he is living at the free throw line right now. And I absolutely love it. Comment in chat says the low pickup rip through is some merchant crap but he is cooking. I don’t agree. He he will score off that move. Like that is a scoring move. And yeah, he’s seeking out the arm, but if he doesn’t get the arm, it’s he’s he’s putting himself in a position to score. He gets the defender moving right, he kills the dribble and goes back left and is able to beat the defender off the dribble. And he’s so big, has such long steps. Like last game he got fouled and he got right to the rim and I think the shot got blocked, but he’s getting to he can get to the rim off that move. So it’s not really just a move just to draw a foul. It’s a move that puts the onus on the defender, you know, um can’t get your arm caught in the cookie jar, but also he can get to the rim off that. So, for me, like I respect the way Denny’s playing. I respect I respect the uh the foul drawing. I respect the foul drawing. I don’t think it’s uh maybe what some fans across the NBA might make it out to be. He’s um he’s doing a really really good job right now. And as a comment in chat says, makes you wonder how teams are going to try and adjust to his drives to the hoop. Absolutely. But the Blazer gets the line 39 times. Shane Sharp did a good job driving downhill. Uh he got to the line um six times in this game. So nice to see him get to the line a little bit more. Um Tommani gets to the line five times, but it’s mainly Denny. Denny’s the catalyst in driving the free throw rate for your Portland Trailblazers right now with the rate that he’s getting at the line. I mean 17 free throw attempts is wild. Cleveland 24 free throw attempts. So only seven more than Denny Odia and the Blazers, you know, if you can get to the free throw line, it’s the most efficient offensive play. It’s the most efficient offensive play. You shoot 80% by getting to the line and shooting two free throws and you shoot 80% from the free throw line. That’s 1.6 points per possession. uh is literally better than if you shot a 50% clip from three. So, it’s efficient offense. It’s why a lot of stars will sell out and flop and try and draw these calls and you know, it’s it’s on the NBA refs to call what’s a foul and call what’s not a foul. I think a lot of these plays Denny’s getting fouled, but uh really good efficient night. the Blazers weren’t particularly efficient inside the arc, but you go 41% from three and you get to the line 39 times and make 34 of those free throws and correct the free throw issues from yesterday. That’s going to make this team hard to beat. It’s going to make this team hard to beat. Uh also got out on the break a little bit more. Uh 17 fast break points. Still isn’t anything amazing, but it’s it’s solid. So a really really good offensive night from your proton trailblazers. 13 turnovers to 27 assists. That’s more than a two to one assist to turnover ratio. Uh this was just a really good offensive night. And the Blazers this year, I talked about it on a recent stream. Their offense is actually outperforming their defense, which is something that I did not expect this season. I’ll pull up the updated dunks and threes rankings. Portland right now adjusted offensive rating. They’re 13th and they’re 17th defensively. If they were the borderline top five defense that we expected this year with the 13th offensive rating, then they’d be a borderline top 10 team in the league, borderline top six team in the West, but they’re sitting here nine and 13 in 10th place. They’ve lost a lot of close games recently, you know, would like to have some of those back, but the offense is just a is just a strange thing this season because they have not been efficient shooting the ball. at any of the three levels. They haven’t been efficient at the rim. They rank uh and this is after tonight, they rank 23rd in percentage at the rim. They ranked dead last in mid-range percentage and they ranked second to last in three-point percentage. So much room for improvement there, but yet they’re the 13th ranked offense in adjusted offensive rating. And that’s because they do get to the rim a lot. So even though they are 23rd in rim efficiency, they still shoot 62% there. So if you’re able to get to the rim at that rate, uh it’s pretty efficient offense, even if you’re not above average in terms of efficiency there. And they get to a line get to the free throw line a lot off of that as well. So uh their downhill attack when they’re attacking downhill, uh they are pretty dang good offensively. And that’s why some of the games earlier this season where they started settling for threes and getting two three-point happy, especially with guys that aren’t known for making threes, guys that are shooting in the 20% in terms of three-point shooting. Uh that’s why those games were so frustrating is because this team when it gets downhill and it gets to the rim, that’s where they’re at their best. But the offense is just kind of funny to me right now given how inefficient they technically are at all three levels. They do have a good shot diet. They shoot the least amount of mid-range shots in the league. Fifth highest attempts at the rim, fifth most threes as well. So, they’re good when they’re getting downhill and getting to the rim. They’re able to do that. You know, they don’t shoot mid-range shots. So, sometimes they’ll have some three-point happy games where they’re either living at the rim or shooting threes. It’s why the three-point shooting is really important. Second to worst is second to last is not good. The only team worst is Indiana. But that’s why in games like this where the Blazers can shoot 41% they can pretty much play with anybody even if they’re starting City Sissoko and bringing Caleb Love off the bench. We’ve talked so much about this team’s need for shooting and sometimes on some nights guys step up and they have enough shooting. You know Shane Sharp two for five 40%. He’s a guy that’s been in the 20s. Caleb Love’s been in the 20s. He goes four for seven from three today. Tammani was slumping. He’s three for five. Jeremy was three for eight. Denny was one for five. He’s in maybe a little bit of a three-point shooting slump. It doesn’t matter because he is such a downhill threat and playmaking threat. Like, he can still have phenomenal games. He’s not three-point reliant at all. But you look at the guys around him stepping up and making shots, making threes, and this team is a completely different team when they’re attacking downhill and getting into the paint a lot. And then when they do kick it out, they’re knocking down threes with their ability to get to the free throw line, their ability to offensive rebound. That’s when this team is capable on some nights when they do those things of playing like a top 10 offense. I mean, on a for the entire season, they’re 13th. This is missing pieces. So, the optimist in me is saying, man, what happens when Drew Holiday gets back? What happens if they add shooting to this team? what happens when Scoot starts playing? How good can this offense be? Because right now they they are uh meeting expectations overall, but they are underachieving in terms of efficiency from their shots and they are overachieving and maybe it’s sustainable, but they’re overachieving in terms of their ability to get to the free throw line, their offensive rebounding. The Blazers are the second best offensive rebounding team in the league tied with Detroit. And they are the fourth highest free throw rate team in the league. So those numbers are great. If you could just find a way to be a little bit more efficient from all three levels, which there’s a ton of room for improvement there, watch out. If you’re able to piece together the defense, watch out. And this was a game where they kind of did both and they get a double- digit win against a playoff team in the Eastern Conference on the road starting City Sissoko and bringing Caleb Love off the bench. Now, Caleb Love going four for seven from three is not sustainable. As I said, it’s the exper the Caleb Love experiences. One out of every five games, he’ll shoot the ball well and he’ll give the team a major shot in the arm. And then four out of five games he will potentially completely shoot you out of a game. This was the game where he shot well. Seven for 15 from the field, four for seven from three. What’s funny is if I go to his game log, there was five games in between this game and the Golden State game where he was six for 14, won that game down the stretch, had 26 points at careerhigh, the game that I was at on the road. That vlog is still coming. A lot of footage to edit. Um the game since then, here’s what he shot from three. One for eight, three for eight. That’s solid, I guess, but five for 13 from the field. Not particularly efficient. 0 for two from three. Two for eight from three. One for five from three. And then today he shows up again and goes four for seven. And when the Blazers have Caleb Love making threes off the bench, being the shooter that they need off the bench, this team wins. When he was three for eight against Milwaukee, they won. When he was six for 14 against Golden State, they won. When he was four for seven against Cleveland, they won. the other five games recently where he did not shoot well, the other five games out of the past eight, they all lost. So, it’s a legitimate differencemaker when Caleb Love is able to come into a game and knock down threes and make a difference that way. So, I’ve talked about this team just needs shooters. Caleb doesn’t Caleb Love’s not a particularly good defender. He’s not a particularly good playmaker or ball handler or anything. He had a couple impressive drives recently and made threes. When Tammani Kamara and somebody off the bench like Caleb Love is making threes, this team is very tough to beat. Problem is more often than not, you know, hopefully Tomati starts breaking out of the slump, but the Caleb Love experiences more often than not he is not making threes, which is why he’s on a two-way and why he won’t be in the rotation once other players get healthy. It’s why he’s shooting 25% from three. Christopher, I believe in the Yiannis to Portland stuff. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. I believe I believe, man, I will talk it into existence. I’ll talk about those rumors. In case you missed on Twitter, I believe that if Giannis is truly available via trade, the Portland Trailblazers need to be extremely extremely aggressive to get it done. And by get it done, that means trade for Giannis. They have Milwaukeee’s picks. They have a log jam of guards, including two young high upside guards that I’m sure would interest Milwaukee to kick off a rebuild, and they can give Milwaukee its future back. Most players more often than not don’t make threes. I mean, genius stuff, Thomas Ransky. Genius, genius stuff. I mean, in terms of making threes at a solid clip, which is like 35 to 40%. More often than not, he’s shooting in, you know, one for five, two for seven. I mean, I don’t need to explain that for you, do I? The context behind that statement. Do I really need to explain that for you? Come on. More often than not, Caleb Love has really bad shooting games. More often than not, he’s two for eight or one for five or one for eight or 0 for two or 0 for seven like he was against the Bulls in a game that the Blazers lost by one and he was one for 12 in 18 minutes. But nice to have him show up today and have a truly impactful game for the Portland Trailblazers. Trading for Giannis wins would certainly wouldn’t result in a ring. Trading for Giannis would make this team a contender for the next five years. I will talk about that later. Don’t get me going right now, man. But I don’t understand some of the opinions that Blazer fans have on the possibility of trading for Giannis. I literally had somebody lamenting trading Matise Dyel in a Giannis trade today on Twitter. What are we doing? What are we doing? But I’ll I’ll discuss that later. I’ll discuss that with Eric. I discussed it last night. But now you got more developments there. And then I’ll also discuss the CP3 debacle. Anyway, Denny Odia, as I said, lived at the free throw line. I mean, he’s he’s a plus 12. The Blazers win by 12. Here’s another difference in this game. Here’s another difference in this game. How many games do we see Denny be like a plus 12 in 36 or 37 minutes and the Blazers still lose? Because in the 11 or 12 minutes he’s off the floor, the rest of the team’s like a minus 14. That literally happened last night. literally happened last night. And what did I say? The Blazers need to find a way to just not get eviscerated in the non Denny Odia minutes. In the 12 minutes Denny did not play today, the Blazers held serve with Cleveland. They were tied with them in the 12 minutes Denny didn’t play. There are so many games where when Denny’s on the floor, the Blazers outscore the other team, but when he’s off the floor, they get outscored even worse. But because you had Shane Sharp step up today and have some good moments because you had Caleb Love shoot a hot three ball off the bench. Caleb or City Soka was four for six and one for two from three. You know, he starts with Denny, but you had a lot of guys around Denny step up today. Denny didn’t even have uh you know, a great like shooting night outside the free throw line. So, he’s five for 10. He’s one for five from three. He was four for uh four for five inside the yard. But there’s a lot of plays where then he drove and passed up a shot that maybe he could have finished around the rim to find an open shooter. We’ve been talking about how those guys need to step up. Those guys stepped up today. Denny 27 points, eight boards, seven assists. Close to another triple double. This dude on a nightly basis is capable for going off for, you know, close to a 30point triple double. This dude is a bonafide star and he works his ass off. You can tell with the way he’s improved the past couple years. He’s still only 24 years old. How good could Denny Odia become? We used to wonder, man, could he actually become a true star? He has passed that test with flying colors so far this season, averaging 26.7 boards, six assists efficiently. Efficiently. 47% from the field, 38% from three going into this game. It’s so awesome to watch this dude continue to torch defenses. And I mean, Donovan Mitchell got going early today, but there’s a lot of games where other teams will have stars and Denny Oia still looks like the best player on the floor with the way he’s commanding so much tension. You want to talk about gravity? The gravity that Denny Aia is playing with right now is is insane. the way he’s around multiple defenders every time he drives, the way defenses are loading up, double teaming him at times. This is all stuff that star players have to deal with. And this is all stuff when I talk about, you know, other players, you know, are they going to make the leap to stardom, right? It’s one thing playing more, you know, it’s one thing playing off of better players and being a 20 21 22 point per game scorer. It’s different producing at that level when you’re dealing with the defensive attention that Denny Odia is dealing with right now. And it’s almost like when he gets more defensive attention, he’s even better. So, that’s the test. And that’s why it’s tough to make the jump from like good starter to legitimate all-star. You have to be able to deal with that defensive attention. Um, deal with getting doubled, deal with having the best defender on the opposing team guard you every night. and deal with the opposing team’s game plan. The number one thing being to slow you down. Dealing with all that and still producing is not easy. And Denny Oia is doing that. And he’s been a top 20 player in the league so far this year. So, I mean, I think there’s games where he could be even more aggressive. Like I I think he’s fully capable of averaging a decently efficient 30 points per game. I mean, he’s he’s 26 points per game right now. And there’s a lot of plays today where it’s like, “Oh, he passed that up.” That’s why he’s averaging six assists as well. Like, it’s not just the scoring leap, it’s the assists, the passing leap. And one thing I thought about during this game, I saw a tweet that made me think about this, and this is not like a this is not me bashing this player that I’m about to bring up because this isn’t a him issue. This is just more like a pecking order thing, right? But if Anthony Simons was still here, would Denny Odia be playing like this? Because Anthony Simons was the number one option. if he stayed here, was he still going to be the number one option this year? And Denny’s the type of guy where if he feels like he’s not the number one option, okay, he’ll he’ll be a role player. He’ll play into the the role the team needs him to play into. But he certainly wouldn’t be like playing point guard the way he is right now. I think even once Drew’s back, then he’s still going to be the primary guy like doing exactly what he’s doing. I mean, he was doing this before Drew got hurt. But if Anthony Simons was still here as the number one option, would Denny be playing more like a number two? I think this is one of the hidden values of making the trade the Blazers did trading for Anthony Simons for Drew Holiday is you created a void in terms of the number one option because Ant was the number one option. Ant was kind of the guy and to a lesser extent, Jeremy Grant was the guy in the starting lineup. You moved Jeremy Grant to the bench and you traded Anthony Simons for Drew Holiday, a more defensive-minded player who obviously was not going to be the number one coming in here. And you created a role, the number one option on the team for somebody to step up into. And Denny has stepped up into that. And now he’s a legitimate star is that number one option. When people talk about like addition by subtraction, most people view it as like a oh, you know, if you trade a player away and it’s addition by subtraction, that means that player was a detriment to the team. That’s not the case in this in this. It’s just more so Anthony Simons was already entrenched as the number one option and Denny Odia was coming into a team that Anthony Simons had been on for multiple years. And sometimes you have to move off that guy just to create the void for somebody else to fill. So I think that trade is an important aspect in viewing the way that Denny Avi is playing right now because I don’t feel like he would be producing at this level or handling the ball this much or playmaking this much or have this much responsibility in