William Lou and Blake Murphy are joined by James Herbert to partake in a Raptors trade deadline quiz and discuss Herbert’s piece on rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama. They’re also joined by Marc Stein to look at the circumstances around Adrian Griffin getting fired as Bucks head coach and why Doc Rivers has been reportedly picked to lead Milwaukee. Finally, Michael Bartlett, CEO of Canada Basketball, looks back at the men’s team qualifying for Paris 2024 and previews the upcoming exhibition game between Canada and USA in Las Vegas at Summer League.
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0:00 – James Herbert
28:04 – Raptors Trade Deadline Quiz
49:08 – Marc Stein
1:16:31 – Michael Bartlett
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#NBA #Basketball #Raptors
Hello and welcome to the Raptor show on the sportsite radio network uh make sure you find us wherever you listen to your podcast subscribe please rate and review our show I’m Blake Murphy willu is here today but he’s down at practice right now so he’ll be joining us in uh just a
Few minutes here will is down at practice because tomorrow on the show we’ll have a one-on-one between will and Raptor head coach Darko rakovich uh if you missed the news earlier today uh Darko and his wife Gaga making a really cool announcement that they will be donating $20 for every assist the
Raptors Tal this year back to the start of the season so the ones that already happened count uh $20 for every assist the the proceeds will go to sick kids here in Toronto St Jude’s and a children’s hospital in Belgrade Serbia uh so yeah even more uh even more reason
To track this streak the Raptors are on of 25 plus assists uh today’s also the day the Raptors will will visit sick kids and variety Village in Toronto it’s kind of one of their their their biggest give back day of the year here with three days off uh on the schedule so
Make sure you’re locked in tomorrow uh for Wills one-onone with Darko he’ll join us in a little bit here couple other small notes to start us off uh yakob purle was a partial participant in practice today he only did half court stuff he hasn’t been cleared for contact
Needs to get his conditioning up uh but he’s on his way back it did sound a little like Friday’s a little too optimistic perhaps but sometime on that upcoming six-game road trip uh for sure the 905 played this morning they had 11:00 a.m. game at Paramount F Food
Center they lost 115 109 uh iffy game for most of the guys Grady dick did have a pretty clutch three but it didn’t matter in the end he had just kind of an okay night Javon Freeman Liberty with another 37p Point uh performance later in the show we’ll have Mark Stein on we
Got the news on the show yesterday that Adrien Griffin had been Let Go by the Milwaukee Bucks Doc Rivers is now reported to be uh not just the favorite to become the next head coach but he has successfully consulted himself into the head coaching job we’ll have Mark Stein
On to talk about that and more uh to two weeks here ahead of the NBA trade deadline we’ll also have Michael Bartlett a little bit later he is the CEO of Canada basketball um Canada basketball announced yesterday that as part of the ramp up for the 2024 Paris
Olympics the senior men’s team will be playing an exhibition game against Team USA in Vegas at the same time summer leagues down there um I believe there’s also going to be an announcement from Canada basketball today about some ways for fans to maybe get involved in that
Game I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be giving that away yet but we’ll talk to Michael Bartlet about that the excitement already ramping up for the 2024 Olympics the women are trying to qualify in just a couple weeks here uh as well so we can maybe aim for for a
Double Podium um there is also a lot of Buzz around that French team in addition to uh Canada and the US James Herbert outside the NBA of CBS Sports uh joins us now I guess it’s after you write a Victor wanyama and the future of French basketball piece yams
He bear is that the more appropriate pronunciation now I’ll take it uh good welcome by the way welcome back to Toronto for a bit so uh the PC wrote and we’re mostly going to talk Raptor stuff we’ve got some fun Raptor trade deadline trivia lined up we’re talk
About Bruce Brown and guys like Bruce brown but you did write this big piece of CBS sports today about and it’s called French Revolution Victor wanyama the 2024 Olympics and the huge boom that could be coming um tell me a little bit about that and you know France has
Obviously been one of the world’s basketball powers for a long time but from a fan excitement media coverage perspective this is kind of new territory for France yeah um I’ll shout out another piece I I mean I want you guys to read my piece but also if you
Want to go back and read Chris Ballard wrote a great piece in Sports Illustrated um last year about Paris basketball the team that David KH the former general manager yeah that guy um the guy who who ran the t- Wolves for a while um he is running Paris basketball
And in that piece you see this sort of dichotomy between like the the history of French basketball performed very like well on the international stage they’ve produced a ton of NBA players um actually more NBA players than any country outside from the United States and Canada and for a long time they were
Number two ahead of Canada until every year now we get to do the well Canada broke their own record thing yep yeah exactly um there’s sort of a contrast between how successful they’ve been in that regard and then how popular basketball is at home um both in terms
Of just culturally how basketball is sort of discussed how it’s covered um and the popularity of the the teams in the French league um so that like was sort of in my head from that story um and my idea was to sort of write about Victor wanyama like walking into that
Context and what that looks like and what the future might be so I talked to a bunch of people um some names that that you’ll be familiar with like like Nico Batum and Evan for and Boris Di and then some people you might not be familiar with like George Eddie the
Longtime voice of the NBA in France um who’s been calling games there since like the 80s like cover the like Dream Team the night2 Olympics and all of that and this guy like could not be more excited about when Bama like he volunteered to be the PA announcer um
For non-terrorist games when when RBI was playing there um I think he was paid I say volunteered but he approached them is my point um guys like like that there are actually Four French journalists living in San Antonio covering wanyama and I talked to two of those guys and um
Yeah there’s just a whole lot of excitement there it’s kind of a complicated picture like his former team metropolitans 9 to almost didn’t have enough money to like compete this year um but generally speaking there’s a lot of optimism within France about the growth of that French league and
Particularly about the national team and that’s that’s where the Olympics are going to be a huge deal having when be sort of the the face of that team going forward did you ask them if they would at all consider holding off being good until 2028 just because this is a real
Look Canada’s around to stay as an international power but you know let’s get the first Olympic medal going we don’t need the Home cont that already has the advantage built in already had the qualifying Advantage built in which it turns out ended up being really really important given the
Way the World Cup went um without WBY of course uh yeah if they could just like hold off till 2028 in LA to to be super competitive that’d be great yeah maybe I I didn’t do my my duty as a Canadian when I was talking to Boris Dia I should
Have just asked for a favor just don’t bring the good players um to the Olympics but I don’t think I mentioned to him that I was Canadian I did mention to some of them um and it actually it made some of the people interview sort
Of hedge a little like oh I’m not saying we’re going to be better than Canada or anything because they remember what happened right they remember they watched it yeah also like I wonder if you know you mentioned that it’s not as big their cultur are they like looking
And like hearing about sheay gilis and they’re like oh another French player that’s until you hear the Alexander part uh you you could you could be sold there um the only other question I have from this um and I recommend people head over to CBS Sports and check that story
Out did you wait did you talk to David KH for it or he’s just DAV KH he’s referenced in it he talked a lot to Chris Ballard for that story but I believe that like that story in sports illustrator is like the only time he’s talked to like a North American Outlet
Since he left the Wolves probably have they tried to naturalize Johnny Flynn as a French point guard the way Spain has Lorenzo Brown now um not that I’m aware of um but point guard is sort of a position of need for them yeah I mean
After a a long time of being really set at point guard you you age out Tony Parker n Nando D Colo is still solid but you’re you’re going to age him out you know this is probably his last yeah well there you go and and look
We’re going to to spoil something uh to spoil one of the non answers but a set up to one of the questions we’re going to do in segment two when we do a little Raptor trade deadline trivia Nando D colo’s restricted free agent rights are coming up in that segment uh so get
Ready uh for that we are now joined also by the way by William Lou who’s fresh from raptor practice hasn’t even taken his uh his Overcoat off that’s a you look good man never seen Studio from this perspec it’s it’s good to experience new things um okay what was I going to say
Um yeah you know that was a fascinating conversation what did I walk in on that you guys talking about France yeah so James had a big feature on Victor W Bama and the 20204 Olympics coming out today and how you know this is potentially going to usher in like more cultural
Relevance and popularity for basketball in France in addition to them you know getting back to being competitive at the highest levels but then David KH uh is is a part of the French basketball fabric now so I was kicking around Johnny Flynn nonsense got you how was
Practice man how was the Darko chat Darko was gay darker was great uh you will see that interview tomorrow um on uh the Raptor show we’ll be able to play the video and then just show you the chat but um no it was great to say I
Want Darko Darko is a really generous man really open and you know we talked about what you expect us to talk about Scotty Grady um RJ Barrett Emanuel quickley the next steps for them and then we talked a little bit about Darko as well you know
He’s been in the news uh talked about his meeting with Phil Jackson for example we’ll see if the Raptors run triangle offense I don’t think so but uh you know anyway yeah it’s a great chat and I appreciate Darko for taking the time I don’t think he seen my tweets so
The interview actually went well I mean look we found out with before the starting lineup change earlier in the year with that preceded the trade uhuh we got told in no on certain terms that like the co if not Darko himself the coaching staff is very aware of what the
Criticisms from show were early in the season um anyway the Raptors have lost seven of their last eight and here we are again but it’s training camp day it is training c training camp day yeah um okay so one of the changes and we’ll pivot off of the James’s great French
Basketball story because we do want to talk some some Raptor stuff current day uh before we get to the Raptor kind of historical trade deadline trivia in segment too one of the weirdest things about watching and evaluating raptor games right now is that probably the most most interesting person on the team
In the short term might only be here for the short term Bruce Brown could be gone it’s it’s two week it’s 15 days from the trade deadline he has will here’s an update on staff from the other day 22 minutes from matching Goran dragic’s entire Raptor’s career in terms of
Minutes play WoW uh already so he’ll do that Friday presumably has he surp surpass Pia yeah yeah yeah Paia only got two games in and like low 60s minutes so uh Bruce Brown’s at 68 Goran drage played 90 minutes so we’re we’re getting there so Bruce Brown is a member of the
Toronto Raptors right now James he’s someone you’ve written about a couple of times in the past coming off of the championship last year and you know you you wrote this piece for CBS Sports where all his teammates were kind of like yeah we want to Championship
Bruce’s out but like we’re so happy he’s getting paid like we like everyone knew the cap realities of why they couldn’t keep him um you can go back to 2021 and he was a big part of a PC wrad on positional Misfits guys who just like I
Don’t know how to describe this guy in the traditional five position dynamic um what do you look about Bruce Brown cuz he seems like a guy that’s come up in your pieces and and certainly your tweets and our conversations a lot over the years yeah he’s a really fun player
Um obviously from a media perspective you guys are finding out he’s really fun to talk to um but even if he sucked to talk to like he’s he’s a good player to watch like he kind of just like morphs his game to fit whatever is needed of
