The Herd with Colin CowherdMore thoughts on the Lakers since LeBron's injury
Should the NBA change their draft lottery rules?
Colin believes Aaron Rodgers is a bad fit for the Steelers
Guest: Nick Wright
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All right, Ready to go. This show's host isn't retiring.
It's gonna be one.
Hundred cat season baby live in Los Angeles, The Herd Nick rights around the corner. I got I slept like crap last night, and I took magnesium.
I can't figure it out.
But you know, a lot of things going on out there, A lot of things, j Mac. I got a lot of things weighing on me.
I keep lobbying for two things here a ping pong table on set, and number two is our commercial breaks to be videotaped in streamed.
The conversation we just had is awesome.
There's no winner in that.
Tell the little about Jacksonpine. I think the audience loves that stuff. Oh when you talk about seventies.
I love I loved so. I watched the Bill Simmons stuff last night. I watched episode three. It was great, and I was I watched episode four and there was a comment by one of the guys talking about how bad the NBA was before A Magic and Bird showed up, and it just it pierced my heart.
He said it was so true.
He said, I mean, does anybody even remember that the Washington Bullets and the Sonics played in back to back finals. And I'm like, ah, yeah, that's when I fell in love with the league. I can name both starting, I can name the whole teams, I can name the entire rosters. And it's like, but that's where the NBA was. Those games were televised like after the nightly eleven o'clock. I think they were delayed. Yeah, And it's like, and that's what I talked about with the NBA.
It's hard.
Tanking is unavoidable because if you land Larry Bird or Cooper Fleck, you look at what the Bulls have done in the last week scoring. You put Cooper Flag on this team and one other veteran that can score. That's a playoff team in the East. Hell yeah, it's a playoff team. So I don't think you can avoid that. So I was thinking about this because cam Ward is gonna go number one on the draft, and apparently his pro day was great, and he has one big advantage over last year's number one pick, Caleb Williams, is that he has an offensive coach who everybody in the building likes and respects, not a defensive coach on the hot seat and a GM in Chicago also on the hot seat. Now, cam Ward may not be walking into a mansion, but it's not a building that's on fire. Right like Tennessee. I looked at their schedule this morning. You get the Jags twice, the Colts twice, Raiders, Cleveland, Saints, New England, Arizona had a lot of w's. There a lot of games at home, Saints, Patriots, Jags, Colts. Some of those road games winnable Cleveland, Raiders, Jags, those are winnable games. Bears played in a better division. But again, it's an offensive coach. The other thing that jumps out to me is that Brian Callahan and J Mack loves him, smart offensive coach. He had palpable disdain for will Levis. We have pieces of video during a Jets game when I mean Callahan is screaming at him, I mean visceral, and he's not subtle about it.
He didn't like him.
I mean, after the Jets game, here's what the coach said at the podium.
I think the camera caught it pretty clear if I had to guess, So, yeah, I was upset. It was domb. It was the same exact thing he did last week, and he cost us points in the red zone.
And that's that is what it is.
That he's a grown up and he knows better, and so you know, I was really irritated that he cost us three points in a game that we probably needed it.
I've never heard of coach hammer a young quarterback like that ever at a podium.
Privately, maybe publicly. No.
Here was Callahan later in the season, after benching will Levis in a Bengals game.
The easiest way to say is that there's a you know, there's a standard that of play, and there's been multiple guys in our team that we've sat down for pertence. Those are all things that that are just a part of NFL life. That's performance in China, win football games, and you just have to make sure that when you're you're making decisions and you're coaching that it's that's standing across the board for all positions, and quarterback position is a part of that.
Yeah, he didn't like him.
Like, so you're going to a weak division, you have an offensive coach for cam Ward, and I guarantee you the coach is going to like the quarterback.
Like I thought last year.
There were multiple times and we said it on the air, Kalahan didn't like will Levis. Will Levis comes in gun show, cocky, he'll like him. It's one thing to be critical, but to say stuff publicly to podium you don't like him, and you can say, well, it's just a motion of the game. Now you talk fifteen minutes after a game, that emotion's gone. You've got that emotion by the time you hit the locker room. So I think cam Ward's going to be a good player.