the off offense if Anthony Simons was still here. Shout out to Alvaro Bazison for becoming a starter member. Although he has the two-year badge, so I don’t know what happened, Alvaro, but welcome back. Thank you for becoming a channel member. And Eric should be on any minute here. Tammani Kamaro, 17 points, six boards, four assists. I talked about how he’s breaking out of his shooting slump. He had a couple impressive drives in this game as well. Well, when Drew will be here, he he will also have the ball in his less in his hands probably. I mean, Denny was doing this with Drew, though. Maybe not quite to the level where the three games before this he was averaging a 30 point triple double, but he was still playing like a star with uh with Drew Holiday here. And there’s a difference having a complimentary playmaker to your top option versus somebody who’s entrenched as the number one guy in the pecking order. I mean, Denny the first four games of the year with Drew Holiday, 20 points, 26 points, 23 points, 25 points. I mean, he had two 33-point games with him. He had a 32-point game with him. But here’s the thing. If the team’s better and Denny isn’t the number one and his stats aren’t quite so good, I think he’ll still be I think he’s a second option on a contending team. At this point, I’m comfortable enough to say that he can be a second option on a contending team as like a 23, you know, 237 and five guy. The thing is, he also plays defense. He’ll do the little things. He’ll be a team player. That’s what’s so great about having a Swiss Army knife do it all star forward. The Blazers have not had a forward like this since I can ever remember. They haven’t had a ball handling, shot creating, playmaking star caliber forward. I mean, shoot, they haven’t really had even a a good starter that’s capable of all those things at the Ford spot. I mean, I I guess Norman Pal, but he didn’t really pass. I mean, who was the last player of that archetype the Blazers even had? And I was super excited when they got Danny Odia because of those combination of skills. And I think I I don’t know what I said at the time, but at the time, even with him not yet looking like a star, he showed all those traits. And that’s what I was super excited about. The trade was a combination of skills. Mario Hona. Yeah. Evan Turner. I mean, yeah, Evan Turner couldn’t make threes and wasn’t really a scoring threat like that. Tori, are you starting to think Shaden will never take that jump? Sharp might just be a Jamal Crawford type player. I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, I talked about it last night. I need to see improvement in certain areas and he hasn’t really shown much in the past three years. today. Today I know he only had 20 points and people get more excited when he has 33 points, one assist, one board, and has a rough defensive game because, oh, look, see, he can score 30 points. He’s a star. But I like this game from Shaden Sharp. I like this game from Sheay. This game from Shay was maybe his most impressive game of the year. He made two threes out of five. Wasn’t the most efficient inside the ark. Had some had some bad shots inside the ark. But that’s the type of thing where we know he can drive and score and finish around the rim. Okay. He he tried to force some things at the rim. That’s not good. But that’s not something I’m worried about. I’m I’m always worried about can he figure out the three-point shooting. He’s two for five for today. I believe before this he was one for 17 and had only made one three since November 16th. It’s December 3rd. It’s not good. Now minutes restriction and all that aside, one for 17, that’s a brutal shooting stretch. So two for five from three, that’s great. Nine boards, that’s great. With his athleticism, he should be a very high rebounding guard, especially on a team that needs help on the defensive glass. Sharp should be a factor on the defensive glass or he should be leaking out and leaking ahead. Depends on where he is on the floor, but like every time a shot goes up, he needs to be one of those two things. It shouldn’t be. Shot goes up and he’s kind of turning and watching the board, not boxing out his guy, but not really crashing the glass, but not running out. So, I like that. He also Let me pull Let me pull up the right box score here. I don’t know why I’m on the Bulls box score. Here we go. He also had two steals. Only two turnovers for his five assists. I don’t know if he has more assist than turnovers yet, but that was a a thing earlier in the season. Yeah, he still has more turnovers than assists. So, nice to see him. Five assists, only two turnovers. He was solid with the ball tonight. A lot of stuff that he had been struggling with, he was good tonight, which is why I really like this game from Shaden Sharp. And I also think it’s a big reason why the team was pretty damn good with him on the floor. They were plus 13. Like doing those little things and then spacing the floor, knocking down threes and getting to the line six times and taking care of the ball and rebounding, playing passing lanes well, not getting cooked defensively. Those are all little things that contribute to being a better basketball team. So, really, really happy with that from him today. And he also reached 3,000 points. Shout to Christopher for this. Shaden’s the fastest of 3,000 points in franchise history. He can hit threes when open and throw lobs. Oh, talk about Scoot. Talk about Giannis. We’ll talk about Yiannis in a bit. Let me see if Eric’s here yet. I see him in the chat. Okay. Let me know when you’re here. Jeremy Grant talking about guys doing other stuff. Six assists, five boards. I will say Jeremy Grant’s passing has been a little bit better this year. A little bit better this year. still not particularly uh impressive, but he’s had some nice moments, especially lately where he’s finding teammates. And I like that Jeremy has bought into the bench role. He’s, you know, he’s starting lately because of all the injuries, but he bought into the bench role. He bought into playing at the rim or shooting threes. Not many mid-range. He did take a good He did take a good mid-range in this game. A wide open mid-range against the zone. I’m cool with that shot if it’s, you know, not a shot that he misses multiple times. Like if he misses a mid-range, all right, go to the rim next time, shoot a three, whatever. But you’re left wide open and can just line it up because they’re playing a zone and the big it was Thomas Bryant. Doesn’t want to lift up out of the bottom of the zone. Okay, cool with that shot. And he knocked it down. But I love how he’s bought into playing at the rim or shooting threes. I love that he is bought into the bench role. And today he gets five boards. You know, that’s a above average number for him. But he gets six assists and only one turnover. Like he made plays today. He attacked, he drove, he found teammates. Like this was just a good all-around ball movement game. This was a good all-around team game offensively. It didn’t feel like the ball really stuck to anybody in this game. That can be an issue at times. So, shout out to Jeremy for for fitting in and for doing some different things and to buying into the bench role and buying into the style play offensively. I did not think that he would buy into this level in this way. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. You know, the three-point shooting’s great and he’s shot a a decent three ball this year. He’s three for eight today and this team kind of needs his shooting. He’s like right at 40% which is great. But, you know, it’s that he was 35% last year. So, getting back up to the 40% three-point shooter he was his first two years in Portland and then also doing doing more stuff. It’s what I wanted to see out of Jeremy. Been very happy with his play so far this season. City Sasoko has a solid game in the starting lineup. 11 points, four boards in 25 minutes, made one of two threes. And the three he made was in a stretch where the Blazers, I think, made a couple threes before that. So, it just kind of kept the momentum rolling. It was fun to see them play with some offensive momentum in this game. And there was a stretch where both teams were making threes. Like Naqucoin Tomlin makes a three, Sydney Sokco makes a three. I don’t know if that was right in the same stretch, but you guys know what I’m talking about. There’s a stretch of this game where both teams were just going back and forth hitting shots and it was fun to watch. You know, it’s nice when all right, we can’t stop the other team, but we’re just going to keep scoring ourselves and we’re playing with a lead and we’re not letting them cut into it. It’s always fun to play up like that and continue to make shots where it doesn’t even matter that they’re having a hot stretch and they’re trying to come back uh because you’re still making threes. City Sissoko had a three during that stretch. um you know, he’s still a minus nine. Like, he’s still not a guy that uh really helps an NBA team even when he has a a decent game like today. I mean, the Blazers in the 23 minutes he was off the floor outscored the Cavs by 21 points and were minus nine with Sissoko in his 25 minutes. you know, it could be other guys that played well having rough stretches when he was in the game or that sort of thing, but it’s it’s always kind of interesting to see. Everybody else is a positive and he’s a minus nine. Um, when he plays well as well. So, that’s why you got to take plus minus with a grain of salt, I guess, because it was a solid game from from City. Solid game from City. And then Klingan was two for eight from the field, 0 for one from three, 13 boards. It felt like he was starting to figure something out offensively uh a few games ago where he started making threes again and uh you know he had four straight games with a made three. Had six made threes in four games. He had the the 17-point game against Chicago. Follow that up with a 22-point game on the road against Golden State where he hit the little dirt midline uh free throw line jumper and 14 points against Milwaukee where he was two for four from three and had four assists. Since then, it’s been a little rough. Three for eight, four for eight, two for eight, nine points, 11 points, five points. Not really as impactful offensively, but I mean every every game he’s getting 10 plus boards uh as of late. eight out of his last nine games he has at least 10 boards. Just there’s just games where it feels like he’s not particularly involved. And there’s also times where I get pissed off at the freaking refs for not respecting him. I mean, I I am baffled as to some of the foul calls that go uncalled against Donovan Klingan. There’s a play where he just Donovan Mitchell just completely grabbed his arm. It was an obvious foul call and they missed it just like they missed it against Denny Odia last night. I mean, there’s just a lot of plays where it’s like NBA refs aren’t even watching the play. They’re just kind of guessing blindly. But if Klingan does that to somebody else, he’s getting called for that foul. It’s almost like because he’s 7 foot two, he just doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt. It’s kind of ridiculous. He has such a bad whistle. I guess he needs to start falling like Embiid all over the place. This is part of the problem with flopping is that refs reward it and somebody trying to play through contact and getting hacked doesn’t get rewarded. Also, I see somebody bring up challenges in chat. Shout out to Thiago for having a good challenge today. When he challenged that play was a charge against Donovan Mitchell because he just rammed himself into Denny Havia in the paint and somehow they called a block because you know NBA refs are going to ref like NBA refs which is really really really bad. Shout out to Thiago for challenging that play. Right when he called that challenge I’m like yes finally a good challenge. Even if he loses this like that just looks like an offensive foul and he won it. So, he’s been terrible at challenging so far this season. So, I will give him a nice little clap for having a good challenge today. About damn time. About down about damn time. But, um would like to see Klingan a little bit more involved offensively uh as a passer at the top of the arc, as a uh play finisher. He’s still shooting a decent chunk of threes and it’s 25%. It’s not It’s not pretty, but I don’t know. Play defense, rebound. He does those two things really, really well. So, he’s consistent in that regard and is valuable to the team. Didn’t I have Chris Murray in this game? So, the Blazers won by 12. No, I’m kidding. Comment chat. were the only one who liked the trade for Denny and seen the potential in his versatility. The only miss was you guess JG will be traded. No, I thought he was not going to get traded this off seasonason because he had no trade value. I still think he probably doesn’t have much trade value given his contract and the new CBA and how tough it is to absorb those contracts, especially for a guy that’s not a star. But that was wrong in terms of him buying in. Nobody else off the bench really did anything. I mean, Ryan Rupair played nine minutes, zero points, zero assists. He had a He had a rebound. He had a rebound. I mean, he didn’t do anything, but he didn’t really mess anything up. He was 0 for one. is just he’s basically Tony Snell without the shooting. Also, yeah, I wasn’t the only one that liked the Denny trade. There’s a lot of people in our community that I think like the Denny trade, or at least I talked them into it pretty fast. There was a there was a there was a ton of people that questioned giving up the assets the Blazers gave up to got get him but Ryan repair didn’t really do much off the bench. Dwaper four points in 11 minutes. Here’s a plus six, which is funny because there’s a stretch where the Blazers gave up a decent run to the Cavs. Um, this is only three. I mean, just the the the rebounding in the defense with him at a center spot is super super rough. Super super rough. Like, I’d rather have a three-point specialist that’s a power forward. I mean, I think he’s honestly probably better at a power forward because he’s not required to be the main rim protector and try and box out centers and he’s 6’9. He’s just not the most mobile guy on the perimeter. So, it’s it’s kind of a tweener. there’s issues playing him at either the power forward or the center, but he gave them 11 minutes without Robert Williams. Yang Hansen actually came in and was fine today in five minutes in the first half. He uh got to line, knocked down both his free throws, had a block. Like you you could tell they were trying to hunt him right when he got in the game and it they didn’t successfully do that. So, it was nice for Yong to come in and eat up five minutes and not hurt the team at all. Like, just be okay, like just be solid. So, lot of guys, lot of guys contributing today. Tori, with the same package, can’t we go for Anthony Edwards? No, we Anthony Edwards is completely untouchable. Why would we be able to get Anthony Edwards? Anyway, on the Cavs side of things, Donovan Mitchell got hot early in this game, but then the Blazers were able to contain him. He was only three for 13 from three, 12 for 26 from the field. Looked like this was going to be one of those games where the Blazers give up 40 points to a star guard and it was going to be a problem. And after him getting hot, the Blazers were able to kind of shut him down. He did get a couple buckets inside the paint late, but it was kind of like, okay, you don’t want to give up threes. You don’t want to foul if he hits 10 feet floaters. you’ll live with that. You’re up. You’re in a good position. And the Blazers did a good job of running him off the three-point line, not letting him get all the way to the Ram, and then not fouling him on a couple floaters he had late. That’s smart defense. That’s the type of smart defense where, yeah, you can concede that. That’s given the situation you’re in. You don’t want to foul. You don’t want to give up threes. You don’t want to let him have wide open lands. And I’ve lamented the Blazers not being disciplined or smart defensively. So, it was nice to to see that down the stretch. I know it sounds weird that it’s like, oh yeah, there’s possessions where Donovan Mitchell scored down the stretch and it was nice to see the defense on that, but it’s more about the process. Like, don’t want to foul him on threes. Don’t want to let them walk to the rim. Don’t want to overh help on him and give up wide openen threes to good shooters and let them get back in the game because they’re able to get threes. It’s hard to get back in the game when you’re only scoring twos. Evan Mobley was eight for 14, three for seven from three, had five assists, five blocks. I mean, it was a good Evan Mobley game. Jaylen Tyson, six for nine, seven boards, two assists, 14 points. He continues to be a solid starter. DeAndre Hunter had 10 points, three for the field, 0 for three from three. He’s uh he’s been a little bit rough shooting the three ball this year. 33% before this game. Here’s a guy, if I recall correctly, he had a game where he torched the Blazers last year. Let me look it up. Yeah, he had a 32-point game last year against the Blazers on March 2nd. This was the last time Portland played in Cleveland where they lost in overtime. If you guys remember that game, they lost by four in overtime, 133 129 on March 2nd and DeAndre Hunter had 32 points. So, it was nice that uh in their game in Cleveland this year, Portland did not let him cook them. It feels like Portland’s played pretty decently well in Cleveland the past few years though. Maybe that’s just me, but like last year they played a really good game short-handed against a really good Cavs team and almost won and then this year they get a 12-point win. For some reason the Blazers like playing in Cleveland. I mean, even going back to the Dame days, you had the Nicholas Batum uh gamewinner, the Dame gamewinner. Like there’s been some good moments in Cleveland the past 15 years. But Darius Garland, look at that. Six points, two for 13. I mean, I don’t know how many of those miss shots were due to money, but this is the type of games we saw from point guards when we had Tammani Kamara last year. And this is the type of game we haven’t really seen from a star caliber point guard until today. Nice to nice to hold him in check, two for 13, not let him get going, not let him do anything. He was a absolute non-factor. Didn’t Garland torch us last year? I’ll I’ll look that up as well. Last year at Portland, Garland in 33 minutes had 27 points, eight assists, 11 for 19. The game at home, he was four for 16 against us. So, but I mean, last time we saw Garland, Garland cooked, held him in check today. Good job there. Thomas Bryant came off the bench and had a spark for the Cavs on this game. I don’t believe those rebounds and assist numbers are right. Yeah, five assists is not right. He had no assists, but he did have six boards. Okay, there’s the typo for today. That is going to bother me. So, I’m going to fix that on the fly. Good spark off the bench. He made three of his four threes. I mean, Cleveland could not buy threes. 