← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - SGA vs. Luka debate, why Warriors are struggling, Victor Wembanyama vs. Nikola Jokic | NBA Mailbag
00:26:21
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- [00:00]
Doug
This is an I Heart Podcast.
- [00:02]
Colin
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- [00:34]
Doug
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- [01:33]
Coca Cola Announcer
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- [01:34]
Richard Sherman
All.
- [01:35]
Coca Cola Announcer
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- [02:19]
Colin
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- [02:59]
Coca Cola Announcer
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- [03:16]
Doug
All right. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume Heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Just a quick show for you guys today. We have a weird week with the holiday for obvious reasons. So we have no show on Wednesday and Thursday this week. But I wanted to give you guys something for Tuesday. So we're gonna do a quick little mailbag based off of the mailbag questions that came from last week's mailbag. We have some follow ups from our Shay Luca debate and some other questions from around the league. You guys know the joke before we get started? Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Don't forget to like this video. That helps us a lot. And then if you want to get questions into our mailbag. Obviously no mailbag this Friday because we'll have our Christmas Day reactions. But a week from this Friday, we'll go back to our normal Friday mailbags. If you guys want to get a question in there, drop them in the YouTube comments underneath this video and underneath all of our full episodes between now and then. Right, Mailbag with a colon. Write your question. We'll get to our mailbag questions on Fridays. All right, let's talk some basketball. So our first question. Again, our first two are going to be related to the Shea Luca debate. And then there's another one kind of centered around Wemby's comments about the best players in the world. First question. You're acting as if Shea winning with this OKC team is equivalent to Luca winning with this Lakers team. Shea is on the best team in the entire NBA and on pace for perhaps the greatest team ever. It's not if Shea wins the title again and Luka doesn't. And Luka needs to look at himself in the mirror. That's such a stupid take. The Lakers need to get better first. These teams aren't on equal level. You can't make this an SGA vs Luca thing. There was. This was always a gap year for the Lakers next season. Let's see what Luca and Austin do. And their team is built around. Built more athletic around those two. Okay, so this is something that I focus on in general when I'm trying to talk about these sorts of things. Like we do our basketball player rankings every summer based on an in a vacuum ranking of what I would expect to be the best player moving forward from the beginning of October all the way to the end of June. Right. And coming into the season, I did view Luka as the better basketball player than Shea for this exact reason. I knew coming into the season that Oklahoma City was clearly a better team than the Lakers. I knew coming into the season that the Thunder had a far better chance to win the title this year than the Lakers did. And yet I ranked Luka before Shay because when I looked at the two of them, I looked at Luca as a guy Based on his 2024 season, the year he went to the finals. I viewed that as more or less every bit as good of a volume score in both efficiency and volume as what Shea did last year, but also a better playmaker. And so the way I looked at it is like the gap between who they were as playmakers. I didn't think the defensive end was as much of a factor between the two of them. I gave Luka just a tiny bit of an edge over Shai coming into the season. But two different things have happened. One, Luka has failed to reach the level that he reached in 2024. He has been nowhere near as efficient and he's been turning the basketball over a lot. Those two particular things are hurting his efficiency. And then on the other side, you have shake elders Alexander, who took a dramatic leap in efficiency this year. His true shooting percentage has skyrocketed into the high 60s and he's cut his turnovers. So regardless of what's happening in terms of the teams, regardless of what's happening and like. And by the way, if you want to get into the talent piece, the. The majority of the data we have to from Shade at this point is before J Dub joined the team. He's been carrying an enormous offensive load during this stretch. I do think the Thunder are better. I think that plays a certain role. We've talked about. I've talked about it in my debates that I've had with the nerd sesh guys. I do think that life is easier for Shay than it is for Luca in this league. But there is a gigantic chasm now between the two of them in overall efficiency, in terms of how many shots they miss, and, and in terms of how often they turn the basketball over. And so what had been a very close race for me in favor of Luca has now flipped to where now I have Shane front. I look, I understand that you guys gotta kind of just gotta take my word for it and there will be people that don't believe me and it is what it is. But I can promise you that when I do talk about these things and I rank these players, I do my best to look at them in a vacuum because it is a team sport and it is harder to win basketball games when you're surrounded by less talent. And I think that stuff is worth talking about. And I think it's too reductive to just sit there and go, this guy's the best because he hoisted the trophy. Shay literally won MVP and finals MVP last year and I ranked him third. I don't move players up or down based solely on team success. I try to view it in a vacuum as best as I can. Next kind of counterpoint surrounding that. So Jason is just straight up ignoring true shooting. We're using field goal percentage now. So this is the trick when you're looking at Luca and you're looking at the Lakers in general, actually. So let's just zoom out and let's look at the Lakers for a second. So one of the conversations surrounding the Lakers surrounds their three point shooting and the fact that they are a relatively low volume three point team and that they don't hit a great percentage. They actually generate the fewest catch and shoot threes in the entire league, which is a product of a bunch of different things. LeBron, Luka and Austin all take a lot of shots while guarded. It's kind of the way their offense is built. And most importantly, this is the team that generates a lot of free throw attempts. So for instance, like, what's the whole point of generating threes? You generate threes because they're worth an extra point.
