Celtics Top Thunder and Wemby’s Brilliance With Brian Scalabrine. Plus, Moussa Diabaté on the Upstart Hornets.

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and details. Coming up after this on the Zacklow show, we are coming off an absolutely bonkers night

in the NBA Houston and Minnesota play one of the wildest back and forth games you will ever see.

What does it say about both of the teams, particularly Houston managing to blow a 13 point lead

in overtime? The Celtics beat the Thunder in what very much felt like a statement game

for both the Boston Celtics and Jason Tatum. Brian Scalabrini was at the game calling the game. He's

joining us to talk about that and everything going on in the NBA, including all four leading MVP

candidates, absolutely showed out last night. Again, just a crazy night in the NBA. There's a lot

going on to talk about. We'll talk about the top of the East. The bottom five to ten in the East

is now a complete mess. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Yannis. What the

hell is going on? What are they arguing about? What was the statement that the union released this

week? Adam Silmer laid the hammer down on tanking. Let's see what happens with that.

And then we'll talk a little bit about some mid-tier Western conference teams. The Nuggets

gave up a million points last night, but one because Jamal Murray, all NBA Jamal Murray,

that's right. That's 53 points. Just a ton of stuff going on in the NBA and Scal will help us

sort through all of it. And then put the antlers up. Musa Diabate is here for a quick visit on all

things Charlotte Hornets, including the brawl and whether you want to see the pistons again.

In the playoffs, happy opening day. Let's beep and go, Mets. And we'll talk to you soon on the

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Welcome to the Zacklow show. There's a ton going on in the NBA and it's centered

on Boston last night. No one better to join us than Brian Scalibreni, the hardest working man

in NBA media. He's on NBC sports. He's called Celtics games. He's got the starting lineup

with Frank Isola five days a week on serious XM. Thanks for taking some time out of your

mad schedule, Brian Scalibreni. I'll tell you, Zach, if Frank gets a hold of that intro,

he knows there's some nights where my travel just gets stacked up and I don't work five days

a week. He's definitely going to call me out that you said five days a week. So can I call it

four point two five days a week? Is that okay? That's absolutely fine. That's still a lot of days

of the week. That's a majority of the days of the week. That's good. It's like nowadays. It's a lot.

So I'm happy to be on, man. Thanks for texting. You're right. Like I know it's like

it's back to having the middle of college basketball, but the NBA right now all time high as far as

like storylines, drama, who's winning, who's not MVP. There's a lot of great stuff going on.

There's a lot of bad stuff going on, which we'll talk about, but there's a lot. The last night was

an absolutely wild night. We had Celtics. Okay. See the rare double digit Oklahoma City Thunder

lost, despite Oklahoma City being fully healthy. And we'll get back to that game in a second.

We had all four leading MVP candidates absolutely show out in different ways. And then Jalen Brown,

one of my favorite Jalen Brown games of the season, sort of stamping himself is like, hey,

can I at least get the fifth spot in here and like really make it a claim for the last first

team all NBA spot. If Kate cutting him, boy does everyone hate the 65 game rule. If he can't go back

we had a bonkers law Houston come from behind then fall from a head loss in Minnesota. Neither of

those teams are you can't figure either of them out. Jamal Murray at 53 points. I think he's

cinched up for me and all NBA spot and like might might sniff second team. If if some of these guys

fall away because of the 65 game rule, just a lot going on, but I want to start in Boston.

Is that felt like you were there? You called the game somehow it was not one of the national

TV games. I didn't understand that. So you and Drew had it. That felt to me. I'm interested to hear

what you, you know, what you heard from the guys after the game and around the game, but from the

outside that felt like a big statement from the Celtics. And the second quarter felt like a big

statement from Jason Tatum. I thought that was the best he had looked on both ends of the floor.

He had a blow by drive against Chet yet a three in the pick and roll. He had a block at the rim on

Lou Dorth that sent the crowd into a frenzy. That felt like a, yeah, we're real. This is real.

Like he's going to trend. He's going to keep trending upward and we can beat anybody including

the consensus title favorite. But what did you, what was your takeaway? Yeah. So let's dive

Celtics first, right? We can get an Oklahoma city in a second. Unbelievable that Jalen Brown can

outplay SGA just a couple weeks ago. We didn't have Tatum in white. And Brown had a great game,

made some clutch shots, but it came up SGA with the big three. And then you remember the offense

rebound at the end. So a unbelievable duel. But in this game, Jalen Brown was the better player.

Something interesting, like, and I like the way that Joe does this. Jalen Brown does not guard SGA

throughout the game in the fourth quarter. He guards him. Does a great job, which is Jalen Brown can

guard SGA, but SGA cannot guard Jalen Brown. So we're talking about MVP and there's a lot to unpack

there. But the fact that Jalen Brown has been telling all of us that I want to be one of the best

players in the world. And you guys will see. And he got his opportunity this year. And he's showing

out. And he outplayed out dueled an Oklahoma city lineup that was healthy and whole for the first

time all season. And the fact that he outplayed SGA in the fourth quarter was a little mind-boggling.

So Jalen Brown looks amazing. And here's the thing that stands out. Like SGA can make defenses

look foolish. Jalen Brown, you can play perfect defense and he can still score on you,

which is dangerous. Because in the playoffs, you don't really make people look foolish.

What you do do is have like amazing defenses. I'll ask Steph Curry and he still can go for 40.

Well, Jalen Brown is operating on that level right now, which there's really nothing you can do

to stop him. You kind of have to do the Kobe Bryant. Just please, I hope he misses type of defense.

Well, and he's just his physicality has just gone up and notch and his control of his handle

and his decision making when he starts bullying people toward the rim. I know he had five turnovers

last night. I think he also had eight assists. It's just so much cleaner. He makes the every place

simple. And you saw like both he and Tatum last night, you know, for me, the most encouraging

Tatum play in that second quarter. He crossed up, Chet. That was great. The block-out

door was incredible. When they ran a white Tatum pick and roll to get Joe switched on to Tatum

and they fed him the ball at the dirt spot, the nail. And he was just like, I'm going to be old Jason

Tatum. I say, Joe, you can't guard me. I'm going to bully you all the way to the rim. And I think

he dropped it off to Tatum, maybe for a grand car layup. And I was like that. That looked a lot

like Jason Tatum to me. And it's been, you know, the shooting percentages aren't there. He's

taking a ton of threes, which I you can feel him being like, I need to get this shot back

to an acceptable level for me. Let me force it a little bit if I have to. But that second quarter,

he looked great. And like, I have no idea. We're going to talk about the top of the east a little bit.

You know, when he came back and looked as good as he as he did right away. And I'm still shocked

at how good he looks now. Sure. There was a rush, I think, to anoint Boston as the favorites in the

east. I think they are the most complete and coherent team in the east, the team that's most

certain of their identity on both ends of the floor. So maybe that makes some of the favorites.

I don't know. I would put them in the nicks sort of head to head. And we can talk about the Cleveland

and Detroit too later. But I think he looks tremendous. And there, there, this core floor that they

have of white Richard Tatum Brown, you throw Kate out there. That lineup is great. Housers playing

well. They get good minutes off the bench. Like I just can't believe how good the Celtics are.

Well, I think the issue, and I, and I'm not casting Tatum up saying, I don't, I think he's just

75% 70% of what he was last year. So Jalen Brown had obviously ascended into a, a leak, a leak

player. And I feel, I still feel like Tatum has a ways to go. The Chet Umgen drive was like a

sign of what I would want to see more of. You know, like I always look at. So before I unpack

the three point shooting to pull up jumpers, the ISO on Isaiah Joe, it's always like, do you hold

your space in the NBA when you get downhill? Are you head on the rim? Or are you head on the outside

of the backboard trying to finish? So I feel like the next iteration of him becoming his version

of the great self that he was is finishing at the rim, getting to the rim, getting contact.

Using his euro step, he has all kinds of different finishes that he uses. He's six foot nine,

six, 10, super long. So once he starts going to the basket, I believe that the confidence will

explode into him, making more plays, making more shots, making more threes. So I still have my eye

on, are you owning your space on the drive? And if you just look right now at the all the elite players,

the elite players hold their line when they go to the basket. Tatum is much better than when he

started, but he's not where he was. So I still look at like tons of improvement for Jason Tatum to

be able to, you know, have that strength, get used to hitting bodies while you go and finish around

the rim. Yeah. And he had one drive early in the game where he had a clear path to the rim.

And I think he didn't have a clear path to the rim, but he had momentum and heart and

steam. I think was the last line of defense. And he kind of like went up and I thought, oh, he's

going to go through heart and steam. He's going to try it. And then he could be he was like,

yeah, I don't know. And he kind of made this lefty like awkward sort of like waiter carrying

a trade dish to somebody and then kicked it. So I was like, that was a good thing. I think

prime Tatum tries to finish that over heart and steam. But then it got better as the game went on.

And then at the end, Jalen Brown kind of took over and Tatum and that game and in the Phoenix win

a couple of years last week at some point has been pretty happy to be like, hey, if, if you got

the bully ball going and we've got smaller guys on the like AJ Mitchell, great good defender,

couldn't guard Jalen Brown, whoever's on the floor, like you go and we'll run some motion

stuff for me and I'll get involved here and there. But like you go and do it. And I think the mix,

you know, Bill is very worried about your turn, my turn. I think some of that is inevitable

when you get two star players like this. I think they've had a pretty good mix of both them

controlling the offense and the Celtics and Joe Mozilla running actions to get particularly

Tatum the ball on the move with a little bit of it in vantage. So it's not so like predictable.

This is like so far ahead of where I thought they would be.

For sure. What are they? What are we nine games into Tatum coming back, I think?

Yeah, I think one more thing to add to that is, you know, like holiday wasn't a demanding player

as far as like wanting shots, but he didn't want the ball like to stay engaged.