Is he a great prospect? I don't know.
I think he's a good one. And I think shaduur seventy four percent completion percentage with the worst ole line in college football, no run game.
I do not get the shaduor Sanders criticism. I don't get it.
Seventy four percent completion running for his life, trailing has to throw and one elite receiver. If he gets competent protection, chadur is going to be hit in the NFL with that Nick right, Cohl's first thing, you know, I was watching It's interesting. I was watching the Bill Simmons Celtic City last night and we were in this. I generally wouldn't lead with this, but it makes me think it was really good. And I said, every league has an unavoidable problem. Baseball has no urgency. Most of us didn't play hockey. NFL's got violence and people get seriously hurt. And the NBA's is the Celtics were terrible. They got Larry Bird, they were great, like in the NBA one guy now.
In the NFL.
That's true too, but you don't see Mahomes by the time he's fourteen in basketball, Luca Wenby Lebron, they're fourteen years old.
You're like, yep, you can plan for it.
I do think the NBA's trying trying to manipulate load management down and most of the young players TATUMSGA they like to play. I don't think you can avoid tanking. I think it's the league's unavoidable problem.
What say you?
So that's interesting. The problem with fixing tanking is every realistic fix has a butterfly effect that could cause an equal or greater problem. So some people have argued, you know what you should do instead of having a lottery, having March Madness style single elimination tournament of the non playoff teams and the winner of that gets the number one pick. But the problem with it, which sounds great on its face, like, oh, that would be fun to be more inventory, whatever, the problem with that is the moment that happens, there would be an actual playoff level team that's like, you know what we should do, miss the playoffs entirely so we can win this tournament and get Cooper flag.
So that won't work.
They have flattened the odds to prevent teams from wanting to have these single worst record. What that ended up creating was teams were like, well, if the number one worst record is not as valuable as it once was, that by default makes having the sixth or the seventh worst record more valuable than it was previously. So there is not a pure clean fix except for severely financially penalizing ownership like that would be the fix. The fix would be the way that they can you know that they enforce other rules, which is real financial penalties for teams the league hit. Who did they hit recently? Utah, I think they hit somebody with one hundred thousand dollars fine, And I'm sure the Jazz were like, have you seen, with respect the Sixers the last three weeks?
Where's they're fine?
Like?
Have you seen these other teams? And so No, I don't, I don't. And here's the other thing. I don't actually think fans have a huge problem when you're talking about issues with the NBA. I don't think tanking is high on the fans list. I think good teams, who's good players, rest load and load and management. I think that is a far greater fan concern yea than the bad teams throwing games at the end of the year. So, and I don't know why your producers, I'm sorry, I don't know why your producers just showed Lebron James, the man who's played more minutes ago when I said load management, he's the face of anti load management.
But go ahead, bad bad job by the back. How about this one. I'm gonna throw another one at you.
So Brawny last night scored thirty nine points against the lass l Passer did donuts or whatever they're called whatever, who cares you can?
Don't do that.
Okay, don't do that Island anyway, don't do that.
Okay.
Against the El Segundo Knights, I don't know who they played.
He gainst the team on his schedule, Okay, with equivalent players.
Okay.
So my take is because of his the situation he had in college with kind of a life threatening situation, is he's gonna be a sucked Yeah, his art stuff. So what's he's going to be is a late bloomer, semi late bloomer. He's got it like right off eighteen months of his development. It may be starting right about now. So I saw that last night and I thought, okay, I want to say something nice about it. I want to ask Nick about it, because it is it is something. Thirty nine points in any leagues, a lot of points. But as I saw that, I thought to myself.
Okay, maybe the late bloomer.
I still think he feels like is a six to non point guard, A rotational player.
