Welcome in to the newest edition of the Justin Time Sports Podcast.
I am your owner and host, Justin Jackson.
In this week's episode, we'll be talking about the NBA as we're roaring up to the
playing and the playoffs.
We'll be talking about the NBA, the conclusion of their draft, and we'll be talking about
Jack's hot take, which will be in, of course, our last segment of the show.
As always, don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe to the Justin Time Sports Podcast
on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Also, don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Justin Time Sports Podcast YouTube.
We will definitely be linking again that channel to the episode description.
Thank you to all of you guys who have been subscribing.
The YouTube grind is a slow one, right?
But we have definitely moving up in subscribers ever so slightly.
So shout out to all you guys for subscribing, and I hope that you keep telling your friends
about the show.
Hope you're enjoying the content.
We're looking to do some fun, creative stuff this week with the show, but we'll, of course,
get into that once actually the audio show opens up.
But I'm so glad you guys are with us.
That is all I have for your intro.
And as always, sit back and get ready to learn something.
Welcome into the show.
Season five, episode six of the Justin Time Sports Podcast.
Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.
I am your host, Justin Jackson.
The intro song you heard was from B-Roy.
And don't forget to follow the social media handle at JTimeSports and subscribe to the
Justin Time Sports YouTube, Justin Time Sports Podcast YouTube.
Of course, we'll link it in the description as you have the past couple of episodes.
For those of you who have subscribed, thank you.
For those of you who subscribed and got somebody else to subscribe, really thank you.
And make sure, of course, you guys are liking the podcast, subscribing to the podcast, wherever
you get your podcast.
Like I said, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, wherever you get your podcast, make sure you
hit that subscribe button.
Really appreciate that helping grow the Justin Time Sports family.
But I truly believe that we are all one big conglomerate of a family.
I believe we're all one opinionated family.
I will tell you that much.
There's one thing I do see being on this side of it, is that you guys have your opinions
and when you're passionate about something, you are not afraid to share it.
So definitely shout out you guys, shout out the WNBA.
I'm recording this on Tuesday night, so the draft was last night.
You guys are hearing this on Wednesday.
Shout out the WNBA, or Tuesday afternoon, I should say.
Shout out the WNBA for the draft last night.
We'll talk about them.
But of course, we have to start with the NBA as we are on playing day.
I'm recording this right before 5 o'clock.
Local time, I mean central time zone, so local time in Louisiana.
I'm a Pelicans fan.
We have a huge playing game tonight against the Lakers.
But we'll start of course with what we do know.
What we do know is that out east, the Boston Celtics are awaiting the best loser out of
the 8-9 game, or out of the playing tournament.
They are the number one seed, the number one overall record in the NBA.
The playoffs run through Boston.
So Boston will have game one and game seven of every series in Boston.
With games one, two, and seven, I forgot since the NBA kind of changed the final format a
few years ago, they have games one and two and seven in Boston.
So every series starts and every series ends with the Boston Celtics in Boston if they
are still in the playoffs.
Congratulations to the Celtics on a hell of a year.
And they're going to do all this despite their best player, Jason Tatum, not being a top
five MVP candidate.
He may get fifth.
But it's like, you know, Jokic, SGA, no one really cares.
Honestly after that, he may end up as high as five, four, I think, Bontemps did his straw
poll which he got like 50 other voters or 50 big voters.
People that are known to vote and Tatum finished like fourth, fifth or sixth.
And a lot of people's voting.
So that's intriguing there.
And the New York Knicks, also with the guy who probably finished around fifth in the
NBA repeat race, they even get the second seed, their highest finish in a decade.
And they again, wait the winner of the seven, eight games.
So they'll know tonight.
I think the seven, eight games for both conferences is tonight.
I'll double check that really quickly.
But I believe that both seven, eight games are now.
I know the Pelicans play the Lakers.
We'll talk about that.
They play at 630.
And this is east, west, east, west.
Oh no, okay.
So it's west, east, west.
So the benefit of being the three seed, if you are the benefit of being in the two seed
if you're the Knicks is you're going to know your opponent Wednesday night.
Because when the seven, eight game plays, whoever wins that game becomes a seven seed
and you know your opponent.
The Celtics have to wait until Friday to know their opponent, which is why I've always kind
of pushed back at how the play in turn is done.
There's no benefit to being the one seed.
I don't know my opponent until the, I'm the last, especially here in Boston.
Boston may be the last person to have their playoff opponent because they're going to
play the loser of seven, eight or the winner of nine, 10.
And they're not going to find out until Friday who they're going to play.
Everybody else in the playoffs will have had at least 24 hours to prepare.
That's why I kind of like it.
If we're going to have the play in tournament, the one seed plays last because they're going
to have the least amount of prep.
So that's wrong of me and say like, for instance, the three, six matchup is known, Milwaukee
versus Indiana.
They're going to have about a week to prep.
So if they play on the same day as the one seed, the one seed gets three days.
How is that fair to the one seed?
I'd rather be a three seed and know who I'm going to play, be able to prep.
I should still win this series either way.
And at least now I get an entire week off.
I keep the entire week off and I know who I'm going to play.
So to me, it's why the play in tournament has its faults.
It's the fact that it kind of punishes the one seed because they have to wait the longest
to find out who they're going to play.
And I'll talk about an adjustment to the play in tournament I would make a little bit later.
As I already spoke about, Milwaukee plays Indiana and then the Cavs have the Magic.
And we're going to talk about some machinations that happened in both the series, but in the
East, the play in tournament, which again, we'll kick off when you guys hear this Wednesday
night.
The 76ers play the Heat in the 7-8 matchup.
Winner draws the Knicks.