Persinguish was like, Persinguish wanted to get the ball on a mismatch or end on the block. So

if you just start like comparing last year to this year, there's some possessions that were

like kind of hanging around for those guys to now take advantage of it, right? So I kind of feel

like like the balance of where white, friction, and the rest of the sporting casts are compared

to the two stars, the ascending stars, right? There's plenty of ball to go around. Like how about

if this same thing was happening last year with all the players that we had and all the demands

that you had last year, I kind of feel like man, where's Tatum going to find his way, but I think

everyone on this team kind of understands. All right, right now Brown's one's going to work if he

gets tired or whatever it is. Tatum is right there or they could have a my turn, your turn, my turn,

the type of style, but it doesn't feel like the ball is, it's not enough basketballs to go around

as of right now, but we'll see it's a playoffs go around. And remember, in the minutes,

they're going to go up. Brown is going to play. I don't know where Tatum's going to be, but

you know, Brown's going to play 42-43 minutes in a playoffs. Everybody's going to have plenty of

opportunities to make plays. A couple other rotation wrinkles that I wanted to get your take on.

In a couple of recent games, Missoula has sat Brown and Tatum at the same time and kind of let

white and pritchard and some bench guys roll with it. Last night, he went to full. We're going to

have one of them on the floor at all times. And I've been watching and thinking, I wonder if

sitting them both at the same time is obviously a way to get other guys' touches and keep the

flow going. But also, do we want to overburden Tatum right away with being the guy when Jalen is

on the bench? But last night, they leaned all the way back into it. What do you think is going on

there? So twofold, right? You're on the right track. Those guys are going to have moments in the

playoffs. One of those guys will be on the floor at all times. So they say, wrap your mind around

what you saw last night was probably the way it's going to be. But also, remember, chemistry between

those two. Keep them on the floor as much as you can. They're not going to play that many games together.

So in the playoffs, they're going to be on the floor together, what, 30, 33 minutes, a night,

32. If that's what it ends up in. Yeah, whatever, whatever, like the threshold that Tatum could

cross, right? But you know, Jalen Brown could be on the floor. So you want to get those guys together.

I think there's, I don't think you'll ever see them apart. So like Joe in a big game like that,

we'll dabble on. I think last night, we probably saw our rotation minutes. The only thing that would

be change, like, Howzer didn't play well yesterday. If Howzer's playing well, he's playing more

great call by going with Baylor Shireman, knocking down my pants. He was ridiculous in a fourth

quarter. If you know his personality, he hits perfect temperament to play against Oklahoma City.

His mullet is getting a little out of control. It's getting a lot of sauce of it.

He's, he, it was like vaguely a mullet. And now it's just we're going full on at this point.

So that was, that's a decision he's made apparently. And it's, and you know, like,

I always say about the NBA and, you know, you can't be a poser. You got to be who you are.

And Baylor Shireman is like quadrupled down on who he is. By the way, he plays,

like the gunslinger mentality. I'm just going to shoot every shot I get that they give

it to me. I'm going to, I'm going to guard the best player. And, and I got a mullet to prove it.

Right. So that kind of works with him. And, um, but I'm excited about his growth. And like,

you know, that gives, if we're going to give shout out, like the coaching staff, the front

office, like, they go all the wings that they have drafted to support,

around Tatum White, Pritchard. All these guys are contributing throughout the entire year.

It's been really impressive. Yeah. Walsh can't even get minutes now. And he's been ready when

called upon the whole season. The other thing I thought was interesting last night.

I don't think there are any foul issues, but I may be misremembering it.

I thought it was like the earliest and most sustained and aggressive that Missoula has gone

no big men on the floor. And obviously, and obviously Vouches out, right? And I don't really

even know what to expect from Vouch. It might be just completely matchup dependent with him,

because Garza has been really good. Um, what, like, is that a look that you think they are

planning to lean into a little bit more? Uh, or was it just like last night? Yeah, we think

this is good against Oklahoma City. Yeah. He's like, I love Garza. And you know, how people say

with all due respect, you're actually going to like destroy the guy. Like he really struggles in

the pick and roll against like a guy like Shay, like who doesn't struggle in a pick and roll against

Shay? Garza does bring a certain element to the game that has been super valuable. But there

are some times where you're just playing all world players against all world action. And it's

going to be really tough for him to guard. And I would think like a lot of guys kind of fall

under to that category. You really want to go drop coverage on a guy like him. So I think what

that did to them is they felt good about their rebounding with Baylor and Tatum who are both

both plus rebounders. And they didn't have to worry about getting like, you know, Shay with a

16-foot pullout jumper because you're in drop coverage. So it kind of makes sense why they would

go down that road. That's a good point. Um, I just don't know like who would be the guys in the

league, maybe Cade Cunningham, maybe Jalen Brunson. But you know, there's there's in that particular

game. Remember Oklahoma City sprints back 29th and offensive rebound. So if you're not going to get

crashed on the glass, then why not go small and play with better space and switchability?

Um, on OKC, obviously they lose Spurs wins. Spurs are now two games behind. The projection

systems have cracked the door open for the Spurs at the number one seed. It's still like 70, 75%

chance according to all the nerd systems that Oklahoma City holds on to the number one seed.

That may actually impact the MVP race which we're going to get to. But I didn't love, I mean,

look, OKC is like unimpeachable. They are 11 guys deep and they didn't even play Aaron Wiggins

who's now like the 12th guy. And how is that? Is the 13th guy? Um, you know, I thought Jalen Williams

looked good in his first came back last night. I just was like, where are you, man? Like when

Shay's on the bench, this is, I know you got AJ now and Heart and Steens doing dribble handoffs

and McCain is being McCain. But 17 points combined out of Chet and Jalen Williams is kind of,

that's like the recipe for how the thunder are beatable. What did you think of them up close?

Yeah. Like, I'm going to kill Mark Dagnall right now. Like he is the best coach in the NBA. He is

like a superhero of a coach. But Mark, like I'm going to let you in on the secret. You can't play

11 guys in big games, bro. You just got to make a decision. Who you're going to go with? Like

pick your guys and stick with them. Like you got like Alex Caruso's impactful.

Lugins dorked impactful. Like I just just picked nine and go with that. And I felt like every

time a guy like got a rhythm, he would sub out. Did you see the minutes that they played? Like

was playing like 20 minutes, 17 minutes, 12 minutes. Like what are they doing out there? So

it's not the recipe for success to play 11 in a big game. And I know they're going to,

listen, Oklahoma City has first world problems with the depth that they have. But I just don't

think you're ever going to be able to compete. It's a, it's a, the greatest part about NBA players

act is their learning curve is so steep. You do something to me on one possession. I got you for

the second possession, right? And it's just like all this learning curve and chess match going on.

Well, guess what happened? When you get ganked at by subbing a ton, players don't get a rhythm to

figure out. Like if I'm going to get stayed him and I'm going to get brown, like I'm not going to

give him one look. I have to like mix that up. And as a player like like like Caruso, you can't

have him just play like three minutes on those guys. He needs like a little bit of a runway.

Lugins dork needs a little bit of a runway. And I'm not, listen, I'm not sitting here telling you,

I'm smarter than him. But I am smarter than him in this situation. You can't play 11 and expect

your guys to all play well. That's just happened. I hadn't looked at the minutes yet. It's crazy.

It's ridiculous. Jay played 37 minutes and everyone else, all what, 10 other guys that played

or whatever it was played between 13 and 26 minutes. Uh, he, chat was at 26, J. Doves at 24,

McCain's at 13 and everyone is somewhere. But to that, I don't know that I've ever seen a bus.

Here have I not a big game like that. Not like a quote unquote, potential finals preview.

Why would you do that? So he just like, that was, but by the way, exact first game, where they quote

unquote have their full rotation of players. And like, it's like, listen, I like Jared McCain and

could play or all that stuff. And like, he could play on other team. But that team is so deep.

Like, I'm going with the eight guys that all can guard and impact winning. And they had that game

early on. Like, how about the, like, the body blows, they were throwing early and then they got,

like, a little cute with the sub. So I'm, I listen, he is a brilliant man.

Prestige is brilliant. I'm not even going to sit here comparing anybody in the world to those

guys. But he kind of got a little too cute with having my full rotation of players.

You know who, Jared McCain could, could play good minutes for Philadelphia,

could use Jared McCain, although, and beat and Paul George came back last night and both of them

looked fantastic. We'll get there MVP. I know you want to talk about this. Yeah.

Just this is becoming 2017 again, or 1990 again, or just pick your like four to five person,

really four person MVP race. It's just the fact that one of these guys is going to finish fourth is

unthinkable. Luca has another 40 piece last night on 15 of 30 shooting. The Lakers are now plus

four with Luca on the floor minus two with him on the bench, and they're off and so they don't

really have an offensive identity really without Luca at this point. And by the way, that Houston

loss, if Houston is six, then the Lakers are third. That's, I think, the best case scenario for the

league question. SGA, SGA and a loss. All he does is go 33 and eight on 10 of 12 from the floor.

And he was plus one when he was on the floor and they lost by 10. So that tells you about what

happened when he was on the bench. Joker 23, 21 and 19. Sure. Like, okay. And Wembee in 20

something minutes throws up 19, 15, three assists, three steals, seven blocks. So basically five

by five watch, if it was a real game in this person had to play everybody. The spurs are plus 17

per 100 possessions with Wembee on the floor and pretty much dead even with him on the bench.

Who, who is the right choice here, Scalm? It's, to me, it's Wembee. Like, I've never seen a player.

Like, I haven't, like, I wish that everyone that has a boat can watch Wembee play live.

I've been in the league since 01. I've never seen a more impactful player on every possession.

The fact that he's always behind the defense, they can throw the ball up if you come offensively

and he can dunk it. He's great in transition. He's starting to shoot the three better. I know his,

like, his raw stats aren't great. But like, if you think last year, SGA won the on court off court

number. He was the biggest plus to year before. I think it was a yo-kitch, right? This year,

it's Wembee. Wembee is running away with the field. Like, even like when SGA's off the court,

I think there are plus 5.6, 5.7. There's still a really good team without SGA out there.

But Wembee is running away with that. Wembee's lost, like, two games in two months.

Like, he's the most impactful player in the NBA by far. And it's not even close. But his raw

numbers are not as gaudy as what you just mentioned, you know? So, to me, like, I've just never,

ever seen such an impactful guy. And think about the end of the game last night. SGA is having

a hard time guarding Jalen Brown. Do you ever not want Wembee out there? Go ask these coaches privately.