Of course, that fair, of course, but that makes him, you know what a rotational player is a top five percent outcome for all second round picks in NBA history. If he is a rotational player, it will end up being one of the best two or three picks of the entire second round of his draft, which is why the criticism of the pick. Which is why folks, when he had a bad ten minutes against the Sixers, going on and begging Lebron as a father to put an end to this farce and treating Brownie like he was a make a wish prospect was wildly unfair. The facts are as follows. He was a legitimately excellent high school player who in the summer going into his freshman year of college, suffered cardiac arrest due to congenital heart failure that then made it to where they thought for a moment he might not ever be able to play sports again, and he had to for the first time in his entire life, go months without working out, without playing ball. That led to a very poor freshman year of college. All of that is the record of what happened. He then after being drafted, was rough in the Summer League and rough at the very beginning of the G League. But now that he's eighteen months removed from the cardiac arrest, what we have as a player who is one of the younger players in the whole G League, one of only five guys twenty or younger averaging twenty plus points per game in the G League averaging twenty two, five and five on forty six thirty eight eighty splits, and a couple weeks ago got because of the situation, Lakers were an injury wise real NBA burn and looked totally fine, And so my issue was twofold with the Bronni discourse. The first part of it was I thought everyone had totally just memory hold that he suffered a major medical event, and that I think he would have been better off in the public's eye if he simply sat out his freshman year rather than rushing back and averaging four points per game. That was the first issue I had. The second issue I had was this idea that it was a reckless use of the third to last pick of the draft. When if I were running an NBA team and Lebron was retired for a decade and it's like, Hey, who's on our board, and they're like, oh, tell me about this kid from USC And they're like, oh, as it happens, you know, his father's literally the greatest raw athlete in the history of the country. He has no character concerns whatsoever. He's a little undersized. We have questions about his shooting, but his character, IQ and genes are ten out of ten. Yeah, I'd take a flyer on him. It was a totally reasonable pick, and he is now exceeding any reasonable expectations. And so I'm not talking about you here, Colin. I thought some folks who always liked to take shots at Lebron used Bronni as a vehicle to get to Lebron, and I thought that was shameful. And I'll add one other point to this. Lebron put extra pressure on him by confronting steven A. That's not why he did it, but that is a because Lebron what he did. There was a bigger spotlight on Bronni in the days that followed, and I think it's really impressive that he has played his best basketball since that moment with higher scrutiny on it.
So we don't talk a lot of college basketball, but I had to take yesterday that I actually think sometimes culturally you benefit from big change, sometimes you're a victim of it. And college basketball had a pretty bleak last fifteen years. The G League did not help, but I also think it didn't necessarily help the NBA because I think players are better going to college where I mean you can you can take four hundred thousand yeah, I mean like you can take four hundred thousand dollars in the G League or twenty two million dollars of free advertising at North Carolina for your likeness. I would go to college for a year and by the way, get taken care of like cause all kids do to some degree. So my take is, actually the NIL is great for college basketball. It'll keep a zach Edie in for one more year because you can pay him some money. And secondly, these teams that have a whole they don't have to get it. I don't have to get a high school guys just go get like Marshall's mid majors NBA guy. And I think it's great for the sport that there's no cinder religis because it was mostly mystology anyway, and the big brands are better and the ratings are up all.
Right, So this is one of your less popular but more accurate takes. Also, to be fair, it is not lost on me that you are at your peak interesting college basketball, simultaneous with you having.
What are you?
Fifteen of the sixteen Sweet sixteen live? What I mean is that what it is like, all of a sudden, you're really into this tournament. I don't blame you, buddy, that's hell of a run. Broussard has eleven of sixteen, he won't shut up about it. You got fifteen of sixteen.
I'm impressed. So a couple things.
One is this, I don't like folks acting as if a one year event is evidence of Oh, this is how it's going to be. Like Folks like there's no mid majors in the sweet sixteen. Well, first of all, this is that is a streak of one tournament. And second of all, even this tournament, if not for a literal buzzer beater by Maryland, we would have a mid major in the sweet sixteen.
So I think the.
Total death of Cinderella is you is being stated prematurely. But your take for as long as I've remembered listening to you, and that's I mean, I'm much much much younger than you, So I was talking about when I'm a little kid, You've always had the take that big upsets early create a worse tournament late.