Him the guy he was in Brooklyn was not the guy he was in Denver was not exactly the guy he was in in Indiana um the positional Revolution piece that that you’re talking about came about um because he was being used as like a point Center like setting screens for
James Harden and sometimes Kyrie Irving and then operating in four on three um in the short roll and that sort of happened by accident man like like it basically happened because opponents would put their worst defender on him because they didn’t see him as as much
Of a threat as say Kevin Durant or James Harden um and then he would go up and set a screen to try to involve that guy in the action I think the first time it happened Trey young was was the guy who was guarding him and they’re like let’s
Go at Trey young and Trey young would go and like try to show or Blitz or whatever and then Bruce would get the ball and they were just scoring every time and there was a period of time where he was he and James Harden were
Like the best pick and roll combo in the NBA which is crazy and not something anyone would have thought when he was playing point guard in Detroit coming off the bench sort of struggling to establish himself as an NBA player um but he ended up kind of finding his
Niche that way and then people were really shocked when he went to Denver and they just made him the back the backup point guard and he did that well and Bruce was just sort of like well like this has always been my game my whole life the weird thing was when I
Was a center and now I think I’m 6’4 by way right like so the the attractive thing about Bruce Brown the reason why he’s coming up in trade rumors besides the nerdy cap stuff is that he is really really adaptable he could help any team he can guard multiple positions he’s
Always going to play hard he’s going to bring energy um he can shoot well enough which was the knock on him earlier in his career but I think he has answered that to a certain extent um he can make plays for for you he can play point
Guard but if that’s not the role then he’ll still find a way he’ll do other things he’ll go and crash the glass um he’ll set good screens and he’ll just compete so I think he’s the guy that like other players particularly Stars love having around he’s a guy that
Coaches love having around and right now the Raptors I don’t know I guess they better enjoy it while it lasts um because I don’t know how long he’s gonna he’s gonna stay here so will we did this so we had Dennis shuder on the show yesterday as we do every week and we’ll
Had him pick kind of okay who would be the starting five of teammates you’ve played with uh so you know he he he went with uh Shay Tatum Paul George LeBron ad as his five pretty good Bruce Brown’s been in the league like 10 minutes yeah
And he’s like Blake Griffin like he got the tail end of good Blake Griffin might not crack the lineup because you’ve got Harden Kyrie KD joic Tyrese halberton Jamal Murray like this guy has played with real players right away and will I wonder how much it’s only been three
Games obviously but even that first game he told us like hey yeah I had to learn how to be a cutter and a rle man in Brooklyn because who I was around in Indiana I got my shots in a really structured way even though that’s a really free flowing system with Tyrese
If you’re a support piece there you know where your shots are coming from you know where you need to be to be in the dynamic around that will what have you seen from him in terms of how that stuff yes materializes in the fact that he can
Play 25 minutes walking off a plane onto a team but also like a little bit of awkwardness so far that you don’t know where those spots are coming necessarily on a team that this team doesn’t know where the spots are coming yet yeah I think that’s the big takeaways like you
Watch the grizz’s game for example and you know as good as he looked in day one coming off uh and joining the team and unfortunately the rapt lost to Chicago but that was not because of Bruce Brown Bruce Brown was awesome and he closed the game out immediately after joining
The team basically was just walkth through to to rely on um you also saw the G’s game it’s like he doesn’t really fully know his role on the team so like there was a couple plays where he just dribbled through traffic and and threw
Up bad shots or lost the the ball I I think that’s where you know going to what Darko has been kind of talking about is like they need this time right they got two practices in today and then one tomorrow where they can kind of integrate these pieces Bruce Brown is
Really adaptable as you guys mentioned and you know you could slot him in at a different uh variety of ways that’s why one of the reasons why so many teams are going to be coveting him uh at the trade deadline we’ll speak to Mark s about
That but yeah I mean for this team in particular in here and now like what they should do for example on Friday against the Clippers like they need actual time to figure out where he’s supposed to be and for his team to figure out what he wants to do as well
But I think it speaks to his basketball IQ that he’s able to fit in so easily and um he just seems like a nice guy like we were having this chat in in the media room as you do when you’re waiting one hour to be let in um which is fine
Totally fine by the way um but you were just chatting and we’re like who’s the best interview on the team right now and I think Bruce even though he hasn’t really done that many interviews in Toronto just yet he probably is the best interview on the team cuz like you know
Unless you want to put gar Temple or that young in there like the guys that you really want to hear from that are really thoughtful and really fun to engage with like I feel like Bruce is number one in that in that ranking well enjoy it now because uh there’s going to
Be another training camp in a couple weeks when there are more pieces gone um it seems J we’re going to request Bruce Brown as well please yeah um so look it’s going to be it’s going to be fun and what you guys have described is
Someone who yeah is going to fit on any team right the on court malleability the fact that every coach and teammate loves him um you know I don’t want to run the guy out of town I love to have a Year’s worth of quotes and stuff from him is
There a SP sorry you were no I was going to say like that’s why it wouldn’t also shock me if he stayed I mean the even if you don’t care that much about the ENC Court the contract like flexibility and him as a piece in the offseason is
Really nice too exactly like if you don’t get what you want for him before the deadline it’s not a guy that you’ll be like oh like I hate having him around for the rest of the year you you keep him and you see what the offers are you
Can always trade him at draft night you trade him in the off season or like you have up until the deadline if you decide he’s not going to be a part of like the next Raptor team that is going to make the playoffs eventually right so I I
Don’t think it’s the situation where he absolutely has to go but I do think like there’ll be something of a bidding war for him now just because like what Contender could he not help a little bit well this is what I was going to ask you
And like look he can’t get traded the clippers because of their cap situation but it’s going to be really funny when the if the game is remotely close on Friday when the Clippers close with like Russell Westbrook at Center basically um and the Raptors are like yeah here’s
Brown we’ll counter with that this is now that you have no zubot it’s the one team that you can the Raptors can match up with in in grunch time yeah I would hope so because uh we don’t have a match up for Zach although yakob was moving
Well I think that’s the actual reporting aspect is because yeah I mentioned it off the top that like yeah no contact still and he’s got to get the conditioning up but um but yeah we’ll we’ll he was working out aggressively like 5 meters from the interviews so the
First half of the interview you just hear a lot of yakob grunting as he’s making floaters perfect um another teas for the interview with dark tomorrow uh James uh to put you on the spot if Bruce Brown were to be moved is there a team
That you like obviously he fits a lot of places is there a team where you’re like man that would be a lot of fun that’d be a really good fit other than Denver of course because I I think we know what that looks like yeah I mean that would
Be nice um you know now like Philly would be nice I think for him now that Philadelphia is trying to play a little bit more like Denver now that Joel embiid is trying to play a little bit more like yic in terms of the passing I think Bruce Brown’s cutting would fit in
Really well there um they have a lot of really good role players already I don’t know what their strategy is exactly but they have some contracts that they can put together I think that that is one destination at least makes sense to me um especially because the the stuff that
He did in Denver in terms of handling the ball when they needed it I think that is one thing about Philly that that people still have questions about right even though the offense has been amazing and ID has been out of this world I don’t know what words to use to describe
What he’s doing right now um there is the question of do they have enough Playmakers on on the team especially when either embiid or Maxi is on the bench that’s when maybe having another guy that can run a pick and roll and Melton right now yeah it’s a lot on De
Anthony Melton and maybe you think that Bruce isn’t like a huge upgrade on Melton but even just having two of them like yeah that that would be kind of nice yeah I mean the fact that you wouldn’t have to pretend Marcus Morris can still give you playoff minutes would
Be uh would be a nice thing as well um okay so Bruce Brown kind of the archetypal he could fit anywhere role player we saw another guy the other day who you think could become one of those guys the heir to a Tony Allen Dylan Brooks uh lineage in Memphis in Vince
Williams Jr we don’t have a ton of time left if we if we want to get to the trade deadline trivia stuff but um Vince Williams was a guy even before that game you were like this guy’s fun I would love to write about this guy in the
Future what stuck out to you or what has stuck out to you about him and there are there like are there any other guys around the league who you’re like yeah that could be a Bruce brown type not stylistically but that kind of like any
Team would love to have a guy like this in their top nine yeah I mean stylistically they’re quite different but just in terms of like the energy like how hard they play I think they are not needing the ball not you’re probably not going to be an All-Star but you’re
Always going to drive winning that kind of like in that Spirit yeah I think in that way Vince William is like pretty pretty similar um and he’s really unselfish player like when you saw in that game um he does have like some actual like stuff in his game that he’s
Only sort of recently started to show because they’ve been so like decimated by injuries like he takes Grady dick off the dribble at the end kind of bullies him late in the game but like generally speaking Memphis hustle Raptor 905 game generally speaking what you see is a guy
Who just like plays hard as hell on defense and he’s really long um he’s really physical and his shot is coming along it’s not amazing sort of like Bruce Browns but like he puts in the work you can tell the shot doesn’t look bad um and then he the the playmaking is
Is sort of getting there but he became a fan favorite right away there were people who were um some of the Memphis people I follow were like yelling about how he needed to play more earlier on in the year um and Jenkins was referencing some um games he had against like
Guarding Luca donic guarding Stephen Curry and like I watched some of those games and he is like pressuring them full court and he is getting up for that matchup and like that’s the way that I think that he reminds you of of the TA and Dylan and Grizzly’s history is that
These are guys that they they’re not just good Defenders and smart Defenders and they are that but they also like you can you can see it like they are sweating they are up yeah they are in your face um they are really trying to bother you and it does not seem like it
Would be fun to play against Vince Williams which is why it’s fun to watch Vince Williams will do you you you uh remember having players like that and young guys cutting their teeth away I I don’t mean to be too factious um he would have been such a perfect Raptor
From the like you know the the bench mob era kind of guy exactly and even after that when they were trying to get a bunch of positionist guys that that are athletic and can run and jump like he would have fit in with with that for
Sure remains perplexing to me I I think another guy who really fits this I know he’s hurt right now now but Gary pton the second like they had him with 905 and he was that he was playing Center and shooting guard in the same games and like operating out of the dunker and
Then guarding all five positions and and they were just like ah he’s not he’s a little too old he doesn’t fit the time and then Golden State’s like all right another one of my favorites my favor yeah uh will has anyone like this stuck out to you this year like it doesn’t
