Hello everybody welcome back to the NBA front office show Happy Leap Day February 29th not not every day that we get or every year that we get to do this it’s a rarity so welcome in if you are one of those people that has a leap day leap year birthday happy happy birthday
You only get to hear this every four years so uh congrats to you but we’ve got uh plenty of NBA basketball to to talk about today Keith let let’s dive it we both have had kind of kind of long days today so we’re going to jump
Through a lot of our topics here yeah absolutely I will say real quick my cousin Lori has is a leap baby um so yeah so she’s uh yeah like 10 this year I guess or something like that you know however that that math works out but
Yeah she’s uh yeah she’s a leap baby I always wonder do people who are born on February 29th do they feel like unfortunate that they got that that date or is it more like it’s something special very few people get that I mean how do you how do you approach that yeah
I actually besides my cousin I went to school and grew up with two kids that were born on on Leap Day in the same year and they um their families what they did was they had like a normal birthday every year on the 28th of February but then on the uh 29th every
Four years they’ do like a big blowout like like they could do like the big birthday party and right you know go somewhere like you we were kids that was like the roller skating or something big like like that for for a birthday party instead of just having a bunch of kids
Running around the house so yeah good way to do yeah yeah that’s probably the approach I would take I like that I like that all right let’s get into it uh the Knicks their protest was officially denied I mean they were right uh that that call was was definitely a blown
Call but uh in their loss to the Rockets but their protest officially denied because you and I talked about this it wasn’t like a Mis application of the rules it wasn’t like somebody was removed from a game when they had five fouls instead of six or or something
Like that it was a missed call and that and that does happen sometimes that’s that’s a different category so I’m not surprised that their protest was denied I’m also not surprised that they tried it because why not try protesting it yeah there’s not not going to harm
Anything in going for it other than you might end up having to play three games in a row or something like that if if they said all right fine we’re going to make it up or not make it up but replay from the moment of of the infraction so
Yeah I the NBA pretty much said in their their release where they said we’re denying the protest was the call was it was a judgment call that was wrong and we’re basically We’re not gonna do anything on judgment calls it a wrong like that happens it’s part of the sport
And it is what it is so not nothing really unexpected here and you know I I I assume at the end of the day it may not really mean anything we’ll see if the Knicks miss out on a you know home court advantage or miss out on a playoff
Spot by a game or something like that then it’ll matter but otherwise just move move on yeah yeah if that happens Nick’s fans are are not going to be thrilled and they’ll be pointing to this game but it’s something that that does happen it happens not just in the NBA in
Professional sports yeah calls get calls get missed it’s the way it goes um the Hawks have waved Patty Mills uh I mean this is a name that a lot of people know veteran player is he do we think he’s done in the NBA I know they and signed
Somebody with that with that spot is this it for Patty Mills uh I wouldn’t be surprised if he catches on with someone for for the end of the year there’s there’s an extraordinary amount of open roster spots around the league right now I believe there are something like 25ish
And that’s including guys that are on 10day contracts right now so I know we’re north of 20 which that’s a ton like at this point in the year that that is a lot of open roster spots and most of those will get filled before the end of the year most teams whether they’re
Teams looking for we just need another body as break glass in case of emergency for the playoffs or it’s teams that are like the the povi signing and Charlotte where hey maybe something comes of this let’s grab this guy and take a look it’s now come out Mike Scot of hoop type is
Where I saw it it’s a two-year deal for poku in Charlotte where he got a a second non-g guaranteed year so kind of a flaw from grace for a guy who a lot of people were super excited about early on in his career but maybe Charlotte will’ll get something out of this and
He’ll figure it out and get it together but on the Patty Mills front yeah I’m sure some team that is you know we could use is one more veteran guard at the end of our bench they they’ll probably grab him he’s been okay when he’s played this
Year he hasn’t hasn’t played very much think he’s only played you know 19 games and like 200 minutes or something like that for the Hawks and then that what they did to fill the open roster spot they converted two-way player Trent Forest just an interesting note on Trent
Forest Forest he actually was the first guy I can remember that fully maxed out his games uh on his two-way contract fully he hit the 50 game Mark actually I think it was just ahead of the allstar Break um he hit the 50 50 game limit the