How do they deal with Wembee? They look at you with the wilderness. Like, there's no answer for

this guy. And he's like, to me, I think I'm just a year ahead. Well, I'm always a year ahead with

this stuff. Steph Curry, I knew it was going to break the NBA. Like, I was watching him. I was like,

I can't believe this guy's a human being. I'm thinking Wembee's doing the same thing this year.

Like, the way that Sean Swini is using him in that low-dunker spot, like, they keep guarding the

corner. It's really hard to move him around. It's like, it's a big problem across the NBA. And he is

the, you know, when Kurn broke the NBA, everyone had to adjust and everyone's scrambling. Wembee is

the new, like, what are we going to do with this guy? And it's happening. It didn't happen at

beginning of the year, but it's happened in the last three months. And like, I think coaches are

like, I don't know. If he could play like 35, 36 minutes a night and not get exhausted, like,

sometimes he does, they're going to be tough to beat in a four in a seven game series.

I think I said, once they beat Oklahoma City on Christmas, that was the MoMo, or I said,

they can win the title now this year. I'm trying, I'm going to pick them, but they are a championship

team, caliber team right now. Yeah. Well, let me ask you, like, you take into, like, if you're,

you have a boat, I know you do. I don't, I don't have a boat anymore. And that's that sucks.

Maybe either. Over over here, just, we're running on our soapbox on the show. Yeah.

Four and one against Oklahoma City in big games, you know, on Christmas Day, on the NBA

Cup games, right? Like, there, like, Wembee has something like, I don't know if he has something

against Chad, that's what the internet said, but he also seems like, man, I've outplayed Shay

in these games and look at their record of lane. And this is a young team with some serious

improving guys. And he's carried this team. It's not like SGA is covering the Oklahoma City

Thunder, who just won a championship, which they've had a ton of injuries to give him credit.

But like, like, Wembee is, like, completely changed the entire culture of San Antonio Spurs.

I don't look at them the same way from January 1st, as I did at the beginning of the season.

Like, to me, that's what a true MVP does. No, he's, he's terrifying. And your point about how

the Spurs defense uses him differently. Everyone can see, like, the U-turns that guys make when

they get even near the lane and he's around. Everyone can see that. Like, that was the first,

everyone, first you see the blocks, right? And the shot challenges at the rim. Then you can see

the U-turns and the, oh, no. It just, it goes even beyond that. It's, it's completely all

encompassing. Like, your game plan has to be different when you're playing the Spurs.

There are just certain actions that, depending on where he is, like, we just can't even,

like, we can't even run that. Like, that's, that's out of the playbook. Like, lighted on fire.

And there was, I can't remember who they were playing recently.

Where it was a team that was like, we're going to bring Wembee into the action.

We're going to have him. That was Boston when Jalen Brown was out there early.

It was a different game than that. But yeah, but it's like, because you can see the Spurs can make

a choice. Like, do we want him roaming around as a help defender? Or do we want him on your main

screen setter in the fake and roll? And the other team can kind of try to make that choice for you

by no matter where he is. We're going to try and get him into the action. And that's a bad

answer because he covers so much space that no one else needs to help. You're not going to get

open driving kick threes running a pick and roll at Wembee. I don't think there's ever been any,

there's not been nothing that in my lifetime, like, like this all encompassing before tip off

defensive impact. Other great defensive players, wing defenders in particular, you could kind of

like treat them like a cornerback in the NFL where they're just going to avoid that guy park him

over in the corner. There's no avoiding Wembee. There's no playing him out of a defensive

possession. It's an every possession thing. Now, I would probably still lean SGA.

Just in the on off stuff, you said it is right there, plus five per 100 when he's on the bench.

That is not a Demarit against him to me. And it's not that you're making it a Demarit. You're just,

you're all split nears because they are plus 15 with Shay on the floor. And so that number is so fat

that that's really the one I care about. 17 is more than 10. 17 is more than 15,

or whatever it is. Yeah. I can't say Wembee's a plus 17 when he's on versus off. That's like,

that's astronomical. That is SGA last year. That is Yokech when he won it. I don't think that is

like despositive of the race. But if we reasonable people can disagree, it should also be mentioned

whether you care or not, maybe it doesn't matter to you that Shay has played 350 more minutes

than Wembee despite sitting a million fourth quarters because they didn't need him. That has

to factor into it a little bit. But look, I said on Tuesday that I think by next season, the

consensus is going to be Wembee is the best player in the league. And there were very divergent

reactions to that. Reaction number one was it's too soon. He hasn't played in the playoffs yet.

You're disrespecting these other three guys who are putting up crazy, historically great numbers

at all, Demar. And then the other reaction was, well, duh. Is he the best player now already?

I don't know what the right reaction is, but I think by next year, he's number one.

Jack, next year, you're trying to win a championship. You got the first pick. You taking Yokech,

are you taking Wembee? I'm probably taking Wembee. That's where I am too. And you know, me and you.

I don't know. Think about that. Yeah, we were like team Yokech eight years ago, and now

all he does is put up like 30, 10 and 10 every single game on 65% shooting.

Correct. And they're now like, and I'm as big of a Yokech fan as anybody in the world.

Like I'm up there with his brothers, right? But like, I would take Wembee because

that when you're seeing him live, they're driving on the opposite wing and they're just looking at

Wembee. They're not looking at the rim. Everybody is searching. Where is this guy at? I've just never

seen this before. It is you talk about the U turns. Like if you don't do that, he's getting 10 blocks.

He is breaking the NBA. He's breaking the NBA. If they keep winning out, and let's say Oklahoma City

trips up a little bit and the record's the same. Come on, man. You have to admit that's ridiculously

impressive to take that team and put them there. And when he's off the floor, there are a lot of

teams. If they pass the thunder or tie the thunder and I'll bet you like 30% of the voting pool

will flip their votes. It's going to be a significant number of voters will flip their votes.

The only thing is voters don't like, they like to spread the wealth, you know,

like, you know, very socialist when it comes to this. He's winning defense or player of the year.

So maybe they won't double down this year, but I have a feeling we're going to look back and say,

yeah, we probably should have done it. But moving forward, it's really every award is his award

to lose. I think defensive player of the year should probably be unanimous, and I'll be curious to

see if there's a chat vote or a Naman Thompson vote or whoever else you put in their vote.

I think it would be unanimous. Okay, let's briefly hit the top of the east because I know you're

hankering to talk about the nicks. Just your defense, by the way. Yeah, so Cleveland lost to my

Emmy last night. I'm not sure how hungry Cleveland really is to get out of fourth. And so we might

be looking at a New York Boston clash in the second round. You know, New York, I want you to talk

about their defense because I think no one is sleeping on the nicks because they're the nicks

in it's New York and everything about them is loud as hell and everything Kat does is loud as hell.

And even their owner has been loud as hell this year. This is like, but the way the nicks are

parsed, particularly here in New York area where everyone is fretting all the time about McCale

Bridges. Oh my god, which we know they pull them out of the starting five and Kat is just a roller

coaster and the coaching. Oh my god, we fire tips. Is this guy any better and blah, blah, blah.

They're third in offense and fifth in defense. Like that just, okay, like that you've checked

every box. I can't believe they're fifth in defense. What are you seeing that has driven this?

It's like, it's O.G. Annoble and McCale Bridges. Like everyone gets caught up in

McCale Bridges, like kind of his whiny attitude. And O.G. years to be, I mean, historically,

I think he was like that. I think he's been better this year. Like those guys are powders and

powders throughout the regular season and whatever. But when I watched him play in meaningful games

and they sit down and they guard, like, O.G. is as good as any defender out there when he wants to

guard because he's quick. He's strong. He's got good hands. And he's a really good job of not

fouling. Like that's important when you guard people. So we can funnel guys to spots on the floor.

You don't really blow by him. And he doesn't bow that much. So I think that, you know, I think

people would, if you say Nick defense, they would immediately think cat and grunts and can't guard

anybody. But I look at them a lot differently. I look at them as a team that in a playoff series

when you cut rotations down, you play those guys a lot. They've been relatively healthy this year.

I kind of think like that that defense could be really good. Now the question is going to be

like his car on the town is going to be like, he gets destroyed. The guy like knocks down

threes and rebounds the ball at a high clip. And he gets destroyed. But I feel like he could be like

a little bit volatile. You mean destroyed by the media or destroyed by a post office?

I guess I think it's more like not like beat writers per se, but it's more like fans on social media.

Right. He's the punching bag for whatever reason. And then when you watch them play and I get it,

like everything he does is loud. He's awkward. He falls. He leaves. I think I'm

paced to set the record for most offensive fouls committed in a season. It's not attractive at all

times. I agree. Big feet and everything. Yeah. But I think his defense has really been much better

in the last two months. And if he just gets big and executes what they want him to do so that all

five players are on the same page and they know where he's going to be. And he's pretty good

late switching on some of these picking roles. He just does that stuff. The limitations are

always going to be there. The evidence says like with heart and an OB and bridges sort of just

running around protecting everybody else. There's a pretty solid defensive team. And offensively,

he's having a really quietly very good to like last two or three months. The three is starting

to fall. And a lot of why they're a great offensive team is because he's a shooting five of the likes

of which we've pretty much never seen. And all the cutting and stuff that they do is opened up

by the fact that the bigs are pulled away from the rim or they're on Josh Hart and everyone's

confused about where to be. I think he's had a pretty I think he's had a pretty solid season.

I he's he's back in the third team all NBA conversation. Yeah. I mean for a guy that gets destroyed

like that, he is having a good season. And then you have to add in. But I think it's kind of like

an anomaly is Mitchell Robinson. Like he looks great. You don't have any answers for him.

Offensive rebounding getting behind the defense. You know, it's just I think what people don't

like about the next is they like they don't have like their attitudes are a little bit like,

you know, they like I don't know they pow a little bit. They complain a little bit. It's like not

what you think of a championship level team. And I don't know how they're going to handle offense

when it when it rolls around. But I just know I've seen a lot of big games like I watched a spurs

game. And I'm like, man, you know what? I don't care what anybody says. This is a championship

level defense. And they can build off of that. And when playoffs come around, it really does come

down to defending and rebounding. And they do those two things really well. Kat's an elite rebounder.