Have to be on the young end necessarily um you know like my answer is obviously going to be Chris Dunn um who is maybe even like he’s like inching to maybe going too high on that on that uh scale because just Utah needs him so much um
But will anyone in that vein stick out to you so far this season I love that we’re doing a Bruce Brown All-Star segment yeah yeah who’s the next Bruce Brown no because it’s like you know Zack L does that list every year the Luke Walton Allstars like this is this is the
Bruce this is the Bruce Brown Allstars um okay so in preparing for this list and you told me to prepared too um I I got one that’s fairly well known at this point but Aon neith I think with Y the uh the Pacers I don’t think he’s as
Function like positionally diverse as as like a Bruce Brown you know you can’t for example use him a small ball Center as much um even though he’s bigger than Bruce Brown technically they sometimes use him to guard centers this year well that’s that’s that’s more of Indiana’s defensive issues and they continue to
Have those issues um uh which is good for the Raptor pick by the way so I’m actually rooting against them now sorry pascow um but he’s shooting 46% from three this season now I think that was the knock coming in was like can you hit the three enough cuz you saw the
Athleticism you saw like the will to guard and things like that that’s still there he’s a great you know pesky Defender like you know they just played for example Phoenix like he’s all up in Devin Booker’s you know business and all that kind of stuff but the fact that
He’s shooting 46% from three is just huge um I think he guards up as you mentioned as well and you know he’s got that competitive aggressiveness that you kind of need because it’s his second chance right like he came in with Boston didn’t really make an impact and then
Goes to Indiana and he’s found his role he’s found his three that’s been fun that’s the that’s more wellknown because he’s played a decent amount of minutes but to uh to to steal Lewis zman’s uh whole flow Andre Jackson Jr yeah good one The Bu nice yeah a future Bruce
Brown in making potentially even much better but right now just a really flexible Defender you know really you know excellent in point of attack defense really low usage but a strong cutter he’s hit the three at a decent R too I mean he’s not getting a lot of
Shots I think that’s part of the Bruce Brown concept is like you look through his career and he’s only been like 17 18% you know usage at at the best like we’re kind of looking for these like really flexible winning contributors but who don’t need the ball a lot either and
I think Andre Jackson’s just done a good job for Milwaukee I can see him getting more and more minutes this season especially if Doc Rivers wants to make this team a lot better defensively um but yeah for a rookie he’s he’s really come on strong especially in a team
That’s like a veteran Laden team he’s finding minutes and he’s finding a roll kind of an amazing passer too and another rookie that that I had Cas Wallace in Oklahoma City I don’t want to liit him being a roer right now and he’s an incred RO
Player right now to walk in day one and do this for a great team not a good team like this is like the best team in the west by record at this point in the season um it’s it’s been amazing to watch like just from day one he’s in the
Dunker spot finishing over bigger players with the softest touch ever um just knocking down threes he doesn’t have the most gravity in the world um I I think teams are learning to respect his shot because that was sort of a knock on him coming in but he’s been
Consistent all year long making those shots and even games where he’s cold he takes him like no hesitation like he knows what his job is he’s an incredibly smart player um I did a story on him around draft time and like just talking to his old coaches and stuff like that
Was always their thing like he is just he is extremely high basketball IQ and I think to play on that Thunder team you need that and he is just he’s fit in beautifully and I think he’s like a perfect match for that for them but he also makes sense in what we’re talking
About in terms of like he could kind of play Anywhere yeah and like look I mean when you have and maybe you didn’t know jdb was going to be this yet but you have your three guys right so everyone else is going to have to be even as a
Number 10 pick like Wallace was you’re going to be challenged to find your spot around those three guys and having that kind of role malleability is really important and you know if that is going to be his role in the short term he has another guy who should be on this list
To learn from in kenri Williams who is another of that type of guy um there is also we’re running out of time for this segment so I guess we should just acknowledge and this came up last week when we had Maris well on the show and
He’s like oh yeah I pick Jose Alvarado’s brain all the time about like being a pesky point guard like half the New Orleans pel like Dyson Daniels and Herb Jones could both also be on this list so it’s just like the Pelicans have been like we’ll just get them all give us all
The all the pesky annoying guys also can I bring up someone who you disparaged horribly yesterday John conart definitely one of my favorite role players in the NBA uh I don’t know if Memphis is having a fire sale but a good team if they are should go and get
Him to be clear my criticism was not that I don’t like John conar who is you know uh one of those every year when I when we do draft stuff and I’ll run some like number filters to just like hey who might be underrated like statistically
This is how I I really love DeAnthony Melton was Jose Alvarado was actually popped up on my list because I’m like oh the steel rate and the free throw rate are crazy um you don’t need a lot of other skills to do that just naming players who I’ve written about in the
Past couple years it’s beautiful yeah we have the same Excel sheet this is the blog boy Allstar it’s not even the Bruce round Allstar anymore it’s vog boy Allstar yeah it is that um my only knock on John contra is that like he should not be winning he should not be
Embarrassing you as an entire basketball team yeah uh you know winning entire segments uh okay speaking of embarrassing as a basketball team the history of the Toronto Raptors at the trade deadline better lately but dark in the past um not only dark because there are some bad trades but dark because
There have been entire eras of just like meaningless swaps at the deadline uh this is not that deadline but we’re going to take a break and then we’re going to do uh we’re going to see how much you guys remember about the history of the Raptors at the trade deadline
Over a number of uh different eras so stick with us uh that’s next as the Raptor show continues on the sportsite radio network welcome back to the Raptor show on the sports radio network I’m Blake Murphy uh will Lou with us as well back from Raptors practice and still
Joined by James Herbert of CBS Sports Hae Herbert uh this time around as we discovered uh during the break um all right we should mention by the way one name that came up for that exercise off there is Craig Porter Jr in Cleveland who we all uh are pretty uh fond of as
Well for that type of player um the Raptors won’t trade for him at the trade deadline they have a history of trading for much less consequential players uh which is how we’re going to set this up we’re going to do a little Raptor trade deadline history trivia and I’ll give
You guys uh Jeopardy style you can kind of pick the the category you want I’ve got a few from each era uh of front office era so there’s the Isaiah Thomas era Glenn Grunwald era a very brief Wayne Embry era Brian Colangelo era Messi jier obviously Messi at this point
Makes up like more than a third of the franchise history um but a couple dead deadlines in there where they did nothing so um wow fewer questions on the early end but uh James you’re the guest I’ll give you control of the board first gotta go old school Isaiah all right um
Well this is uh if you’ve read prehistoric by Alex Wong you’re probably refreshed on uh the trades that happened in that first ever uh Raptor season so um there are technically two possible answers to this because your definition of what the trade deadline is like week
Of if it’s two weeks before the deadline you know whatever I’ll give you some flexibility here what was the first trade deadline season move in Raptor’s history um was it getting Doug Christie it was getting Doug Christie uh Victor Alexander And Willie Anderson to the New York Knicks for Doug Christie Herb
Williams and cash that’s a great trade Doug Christie who I think I knew at that time as a kid as the guy who was in the dunk contest for the Knicks who didn’t play ah which is now like requirement to be in the dunk contest you in some cases
You can’t even be in the NBA if you’re you’re M mclung uh you’re actually not allowed to be on an NBA roster uh and in there this also bring this is a good first choice because it brings us to uh something you wanted to discuss which is
And I’m not as aware of this story as as you are but at one point Doug Christie after coming to Toronto wanted out and did not get his way oh that’s not that Doug chrisy I thought you were teasing so oh there are other Doug Chris sorry
Keep going no I mean he he made a trade request that went unfulfilled for a long time like he was traded like years later for cork style it was yeah um I mean he was better than cork M even then um but this was like after you know STM had
Asked out and it was just sort of like it seemed like the franchise like it wasn’t clear what direction they were going or whatever and he said to the med like he was just honest he was like yeah I want out and like if I remember
Grenwall just said no he was just like we’re not we’re not doing that like he was not in like the last year of his contract or anything like that and you’re Doug chrisy very good player but not trade demand and like he stayed and played good basketball and people just
Sort of forgot about it like I literally was doing a a story on unfulfilled trade requests and I found that when doing research for it and I was a like Raptors fan as a child when this happened I was like 10 11 years old or whatever um but
That had completely vanished from my memory but yeah that was the thing uh the other trade at that deadline Tony massenberg Ed pigney a second and a pick swap that didn’t convey so it became another second to Philadelphia for shiron Wright which uh if you want to
Talk poor process versus where you are trading multiple picks for Chiron Wright probably not the way you want to kick off uh this is why well this isn’t why Isaiah Thomas only had a couple of trade deadlines at the helm but it it didn’t help um yeah well I mean again if you
Read the book prehistoric I can’t believe we’re still doing promos for this but like this is the second one this week I’ve got in it was really great to just see that like things don’t change that much so one of the details in there to spoil the book so you don’t
Have to buy it save you money is um yeah Isaiah Thomas and brenon Malone did not see ey to eye and Isaiah was very much like look I I want to I want to tank I want to get even worse I want to move to the productive players and the coach as
Always is like I want to win games so one of the main contentions was like we go to decide how many minutes do we play our undersized point guard uh in Damon sodar in this case and I believe to spoil the entire thing sorry Alex I know
You’re not listening uh but the game where they beat the the the Bulls which is like one of the most memorable games if not the very most memorable games of the entire inaugural season the beef after that game was like how many minutes David star played and I was
Reading that at that time because I got the manuscript last year and it was during the same time where it was like Nick nurse having to overplay Fred now of course different players Fred and and Damon but I just thought it was really funny and like the coach and the the you
Know team at odds and stuff like that so yeah things don’t change after 20 27 years or whatever it is now that was one of 16 games that year that Damon St Mario played 45 minutes or more 16 uh games OG’s gonna break that record in
New York these days um okay so that’s it for the Isaiah Thomas category it’s really only interesting the uh the first one will you I’ll I’ll give you the board here even though you got it right I’m butchering the Jeopardy rules uh so you can go Glenn Grunwald you can go
Wayne Embry you can go kangela or you can go M let’s go Brian Colangelo I miss Brian Colangelo man all right um in 2007 he made a small move at the trade deadline and then and then at 2008 he made another small move at the trade deadline both of those trades involved
Juan Dixon and cash yes who were on either end so he Trad someone for Juan Dixon and then next year at the deadline trades Juan Dixon for someone else who are the players on the answer was gonna be Juan Dixon because yes I remember him joining the team but who did the Raptors
Actually give up huh or trade him for was Primos breich one of the options he was on the back end they acquired Primos after they were like now one year of Juan Dixon and the NCAA video game cover is enough we had Primo pasta and sauce