13 for 52, 25%. Big reason for the loss. Thomas Bryant came in was like the only guy that could make threes in this game outside of Evan Moley. Lonzo Ball off the bench, three points, one for eight from three, one for nine from the field. I mean, he just looks completely washed after his injuries. Plays 24 minutes. I I think going from Tai Jerome, who was great for the Cavs last year, to Lonzo Ball is a big reason why they’ve had the drop off they’ve had because Donovan Mitchell has been playing great. The starting lineup’s been decent, but you just don’t have that sixth man. And when Darius Scarlet or Donovan Mitchell was out during the regular season last year, Tai Jerome came in and really stepped up for the Cavs and had huge games for the Cavs. Lonzo Ball. Not the same. Not the same. Why did they do that? I I don’t know. I forget their like salary situation. And Ty Jerome, I don’t think he had full bird rights. I don’t remember exactly, but it was tough for them to resign him. But Ty Jerome didn’t sign for much, so maybe they would have been able to resign him. Like I if they could have kept him, they absolutely should have kept him. I don’t really understand that at all. Ty Jerome was was really really solid. Trevan says, “Ty Jerome had 25 last time we played in Cleveland.” Yeah. Now we have Lonzo Ball going one for eight from three. Lonzo Ball this season is uh shooting before this game 28% from three, 30% from the field. He’s basically Caleb Love. He doesn’t doesn’t I guess he doesn’t shoot as much as Caleb Love, but I mean in 24 minutes he shot eight threes today. A lot of them were wide open. So rough to see for the former number two overall pick. Good to see him out there playing given his injuries that he’s had to fight through, but that was the uh that was the Cavs lineup. Anyway, I thought Eric would be here soon. He said he’d be home around 7:30. It is 7:54 on the West Coast. Let’s do a quick little around the NBA to stall. The Nuggets beat the Pacers 1351 120. Jamal Murray 52 points. What’s the highest point total in a game this year? Because it feels like there hasn’t been a ton of 50 plus point games. Lonzo’s worried about his podcast. Hey, he’s like me. Um Jamal Murray 19 for 25 from the field, 10 for 11 from three, four for five from the free throw line. Insane game for him. Insane game. Jokic 24 points, 13 boards, eight assists. A below average Jokic game. But the Pacers, I mean the Pacers just straight up suck. Pacers are awful. They had 23 from Pascal, 15 from Matan, 16 from Nemhard. Speaking of Nemhard, his brothers looking really good in Dallas. Ryan Nemhar is looking really good in Dallas. I don’t know why the Pacers passed on him, passed on uniting the Demhard brothers so that they could select Tailon Peter, who I had never heard of before they took him. And it’s always tough to draft somebody that I have never heard of given that I’ll scout a hundred to 120 players each draft. Like I draft I scout deep sleepers. I was sitting here raving about Dallas mid-season last year. I think it was like March or April maybe, but maybe it was May. I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I was raving about of dollars until he withdrew as like a second round guy and now he’s looking like a lotto pick. 55 by SGA is the highest point total. Yeah, it’s funny because it feels like like offense is up, but it’s not really the stars. It’s like some some guys like stepping up to a star level and some role players having solid jumps in production. because there hasn’t been like huge scoring games. Tory, I know that free throw is a legit way to get points, but I’m starting to worried starting to get worried Denny is becoming too reliant upon them. Like his field goal slash attempts is kind of low lately lately. No. Well, here’s the thing. When you get fouled driving to the rim, it doesn’t count as a field goal attempt. So plays where he maybe be getting to the rim and scoring, he’s getting fouled and getting set to the free throw line instead. So I don’t think it’s him being reliant upon them. I think a lot of these plays, if he wasn’t getting fouled, he’s getting to the rim and finishing. So I would not worry about that at all. But yeah, things are rough there in Indiana. The Spurs beat the Magic 114 112. They’ve been really good without Victor Wim Wimbeyama this season and Orlando has been playing great. I believe they were nine and two after the Desmond Bane buzzer beater. That was as of a couple days ago. So I said on that postgame show after the Desmond Bane buzzer beater. Maybe this is what sets things in motion for the Magic and maybe this gets them right. It has. But not tonight as the Spurs beat them 114 112. 31 points from Darren Fox who’s looking like a star. No, he’s back and healthy. Dead 16 off the bench from Dylan Harper in 22 minutes. The Spurs are also apparently reportedly the team to watch for trading for Giannis and Terakoupo. Like I said, we will talk about that. For the Magic, they didn’t have Ben Carro. They had 25 from France Vagner, 24 from Jaylen Suggs. The Clippers got a win. Thank goodness the Clippers got a win because obviously OKC has their pick this season. If you didn’t know that, yeah, that’s not a good thing because the Clippers after this win are still only six and 16. But we need them to win as many games as possible. And they beat the Hawks 115 to 92. This was a pretty damn good game for them. I mean, the Hawks were without Trey Young, were without Jaylen Johnson, were without Chris Sporzingis. Yeah, 21 from Niko Alexander Walker who’s playing great. 11 from Reese. Um, Reese, I saw somebody talk about like trading for him, which made no sense. He I did not like him as a prospect. I hated the Hawks taking him number one. I would have just called Alex Sars bluff and taking him number one because he was obviously the much better prospect. And this year, he looks 10 times better than Reese. Reese Sha 11 averaging 11 points, two and a half boards, one and a half assists in 24 minutes a game, shooting 31% from three. I questioned his three-point shot. A lot of people told me to believe in it. He’s 31%. He does not look like he improved compared to last year. I I I just don’t I don’t get it with Reese. I just don’t never have and if he doesn’t improve then maybe I never will. Asa Newle’s been quietly solid. He was two for three from three today. 11 points in 19 minutes off the bench. I mean there could be a world where he might be more valuable than recay in a couple years. Sounds crazy now but we’ll see. for the Clippers. 27 from James Harden, 21 from Kawawaii. They uh parted ways with Chris Paul. And speaking of Chris Paul, we have Eric here. Wait, let me Well, how long you been here? Yeah, I stopped looking at No, I looked at chat like six minutes ago and it was not showing up for me. So, I don’t know. when I said the time. Also, I thought you would let me know in chat. Yeah. And the one night you actually want to be on a postgame show because we got a good win today. Um, okay. Welcome to the stream. Thank you. Officially welcome to the stream now. You know, I just wanted people to watch you eat and not hear you eat those McDonald’s fries. Eric said, “I will translate.” You went to McDonald’s with the kids and uh it took forever and it sucked because this was the one uh one day you wanted to get here quickly because we got a good win. Um yeah, as Era says, I was muted the first hour of the show. What the heck? I know. I know. For real. Yeah. I didn’t hear Eric because he was muted. That’s why I had the solo cam. He’s just been sitting here the whole time. Um I’ll finish going around the NBA. What do you think of the CP3 thing since I’m on the Clippers game right now and then I’ll get your thoughts on this game and then we’ll talk about Giannis. Well, apparently he was calling out everyone in the organization. Um and they were just like, “Okay, see you then.” Um kind of weird. That to me is so soft. Like I don’t know how Chris Paul was calling these guys out, but you’re six and six. I mean, they sucked. Yeah, they slept. They deserve to be called out, but he didn’t like that. You don’t like a a 41year-old who is like maybe the best player, you know, during your peak run of your franchise history, and you don’t like him trying to hold you accountable. It’s kind of soft to me, and that’s ridiculous. in a farewell tour to not be able to figure figure out how to just let him be a part of things and to send him home and now his career is done just looks bad on an organization that already dealt with some drama this offseason with the whole Kawaii thing. The Clippers are back to being the Clippers we knew before they got Blake Griffin where they are like the arguably one of the worst ran organizations in the league and they suck. I know we need shooting and we don’t have a roster spot right now, but with the way our lack of ball handling is like, see, that’s the type of mentor I think would be good. I mean, can we side him to a Well, we don’t have the roster spot. I was thinking to a 10day. Yeah. 10 days haven’t started yet, I don’t think. Oh, yeah. Because we can’t like cut repair and then sign him because we’d be in the tax. So that’s the thing like the Blazers can’t cut anybody to sign anybody without going to the tax and they’re not going to the tax. Like it’s just not an option. I’ve seen people multiple people say to cut somebody and sign somebody. It’s just not going to happen. Not going to happen unless you’re talking about a two-way spot because that doesn’t matter for tax purposes. But I I think it’s just makes the Clippers look really bad. Midnight on the West Coast. There’s breaking news. Chris Paul’s been sent home is the middle of his farewell tour. That’s bad PR, man. I saw someone mockingly say that uh Chris Paul wasn’t um bought into their environmental uh plans to plant trees and stuff like that. He’s he’s against planting trees. So yeah, that’s funny. You know how I said the greatest point guard mentorship trio is Dame, Drew Holiday, and Chanty? Well, well, we lost Chanty, so we need Chris. Anyway, Chris Paul, Drew, and Dave. You got the passing mentor, you got the defense mentor, and you got the scoring mentor. And none of them can play right now. None of them can play. Um, two are hurt and one’s just old. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Paul wasn’t bad last year. He played all 82 games. I’m I was surprised that Yeah, he hasn’t been didn’t have anything left this year. Nonscoring threat. I mean, he still still was passing the ball at a higher rate. I just think, okay, write him on the let him sit on the bench then. I I just don’t get it at all. Um, if there’s anybody you should listen to holding your organization accountable, it’s him. like the comment in chat from uh let me look up the uh can I look up the uh channel the the username instead of the handle. Let me pull up the stream chat outside of my Streamlabs because Streamlabs doesn’t show it to me. So, I’m going to start putting names to these handles. All right. So we have oh it’s literally the same thing. E erra a era era says the heat kept has them for five years for five useless years just out of respect for him and the Clippers didn’t last 20 games with Chris Paul. Yeah. Crazy. It’s funny. Kind of sad. Might have been a little different if he never left. But I mean he was gone a while. Yeah. But I mean come on man. They slam right in the bench. He’s trying to hold you accountable because you suck and you’re playing like crap and you can’t respect that in his farewell tour. It just seems so soft to me. That would piss me off if I was a Clippers fan. Anyway, yeah, he called out some of the players. I guess he called out the coaching staff, called out the front office. Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s tough to know with, you know, 100% without the details. Maybe he was going overboard, but just strange to me. The Knicks beat the Hornets 119 104. They moved to 14-7 on the year. Uh the Knicks led by 35 points from Carl Anthony Towns, the next Milwaukee Buck or something. Uh 26 from Jaylen Brunson. They had uh I almost thought they had nobody score off their bench, but it’s at the bottom of the box score. They had 12 points off the bench. The Knicks have no bench. So, I don’t know how it works trading uh multiple players for Giannis or whatever the hell because just sounds like you then have a three-man team because they have no picks to trade. But, we’ll talk about that. The Hornets, LaMelo, 34 points, 12 for 27 though. Uh, nobody else really stepped up and did anything. The Nets got a win. They are five and 16 on the year now. They beat the Bulls in Chicago. The Bulls were relatively healthy. They had Giddy. They had Dumu who’s having a solid year. They’re they had Gusovic. They had Balis. They lost by 10 to the Nets because Michael Porter trash can. 33 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, 20 points from Noah Clowny, 14 points from Nick Claxton. Danny Wolf got some playing time off the bench. He had eight points in 25 minutes. And then the Rockets beat the Kings 12195. The Rockets led by 24 from Kevin Durant, 20 from Men Thompson. He had 12 boards, seven assists. The Kings continue their free fall. They’re five and 17. They’re five and 17. That fire sail is going to be fun to watch. They had uh I don’t know if you’ve seen the box score for this game, Eric. Probably not. Um, they had two points in 19 minutes from Zack Lavine. He had one foul. I don’t know if he got hurt or just he was so bad. But the thing is they were plus six with him on the floor. So super strange. Um, they had five points in 37 minutes from Keegan Murray, who Kings fans still swear to me is better than Shaden Sharp. I don’t see it. Two for 11 from the field minus 15. Their leading scorer off the bench with 25 points was Maxim Reno. 25 points for him. 10 for 15 from the field, two for two from three. So there’s your uh future if you’re Sacramento. One of your pieces maybe. Good game for him. I think Monk had 25 off the bench. It’s a disgusting box score. It also has Drew Eubanks in the starting lineup. That’s why it’s even more gross. The Bucks beat the Pistons 113 109 after Giannis goes down. There’s some weird stuff around the NBA today. Giannis after all these rumors three minutes into the game goes down with a calf strain. So, a lot of people were saying he faked it. I I don’t think he faked it. Uh Kevin Porter Jr. had 26 points. Ryan Rollins had 22 points. Jericho Sims off the bench 15 points on seven for seven shooting from the field. They beat the Pistons who had 17 from Kade, 515 though. Duran didn’t really do much in this game. He had only eight points. Impressive win for Milwaukee. And then the Mavericks beat the Heat. I mean, like I said, really weird stuff. My guy Ryan Nemhard, Eric. The Pacers should have drafted him and reunited. Well, I don’t It’s not even reunited because they didn’t play together in college. Uh, they should have united the Nemhard brothers. Instead, they took Tayen Pier Nemhard today. 15 points, 13 assists, one turnover, six for 10 from the field, three for three from three. He’s just going to be like a really really good backup point guard at least. Like I I already see it. I already see it. Worried. There was worries about him being too small, but he’s playing great. Why didn’t Dallas play him until the last few games? I don’t know. Because, you know, Brandon Williams shooting 35% from the field is more fun, I guess. Um, Cooper Flag 22 points, nine for 13 from the field, did not attempt a three. Anthony Davis is playing. Maybe Dallas is uh going to be competitive still, you know, with AD if they keep him. Kyrie comes back at some point. You got Ryan Mhard looking good. Cooper Flag starting to play better. I don’t know. I don’t know. But they get a good win over the Heat. So, some upsets today, including us beating the Cavs. Anyway, that’s around the NBA. Thoughts on this game, Eric? Um, obviously really good bounce back from last night’s loss. Um, fun to see them beat a pretty good team. Um, yeah, I saw um some comments in chat that I wanted to address. Tristan was um I can’t find it, but he was worried about Klingan not guarding Thomas Bryant on the three-point line. And that is because it was the game plan not to guard him. He was two for 18 on the season or going into this game. Um, so I know he hit at least three threes tonight, but that was quite obviously the plan was to let him shoot if he was open. Um, but no, uh, I thought this was a really good game. Um, you know, Denny, another strong game. Um, I heard you talking for a little bit about him. Uh, I I really liked what Shay did tonight outside of there was one play where he took like a little eight foot shot and I I forgot who it was but there was someone like wide open under the hoop like no one was around him and I was like pass the ball and then he got the ball back off off the rebound and then shot again. I think he got fouled but like he he just like kept missing that guy. But overall I thought he played pretty good. had a couple nice reads in the passing lanes to get some steals. Um and uh yeah uh obviously Blazers they started out shooting pretty bad in this game. Um I think there were like four or five or 15 or 16 at one point and then well I guess that’s kind of good for them but um then at one point they caught on fire there in the second quarter and then um actually had it at around 40% at halftime. So that really helped a lot. But yeah, just uh going on that run getting up double digits. Um and then the Cavs made a run in the third quarter. Uh if they had a 100 run at one point and you’re like, “Oh no, here they come.” But the Blazers uh held them off and there was that big four-point play by Jeremy Grant. Um they just uh did enough to win this game and uh I thought I thought they played pretty well all around. Had a good good uh game on both ends. Yeah, good team effort. Multiple guys did other things that maybe they don’t normally do quite the rate they did tonight. And it was a good two-way effort. Good