They can have the double big thing with Kat and Robinson when they need it. I would there was

talk up before Bridges had a good game the other day about taking him out of the starting five.

I would not do that. I think that's way too upsetting of the apple cart. And I think you just

need him in his skill set. Even if we average just 12 of a game like he's going to do other stuff

that helps you win. And to me, the tell with the nicks is ball movement. And when they're moving

the ball, they're really, really hard to guard. And so like when when teams blitz, there's no great

answer for Brunson, right? Unless you can switch everything and not expose yourself elsewhere. And

like Boston is pretty well equipped to do that actually. But when you drop, he just rains fire

over you from the mid range. And when you blitz, that's actually to me when the nicks look their best

because he'll get when he gets off of it early, even if he doesn't hit the roll man, if he hits

like heart on the wing and heart is just so on selfish, like I'll hit the roll man. And the ball

starts popping there. And this is like for a team that has a rep as predictable and oh, there's

too much Brunson and it's too much ISO when they get it moving. That's when they ascend to a level

like yeah, this team could beat the Celtics into seven game series. They could beat the calves

into seven game series. And I don't know who's going to win the East. But I think I would rank

them in the Celtics is one in one A in the East with apologies to Detroit who's obviously dealing

with a major injury and, you know, their offense has some questions. I am curious to hear

Cleveland, to me, is the hardest team of these four to get a handle on in part because

their four best players have basically barely played together because Jared Allen's been injured

for so long. Their 15th in defense now, which is not great. The hard and Mitchell combination has

been as dynamic as advertised offensively. Struce's back. Merrill has made a nice little jump.

Do you believe in this team? Like I kind of don't know what to make of them.

Yeah, I believe in a team until it gets really, really, really hard, right? Then I don't. And it's

like I want to believe in them. I thought at the beginning of the year, they had the best talent.

They've been equally at disappointing them and Orlando had just been like, you can both be

much better with the talent that you have, the size, but, you know, like Moby didn't take the jump.

Allen has been a lot better with Hardin, but he didn't hurt and he doesn't play.

That team could be a dangerous team, but I'm just like, I think Donovan Mitchell is having one

of the best seasons of his career. And yet, we don't believe in the Cleveland Cavaliers because

of the toughest element to it. So, you know, last year, it seemed like a completely different team.

And I think there are a lot tougher this year. Like Tyson is like at the great addition to that

team, like the way he plays. Love Max Trues being back and all that stuff. But it's just like,

how all of a sudden you're going to go two straight seasons. And then now it's going to,

like you're going to always get that point where you have your back against the wall in the playoffs.

And we're all expecting you guys to deliver based off of what is what I would say to them. Like

based off of the roster that you put together, we're done doing that. So you have to kind of prove it

to us, which who knows, man, they can make a run. They definitely have like some of the most talent

in the East. I think they have a lot of top end talent, a lot of depth and a lot of different

ways they can play with shrewdish and Ellis. And Kenny Atkinson has made I think a smart decision

that shrewders is like attached to Donovan Mitchell and Ellis is attached to James Hardin because

the Hardin shrewder fit his little more awkward. They just have a lot of, Merrill has made

himself quite a good little around player. I think they can absolutely win the East. If I had to do

like a pie, like an East finals representative pie, I think it would be like 30 to 33% Boston,

30 to 33% Nick's 20 to 22% calves and like 20 to 22% pistons. Like I think that that's like

how jumbled it is. But I do think for me the nicks in the Celtics have ascended to their own

mini, mini tier. Yeah. All right, let's say I will say in the East. Number one team to avoid

you know, like those top four. Do not want to play Charlotte. It's going to say it right now.

It's a great segue. We're going to take a break and we're going to get into the second half of

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This NBA moment is presented by state farm scale. You mentioned the Hornets and the chaos of the

second part of the Eastern conference playoff picture. It's it's just like madness right now.

The hawks are suddenly fifth at 41 and 32. The raptors are 40 and 32. They've dropped to six.

They're six and nine in their last 15 games and just look like kind of a mess.

The sixers are now seven that 40 and 33 and bead came back last night Paul George came back last

night. And then the Hornets the heat and the magic all have 34 losses. This is like a wild race

for fifth and six and home court advantage in the play in and all of it. Which you can pick any

of these teams who who's most interest. I mean like Charlotte. I we're all I think rooting for

Charlotte because they're the most interesting and I think the most dangerous of all of these

teams in the first round. Their schedule is absolutely brutal to finish the season, which is why

the projection systems give them like a like a 10% chance of getting into the top six. I would give

them a better chance at that just because they've been so goddamn good. Even their last three

games are Detroit, Boston, NYX and two of them are on the road. But I think like all four of those

teams in the East should beat Charlotte and any of these teams in a playoff series. But Charlotte is

I think the most the best of them and Philly. If they can ever stay healthy for more than a hot

second is obviously kind of scary. But who do you want to start with here? Well, I always go with

when it comes to the bottom half of the East. I just go with the teams that I love to watch right

and I'm not going to love the watch you if you're playing losing basketball. So the way I

quartered those two is one in two or one a one b is Charlotte and Lana. You know that the top two

lineups since January 1st is Atlanta and then Charlotte. Like Atlanta with CJ McCollum starting.

That would go to Kongu and then you know when they kind of figured out the Musa Diabate is not a

human being. He's from like he's a machine from the from the future. They got a brief air man.

I'm like coming up coming up after you on the on the Zacklosh show. We got a visit with Musa Diabate.

We talked about it. Yeah, we got we we recorded it already. We recorded it already. But we talked

about it. His like insane stamina and work and also his and also his pension for fights, which is

a good time. I think like he's brought like a crazy element to that team and everyone's

like playing winning basketball. I love it. Charles Lee has done with that group. So Charlotte to

me is the most dangerous because the team I love to watch and then Atlanta's right beneath them

and the rest of those teams like I'm on it like you got to prove it to me for me to like like you guys.

I'll watch your all possession recap. But I ain't sitting down wasting my time watching you guys

on the play because I see so many times where I'm going to sit down and watch a game and you're

going to play Atlanta. Here we go Orlando and you'll lose by 30. How do you lose by 30?

In a big time game, you know, so I just like I think Charlotte has all the medikings with

Brandon Miller. He's playing well beyond his years in Konken if we're doing the same thing in

Lamella ball losing player and the right for his whole life. It's all just a Nala plus player in

that man. You can't bring that noise. You can't bring that noise about Lamella being a losing

player on the Zach Lose show. We've been the most loyal supporters of Lamella ball like just

look at the numbers, man. They were good when he look he does goofy shit. We all know he's going

to do goofy shit and he's dialed back his goofy quotient by like 70% this year, which is helpful

and makes him more of a winning player. I just don't I think the losing player thing is was unfair.

I can I'll take it. I'll give you five that for you. So when he's down by 20, he's amazing.

When the game is tight, he's amazing. But the NBA is you need to operate. It's really important down

six down eight to understand the value of those possessions as the point card and your down six,

your down eight and you do three dumb things and next you know it's 20. That's not good. But now he

doesn't do those things like when those when those leads are like he'll make a big play. He'll

find somebody for a wide open shot. That's like in the past. I did not love him in like I call

those moments much like I watch games with eight minutes to go down by six and I'm like these next

three possessions will determine the outcome of this game. Most people watch the last two minutes

of the game. No, it's like these are important. When you're a guard, getting a good shot,

getting a stop and not turning the ball over and in the past, he's done those things. So he has

but they were also like a legit five hundred team when he's been healthy with not a lot of talent

around him. Yeah, but like part of being good is being healthy. That's really

to argue what he was. Okay, it's fine. Yeah, which is like what he is right now is a big time

winning player and his talent is it's so great. And the fourth corner is the most player to

like the players you should fear the most when he's out there and now some of these tight games.

As you're talking, I do wonder if the turning point for him, I would love to talk to him and the

coaching staff about this moment. It might have been two months ago now when this thing was starting

to happen, but not quite really happening. They were playing Indiana at home and they were up

three with like a minute left and there was a jump ball and the Hornets won the jump ball and it

went to Lamello. You're up three with a minute left. All you want to do is just like let's

you don't want to milk it, but you don't want to do anything crazy. And he dribbled up the court and

threw a crazy all you up to somebody and it was like not even open and the Pacer stole the ball

and came back to win the game. And even the even the announcers who are so Eric Collins is so

enthusiastic and Del Curry's great. They were I'll never forget it. They were just silent for six

seconds. And then Eric Collins said something like, whoa, whoa boy or something just like that.

We can't believe he did that. And it's he hasn't done anything quite like that since. Philly,

I thought him be looked as as well as you could have expected him to get Chicago. It's for

a hundred seven points. Once it's seven to get Chicago. We all got to wait and see Miami. I thought

of note last night. They they win in Cleveland. They snapped a five game losing streak. Yeah.

They started Mitchell, Powell, Hero, Wiggins, Bam, which I had in pencil as they're starting five

before the season. That group has only played in nine games so far this season. They flirted

with this like Powell off the bench thing because are we going to we do we want both Powell and Hero

on the floor? Can we survive defensively? Powell wasn't psyched about it. They've now just said,

you know what? Let's roll with this and see what happens. Then they threw Bam and wear together

on the floor in the fourth quarter and it worked. I'm just I'm interested, but their ceiling is just

not that high. Like it's not as high. They don't reach heights like the Hornets reach and the Hawks

have really found something with the way they're playing. Now I want to see it more against good

teams and they play the Celtics. I think twice in their next three games are against the Celtics.

And Orlando. Yeah. I don't know where you even begin. Like they had that little run there where

so Paulo and Jamal coach mostly call each other out. They win five games. Then they lose

Atlanta by 30 and they lose six games. So to me, that's just like it's inevitable that that's

not going to work and they're going to have some. I don't know what they're going to do this

offseason, but it looks like they're going to do something this offseason. I mean, if they actually

finish 10th and lose in the play and I think pretty much all bets are off other than I don't even

I don't I mean, like I think they'd look at tons of different things. Coach, front office,

fronds. I mean, yeah, like literally literally all of it. Yeah. To me, the story of their last six

games is their defense has fallen apart. Their transition defense has fallen apart. They're

not communicating. And without that, they don't have much. And then, but I also they're it's so

weird. I was watching their game as Cleveland that our day. Sugs is out as usual. Vogners out.