Hawks kept him and it was a sign of like what are we doing here and if you look at their uh box scores he was inactive and then they always list a reason for inactive and it was inactive ineligible to play uh in each NBA game for the last
Like week or so here since we’ve been back from the allstar break so now they converted him over he’ll be on the active roster for the rest of the way another I know it sounds weird to say this because they just waved a guard but another guard to the the the rotation
Potential while Trey young is out yeah yeah and that’s and that’s the key right Trey young he’s goingon to be out for I believe it’s now at least three weeks from now and um you know it’s Deonte Murray time there but they do need other guards in their in their rotation so
Did you see Trey Young’s post about his surgery no one of those typical like you know everything went great surgery but it’s like before and after pictures and he said this is my first surgery and hopefully my last like kind of crazy that he’s made it this deep and never
Had to have any kind of surgery yeah in his life so good for him right that’s really good news definitely hope is is not fun okay yeah yeah not for anybody ever no no not not not ideal and uh I always tell you like I I I broke my hand
Years and years ago I broke a bone in my hand and uh and had to have surgery to get get it all put back together it wasn’t so much the the pain from the surgery it was the the the rehab getting the muscles and everything back working
That’s the part that that is the real killer that oh man that was not fun um if it’s one of those where you have to break through scar tissue and stuff to get going yeah those those are never fun still remember that not fun not fun okay
Uh the Hornets hire Jeff Peterson so they’ve hired a new president of basketball operations that he will replace Mitch cjack and becomes whatever the role whatever you want to call the role GM president of basketball operations whatever across the NBA in this role he becomes the youngest in the
NBA at just 35 years old uh thoughts on on this hire uh coming out of the Brooklyn nights he’s a guy who’s trained under under Shawn marks for a number of years now yeah I think it is interesting they went with a first time uh GM and I
Think that’s a sign of hey we’re trying to really reset the organization we’ve got new owners new GM presumably I you unfortunately for Steve Clifford who I think has done the best he could with a weird situation where you know it wasn’t even their first choice for the job and
Then just kind of came in I think he’s done the best he could do in that spot um this is a a good interesting hire for the Hornets there you’ll grow everything together and kind of put it put it all together in this way so so I think it’ll
Be really um fun to watch how this develops I’m curious to see I think it was Ian Begley uh WJ had the initial report then Ian Begley came in after that and said keep an eye on maybe Wes Wilcox who’s uh with the Kings right now he’s another uh guy who’s been around
The NBA for quite some years maybe he lands uh with the Hornets they help out Jeff Peterson I I don’t I’m guessing Ian’s not just randomly throwing that out there for no reason uh so we’ll see what that looks like but yeah it’s going to be interesting to see how he puts
Together the rest of that front office staff uh reports were they the Hornets interviewed 12 different people uh for the job so pretty wide ranging search and and the good news is we talked about this just the other day now it’s done right now you have your guy he’s gonna
Set your new front office on whatever course you’re going and draft strategy and offseason strategy and all that can come together and what’s going to be a pretty crucial offseason for the Hornets uh setting a direction for the fr frch moving forward yeah and that means uh
Both in terms of what you’re going to do in free agency what you’re going to do in ter of spending your your free agent dollars but also the draft I mean now you can really figure out okay what who are we scouting who are we zeroing in on
What’s our strategy going to be what are the trade opportunities all that sort of stuff um so all of this is important and you and I again we talked about this I think it was yesterday about why it’s better to get this done sooner rather than later now you’ve got time to start
To look look ahead to what’s going to be a very busy and very important summer for uh for this Hornets team yeah absolutely uh you know interesting want to do a little breaking news here it’s not NBA but I saw it and it is good here we go let’s uh let’s do
It I’ve just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story I don’t know how horrifying it is but uh Caitlyn Clark is going to go pro uh from from the University of Iowa which is is really uh cool she’s uh likely to be the first overall pick in
The WNBA draft the Indiana Fever hold the first pick in the draft so very very likely she’ll be joining them uh for next season barring some kind of trade or something really unexpected so she’s gonna go pro we talked about this with Zach EDI of Purdue all these college
Athletes all got uh an extra year of of Eligibility um because of the covid impacted season so if they were there during one of the I think they designated the 20 1920 and the 2020 21 season those two years um as the kind of two impacted years and if you were