Loser plays the winner of the Chicago Bulls versus the Atlanta Hawks for the eight seed.
I truly believe it will be sixes of Heat.
We'll follow how they should, 7-8.
I think the sixes are going to win Wednesday night, going to beat the Heat.
And the Heat are going to crush whoever wins out of Chicago and Atlanta.
And they'll follow exactly how they should, 7-8.
It won't be any weirdness or machinations going on out East.
Out West, shout out to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
They have become the youngest team to ever win a conference by two years average age.
And they win the West.
And to me, the most competitive West in a decade plus.
I mean, I will look at it as the Warriors won 46 games and they're the 10th seed.
The Pelicans won 49 games.
They're the ninth seed.
The Boston Sub's have the number one record in NBA.
Rutgers two, three, four, and five are all in the West.
I mean, so it's just the talent level, the management, the ownership, the fan-based support,
and just the overall basketball culture of teams in the West is so much higher than these.
I mean, you look at the Spurs.
Like Wimby B in the last few weeks of the season, he's got a Nuggets win, a Pelicans win, and
I believe he got a Clipper win in the last few weeks of the season.
Greatly actually affecting the standings.
You add a win to the Nuggets, they're the first seed.
They lost it on tiebreaker to the Thugnets.
You add a win to the Pelicans, they're the sixth seed.
They're not in the playing.
So as crazy, as bad as the Spurs were record-wise, they strongly affected the standings coming
down the stretch.
But again, shout out to the Oklahoma City Thunder for winning the West.
They weighed their opponent.
The Denver Nuggets also weighed their opponent as the two seed, but they're going to find
out their opponent Thursday because the West is going first.
No, they're going to find out their opponent tonight.
My apologies.
Denver will find out who they're playing tonight because they'll draw the winner of the New
Orleans Pelicans and the Los Angeles Lakers.
So the Denver Nuggets are going to find out who they have tonight.
Oklahoma City will find out Thursday who they have.
But two series we do know, the Minnesota Timbukes are playing the Phoenix Suns.
This is going to be a very interesting series.
Very, very interesting series.
We'll get to a little bit more series specifics in a couple of minutes.
And then the Clippers play the Dallas Mavericks.
Thank you, basketball gods.
Kawhi's coming in nicked up.
So we'll have the, we'll have the juice.
The Luka versus Clippers.
It's almost better than Luka versus the Suns.
But now the Clippers can't use a usual strategy because Kyrie Irvin's out there too.
You know, they used to do a lot of things and switch the ball and make sure Luka got
tired and tried to force him into 1v1s.
That's great.
But Kyrie Irvin's out there now.
So you can't rotate away from certain people.
And because Kyrie's on one wing, Luka's on the other.
One of them has the ball.
You can't rotate off anything because they can see the hole for it and they can get the
ball to each other.
So that's a very dangerous situation for the Clippers.
But the Western Conference playing tournament.
Again, it begins tonight.
So by the time you guys hear this, you'll know who won the games.
The Pelicans play the Lakers for the 7-8 game.
Kicks tips in about an hour and a half.
And the Sacramento Kings play the Golden State Warriors in the 9-10 game.
Of course, the loser of the Pelz Lakers plays the winner of the Kings Warriors for the right
to play the Oklahoma City.
The winner of the Pelz Lakers plays the Denver Nuggets.
Alright, so I'm going to jump back to the top of my paper.
And I'm going to jump into the East.
And I mentioned a couple, well whatever.
I'll start off with the biggest news coming out today.
Which is Milwaukee Bucks would not have Giannis Atikumpo to start the playoffs.
He's dealing with left calf strain.
His treatment has not gotten him to the point where he is going to be able to play at the
start of the series.
Now, they are hoping that, oh wait a little bit of breaking news.
Kawhi Leonard is going to be the 12th person on Team USA in Paris.
But we'll definitely talk about that a lot more.
Spoiler alert, Jack's Hot Take is about the Olympic team.
So we're going to talk about them a lot more in Jack's Hot Take.
We're going to discuss the Olympic team more.
We have a lot more information on them.
Don't want to dive too far into it.
Not going to dive too far into it.
So we're going to talk about the Olympic team a lot more in Jack's Hot Take.
Anyway, back to the injury news with Giannis in that Milwaukee Pacers series.
His left calf is just not ready.
And even though they're not going to play for another week, the team has already kind
of decided, the team has already let it be known, he's not going to be ready for the
start of the series.
Therefore, they're going to have to win potentially a game or two without him.
This vaguely remember, remember the Heat series where he played and got injured and then he
came back.
It was weird.
It was like trying to fight through an injury and they ended up getting smoked by the Heat.
This has a very similar feeling to it.
You have Doc Rivers.
I mean, Doc Rivers was higher.
They were 30 and 13.
They never got to 50 wins.
So that means they were 40, 43 games, 39 games.
They won 19 of them.
As Doc Rivers, the head man in Milwaukee, you got Damon Liller reportedly not happy
now, according to Steven A. And it's not a basketball thing.
You say he's legitimately just not happy in Milwaukee.
And so you got that going on.
You got Giannis' left calf.
You have a guy, remember the very beginning of the season, Terry Stotz was supposed to
be the head assistant under Adrian Griffin.
And then Terry Stotz quit for the season starts.
It's been downhill ever since.
Stotz is supposed to be the Dame Smoother for like a better term.
Dame cut it for me.
He's facing the building.
He knows Terry Stotz.
He's under Terry Stotz.
He worked.
He's been in the building for an extra amount of years in Portland.
He put back the Dame Littleman.
Stotz ends up quitting.
I'm sure that kind of rattled the relationship a little bit with management.