Anthony Black is out. And I'm like, they just I kind of almost admire that they're 38 and 34

because the talent on the floor, like when one or Bane or Bane caro is on the bench,

the lineups they're playing are like, these are almost like borderline, unviable playoff.

Like not even borderline. Like these guys wouldn't play in the playoffs. And they're still scrounging

around over 500, but it doesn't it doesn't look great. My favorite moment from that game. Did you

see any of that Orlando Cleveland game the other night? Yeah. Did you see when the woman got her

drink knocked out of her hand in the second row? No, it's fantastic. I so someone throws an

errant pass. I don't remember who it was. Woman in the second row. So not courtside. The

spilling did not have did not delay the game. She's on her phone, not paying attention to the game.

Ball just smashes right into her beer and it spills everywhere. And she was not excited about

being on television. She was not excited about the whole thing. If you're on your phone,

just like, look, if you're sitting in the second row of an NBA game, a real fan may have wanted

those tickets. And you're like, you deserve the spillage. That's all I'm saying. Yeah,

wait for a dead ball. You know what I mean? But that's for sure. But I have a by by the way,

I proposed a rule last week. I did a live show in Brooklyn and this rule got very good feedback

from the crowd in my panels. Would you like to hear this? Yes, of course. I love rule changes.

This is not a real real change. If you like, we're all interested in speeding up the game, right?

Like the games are too long. The end of games take forever. If you're courtside and you spill your

drink, like like you it's it's it's your fault. You knock it over your knock over somebody else's

drink while you're coming back from the Delta Club format. It's into the second half. And they

have to delay the game to like wipe up all the spillage. I think you should have to come to

center court. And someone says to you like the PA announcer is like, can you name four players who

are participating in tonight's tonight's game? And if you can't, you're ejected from the game

and someone from the upper deck gets your seat. I think four is a fair number because anyone can

name two because there's always two stars. Both teams, four players or one combined players,

four teams. Because anyone can get to two. I don't want you to get to eight. Like I don't expect

you to be like jet Howard played six minutes in the first half. Just give me four. And if you can't

you're out of the game. That's all. Oh man, you don't have a lot of respect for Gucci row man.

And Toronto, I do you want to say I just can't the Raptors are just this is what they are.

They're an okay team. I don't to me. The more interesting questions about the Raptors like

the magic come in the off season. Because I think regardless of where they finish fifth, sixth

play and I think would be a big disappointment given where they've been for the season. But

if they as long as they make the playoffs, I think they'd be satisfied, but also come away knowing

like I don't think we're that much better than this. Like I think this might be as good as this

group can get. Yeah. All right, switch topics. You ready? What do you think of this Yannis thing

and the players union statement? That's weak. That's what it was. One of the most bizarre

press releases I can every member, which I thought was about the 65 game rule and like welcome

to the party players association, the 65 game rule, which you collectively bargain sucks.

Yeah. And then it was like, Oh, by the way, we're mad about Yannis because we think he's healthy

and the bucks might be holding him out against his will and we're somehow inserting

ourselves into this and the implication from what I made some calls on it from what I heard was

they actually want the league to do like a player participation policy investigation,

which normally that's like when a team is holding out a player and everyone kind of agrees

what's going on, this would be like a hostile player participation policy like medical investigation

to see if he's healthy. Doc Rivers said last night he's not healthy. He's not clear to play.

It's one of the more bizarre things I can remember and how do you read it?

Yeah, I mean to me, Yannis is trying to navigate the divorce and not try to basically like,

hey, everybody is not my fault. You know, like that's really what it looks like and I love you

Yannis. He sits down with me every year for like 20, 25 minutes when we go to their training

camp tour and he's always like gracious with this time, but you know what's happening is he

the legendary player can have a statue out front of Pfizer forum and he wants to leave and he doesn't

want like his name to be drugged through the mud for whatever reason, right? But it's like

if he has those feelings, it's going to be tough. So he's kind of like making it like the bucks

don't want me to play. How am I supposed to play here? I do have a theory and I don't know if this

is true. Yannis is like, tells the agent what to do and then he's like, do whatever you want,

but don't let me know about it. So it's almost like the agent is going and saying all of these rules.

Oh, what about this and what about that? This is the best way. Let me talk to Sean's and Sean's

will throw out a tweet and everything like that like all this back channel stuff and the

bucks are just like protecting their investment, which is if they're going to trade Yannis,

they don't want him to get hurt. They don't want him to pop in Achilles. They just went through

an Achilles pop by Damien Lillard. They want to go into to see this offseason clean. Whether they

do trade him or offer him $275 million, they want to go into it with like some certainty of

what do you want to do, Yannis? And I think the bucks are trying to do that and I feel like Yannis

is trying to save base when he eventually asked to be traded. Yeah, I said two days ago,

or maybe it was last week, whenever Eric name, whenever Eric name at the athletic first broke

the story that Yannis and the bucks were at odds about him playing or not. I was like, this just

feels to me like a player trying to manufacture an narrative that the team is the bad guy and like,

this is why I'm leaving. And now I feel that even even more strongly than I did then, I just

think this has all gotten so dumb. Like really just ridiculous. Because the bucks probably should

have traded Yannis 18 months ago. I understand why they didn't. He's only 31 years old and he's

a top five player in the NBA. I get it. Like your team is sunk without him for an indefinite period

of time. And he's not 35. He's 31. I get it. I got it. But it was clear that it was over and

that it would take a lot to build a new contender around him. And they didn't pull the trigger. That's

fine. Nobody needs to actually be the bad guy here. Like we don't need to agree. We don't need to

go through all of this fucking mess. Like Yannis, you're going to be beloved. Everyone would understand

if you asked for a trade. Like none of this needs to happen. And then West Edens comes out the

governor for now of the bucks. Because our ownership situation is a continuous disaster of

incongruity. Comes out and tells Ramona Shelburn, well, he's either going to extend or we're going to

trade him. And that felt to me like very much like I jumped to him. We're putting the onus on him.

And now everyone's trying to make it look like it's not our fault. Like this is so dumb. I'm so

joking. I'm so tired of it. Wake me up when he gets traded to wherever he gets traded to.

And I'll analyze how he fits in with that team or the teams that are interested in it. But this

is just like, it's just dumb. I don't know. It's it's like let's say they turn on your podcast and

listen to us talk. They would be like, yeah, you're right. But somehow if you're listening to like

and I'm not trying to be disrespectful to Milwaukee local radio and listening to Milwaukee local

collars and but they think like, yeah, I could see how people could be a little bit emotional.

But this is the NBA way. Yannis, do you want to be in legendary buck all time and just play

with the boxing? You guys are going to lose and you're just going to play and you're going to be fine

with it. No, I want to win championship. Okay. Do you want to win championship? Let us work

together to make this thing happen. Everybody wins. We want some assets because for us to win a

championship for you earlier, like we're still paying the price on the jewelry holiday trade.

So yeah, it makes sense in the NBA to kind of restock the kitchen cabinets when you have a

legendary player guy. Like some people don't do that. Like the Celtics, they did and they got

brown and tag them. Other people like the Lakers and Dallas and San Antonio just left their guys

get old and they got nothing. It's a matter of how you want to deal with it. It seems like Yannis

wants to leave to let the bus get something for him. It's simple. It's as simple as that.

And you nailed it when you said protecting Yannis from injury. Like this is

there's just no logic to him playing again. They're nine games out of like it's over. It's

done. It's been over for two weeks. They lose every game by 30 points. Like they just

lost to the Blazers by a million points last night. It's over. It's been over for quite a while.

They get the worst of their own pick and the Pelican's pick. So sure, they have some incentive

to make their their own pick as a best chance of being a high pick as possible, whatever it is.

But this is completely about this guy's had how many calf strains in the last 18 to 24 months

and this neat and this neat thing that happened now. There's no rational team in any sport that would

play this player in the going into the final year of his contract in this circumstance.

Like there's just it's cool that you want to play great. That doesn't make you a hero for me.

It makes you like just do check the standings, man. Like give finacist your minutes and let's

move on. Yeah, I agree. The other big thing that happened related to this was Adam Silver's

press conference yesterday announcing that the legal explorer expansion officially in Seattle

in Las Vegas. And I'm cool with all that. And then the strongest language I've ever heard about

tanking when he said we're going to stop this full stop. We're going to change this full stop.

There's a consensus about changing it. I didn't think you would come out that strong.

And I've seen a million different proposals. I think the league has seen twice that many

proposals. I don't know what is going to win out. But when Adam Silver comes up and says that,

it ain't going to be a little band-aid. It's going to be something pretty dramatic. Have you seen

a proposal that you enjoy? Not really. Not really. I don't think there's anything that I can look

at all 30 owners and the league and the players and the players association and all that.

What they call them, the benchmarks or the check marks that the stop gaps or whatever you have to

get to the point where everyone's going to be on board with it. So it'll be interesting to see

what they come up with. And what's probably going to happen? Like, remember, when they said

we're going to curb the last three picks, all have the same chances or whatever it is.

Seven seven years ago, they did, they changed, they flattened the odds a little bit.

By the odd didn't change anything. So whatever the end result, the teams will still find

ways to tank. The reality is this draft is supposed to be ridiculous. I hear it, I talk to Brad the

other day and he's like, man, I'm excited about our 20-something pick and our 40th pick. Like,

there could be guys that can come in and play for us. So it's not just the top tier talent

at the age of the boxes of the world, right? There's like really good players throughout the draft.

And I think it's a little combination of the NIL stuff that's keeping people in college. So

guys are coming in and maybe being able to play right away and contribute at 22, 23 years old.

So that's kind of where I feel like it's no matter what happens, it's going to be very difficult

to make it so teams don't tank. But if the people vote, remember, there's picks that have been

traded in the future that are reliant, been traded based off of one particular system.