Already on campus so she could have stayed around uh which would have been crazy because she could have stayed and made that record essentially unbreakable it would have five years of uh ridiculous production out of her but yeah she’s gonna go pro so good for her
Uh you know fun and that opens the door for uh potential let’s see what it looks like like in uh next next year’s Allstar Weekend because both Stephen Curry and Sian escu talked about maybe we involveed Kate and Clark or something like that next year she’s a down shooter
As well so it’s gonna be fun WNBA has a ton of talent this is for my opinion maybe I’m wrong and somebody could tell me if I am this feels like the most Talent the wnba’s ever had um at one moment like it it’s just filled with
Talent and in the league small it’s like I want to say 12 team teams uh right now maybe there’s a couple more than that because I know they’ve expanded they’ve got future expansions coming uh but because it’s small the talent all condensed you look at some of these
Rosters and it’s like holy cow like they they’ve got you know seven eight players that I know and I know are good players so it’ll be fun I I I don’t know how much I’ll watch this year because we’ve got Olympics all the way through summer
Leagues R later but I I tend to tune into a decent chunk of the WNBA in the summertime because it’s fun to watch yeah I I do as well and it’s not something that I watch on a regular basis obviously I’ll tune in when it’s particularly the Las Vegas Aces they’re
They’re a lot of fun to watch uh but they’ve got it’s really like you can look at it you get a lot of people who are naysayers and say oh you know it’s below the rim basketball and all this kind of stuff right and if you’re looking at it from a negative
Perspective if you’re coming in you’re expecting 360 dunks and stuff like that well you’re not going to see that stuff but for watching it just a pure basketball perspective they run a lot of really good stuff and some really Innovative sets and and things like that where I’m watching as I’m watching I’m
Going whoa okay they pulled that off wow you know it’s there’s some impressive stuff that they do so yeah Midsummer I’ll definitely flip on on a game every now and then and uh and watch and I just went ahead and made the banner Caitlyn Clark to the Indiana Fever they’re not
They’re not gonna trade that pick any more than the Spurs were trading the number one pick when WBY was there or or the Cavs were trading the pick when LeBron was there back in the day or anything you know it’s not it’s not happening there she’s going to the fever
Well and it’s kind of cool right Midwest uh college player stays in the midwest with with the Midwest team so that’ll be be big uh for them and all I’ll say to anybody who says about the WNBA it’s all below the Rim Yeah so is 99% of high
School basketball uh played around the country and a lot of people still watch that too so I I don’t know what any of the complaining is about there so yeah it’s h fun so hey let’s stick with one thing in Indiana have you seen this kid from Indiana State Robbie
Aila uh I think so I was just watching some some highlights yeah if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about here Kareem Abdul Jabar Kareem yeah c e a m yes because he’s a he’s like a white kid so which is really funny um just a really funny nickname
But he can play man he’s he’s got a little bit of Nicol in his game so yeah and I hey as a former uh uh goggles and re specs where shout out to to my man with the with the goggles I love it I’m all about it so yeah we’ll see they they
They could be just getting serious for a moment they could be a dangerous team uh in March Madness if they make the tournament there’s somebody a lot of people are kind of talking about as being a potential team to make a run that’d be fun to watch fun to watch all
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Three deposits up to $2500 once again that code is join1 125 use that link in the description below all right Keith we’ve got another pretty big story I think Team USA starting to come into Focus you were just talking about the Olympics this summer how excited we are
For that I feel extremely fortunate because I accidentally had no idea that this was the case booked my vacation post summer league to end the day before the Olympics begin so I was I I I was uh initially I had a moment of panic and I
Went oh no and then the sigh of relief when I realized yes I did I accidentally booked appropriately so um so the Olympics coming up and now we’re starting to see the actual Team USA roster even though it’s not official but we’re starting to get a pretty good
Sense of who’s going to be involved and let’s say this too in Paris so not too crazy of a time difference this year hopefully like we’re not going to have to be up at 4 in the morning like we were for some of the World Cup games and
Those kind of things it’ll probably be more like 7 o’ in the morning or so and I’m going to guess Team USA will get some fairly favorable time slots where we’ll be able to see them in a decent hour here and I love the Olympics just in general like there there’s no
Other time of year where I’m watching like kaying and Rowing stuff like that but on the Olympics yeah man I’m all in and in two two two days into coverage like I’m an expert on all these Sports and you know yelling at the TV and saying what they should be doing so it’s