And so it's been an interesting situation ever since.
Dame's been out of injury.
Giannis is about an injury.
They hardly had Chris Middleton this year.
They finally get everybody back.
Giannis goes down with the left calf.
As you can see, those calf strains, we've dealt with them in the past.
If you really pay attention to basketball, you know we've dealt with them in the past.
Kevin Durant is the most famous example I can think of and probably get you guys to
recall.
That's the name I recall fast.
Remember the finals against Toronto?
Remember the playoffs?
He had a calf strain.
And we kept saying, you know, a lot of people were saying, myself included, like don't play
around with the calf strain.
The calf is connected to the foot by one thing.
It's called an Achilles.
Doesn't matter if your ankle is intact, it doesn't matter if your bones are there.
If you strain your calf, the calf muscle goes to the ankle and the foot with one thing.
It's called an Achilles.
Everybody knows how dangerous the Achilles is.
The Achilles heel is one of the most popular things ever said.
Even the story of Achilles is spectacular.
He has one area of weakness.
His heel.
Like you just, you don't mess around with a calf strain.
Especially in a game like football, sorry, especially in a game like basketball, where
it's out of cutting, out of jumping.
These are larger than normal people.
They're larger than football players.
Like, if we were to suspect it, who's the biggest Stephen the NFL right now?
Biggest strongest fast Stephen the NFL right now?
DK Metcalf?
He's 6'4", 235.
Giannis is 7'2", 60.
Like, so when you have that sort of mass moving and running and jumping and cutting, on a
hardwood floor, you don't have keys to help you dig in, you're getting bumped and bruised,
when you have like a calf strain, you're in very legitimate damage, adding further, a
very legitimate danger from adding further damage to the calf and ultimately affecting
the Achilles just because of the way that the game is played.
So I think the team is hoping that Giannis comes back around game three or four, in which
case they're hoping to not be down 2-0.
Indiana's a really good team.
Indiana's a damn good team.
They're a really good offensive team.
They've been playing defense a lot better after they traded Buddy Hilton.
I think Buddy Hilton was the reason, but conveniently after they did one thing and their defense
improved massively and the team he went to, the defense fell off.
But they're also a really great offensive team.
Tyrese Halliburton has been dragging around a leg for most of the season, or most of the
second half of the season.
Now he gets the week to rest himself.
So this is going to be a very interesting situation with the Milwaukee Bucks.
I think the Bucks will if they split until Giannis comes back.
So if Giannis comes back game five, they hope to go into that game five 2-2.
If I was the Bucks, I'm hoping to go into that game 2-2.
Giannis returns in game five and will let the chips fall where they may.
If he comes back in game three, I'm hoping to go into that game one, or tie that one,
and again, let the chips fall where they may.
So again, Milwaukee enters the playoff series, sans their best player.
And Giannis has a title.
Ultimately, this won't become a thing.
But Giannis is going into a lot of injury situation, and a lot of people question about
him and his extensions.
Anthony Davis signed the five-year extension in the Los Angeles and was open about it.
I'm doing it for my health.
But I'm going to make sure, yes, he could have waited a year, literally.
He could have waited a year and gotten the 10-year vested interest and shot through the
cap and all those other stuff.
But he didn't.
He signed the big mass extension in the fifth year.
Then was open about it.
Again, I'm signing this because I have health problems.
I have health concerns.
I'm not always the healthiest guy.
I'm going to make sure I secure the most money when I can.
And therefore, he went ahead and signed the extension then.
Giannis has now dealt with multiple injuries that have affected multiple playoffs.
He's extension eligible sooner rather than later.
Milwaukee seems to be kind of a crap shoot at the moment.
Ownership seems to be kind of all over the place.
Management doesn't know what they got going on.
You fire Adrian Griffin for Doc Rivers.
Clearly, it seems to be a downgrade after you got rid of it.
I believe they had Budenhozer.
You got rid of Budenhozer kind of randomly.
Adrian Griffin was gone kind of randomly.
And now Doc Rivers is bad.
But do you really want to pay three coaches that don't coach for you along with highly
compensating another coach?
Because it seemed like the lease didn't very long.
Like what?
Like Milwaukee's in a crap shoot, Dames reportedly not happy, Chris Middleton's body falling
apart.
Get traded, Drew Holliday in the Dane Lillard trade.
Drew seems to have been a better player than Dane Lillard this year.
What do you do?
Like if you're Giannis?
Because financially, you could extend out three years, you know, and bring your total
contract value north of $250 million.
Or you could wait.
You could request a trade.
What do you do if you're Giannis?
You know, one of the bigger questions because he's dealing with injury history.
The Bucks will offer him the mass extension the first day they can offer it.
But if you're if you're if you're Giannis, what do you do is one of the bigger questions.
Probably into his offseason, but getting him healthy for the rest of the Pacers series
is going to be key for the Bucks.
I believe he misses at least the first two games.
I think their trigger point may be game four or five.
No, hopefully they're not for them.
Whether or not down three or when he comes back because he's down three or do you even
play him being targeted into those questions?
Is it worth potentially 90 percent?
Let's say it's game four.
You're down three or is it worth it?
Because you come back and pops the Achilles out to all the next season.
Ask Kevin Grant and it's to last year.
This year was lost and all of next year was lost because Dane didn't want to sit there
and wait with broken down Chris Middleton, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis.
Is he now looking to get his way out?
There's a lot can happen with this first round series, especially considering the injury
to Giannis Astucumbo.
But moving into the shark tainery that happened in Cleveland.
So as you guys know, people pick and choose their playoff spot.
For instance, I'm a Pelicans fan.
I really want them to just tank tonight like lose the game.