Now you're just going to change the entire system. I don't know if it's going to be really hard

to get everyone on board. There is a competition committee, there is a board of governors,

and there is a players association. They have to deal with all that.

He sounded pretty goddamn confident that we're voting in the spring and it's going to be changed

after that. And by the 2027 draft, the rules are going to be different. Can I float some ideas at

you? Go for it. If I, I'm not sure what the leader in the clubhouse is right now in terms of what

the league wants, what's actually passable at the B.O.G. But there is some momentum is too

probably strong of word, but of going back to a system where the odds are completely flat for

all the teams that are all the teams in the lottery, except for the teams that get into the play-in

and lose. Those teams would get some lottery odds, but not the same odds as everybody else.

And the idea there would be obviously flattening the odds, removes all the incentive to lose at

the highest level, but we don't want a system where teams are tanking out of the play-in

to get in to the lottery. And so we give them a little love too. I think that's got some momentum,

and that brings up the same fears that, you know, I think there will be some small market teams

who are a little bit hesitant about that because they feel like it takes away their cleanest way

to get a superstar, their most tried and trueed way to get a superstar. But I, they've also

done this before. Like the NBA had, that was the system of like the Ewing lottery, I think,

was flat odds. And so they need, if that's what it ends up being, everybody needs to be prepared for,

like when they changed the odds that you mentioned seven, eight years ago, they flattened out the odds.

You mentioned it didn't change behavior, and you're correct. It actually made some behavior,

tanking behavior worse because teams started tanking to the middle. But one thing it did change is,

there started to be some pretty wild jumps up in the lottery, and wild falls down in the lottery.

Sure. And everyone immediately was like, oh my God, what have we done? This is a bad idea.

So we need to change it back the other way. And it's like, if you just gave this system 25 years,

in the aggregate, the worst teams would pick the highest. And you'll, but you'll have more years

where there's some jumping around and you just sort of like, did you not understand what that

was going to be? And if they go back to a system like that, they have to be prepared for,

there's going to be some crazy stuff. And you have to be like, just stomach that for 10 or 15 or 20

years, or else we're just going to be continually doing this thing where it's like, well, we don't

like that. Let's tweak it again. Exactly. Let me, I don't know the answer to this. Please help me.

When it was flat, is it every pick was pulled out like one, or once you got like the top three,

then everyone followed suit after rep after that? That's a great question. I don't know

off the top ahead. I think I don't think every pick was pulled like that. And that's another

thing that has been proposed. That's been a problem because like some people just like, I don't

care what I do. I want it. Right now, if you get jumped by four teams like Washington had the

worst record, they pick fit two years. Detroit, it's happened to, but it's happened to all three of

those franchises. Yeah. So, so they're like, well, we're better off with fit. We don't want

eight. So they keep losing on purpose. If it literally is a giant, everyone gets one ping-pong ball

and you pull them out, then I think it will, it will eliminate it. But there'll be some really good

teams getting the number one pick. Another, another, so another criticism of the flattened odds is

it disincentivizes losing, but it doesn't incentivize winning. And so there are other proposals

where, and the heat have been behind one of these that has gained some traction, where after

a certain day in the season, you actually get credit for winning. And so that teams aren't just not

trying to lose or actually trying to be competitive in games. I don't, I don't know what's going to

win out. I would place the flattened odds or something like it a little bit ahead of that. But

that's an interesting one too. Then there's been some like wild proposals. I don't want to get

to into them here, but like wild, wild proposals that are interesting. But yeah, I mean, listen,

this year was the worst year. I hate going on. It's brutal. And you're watching NBA league pass,

and there's like two games that matter, and everybody else is trying to lose. And it's like,

what are we doing? And these people are paying, like everyone's like about the money, like the 65

game rule with Kate, and that does suck. But there are a lot of fans that pay, like they save money,

and they go to games to watch teams that want to lose games. Like are we talking about integrity of

the game? And like we do have to think about the fans as well. And I know the fans I want to lose,

like you get a top pick, but I think competitive basketball is the most beautiful thing. Like I don't

watch, historically, I haven't watched all star games because I hate those type of exhibitions,

just like Chicago and Philly last night with an exhibition. Like I want to see competitive basketball.

You weren't I care about you weren't digging into Wizards jazz last night.

What are you trying to call me out? I wasn't digging into that.

Juju reset like a million rebounds because the jazz didn't play any big guys. I heard.

The idea, by the way, fans, I was a little surprised at Adam Silver. I don't know if you saw

his press conference was in trying to sort of figure out why tanking had become more commonplace.

He was talking about analytics and these gems that come from different backgrounds and owners

from private equity. And then he was like in the fans, too, the fans clamber for this. I'm like,

don't blame the don't blame the fans. If you do you clamber for it, but that's fine. But if your

team is so weak that you cave to that, like what do you make to be team building decisions based

on that? It's like, come on. Yeah, yeah. Good point, great point. Wait, there was one other thing

I wanted to say about the five game rule problem. No, I don't care about that. I've already done that.

Oh, the other tell that Adam Silver had yesterday that this is going to be a real

substantive change is when he talked about how we can change certain parts of the CBA down the road

that account for some of the effects of the tanking changes. So like what he's saying really there

is there are going to be teams who when the lottery odds are flattened or it's more random or

whatever we end up doing who say, well, wait a second, this hurts our ability to get star players

because we're small market teams. We this is our only guaranteed way to get a star is guaranteed.

It's not. I mean, God knows the Kings have sucked for a million years. But what Adam Silver saying

is that may be true. Let's posit that is true. He probably disagrees, but let's posit that is true.

How about we open up other ways for you to get star players? And I've talked about how like maybe

restricted free agency goes away so that or is limited in some way so that teams have quicker

access to young free agents. Maybe you increase rookie scale salaries so that if a really good

team wins the lottery, they're immediately in a financial crunch. I had even one team propose like

if you get a top three pick, you have to win a certain amount of games in your first three or four

seasons to actually get him to be a restricted free agent rather than an unrestricted free.

That was interesting. So that was a tell. There's one other thing I want to get your thoughts on

before we go. Where are you on Denver right now? Because it's been a very strange injury

riddled season for them. They've won a couple games in a row, but they've been like high scoring

games that don't exactly encourage you about their defense, which is ranked 21st in the league.

But Watson just came back. Gordon just came back. Brown is now solidly back. They have their team now.

Is this is this a juggernaut waiting to emerge or is this just the year from hell and it's not going

to happen? Their defense is atrocious and I will give Mike Malone a ton of credit. Like if you don't

like his attitude, his yelling at the players and calling him out in the media, an adamant doesn't

do it, but they responded to that. You know, so I don't know like, when I watch them, they don't

have like a disposition defensively where I believe that they can get stops when they need to.

I'm okay with teams being bad at times, but I can watch like the last eight minutes of a game

and I can watch you like raise your level up. And I get a paid watch in being out. Does

help that? But when I look at them, like, junking up their defense one, two, two and moving

yoghurt around and like putting yoghurt to compromise situations, like, I don't believe in their

defense. Therefore, I don't believe in them. I listen to you, the yoghurt, I love that team.

I think I picked Denver as a one team that could beat Oklahoma City at the beginning of the year,

but I was not expecting them to have a top. I thought they would have a top 10 defense with the

additions of Cam Johnson and everyone being there, but they just not. And not only when they're out

there, they don't care to get stops. They have the best offense in the history of the game right now,

but if you're not stopping anybody, you're not winning tight games, you're not doing what it takes

to win. And I'm not, I don't think they play hard enough to overcome their defense of

liabilities. Yeah, they have the number one offense in the league. I was right there with you.

I called them a juggernaut hiding in plain sight earlier in the season. I thought they would be

the biggest threat to Oklahoma City. And I'm not writing them off. No, no, I'm just not. I mean,

I think it stopped when they want to. I would put them now behind Oklahoma City in San Antonio in

the hierarchy to win the West, but I still think they could win Minnesota. You had a Minnesota.

Ahead of Minnesota. Yeah. Wow. What am I missing in Minnesota? No, I think Minnesota has been.

I they've been my stealth title to contender the entire year, but I would still the pedigree of

Yokech and Murray. And I just want to see how they look and what lineup they can play now that

everybody is back. And you know, Watson is probably their best individual defender. Aaron Gordon

is right there with him. Brown is fine. He's just a little overtaxed. Like he's not that good

at the point of attack. He's not going to stop like an Anthony Edwards. He's he's okay getting

around screens, etc. They don't play those three guys together. Hardly ever, because I think

they've concluded it's not viable offensively. I wonder if they might dabble in Watson, Gordon

and Christian Brown altogether. Cam Johnson is starting to find a rhythm again. So it doesn't

feel like it's going to be their year. And whatever chance I thought they had of winning the West

before the season would shrink by now, but I just can't ever dismiss a team with Yokech and

health around him. I can't dismiss it. I can't that's where I was until I keep watching them

in the fourth quarter. It's been bad. I mean, you can't I'm not saying you don't try. I'm saying

when you try, you still can't get stopped. Well, there's there's the problem. Even makers get

stops when they try. Even they had a recent game against the Blazers that they won. It was too

close for comfort. But like there were just very basic communication breakdowns or one guy would

switch and another guy wouldn't or two guys would rotate to the same guy and look at each other

like, wait, I thought and then I know you guys have had a lot of injuries, but this is an experience

team. Like we shouldn't be seeing that 70 games into the season. If they can't clean that kind of

stuff up, they aren't going to get through the West. Yeah, the Lakers are there. Two men. The

Lakers are legit kind of scary. So so last year when they got Luke, JJ Reddick goes into all his

junk defense season. They went right to the top of the NBA and defense number one until they

face Minnesota into playoffs. And it doesn't matter any junk defense. You throw an anti-everage.