Yes, And so if you kind of you can pick and choose.
Do you want an amazing, exciting first weekend and then a not so great second weekend or a chalky first weekend and then what should be an unreal second weekend. Yeah, and that's what I feel we got. You look at these point spreads. Every game is a six and a half point line or smaller except for two, and those two games are seven and a half.
And nine and a half.
At The only double digit seed we have is coached by John Calipari and it's Arkansas. So like almost every team remaining has a plausible path of creating a really good game. And so, and I didn't think last weekend was bad at all, and I thought the games were good. I understand that it's fun when there is a fifteen seed or a fourteen seed that makes some noise, but you kind of want that noise to crescendo with a great Round two loss rather than them getting whacked in the sweet sixteen by a great team. So I agree with you on this, and I think Thursday through Sunday we are going to get there's gonna be twelve games. I think we probably are gonna get nine awesome ones and that's a rarity for the Sweet sixteen and Elite eight. So I'm excited for it.
So I said this, This is a rare take by me that I said, actually, and I've always felt this. I used to say this about Phil Jackson when he would criticize the refs.
And go, I can't believe.
I'm like, you're too smart to act dumb, right like Belichick. You're too smart to pretend Spygate caught you off guard, Like you're too smart, and it's I kind of look at Aaron Rodgers, He's too smart to really sign with a bad fit. And Pittsburgh that can't get their own line right, spends all their money on defense, has two needy, combustible receivers. It sounds good. It's a bad fit, and Aaron knows it to bad fit, but he wants to be respectful to a guy he loves, Tomlin that Aaron is sitting there thinking the Niners don't want to pay Brock pretty sixty million, and his agent keeps saying that's what they want, and he is just gonna wait till the draft is over, because if Kirk Cousins would have waited last year until the draft's over, he would have had a better and Aaron's like fifty nine quarterbacks played last year.
What's the hurry's signing?
Somebody's gonna be desperate in seven weeks and he's waiting for the Niners if they don't sign perty, am I nuts?
Why is he waiting?
So here's the thing, man, What you're saying I wish I could agree with. But you're saying why is he waiting? And the answer is, well, let's think about that, because I believe there's I believe Aaron Rodgers is going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler. I think the Steelers know what I think Aaron knows it. So then the question is what is gained by waiting? And the answer is, well, one thing that could be gained is just raw, unadulterated ego.
I get.
I am still and free agency's done for everyone else. I am the hot topic I am being discussed. That tracks with what I know of Aaron a bit. So that's a possibility. The second reason, and I am this is the most likely, is this is how you shift power in a relationship. Like neither you nor I have been single for a very, very long time. But I'm sure a lot of the viewers are. And everyone knows that if you are the person saying, hey, will.
You go out with me? Will you go out with me?
Will you go out with me?
Wait?
I don't know, I don't know.
And then when that person finally says yes, and you have been waiting and waiting and waiting, that person has the power. So if Aaron was worried about, oh, if I go to Pittsburgh, am I going to have full run of the place like I did with the Jets. One way to ensure you will is to prove how valuable you are before you even get there, because they will wait, they will host you, you'll leave, and then they'll still wait. And the last one is off season. You know, activities are starting up here in a month. And maybe he doesn't want to do him. I just I think he knows the only place he's gonna play football this year is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Florio postulated that he's trying to make some grand announcement at a live show in Pittsburgh in a couple weeks. Maybe, but I think Aaron has known it's Pittsburgh for a long time. I think the Steelers have mostly known and he's dragging this out because he can, and because.
It serves Aaron Rodgers.
I love your idea that he could parachute in to a better team or a better situation, But I think most of those better teams are not as desperate, and I think they are better run from an offensive standpoint to where they wouldn't say, yeah, we'll sign up for the forty one year old who hasn't been good in four years. And so I think it's the Steelers, and I think he's just making everybody wait because he can.
All Right, I got a couple more questions. I'm gonna do it tonight when we do our own thing.
Okay, I got it you?
Oh, I thought, well, yeah, no, I know, because I'm on a hard fifteen minute limit. I'm no, Bill Simmons, I can't get twenty six minutes with you.
