Episode 14: The Charlotte Episode
Welcome to another episode of the Red Black Comeback podcast.
My voice feels and sounds weird, but I’m going to keep going.
My name is Dave.
I’m in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
My podcast partner is Jonathan.
He is in Portland, Oregon, the United States of America.
Jonathan, how are you doing?
I am doing awesome, Dave.
It’s great.
We’re in December, which is…
What?
December?
Yep.
It’s one of my favorite times.
I love it.
Let’s go.
The season is for real now.
Wait, what season?
The NBA season.
Like the fall?
Are you talking about autumn?
No, the NBA season.
That season is live.
It is real.
Things have happened.
Teams have shown who they are and who they aren’t, and it’s a great time.
So, let’s get into it.
Okay.
I really have a couple things I want to talk about, including but not limited to that I’m actually going to the game tonight, and the game tonight in question is the Portland Trail Blazers against the Toronto Raptors.
Let’s go! Raptors.
You said, let’s go Raptors.
Let’s go! But first things first.
We had to miss last week’s recording because of a handful of things, including but not limited to American Thanksgiving, which is, as I understand it, a very, very important American holiday.
And by I understand, I mean I know it is.
I’m just being dumb.
Did you have a good Thanksgiving?
Did you get the family together?
Things are good?
Is everybody happy, healthy, and alive?
Yeah, we had a good Thanksgiving.
I’m reminded, however, that turkey is the worst of all the meats.
It’s the most boring of all the meats.
I don’t know why we decided that.
Why in America, why is the bald eagle our national bird, and yet we’re forced to eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
Wait, do you want to eat eagle?
No, but I mean, why do we have to eat turkey?
It sounds like you want to eat eagle.
No.
Well, I mean, maybe.
I don’t know.
I’ve never had eagle.
Maybe it’s good.
The eagles are really muscular.
It’s not going to be a good…
Dave, what is the national bird of Canada?
I actually don’t know this.
Do you know?
I don’t know, but I can hazard a guess.
The scarlet tanager.
No, what would the national bird of Canada be?
Probably the Canada goose or the loon.
See, I would eat the goose.
I would eat the goose for sure.
The loon was the loon on our first dollar coin, right?
That’s why they call them loonies.
When we replaced the dollar bill, we had a dollar bill, we had a $2 bill, not unlike the states.
In the late 80s, we replaced the dollar bill with a coin, the $1 coin, which has a loon on it, which is called a loonie.
And then the $2 bill got replaced by a coin that has a bear on it, but we’re not going to call it a berry, so we called it a toonie because we were very, very into simplification up in Canada.
Well, all I can say is if our national bird was the goose, I would be all for eating that at Thanksgiving over turkey.
Yeah, no, turkey’s not good.
Turkey was that joke from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, turkey tastes like napkins.
I felt that in my soul.
Yes.
All right, so you’re going to the game tonight.
I’m going to the game tonight, and I’m really excited.
I’m really excited for reasons including but not limited to I get to see a buddy of mine that I really like hanging out with, my buddy Ryan, who one day will invariably be a guest on this podcast.
Ryan?
It’s Ryan.
Is his last name Rupert?
Yes, it’s Ryan Rupert.
No.
Your buddy is Ryan Rupert.
I like Ryan Rupert very much.
I don’t think he’s going to be a benchwarmer for long, but I think that I’m a little bit more muted on his long-term appeal in the NBA.
He’s actually been getting outplayed by City Sissoko lately.
That is a conversation for you, actually.
But I’m going to the game tonight.
I’m really excited.
It’s coming on the heels of the Raptors' win streak getting ended and then cooling off.
They lost to Charlotte in overtime in a game they should have won.
They kind of let Charlotte back in the game and then got got.
Props to Charlotte.
They’re a very, very young and hungry team.
Charles Lee is a great coach, and they got great personnel.
And then they lost to the Knicks.
But yeah.
Doesn’t that drive you nuts, though, when you lose to a team that you, on paper, should never lose to?
It drives me nuts.
It does, but I also have a lot of respect for Charlotte.
I love the way that they’ve turned around that franchise the last couple years.
I think Charles Lee was a great hire.
I think James Borrego was a great hire.
I just don’t think the team was ready for him.
You look at the job that James Borrego is doing down in New Orleans right now, that team is really responding to him.