Oh, Zion sick.
Brandon has a sprained toe and CJ McCollum eight bad gumbo.
None of them can play.
Trey Murphy, Herb Jones was caught violating team rules.
Jonas Valanchunis looking for the eclipse and it had delayed effects like just just
do something where they're not playing tonight.
Right.
So they just have the seven seed allow them to play the Denver Nuggets.
Congratulations.
Have fun with that and we'll deal with whoever wins out of Sacramento and Golden State.
Right.
Probably sack.
We've beat sack five times already.
We just beat Golden State.
So I feel very confident in a in a in that game in New Orleans.
I got like I feel very confident.
Right.
Incredibly confident.
However, we're not going to do that because rightfully so.
The integrity of the game and you know who knows if you're actually going to win that
game.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's not like there's an issue.
It's not like there's a guarantee you win.
It's not like this game is seven or eight where if you lose this game you become eight.
You win the game.
You become seven.
You know it's not that you have to go win it with another game.
Anything can happen.
So I truly believe this is going to be truly my competitive spirit going to game tonight.
Denver be damned.
Like if you're going to win the title you're going to have to beat him anyway.
So who cares.
Right.
The Cavs didn't share that.
The Cavs did not share that sentiment.
JB Biggestaff is a liar.
They were performing shark and so the game 82 for them.
They were up.
It was a really good game until halftime because they were playing the Nets.
Well they were playing the Nets.
They were a really good game.
They were a really good game at halftime.
And then they go and they basically finished the game with like four centers and what's
his name?
The guy Imani Bates.
Like 2G like Tristan Thompson, Evan Mobley, a couple of other random bigs and Imani Bates
closed the game.
They got blew off the floor in the second half.
Above the floor at the end of the game.
Cavs lose.
Fall to four and then they draw the magic instead of potentially winning the game going
to two and getting the sixers as strong possibility or the heat as strong possibility.
They said screw both of those.
So we so they fell on back into number four to draw the land of magic.
And similar to what people were wondering at if the Kings had a firm playoff spot or
the Pelicans had a firm playoff spot out west.
Would certain west teams start to maneuver their way in the third to draw the Kings or
draw the Pelicans?
Well the Cavs did it.
The Cavs flat out drew the magic.
They did everything they could to get the magic.
And so you know they said some BS about oh the guys were scheduled to play not play after
halftime and they didn't want to risk their injury after they had cooled off and mentally
checked out of the game and you know so on and so forth.
BS BS and more BS.
The Cavs did their best to tank their way into the fourth seed.
None of their guys are closer to 65 game limits so they didn't have to play 20 minutes.
I think it's a BS rule.
I feel like if you're appearing in a game it's a count.
But neither here nor there.
So none of them had to appear in the game for 20 minutes.
So none of the other stuff they just simply tanked their way into the playoffs.
They literally picked their seed.
They knew they were in.
They knew they were in no danger of slipping.
They knew if they lost they'd go to fourth.
They went to fourth and to play the Orlando Magic.
It's simple as that.
There's no way around it.
There's no inference.
There's no guesswork.
They went out of their way to play the Orlando Magic and they drew the magic.
Now this could all go to hell in a hand basket if they lose to the Magic in the first round
or let's just say the Sixers lose both playing games.
You know what I'm saying?
This strategy could go completely by the wayside or even worse.
They beat the Magic and get killed by the Sub2.
Then it was like it's all for naught.
They're in a position.
They're attempting rather to finesse their way to the playoffs but they may end up drawing
Boston around too if they even beat the Magic and all this would be for naught.
It was a downright open trickery, open seating manipulation by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
I honestly hope the NBA cracks down on this because as much as I joke, half-heartedly
joke about how I want the Pelicans to take this game out and how if I was the Lakers
I would take this game out like 80's got a bad back.
Okay 80 plays five minutes.
Oh his back hurts and he leaves the court.
Then Lebronzo with left ankle injuries.
Oh he stepped on somebody's foot and hobbles and just walks out the court.
Right and just give the Pelicans, just hand them over, just give the Pelicans the 14,
the 17 and give them the nuggets.
If I'm from the Lakers and I get Oklahoma City Thunder who they dominate.
So the Pelicans have whooped up on the Thunder this year too.
If I was those guys I would just simply, I'm almost trying to out tank it.
I see whose bench is better.
If I'm the Pelicans and none of my guys play, none of my top five play from the Lakers,
we use Lebron and 80 don't play and if you don't let the chips fall they may.
But as much as I half-heartedly joke about that and that was tossed around a lot on ESPN
like should one of them take the game to give the other team the seventh seed, as much as
I half-heartedly joke about that.
The Cavs actually did it.
And I actually hope the NBA comes down on them and it's like bro we can't have this.
That's messing with the integrity because if the Cavs win the second seed, not the two
seed, the Cavs win the two seed, then Knicks I believe are a three seed and then Milwaukee
is the four seed.
So then Milwaukee's up playing Orlando, Knicks end up drawing the Pacers, Cavs probably get
the Sixers in my opinion.
So it's just get the Heat and it's the kind of stuff that they really affected multiple
places off the strength of they're trying to get through Orlando Magic.
And the Magic is no slaps.
I thought the Magic were not that good until they smacked the Thunder Pelicans.
I was like, okay, no, they're real.
I had to watch them smack my team.
They're legit, right?
But I do hope the NBA at least comments on it, like make it know like we saw what you
did.
And so that can probably stop guys, hopefully stop people from doing it in the future.
On to the West Plains.
And we talked a lot about the West Plains.
We kind of mentioned it a lot in the opening segment throughout the East and stuff.