two-way effort. They made threes. They got to the free throw line. They attacked. They didn’t just settle for threes. They moved the ball well. They uh played some defense. Yeah, it was uh they controlled the defensive glass maybe a little bit more than they have in uh in other games or at least they they won the offensive rebounding battle normally that it’s high numbers for both teams when the Blazers play. They’re really good offensive rebounding team and a really bad defensive rebounding team. So, as long as they can win that battle, us good. Yeah, really, really happy. Player of the game poll. I mean, we can. I just think it’s going to be Denny like but I’ll do it. player of the game poll. I mean, we got uh Denny, we’ll do Tammani, I guess. We’ll do Sharp, and we’ll do Caleb Bluff. All right, there’s your poll. Player of the game poll not named Denny. Yeah, maybe we should start doing those. You’re muted. What was the percentage last night? I don’t know. Like 60 or 70% I think. Don’t remember exactly. And uh we have 31 votes and he has 744% of the vote. So Yeah, vote for you the player not named Denny who you think should win player of the game because we’ll just give it to him now if you just want to disregard his name in the poll. All right, Rayex, I know Denny was questionable with the ankle spray and he rolled his ankle last last night a little bit and played on it today. Props to him. Yeah, Clayman was obviously a little bit too. Yeah. And he’s been fighting through it. So, um I will say also uh I really liked um even though 15 shots in 27 minutes, I thought Caleb Love did did a really good job tonight. Also, um him getting out a couple times uh leaking out in transition, getting us a couple easy baskets. I thought that really helped. Yeah. I also like his one game out of five. Yep. I also uh I mean Ree didn’t play a ton in 11 minutes, but um he ends up going two for five uh from the field. So, like his numbers don’t look great, but I thought he had uh he came in and had two really good cuts um and and got two lays um in his first few minutes of action in the first half. And then um was I mean, he wasn’t great on defense, but like he was trying and was a little better than he normally was. Same with the I thought I thought Yang’s minutes were okay. um didn’t really hurt us and that that’s all you can ask for I think in those situations. But I thought he played okay defensively as well. Um but yeah, I really like those two or those three. Um I felt like I mean we know Love’s going to shoot just a ton of shots. So, um, but I I thought those three really did a nice job of of not messing things up like they have been in other games. Yeah. Yeah. Some of your guys that messed things up didn’t really mess things up today. Caleb Love made shots today and you actually had contributions from the bench anyway. you have any more thoughts on this game that you want to dive into or do you want to start talking about uh the rumors from today? We can talk about Giannis again. Okay. Yeah, we’ll talk about Giannis again. I will just say I am very surprised by some of the people that are turning their nose up towards a top three player. But uh I’ll I’ll give some context. Sorry, I just opened up Twitter and I see somebody dead. He’s not the first option on a winning team. I mean, this team would be winning if they just had more shooters around him. Let’s be for real. I guess a tough schedule, too. But okay. Uh people are people are crazy um and dumb. But Giannis today there was rumors that came out that a he had already demanded a trade before the season. Publicly didn’t let it be known but privately demanded a trade before the season. Do you owe that lady an apology from last night? What lady? Oh, I guess so. I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I guess. Just saying. I guess. I don’t know. You know, broke broken clocks, right? Twice a day. But, uh, and then you had Shams come out with a tweet. Let me find it. Wind Horse also had a lot to say today. Yeah. But said just in, Giannis Antakmpo and his agent Alex Seratus have started conversations with the Milwaukee Bucks about the twotime NBA MVP’s future and discussing whether his best fit is staying or elsewhere. Sources tell ESPN a resolution is expected in the coming weeks. This was like interesting but also kind of like what does that even mean? They’re going to discuss whether he should stay or go. I mean, I’m I assume if he privately demanded to trade before the season, they’ve already been having those discussions. Like, it’s just kind of kind of weird to me like on the back of the Windhorse report. Like, now Shams gets in on the action with something that doesn’t really mean a whole lot. Like, okay, your star and his organization is talking about the future. Okay. Um, resolution expected in coming weeks. like who knows who in the hell that is. Uh but I think the Winhorse stuff was interesting if you want to dive into some of what he said. You’re muted. I don’t have it in front of me. Let me try to find it. No, I thought you would just know off the top of your head because you said it was interesting. So that’s why I teed you up. Tori, yes, no honest poll. I mean, I did a poll about a trade for him last night, a trade package, and more people voted yes than no. We’ll discuss it. Go ahead. He he uh Yeah, he was the one that said that he requested a trade before the season started. Yeah. what I really don’t get. Um because he was the one that wanted them to sign Miles Turner. Like why why would you do that if you were requesting a trade out? I don’t know. Seems kind of weird. Yeah. I don’t know. Like maybe he thought they were going to make more more moves, but they don’t have assets. Like they don’t have the big Yeah. Like I mean you they had a wave. Oh, I think Eric lagged out. I don’t think I don’t even think that was collab cam. I think that was his internet. All right. Go again. You got collab. I think it’s your internet. They uh did not have um I mean they they had to cut Dame to sign Miles Turner. They didn’t have any other avenues of getting good players. They had already traded a bunch of picks for Dame to begin with and for Koosma and for Drew that they’re still paying off. Um like I just I don’t understand what he expected them to do. But I mean, their their GM has made some pretty bad moves trying to build around him since the title anyway. Um, but yeah, the other thing Winhorse said was that Giannis only wants to be a Nick. So, we’ll see. We’ll see if that happens or not. Well, let’s tee off this discussion with this. Do you think that matters? Um, well, that depends on if uh what’s their GM’s name? Hor. Horse. Yeah. Um, so is it like the German and Detroit situation where they’ve given him since he won a title, like do they want to honor whatever he wants to do eventually? Have they have they been telling him that or have they uh are they going to pull a Cronin and anything they’ve told him they’re going to throw out the window now and just take do whatever is best for the franchise? Um I don’t know. I’m I’m always kind of torn on that. I see both sides point. But like I said, he did win a title for you. Um he has stuck around what 10 years or so, maybe longer than that. How long has he been there? 12 years. I’m not sure. But, uh, yeah, I think I I think that he I don’t know. He He definitely deserves a little bit of like kind of consideration for what he wants to do. At the same time, uh, like when you’re trading someone who’s like a perennial MVP candidate, one of the best players in the league, I think you can’t just trade him to a team that doesn’t have any assets that you’re looking for. Um, so maybe you get that team to find a way to get assets by trading multiple guys. But, um, I I don’t know, man. I I don’t I find it hard to believe they’ll just like give him to the Knicks for Carl Anthony Towns or something. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense either. Yeah. So, my feelings like this changed a little bit because of the Dame thing because I always felt that way with Dane like do right by blah blah blah and then the Blah screw that you’re going to Milwaukee. Milwaukee benefit off that, right? So, it’s kind of interesting like the conversation’s a bit flipped here now. We’re talking about their star. Um, but essentially to be fair, let me just say real quick. Um, so what you’re talking about is both you and I believe and like we’ve had several things backing this up over the years that Dame was told and promised certain things and that if the Blazers ever decided to go young or rebuild that they would take care of him and deal him to where he wanted to go. And whether that is true or not, Dame believed that that was the case once they drafted Scoot and decided to go young that the organization had told him that he could choose where he wanted to go. And obviously that ended up not being correct. But um that just to set up what you’re about to say. Yeah. is that Dame believed that he had been promised to get to to his next destination by the organization. Yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, like, all right, sure, you can if you want to go to the Knicks, there is a certain baseline in terms of a package for the Bucks to get back from the Knicks. Like, they’re not just going to trade him for crap. Um, and if they do, it basically puts their organization at the bottom of the league probably for the next eight years because you’re talking about a team that doesn’t have their own pick for the next five years. Now, maybe they can tank this year and next year with New Orleans being as bad as they are and still get like a high draft pick even though they get the worst of the Well, no, they don’t even have their pick next year. So like this year maybe they tank and um and get a high pick because New Orleans is so bad. That’s possible. Discussed that last night. But other than that, you’re not going to have a high pick for the next four years. Even if you suck, which you are going to suck once you trade Giannis. Even if you get back like Cat in Male, that team is not going anywhere. You know, you’re what are you trading Miles Turner in that trade? Like what does that look like? The the Knicks have no picks. The Knicks have absolutely no picks. The Knicks also have like no depth or no good young players that are really worth anything. So, what are you getting back from them? The problem is people will say three team trade, but if you’re trading Cat or Male to a third team, the only teams that are really going to want to trade for those guys are teams that are already good in trying to be contenders. and the picks from those teams, unless they have other teams picks, I guess, like, you know, maybe the Hawks would give up the the best in New Orleans or Milwaukee for, I don’t know, CAT, but I don’t even see them doing that. Why would they do that? They don’t really need to do that. So, the picks you’re getting back for those guys in a three-team trade are probably going to be late first. So, it’s like either you trade Giannis for, you know, Cat and Male or whatever and then you’re near the bottom of the league with these pieces that are getting older and you’re delaying your rebuild and you suck and, you know, what’s the point? Or you flip them to third teams and for Giannis, you just get a few late firsts. That sounds like complete crap to me. I don’t really see the package from New York where it’s like, all right, we want to do right by Giannis, but their package is so bad. It doesn’t really get set Milwaukee on a path towards rebuilding. I mean, we have we have seen teams like the Kings come to mind last year that stupidly stupidly got collab cammed again. Brutal. Bring him back. All right. Go ahead. Uh, sorry. uh we just we we know that there are certain organizations, certain teams that don’t think that way that they they think that they can make moves to stay relevant. And I mean, this is the same GM there that thought putting Kyle Kosma next to Giannis was a good idea. like um like it is possible that they do something stupid like try to stay relevant instead of doing the right thing and rebuilding and getting some of their picks back. Yeah. Like that’s the thing is either they do if they trade him to Milwaukee or if they trade him to New York and like stick by their word doing right by Giannis just kills their franchise for almost a decade. But was the title worth it? Like does do they I mean you have the title no matter what. Like in and this is what we heard with the dam situation. It’s a business. He’s the guy that wants out. All right. Yas wants out. Like I don’t know what you said to him before, but it’s just like as the organization, you could get a hall that can put you on a path to be a contender again in like five, six years, maybe seven years. Or you could be screwed at the bottom of the league because you’re not a free agent destination. You don’t have your own picks and you get a crappy package back for Giannis where you’re just bottom feeders for the next eight years. like it’s not an easy position to be in. So, you know, if they told Giannis that they would trade him where he wants to go, like they should stick by their word. But also, I guess as an organization, that’s why you don’t necessarily say that. Because here’s the thing is like if you have to say that to a player to keep him there, then he’s not going to stay there. He’s going to take advantage of that. The fact that you’re telling him, “Oh, we’ll trade you wherever you want to go. in order to try and make him happy enough to stay like he’s going to take advantage of that because he’s not truly happy. So, as an organization probably best not to tell guys that and especially, you know, if you’re going to pull the rug out from underneath them and tell them one thing and then do another, it’s not a good look. It’s not really the right thing to do. So, if they did tell Yiannis that there is no right way to do do things. It’s either you stick by your word and you’re screwed or you don’t stick by your word and the guy who won you a championship you lied to. You lied to. I think the discussion part Eric that Shams tweeted about is maybe like okay Giannis is there any other teams you’d want to go to? Like can you be talked into like four other destinations please? Like what wouldn’t you like to play with? Wouldn’t you like to play with uh Drew Holiday again because we’d like to get our picks back? If you’re gonna leave us, here’s the thing. This news, no matter what, Eric, is really, really, really good news for the Portland Trailblazers for if they they have two different scenarios here. Both of which are really, really, really good in my opinion. Okay. And we’re going to discuss both of them. Okay. The first scenario we’re gonna save for a second. The first scenario is like if they traded for Giannis in my opinion. Some players fans don’t want him. We’ll talk about that, right? Like they can become a player and trade for a top three player in the league and keep hopefully keep some pieces, right? Especially if all right Milwaukee is willing to trade him to one of the teams he wants to go to, but he needs to accept a few teams like all right, you got Drew, you got Dame, can they recruit him? you know, then you get into that and maybe you can save a little bit. But they have Milwaukeekey’s picks, they have good young players, they have, in my opinion, the ammunition to try and get a deal done. The second alternative is if Milwaukee actually does trade him where he wants to go and he wants to go to New York and they get back crap from New York, those picks in 2028, 2029, and 2030 are going to be really, really, really good. And the Blazers are going to be in a beautiful position. And those instantly become some of the best trade assets for the next star that becomes available. It’s similar to like if the if the Thunder were to trade the the okay or the Clippers pick right now, you know, that’s that’s the type of value it might have in a few years. Yeah. Um, there’s a comment in chat says, “I like the facilitation play, but we just throwing those picks away.” The facilitation play. The only way the Blazers facilitate a deal is by trading those picks back to Milwaukee where Giannis is going to another team. So what? You’re fac facilitating him to to San Antonio and helping San Antonio get him? Hell no. You’re helping the Knicks get him. So what? You’re trading uh one of Milwaukey’s unprotected picks back to Milwaukee to get Male Bridges? Hell no. The Blazers need like a, you know, a they need star power. They have good role players. And you got Denny now. You got Dame. Like those picks down the line can be the replacement for Dame, you know, or the next star. Hopefully, one of Scoo or Sharp develops if they’re here long term and can develop into a true star. Like that’s what those picks need to be. Facilitating just means trading one of those picks for somebody that’s not Giannis, for somebody that’s worse than Giannis. And that likely means probably a non-star. There’s no way I’m trading those picks for anything less than a top 20 player in the league if Giannis is going to a team that doesn’t have a good enough package to get a deal done without us facilitating it. Because if they don’t have a good enough package to get a deal done without us facilitating it, then that puts Milwaukee in a really bad position anyway and those picks become really, really good. So why help facilitate a deal that’s not particularly good for Milwaukee when you’re trading away assets that in that scenario would become very very good for yourself? Agreed. You better be getting back someone worth trading potentially number one picks for. But like who would that guy even be? Like who are some teams here? San Antonio. I mean they’re not trading WBY. So yeah, like do they really have anyone? Is Stefan Castle worth one of, you know, worth that? Maybe, but like he’s not really the archetype you need. And you have young guards like Dylan Harper would be great, but I don’t know. Like would you do Scoot and one of those first for Dylan Harper? Maybe. But like if Why wouldn’t Milwaukee just want Harper? Like Yeah. Just take Harper instead of the pick. Yeah, number two pick. Yeah, because the same equation why maybe we do it is also the inverse equation for Milwaukee and why maybe they wouldn’t do it. I I mean, who are some other teams? Like the only way it makes sense is if Portland’s taking back a legitimate star that’s worth giving up those picks for to accelerate the timeline because any young players Milwaukee is going to want to cuz they’re going to want to jump start their rebuild with some young talent and infusion