No, I get it. I get it you and I'll talk later.
You save those, Save those extended segments for the big guests, not the loyal guy for the last eight years. Talk to you later, Colin Nick.
Right, first things for well, you know, we don't get Simmons a lot. You know, it's like when the cousin shows up that shows up once a decade. You let him stay the night, you know, in the basement, but you let him stay the night.
He didn't.
He didn't like when I threw out the l Paso donuts. That didn't land with him. He didn't didn't like that.
Can we laugh, It's just it's a sports show. He didn't like that one either.
That already bothered you. Hey, listen, he scored thirty nine spent I gave. I gave Nick four minutes to talk effusively about Brownie. I've said before, I hope he ends up being a nice player.
I don't root against anybody's kids.
Do you think all the talking heads who criticized him or feeling like, oh, maybe I was wrong, Maybe I was irrationally rushing to judgment, to slander this kid for being a second round pick. Well, I mean, he's hanging thirty nine in the G League. That's pretty damn good.
I thought I could get a few buckets in there. But no, I mean, I listen.
You watched the third Ronnie's getting buckets. He's getting better, that's obvious.
He's twenty Yeah, well, yeah, he's Gonnayeah.
He was a hard worker. I mean, if you're Lebron's kid, you're going to be a grinder. Yeah, he's a worker.
But you know, people were really quick to just dismiss him. Oh he averaged three points in USC How could they draft him?
Well, maybe the Lakers said, Hey, besides Lebron, this guy's got some details and I'd like to see him.
I defended the Lakers drafting. I said, week draft Lebron's DNA and why not. I mean, it's it's it's like the Griffy thing. It's like it's an all time historic move. Lebron's carried the league for fifteen years. You owe Lebron a saw. I also supported the first game when he played, even though he wasn't ready.
He wouldn't have been there, fine, but.
I supported that.
I but you know, when you rushed him up after a good G League game, it was like, stop, let's let's just be honest about what he is at this point.
And I don't know what he's gonna is he gonna be a rotational guy in the league.
I don't know.
I don't know either, but I did give the floor for somebody to speak.
It's good.
You know, we need people speaking up because there's so many mouth breathers out there yelling you shouldn't be in the league, and Lebron stepping up and confronted her.
Well, I wouldn't even give Nick the opportunity to combat my puka take, because, like you, he comes from the generation of a sleep till noon ice cream for breakfast.
Sleep till noon. You're looking at a guy who grinded. I would wake up at six in the morning and run the big lead while listening to Howard Stern before going to my full time job. So miss me with the wake up at noon stuff where you was like my college that two earring era, Yes.
It was too earing. And then I met the wife and she's like, yeah, that's not gonna work.
She told you that. Yeah, she just say get rid of those. Yeah. I like her a lot. Yeah, she's got to be a grown up in the family.
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Did I tell you that I got fifteen or sixteen teams left in the tournament? No?
You hadn't mentioned that a impressive well done cow hurt.
By the way, I know I'm gonna go up and you're gonna have a very strong finish because you have Duke and you know they're rolling, and I you know, I took some I got a little precious with my Arizona pick because I love love the guard and I.
Like you took Arizona over Duke.
Well, I have Arizona get into the final four, so I know that's not a great interesting.
Well Jables could turn Thursday night. I would say we should get together and have a drink. But you know, I get a little heated during these games. You do got some cheddar on Duke.
So you like you like March Madness more than the NBA, but you like the NBA more than college basketball.
But March Madness.
If I ranked NBA playoffs March Madness regular season, right, your number one is March Madness.
Oh the tournament is on. You can't touch it. I mean it's amazing.
It's I was reading something last night, some legendary college basketball sports better it was like one one for twelve because he didn't go chalk. He's one of these The committee doesn't know what the committee doesn't know what they're doing. The committee is mostly accurate every year. But there is something about guys in general. I don't know if women do this, but you know, guys love to brag. Like I heard the garage band before they were big, Like I remember listening to you know, the Smashing Pumpkins in the sixties or you know, I was at the you know, it's just like, yeah, they didn't really exist until like the nineties or whatever. But and there is something about like I watch a lot of college basketball, so you don't have a social.