Pels and Lakers are the night, right, and then Kings and Warriors follow.
Pels and Lakers, I spoke about them a lot.
I'm a huge Pelicans fan.
I'm also a huge LeBron fan.
I was very conflicted in game 82 because I wanted LeBron out of the 9-10 game, but also
I wanted the Pelicans at 16.
So in a perfect world, Lakers would have beat the Pels and then the Timbos would have beat
the Sun.
And then the Timbos would have went to one, Pels would have went to six, Suns would have
went to seven, Lakers would have went to eight, right, and it had been just a perfect situation
for me.
I got one of those things.
Lakers smacked up on the Pelicans.
LeBron went prime, made it to Johnson in the first half, and then Peake, not Peake LeBron,
but slightly off Peake LeBron in the second half.
It's ridiculous.
He had 13 assists in the first half, which is insane, right?
The Pelicans had no answers.
Zion had a bad night.
It was England's first game back.
No threes were falling.
Like Darwin Ham learned how to coach.
A lot of anomalies were happening in that game, right?
But I do have faith in the Pelicans tonight.
Legitimately, I think the Lakers give us the game.
Now I do think ultimately we win the game.
Even if they don't just give it to us.
I do think we ultimately win the game.
But I can kind of see the Lakers giving us the game.
Here's how.
AD is coming in with a sore back.
He's going to have to battle Valentunas.
Valentunas hits him and knocks to the floor as Zion runs over and knocks to the floor.
He gets him with back.
He's out the rest of the game.
LeBron's already built in the left ankle excuse.
So if LeBron steps on somebody's foot and howls off, he's out for the game.
So now at this point, it's the Pelicans versus D'Angelo Russell and the Friends.
Sorry, it's the Pelicans versus Austin Reeves, D'Angelo Russell and the Friends.
And the Pelicans are going to run through them and get the seven seed.
So I can see the Lakers doing something like that.
In the first couple of, right after halftime, AD back steps up and can't play.
And then LeBron is like rolls on ankle, quote unquote, and he can't play.
And so now the Pelicans go from like down 10 to ups 15 into the third and then they
draw the Nuggets.
You know what I'm saying?
And then magically the Lakers are perfectly healthy for Thursday.
Right?
I can totally see that happen.
But even if that doesn't happen, I think the Pelicans get this one.
I was talking to a few of my friends and my wife, and I was saying that in order for the
Pelicans to win 49 games and then not make the playoffs, they'd have to lose three consecutive
home games.
Game 82 to the Lakers, playing one to the Lakers and then playing two to either the
Kings or the Warriors.
I don't see that happening.
Right?
So some reason the Pelicans do lose tonight, I'll pick them on when on Thursday because
there's no way in my opinion they lose three consecutive home games and go from 49 wins.
At one point was trying to fight for the fourth seed when England got hurt.
They were in a battle for the fourth.
They had the fourth seed actually to falling completely out and technically the ninth seed.
Like that just doesn't work for me mentally.
Right?
So therefore I've got the Pelicans winning tonight, which sends the Lakers into the hosting,
the winner of the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors, which I believe will
be the Sacramento Kings.
I like the Warriors.
I really do.
But I think it's time and I think they need a crash and burn moment.
I think the Kings need to beat them by like 30.
I think it's going to be a crash and burn moment and everybody can sit around the campfire
and reevaluate.
Remember last year the Kings beat the Warriors in like seven.
So it wasn't really a crash and burn moment.
It wasn't even a pass or torch moment.
It was man, we're a couple of shots away in a few of these games for winning the series.
I need the Kings to beat them by like 30.
And that way they can all sit down and just Joe Laker and Orange Shiff and just sit down
and go it's time.
Right?
Like we had an amazing run.
These guys have been with us since like 2009.
Like we've had an amazing run.
It's time.
It's time for Clay to finally win.
It's time for Dream on Edge to be somebody else's problem.
Like it's time.
Like it's just time.
And I don't think they'll ever let Steph go.
I think he'll retire a Warrior, but I think they began to, I mean they have uncomfortable
conversations with Steph.
Meaning you're going to have to trade some of your friends.
You're going to have to sign and trade them and try and get other pieces around you.
You're going to be our centerpiece.
But it's time.
Like it's just time to move on and try and create the next iteration of the Golden State
Warriors and the Dynasty itself.
It's just time.
And then I would have, because you guys won't hear from me before that, I would have the
Pels, I would have the Lakers beating the Kings for LeBron to get the AC and the standings
go unaffected.
So I have unaffected standings on both sides.
Six, seven, six to beating the Heat and then Heat turning around and beating the Bulls.
And then I have the Pelicans beating the Lakers and Lakers turning around and beating the
Kings.
Again, completely unaffected standings as far as one through eight.
And then a couple of quick hitters in the NBA.
The Nets are planning to hire Jordy Fernandez, who is the top assistant coach for the Sacramento
Kings as their new head coach.
Kevin Olley obviously didn't do enough to hold the title.
They moved the interim tag, so they're bringing in Jordy Fernandez.
And Blake Griffin has officially retired.
The Prince of Lob City, or the King of Lob City really, slam dunk champion, six time
All-Star, five or six time All-NBA guy.
Really, like I said, helped revitalize the Clippers franchise.
The Clippers, for most of them, the history of the dead franchise.
Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, JJ Reddick, Doc Rivers, Jamal Crawford, Lou
Will helped revitalize the Clippers franchise.
He's the source of one of the more heartless trades in recent NBA history.
When he resigned with the Clippers, they made him mock the jersey retirement, where they
walked him and his family through the arena with all these black curtains and then put
his number in there, his 32 in the rafters.