of young talent. So the Hawks, who are you? No thank you to Trey Young. There’s apparently there’s people thinking like he John Mar and LaMelo Ball might all have negative value and you know wouldn’t be surprised to see them get traded for each other or something like that which is kind of funny but they’re not trading Jaylen Johnson for him and if they’re training Jayen Johnson he’s a good young star Milwaukee would want him. It only makes sense for like a star veteran that’s a top 20 player. What landing spot for Giannis has that guy that they would trade for Giannis that Milwaukee would want to cash in for their own picks back that would accelerate the timeline in a proper way for the Blazers to actually contend in the next couple years. If it was OG and male is that No, we have Tammani. Like what? So you’re gonna have Denny and Tammani and OG and Male at forward positions? Yeah. I mean, I guess we’ll have to play him, too. But yeah, but I mean, you got Drew. Would Dame next year? Like, doesn’t really make sense to me. I mean, Cat is the one name, but in that situation, if they were trading him to the Knicks, with how bad that package is, I’d kind of rather just hang on to those picks. Yeah. That’s going to look like a bad trade in a few years in my opinion. Yeah. So, if he really wants to go to the Knicks and they’re going to just oblige by him, hang on to the picks, let him go to the Knicks. It’s going to be not going to be a good package for Milwaukee. Those picks are going to be really good. Or they open up the door to trading him elsewhere. And at that point, Portland should be trying to get in on that trade for themselves because they’re talking about tra trying to find a good enough player to justify trading these picks for. Why don’t you just trade the picks for the top three player in the world that’s getting traded? You take some other stuff, but like you already have a good relationship. You traded Dame there. Um maybe so if I’m trying to remember uh the Spurs Giannis rumors over the summer, didn’t they I mean this is just posturing most likely, but maybe Chad can help me out. Didn’t the report say that the Spurs weren’t in willing to include Castle or Harper? Yeah, they’re playing it slow. They’re they’re playing the long game for the next decade because you have WMI and you have all these good pieces where it’s like, all right, we can be set up to contend for a whole decade and cashing in some of those pieces for Giannis kind of shortens that window a little bit where they don’t really need to. Yeah. So, somebody in chat brings up Austin Reeves, but like okay, so you’re going to start Austin Reeves and Dame together. Austin Reeves is better than CJ McCollum ever was, but wouldn’t you kind of be getting back to maybe some of the same defensive issues you had in the past with the back court? Like if you have Damon, I think part of Austin Reeves super high volume production this year is like LeBron’s been out all year. Luka Don has made some time. So he’s a he’s a starc caliber player right now. Don’t get me wrong. He’s played like a superstar this year. He’s taken a huge jump. He’s really, really, really good. But is that the guy to cash in the picks for? Does that guy get you to contention? The thing is you’re also like saying screw it to to Shaden Sharp in that scenario because you have Austin Reeves in front of him then and you’re not going to start sharp at the three over Tammani or Denny of course and if you did sharp at the three with like a Dame and Austin Reeves backcourt that is pretty damn brutal defensively. So if you’re if you’re cashing in those picks for Austin Reeves, there’s really no world where Shane Sharp fits in. Like would you give up Shane Sharp and one of those picks for Austin Reeves? Because I don’t think Milwaukee trades Austin Reeves for Shane Sharp in that scenario. Austin Reeves is young enough. Yeah, I was thinking like see Austin Reeves would be the type of player that the Bucks would probably think they could stay relevant around. Yeah. And like maybe this dude can be a top 10 player in the league type stuff if he’s the number one, you know? Um because he’s played like a borderline top 20 player this year. So it almost makes more sense for him to just stay in Milwaukee and then take the chance and roll the dice on him being like a number one for an entire season and seeing how he can produce compared to like him coming to Portland and you have other guys and you’re bringing Dame back and the defensive combination between Damon Os Reeves isn’t the best. I’ll talk about the Blazers training for Giannis in a second, but just in terms of the facilitation route. Just don’t who who are some other landing spots, chat, you can name teams. Well, let’s just look at um betting odds. Giannis next team. Where can I find this with like it having updated lines? Let’s see here. The uh package we discussed last night, did that include both of them? Yeah. And we’ll discuss it just like Yeah, facilitation route. I just want to fully explore facilitation route before we get into the weeds there because there’s a lot of people asking in chat. Yeah. Yeah, we’ll talk about it. Um, okay. So, Rockets, who’s a older veteran that doesn’t fit a rebuilding timeline for the Bucks that’s a borderline top 20 player on the Rockets that they trade for Giannis, Kevin Durant. But the thing is is one of the Milwaukee picks in that situation I think is already potentially more valuable than the entire package for Kevin Durant if that’s a top three pick. Like I know Dylan Brooks has played great and you got Jaylen Green back but like he didn’t his archetype didn’t have much value this past off seasonason and then he’s been hurt and then you got the 10th pick. like we’re willing to trade for Kevin Durant. Like probably should have tried to be in play last off season, you know? I mean, there’s really nobody else that fits the bill there. They’re not trading I don’t think they’re trading Shangun. And if they do, Milwaukee would probably just keep him. And same thing goes for Amen Thompson. OKC gives the best package. Yeah, but that’s because of the picks. Like in any star they if they traded Jaylen Williams or Chat, Milwaukee, they’re young stars, so Milwaukee would rebuild with them. Would we give up a swap for Tari East or Jabari Smith? No way. No, no, no way. Not good move. Needs to be like a legitimate star already. And the those kind of situations would have to be a protected pick and we’re not or the Bucks aren’t wanting their picks back protected. Yeah, the Suns I mean the Suns just have late first. So that just screws Milwaukee to keep the picks instead because they’re not going to trade Booker for him. So you’re going to trade a potential top pick in the draft from a really bad team for Jaylen Green or Dylan Brooks or or Royo like who who they have, you know what I mean? They don’t have anybody. um Warriors. I don’t like Jimmy Butler’s fit here, but like that’s maybe the closest we’ve gotten. But I don’t like Jimmy Butler’s fit here at all. Like it’s not enough to justify he’s not good enough to justify he’s too old to justify like the fit issues and there’s really no other stars there. We’re getting Dmon finally. What would y’all give up for JDub? I mean, like, maybe Milwaukee would rather just take the long long long route and have their own picks back instead of guy like JDub. I mean, I’d love to get Jaylen Williams. I guess I’ll say never say never, but like I don’t think that’s realistic. I think they’d rather just have Jaylen Williams and sit there and be like, “Okay, he can be a true gem star.” Uh, yeah, Anthony Davis is a name throw out there. I mean, the Mavs. I don’t see the Mavs trading for Giannis. But also like Anthony I’ve cooled on the idea of Anthony Davis a little bit even given his injury issues. Anthony Davis does not have val as much value as I think people think he does and not enough to justify trading the Milwaukee picks for him because he’s always hurt. He’s not particularly efficient outside of the the restricted area. Like he’s not a particularly efficient mid-range shooter or three-point shooter. MS also wouldn’t have traded Luca either. Well, they got rid of the guy. That was a problem. What about the Celtics? Jaylen Brown and Dame. I wonder if there’s enough enough um is there a team with enough draft capital that we would take over the Bucks picks? That’s the other scenario we haven’t discussed. I mean, I don’t know what that would be short of getting like eight first one pick. Yeah, the Rockets are really the only team or the I mean or the Hawks. Or the Hawks if they’re trading the uh Well, no. Milwaukee would want the pick this year. If the Hawks were traded that pick, the the Bucks would want it this year. Jazz have a lot, don’t they? Yeah, the Jazz Nets, too. I don’t see either of those teams. So like the Rockets are kind of the one team that might OKC OKC but I don’t I think they could trade for him regardless. So I guess if they’re going to trade for him, you might as well benefit off of it. But I just hate the idea of facilitating a Yiannis to OKC trade. Yeah. I mean, that seems like 2018 or 2017 Warriors, whatever. What What year was that? Yeah. Uh Yeah. It’s like might as well just plan for five years from now. Yeah. No, thank you. I mean, I don’t think OKC Why would OKC trade for Yianis? don’t need to. Like if I was just so like if the Blazers or Spurs were going to get him just so they wouldn’t like that’s the only way. I don’t think they’d worry at all. What 21 and one? Things are so perfect for them. Why would they change anything? They have all these picks. They have a great young core. They’re dominating the league after winning a championship. They look like they may have the potential to win three or four in a row and have at the same time the brightest future for the next decade. Like they are in as perfect of a position as any team maybe has ever been for like trying to set up a dynasty outside of having MJ. Like I think they have a chance to be a greater dynasty than the Warriors were. I think they have a chance outside of the Celtics winning as many as they did in the 60s. Like I think they have a chance over the next 10 to 12 years to be the next greatest dynasty. Unfortunately, like I do think they have the upside to win six, seven championships in the next 12 years. I think with the rate of injuries this year, like that’ll be the thing to maybe derail it just like it kind of derailed the Warriors when the Raptors beat him. But there was also like infighting with Kevin Durant, like Draymond, that sort of thing. So Kevin Durant left. I don’t think there would be that with like Giannis and SGA and whoever’s left. Well, no, I’m saying if they didn’t trade for Giannis. Like that team. Yeah, I kind of got mixed up there. that team is uh very cohesive. Um but yeah, I mean maybe the maybe the Clippers, but like Kawawaii can’t have that much value and James Harden doesn’t make sense here. Jaylen Brown is the one guy that’s made some sort of sense. Yeah. Do you give up all three picks for Jay Br? Celtics are 12 and the number one option and don’t really have a viable setter on their roster. Like he’s been really really good as a number one option this year. He had 42 points to beat the Knicks last game. He’s averaging 29 points, six boards, five assists. Like if you could have have that plus a Denny Od is averaging 26,7 and six plus a day and he’s 29. Like he’s kind of in that sweet spot where maybe he’s a little old for the Bucks but young enough to fit like a a Denny timeline, but would I give up all three picks for him? You ask would they even want their picks back over Jaylen Brown? I don’t know. Like I said, the Bucks could be stupid and yeah, like one competitive, but he’s Jaylen Brown and Turner and Koozma. That’s that’s the start of something nice. But he’s 29, so he’s although on the old side to kick off a rebuild. Yeah, but I’m saying that Yeah, they might still want him, but like that’s kind of the sweet spot where it’s like maybe they would rather have their own picks back and do like a longer rebuild to rebuild, right? So that’s kind of the one name facilitation wise that makes some sort of sense back. Yeah. Is there any other teams, Christopher? You’re funny. What the heck was that? What was that? That was you. I know. I was just wondering some weird I don’t even know what that was. Yeah, I would play hard ball and just I would say no, not good enough. Um, and just keep the picks like Rip City says because, uh, like you you have mentioned several times, if if they’re trading honest, those picks are just going to become worth more and more Kings. What do we do on AJ Clippers? I mean, we already discussed that. Yeah, I think Jaylen Brown’s really the only guy that uh Winhorse said Bucks will let Yiannis pick a team. Yeah, well that’s the Knicks, it sounds like. So, you know, we discussed that angle of why it just makes sense to keep the picks. I don’t really want any other players for the Bucks picks. I wouldn’t really facilitate that. I would be pretty pissed if they gave one up for like Muel Bridges. Even though people would then say if they did that, oh Tori, you just want to hate on Cronin. That’s why you don’t like this move because he made it and you don’t like him. No, I preface everything. I preface everything. I wanted Cedric Coward. Like, I do not want to trade a Bucks pick for male. So, if he then goes and trades a Bucks pick for male, yeah, I’m going to be mad. If he goes and swings a good trade for Giannis, I’m going to be thrilled, just like I was happy with the Denny trade and getting Kamara out of that trade. And I’m not BSing you. You can go back and and listen to those streams. I was, you could tell I was happy to get Kamar in that trade. This was before I think 90% of Blazer fans knew who that was. I’m not just a hater. It’s pretty damn obvious, I think. But, you know, I think a lot of the criticisms the of Joe Cronin has been justified and I think the stuff that I have praised him for has in hindsight ended up being his best work. So, do not want to trade a Bucks pick for for male. I don’t re I don’t really want cat like that. I want a guy that can be a number one on a contending team if I’m giving up those picks. Jaylen Brown might be good enough to be that guy. Male obviously ain’t that guy. Cat, I don’t think is that guy. So, Anthony Davis I don’t really think is that guy and he’s always hurt. Thing is I think Anthony Davis might be better than Jaylen Brown as a number two but I think Jaylen Brown as a number one has looked pretty damn good this year. So I do not like the facilitation route. I saw people bring up Orlando. Um, why wouldn’t they just want Fron or Paulo or because it would be one of those two guys? Well, I doubt the Magic would be a team that like why not just trade Giannis to us at that point. Yeah, exactly. Because they they don’t have their own picks. So, it’s like what? You’re going to put a package around Jaylen Suggs and France Vagner? I think Portland can easily beat that pick that package by trading Milwaukee its own picks back in three separate years. Maybe an additional first because they have Orlando’s 2028 unprotected first. Like I said, Orlando doesn’t have tradable first. Um, and then a package of like Thybore or Robert Williams, Jeremy Grant, and then probably it would take both of Shaden Sharp and Scoot Henderson. I think that’s a much better package than what the Magic could offer. I think that’s a much much better package than what the Knicks could offer. I think that’s a competitive enough package that it might be good enough to get it done. And it’s because not only does it set you up to really start your rebuild this year because you get a high upside back court with Scoot and Sharp, high caliber prospects, one of which is already like a 20 point per game score and then Scoot who took strides in year two. They also could have a good pick this year given how bad New Orleans is. They get the worst of New Orleans Milwaukee. So if they’re both bad, like they could end up with a pretty decent pick. So add that to Scoot and Sharp. And then you don’t have your pick the year after, but then 2028, 2029, 2030, you have your own picks to continue adding to that. That’s how you rebuild the right way soon if you’re Milwaukee. Otherwise, any other trade package is like you’re trying to remain competitive, but without Giannis, they’re awful. They’re like the worst team in the league. Um, and they would be a bottom five team in the league, in the Eastern Conference. I mean, even if they got back a player like Cat McCale, I still think they’d be a bottom five team in the in the Eastern Conference. I don’t think that’s a good team. Um, or you’re trading for bad picks, or you’re trading for other teams picks in the future, which might not be good. Like, it’s not the right way to rebuild. I think getting back their own picks is very valuable. And Portland has leverage in the Giannis trade. And they have young players. They have enough good young players that they could swing like Scoot and Sharp and Jeremy and then thyel for him and they’d still have a decent top seven. You’d be looking at next year you’d have Dame, Drew, Denny, Giannis, Klingan starting five and then off the bench you’d have Tammani Kamar and Robert Williams still. Or if you really like Thybel and want to trade Williams instead, you still have Tammani Kamar and Matis Thyball still. Yeah, you need to find two other guys for that bench unit, but I don’t know the salaries. But given how cheap of a contract Denny’s on and Dame’s on, I think you could probably have a full mid-level exception to add to that to go fill out the rest of the roster. You still have a decent bench. You’d still have a good young core after Giannis with Denny Tammani clinging. Well, not after Giannis. I messed up my words there. You still have a good core after Dame because I know that’s some people’s worry is like, “Oh, well, what happens with Dame and Drew retire? The team sucks then even with Yiannis.” No, you’d still have Giannis, Danny, Tammani, Klingan, and then you’d try and find other pieces to put around him. I think that’s a great plan to become a contender for the next five years. Some people seem to think that having a big three of a top three player in the league, Damen Lillard, a true all-star right now in Denny Odia, an alldefensive second team member last year, Drew Holiday, Donovan Klingan, who’s quickly becoming one of the best rim protectors in the league. Somehow that team is not good enough to contend. And people keep saying, “Why would you want to rerun what the Bucks did last uh the last couple