It's almost like the soccer guys that you were blasting yesterday.
I know soccer. I was on board early. I will say this.
I coached my kids to get shocky with their brackets. And my daughter's first in her class, so badge of honor there.
You don't do that, but she does.
Well.
I don't do it with all my brackets. You know, I'm a nine to ten bracket.
Yeah, that's exhausting, Not really, I'm surprised. Like your earrings, your wife doesn't put her foot down with that.
We do the news, We move on.
Jake back with the news. No, no, turn on the news.
This is the hardline News.
And because we like to cater to you, let's start with the Patriots, your team of destiny this year, very active in free agency. Rainbow's the new head coach Patriots, evp Elliott Wolf says that their off season work will give them flexibility in the draft. The best player available is going to be the way it is. Maybe we went for a little bit too much last year. Obviously that culminated an unced drafting Drake May so it wasn't all bad, but just moving forward, it's taking the best player and understanding that we filled a lot of needs in free agency. Colin, this is a tough one because Travis Hunter will be on the board at four unless he's somehowers too. Do you take Travis Hunters down a great I need it receiving.
Well, I think Travis.
I think one of the things about New England in Belichick's last year and Male's year, they're slow and they don't have any perimeter speed. So I would take Travis Hunter and just say he'll be a top two athlete in every.
Game he plays.
He may not be the best player, but there probably won't be five athletes better than him on the field. So My take is you take Travis Hunter, and as a coaching staff, you have to when he goes in motion, you have to put somebody on him a role coverage.
Because he's gonna get open. So I think it.
I think in most drafts you would hope that you're not unathletic going into the draft. But even Brabel's free agent pickups were more beef guys and tough guys than they were speed guys.
That's the tough part because they could go offensive lineman beef you know, Rabel was a trenches guy, or they could go Travis Hunter. Remember how Rabel reacted when they traded A J. Brown the GM crush.
Yeah, he's devastating. He's like, oh my god, what are we gonna do?
Also, remember Rabel came from Tennessee, who always had big, tough guys. They lacked weapons outside of Derrick Henry. So Rabel's probably looking at them up and thinking, you know, a smart guy, what got me in a little trouble in ten I didn't have power with personnel and we just didn't have enough weapons, right like like, So he knows Drake May is a better prospect than Ryan Tanneil, So that solves that. I think Brabile probably says, my teams will always be physical and tough like Harballs. We need we need speed when he got in big troubles when he lost his most dynamic playmaker in Tennessee.
Yeah, next story is another Coward special.
And at the Dallas Mavericks they returned Anthony Davis to the lineup.
Last night.
We got hurt first game he ever played with Dallas. So he returned against Brooklyn and was a cupcake win. Davis twelve point six boards, three assists, a steal in the block, twenty six minutes in action, and your Mavericks are fired up about a d returning as is he.
Here was tough olgc gush little bad every single night, winning close games.
It was the close games.
Alan Tanzel being blown out for me was never you know, I thought about probably gonna come back and play, especially when I was healthy. Hell, I'm demand Phil Gotta heard there was no doubt out in combat in playlet that makes you want to come out, you know, you know on play you know with these goss and they read on the floor and how the battle beach.
And you know what, can.
I say this in the history of NBA trades. I don't think I've ever seen a player more disrespected than Anthony Davison. No timeout, he is the best defensive player arguably in the league. Lucas the worst star defensive player in the league.
So he is a is adea better defender than one.
I'm just saying the Luca Deil.
The feeling is Mavericks are screwed the Lakers. Anthony Davis is arguably the best of venteran in the league, a better rebounder, in better shape, and can give you on any night twenty seven. This idea that Dallas got nothing. This guy has three great years left and is a great player. And Max Christy. Now, now would I have wanted three first round picks?
Not one?
Absolutely, But I will make the argument with PJ. Washington, the Gafford, Davis, and Lively, they will have the best big rotation easily in the league and the best closer under six to five in league history in Kyrie.