And that's what convinced him to resign.
Because Blake was going to move on.
He was going to move on, but then that convinced him to resign.
And then that year, he gets traded to the Pistons.
Now he does bring the Pistons to their last playoff appearance, but it also took the rest
of his legs to do it.
And so that is the story of Blake Griffin.
He kind of fades off to the ether as that Celtics bench run, whatever.
But he had an amazing career.
I believe he's not a first battle Hall of Famer, but he gets in because it's the basketball
Hall of Fam.
They count everything.
So I think he gets in at some point.
But congratulations to Blake Griffin on a hell of a career.
He's made multiples of hundreds of millions of dollars.
He's got all the all-star, he's got all the NBA slam dunk champion.
I don't think he's the NBA champion, but congratulations to Blake Griffin on a hell
of a career.
What up next?
In our B block, we're going to shift to the WNBA and talk about what's going down there,
including the draft last night.
Welcome back into the show.
Enter our B block discussing the fastest growing league in America, the WNBA entering its 27th
year.
27th, 28th year of existence.
They came out in 1997.
So 27th, 28th year of existence.
Shout out the draft last night as we ushered in the famed high school class 2020, now become
the rookie class of 2024.
They changed college basketball forever.
They made it mainstream.
I mean, they get the top five names in the class.
It's Paige Becker's, it's Angel Reese, it's Camila Codoso, it's Caitlin Clark, and it
is Cameron Boynt.
That is the top five of the high school class of 2020.
They delivered.
I believe they have every title in the four years they were in school.
I don't recall anybody else winning it.
Angel Reese got one, Codoso has two.
Yeah.
And then Brink has the one in the freshman.
So Brink has the one in the freshman, as a freshman, Codoso has two because she won one
sophomore one of the senior and Angel Reese has the one in the middle.
So yeah, they won all four championships.
They were in school.
Paige Becker is trying to make it a five for five next year.
Caitlin Clark, of course, is the all time leading scorer, division one men and women.
She broke all kinds of scoring records, all kinds of three point records.
She smashed the assist record in March Madness.
Angel Reese is a double double queen.
She has, feels like every LSU record as far as double double, as far as rebounding in
the single season.
She's got all that stuff, she owns it.
The body barbie herself, you have Camila Codoso, the six foot seven Brazilian, absolutely dominant
force.
She's just thrown people out of the way.
Not as aggressive as she could be at times, but she's an absolute dominant force in the
middle.
And of course you have Cameron Brink, who is God brothers or God siblings with Steph
Curry.
She's been involved in that family her whole life.
She's six foot four.
She's a shooter.
She's a shot blocker, short in there, rim protector.
So that class entered the WNBA.
So we're going to run through the top seven picks and then we're going to jump into what
this could mean for the WNBA.
We already see it.
So number one, of course, Caitlin Clark goes to Indiana Fever.
Cameron Brink to the Los Angeles Sparks.
Camila Codoso to the Chicago Sky.
Rekia Jackson, who is from Tennessee, absolute baller.
Also to the Los Angeles Sparks, joining Cameron Brink.
Joie Sheldon, I can't, I'm sorry, J.C. Sheldon, I'm sorry, from Ohio State goes to Dallas
Wings.
Aliyah Edwards of UConn goes to the Washington Mystic.
And running out the top seven, Angel Reese of LSU, the body Barbie herself, joins Camila
Codoso, her former rival in the SEC with the Chicago Sky.
So absolute great draft, like Nika Muell ends up with the Seattle Storm.
The third all time leading scorer, the little guard from Syracuse ends up with the Aces.
So some big names went to some high places.
The WNBA draft is murderous row.
Kate Martin, who openly admitted that she was there mainly to support Keelan Clark.
She was in the crowd, like she wasn't even going to have her own table.
Like she was literally an audience member and she gets drafted.
So they give her the moment of going to the stage.
But you know, she's an ace as well.
But the WNBA draft is always on a cannibalistic situation.
There's 36 people get drafted, only 144 in the entire league.
On average, half of them play a game, you know, like 18 of them get cut before they
ever play a game.
Holly Rose showed up, asked Kate Martin, like, how do you plan on making the roster?
Like it's not, it's always, oh, what are you planning on doing in your rookie year?
How do you physically plan on making the team?
So it's a cannibalistic situation.
People in the top, people in the first round don't get cut.
It's usually when you get to that second round, the Aces you have three people.
The guard is the only one I'm guaranteeing a spot for.
The one, the absolute bucket of a guard.
That's the only one I'm guaranteeing a spot for.
Everybody else?
You know, we'll see what happens, right?
Like Mule's going to make Seattle's roster.
Meekim Mule's going to make Seattle's roster.
Like I said, the whole first round is going to make it.
After that, it gets real dicey as far as if you're going to make it.
Maybe it's team need, surprise at training camp, maybe a training camp injury or a player
that was supposed to come over decides to not.
So that sort of thing will open up a roster spot.
But for the most part, you kind of go in the draft knowing we're going to draft three of
them, we're not going to keep one kind of situation.
So that makes the WNBA so challenging to join because you could be a national champion and
have all these accolades and then barely get drafted and then get no playing time and no
any WNBA experience at all.
So that is interesting there.
But I want to talk about, first of all, the draft itself was watched four times more than
last year and broke the record for the most watched draft.
The no WNBA draft had gone over 600,000, 600,000, 2000 viewers last night went about 2.4 million.
So massive jump.
And again, what's about the excitement of this class?
About Kaelin Clark, about Angel Reese, about Camila Cardoso, about Rekia Jackson, about
Cameron Brink.
You know, those ladies were the stars of college basketball last year.
They are into the W together.