And after New Orleans fired Willie Green, just for the people who are box score watchers, New Orleans finally tired of Willie Green.
They fired him.
They promoted James Borrego, who was the assistant to head coach.
And every New Orleans Pelicans game I’ve watched since then has been good.
They’ve been playing hard.
They’ve been playing well.
Guys who didn’t get a lot of chance to play under Willie Green, including but not limited to Jordan Hawkins, have been playing very well.
I thought James Borrego was a good coach, but Charles Lee has done a fantastic job.
They have drafted well.
This draft, they killed it.
Conkinipol, Liam McNeely, Ryan Kalprenner.
Like, one, two, three.
Big white dudes.
Really good, all of them.
Ryan Kalprenner is just, he’s huge.
And Liam McNeely is kind of start off slow, but he was on that Montverde team with Derrick Queen and Cooper Flagg.
And I don’t have any worries about him long term.
I think he’s going to be very solid.
I believe that the draft comp for Liam McNeely was Dan Marley.
And if he can turn into like three quarters of Dan Marley, I’m pretty sure they’re going to be happy with it.
Thunder Dan Marley.
Thunder Dan Marley.
But I really do respect what they got going on there.
I actually don’t like LaMelo Ball.
I don’t care.
If you like him, it’s great.
I just don’t think he’s a serious NBA player.
And I think that once they get rid of him, it’s going to be like Brandon Miller’s team.
Right?
Like Brandon Miller is psychotically competitive.
Conkinipol is psychotically competitive.
Ryan Kalprenner, same.
They’re clearly building this group of guys who give a fuck.
And I am totally here for it.
In fact, everything that I just said about Charlotte is how I feel about the Raptors.
We don’t need to trade anybody or get rid of anybody for that to set in.
But we got out Raptored by the Hornets.
They played harder.
They wanted it more.
They never gave up.
They shot like ass in the first half.
And they just kept on putting them up.
I think the whistle was a bit not great.
I think that the whistle kind of let Charlotte get back in the game.
But I’m not going to cry over it.
They’re a good team.
I like them.
I wish we beat them, but you can’t get it back, so we’re just going to move on.
But yeah, I hate losing to an inferior team.
I just don’t think Charlotte is an inferior team.
I think that we might be a little bit better, but I think that talent-wise, right about the same.
And that’s like the highest compliment I give Charlotte.
There’s a guy in my Discord who’s a Charlotte fan.
And he and I have been going at each other for years, at least a year.
But whenever I get a chance to give Charlotte their flowers, I do.
I want him, if only him, to know that I’m a Hornets believer.
I think that they are going in the right direction.
I think that they are drafting incredibly well.
Moussa Diabate was like a Clippers cast-off.
I have no idea why the Clippers gave up on him.
He’s exactly the kind of guy the Clippers need instead of some overpriced bet.
With apologies to Brook Lopez, he should be in the Hall of Fame someday.
But yeah, they’ve turned Moussa into an energy big, undersized center type who this dude could be 10-10 with two blocks.
He’s energetic.
And anybody who watched him play at Michigan could have seen this happen.
And the Clippers had him, and the Clippers lost him.
And the Clippers have a whole bunch of young guys with a lot of upside, and they’re only now starting to play it.
Play them, like Kobe Sanders and Kobe Brown and Cam Christie.
And I don’t know what’s going on with that franchise, but we were talking about Charlotte, but we should be talking about Portland.
So I’m going to cede the mic to you to talk about your Blazers.
I want to know what you think about where they are and where they’re going.
Right.
So I was at the game the other night where they played 44 minutes of really good basketball against the world-beating Oklahoma City Thunder.
And it was exciting.
It was fun to watch.
I mean, I’ve told all my friends and family and whatnot before the Blazers season started this year that they’re going to be a lot of fun to watch, and they’re going to lose a lot.
And so far that has proven true, although I think I talked about this last time.
They’re losing for reasons that but we also didn’t have 40% of our starters.
It’s not an excuse.
They outplayed us.
They beat us in every aspect of the game, but we also didn’t have Jakob Perl, who would have limited Karl-Anthony Towns, and we didn’t have RJ Barrett, who would have scored 20 points, and he would be motivated to play against his old team in his old city.
Okay, the key to the game for me, win the first quarter.