Best what stop?
Best closer in league history under six five bits, That's nonsense, He's very good.
Kyrie.
The one shot against the Warriors in Game seven. All right, timeout, I do have to push back.
Just a little bit.
Ad is great.
AD's great. Yes, great, I largely agree they have the potential if everybody else really good.
But was PJ. Washington, Lively, Gafford? Were they all awesome because they were playing with Luka Doncic? Who makes everyone better? Are they gonna be awesome playing with Kyrie? I mean, what was Daniel Gaffer before he.
Got to the Maus? Come on, he was in Washington whatever. Derek Lively, I think he's a tenth overall pick.
There's a fare like him a lot.
He was great with Luca.
We have no data of him without Luca.
Well that's because Luca's guy blew by him and Lively got a block shot credit.
I's feeding this guy negative jokes about Luca. Oh my gosh, final story, Colin, Oh, oh, here we go. Bronnie went off last night.
It is the G League, but he.
Hung thirty nine on what'd you call them, the Elsagundo Knights.
Thirty nine points seven boards forced Deeel's forces, and.
That was after he dropped seventeen on somebody playing with the Lakers recently. I'm just saying, yeah, the guy is He's.
Not the chop liver that everybody thought he was.
He's not the NEPO baby, everybody thought, wow, he can play basketball.
I'm not anti nepotism.
I'm not either.
I'm saying a.
He's probably a late bloomer because of cardiac arrest.
Yeah.
Secondly, because you know the average height in the NBA six six and a half sixty seven. He is fast and he blows by people. Now he's not John Wall fast or Iverson fast, but Brownie's athletic and when you watch the footage, he's just fast. He gets past people really quickly. Now is does he have the ability to pull up and hit shots? He did last night? But there, he's an athlete. I mean, he got some decent genetics. He's an athlete and and I think he has a work ethic. You can tell from his body of shape. Dude works, he works at it. So this is a good story. I didn't I thought rushing him after he had that one good game of the G League rushing him up, I thought that was like, come on, stop. And I don't think there's a history of six two non point guards in the league.
So I don't know what his role is.
Is it highly athletic, fast guy, transition guy off the bench.
That's a role violy find your role.
Yeah, so just remember he's averaging twenty five and five in the G League as a rookie. And as you noted earlier, the G League's full of like twenty nine year old who are still hanging onto the dream that they can make it into an NBA roster. They're trying hard, and he's a sort of cooking.
You know what I'd like.
I would love to talk to a G League player anonymously, just be totally honest.
I don't want to hurt your dream.
But if we could do like put somebody on and put a filter on and let's let's is he good? What are you saying? What are the players saying? Is their animosity? I would love to talk to a G League player that does is it gonna get called out or like a fear of reprisal or you know, get into trouble Because the G League is something nobody, very few people watch, and I and I wonder if there is a lot of animosities there.
Maybe not. Maybe people are rooting for the kid.
I know fans are any he goes to, They're like a plodding when he gets well.
He's also I've known people that know him. He's a nice kid. He's an easy guy to root for. He's not cocky, he's not He's like a nice guy.
J Mack with the news, Well that's the news, and thanks for stupping by the herd line news.
They show has been a little combustible. I got Nick calling me out because I won't give him twenty six minutes.
You know it's sometimes you know, you don't know who your friends are. J Mack.
But apparently this going forward is just wants more vacation and is going to publicly state it on his ig.
Well, you you negotiated your deal.
Mine's in the works.
We'll see what happens.
I wouldn't use the V word your sake.
I wouldn't leave with I need six weeks vacation.
Yeah, what's what sick pay like here? Probably not what I take it?
A sick day here in eight years?
Bro, come on, you do play her.
I don't get sick because I'm a machine. I'm gonnadonnas. I work out all the time.
I see what you eat. Laugh.
I wouldn't go at Donna's no, I mean you eat like uh.
Chicken parm coming up here?
Want peace? No? I don't eat big meals at noon.
You. I've never seen anybody eat like you at noon. I would fall asleep driving home.