So huge shout out to them.
But again, I want to speak about the contracts of the WNBA.
And that is something that's now being very popularized.
Kaelin Clark's contract, her re-contract is four years, $336,000.
And her team option for last year's her big, cause she had about 95k.
Now I reach out to a lot of people on Twitter saying, man, she got a good degree, she can
get a regular job and make more than that.
Her first year's salary is 7, 6k.
You know, Angel Reese's was very similar.
She was similar to her other draft pick.
Her re-contract was incredibly similar.
I think her first, I think her year one was like 7, 2k.
And her max was like 315, 320, right?
Okay.
The WNBA does not have the revenue of the NBA.
People are comparing it to WNBA's $13 million in year one.
The WNBA does not have the NBA's revenue.
The NBA is a trillion dollar conglomerate.
The WNBA lose, loses money in most of their opportunities.
Number one.
Number two, the revenue sharing in the WNBA is a lot worse than the NBA.
Why?
Because the owners have to make their money in a short amount of time.
And if you're not affiliated with the NBA team, you have to operate that business, you
know, with staff and stuff that you're not making any gate revenue on, T-revenue on,
et cetera.
Number three, the WNBA works four months.
The NBA works about nine months.
So if you take everybody's salary and get double it, they'd still, they'd make 152,000
year one.
And by the time they finish the deal, they're, you know, total values are over $700,000.
And that's simply from, you know, per game situation, X amount of thousand dollars is
going to be made.
Like, yes.
Is the NBA way more paid than the NBA?
Yes.
But does the WNBA have a history of the NBA?
No.
The NBA is about 75ish years older than the WNBA.
And so, the NBA was 75 years old.
The WNBA is, oh, mental math, 47, 48 years younger than the NBA.
Like, yeah, it tends to be some growing pains and financial situations.
But Kathy Engelbert, who's the WNBA commissioner, is looking at ways to increase that revenue
one through ads, two is they're going to do it through expansion.
The Golden State franchise is already coming in 2025.
However, Engelbert is looking to expand to 16 teams by 2028.
She's in negotiations with several cities regarding the WNBA team, whether that is NAACP,
Nashville, whether that is Toronto.
Those are a couple of cities I remember immediately.
So, like, if your team, your city was mentioned and I didn't call it by name, don't blame
me or don't get mad at me or anything.
I was just kind of recalling them from memory from little tidbits that me and the guys had
those conversations.
So, that is what can fix the WNBA contracts.
But as much as I lamented Kailin Clark and her fandom, it may actually be beneficial
here because now so many people are going to rise up, excuse me, in defense of her contract
and how she should pay more and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that it might get the
WNBA to finally A, play in one arena, but B, to grow and develop their league.
Because I'm being honest, I'm a huge fan of Pop Expansion.
It gives a lot of new markets, a lot of something to look for.
It gives people buying tickets.
It gives the excitement of the players, like you don't know what city you're going to land
in.
You can be in the one you're in now or you can be in Golden State.
You can be in Vegas.
You know, there's a plethora of options in the WNBA.
And so now they get a chance to utilize and to capitalize on this financial windfall by
expanding their league with valuable owners and valuable teams into different markets.
But up next, we'll have our Jax Hot Take, which will be a discussion about the USA Olympian
Pairs.
Welcome back into the show.
And now I want to talk about Jax Hot Take, which is going to be about Team USA.
The men's basketball roster has been decided.
Entering this podcast, we had 11 of the 12 spots.
Then of course, in the A block, I broke some news to you guys.
It came out, of course, all over the Justin Tomsport social medias that Kawhi Leonard
was going to be the 12th person on the team.
So we're going to list them, the first 11 that we got.
Then I'm going to give you guys my hot take.
So the Team USA is as followed.
LeBron James.
Okay, okay, barring the back up.
This is barring injury.
Of course, many of these guys make the finals.
It could get dicey.
Some of the some guys sometimes some guys back out.
Like I know LeBron did double duty in 2012.
Kobe did double duty in 2008.
Well, a lot of times guys, they push it through the finals, made back out of the Olympics.
But for a lot of these guys, it's truly to me the last right team.
So again, barring injury, in my opinion, LeBron James, also in his Lakers, Stefan Curry of
the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns, Joel Embiid of the 76ers,
Jason Talem of the Celtics, Devin Booker, also of the Suns, Drew Holliday, also of the
Celtics, Anthony Davis, also of the Lakers, Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves, Miami
Heat, Bama Di Baio, Tyrese Halliburton of the Indiana Pacers, and of course, Kawhi Leonard
as of the Los Angeles Clippers.
This is the last ride.
And my hot take is this team is going to absolutely dominate the Olympics.
This is the last ride.
Think about it.
The next Olympics is four years away.
LeBron is not going to be in the league.
Kevin Durant and Stefan Curry might not be in the league.
Kawhi Leonard might not be in the league.
Jason Talem is going to be the old head on that team.
Joel Embiid is going to be in the league, but who knows if he's going to be up for
an Olympics.
He's already having health issues as is.
Who knows in four years if he's going to be ready to play in the Olympics in Los Angeles.
Talem is going to be the old head.
It's going to be a lot of Jason Talem, Cooper Flags, Zion Williamson is going to be on the
team.
I know those guys, Shama Rank hopefully is going to be on the team.
Like Talem is going to be the old head.
But this team is going to dominate.
And I was in an argument in a group chat about it.
Oh, I'll tell you this is a team really.
And people are saying, oh, you take Steph Curry and LeBron off the team is not that
good.
Kevin Durant, there's 12 NBA All-Stars on the team.
It's only 24 All-Stars in the league.