I think my partner always says, when we’re down at halftime or close at halftime, she always goes, third quarters.
We’re a third quarter team, and she’s right.
But I don’t want to get down at half.
I don’t want to be playing come from behind.
I think that if you think that your big third quarter is how you’re going to get back to the game, because maybe that is indicative of making great halftime adjustments, maybe talking to the video team or whatever, then those things are completely possible before the third quarter, right?
Get the game plan prepped.
Don’t adjust on the fly later on, because the thing is, if we can see a handful of things that happen, say make this adjustment, make this adjustment, chances are we knew what those adjustments were going to be before the game.
Now, again, I don’t want to come across like a casual.
I don’t know exactly what happens before the game and at halftime, and I certainly don’t want to cast aspersions on Toronto Raptors coaching staff, because I think the world of them.
Actually, the only…
Okay, I will cast one aspersion.
Darko’s got to stop losing fucking challenges.
We are the worst challenging team.
Like sometimes, you know, like I get so frustrated because it’s like, okay, sometimes that late timeout doesn’t matter, but a lot of times it does.
And like, you know, what was that Raymond Chandler thing?
I’d rather have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it from like the big sleep or whatever.
I’d rather have a timeout and not need it than need a timeout and not have it.
Like, you know, do we got to get Chris Webber to come into the fucking locker room and give a motivational speech?
Yeah, let me…
One of the things that I’ve seen Thiago Splitter already learning is when to challenge.
When he first took over the helm, it was incredibly infuriating to watch him challenge things in the first quarter.
I’m like, what are you doing?
Darko does this.
Darko does this, and I don’t know why.
I like from a gambling standpoint, from an analytics standpoint, from a what does this do for us standpoint, I hate it.
The challenge is most useful in a high leverage situation when the basket counting or not counting determines something important or the foul counting or not counting either takes your best player out of the game or not.
Like that’s when you use the challenge.
Again, I don’t want to be a blog boy.
Darko is a fantastic coach, and he has really, really changed the culture in Toronto.
I just wish that he would challenge less.
Yeah, so here’s the thing about the challenges, right?
So here’s why there…
This is why there are two challenges, why there are two coaches challenges, because assuming that you are using them correctly, you get one coach’s challenge to basically tweak the officiating, to basically tell the officials, hey, you’re not officiating this correctly.
Like Shea is pushing off with his forearm, right?
Like you get one challenge to basically sort of help adjust officiating.
But then the second one is for end of game situations.
I mean, that’s the optimal.
The best use of your challenges are you tweak at some point, preferably mid to late game, the officiating, and then the final challenge is used to swing the game in your favor at the end.
And it’s infuriating to see…
Like why isn’t there someone on every coaching staff that their entire job is just like…
There is.
Well, then who got these jobs?
Because I see all…
Well, here’s the thing, right?
Like, look, don’t…
It’s the poor workman who blames his tools, right?
Every team has a video person, maybe even two.
In the WNBA, we noticed that there’s like an analytics person, there’s like a video person.
They sit side by side on the bench and they confer very quickly with each other and then say like, yeah, yeah, I like the lamp.
And I don’t really know exactly how many people each NBA team has to do that.
But this is just one of those things where it’s like, okay, well, do you have a shooting coach?
Yeah, you have a shooting coach.
Hey, we need to correct this hitch in your shot.
Do we have a defensive coach?
Do we have an offensive coach?
Do we have a guy who designs the plays?
The answer to all these things is yes, right?
I can’t tell you all their names, and I don’t think our listeners care about all their names.
They just understand what I’m saying.
I honestly think it’s a situation where the team needs to be like, okay, Darko, you’ve got a lot of stuff going on.
And for all I know, it is actually like this.
I don’t want to throw my guy under the bus.
But I think that it should be like one of those teams where it’s like in football, for instance, you have a head coach, you have an offensive coordinator, you have a defensive coordinator.
And the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator are functionally assistant coaches, right?
And so if you look at the assistant coach situation in the NBA, there’s more assistant coaches, and ostensibly they do different things, right?
One guy is an offensive guru.
One guy is a defensive guru.
One guy is kind of like the rah-rah motivational guy, whatever, right?
I think we need to – like if it is not like this already, look, every Raptors fan complains about what I just complained about, every single one who watches the games.
Why would you challenge there?