And we had primo breich and sawu so wow what a team that was um who did the Raptors get rid of though I former Dunk Contest participant know Fred Jones oh wow okay I mean I remember getting pretty excited just CU I felt like that team needed another scorer I think um I
Mean that was already like for me when I first came into Raptor Phantom around like 2004 is like that team was like everything it was so exciting watching that team and like I mean they flamed out in the first round or whatever but I was so proud of that team and I thought
Juan Dixon was gonna help and he just did not no uh James any any thoughts on on this one the uh I don’t know there are just so many one for one one little one for one deals like that it’s like man we get so excited for the trade deadline
And then it’s uh it’s Primos breich I yeah I don’t know I I remember breich was like a like pregame shoot around like Allstar like you would watch him and he’s enormous and he’s just draining threes and this is back in the time where like most seven-footers were
Not doing that I just I was like this guy’s incredible then you watch him play like this guy’s not incredible he was not he was extremely uh slender for 7 foot2 uh there’s a reason he was out on that am I misremembering that he also wanted people to say that he was
Gangster or something like that he the way I remember it is like how he in part learned English was like through hip-hop culture and St like that and being around Bas I think rashed wall when he was in Detroit started calling him gangster and then that his nickname
Started became the gangster talk to Doug about it talk to Doug Smith okay because he would always write about like the gangster nice the gangster um you want to stay in Colangelo here you want to go elsewhere sure stick around all right uh speaking of things that uh never really
Mattered at all uh so 2009 this is the year after that they do a much bigger deal Jamario Moon Germaine O’Neal a first and a second to the heat for Shawn Maran Marcus Banks and cash mhm the Raptors would get back eventually the first they traded in that deal how and
Who was it oh my I have absolutely no idea I know who it was it was JB uh how get the first back it was the sign and trade with Chris B to Miami that was not that was not trade deadline yeah yeah not trade deadline but it’s
Related because it’s the first they gave up at the deadline that’s what I’m trying to do with yakob yeah trying to get your pick back uh credit receip I have the receipt I know it’s past the 30 days uh so yeah the first round pick
They gave up in that trade was uh they got it back at the Chris Boss giant trade it became yonas Valen chunis also that deadline sub question here they traded a second round pick that never conveyed for a very irrelevant Irish sounding big man who was not Irish there
You go there you go wow P yeah po what was cangal cooking with some of these moves cuz I feel like because you know sometimes if you’re a bad chess player like you can only see like one or two moves ahead like he’s just like I’m
Going to Castle and then I’m going to get my Rook out there and I’m maybe like check him one time like it’s not like a grand like I can see the king get him yeah it’s it’s very much exactly like that so I think the the J J O’Neal trade
Was like let’s clear up cap room so that we have because I think Shawn Mar’s contract was expiring one year earlier and then we have Capa room and then go get hedo turo and it’s like dude like what what are we doing here like we got
To have a we got have a long-term strategy not just you know anyway okay this next question is a team one you guys are going to do it together all right let’s do it so 2011 we’re fast forward a couple years here still in the cangel era the Raptors trade a first-
Round pick that would eventually become Norris SK to the Chicago Bulls for James Johnson James Johnson is one of 10 players to have two stints with the Raptors oh wow can you guys name the other nine James you’re GNA have to two stints with the Raptors they had to have
Actually played game for wow like did Antonio Davis play in a game any did he did okay all right there’s one blank on two technically because uh you’ve got James Johnson uh one of them will just made a joke yob yob obviously yeah he’s still oh um Tracy Murray Tracy Murray
Did yeah yes uh man I two very well-liked like 10day slend of season guys that eventually came back raay for Alon Ray for Alon pops men aansu pops that’s a complete man wow um so you’ve got four more naming some Legends here I one of them you should you should get
Because uh Colangelo a a draft pick who’s still kicking around the league Colangelo ER draft pick stilling around the league two stints with the Raptors who didel draft this should be obvious to us second round pick didn’t work out oh PJ Tucker PJ Tucker Oh yes I
Forgot that he was drafted here yeah that’s an obious that was like the most obvious one in the list we didn’t get it okay I mean yakob literally lit saw yob uh there are three left yeah um man give us like a year like an era I
Mean we are in the cangel ER era they’re not they’re not the answers aren’t uh Al cangel era but one of these players is uh he had a little stop in Indiana in between yeah struggling a center a center big white dude Jeff Foster he didn’t play twice nope who were the
White centers that came to Toronto I mean Greg Foster not Jeff Foster but anyway you know what I’m talking about but neither Foster is the correct um I mean yeah HB I mean he only played one was only one okay I’m going to give it
To you yeah for the sake of the say rash aich oh yep oh my God that one pretty easy that one yeah he he played two years here went to Indie for a year played one more year here uh the other two on the list are Macio Bastian and
Oliver Miller okay yeah I would have those yeah when did Oliver Miller come back he came back uh at some oh he left so he was here in 95 96 got traded to Dallas came back the very next year oh okay yeah that makes sense um he came
Back weighing the four five yeah zero um because Dallas cut him and uh yeah anyway uh player though not the sexiest yeah yeah seriously uh apparently Derrik bro our board up had Oliver Miller he was all over this man was just upstairs screaming Oliver Miller Oliver he was uh he was all over
It um better man than us wow I didn’t know I didn’t know your game I’m sorry I actually didn’t um all right uh where do you guys oh so okay we’ll scrap that one’s too hard there’s one that’s way too hard in here um okay the Raptors traded some future second round pick
That eventually years and years later ended up on their summer league team in 2019 but he didn’t actually play because he got hurt it was didn’t play in the summer league team no yeah the the pick that became Jamal Franklin is in here somewhere and then like five years later
They’re uh okay so let’s go to we we’ve got the Glenn Grunwald era we’ve got the Wayne Ambry era and we’ve got the Messiah era where do you guys want to go next I I I don’t care who picks you’re the guest Messi all right let’s do it um
So Messi’s first three trade deadlines he made only one move oh yeah what was it Austin day for Nana D Cola half for mention first year I remember yeah the sub question here though oh in the yuiri era so that happened in 2014 that trade yeah Nando DEA finishes out the year
They held on to his rights and restricted free agency for almost nine years what trade required them to finally renounce the rights to Nando D Colo because they needed the cap I remember you being very excited about this specifically but I was very upset um yes
But you know what I mean um it has to be recent like the last two off Seasons yeah it does have to be recent um wow this is basically do you read Blake Murphy’s tweets and the answer is no definitively I do but I can’t like the
Amount of times this man has tweeted about n familiar with game was it this past offseason or the off give give us a was last year’s trade it was the oh it was the yak put them in there pardon why uh they needed to create cap space to operate as a cap
Space team for part of the trade okay all right little cap nonsense but it’s part if you’ve ever wondered why I never shut up about how I didn’t like the value in the yaka purle deal the real reason is cu Rando to Colo I’ve seen Bobby wer tease you about this in real
Life so yeah um okay so Sub sub question on the yakob trade from last year they gave up a first that is top six protected this year a 2025 second round pick and a second round pick that conveyed uh this past year who did the Spurs select with
It oh City Soko there you go wow City Soka yeah I’m surprised he dropped to the second round but then again I feel like offensively he doesn’t have much to offer right now so yeah but basketball content yeah there we go um okay so um in 2021 the Raptors made made three
Trade deadline trades yeah they traded Norman Powell for rodne hood and Gary Trent Jr yep they also traded Matt Thomas and Terence Davis separately for second round picks who did those second round picks become Delano and David Johnson at 46 and 47 I believe there you go yeah 45
Express yeah the shame the pixart 45 and 46 I would have been great if it was 45 he took they took the Martin Grove instead of the Kipling geez sorry it’s like literally where I grew up so um that’s why the’s so close to me we’re
Going to use this as a pivot to the Glenn Grunwald era part of the board so that’s the Gary Trent Jr trade in what trade did the Raptors acquire Gary Trent Senor oh uh was it the Damon sire trade it was the Damon sodm trade in 1998 Damon sodm Walt Williams and Carlos
Rogers for Kenny Anderson Gary Trent Senor two firsts a second and one of our colleagues Alvin Alvin William oh yeah that’s right yeah you know actually Gary actually came on the show as he as he does pretty much annually basically Gary TR will come in with the mink and yeah
He remember you know teasing Alvin a little bit you know coming through together and I think there was a story told where like somebody got injured like warming up against each other or something evolving Alvin I don’t know this is like 20 years Alvin’s just being
A dog he’s trying to make it on the Bruce Brown allars Alvin would have been a Bruce Brown Allstar back in the day okay here’s a depressing one so the two aren’t depressing enough damn that our Deb before Mark that completed the championship okay so they as part of
That deal they they picked up um two first round picks they would turn around and trade both of those picks along with Roy Rogers for who like right then at the same shortly after not immediately not something a team that just sold Damon stod should be turning
Around and trading two first round picks for a guy bordering on his 50s if that’s a hint for you on his 50s yeah he was at one point by far the oldest player in the NBA wasn’t Alvin Robertson because he’s already been gone oh John Long Kevin Willis oh yeah okay
Two first for Kevin Willis when you’re just traded your future of the franchise I’m grateful I wasn’t a fan at that time yeah you were just a little baby I wasn’t thinking been required to get John long okay uh here is a bizarre one from the Glen gronwald era uh bear with me
Because this is going to take a bit to explain so in 2001 they traded away Mugsy boges and Mark Jackson uh to the Knicks for Chris Childs uh a first and and then they traded Tyrone Corbin Corin David and corus Williamson and a first to Detroit for Eric montros and Jerome
Williams so a lot going on in here the first they would eventually uh trade as well um in the Kareem Rush Chris Jeff trade they picked up a second in that deal though and it is the second that has stuck with me for a long time because it’s the second with which they
Passed on Carl English to select Ramone Vare Ramone vanare the other first in that deal by the way became Fran Vasquez the or the draft rights to Fran Vasquez the same I love that podcast sorry the team the same team currently still holds the rights to Ramone vanair 2003 and
Fran Vasquez 2005 what team holds their rights no man just this is an insane person question there’s no way not either of us know this let’s just say Spurs or something do Orlando Magic still have friend vasquez’s rights and at some point picked up Ramon Van’s rights obviously
Orlando had vanan vasquez’s for this man must move them at some point but I guess not if they move them they got them back uh quickly we’ve only got about two minutes left in the segment there is a Wayne Embry era on the board okay yeah
Let’s do it let’s do it so Wayne Embry bridged between um between Rob Babcock and Brian Colangelo he handled the deadline in 2006 and made two deals do you remember what they were so this is after the Vince Carter trade has already happened at the deadline that year they made two
Smaller deals one of them was the Antonio Davis Jaylen Rose one right yes they attached the first to get out of Jaylen Rose’s money uh that first became Ronaldo Bachmann and they took Antonio Davis back in it um the other one was very pointless that’s all I got dude I I
Mean I I was a fan at that time but I don’t remember that all I knew the Jaylen Rose part but nice piece of work here they got two seconds for Aaron Williams oh nice I I did enjoy for a stretch there that the Raptors had three
Williams on the team like three out of 15 players were all named Williams and it was yeah it was it was a bit absurd to be honest I mean they’re on their way with Porters now they just got yeah they just got to get Craig Porter Jr and then