Uh yeah and I really don’t know anything I’m talking about uh I hardly know what I’m talking about basketball never mind things like put in that I I do the same thing I’m I’m watching it and I and I get all into it I’m thinking you know
Oh that’s isn’t that a foul that’s against the rules I have no idea what the rules are but uh on the balance beam now that’s gonna be a half a point deduction I don’t know what I’m talking about I just like yell and and I I’ve said it before on this
Show I’ll say it again I am 100% an ugly American when it comes to anything Team USA is in I am rooting for us to win and not only to win but to dominate and with that in mind Team USA if all the guys so there was a pretty big piece by sham
Chirania and Joe Varden over at the athletic and uh the two kind of main focuses that came out of it were Drew holiday and Devin Booker seem to be two guys that are kind of the early commits to to being on Team USA but then they went through a whole bunch of other
Names and when I went through and added them all up that’s if all these guys play that’s 11 of 12 spots already like targeted and listed and there it is’s the list that’s from the real GM post so there’s your list I mean sign me up let’s go like that that team everything
You could need I was looking on this list and I’m just as I I started looking at it I just went oh my God this is like this is every I mean it’s so here’s the here’s the list for podcast listeners bam atab bio Devin Booker Stephen Curry Anthony
Davis Kevin Durant Anthony Edwards Joel beid Tyrese halberton Drew holiday LeBron James Jason Tatum like and there’s one more coming and it’s it’s still possible some of these guys could drop out there could be injuries there could be whatever but the initial glance at that it’s oh that’s
Like these this is the best of the best that are that are going that are signing up for this these are are your best guys is there like who are you hoping for for that that 12th spot who should get that yeah part of me would like it to be
Kawhai Leonard cuz I think add one more like lock down Defender and just tell Kawai hey we only need you to just go out there and play defense for 10 minutes every game that’s all we need five minutes each half just go shut shut down whoever it is on the other side uh
With that they it’s still a little light on size it’s kind of bam ad and inbi so maybe one more big could get in the mix but the problem is a lot of The Bigs they’re not they’re not American born so that they’re not eligible to play um
Here well and and it depends too are you looking is Kevin Durant a four is LeBron a four like that that helps I think is yes on those yeah yeah I they’re not gonna put him on the team but that’s like that’s like where like Draymond could have been somebody but at this
Point he’s not going to play in the Olympics so yeah we we’ll see and I also have kind of no problem if they say hey let’s leave that last bot and let’s see kind of what the playoffs tell us right maybe somebody really emerges through these playoffs that is somebody we we
Should go get and grab and that so you guys can let us know in the comments who you think should get that last spot uh just keep in mind don’t say things like joic or SGA or any of those guys they have to be American not eligible they
Have to be eligible to play uh for the United States so uh you know that that could be be a lot of fun to to see where it goes I saw some people saying uh in comments I think it might even been on the athletic article like should just
Preemptively give the spot to Cooper flag um and I was like that’s going a little far he’s coming out of high school like we we don’t really need to do that uh I saw some people say just throw Zion on there just for the Highlight package of it all like that
That could be something so so we’ll see but yeah it’s it’s I mean let’s go this is you know I I wish it was more than every four years that the guys were like go like let’s let’s load up and go and for some of these guys this is very
Clearly the last one so I think KD uh Curry maybe even ad at this point like that may be it for them probably Drew holid right he’s getting up there in age two so I think for some of these guys it’s you know for curry he’s never
Done it so this is our our baby first and only chance to see him do it so let’s hope these 11 guys all get through the rest of the way healthy and are able to go play in the Summers Olympics because that would be a lot of fun you
Know there’s something too maybe a Zion like Jaylen Brunson was pretty good for te USA last year but I don’t know that they need another guard if you’ve got you got Drew holiday you’ve got halberton you’ve got Steph Curry you I guess you could argue Brun yeah you’ve
Got Booker can handle the ball as well of course LeBron can handle the ball but um I agree with you I think I think another Wing would be I mean I’m of the mindset in today’s game you can never have too many wings especially switchable wings so I think kaai does
Make some sense in that regard maybe even Paul George is another guy that you could you could look to um but another wing I think could be a good thing to add on this team and I would I think while Zion can be breathtaking can be incredibly impressive I think just based
On the makeup of this team if I was trying to make sure how do we make this as as foolproof as possible I’d be adding another Wing player to the squad same yeah I’d even consider if if like if we’re gonna do a specialist you could