12 of them play for us.
I mean, Drew Holliday is not an All-Star, so 11 of them plays for us.
The band made it, I think.
So 11 of the 24 All-Stars play for Team USA.
We're not going to pretend that this team is bad, right?
Out of the MVP race, six of them are going to be on Team USA.
Again, we're not going to pretend that this team is bad.
This team potentially may struggle out of the gate.
I will say that.
Because again, Team USA is the only country in the world that does their team like this.
Where they take 12 guys who've never played together and throw them in an international
competition.
And they do it for every single one, and it's never the same 12.
It's not like this 12 is going to go play in the World Championships in 2026.
They're going to be an entire different 12.
And then that 12 is going to be an entire different 12 from the 12 that plays in LA
in 2028.
Insane, right?
It's insane logic.
But we haven't, we've lost one Olympic since 92.
As crazy as the strategy is, we've lost one Olympic since 92.
Which by the way, we were doing that before with college kids.
Because we don't have any, we're going to have a set international team.
And that was something that when we were losing the Olympics and the World Cups, that was
something that came up.
Should America convert to how other countries do it?
Which is, if they have an NBA star, obviously on the international team.
But out of the 12 people on the international team, seven or eight of them play for the
international team.
That's their career international team players.
They fly around the world playing for Serbia.
They'll play regular season basketball in other leagues.
But every single international competition, this same group of six to nine plays for the
international team.
I think Slovenia, I think it's like 10 of them always play for the national team.
Nine of them always play for the national team.
Serbia, eight of them always play for the national team.
So when they come together, they're playing with their own friends and you add a Luka
or you add a Jokic.
You know, France is going to be pretty splintered because Wimby is over here now.
They didn't get Joel Embiid.
They're going to have Wimby and Gobert on the floor.
That's going to be a pain in the butt.
International rules, that's going to be a pain in the butt.
Wimby and Gobert.
So the rims basically cut off because you can't get there.
Seven for Wimby and then the future with three or four times Defensive Player of the Year,
Rudy Gobert, they're going to be on each block.
Like you can't move.
So it's going to be interesting to see with Embiid, we have a real center.
That was something we went into the competition not knowing that Embiid decides he's going
to play for France.
We don't have a real center.
Like at all.
So that was something I know that was in the discussion points for sure of whether or not
Embiid will play.
We have a real center.
But I think this team is going to dominate.
I really do.
It's the last ride.
None of the superstars, none of the legends are going to be in 2020.
They're going to roll.
I think early the young guys are going to carry it.
I think there will be a lot of Halliburton, a lot of Edwards, a lot of Tatum, a lot of
Bam.
Especially in the group stages, you got to be in the top two to make it to the knockout
round.
Like even if you're in the group of Def, you got to be in the top two to make it to the
knockout round.
And even if you're not in the top two, if you get like certain tiebreakers, you'll still
make it.
Like them not making the knockout rounds is not a concern.
Now getting a good spot in the knockout rounds could be an issue.
I think LeBron and Steph and KD will kind of ease their way into it.
Steph's never played in the Olympics before.
He's on a couple of world championships.
He's never been on the Olympic stage before.
LeBron is going for his third gold because he lost in 04, won in 08, won in 12.
He didn't play in 16 and 20.
Now he's playing again.
No, he's going for his fourth goal.
He played in 16 and 2.
Didn't play in 21.
Now he's going again.
KD's going for his fourth goal.
Steph said Steph never played in it.
I think Edwards played in 21.
I think Ingram was on that team if I'm not mistaken.
They squeaked it out.
So it's going to be very interesting to see this group come together.
It's a very smart put together roster.
Tyrese Halliburton is kind of like your ultimate international point guard.
He's big, he's long, he's rangy.
He's got that international point guard feel where he's going to be a guy that he can play
defense on a guy, he can pass, he can shoot it.
Then the other point guard is Juholliday.
Again, another point that's physical, he's a dominating defender.
Then Steph Curry, of course, being the real point guard.
LeBron being the alternate point guard.
So a lot of passing ability on this team.
A lot of cutting.
Everybody can do everything.
It will be interesting how Steph handles the Olympic physicality.
It's different than the World Championships.
FIBA in the World Championships is kind of like the G League.
Then you get to the Olympics, maybe those same players, but it means a hell of a lot
more.
So the physicality is going to be something that I would love to see how Steph reacts
to it.
Then Kawhi, of course, he's going to be able to lock down anybody in the international
competition.
So that was definitely going to be fun.
I think their average margin of victory is going to be around 15 to 20.
To me, this is the third best team of all time.
If this team, the exact same team, played four years ago, they'd be unbeatable.
They'd be literally beating everybody by about 40.
But because they're a little bit older, I think they're going to beat everybody by about
15 to 20.
Like I said, they'll win the gold and celebrate and kind of ride off out of the international
careers.
It's kind of the last ride.
Pretty dope of them.
It's in Paris, which doesn't hurt.
So pretty dope is going to do this one more time.
Steve Curry is going to not get a gold medal, actually.
That's got coaches going to get golds.
But that is going to be very interesting to watch.
They're going to dominate.
They'll go down to third best team behind the Dream Team and the Redeem Team.
The 2018 was insane.
So me and the 2012 team was a better team.
But Redeem Team was dope.
The 2012 team was ridiculous.
I think they'll be battling that 018 for third place as far as all time team USA basketball
teams.
But that is all I have for you guys today.
I hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday.
The playing tournament is about to start.
So perfect timing for me recording.
I hope you guys have a great rest of your day.
I hope my predictions come true so you guys don't think I'm a doofus tomorrow.
But as always, this is your host, Justin Jackson, signing out.