We’re good we assembled the porter uh Allstars I suppose can’t believe I threw the Jamal Franklin thing in here what a stupid thing to include wow there are other good trade deadline moves you know like um J the what the year we got Serge and PJ was fun all right rapid fire here
Uh cuz we’ve only got like a minute left um who did the Raptors give up in 2013 for Sebastian Telfair what for Telfair yeah they got Sebastian Telfair 2013 did they give up dude that’s such an obscure thing never played for the team no this
Was like they had picked him up in the Rudy Gay trade who else did they pick up in the Rudy Gay trade no this is killing me man no hammad hadadi he was a raptor wow he was acquired as part of the Rudy Gay trade and then they were like well find
A new home for you uh they attached a second a second round pick to him that became Lamar Patterson for Sebastian tare um man what great memories of raptor trade deadlines past let’s hope uh I don’t know this year’s version of Austin day Fernando D Colo who’s uh
Who’s someone with restricted free agent rights we can uh we can go after here yeah this one’s going to be very difficult to do but um James Herbert appreciate you games Herbert we’ve come on and then another game no more drafts today at least we can still do another
Draft down the road okay you know what after Bruce Brown gets traded maybe we’ll call you for a Bruce brown type of draft oh yeah it’s be the most obscure radio that we do on the show but appreciate you and uh yeah we’re going to take this break been your host will
You’ve been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio Network welcome back to the Raptor show on the sportset radio network I’m your host Wu Blake Murphy co-host holding it down hour one and uh yeah big thanks to James Herbert of CBS sports for joining us for Segment three we have Mark Stein on the line once again Mark exciting day
In the NBA yesterday um a coach at 303 uh for the Milwaukee Bucks gets dismissed Adrien Griffin um he is been sent packing uh there was some confusion at least overnight in terms of you know was Doc Rivers officially going to take over and whatever but seems to be uh
Become official now but uh yeah I wanted to ask you at first you know what was the issue um and sort of what were the circumstances that led to the Bucks deciding to make this dramatic move and letting go of adri Griffin who they had just hired in an extensive coaching
Search process uh this past summer well let’s be honest there’s been issues since Halloween I mean that’s where I think you know there’s been no shortage of Rumblings of discontent going back before Halloween when Harry STS one of the most respected names in NBA coaching abruptly leaves the staff
That was kind of the first signal that things were a myth and it’s you know yes the record is 30 and 13 which it’s the best inseason record for a coach that’s for a team that’s made a coaching change Midstream since what we saw happen with Cleveland and David blat almost eight
Years ago exactly but I think it’s been nonstop Rocky with the Bucks pretty much from the jump and my sense is I think you guys have been following along because I know you guys read me closely which I greatly appreciate you know Chris Haynes and I
On our podcast we our last podcast we talked a lot about how the bucks even though they’re shy on trade assets have really been trying to find a way into the dejonte Murray mix and even if that’s unrealistic the Bucks are trying to make something happened trade-wise because things were not going
Well and I think they just came to the conclusion that for all the shock this is going to cause as seemingly unusual as it would be to make a coaching change this quickly with Doc Rivers available to be hired that’s the biggest change that they can make on the
Fly that’s probably the most impactful and you know it’s the old cliche it’s just easier to change the coach than change the players and I think that does factor in here as well they could go out you know there’s there’s no another one of those maxims that we always threw out
There’s no free agency and there’s no salary cap in coaching so they’re now going to be paying free coaches but they felt like Doc Rivers was there and they had to go get him so Mark you mentioned that this has been brewing since Halloween which is a really amusing
Phrasing to me because it makes it feel like something weird happened at the Halloween party and like it just no one could recover from it but this has been like you said this is like game four of the season we the Bucks were in town the Raptors like they just hammered them and
This is obviously not a very good Raptor team and wasn’t at the time yet and from that moment and talking to people around the Bucks there was confusion about you know what was the defensive scheme why was that the defensive scheme where were people getting their shots um so this
Seemed like it wasn’t going to work very early on how big an indictment uh is this on the coaching process the coaching search process that they went through because I know that like yeah things changed you didn’t think you were going to be able to get Damen Lillard
Necessarily when you made the Adrien Griffin hire but even if you thought you were looking at a bit wider of a window here and you could take the lumps of a rookie head coach you still have Giannis and TMO Brook Lopez Chris Middleton at that point Drew holiday you are firmly
In a win now mode so I can’t imagine that much of what was being asked of Adrien Griffin changed after that trade how big a problem is it for the bucks that they botch this one after moving away from a coach and I know they got Yannis to sign the extension so maybe
That makes it all worthwhile but it really does seem like they put a lot into this coaching surge it took them a long time to move off of buer and they botched it yeah no question but like you just said even so they have gotten Giannis to sign the contract extension
So that’s where another you know another popular topic is was the Damen Lillard trade The Right Move these guys maybe aren’t meshing as well as anticipated they lost through holiday in the process but if that trade ultimately leads to Jana signing a contract extension and if this botch process okay if they can
Rebound from it now and they have a top level coach in place yes they got there very clunkily but there is a pathway now to potentially turn this thing around but look I think the most important aspect of this whole story and I wrote about it at length on my substack
Yesterday I hope you guys checked it out what I was told you know we’ve heard for months we’ve heard since May that Adrien Griffin was the preferred choice of Giannis on T aopo but as the Bucks continued to struggle more recently that was described to me
As more that he did not want to play for Nick nurse and there was sentiment within the Bucks organization that nurse should be the next coach and when you see what’s going on in Philadelphia with the impact that Nick has had on the the Sixers and Joel embiid specifically
That’s really where I think the microscope is going you know the mic that’s where the microscope would have lingered if the Bucks couldn’t turn around now and bring in Doc Rivers but I don’t think that story and that question is going to go away because the Bucks
Really did have the ability I you know I think they had the chance to hire Nick before Philadelphia did and you have to wonder how much they regret that do we have a sense of why maybe Giannis wasn’t as enamored with that um you know obviously Nick left Toronto with certain
Criticisms of him but the the playoff and the Tactical side of things was was pretty unimpeachable here and looks that way in Philadelphia um do do we have a sense of why that wasn’t a fit in giannis’s estimation I still have to do more reporting there to nail that down but I
Feel you know obviously you guys saw what I reported yesterday and that’s that’s as far as I can take it at this point but that has been stressed to me that that was really the Crux of it that for whatever reason Giannis decided to Champion Griffin because that was the
Direction he wanted Milwaukee to go rather than hire Nick nurse and again is that a mistake that the franchise cannot recover from not necessarily because again as messy as it’s been and as much of a eyes sour this whole thing is going to be because it does look terrible that
You Adrien Griffin with a record of 30 and 13 the second best record we’ve seen of a coach to lose his job in season in league history it looks terrible so they’re going to have to answer the questions for it but if this thing all turns around and if the Bucks are headed
In a better Direction Come playoff time people will get over it rather quickly but Doc Rivers also can’t change the roster the fundamental defensive issues that the Bucks have post Drew holay holid are still there and it’ll be a huge challenge for him to address that yeah
And I think this is interesting too because it’s you’re hiring him straight from him doing a lot of media in in this case calling some bucks games talking about the bucks on various programs so you actually got a really good sense of what he would want to do or you know
What the ceiling of this Bucks team is for example he was just on you know he you’ve been doing recurring hits on Bill simmons’ show and you got a real sense of what he wants to do in milwa yeah you say things like hey this team
Could use like a real Doc Rivers type at the helm no but it sounds salacious you know what I mean when when you when you mention it like that because of course it’s been revealed in the course of this uh you know dismissal and also the
Hiring of Doc that you know he was advising uh the Bucks in part in this process Mark was there something really salacious going on because I think people are very easily Connecting the Dots here about doc kind of like engineering way to get to Milwaukee I’m going to say no and the
Reason is you know I I feel like I know doc pretty well and obviously I think I have a fairly decent handle on the way things work at esvn and I don’t by all accounts and everyone I’ve talked to think doc was really enjoying the broadcasting life and I don’t know that
He was in a huge rush to come back now and you know my sense is the Bucks I’m sure they’ve made it worth his while fin I let’s not get ourselves we know that NBA coaching money can be fantastic especially at the top end of it but I
Don’t think there was any question that Doc Rivers was gonna coach again but my sense is he really did he was enjoying this life with you know calling games and a lot of golf I mean he you know obviously the way things ended in Philadelphia were rough and you know he
Endured a lot of criticism for the Sixers playoff shortcoming so I I mean you know to me there’s a the larger question and you know I don’t know that everybody want to get involved in a in a journalism oneon-one class why Network you know and I would say the
Same thing about TNT when any when whenever someone there is like if you’re on the media side don’t work with an NBA team don’t be an advis an adviser for an NBA team when you’re working for a broadcast network that shouldn’t happen you know that to me is the part that I
Would question but I don’t feel like this was Doc Rivers you know working desperately behind the scenes to get this job which is uh you know that that’s a little better certainly it’s the Optics are what they are and but uh I guess the the other big question here
Mark is why Doc Rivers and we know that they had enough trust in him to be a consultant uh earlier than this part in the process we obviously no doc has a very long resume um a lot of respect around the league but the criticisms of Doc have also been similar criticisms to
Why the Bucks moved on for Mike booser in terms of the playoff inflexibility or kind of hitting the the cap of that second round with the one exception of the Celtics um back in the day now maybe that’s been unfair for Doc to to carry around because it’s a it’s a shared
Thing um there’s also the matter of this part of the Season there are only so many coaches available but why in your read of this did they think Doc is the right person to get the most out of the Giannis and Dame pairing to to write the
Ship here and get a very good Bucks team from very good regular season team back to Championship Contender because Adrien Griff fair or not to him I think as a firsttime coach struggled for player buyin from the beginning and Doc Rivers is going to get player buying from the beginning and I
Still believe that that is the look no let me rephrase that the most important thing about when you’re an NBA coach is your talent that is the most important thing but the second most most important thing is player buying and to me I’m sorry you know X’s and O’s and tactics
And you know supposed basketball Acumen is a distant surge so uh you know first of all Doc Rivers knows you know is he knows what he’s doing and he has to take the criticism the playoff loss the game seven losses are there the playoff losses are there and that’s criticism he
Has to absorb there’s no getting around it but player buying is one of the hardest things to achieve as a coach and he will get that he will get these guys on the same page and they have they’ve been all over the place even with that 30 and 13
