Dan Patrick (2:50)
All right, so Fritzi is here. You got Dylan here, Marvin Paulie, yours truly, and of course, the back room guys. Stat of the day is always brought to you by panini America, the official trading cards of the program. Good morning. If you're watching this program, you can watch it on Peacock. Also, NBC sports network first hour brought to you by Dude. Dude wipes. Wetter is better available at Amazon and major retailers nationwide. Dude wipes. Best clean. Pants down. Pull Question Play of the day. Stat of the day forthcoming. I would like to announce this to the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver. I need to come up with a new category, a new stat. It's called shots discouraged. South Dakota, No T S D Shots Discovery discouraged. Victor Wembanyama. I think Portland shot 19% on the shots that Wembanyama contested in this series. That's where you go and you do a pick and roll, and all of a sudden you think you're open, and then all of a sudden you just see him fly by or come out of nowhere. Shots discouraged. This is kind of like hurries. You know, I talk about Max Crosby sacks. Not as important to me as hurries are because you can hurry a variety of throws and you could, you know, out of that, you could get interceptions and completions. Now, yes, bringing the quarterback down a sack, I think we get caught up on that number as opposed to how many times are you getting near the quarterback, speeding up his process? And Max Crosby is maybe the best at doing that. But with Wemby shots discouraged. Now, we did try receiver caused interception rci, where the receiver is the one who caused the interception. That didn't catch on. So maybe shots discouraged With Victor Wembanyama. I'm letting the commissioner know, as I've let him know about a couple other things. You know, Positionless.Positionless. all NBA teams, the 65 games minimum if you're going to qualify for postseason awards. Now, everybody loved that you didn't have to play a particular position. The five best players are on the first team and such and such. Second and third the 65 games. There's been some pushback, and I'll take the blame on that because we can change the lottery. And they're changing the lottery again. Load management is the big issue, not the lottery. It's load management. I don't know if there's a solution to that. And next time we have the commissioner on. I mean, I. I get it. You want to have teams stop tanking, but I need players who want to play. And I'll go back to Victor Wembanyama. Like, he wants to be great. He wants to be mvp. He wanted to be defensive player of the year. You know what he did in the off season last year? He worked out with one of our guests today, Jamal Crawford, who, in the pantheon of great ball handlers in the history of the NBA, his name is in that conversation. So Wemby worked out with Jamal Crawford to work on his handle. Amazing. And he's just getting to the point where he's figuring out where to be on the court. Offensively, defensively, he's already there. But shots discouraged in the Portland series. And you could see guys like, this is where quarterbacks say that they see ghost, you know, or the pocket is getting muddy. And Sam Darnold famously said that, you know, he sees ghosts in the pocket. Like, Wemby is a ghost. He's. He's there. I'm not sure where he is, but I know he'll be here. And that's what you saw in this Portland series. It was fun. Fun to watch. He is must see tv. There is no other player I'd rather watch than Wemby. Now, there's other, you know, when Steph is at his peak. Steph was wonderful. There's so many, you know, great players. Even Joel Embiid last night. I'm all fired up this morning. I got to slow down a little bit. I'm watching Embiid last night, and it was a reminder game, because I kept watching and going, okay, Boston okay, Boston, okay. Oh, and then the fourth quarter, they were horrible. But Joel Embiid, you keep in mind, the first two years, he didn't play, had a bad back, and really, his college career was spotty because of injuries. But this was supposed to be the process. Could have been a bust. And, you know, his career will be tricky when it's over. When we look back and you go, I did win an mvp. It didn't win a title, but the numbers are there. Like, you'd think he's a bum. And he's averaging what, 27, I don't know, 8 and 4, something like that. I mean, it is a down year for him. And you could see, really, he's almost hunched over on the floor. He can't jump. Still has great touch and great feel for the game. But you're watching last night, and I just thought, man, I don't know how he's doing it, but when he's on the floor, he can still be a difference. Now, Philadelphia, you know, I love me some ma. Tyrese Maxi loved him coming out. Edgam, I think, is a good draft pick. The Paul George. Paul George is fun to see. I. I mean, I don't want him on my team, but I, you know, he does have a beautiful jump shot. But I'm watching and I go, okay, Philly has some talent here. It's just Paul George is not Paul George. And Joel Embiid is not Joel Embiid because of injuries. But you're watching that game last night, and I love Boston to come out of the East. I kept thinking, man, you can't have these kind of nights. And they had a horrible fourth quarter, certainly from three point range. So I'm watching a lot of the NBA last night, and boy, hey, let's go out to 7th Avenue and take off our shirts and celebrate because we beat the Hawks.