Come on.
It was clearly a foul.
One of the things I like about watching Oklahoma City is when Mark Daniels is about to challenge, they have such insane, sanely quick communication style on that team.
They will tell Daniel to not challenge.
They will take accountability.
No, no, no, I fouled him.
I fouled him.
Don’t do it.
Don’t waste it.
And I think that we need more of that, and I also think that if Darko is making the final calls, his batting average ain’t so great, let’s hand off that task to an assistant, right?
I don’t see why that would be a problem, and I also don’t see why – like that would definitely get the fans off Darko’s back about this one stupid thing, and it would also indicate to the fans, not that I think that the team owes everything to the fans, but it would indicate to the fans that they are trying things, right?
The worst thing as a sports fan is when you see something that is not working with your team, and they’re not doing anything about it.
So there’s two aspects here, Dave.
So there’s the can you challenge, and then there’s the should you challenge, and I agree that every team probably has, whether they’re very good at it or not is another question, but they should have somebody on the bench that is saying we can challenge.
Like this is a play you can challenge.
The other aspect of it is the should you challenge, right?
And I think that’s almost always going to be up to the head coach, and I think that needs to be something that they go in with a game plan into the game.
Just like they watch all of the tape between games, before games, like knowing what opponent, knowing what you want to.
Again, back to my original point, there are two basically ways you can, other than getting a tech and just screaming at the officials, there are two ways and times that the officiating gets adjusted throughout a game.
So one is at halftime because the refs do go back and they look at stuff at halftime, right?
So you have a conversation with the refs before they head back to the locker room saying, hey, you need to look at this like you’re calling this wrong.
And then the other is the challenge through the use of the challenge, which is why I think you should never, ever use your first challenge in the first half because you have the opportunity to adjust the reffing at halftime.
And if they get it wrong coming out of halftime, you have one more chance in the third quarter to be like, no, you’re still getting this wrong, like live.
We’re going to go live and you’re going to look.
It’s going to go back to Schenectady or wherever, Secaucus, and Secaucus is going to say, oh, no.
It’s Secaucus, Schenectady.
Yeah, whatever, the same place.
Anyway, I don’t know where either of them are.
Anyway, probably New Jersey.
Secaucus is in New Jersey.
Schenectady is in New York.
Okay, anyway.
I’m Canadian.
Why do I know this and you don’t?
I’m from the West Coast.
East Coast doesn’t matter to me.
Anyway.
Oh, I thought you were in Portland, Maine.
I didn’t think you were in Portland, Maine this entire time.
You stopped derailing me because you get my point, which is you get two chances.
And so the other chance to adjust the officiating.
We are in total agreement on this point.
Like I just think that this is one of those things where it’s like you need to realize that the timeout, like the challenge, you need to treat it like a weapon.
You don’t treat it as like, wow, I got to use it or lose it.
You got to treat it as a weapon for a very specific problem, right Billy is more talented than Konkenimple and Trey Johnson and actually more talented than VJ Edgecombe.
I think Ace Bailey might actually be the second most talented guy in the class.
However, when Philly took Edgecombe, I said that’s the right pick.
And when Charlotte took Konkenimple, I said that’s the right pick.
And when Utah took Bailey, I said that’s the right pick.
And when Washington took Johnson, I said that’s the right pick.
I think that the team’s nailed it.
I think they nailed exactly what they needed.
And I think that what Charlotte is doing…
I just wish the optics were different because they literally drafted three big white guys.
And then they brought in Pat Connison in free agency.
It looked really…
and Myles Plumlee.
It really felt like there was some real…
I don’t even need to finish this.
You know what I’m saying?
I just think it was incidental.
I think that Con’s a great player.
I think Liam McNeely went way later than people thought.
I think Ryan Kalkbrenner went way later than people thought.
In my Dynasty drafts, Ryan Kalkbrenner didn’t last after the 22nd pick.
And Charlotte didn’t have a starting center.
Diabate’s a four.
Hang on a second.
I just want to go back to Kniepel.
I agree with you 100%.
I think he’s our rookie of the year.
I am wildly impressed by this kid because he’s a winner.
He’s a winner.
He’s really competitive.
Brandon Miller’s a winner.
Brandon Miller’s really competitive.
Ryan Kalkbrenner’s a winner.
He’s competitive.