Record and so to me that’s it’s it’s clear why there’s no available coach who could walk into that room and immediately have the Buy in of pretty much everyone and I have no doubt that Doc Rivers will establish that very quickly M okay well since we’re on the
Subject of Milwaukee you had also mentioned in your uh previous column before last night’s breaking news that um the Bucks are also trying to get their way into the dejonte Murray sweep stakes and uh the other you know options there are the Lakers for example but yeah tell us about the Buck’s interest
In in in Murray and how does that even work for them do they how do they even get a deal like that that’s I don’t want I don’t want to take credit for that because it all comes from my podcast partner Chris Haynes he’s the one who
Reported it last Friday I to me the headlin from it is it just shows how much pressure the Bucks are already feeling even after making the Lillard trade even after Giannis agreeing to a three-year contract extension the Bucks are looking at every roster improving option they can find halfway through the season and
So to me that really was the headline it just tells you the desperation that this franchise is is already stealing with a record that you know 25 other teams would love to have and then the very you know and then very swiftly after that that emerges that they would love to get
Into the mix for dejon Murray they make a coaching change which I think just slams home the desperation even more the reality is the Bucks have very limited trade assets so if Atlanta is holding firm if Atlanta really wants two first for Deon Murray I don’t see how the Bucks can
Manufacture two firsts but John horse is pretty good so let’s see let’s see what he can come up with they’re gonna do something so when it comes I don’t think coaching change is the only move we’re going to see from the Bucks between now and the trade
Deadline when it comes to the dejonte Murray uh market and if that’s you know if that’s what’s out there that that they the Hawks want to First and they’re not moving off of that um do you think we learned more about that market from from the heat kind of I I guess pulling
Out of that if they to the extent that they were ever in it and trading a single Lottery protected first along with Kyle Low’s contract for Terry Rosier this week like those are obviously there aren’t going to be that many starting caliber point guards on the market did you tie a line between
The Rosier trade and what Marie’s Market could or or might look like I just think that’s such a good move for Miami to you do something in the short term you give this team you give this season team a boost and you don’t really impact your
Ability to go out and you know and I’ve written about their interest in Donovan Mitchell I mean I think everybody knows that whether it’s Donovan Mitchell in the future or some other you know Donovan Mitchell underlined this Donovan Mitchell is not available right now there is no quote Star level player in
Play for Miami or the Knicks or anyone else right now by all accounts at this point as we speak at whatever time it is on January 24th so I like the move for Miami because they’ve upgraded in the short term and it shouldn’t affect their ability to
Go after that next star whenever that next star becomes available so really like it for the heat I look I just don’t know if the Hawks can get two first for dejonte Murray right now I mean the you know the Lakers I reported the other day the
Lakers to this point have had the most substantive conversations with Atlanta on Murray but look we know the Lakers do not want Austin Reeves anywhere near that trade he’s off limit in any kind of Murray scenario so the Lakers really only have one first to work with and the
Hawks by all accounts don’t want D’Angelo Russell so the Lakers would need a third team to make such a deal work I don’t know if that’s possible even as well as D’Angelo Russell is suddenly playing so but look we got we got two weeks and change so I mean
Things can certainly change yeah no doubt but that that’s that what’s interesting because d’el Russell is hooping right now but uh you know I I think it says something too that the Lakers want to get that upgrade done could be because the Lakers have also been linked to for example Zack LaVine
And as you described in your in your recent piece like it’s hard creating any sort of a market for a player who is still quality is still in his 20s like he’s 28 years old it’s not like he’s the oldest guy or anything like that but
It’s just hard to move a player with that much money left on their deal and I think from the Toronto side cuz this obviously a raptor show like I do Wonder it’s like is that part of the reason why the Raptors for reticon to to retain
Pascal because a lot of thinking from us here was like well if he doesn’t want to move if he doesn’t want to leave maybe you sign to an extension and then you have more team control to trade him on if if you trade him down the line but
Seems like it’s pretty hard to trade even a 28y old All-Star like Zack LaVine because of the money left on his deal yeah and when you have if when we’re talking potential Landing spots where the team already has two Max guys it becomes even tougher right right the reason why
Indiana had such an advantage in the sweep Stakes for SE yakum is because they only have one Max guy and they know that in free agency they’re not really a destination so they get to make this move get Pascal’s bird rights now now they can resign him at a high number
Without having to renounce anyone I mean for the p it just it was you know there were so many positives but there were very few there there are very few teams you know most teams already have a tum that they’re paying a lot and so you
Know that’s why the you know I just I’ve never bought the Lakers as a LaVine estimation even though he would help them immensely in terms of what they’re lacking offensively but like you want a $215 million third option do you want to you know there are you know Kyle Lowry
Everyone thinks is going to get bought out I think there’s a list of seven teams right now that can’t even sign Kyle Lowry if he hits the buyout Market because they’re a first a first or second apron team and so this buyout market is when it’s really people are
Really going to start to see the impact of the new CBA landscape when you know these power teams that were so used to dominating the buyout market like they’re not going to be able to bid for a Kyle Lowry or theoretically Gordon Hayward if he becomes available via
Buyout and I I think that it’s really going to start to sink in then this new landscape that we live in is that something that could potentially make say a Bruce Brown more valuable I I know that you know there’s still 22 million you still got to make that cap math work
But a shorter deal the flexibility of having a team option on the back end of that something that you could either decline for for the flexibility or or pick up and that is maneuverable uh again in the future again to make everything about the Toronto Raptors um
Yeah what how do you what what sense do you get it was very smart of Toronto to get Bruce Brown for that exact reason because people you know what you know when the when the trade with seaka went down you know half of the discussion is
Did the Raptors get enough for seum we might have to judge that differently after we see what they can get for Bruce Brown yeah well I guess that’s going to be the uh that’s going to be the question we’re going to be asking everybody who can we get for Bruce Brown
Who can get for Gary Trent you know Dennis shooter if there’s a market there Chris bu cuz like yeah the Raptors have officially moved in that direction where you know it’s not like everybody they got to move but you know I’m sure they’ll be making calls and these are
Smaller type of salaries they can be involved in three team trades and uh yeah I mean I expect their phones to be busy because the Raptors have officially moved in that seller mode and uh we will see how that goes for the team um Mark I
Appreciate you we’ve taken out a lot of your time um and uh yeah appreciate you joining us on the show once again be good Jens talk next week Mark Stein yeah substack Mark dude he’s got lots of great stuff in indispensable all the time but especially this time of year like we’re
Talking tra like daily trade deadline update stuff and then also by the way Doc Rivers is replacing Adrien Griffin no I mean it’s it’s funny because like from a media perspective us telling people to like you know get to Mark Stein stuff it’s like it’s like us being
Like yo you know who was a problem back in the day Tracy McGrady was a problem he was a bucket it’s like yeah everyone knows that you know what I mean like Mark’s been like an industry standard for a long time so I appreciate him
Joining us uh you can get more of the details there on uh all those transactions and and yeah I mean you know do you expect Toronto to be at least like maybe not like directly one for one outside of Bruce but can they move some pieces around just to sort of
Be part of three team trades potentially or yeah I I think so and this is like look this is part of the complication of now having five players on your roster who can’t be aggregated together so any of the guys that they and what I mean by
That is like you can trade Bruce brown but you can’t take his 22 million add it to Jordan War’s 3 million add it to you know RJ’s contract or whatever and add and like multiply that in trade the way the trade rules work but you could trade them all individually you could trade
Them in multi-team Deals multi-team Deals also allow you the flexibility to like so this is like a a a weird wrinkle of the CBA but like if you and I make a trade okay we don’t have to structure that the same way if it benefits us to
Do it differently like so for example in in the uh in the Indiana trade the Raptors actually took Jordan War into the precious atua trade exception in a separate thing so that they could create a larger trade exception with the pcal Bruce Brown part of the deal so there’s
A lot of wiggle room for stuff like that and it can you can really get your way into deals when you have a lot of the mid-tier salaries like you know Bruce Brown’s 22 Chris bue is a little under 12 Dennis shuder is a little over 12
Even someone like um that and auto who who make six and eight and six respectively G’s expiring at 18 yeah like like you you aren’t going to get a ton of assets back for being a facilitator in a multi-team trade but it really does help you it does it’s just
Give you opportunity um it’s also worth noting that the the net product of these trades is that the Raptors have about $9 million in wiggle room beneath the luxury tax line so if they need to if they need to help out in one of these trades and say hey Bruce Brown’s going
Somewhere and a team would really like to get off a $30 million contract for that $22 million contract because they need to get out of the tax like Kyro lewis’ inclusion in the Pelicans Pacers Raptors trade was so the Pelicans could get out of the tax and they paid the
Pacers a second round pick to take Kyra Lewis and then they turn around and make Kyro Lewis part of the trade like the P got a free second out of that out of the cap machinations there when you’re $9 million under luxury tax and you have a
Bunch of these salaries that could be potential filler it’s not going to be the sexiest trade but if you can pick up a decent second you know something like that like a player that you get a look at ahead another guy to throw in the
Rotation get a look at ahead of RFA you know who knows maybe you even something as small as like hey it lets you throw jayen Jaylen McDaniels in a trade and that $4 and a half million dollars for next year that I think you’d probably
Like a reset on you’re free of it like little things like that that aren’t good headline items but when you look at what the 2024 start of offseason Outlook is going to look like they will make a difference yeah and I think I mean this is
The super high end of something that you mentioned like that but like didn’t mide back in the day like he he just jumped into that Dwight Howard trade and he got Andre godal out of it flipping Aon flalo to Orlando yeah you know and like this
Is different I used to be jealous of throwing Aon alalo in a in a trade to pick up an ass I am jealous because you get Andre Gala in this kind of context because he was actually great for the nuggets and like look I know people get
Tired of the Raptors you know or us trying to explain and it’s not just it’s not saying we agree with the moves but you you do part as part of this job try to put yourself in their shoes and try to figure out what they’re thinking and
A lot of it over the last couple years it’s been flexibility flexibility flexibility and you know the clock was running out on the flexibility of trade or resign Pascal trade or resign OG but the flexibility of you’ve got a pretty clean cap sheet you could be a cap space
Player you could also turn around and rent that cap space out like that was part of how the Thunder built up the asset chest that they have is like we just always have cap space and if you need to unload do bons you know Derek favors get get over here yeah yeah and
Like give us picks for it because and so part of Mark’s talking about is this new CBA environment where not only is the the luxury tax as you get into the second apron are more and more they cost you more and more in actual dollars they’re also going to start costing you