years?” Bro, the supporting cast around Damon Giannis was terrible. It was terrible. Who was their next best player? Kyle Kosma, Brook Lopez, Bobby Poris, like those were their next best players. Instead, with Damon Jiannis here, you have Denny Odia who’s 267 and six right now. A true all-star. You’d have Tammani Kamara. You’d have Drew Holiday. I think all three of those guys are better than Bobby Portoris, Burke Lopez, or Kyle Kousma. So, it’s a much much much better supporting cast around Dame Giannis if you swung that type of trade for Giannis. And the thing is in D it wasn’t really a Damon Giannis issue. Like both those guys had injury issues. Like they never got to be healthy together in the playoffs, which I thought was where they would shine. And that was with a crappy supported cast. So, it’s not running it back. It’s better. I don’t really understand the uh the sticking your nose up at trading for a top three player in the league in Giannis. I mean, the only thing that is it is just saying basically that you’re you’re fine not trying to go for it and you’re you’re okay with just rooting for the players you have right now because you like them. See, and those people I assume were big fans of Neil Ol. You know what? Ironically, not a single one of them is fans of Oce. It’s It’s backwards to me. Like, yeah, you we couldn’t stand OSH because he never did enough to to go for it. And now we worship Cronin because all right, you’re five of his rebuild. We’re nine and 13, you know. So finally we’re we’re maybe going to be a 500 team this year. So we had year after year after year not going for it for for Dame and now we’re celebrating year five of rebuild because we’re you know nine and 13 and have some pieces. Okay. Um so at what point is it going to be like year after year after year after not going for it? You’re not gonna get if they have a chance at Giannis, you’re not gonna get as good of an opportunity to trade for a star as that because you own their picks. That gives you a leg up for a guy that’s a top three player in the world. How often do top three players in the world get traded? People say, Luka, he’s not even a top three player in the world. Luca is not as good as SGA or Giannis or Jokic. He’s probably a fourth or fifth best player in the world. Like, he’s really, really, really good. But you’re talking about a literally a top three player in the world. Those don’t become available often at all and you have a leg up in negotiations. It’s the perfect time to go get that piece and go for it. You have Dame coming back next year. There is no better time than a potential Giannis trade. And if they want to trade him to the Knicks, they want to do right by him. Okay, fine. Those picks are going to be really good. But if they’re willing to trade them to other teams, that’s why Portland has to be really aggressive, you’re not going to get that opportunity again. And passing on it now, I feel very confident would be something that they could regret in the future because if they’re willing to trade Giannis to for the best package, that package could be good enough that maybe those picks aren’t quite as good in 2028, 2029, 2030. all that stuff for a one year of a maybe. What do you mean one year of a maybe? Like in four years, I think Denny Giannis clinging into Monty is a good enough court to contend, assuming you just have a competent GM that just knows how to put the right role players around those guys. Like I I’m I’m just confused, man. Just confused. And the thing is in the future, like they’ll have more picks four years from now because the picks that they traded back to Milwaukee, whatever picks they traded, you start opening up future picks that then the Blazers would have to continue to supplement that core. people are so worried about, oh, who would be the sixth man four years from now to justify trading for a top three player in the world right now. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s it’s it’s just straight backwards to me. Well, the other thing is too, I mean, some people are mentioning that Giannis might be hurt if he was hurt and out a while and the Blazers then didn’t make the playoffs this year, but had Giannis for next year and Dame for next year and maybe a pick this year. Maybe they still have their they would get their pick this year with a lottery pick. So that also becomes another tradable asset to get those pieces or you just keep building the young players around those guys and try to like what if you hit on a star in the draft on in addition to that getting the honest Yeah. Like what if you get lucky in the lottery? Yeah. and get a star, you know, get a star and then you have Can you imagine Darren Peterson like his shooting um with with Giannis and Denny like we’d have a big four plus Drew Holiday and Tammani Kamar and maybe Robert Williams, three guys that have been all defensive members. And you know, maybe it’s a little too soon to expect the rookie to come in and be a star, you know, but like two, three years down the line, that’s the thing is is the Blazers have the ammunition to do it. And there’s just so much upside behind a Giannis trade. Like especially if he’s hurt, okay, then maybe you send him out the rest of the year, you’re already sitting and then next year you have a contender. People are worried about him like not resigning. I think the Blazer would be good enough to sell him on staying in Portland. Now I think having Dame and Drew here helps that case. I think that’s an important part of this actually is you have Damon Drew. That’s also why I like the idea of like trying to sign Chris Middleton off a buyout market or maybe with a bannual exception this off season, right? Like you include Theosis in the trade. We have Thenosis as the 15th man, you know, like he wants to be competitive more than anything. So, yeah. Yeah, it could backfire, but guess what? Any move to get this team to contention against a potential OKC dynasty has to have downside for it to even be possible. You’re not going to get a perfect trade where you get Victor Win Bongyama with six years of team control. There’s no downside. There’s going to be downside in literally any single trade you make. If there’s going to be downside, you might as well go for the ultimate upside where we might win a freaking championship because we got a top three player in the world. So, I think people are overthinking this, Eric. I mean, it would easily be the biggest move in franchise history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is there a way they could keep Scooter sharp and trade enough draft capital with one of the two? Maybe you include Klingan because you want to stretch five with Yiannis. So maybe it’s like Klingan Klingan sharp in picks. Is that more palatable for people? Or clinging scoot in picks. Is that more palatable for people? It just creates a hole in the starting lineup. I mean, next year you would maybe bring Drew off the bench and start Dame Tammani, uh, Denny, Giannis, and Klingan and just have a crap ton of size and you’d have three switchable defenders, two through four. Yeah, I’m swinging, man. I’m swinging. It’s just insane to me that like somebody’s like, “Are you stupid? Why would you include thy bowl in a trade for Giannis?” What? What are we doing, man? What are we doing? Did you hear the cursing in the background? No. Okay, good. What’s going on? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. We were just really quiet and then uh yeah, I don’t know the chat here. What is she doing? I don’t know. Something’s wrong. I guess I’ll go find out soon if you don’t have anything left to say on this on this thing cuz I hear a lot of chaos. Do you have anything else to say? No, I mean I don’t know. We we discussed this pretty much in length last night. I It’s fine if you don’t. I think you got to go for it. I I just I I don’t Like I said, I get it if you’re the type that just likes who’s on your team and don’t want to mix things up at all. Um I see a lot of people saying it’s a risk in chat. Um I don’t think it’s a risk at all. I mean, it is a risk, but the reward is far greater than the risk. I mean, if you had a chance to do it, I think it’s far riskier to not do it. Like, you’re you’re basically saying you don’t you’re scared to try and win a championship if you don’t do it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s the that’s the thing is is I think like Denny can be the number one on a winning team. Can he be the number one on a championship winning team? I think it’s two separate conversations. There’s people on uh on Twitter, Denny, a specific Denny hater specifically that uh is just basically saying like he can’t be a number one option on a on a winning team. But here’s my rebuttal, Eric. The Blazers are the 13th best offense in adjusted offensive rating. So offensively, they are already a winning offense. Technically, they’re above average with Denny as the number one player with a lot of crap around him with the second worst three-point shooting lineup around him. And he’s shooting a good three-point ball. So, if it wasn’t for him, they might be the worst three-point shooting in the league. They’re playing City Soko, Chris Murray, Ryan Rupair, Caleb Love next to Denny Ody as the number one offensive option. And this team is still somehow an above average offense in adjusted offensive rating, which takes into account the strength of schedule. So if you put better players around him, this could be a 10th ranked offense. That’s a winning offense. So there is no argument that oh, he can’t be the number one option on a winning team in my opinion. Unless you think what he’s doing right now is not sustainable. Which I mean that’s where they probably move the goal post too if they don’t like Denny because right you gota move the goal post because I do not think like given how this offense has been this year how much crap’s around DDI and it’s still an above average offense. Yeah, he can be the number one player on a winning team on an above 500 team. It’s different than can he be a number one option on a like true contending team. I’m not sure. I wouldn’t put it past him though how much he’s improved the last two years. Like I don’t think you can rule out that he can become a top 10 player in the league. What’s the non-manipulated offensive rating rank? Well, if you don’t want to take into account strength of schedule, then you’re just trying to find a way to knock the offense because they faced a tough schedule. So, fine, we can get out the actual offensive rating rank and then say that’s also against a tough schedule. Adjusted offensive rating contextualizes that, which is meaningful context. But, you know, if you want to ignore that context because you want to try and act like Denny’s not as good, sure, we can look at that step. The Blazers before tonight were 18th, but also close enough to Atlanta and Milwaukee, they might be 16th after tonight against a tough schedule. They’ve played a lot of good defenses and they are a league average offense with Denny’s the number one with crap around him. I think all right, you play a more normal schedule and have better shooting around him instead of the worst shooting lineup in the league. Yeah, that’s probably a borderline top 10 offense. That’s a winning offense with him as the number one option. Anyway, shout out to MGJ with a $10 donation says, “I think that I think that trade for the Blazers would be a no-brainer. Would have to do that.” I absolutely agree. Here’s the thing. You’re always going to overvalue your own prospects. Every team’s fan base does it. It’s like basically impossible not to. So, you know, I’m not surprised that people don’t want to make that trade for Giannis. I think it’s kind of insane to sit there and worry about if Matis Dyel is included or not, but Thank you for the donation. I appreciate it. Odds of championship with Tori’s trade is around 0%. What do you not know who Giannis Anthetakmpo is? That trade gives the Blazers a much greater chance to win a championship than not making that trade over the next decade. If you think there’s a 0% chance to win a championship with a lineup of Giannis, Denny, Dame, Klingan, Tammani Kamar, Drew Holiday, Robert Williams III, then the bar must be so freaking high that not trading for Giannis means they’re never ever going to come close to reaching it. If the bar is literally that high, might as well move the team to Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. Like you’re already giving up essentially. If that’s your attitude, you’re giving up on ever winning a ring. That’s what he’s doing. He says from 0% to zero. Okay. He doesn’t think they’re ever going to win. Anyway, you think you think it’s so hopeless for them to ever contend that it’s impossible that they shouldn’t even try. That’s your attitude. That’s a pretty good attitude, man. That’s a great attitude. I love it. Okay. obviously cynical. Um, so you think it’s there’s a 0% chance they ever win a championship, but if they traded for Giannis, that would mean they have two players that won a championship together, and then they have a player in Denny who is probably just as good as anyone else they had when they won a championship, right? And I know they’re a little older, but um and then you got Dame shooting. I don’t know like how do you how do you how do you say there’s 0% chance if the Blazers had a top three player in the league of winning a championship? I don’t get it. With two the top three have all won championships. Jokic, SGA, and Yiannis have all won championships in the last four years. And you’d have two borderline top 20 players in the league with them and some great defensive pieces that can also do some things offensively. I don’t get it, man. As long as Tori’s a Blazers fan, we have zero chance. That’s what he means. Because of the curse. Because of the curse. Um, but yeah, I mean, fun to talk about, but Yiannis says rose way where he goes. Yeah, I mean we’ve discussed every aspect of this. If that matters, if that doesn’t matter, we should go for him. If that does matter, we should probably just stand Pat because those picks are going to be really good. Yeah, I mean there’s multiple different pathways here. I mean, all of them are good for the I mean, both the pathways I said are good. Trading for Giannis or keeping their picks if he has say goes to New York. I think the worst thing would be missing out on a trade for Giannis where the Bucks just trade him to a team for like a decent package that the Blazers could have beaten while maintaining enough assets andor players to truly contend over the next five years if the Bucks truly I mean okay so scenario where we trade for Giannis that’s obviously takes precedent but if we’re just talking about, okay, he’s going to a major market and won’t come to Portland. um which is stupid for the the chat saying that but um anyways uh if he gets traded to the Knicks for some package around Carl Anthony Towns and the Bucks are in that window where they’re somewhat okay for the next few years. That’s the best possible scenario outside of getting getting honest ourselves because they they have no way of if if they took Cat for example, he makes a little less or like about what 15 20 million less than um Giannis if I’m not mistaken off the top of my head. Uh, so there’d obviously be another piece in there probably, but um, you know, 3 years from now, they’re not going to be good with Cat with no assets and no way to like build around him or do anything and they’ll probably have traded him by then. And so those picks, like I said, are going to be super valuable no matter where he’s traded to. I just don’t understand it. the Pacers. You can make the argument if Tyres Hallebertton doesn’t get hurt in game seven, they beat the OKC Thunder and win a championship with Tyrese Hallebertton, a fringe star in Pascal Seakum and a bunch of solid role players. But yet us with Giannis and Denny who I think at this point Denny is better than Pascal Seakum and Dame and a bunch of really good role players and Giannis is better than Hallebert and somehow we don’t have a single chance to be OKC. I don’t get that at all. It just doesn’t pass the logic test to me. It’s stupid, Gregory, because you’re not listening. All along we have said that it’s dependent on what the Bucks end up doing. If they let him choose his team, of course, we probably do not have a chance short of Damon Drew somehow talking him into wanting to come here. But the part you’re not listening to is if the Bucks want to do what’s best for them, please tell us why you do not think that they would still trade him to a small market team even though we could possibly benefit their future the most by giving their most amount of picks back in the in the process. And that’s where it comes into equation. Yeah, it it literally does not matter what Giannis says if the Bucks want to do what’s best for them, similar to what Joe Cronin wanted to do with Dame. If if they decide that they are going to trade him for what is best for their organization, it does not freaking matter if Giannis wants to go to New York. It doesn’t. They’re going to trade him to whatever team is willing to give them the best deal back. I don’t understand what you’re not getting about that. Wasn’t Gregory one of the guys that like hyped up Cronin for for making a business move when Dame wanted out to one team and now he’s playing the opposite side of it? Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Again, Gregory, that is irrelevant if the Bucks want to trade him for a package that includes their own picks back so they can be bad and take and have draft picks the next few years. Yeah. And it’s not as simple as like, okay, well, either he wants to be traded to a Nick to the Knicks or he’s going to stay there. Well, guess what? Milwaukeee’s just going to obviously freaking keep him. Almost makes sense more sense to let him walk in free agency. The Knicks package is not great. Oh my god. You’re Are do you purposely do this, Gregory? Purposely do this. He’s a horrible listener. He’s a terrible listener. So annoying. It’s so dumb. This is why we have issues with you. And then the next comment will be, “Oh, you guys never like differing opinions.” Yeah. While he’s just purposefully ignoring like a huge bit of context or like the way it’s framed and arguing it, being framed in a different way. It’s always always some BS. Yeah. See, you called it wrong. If you disagree, Tori gets mad. Bro, you’re not listening. You’re not listening. I called it bingo to you, brother. Bingo to you, brother. So stupid, dude. You’re literally ignoring the context behind the entire conversation. And you’re trying to say you’re trying to make arguments that against what we’re saying while ignoring the context behind what we’re saying so that then you can say, “See, you guys are annoyed because I’m disagreeing.” No, we’re annoyed because you’re literally missing the context behind what we’re saying. and trying to argue what we’re saying without acknowledging the context behind what we’re saying. It’s not a real argument. Like that’s the stupid That’s the stupid part. Like it’s not about the disagreement. You’re not disagreeing with what we’re saying because you’re ignoring the point of what we’re saying. You’re not disagreeing about the about the statement itself. You’re literally arguing something that is completely off base. If he’s traded for to a big market, that means the Bucks wanted to do right by him, which we’ve said all along. If they choose to do that, we’re screwed. Probably. We have no chance. That’s a possibility. So, so when he goes to a major market, I expect an apology. We’ve said that’s a possibility. See, this is the problem. You don’t listen and you don’t understand the context behind what is said and then you play victim when it gets annoying. It’s not some I told you so to us if he gets traded to the Knicks because we’ve literally entertained that is a very viable possibility. I just don’t think it’s a good package for the Bucks, but they could absolutely do right by him. Where did you get confused and think that we don’t think that’s a possibility? I don’t know. Probably when you were too busy thinking about what you could say back to us instead of actually listening to what we were actually saying. So, this is just like rage bait at this point. But you can’t sit here and say he won’t be he won’t be traded here if the Bucks trade him where he wants to go. Agreed. If they trade him for the best package, then there is a chance he could be traded here because there is a chance that they would value their own picks back with the young prospects Portland could give up. They have a competitive enough package to possibly get a deal done. So literally that’s the context you’re missing is this two completely separate conversations and you’re arguing one while we’re discussing another Jonas just had a press conference and he’s saying Yiannis didn’t ask for a trade and he’s staying. I don’t believe him. I mean, who knows at this point. Like maybe they do keep him. Maybe it is being overblown. Like there’s multiple different scenarios here, but we’re discussing different potential scenarios based on what was reported today. But also, of course, they’re going to save face publicly, just like Joe Cronin did after he drafted Dame’s replacement. Also, it’s possible that his agent learned from or learned what not to do from Dave’s agent. Gregory says, “I’m saying Milwaukee and Yiannis won’t do that.” Okay, you have no way of knowing that 100%. But that’s the thing is you’re we’re discussing it if they don’t because there’s no way of knowing 100%. in the package from New York is bad enough that they might not just trade him to the one team he wants to go to. They might try and convince him to open up trade avenues to other teams that maybe he would like to go to. Maybe not as much as the Knicks, but be open. Like there’s there’s so much yet to develop here. You can’t sit here with certainty that you know what’s going to happen. All right, let me ask a question. Should John Horst do what’s best for Giannis or for the Bucks organization after he’s gone? Basically, should he uh do what’s right by Yiannis and make it so that the Bucks suck for eight years and he gets fired in three years, maybe two to three years, or should he make the best possible trade for the organization and maybe keep his job long term and see it through a rebuild. At the end of the day, it probably comes down to the ownership. And trust me, billionaires have no problem screwing people over for their own success. I don’t know their owners, but like the success of their franchise over the next eight years, you’re talking about billionaires and they’re just going to say screw the success of maybe their biggest investment out of moral just because of morality or like doing the right thing for one player maybe. But that’s the thing. You’re probably not even thinking about that when you’re sitting here trying to make statements of certainty. And for the record, if your opinion is that the Bucks will end up doing what’s best for Giannis and get him to a major market, that 100% could happen. That’s absolutely a viable option and what’s looking like a likely option. What Tori is saying is that you can’t know for sure that when presented with an offer for getting a lot of their future back, aka what the Brooklyn Nets did in some some good trades. Um, would they consider doing that versus getting Carl Anthony Towns or some weird some sort of uh package from a team that can’t really help them provide any sort of future relevancy. Yeah. At the end of the day too, I don’t get annoyed with like legitimate debate. I get annoyed with be BS debate. Yeah. And there’s a difference. Exactly. Like you come in here, you’ve guaranteed things before and have been wrong, but you guaranteed with 100% certainty, but we’re wrong. And it’s annoying to sit here with something that you have no way of being certain about, and you basically are trying to guarantee it to us and saying, “I expect an apology once I’m right, and then you’ve been wrong in the past about this sort of stuff.” But that’s the way you like to argue. And then you like to frame it as, “Oh, you guys are annoyed simply because I disagree.” No, I’m annoyed that you’re coming guaranteeing something with 100% certainty that there is no possible way that you can be 100% certain at all and you have a track record of guaranteeing stuff and then being wrong about it and then trying to act like it’s not about how you’re framing the debate. It’s about just the fact that I disagree. Okay. Okay. I mean, maybe I’m mixing you up with someone else. Who was the guy that guaranteed Nerk was going to be traded like multiple deadlines in a row when he wasn’t? Or maybe it wasn’t multiple deadlines. Maybe it was one deadline. That was LT, wasn’t it? No, that was somebody else. No, group chat. Uh yeah, there were people saying Simons guaranteed Simons to be traded multiple deadlines. Yeah. But no, you’ve definitely done that about something before. And at the end of the day, a lot of people come in here and do that and guarantee something’s going to happen. And then when we call it out as BS, say you guys just angry because you disagree with me and I disagree with you. It’s like, no, you can’t guarantee that. Nerk’s gonna get traded type stuff and then they’re wrong. It’s very simple to come in here and say like I I’m very confident the Knicks will just do or the Bucks will just do right by Giannis. And guess what? So that’s what the reports say. Cool. You’re echoing the reports. Great. But like that’s a legitimate statement. Guaranteeing it is ridiculous. Shout out to Warren Forn with a $50 donation. Says, “Just found your show this season.” Welcome to our show. Every now and then, we’ll go at it with chat. This is one of those times. So, maybe this is your first time experiencing it, but I appreciate the $50 donation. Says, “Just found your show this season. You guys are super consistent. Love the passion and energy from you both. Do you think the Blazers will make the playoffs?” Thank you, Warren. Um, thanks, Warren. I think they’ll make the play. I think they’ll be a ninth or t seat. I predict them Tennessee before the season. That’s kind of where they’re at. I mean, if they get healthy with how good Denny’s playing and get an easier schedule, maybe they can rattle off a bunch of wins, maybe make a good move. Yeah, it’s just tough to expect this team to be consistently good enough to to win games. And I think with their schedule being as tough as it is, like this was a really important game to win, but um you know, it’s it’s a little rough right now scheduling wise and injury-wise. So, I mean, they I think they can pass. Who’s in ninth right now? Memphis. They’re tied with Memphis for 913. Yeah. I um maybe they can pass Golden State because they’re 500. Maybe Phoenix, who’s had a really easy schedule, can fall off. Like I think there is a a a possibility they can get in as like an eighth seed. Maybe either playing in their way in because anything can happen in a plan or maybe they can get as high as like seven eight playing game and then maybe they can win that one game and get a seventh or eight seed. So I think it’s possible. I think I’d probably put it at like a 30 I’d put it at like a one-third chance they make the playoffs, like the the round of eight in the West. So like 30 to 35%. Is where I I’m at with that. Yeah, they’re about 30% sounds right. Else I’d say about 50% or higher. 50 to 60% chance they make a plan. Yeah, I’d say 65 to 70% chance they make a plan. Um, I want to see a prediction market. Let’s see what the pred Let’s see what prediction market says. Okay, that’s updated. That’s last season. Where can I go to find this? Because predictions markets will give you like actual percentages. So the Blazers right now, Eric, this is funny. 32% chance of playoffs. Yeah, according to uh predictions market, I just checked 32%. So, literally right in between my 30 to 35%. Playoffs. Anyway, once again, thank you for the donation. Appreciate that. Yeah, thanks. And I’m glad that you like to have it here. Some people don’t like our passion, but that’s the one thing. We’ll be passionate, man. Like, if I believe in something the player should do, I’m gonna I’m gonna pound the table and I’m going to say do it. And that’s how I feel about if there’s a chance to trade for Giannis. Big emphasis on if there’s a chance to trade for Giannis because some people will miss that. Gregory, uh, then the Blazers should be very aggressive. And guess what? They could be aggressive and get told no because they want to do Ray Payis. Like I think they should be aggressive no matter what. Even if it’s like he decides to stay or something like right now. All right, there’s a chance like Portland should be on the phone with Milwaukee like hey we have your picks. You know if you’re trading them somewhere maybe there’s a chance we can facilitate but we really want them and you know here’s what we’re thinking in terms of a package. And then Mike get told you want cat, you want male? No. Okay. Yeah, he won us a championship. We’re going to do right by him. He’s going to New York. Okay, cool. You tried. You’re aggressive. Great. But I saw something on Twitter. Trade a Bucks pick for OG. Trade one or two of them. It mean if it means getting OG or cat. No way am I trading one or two Milwaukee Bucks first, which could be at the top of the draft multiple years in a row because New York doesn’t have a great trade package. So the Bucks are going to suck for a while in my opinion if they trade him to the Knicks. There’s no way I’d give up potentially multiple high first round picks for OG Anobi. know it. Era, we already discussed Jaylen Johnson. Our premise was that why why would the Bucks not just want Jaylen Johnson instead of our picks, too, if that was if we are all going to decide that those picks would be worth Jaylen Johnson. Get this, Eric. The guy that thinks we’d have a 0% chance at winning a championship with a Giannis, Dame, Denny, Tammani, Drew says we should trade the Buck swaps for Cat. Nice. Yeah. Okay. Well, we’d be we’d be top six or seven offense and then our defense would fall back down to like 25th probably. Well, the entire point is like if Yianis isn’t good enough to get us a contentionship, where does where the hell does Cat get us? We’re just at us then. The Denny Cat pick and pop, dude. Oh god, man. Yeah. I mean, we need a shooter, right? Elizabeth Hayden says, “Sorry, go ahead.” Oh, I was just going to say, I mean, I heard it from Carl Towns himself that he’s the best shooting big man of all time. So, I mean, he has a and he revolutionized the game. Well, I don’t know about revolutionizing, but He changed the game. He is like Steph Curry really good shooting big man. I think he belongs in the conversation. I I’ll give him that. Elizabeth Hayden says, “Hi, I might have missed it, but don’t you think Giannis would be a better fit in a team that start shooting?” Well, I mean next year you’re looking at like um around say shooters. Yeah. But also like around Giannis, you’d have Tammani who’s like picking back up like hopefully he can be league average. You’d have Dame, one of the greatest shooters ever. Drew who’s like probably at least league average. Denny who’s above average. Hopefully Klingan develops there at all. But if not, okay, fine. Like, okay. And then yes, you find shooters and then you find shooters to follow the rest of the roster. Yeah. So, like that should not be a bad three-point shooting team. If we don’t contend with Cat, don’t get me twisted. Okay. Why the hell are you trading for him? What’s the point of doing literally anything then? What’s the point of literally doing anything if we never contend? You want to just win in the first round? Well, getting Yiannis would give us a really, really good chance doing that. So, why don’t you like that treat? You’re not being consistent. asset accumulation and a rebuild. What’s the point of assets if you don’t cash them in? The best thing you can get for your assets is a top three player in the world. If Milwaukee picks get you cat, then you have three other tradable first. You want two cat level players. Okay, here’s the thing though. Like at some point offensively, if you get multiple like bottom tier allars, they start to become like the the water becomes diluted. You only have one ball. You only have so many shots for so many guys. So what? You’re going to keep sharp and scoo and you’re gonna have Dame and Daddy and Cat and you know what I mean? Like it’s it’s I feel like the more bottom tier allstars you would trade for, like if it’s Cat and another guy like Cat, the value by trading for two of those types of players, the value in each one isn’t as high. Like it makes more sense to add somebody that can truly dominate in a single player, a top three player than it does to just like try and get multiple of those types of players to me. Cat plus three Josh Hart types. I Who’s our number one on a contending team? either you think it’s Denny and in that case it makes sense to just keep the picks in my opinion and take a a even longer term route and cash in those picks which are I think the Bucks would be bad enough that you should be able to get a player better than Cat with one of those three picks drafting at the top of the draft or you think Cat’s a number one on a contending team and I just definitely disagree with you. I’m not even advocating for getting cat. Well, the way you’re framing it sounds like it is and that’s what I’m discussing. So, I I that’s I’m basically just explaining why I don’t think it makes sense to trade for cat. Um, if Denny’s if Denny’s good enough to be the number one option on a contending team, which he might be, just be patient and cash in those picks and get like somebody that’s going to be better than Cat, who’s going to be 19 and much cheaper salary-wise, you know, 19 or 20, probably 19. um at the top of the draft. And also it’s like all right if you think Denny’s the number one I don’t know I mean you can make the argument why be patient when you have Dame but that’s kind of the argument I’m making like why be patient trade for Giannis. Like in my opinion if you’re going to if you’re going to worry about the Dame timeline part of this it only makes sense to get a player that helps you immediately contend. And I don’t think it’s Cat. I think Yiannis is that guy. Otherwise, it needs to be somebody that’s maybe a little younger. I don’t know. Also, I Cat’s defense at a center spot in a playoff series with with Dame not the best. The average first overall pick is a 17 point per game career player. Okay. Well, what about if you have, let’s say, three top six picks in a row. Cat makes us better now. So does Giannis. You don’t want Giannis, but you want Cat because he makes us better now. It doesn’t make sense. It would be Cat in DC. So, you’re putting Cat at the four and Denny at the three and Dame at the one and Drew at the two. I I don’t know. I don’t like it. If you have three top six picks, you’re not trading all three for Cat. I mean, here’s the thing, though, is how many you’re going to have to trade now if you’re trying to get Cat now. Because you’re trading them now. You’re not trading them after they become top six picks. I think there’s a very possible chance you’d have three top six picks if Giannis gets traded to New York. Anyway, we’ll be back on Friday. We’ve been at it for three hours. Well, Eric wasn’t here the first hour, so Eric got a good two hours streaming. Um, yeah, even though Yeah, we can talk about it on Friday. Maybe there’s more stuff that comes out. But I I just don’t understand some of the arguments. Not at all. And I don’t really understand what Arrow’s trying to do because he says he’s not advocating for Cat. They’ve been trying to argue for Cat. I guess that’s devil’s advocate. I don’t know. Give us Michael Porter J. Can you imagine? Oh no. God. Tori, do you want to manifest trading one of our picks for Michael Porter Jr. One of the Bucks. Hell no, dude. I do not like that guy. Also, he’s he’s he’s uh getting the Nets bump right now that Male and Cam Johnson got. Let’s uh learn from that and not make a mistake. Eric, I uh I’ve just been super busy, so I haven’t gotten rolling there. Who do you guys think is better, Michael Jr. or Mckel Bridges? Muel Bridges. Haven’t gotten rolling where? Oh, just he’s going to help me code and stuff, so I need to set him. Oh. Oh, you’re talking a different area. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah, you’re gonna listening. What scares me the most with Portland is that ever since the Lakers championship teams drafted their number one option. Well, here’s the thing. Like, if a it’s if a team traded if the Blazers traded their entire team for the Thunder team, they would win a championship trading for their number one option. It’s not like you can’t trade for your number one option if he’s a top three player in the world. If he’s good enough, it’s not like he becomes worse because he got traded. Um, is kind of like the point I want to make there. Like the correlation doesn’t equal necessarily causation. Um, it is easier to draft a superstar instead of trading for them because you don’t have to give a bunch of assets for them. They’re cheap and under team control and you have a long window to build around them. Which is why if you’re not getting a top three player in Giannis, I’m kind of just would just rather keep the picks and hope that you can draft that guy with one of those picks if that makes sense. But also maybe you could have drafted that guy in Cedric Coward. No kidding. Maybe. I don’t know. He’s drafted in the same range as SGA. Is he having a better rookie season than SGA? He was He’s older than SG’s though. But says, “I got to love how I came in here super late and hijacked Tori’s attention. My attention has been on chat the past hour anyway, so ain’t nothing.” Yeah, I haven’t talked with chat. Haven’t argued with chat in a while. So, wanted to to have a debate, especially because some of the arguments make no sense to me. Those picks are forever away. We should be in the playoffs. I kind of only want the 28 picks. So, so you don’t want to be aggressive now to get Giannis, but you don’t want to be patient and wait for the picks. Brother, I feel like you’re trolling. If these are your actual opinions, they’re really, really inconsistent with each other and don’t make sense together. And if they’re not your opinions and you’re trolling, then I guess I should stop giving you attention. And yours don’t make sense to me, says Gregory Dunn. Yeah, that’s because you don’t listen properly. So, of course they don’t. And I’ll end it with that. Anything else, Eric? No, thanks for watching. Uh, appreciate you holding it down the first hour without me. And, uh, good to see the Blazers win a game. Um, back at it what on Friday? Yep. Back at it for Friday. Um, all right. Gregory Dundan is uh, peace out. Is uh, gonna get uh, banned for misinformation. Yep. And for just trying to rage bait. Yep. Yeah. No, I just banned him because I’m mad for him disagreeing even though I’ve let him sit in here and disagree for the past six months, seven months, eight months, however long it’s been. But no, I just banned him for disagreeing for the 120th time. No, stop being Stop being annoying, bro. Stop being annoying. Stop rage baiting and stop saying I just get mad for disagreeing, bro. when I just explained to you what it was. And also, don’t call us an echo chamber. We have people in here disappearing all the time. So, if you’re gonna attack the channel, attack our community, then don’t be a part of it. Goodbye. Okay. Goodbye. Peace out, loser. Yeah. Have fun writing all your complaints about us on Reddit. Oh, man. He’s going to be that guy. Speaking of an echo chamber. Yeah. mad reckless in a Reddit thread with 12 other guys just liking like, “Yeah, those guys are the worst people alive.” Anyway, shout out to the haters, man. The haters. Anyway, yo, just joined. How are you? Oh, we’re just going at it with with a couple people in chat, but we’re good. We’re good. People think I actually get mad at disagreements because I will passionately disagree. They have no ability to read emotion. Maybe they should work on that. Um, I enjoy winning debates. If you give me bad arguments, and I passionately debate them, I’m not mad for you disagreeing. I’m enjoying the fact that it’s a bad argument that’s easy to uh fight back against. I remember you guys in person watch party a few years ago. Oh, you were there, fanatics. Need to do one of those again soon. Just very busy now. Much more busy than I used to be. So, kind of miss out on some of the cool stuff, but it’s all good. All good. What’s the point of the show if we aren’t disagreeing passionately? That’s the thing. Me and Eric don’t disagree much. So, it’s us in chat. Us verse chat. Us verse our own chat. But also, our own chat is an echo chamber of us at the same time. This is the second time he’s recently done like argued against something we’re saying like it’s a disagreement when it wasn’t a disagreement. He was just saying it was a certainty and we’re saying it’s not a certainty. That’s not saying we’re not disagreeing. We’re just telling you that it’s not a certainty. Yeah. Which is a fact. Yeah. That’s not an that last argument and this one was not you have an opinion and we have an opinion and we’re mad at you for your opinion. That wasn’t it at all. Yeah. You’re trying to pass your opinion as fact. It’s not even the same argument. Yeah. It’s like I mean how many every show you talk about how Dame sucks and you you don’t want him on the team anymore and that’s an opinion. Yep. and we let you have that opinion. And we’ve never I mean, we’ve argued with you about that opinion, but we’ve never said you can’t be a part of our show or our community if you have that opinion. Yet, you act like that’s what we do every time you talk. Yep. So, that’s the thing, man. People that come in here and I let them disagree with us multiple times with their opinion, stream after stream after stream, and then say stream after stream after stream, “Oh, you’re gonna ban me because I disagree.” At some point I just banned them for saying that because it’s like dude if you’re saying here sitting here in multiple streams you’re gonna ban me for disagreeing and you’re saying that in multiple streams obviously you’re not being banned for disagreeing. So obviously you’re just straight up lying. So if you keep saying that when it’s obvious it’s a lie. I’m just going to ban you for lying your ass off and ban you for that misinformation. Like I’m not going to put up with that. I’m not going to let you sit in here and disagree and sit here and say you’ll ban me for disagreeing when that’s blatantly untrue. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to sit in here and argue with us every freaking stream. So, that’s just always been one of the biggest lies. And if you want to push that lie, okay, I don’t have a problem with you disagreeing. I have a problem for you lying about what we’re doing or lying on our on our show. So, that’s what I have an issue with. So then you can go like if you feel that way about our show, I don’t know why you’re watching our show. Like it’s kind of my feelings towards them. So Bernito Gaming says, “Do you think uh if Denny continues to play like this and with the team basically, do you think he’ll be an all-star if they’re in the same situation now?” Um I mean, I don’t know how he’s not an all-star. I I mean, I know we can go through the list and say, “Oh, he might not make it cuz these guys are locks or whatever, but he’s playing too good to be left off the team in my opinion.” Yeah, fully agree. Fully agree. Good question. And then Elizabeth Hayden said, “No, we are not neo. I wouldn’t trade for Giannis because I believe his physical play style is not sustainable at his age, but I get your opinion and wish Portland to win as well. I respect that opinion. I respect that opinion because he he does play very physical and he does take a lot of hits and he hasn’t been like necessarily injuryprone but he hasn’t been fully healthy either and the more injuries you deal with the faster you decline. So I I do think it’s possible that maybe his play style is hard for him to sustain uh long term. Um, I disagree with it because I just think when you’re seven feet and as skilled as he is and uses his body as well as he does and like he uses his quickness, but also I don’t think he’s like completely reliant on his quickness, I think he will still be an all-star four or five years from now. But I understand the thought and I respect that opinion. So there you go. There you go. Um, also like we’ve said many times that Gregor kept ignoring, we might not have a chance to trade for Yiannis if they just trade him to uh, one of his preferred destinations and Damon Drew can’t talk him into Portland being on that list. Uh, we might not even have a chance to do an offer. So, that’s a very real possibility. Emphasis on possibility. Yep. because apparently the context behind the word possibility is lost upon some people. Anyway, appreciate you guys hanging out with us. Thank you chat for being lively. Uh always good to kind of get in the weeds a little bit with chat, you know. So we nowadays we don’t get in, you know, we don’t get into it with chat as much. We don’t debate with chat as much. don’t talk with chat as much. You know, we we try and make it a show. We do try and make it interactive, but like there’s a balance. So, um, every now and then it’s always good to just sit down and read off every chat comment and do this thing this way. So, it’s kind of takes us back to our roots when we first started the channel six years ago. It’s been six years, man. And I’ve only since we started covering the team, I’ve only seen three playoff ones in six years. So, you know, a top three player sounds pretty good to me. I would like to win some freaking playoff games. But anyway, like could you imagine some of these people like that don’t want Giannis that are big Cronin fans if we traded for Giannis and me and you had their opinions and like said, “No, we don’t want Giannis. Why did we trade?” What a horrible trade. Getting our franchise back. Those same people. You guys were ready to say that about Cronin. No matter who he traded for, he traded for Giannis and you can’t even accept it. Yeah. Exactly, man. Exactly. You know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess. Um, but yeah, I think uh they’re going to play and they got a great win today. Shout out to them for playing some good basketball today. Shout out to Warren for the donation. Shout out to MGJ for the donation. Appreciate you guys supporting the channel. Hit the like on the way out of here. We don’t ask for likes much, so you can do us a favor and just like it anyway so that we don’t have to ask for likes, but leave a like. Easiest way to support the channel. Subscribe if you’re new and check out Sleeper. Use promo code uprise. You’ll get a free $20 deposit and a $100 deposit match up to $100. So, if you think you know what’s going to happen next game, if you make good predictions, you might as well take advantage of a free $20 deposit, make some picks on Sleeper, and hopefully cash in. You could get a 5x parlay pretty easily. That has a decent chance of happening and turn 20 into a 100. It’s a free 20. Why wouldn’t you take a free 20? Shout out to Sleeper for sponsoring the show. We’re out of here. We’ll be live again on Friday as the Blazers take on the Detroit Pistons, who lost today to a short-handed Bucks team. Maybe the Blazers can win back-to-back games against two good Eastern Conference teams. The Pistons are playing much better than the Cavs though this year. That’s going to be a tough matchup. That would be two great wins. So hopefully the Blazers can build some momentum because if they could be 10 and 13, you know, I was worried about the stretch of games. It’d be a I would say it would be a successful road trip if they can. I think I said there’d be a successful road trip if they win two games on this road trip. Will they win? Two of three. Yeah. Yeah. Um so, you know, if they can if they can beat Detroit on Friday, that starts to feel like a bit of a turnaround after a rough stretch of games. And then hopefully you get uh Drew Holiday healthy. Matis Thyel maybe he’s healthy some point somewhat soon. And then Scoot hopefully is around the corner at some point this month. Who knows? Things could be looking up. schedule gets easier, get more a lot more home games second half of December. So, you know, it only takes a couple of wins against tough opponents to kind of change the outlook on things. So, they got one today. Props to them. Great game from multiple players and hopefully they can keep it rolling Friday against the Pistons. With that being said, we are out of here. We’ll catch you next time. Thank you for watching. Until then, as always, peace out. Go Blazers.
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17 comments
Start 6:53
Deni has great handles for his size and strength. Helps put him in a position to force the defense to foul him.
Portland does have good assets to trade for Giannis. With those pick swaps its difficult for Milwaukee to tank proper. Does he want to play here? Portland can put a pretty good line up out ariund him.
this game seemed like a documentary for a Cleveland brick factory.
doink, clang, boink, thud ! … the Cavs were spazzing out, trying to keep up with the Blazers energy … NOPE. … good game Portland (:
Ok so
With your package of Scoot, Shae, JG, Tisse/Rw and the swaps..
The Bucks get perhaps two all stars in Scoot and Shae from 2028-30 and insurance if they dont work out. That's a very interesting package for them I think and it may be good enough to land Giannis.
But the picks aren't worth much that much in that context, so we cant offer that. It's ruining our own asset's value. Those picks might not be lottery picks if they have prime Scoot and Shae.
If we refuse to trade the Bucks picks alongside players who will be good when the picks are current, the picks are some of the most valuable picks in the league.
The Bucks have limited options for talent equivalent to Scoot and Shae. Maybe the Hawks can get them some talent to rebuild around, but if the Bucks don't have their picks in 28-30, they are very limited in what they can do. Again, this helps the value of our asset. In this case, it is much more likely that the Bucks picks are lottery picks.
Say the Bucks make a deal with the Hawks for the 26 pick, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and stuff. They are most likely a lottery team from 28-30.
Say they make a deal with New York for OG and Josh Hart. They are most likely a lottery team in 28-30.
Say they get Scoot and Shaedon. They have the best young backcourt in the league now with 3 very good guards. Those picks are less likely to be lottery picks.
We can't even imagine packaging Scoot with Shae and the Bucks picks in a Giannis trade. We lose value just by considering it. We are better off in 2030 if we have Scoot, Shae, and the picks, than if we have Giannis.
The opportunity for a championship before 2030 is incredibly limited with your package, so it's not worth the swing. We have very limited flexibility with very few draft picks remaining and only Yang Hansen as upside. We will not be able to build through the draft and our future picks will be of low trade value as a top seeded team.
We would probably have the best starting 5 in the league, barring injury. But injury risk for Giannis, Dame, and Jrue is incredibly high. Clingan is not incredibly durable and we would have Duop and Hansen playing extended minutes. We dont know how durable they are in that context. If things go south, Giannis will probably leave in 27 and we will have to rebuild again.
Think about Dame bro. Do you want the end of his career to be on a fresh rebuild or on a team that is taking the step toward a championship? Is it worth it to risk the rest of his career on one shot?
I think it's best to either hold the picks for a deadline trade or to facilitate a trade with the Knicks, Pistons, or Hawks.
Pistons is hard because the Bucks will want to build around Duren but we may be able to hold the 28 swap and receive assets for the 29 and 30.
Im not sure if the Bucks would want to keep Jalen Johnson or not. We should be able to get involved regardless and take some profit on the swaps.
The best case for us is to take KAT and probably split the Kicks 30 and 32 swaps with the Bucks. We give up JG, RW/Tisse, all the swaps, and maybe we add our 31 pick. He will put us firmly in the playoff picture and get our young guys playoff experience. We can move off him in the offseason if we want to (if Yang has a miracle), or we can see how it works with Dame next year. If Scoot Shae and Yang can take the leap, then we may be able to contend by 2029. Not just for one year, but for many.
KAT gives us a bridge to sustainable contention. Giannis is a win right now at all costs swing. Again, if we have injury or chemistry or fit or any problems in 27, Giannis will leave in FA. He wants to win, and he is ring chasing. He's not leaving to be loyal. We aren't good enough to win without Dame. We don't know if we're gonna be good enough to win when Dame comes back.
I want Giannis too, and if we give up Deni, JG, and the picks, then the Bucks route Deni to the Hawks for more picks, then Giannis acts more like a sustainable bridge for us. The Bucks maximize draft return this way, Deni is worth more picks than Scoot and Shae combined imo.
I dont know if we would want to hold on to Scoot and Shae for 27 if we move Deni for Giannis but we would have many more choices if we sold high on Deni right now.
But honestly I'd rather bet on Scoot, Shae, and Deni to be perennial contenders than to swing hard for an aging Giannis to contend once.
Anyways, the Bucks will want Yang so idk what youd really be willing to give up but I dont think you're looking past 27.
Edit: recall 6 months ago when you were BEGGING to trade Rw and JG. So lets do that.
I haven't been able to watch the past few games hows Tou's defense been, cause I really want to see him get back to his all defense level?
I don’t agree. You eliminate all of Deni’s advantages if you bring in Giannis. The paint would be insanely crowded with Giannis and Clingan inside neither of them can space the floor. If anything, we need a 4–5 player who spaces the floor, like Markkanen.
If you play with
Holiday
Dame
Deni
Camara
and Markkanen as a stretch five,
you maximize our strengths and create great spacing.
Or you can start Markkanen at the 4 and Clingan at the 5 then you get size, defense, and shooting all at once.
Fools gold ✨️
Hire mike malone a real coach not a pretender
Karl anthony towns blazer bound
Sign chris paul idiots
Deni for luka
You guys are awesome. Good to be back after the past two years of following the bucks lol RIIIIIP CITY, BABY!
Shaedon Sharpe has now proven he can play in back to back games. Sharpe appears to have recovered from his calf injury. Please place him back in the starting lineup. My Goodness.
Leave the OKC guys outside, I would facilitate for Jalen Johnson or Dylan Harper If there is a chance, rest of the names not so much.
I think the hawks and the spurs can beat our best offer. That 2026 hawks pick will likely be the best pick they can get considering how good this draft is, and if the spurs put Harper in that would be hard to beat. Regardless, we need to go for it.
Eric sits there like a bump on a log for two hours and then screams like a baby when somebody states their differing opinion. Both host’s inflated egos make this show hard to watch
When players like Love, Reath and Cissoko make multiple baskets we don't just play well, we also win the game. How fascinating…