Colin Sexton hasn’t won.
But do you remember the three-on-five game in college?
Colin Sexton was on that Alabama team who’s playing Minnesota and due to…
That’s you, not me.
I know.
Give me a second.
JP! Okay, it was actually Aaron.
I don’t know where I was going.
All I was going to say…
Count me in.
All I was going to say is that I really like Con Kniepel.
I am very impressed by him.
I think he’s a winner.
I think he’s really competitive.
I think Brandon Miller is a winner.
I think he’s very competitive.
I think Ryan Kalkbrenner is a winner.
I think he’s very competitive.
I think Colin Sexton.
He hasn’t won in the NBA, but to me he’s a winner and he’s very competitive.
And if you need to know more, Google Alabama-Minnesota three-on-five NCAA.
I’ll just leave it at that.
You could pretty much guess where it goes.
But basically, they played three-on-five because Colin Sexton’s crazy and they almost won.
They had to play three-on-five in an actual NCAA game and Colin Sexton tried to beat them and almost did it.
That’s the kind of guy you want on your team.
LaMelo, tremendously talented.
I think he’s lazy.
I think that he needs a change of scenery.
I would be very surprised to see LaMelo ball in our Hornets uniform next year.
But we’ve got to wind down soon.
I just wanted to say one last thing or ask one last thing.
Who’s your team MVP right now?
It’s Denny, right?
Team MVP is Denny, but I would say the foundational player is Tamani.
I think if it’s Toronto, I think the team MVP, I think optics-wise, Brandon Ingram is getting a lot of the attention and it’s justified.
But Scotty Barnes is our team MVP and the guy who is doing incredible work that is not getting called out for all the blog boys and the fucking podcasts or whatever is Jacoby Walter.
Jacoby Walter, we took him, I guess, 19th last year, coming out of Baylor.
He’s a high intellect scorer.
He’s a very, very active defender.
He is really competitive.
His compete level is real high.
And when RJ got hurt, he joined the starting lineup and he drew some really tough defensive assignments and he plays really hard.
And honorable mention for Grady Dick because Grady came in as a shooter.
He’s had some problems, but he’s actually shooting quite well now.
But the reason we like him here in Toronto is he plays really hard.
Yeah, he makes mental mistakes.
He’s 23, but he plays really hard and he’s a team guy.
And I think that in Toronto, we’re really, really excited about the bench mob.
I think I’ve mentioned that the old bench mob was why we won the 2019 championship.
The old bench mob that graduated to the NBA was Fred Van Vliet to OG to a degree, Pascal, Pirtle, Norm Powell, right?
Those are solid NBA players that we developed.
And the new bench mob, which is being led by the uncle, Garrett Temple, who we signed to basically teach these guys how to be men and he’s doing a great job, but also good NBA players.
But the bench mob of Jamal Shedd, who is basically Fred Van Vliet 2.0, Grady Dick, Jacoby Walter, Colin Murray-Boyles, who I am just in love with this kid.
He is everything I want in a Raptor.
And Sandro Mama-Kuleshvili, who actually, in a lot of ways, turns into our starting center in the second half of games when we need to pick the pace up because Jakob Pirtle is fantastic, but he can’t shoot the three.
But yeah, so our RVP is Scotty, and I think the honorable mention should go to the bench as a whole.
We’ve gone a little bit long today, but I just want to say that I’m really happy that we did this today.
And to all the listeners, look, man, there’s no easy way to say this.
Tell your friends about this podcast if you like it.
If you like what we’re doing, we like us as individuals.
Just share this thing around.
Jonathan and I are not going to try to create some big sports company, but it’s always nice when your friends see the stuff that you make.
And I always want to shout out people who make really, really good stuff.
And maybe next podcast we’ll have a little bit of a shout-out of our friends who are doing amazing things in and around the basketball community.
John, do you have anything to finish up with?
Because I know you’ve got to go.
Yeah, no, it’s awesome.
Love doing this with you, Dave.
I’m excited to hear how the game goes tonight, and hopefully we’ll talk about it next week.
All right, tell me who’s going to win and by how many.
Raptors by seven.
God damn it, I was going to say that.
Raptors by three.
Ooh, close one.
All right.
I’ll be watching.
Well, until next time, my guy.
I’ll talk to you soon.
All right, have fun.
Bye.