More and more in terms of what moves you’re allowed to make to continue to build your rostra like the Clippers are not going to be able to do anything next year in terms of building the roster so teams will eventually need to like especially in the one to two years here
Where everyone figures out the D Dynamic and what that looks like there might be a window here where like having cap flexibility having some of these movable contracts even if it’s an unsexy trade that doesn’t really do anything for you right like it’s not making your 2K team
Better it’s not uh it’s not even necessarily making what you can do this summer better but it sets you up in a better asset position for the longer term for the the two to threee window you’re looking at here all that stuff’s possible now that’s not it’s not going
To keep anyone warm at night but it’s better to have that stuff than not flexibility doesn’t keep you warm at night I mean the only thing is aside from the flexibility the extra assets I would if at all possible like to see the Raptors bring some more bigs into the
Developmental pipeline it’s really unfortunate what happened Christian Koko it’s been reported now what happened to him uh but you know that was the guy that I thought that the Raptors could at least try to move forward with um you know putting aside the medical condition
And so I think yeah I mean you see it right now with yakob getting injured it’s like the drop off is is tremendous right Jon only joined the team recently get some more bigs into the program um so that it the drop off isn’t as Steep and of course like yeah
Longterm wise you know you have other pieces and who knows it doesn’t have to be addressed at the trade deadline you can also do it in for agency maybe throw a bag at Nick Claxton for example to see how that goes um but yeah just came up
At the deadline that’s a that’s a little humble request just get some more bigs because you know look I know we complain about Vision 69 but damn we we got Vision 63 right now with a lot of closing lineups outside of Scotty I’m tired of looking at people almost eye to
Eye get back to me not being able to look at anyone except for Fred yeah all right well uh we’re going to take this last break I’ve been your host will you’ve been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio network when we come back let’s talk about can
The basketball welcome back to the Raptor show on the sportset radio network I’m your host swil joined by co-host Blake Murphy and for the final segment today as promised before the break let’s talk some Canada basketball with Michael Bartlett CEO of Canada basketball this isn’t a ski hill what I
I was told you were in Geneva this is what’s going on it’s not even an AA ski environment yeah definitely no aisi today long day of FBA meetings I need an AI after that actually uh in seriousness so you are in Geneva for these FBA meetings um to the
Extent that you can tell us like what are these like what’s going on at these um I’d imagine it’s Peak Olympic set up time now but but how do these meetings go yeah I um I put my hand up to join a competition like the competitions commission um coming out of the World
Cup last year so you know we’ve got myself on the women’s um national team competitions commission kathern plof is now on the 3X3 competitions commission you know we have to as we continue to rise in the Global Basketball rankings we got to make sure that we’re at tables
So that our voices are heard we’re shaping some formats for what future tournaments look like the way that decisions are going to be made qualification points you know even one of the big topics that we’ve got in the The Women’s National Team commission you know our women’s team played in the
Bronze medal game of their World Cup they played eight games in 10 days our men’s team played in the bronze midal game of their World Cup they played in Eight Games in 17 days so you know we have to get better as a global basketball community in making sure that
The women have more recovery time so I’m I’m being pretty loud on that on that this week um so let’s we we want to talk about yesterday’s announcement with with the men’s team in the leadup for the Paris Olympics but while we’re on the topic of the women’s team uh for anyone
Who doesn’t know February 8th to 11th that team is in Hungary a pool of four that Al includes Japan and Spain the top three will qualify for the Olympics um where is the program at right now in terms of confidence level in that group punching their ticket in February and
And their chances of you know for the first time in a really long time us having two five on five teams on that Olympic stage yeah you bet confidence is not a Canada basketball problem these days I promise you that um we are quite confident the women are well prepared we
Had a mini camp week and a half ago with our North American based players many of those WNBA players that aren over in Europe right now that crew will slide over to Vienna uh middle of the next week we’ll all regroup for another week of training before that competition
Takes place so we’ve got Hungary the host country on the eighth Spain on the ninth top ranked team in the world well number four actually um and uh then we take on Japan so we’ve effectively got to win one of those three games we’d like to win all three and and make a
Statement for the global basketball community and punch our ticket yeah well um flipping over to the announce made yesterday yeah can versus USA it’s uh it’s finally happening and this time not for bronze although that was great if we can get a repeat of that um July 10th in
Vegas uh at Summer League it’s going to be on sportset uh yeah take us through the details of this and and how this sort of came together because that’s I mean I’m going to be wan to be in Vegas for this for sure yeah you bet us uh
We’re excited about it um how did it come together well I think it’s important as our program in the USA um start to develop a rivalry that we create and curate opportunities in North America to play against each other uh we knew that usab would be training down in
Vegas that they would be looking to host one game in North America they you know usab works very um aggressively they’ve got games that they will announce over the course of the next few weeks that they’re hosting you know all across the world leading into the Paris Olympics
And we knew that we had to get into one of those so uh it was actually shortly after the bronze midal game that Jim Tuli the USA president and I uh said you know the best way to keep this rivalry fire going is to make sure that we get
Down to Vegas play them once before we all disperse and get the rest of our prep games in uh also I think important for both of our programs we want to play each other early there won’t be a lot of Trade Secrets um shared across the court
That day we’re playing each other early enough you’ll probably see some pretty immature systems go against each other on purpose uh because the ultimate goal is then we match up together for medal game perhaps even a gold medal game down the road in Paris yeah that would be uh
That would be a lot of fun almost turned out with the the friendlies you guys had done with Germany heading into the World Cup a couple of them we almost got the rubber match uh there for gold so as part of this as well I I don’t think a
Tweet has gone out yet but it’s up on the Canada basketball website basketball.com and from Vancouver down to Vegas for this so the the details are are up on basketball.com um some people if you’re like me and like will you might not want to do the specific dates
Cuz you want to get a little summer league while you’re down in there as well this does take place at the same time as NBA Summer League um but what can fans do to to kind of go down and be a part of this for Canada basketball as
Canada basketball fans yeah this this is fun for us to be able to do and we’ve never done something like this before so with an airline partner like flair and certainly with nav in our corner and the Super Fan mentality you travel to go see your team play and because this is going
To be a rare opport to play usab in North America and curate a whole experience around it um we saw the opportunity to put a fan trip together so yeah certainly visit basketball.com up and running in the course of the next few days uh you know the tickets and uh flight packages
Really affordable considering what it normally costs to go down to Vegas anyway and true um you know perhaps you want to extend and this package isn’t for you and you you take some time down in summer league but the canabas Super Fan is going to have a unique
Opportunity to go down on a plane filled with people that have the same passion for basketball in this country and see what this team can be this summer and to be clear I’m not saying don’t do this trip I’m saying just like arrange a different flight back after so you can
Get some summer league into the Raptors now have like Infinity picks in this draft you can check them ball out at Summer League um so on the court there there is obviously going to be the fan side of this is cool the relationship with USA Basketball is cool as well um
How much coming out of the success you guys had in the world cup when you were evaluating what worked versus what hadn’t worked in previous years or what you would have liked to do better the fact that you guys did get so many tuneup games in against Peak competition
Kind of you know doing the time zone difference a little bit at a time in Germany and in Spain um was that a pretty big takeaway for you guys for big events moving forward that that was really valuable even if it means asking the players for a longer window of time
Even if it means a little bit more travel and things like that for the program that was a really important part of the success yeah I think it was BL in in fact I think the player now considered a non-negotiable okay the one thing about uh the top Quality Pro players we have
In our men’s and women’s system is they want to win and you know these professional athletes know that high quality tuneup games is the best way to prepare uh we’ve heard it time and time again the clip of AI saying practice we’re talking about practice at the end
Of the day they prefer to play games so that is an invest M that Canada basketball hasn’t always been able to make um for one way for one reason or another and we really committed ourselves to making those Investments as we l into the World Cup both the men’s
And women’s and uh that we’ll be making those Investments for those teams heading into this Olympic game so yes the usab game is has been officially announced we’ve got some other exciting announcements for with our men’s and women’s programs as we work our way towards Paris who will be playing and
It’s all top quality you know top 10 competition to make sure that we’re ready hey Michael I you mentioned the words non-negotiable and I think that you know the women’s program has always been really strong and you know I don’t think there’s been as much discussion
There but on the men’s side you know there’s been so much talk about how they’ve established this I mean they I mean you guys how how much you guys have established this culture of you know going back three years four years ago now of just like really getting that
Commitment getting this group and sort of seeing that through and of course the World Cup was such a big coming out moment where it’s like finally we we basically reached the potential there maybe even you know just a little bit short obviously of the the gold medal
Match but um yeah like talk to me about how that culture and how that commitment was built on on the men’s team in particular and uh how that’s gotten you guys to this position right now well it starts with bold Vision I think certainly coming out of the loss in
Victoria you know program leadership namely row Nick nurse at the time Glenn Grunwald um um we’re prepared to ask our players and our staff and our board you know from a financial perspective and our business uh to make some bold changes and one of those bold changes was recognizing that dropping an
All-Star team in the middle of a competition is not always the best way to achieve the result that you want in fact you know the redeem team documentary is the case study of that how USA got into a bit of an Allstar pulled the the team together format and
Realized now we need some continuity and consistency and you know maybe that played out a little bit this summer for them too not having a team and dropping an All-Star team but we’ve had a group for the last three years so that bold Vision bold Investments um and then
Quite frankly allowing the players to have a voice and I remember the moment I was in the room fairly new employee at the time six months in uh when you know program leadership was talking to the players about what would be expected in order to be bold and to achieve our ultimate objectives
In our opinion you know the strategies that we were going to follow and when your best player in the room Shay gilis Alexander is the first one to stand up and say I’m in that’s a bold response and that bold response is played out every summer with our best athletes on
The team being the first ones on court and the first ones in Camp and the hardest workers and that sets the culture you can have as bold a vision as you want it comes down to when whether your best lean in and actually take the Bold