He has an answer for it. So I think Lakers are seriously match up based. Like they can be

a lot of teams. There's some team that I don't I don't think they can be. So I don't know if all

this junk defense that they're doing right now, which is working like they're top eight in defense

since he all start break. But they need the all year we know that LeBron, Luca and Austin Reeves,

they're not great man to man, but they're also pretty smart players. So I think JJ's done a good

job of putting him in the right situation. But sometimes in the NBA playoffs, it just comes down

to talent. And if you don't have defensive talent, how do you win? Even though the Andre Aiden has

been exceptional since he all start break on the defensive end. I I've talked a lot about the

Lakers in the last week or so. So I'll keep it simple here. If they get Houston in the first round,

I'm picking him to win that season. That's an easy win. Ice they're they have a chance against

almost everybody else in the West. But I would still pick in a best of seven series. Our

pick Minnesota over the Lakers. I picked Denver over the Lakers. San Antonio, despite the

experience factor and Oklahoma City. I would pick all those teams to beat the Lakers in a playoff

series. But if it would have been like team X in five a month or two ago, it's now seven or six

or something like that. But I would you pick any would you pick the Lakers over any of those four

teams? For right now I pick him over Denver and Houston, but not San Antonio. You picked the Lakers

over Denver. Yes, I will. I'm so down. I have so down on Denver. You know, you don't understand.

I just when you it's like I'm like a fan. Like when you want a root burden team and then sometimes

in the media, you root to be right. I'm not right. I'm wrong. They're supposed to be better

and they cannot get stops. When they really want to get a stop, it's a problem. The Lakers,

they can. I didn't know. They're not. This is a bad year for Denver. I don't know what happened.

I think and I don't want to like throw Adam and under the bus, but I think my balloons like

ruggedness was really good for their team, you know? Like I felt like like that toughness and him

calling guys out with like they would raise the level. And I see Denver. They look big. They

look composing. They look physical. Like that has all disappeared to me. Wow. Okay. I mean,

it's you're not wrong about the defensive issues are real. I just I guess I just have enough

so much respect for the pedigree. And I want to see their team with their best defense players.

All right. Brian Scalabrini. You can see him on Celtics games 4.25 days a week on Sirius XM

from 7 to 10 a.m. with Frankie ice. And how often are you on NBC? Pretty much every Monday.

I mean, they're calling a game or in the studio. It's Monday on peacock on peacock. That's

I got a peacock peacock. Are you enjoying the peacock stuff? Oh, yeah. I love being there. It's like

you get this like league wide. So you really got to like you got you got 12 seconds to hit a

top. That's like great. Well, we just spent 12 minutes on a topic. Brian Scalabrini are the man.

Let's bring in Musa Diabate to conclude today's episode. But Scalab, thanks. I'll see you soon.

You got it. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by state farm. One minute to crouch cheering

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available while parked. All right. Special guest time about a month ago on Amazon Prime with Steve

Nash and Blake Griffin and Dwayne Wade. I did a segment. My Mark Gassol all star. Shout out Mark Gassol.

My favorite players to watch. That's it. Just favorite dudes to watch in the league.

And they were all delighted by one of my picks. Musa Diabata. And I said on TV that night,

nobody, if you think whatever player on your team you think is the hardest paying player on your

team, Musa Diabata plays harder than that guy. And Musa Diabata is here. What's up, man? How you doing?

Good and you, man. How's everything? We're good. We're good. In the flesh. So I got to start with

just the basics. The moose nickname. Do you like it or do you not like it because that's like

it's just an easy pun on your name? Right. Oh, no, I love it. I mean, it's very funny because it

really started at Michigan. While I was out there, my roommate, Rochetter, shout out to him and

Ian Burns, they kind of came up with it pretty much when they were playing or whatever.

And after the game, he just said, you know, the moose is loose. The moose is loose. And that's

really how he started. And so since then, I've always had an in mind. I've used the cup of

times last year, but he really definitely took up this year. But yeah, I've always loved it.

Is it a kick to see the moose antlers all around now? I mean, Brandon Miller was wearing

them during warmups in a game. The fans are wearing them. Is it crazy to you that this is now a

fad? No, yeah, this is insane. I mean, it's funny because like,

literally last year, I came in and I even know what was going to happen, you know. And now for

me to be in this situation where, you know, everybody's like, you know, kind of like supporting me

and stuff. I mean, it's a blessing. It's amazing. I saw Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker at one

year games wearing the moose antlers. Did you get to talk to them after the game about this?

No, I didn't, but I did see it on Twitter though. Yeah, that was crazy.

Have you seen any other celebrity super fans, either being, you know, someone tech something

to you or you see it in the crowd wearing the moose antlers? I saw a couple of French,

French, celebrities do it all to say to me, but yeah, nothing really for real.

Okay, so you guys are maybe the happiest story of the entire season. Got off to a slow start,

showed some potential and then bam, exploded. And you've been one of the best teams in the NBA

now for three, four months coinciding almost exactly when you got moved into the starting five.

But the question I have is, was it a, maybe it's a practice, maybe it's a game,

maybe it's a film session, but for you, Musa Diabate, when did you start to realize like,

oh, we may have something real and pretty special here. Was there a moment like that?

Oh, man, I mean, really started from the summer. You know, at the end of the day, that's

always what I'm going to give props to on the summer. We've worked very hard and, you know,

we had an understanding that, you know, we wanted to do something special or at least change the

culture. And that's the mindset that we had and coach brought it every single day. And so

for us, you know, coming into training camp. So even during the summer, like before training camp,

you know, it was like all those talks that we have with the coach, understanding the goals and

the reasons of what we doing things. And so now, I mean, I wouldn't say that it's a surprise,

but it's definitely, you know, funny to see how everything's just too close, you know, so fast.

And, you know, how like, you know, the opinions are changing now. So, you know,

yeah, it's been a long time since Charlotte was just fired up about, about the NBA.

Have you guys, you guys are now tied with Orlando at seventh and eighth, I think, in the Eastern

Conference. Let me make sure I'm doing it. Yeah. And no, at eighth and ninth, I'm sorry. And

just the game behind Philly at seventh, two games behind Atlanta at six. You have a bunch of

tiebreakers that go your way. Have you started to talk about like, how high can we actually get?

Like should we shoot for the fifth seed? Should we shoot for the sixth seed? Do you have those

conversations? Right. I mean, obviously it's always something that like you want to talk about.

Bad day here day, man. Like we got to stay grounded. It's like one of the things where, you know,

you just got to take a day by day to clear some coming. Obviously, we have big goals and you

want to get excited because you are winning teams are losing. It's like, oh, yeah, like we really

have a chance to, you know, do something and still a spot that like people didn't think that

we're going to get to. But at the same time, like Coach said, every time you know, stay grounded,

you can take a day by day and give everything you have. Is there any part of you? And be honest

here that kind of wants to see the pistons in the first round after what happened in that

infamous game? You were funny. I mean, really, to me, it don't matter. I didn't know that I'm just

trying to play basketball. You know, it's always fun to play against a team, but I wouldn't say there's

like any specific ridges or anything like that. For me, it's just like playing basketball. I didn't

know that day. So that was a wild scene, as you know, I watched it again just to re-familiarize

myself with it. And before the play where you foul Jalen Duren, they're taking the ball out of

bounds. And there's some, there's some talking going on. What's he saying to you that's starting to

get you a little angry? What are you saying to him? Like, was there anything said like that?

Oh, I mean, I feel like this is very much like trash talk, like, you know, regular trash talk,

like talking basketball. I don't think it was nothing like personal in that sense. At least,

I don't remember. I can't recall exactly what's been said, but on, yeah, it wasn't there for me.

It wasn't nothing too crazy. It was just like, you know, talking basketball, you know, day.

I heard from a couple of your coaches who were like, man, when that happened, we were almost kind

of joking with Moosa like, man, we didn't know you had that. We didn't know you had that in you,

but what do you remember from like the aftermath of that? Any conversations like that,

or just like the process of coming down from something like that must be a strange feeling, too,

in a way? I mean, I wouldn't say that. I'm like, I'm familiar with it because it's like, you know,

like these things that happened. At the end of the day, you know, I'm not trying to be

I and trying to say, oh, yeah, I fight, but it's like, you know, I'm not, I'm not feeling very

with the feeling. So it's not like it was crazy to me. It wasn't a surprise, but like, maybe just

somebody tells like they don't know me. It's like, oh, yeah, like, man, you know, Moosa had that. But

yeah, no, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it wasn't, you know, I definitely thought

that like it was going to have like some bad feedbacks because, you know, I didn't want anybody to

feel like I was just a aggressive guy or something, but, you know, it definitely had the opposite

times, which was. Have you talked, have you talked to Jalender and since it all? No, no.

You mentioned that it's not unfamiliar with you for you. You were in the middle of the

Jawan Howard Wisconsin coach thing that happened between Wisconsin and Michigan where you were,

when you were in college there. What do you remember about that? That was like a wild one because

you don't see coaches going at it like that. And you're in the middle of it and there's stuff

happening. What do you remember about that? Um, I don't exactly remember exactly what happened.

All I knew is hands were thrown and then, um, all I saw was pretty much one of my teammates got

snuck on, but we wanted to do Wisconsin players. And so I was just trying, you know, to defend them. So,

yeah, but, um, you know, things that happen, like I said, you know, sometimes emotions get high,

you know, yeah, things like that. Said he happens. Have you always been a super hard playing

player? Has that always just been a hallmark of your game? Like I just want to outwork people?

For sure. Oh, yeah. Um, I don't, I've done for me. It's, yeah, it's always been like that. I

just standing there like for me to have fun when I'm playing the game. I have to be playing hard. If

not, I don't, I don't know. I don't have the same enjoyment for sure. Someone with the clipper,

the clipper is drafted during the second round. And then they let you go, which is a mistake,

but do you have, have you put, when you played the clippers, which is probably only happy

a couple of times here in the West, do you feel like this is now a revenge game for me? Like,

I want to take, I want to show these guys what they messed up on.