I don't even fasting. My friend, I don't do breakfast. Shake.
Look at it.
He's not impressed.
He's j mac all right. Live in l Answer Herd.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays at noon eastern nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio App.
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I'm really into Aficia, you know, I'm sitting there.
You know what I think is a dumb part of the pre draft process is pro day workouts indoors, you know, throwing against air. I think it's so dumb. Like, I want game footage for three years. I want you to go to the Senior Bowl, and if you want to go to the combine to interview them, go for it. I do want my scouts to stand next to the players and like, let's see what it looks like. Let's see the shoulders, the butt, the size, the hand size, and I want game tape. There's nothing about pro day that is similar at all to playing in the NFL. Totally comfortable. You've you've basically worked out for the Pro Day. You practice routes for the province. The opposite NFL is a winter league, a fall winter league. It's sloppy, it's cold, it's windy, you have bad protection. I get game footage. I get the Senior Bowl. Senior Bowl. You're competing against guys you wouldn't normally compete against. And I gotta walk around and see how.
Big you are. I don't need to. I don't need to.
Go to a cam Ward Pro Day. There's nothing I'm gonna see. He's got a really good arm and he's a very good athlete. So I I just I don't think.
It has any value. I really don't.
I just think it's and the Senior Bowl does such a great job to let you see the players. Get up close to the players. I mean, you're they're walking by it. You're that's what you want to see. You want to see a guy's real size. A lot of guys you know you you see him on tape and then you're up next to him, and you're like, you know, he't not as big as I thought. He's just not as thick as I thought. But the Pro Day stuff doesn't do a thing. Zach Wilson lit it up at Pro Day.
I mean lit it up.
In fact, I thought Will Levis hurt himself at Pro Day with a gun show. It's like, dude, come on, you want to be a bodybuilder or quarterback. I had to Nick right on earlier to talk about. So we were talking about what I believe every league has an unsolvable problem. Baseball not enough urgency, the season too long, hockey most of us didn't play at as kids. Football, violence that people get hurt sometimes seriously. And I think load management you can manage a little bit by not giving out awards unless you play sixty five games, which matters to a lot of players. Bonus is tied to that. I don't think you can avoid tanking. I think basketball prodigies you can spot them at fifteen years old and teams go into a two year, three year plan to get Cooper flag Luca Wemby Lebron. I don't think there's anything you can do about it. And Nick talked about that.
The fix would be the way that they can. You know that they enforce other rules, which is real financial penalties for teams the league hit. Who did they hit recently?
Utah?
I think with a hundred they hit somebody with one hundred thousand dollars fine, And I'm sure the Jazz were like, have you seen with respect the Sixers the last three weeks?
Where's they're fine?
When you're talking about issues with the NBA, I don't think tanking is high on the fans list. I think good teams, who's good players rest load management. I think that is a far greater fan concern than the bad teams throwing games at the end of the year.
But load management is being curtailed by a younger generation of players like Tatum, Sga and Ant. They like playing Wemby, likes playing the old guys who have their money. They want knights off tanking. There's nothing you can do about it if I just want to rest guys. And I also think even if you find Steve Ballmer, who's got I don't know what Steve Ballmer's networth is, it's probably forty billion dollars.
What if you find.
Him seventy million dollars, which would be unprecedented. He makes that a Microsoft stock on a good day when it goes up eight points, So you're not really I mean I would If I was worth twenty billion dollars and you find me a million dollars because I'm tanking to get Cooper Flag, I would pay that one hundred out of one hundred times. That wouldn't bother me at all. I mean, so Balmer, here is my staff. Did this is worth one hundred and sixty billion dollars? If Balmer could get Cooper Flag? What possible fine could you levy that would curtail him tanking? The coach doesn't get it, you know, I mean, it's I just I don't think you can solve it. It's unsought. Football is gonna have some violence. Baseball is a long season, and hockey. Most of us don't grow up on a rink load management. The young guys are playing. That could have been an old old guy thing and a generational thing. Young guys want to play. Tatum's playing every night. Our three next