Vision as their own and live it through the way that they’re activating in the program and Shay RJ Dylan you name it um they’re all doing that Kelly Dwight like they leaned in and made it their own so as we head into the summer you know and
The women have been doing this for you know decades uh the program culture has been really shaped by their attitudes and their behavior and that’s that’s the Ultimate Team atmosphere do you have a sense yet look that that’s awesome it’s I like I got so excited when you said
Shay stands up first like oh I’m in I’m in yeah exactly um and you know like when you you mentioned Dwight and Kelly and my head immediately goes to the scene in the locker room after the the bronze medal game and like them being so emotional um it’s very very cool do you
Have a sense yet so this game’s July 10th the Olympics start July 27th do you have a sense yet of what the the commitment ask is going to be uh for this summer for for players who do want to come out and play like I I’d imagine
There’ll be a little bit of a camp before the USA game are we talking like a about a six week window start to end again yeah probably like we’re looking to convene I think the NBA and FBA regulations allow NBA players to convene with their national teams as early as
June 28th or 29th so we’re not going to miss that Mark by much if at all and um yeah we’ll prep into a training camp um North or Canadian based so good news is and not to announce it yet but we will be doing training camp events in Canada
For both the men’s and the women so there’ll be opportunities for fan engagement there and then uh rolling down to the US and the women rolling over you know to a bit of a European tour before you know heading into Paris so for both programs there’s probably
Six weeks the women’s might not be straight we might actually because we’ve got some flexibility in their availability we might do windows a break window a break and then they get into their European leg But ultimately you know our coaches our program leadership our Sports scientists are putting
Together a program that is designed to allow these athletes to Peak in time for the competition and it takes money it takes energy it takes resourcing and it takes time and it takes their commitment and time and I heard Rowan uh on the fan yesterday talking about how gracious the
Players are with their time because ultimately they see the opportunity that we got uh this summer and and I think for the next number of Olympic Cycles I’ve said it a 100 times but the next where we moment in Canadian sport will be a can of basketball moment and it’s
Because these athletes are giving themselves to this country this way yeah well I mean I know it was in Asia last year with the World Cup but uh you know I I certainly remember where I was when when can made the comeback against Spain and and you know finally clinched it and
I was so excited to to to recap that game and of course the US game USA game was incredible the the win against Slovenia and Luca Don was incredible you know so um lots of Great Moments and of course a lot more to come as well and um
You know I think my only other question with this is just you know with the head coaching position we we did see with Nick it was Community because he was in Toronto um and but unfortunately he got let go in Toronto and he had to to
Abdicate the spot you guys were able to get Jordy in I guess my concern now is what happens if Jordy gets another gets a full-time NBA head coaching job um are is there any concern that we might lose Jordy as well because I’ve I’ve grown
Quite fond of Jordy as I’m sure you are as well yeah you and me both you and me both uh I drove down to Detroit uh first week of January actually to see the Kings play the Pistons and catch up with Jordy and J trian we had a nice meal
Yeah no there’s there’s ultimately no concerns um Jordy is Jordy is as spanian as they come now as we’ve said uh he’s he’s part Spanish SP Canadian he is so locked and loaded into what we’re building here uh already talking you know about what this could be long term
For the country uh we’re certainly with him and Victor Leena who Spanish and coaches our women’s team we’re learning a lot from the Spanish system around Youth Development as well and they’re both starting to get their hands into what it looks like downstreaming into our entire cycle how we men um how we
Train coaches how we you know create even more connectivity in our player environment so they’re having a transformational impact both of them uh and they’re locked loaded for their time commitment to to Canada basketball listen he gets a head coaching job no nobody will be happier than us but he’s
Been quite clear and you know in saying that this is a priority for him yeah no seriously he’s uh he was awesome I mean especially to hop in on short notice get the buying of the team and lots of great moments I think one of the coolest things about watching the people
Competitions you get to see coaches cuddles and timeouts sometimes you get to see the exact play that’s coming out you know I’m like oh am I seeing too much but even just getting to see the way he’s able would to interact and and command the the presence of the the
Group that was uh that was awesome to see from afar I’m sure you see from up close I want to ask on your end too um you know I think there’s so much talk over the years about Cana basketball are they well funded is it like you know is
There enough resources to get this done is there enough backing and and financially and it sounds like you know the program has certainly taken this you know corner and really rounded and and brought in more resources so that you know basketball in Canada both on the
Men’s and the women’s side can be as competitive as any program in the world just financially um yeah Tak me through your part in that and and sort of the importance of you know the Unseen portion that the the the improvements of the financials on that end to make it
All happen yeah um you know I think we’re getting there are we there yet no um we’re still not as um you know financially fluid as as I think we would all like to be there are still some Investments we’d like to make in our program that you know are kind of
Priority five priority six so they’re off the list for now but um you know and a lot of that is really how we are now attacking coaching development and age group development and making sure that we sustain program Excellence for two three four decades and those Investments have to happen today but ultimately
Listen what we stand for as an organization and as a sport for this country I think is what a lot of brands corporately are trusting uh we recognize that basketball is you know the fastest if not one of the two top two or three fastest growing Sports in the country we
Recognize that you know the diversity and Mosaic of Canada is represented in the game every time you watch it um whether it be in a community gym or or in one of our teams and you know we are also an organization that is performing nine of 10 nine of our last 10
Tournaments five on five tournaments we’ve been in the semi-finals so we’re an organization You Can Count yeah that’s a stat that I don’t talk about enough yeah we’re competing for a medal almost every time that we play now and you know what that gets attention in this country and over time maybe that’ll
Even get boring and it’ll just be something that they expect and we’ll have to have a summit in 10 years when we don’t win a medal because the people think the walls are crashing in I’d love that I’d love it to be that um expected of us but ultimately what’s happening is
That brands are coming forward and saying you know this is a sport an organization and a performance narrative that we want to be a part of donors you know individual philanthropists are coming forward and saying the same thing because we’re offering unique opportunities to be a part of building
Something that you can be proud of the the coolest thing about what we have is that the the national flag is associated with it and the players are Canadian for a lifetime um we’ve had to watch you know as fans of the Raptors I’m a I’m a former mlc
Employee and a raptor fan and and it’s tough to see players Trad um a Eureka moment in my you know head a few weeks ago it’s like Team Canada player will never be traded um so Shay is Shay on Team Canada for as long as he wants to
Be on Team Canada Kia Natalie U Michelle plof they’re Canadian for life and I think a lot of organizations corporate organizations and fans in general are starting to find the real magic in that and leaning into what we mean for this country there you go yeah other than ignis bras
He uh he went back to Lithuania tra him though he CH I know uh we are out of time otherwise we were obviously going to do the roster reveal for 2024 Olympic team you were going to give it away who’s going to play on it is Wiggins gonna
Play is Jamal gonna play yeah revealed right now no of course we’re at of time you get back to the ski hills Michael thanks so much for uh taking the time out thanks guys appreciate you Michael Bartlett CEO of Canada basketball again it’s July 10th Canada against the US in
Vegas which will be a lot of fun I’m sure you’ll be down there for summer league anyway you can catch that action uh fans can go down there I will be I don’t know the Jays against the Cleveland guardians or something that day I don’t know what I don’t know what
The Jay’s schedule is for July but there’s no way I’ll be there for it so I know you’ll have you you’ll have one of the TVs on the studio with that game on in the background if they do conflict of course it’s I’m trying to look up now
Who the JS are they’re in San Francisco so oh by the way I could just commute San FR Vegas yeah problem honestly it’s like an hour flight it’s called The Andy l express uh real quickly though I can’t believe we didn’t mention this Scotty Barnes was named to the USA 41 man
Select roster and that’s don’t guarantee that he’s going to make the final roster but it’s great to see him in the program because I know in the last couple Cycles like you didn’t see Scotty as much yeah and dark was asked about this so we’ll
See if he ends up being a part of the team or even the camp right but even being in that environment is awesome is well deserved yeah so so this is a quote from Darko from practice today he said I think being surrounded by the best players on the national team giv gives
You different perspective sometimes young players they think they have the answers for many things but once they’re surrounded by vets and you see how they’re operating how they’re working when you see Steph Curry the way he’s working Kevin Durant the way he’s working how every rep is so important
How they’re taking care of their bodies off the court it just goes a long way and sets you for longterm success and I think that this is me now not Darko I think that there’s a pretty good example in that locker room now in RJ Barrett of
How playing a role in the national team even if it’s not the starring role now it was when RJ LED Canada 9 Gold and it was at that point the biggest moment on the men’s side that we’ve had in a really long time awesome he Kevin herder
I watched that that upset game like Brady hesp at Summer League like came over and was like looking on my computer and stuff um so that and that was the moment that we had before this world cup and now before the Olympics at least on
The men’s side um so yeah I think a good example in RJ for for Scotty Barnes to to look at of how that I mean and he knows he played the the u8s United Team on the US side as well well I mean look Scotty this is also Prime tampering
Season you know I mean so selfishly for the Raptors I’m like it’s aim higher than Josh Christopher for uh who’s coming in as a Scotty pal in a couple years okay yeah I mean so it’s exciting but I also think it’s a huge recognition
For him to to get to that spot it’s it’s well deserved so um okay that does it for us today I’ve been your host will you’ve been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio network make sure you find the Raptor show whever listen to podcast subscribe please R interview
The show thanks once again to Blake Murphy Mark B danieli franceski our board producer Derek bandale Jennifer rck David say jar manit thanks to our guests today Mark Stein James Herbert and Michael Bartlett and uh we’ll talk to you tomorrow
9 Comments
doc being hired means we're gonna have to hear about the 2008 celtics even more smh
That whole French NT segment was just an excuse for Blake to say his favourite three words – "Nando de Colo".
[edit] And he gets another shot at it in the deadline day discussion!
As a fan, with regards to the best interview on the team, I would argue that Jontay is excellent as well; well-spoken and always provides thoughtful answers.
So you don't have to buy the book,😂
As per Blake… I am an insane person! Orlando with the Fran Vasquez rights has been a random piece of knowledge i've had for years
What are those black boxes on the table beside Will and blake??
37:15 – Colangelo gave up the valuable JO contract with a 1st round pick, for an expiring.
This sparked the Heat big 3.
Imagine firing your head coach because the players dont have faith in him to help lead them to a championship….and then they hire Doc Rivers 🤣🤣
Where is Alex Wong? I like that guy!