Man, it's funny because I always get asked that question, but funny enough, I don't see it that

way because I'm, you know, at the end of this life, you know, things going to happen at the end of

the day, it is a business. You do feel like, Dan, like, what didn't keep me, but at the same time,

I felt like it was for the better for me at the end of the day. So I am kind of grateful for that

decision, for that situation that happened like that. Even though maybe I'm not a green, we were exactly

all like the way it happened, but, you know, it worked for the better. So would I be mad specifically,

you know, I still have great times with them, great people to care for me and, you know,

so, you know, well, I mean, just speaking of how hard you play, somebody with the Clippers,

I was doing a little research, told me, man, you know what, sold me on Musa, someone we might want to

draft. I had never seen anyone play so hard in a pre-draft workout, and I sure as hell,

I've never seen anyone dive into the scores table during a pre-draft workout. So do you remember

doing this in the Clippers pre-draft workout? Like, I don't know if you were saving a ball,

what was going on, but like crashing into the scores table? Right. I think I do remember what happened,

yeah, because at that point, you got to think. So I was already at my like, I think I have like

some type of record, or got to be close to it. I think I had like, that was like my 22nd or

23rd workout. Wow. Yeah. Like, I remember like going into like my 17th, 18th workout, and just like,

people just like, like, just like clapping for me, like, yeah, like, just want to thank you for

being here, whatever. I was doing everything at that point. So, yeah, it was, it was crazy,

but I mean, you know, like I said, that's just how I play. So, you know,

did you see some of the same prospects over and over again? Like, did you play some of the same

guys in three on three or one on one in any of these workouts? Like, was there a rivalry that

happened almost? And who was it? I mean, it wasn't even a rivalry. It was more so like,

like, oh, you hear it, too? Oh, shoot. Like, what are you going after that? It was more so like,

like, wow, like, we play again. Like, I want to say it was like a rivalry more so, but it was like,

obviously, we're going to do what we got to do when we get on the court, right? But,

yeah, now, it was more so fun because it was just like, oh, wow, like, I just phased me, like,

yeah, that's right. But anyone who's really made it in the NBA, like you?

Well, this stuff will go like in a G or kind of in and out, but like, yeah, no.

Well, maybe you maybe you broke their spirit a little bit in some of the workouts.

One of the hallmarks of your effort and your tenacity is offensive rebounding.

And one of the Hornets coaches told me, you know, we, we joke like Lamello,

like, you know how quarterbacks and football pay their offensive linemen or give them,

like, watches at the end of the season, like, Lamello, with all the kick out three,

is he's getting off me so offensive rebound. Have you discussed it again? Have you discussed this

with him? What would you like? Do you need a new watch? Do what would, do you need a car?

What would, what do you need? No, I mean, like, it's like, you need to place me in some type of way.

I have to figure out the thing of something. Now I'm just saying, oh, overall though, I felt like,

you know, it kind of works like in both ways, you know, because like, it helps me out when

he makes the shot. And, you know, even passing me the boys, my point guard is, you know, I ain't

something to be doing too much. I don't want him to start tripping. Have you ever been in a car

driven by Lamello ball? Hey, no, never will. No, no, it's cool though. I mean, now, I don't know,

obviously, you know, yeah, that one incident that happened, but, um, yeah, nah, I haven't.

Speaking of the Clippers, I had forgotten this. Someone sent me a clip. You got popcorn during

your time with the Clippers. They filled your car with popcorn. I'm always curious about this.

You see this all the time. So it's funny. You open the doors. The popcorn falls out. Everyone tapes,

videos it. What happens next? Do you do you clean? Like, how do you clean a car full of popcorn?

Do you get a vacuum? Like, what do you actually do? To be honest, I don't even know because all I did

is pretty much that night. I got some popcorn out, drove and nearly the next day, somebody came in

into my car. Like, the Clippers had somebody to clean my car. So it was, it was love. So I

wasn't tripping. And it was a rental car. So I was just like, fine. It's not even a good

that could have a prank. If they're going to clean it up for you, it's like, there's no

punishment for you. But I did better for me. I did hear, though, that it wasn't just typical

rookie hazing that was the cause of the popcorn. You can verify this or not. It was punishment

for you for not being good at fulfilling your rookie duties with donuts and Chick-fil-A

and lunch day. You were not diligent enough with this. I just, I think people talk to me,

that's all that's all that's all that's all that's all that's all that's bad information. You

could refute this now. No, I mean, I would agree. I wasn't the best of the rookies. It was more,

okay, look, so to me, it was just more so like, you know, like, I'm gonna help you out. But,

you know, it's like, I'm not a kid. You're not a kid, right? You're not like, I'm not a

third grader. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, no. I'm just thinking that we're not a great

glint, though. Great place for sure. This I did not know, you are just, you have been or were

fasting for Ramadan, which is something that I remember when I was a kid, Akim Alajawan would do

that. And there would be people would ask him about it. And there would just be this like,

ah, that someone could play NBA basketball games for a month and practice and all of that,

but play hard and play tons of minutes while fasting from sun up to sundown. How do you,

how do you do? Does it feel? Does your body feel different? Does it feel harder to you? And how

do you kind of prepare your body to play a game during Ramadan? Right. Oh, man, it's, it's a whole

different mindset. Just in a standpoint of the sleep, especially for me, because I'm the terrible

sleeper. So like for me, it's like, yeah, like definitely like sleeping wise is very hard. Also,

like, obviously you can't eat or drink. I mean, it's like a whole mental preparation for real.

Just most of the time that like, you know, from that point on, you know, you can't eat or drink.

So you know, you're going, you're going to like really lock in on what you, when you get time to eat,

what you eat, like nutrition, but also what you're drinking, like just make sure that everything is

on point. I wouldn't say that it's hard more so in a sense that it's kind of weird. It's

some of the things where like, you don't really feel it in the beginning. I'll say, or like,

if you kind of have this like adaptation point, where like you just, you know, I'm trying to get

used to it. And then it's kind of like, okay, I'm cool. But then like the closer you get to the end,

the more you start feeling it, like your body stuff, and like you feel more tired, you, you know,

it's just, yeah, it's just what it was for me at least. And especially for a guy like me that

plays off energy, it's like, man, like, yeah, just stuff. At least the last, I want to say the last

three games, four games, well, fast. And I was like, man, like, I got to take it out. I just got

to find a way. So how do you, how do you change your like eating and drinking habits post-game

during Ramadan? Do you eat more after the game? Is there, is there a kind of food that you,

that you target more? Like, what do you actually do? Do you, like, chug Gatorade? I'm just trying

to think like, what, how would I knowing I can't eat or drink again till after the next game,

or after the next sundown? Like, what do you, what do you do more of less of?

Right. So for me, definitely like trying to eat things that can't stick more. So like,

stakes, you know, just things that's gonna stay my stomach and it's just not going, this is not

staying there for like a whole day. It's gonna be the main thing for the sleep. So pretty much

what I try to do is, you know, try to like, pretty much pray during the night. Let's say if I

got to wake up at like five, forty to eat. So let's say I got to end my prayers at like, or

my prayers, let's say that's six. So I got to wake up at five and eat. So I'll try to go to sleep at

maybe like two, sleep for like three hours, wake up, trying to eat as much as I can for like

40 minutes, you know, pray. And then the problem is not getting back to sleep. So now I got to

find a way to try to go back to sleep. And then, you know, just gone by my day up from that point on.

But on, you know, I talked to my staff to the team staff and, you know, they did a great job,

amazing job, you know, just making sure that like I was okay with everything that I had everything.

Rumor has it you are agitating to start shooting threes after making a couple of

end of shot clock grenade threes. Is this accurate? Okay, wait, wait, wait, do you do?

I know the shot clock grenade threes. The one in Memphis wasn't a grenade shot clock, was it?

No. I don't think it was, was it? I don't know. I didn't go back and watch them. But I just heard

you it hit a couple. Wait, at least one at the end of the shot clock. And now it's like, hey,

look coach, like, let me loose. Let me lose this funny. But yeah, I mean, you know,

it's still in the talk. It's still in the process. But, you know, don't be surprised if you

start coming up there for sure. I like it. Last one I'll let you go. I was thinking about this.

I was like, let me look at his, his international stats. And I, you haven't, you didn't play Euro

basket and you were not on the Olympic roster for France. 2028, Los Angeles, shaping up to be

an all time amazing basketball Olympics. Is it in your plans to play for France in 2028?

If obviously you make the team and all that. But is that, is that something you're aiming towards?

For sure. I mean, you know, like I said, like every single time, like me,

playing for the national team is always a blessing. It's always a great opportunity, you know,

to get better, but also to represent your country. So to me, it definitely is always fun.

And yeah, it's definitely something that we aim for, you know, being able to play with like some

of the best players in the world against the best teams in the world. I mean, and you know, we,

I feel like we have a chance to, you know, do something, you know, so yeah, for sure, you'll be

amazing. But like I said, now, you know, we have a lot of young guys going in there now, you know,

a lot of base too. So, you know, it's definitely going to be fun and interesting to see.

All right. This is the last one. Sorry, like just, this is a, I always end with players like this.

You got what 10 games left in the season before the playoffs. You can talk about seeding and matchups

and all that. But is there some aspect of your game as a team, as an individual, whatever that you

want to use these last 10 games? Like, let's really lock this down or let's work on this. It could

be a play. It could be a defensive technique, switching, whatever it is, something that like,

I want to nail this down before you, the play in or the playoff so that we're really ready to go.

All right. You know, I'll say for us, really just staying consistent. I think that like sometimes we,

we get so comfortable in world lead or sometimes like the way we plan, that like we kind of lose

ourselves. We can have just like your leftes and you know, like, understanding that in games that

don't matter even more so like now or like during the playoffs, you know, we're not going to have

those chances. We're not going to have those opportunities to, you know, just like relax.

So definitely, you know, stay mentally strong and consistent. But overall, I mean, you know,

like I said, it's a basketball game, you know, things don't happen. So, you know, control, which

you can control. We said, Diabate, it's just been a joy to watch you play the team and you

individually. And look, if you make the playoffs, maybe I'll pop down to Charlotte by myself,

a mousse antlers thing and hit a game. But I appreciate your time. I know you're busy. We're

in the stretch of the NBA. Thanks for popping on. And I'll see you around the block.

So thank you.

All right. Thanks to Brian Scalibreeni, incomparable Brian Scalibreeni. Thanks to mousse and Diabate.

Thanks to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. That's it for today's Zach Locio. We will be back

on Tuesday with a new episode. And I will be on Bill's podcast on Sunday,

three cap, whatever wild stuff happens in the NBA. Thanks to everyone for listening to and or

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