Even go to a guy like herb Jones if you wanted to and say give me a Defender like I’d be fine with that sure yeah yeah just give me a a defense guy just give me a guy to go try to cool off somebody that goes on a heater from from
Another team yeah for sure it’s almost got to be somebody too who is hey you have this specific skill set and you’re probably not going to play a lot because I mean just look at that you know list is is loaded right and that that always
Is the interesting thing when you have a true dream team right it’s it’s a true team of stars who are the guys who really emerge as like these are the guys that we going to play we talked about it before with Kobe that one year Kobe took
A backseat the entire Olympics was like just gonna facilitate I’m just gonna kind of do my thing I’m kind of the old head here and then in that that championship game against Spain he was like all right I got you let’s go like
Get on my back and and I got you so it’s always fun to watch how those uh types of roles develop even going back to the original Dream Team uh people forget Michael Jordan didn’t leave the team in scoring that year Charles Barkley did and Michael Jordan was very clear
I’m not the team leader either team leaders are Larry and Magic like this is their team I’m just here to be the guy but then when they needed it it was like all right MJ you know do do your thing you’ll be MJ now they needed it like
Five minutes into the first half of each game because then then every game was completely over and one of my most favorite things from that dream team run other than there was a super cool play I think it was CU people forget they had to qualify remember they had to go
Through the tournament of Americas to even qualify and they had to go win it and it was like well they’re going to win it there was a play whereas like I think Patrick Yan got the rebound he out LED it to to Jordan who threw it to
Barkley who threw it to Magic who threw it behind the back pass to bird for a three and it was like my my I think it was 14 my like 14y old brain was broken like I was like what just happened like the ball just touched more basketball
Talent than we’ve ever seen in all human history in one possession absolutely incredible and I just remember going absolutely you know nuts because that tournament was played in Portland so those games I remember they on TNT super late at night on the east coast and I remember like screaming and
Yelling in the living room because of course it’s summer so I’m on I’m already on summer vacation my parents were like all right calm down like we have to work like why are you yelling at the TV so loud but it’s it’s just something with with those teams where it is you know
It’s it’s it just becomes like a almost uh you you are you truly are the best of the best if you step forward and shine yo and this uh you know moment and it’s even more so now because these games are not you Team USA even this team’s not
Going to just show up and just Hammer teams by 40 then maybe that’s how it ends up playing out but they’re gonna have to play like like the rest of the world’s gotten too good so it should be a lot of fun to watch all this come together yeah it’s always fascinating to
Me who like emerges like last year in during the the World Cup you had like Anthony Edwards became the guy like it’s always interesting when you have that many great players together who do they defer to right and that that kind of tells you like among the greats who’s
When they’re looking around who who are they like uh we’re kind of in trouble here you take it right and it wound up being Anthony Edwards and that was I think a sign for me that he was going to have a big step forward this year for
The the Wolves but uh it’ll be really interesting to see who steps forward with this Team USA because like like Durant LeBron even ad these guys are getting older so who kind of takes control of this of this team is Joel embiid healthy what does that look like
Because he’s already got some Buzz to kind of be like the guy on this team but we’ll see and uh I think that’s going to be really fascinating but uh but I’m excited for this Keithan I’m excited that we’re gonna have some fun basketball during a time of the year
When we normally don’t and uh it’ll help us get through that summer Dro yeah that of July post summer league month of August is is pretty dry for for basketball content so yeah I’m excited to get into and if if you look at that list and can’t get excited forget it man
Don’t y you go go watch something else because that that’s just you know I’m fired up already and it’s you know still seven month or I guess five months away from even seeing it on the floor yep yeah it’s going to be exciting going to
Be a lot of fun all right everybody make sure that you do subscribe to the NBA front office show here on YouTube follow us over on Apple podcast Spotify wherever you listen to podcast as well go check out the basketball bulletin which our substack I’ll put the link to
That in the description down below also we’ve got new written content content coming out there every single week you guys can kind of get in our basketball Minds there but thank you everybody for joining us till next time we’ll see you and stay safe
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