- [08:54]
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- [08:54]
Doug
So If I hit four threes out of 10 shots, I get 12 points. If I hit five twos out of 10 shots, I only get 10 points. So 40% from three is 20% more efficient than 50% from two. Right. So that's the dynamic that drives the conversation around three point shooting. But if you actually look at the the Lakers as they reflect on the rest of the league, the Lakers are an extremely high true shooting percentage team. They are second and true shooting percentage. True shooting percentage factors in field goals, three point field goals and free throws, it factors all of it in. So the Lakers in the large sample are actually a very efficient offense because they generate so many free throw attempts. However, Luca is actually more reliant on the free throws than Shea is when Luca doesn't get to the foul line as much in random games. So talk about the Thunder game where they did a really good job of not fouling. The Phoenix Suns game where they did a really good job of not fouling. When you the first Sun's game, the one that they lost before the in season tournament, when you kind of like zoom in on that dynamic, you go oh, when it actually comes down to putting the ball in the basket, Shay's better than Luka. He's more efficient from three, he's more efficient from two. Luka's been really good on short range twos. He's been like right around 50% this year. Well, Shea's been 58, 59% on short range twos. That's more efficient. Shea has been more efficient from three. That means there's fewer missed shots. Fewer missed shots and fewer turnovers means fewer opportunities for the opponent to attack you in transition. So like I think true shooting percentage is a valuable way to look at large sample efficiency and I do think that it's worth bringing up. But when you come into live ball play in things that are outside of your control, like the whistle tend to go another direction. And by the way, Shea felt foul Griffs a lot too. I'd argue Luka and Shay are two of the most the two of the biggest culprits in the league. But just look at the volume guys. Luka is relying on getting to the foul line so considerably more than Shay is at this point. And so when you look at the amount of missed shots between the two of them and the amount of turnovers between the two of them, Luca's just having these like Carson from Nerd Sesh. I thought put this really well. He said Luca fails more. That's the way he put it. That's the way I'd put it too. I'd agree with him in that characterization. Like when you fail on offense, it can trigger the opponent's offense. That's why that efficiency is worth bringing up. And it's not as just, it's not as just simple as just looking at true shooting percentage. You can have another way of looking at it is you can have a high true shooting percentage but have more opportunities for the opponent to get out and transition because you're taking a lot of threes and you're getting to the foul line a lot because every missed three, even though in the large sample it's worth more points, every missed three is a long rebound that can trigger a transition opportunity. And every time Luca goes down the lane line and tries to grift and fails and doesn't get the call and then stands there complaining with the ref while they're running the other way, that can trigger opportunities for the opponent. And last thing, this is the last thing I'll say about it. Like, I am emotionally invested in Luka being good. I root for his team. I am not the kind of Stan like you've seen in some of these. The some of the behavior were like some of the you've seen some of it with The Luka and LeBron stands lately where I'm not like I want Luca to be great. I think it's Luca's team. I have no, I have no interest in LeBron doing more statistically or Luka doing more statistically. I'm only interested in the Lakers winning basketball games. That's all I care about and like. My perspective in the way I've discussed Luca is not centered around whether or not he's great. We all know know Luka's great. Luka's been less great than I've expected him to be this year, but he's still been great. It's just now we're talking about splitting hairs between the very best players in the world. Comparing him to Shay, comparing him to Giannis, comparing him to Jokic. That becomes much more of a nitpicky conversation. So we are going to get nitpicky when we get into those parts of the conversation. Want to know where I bet on basketball during the holiday season? It's Hard Rock Bet. Not just because it's the presenting sponsor of our show, but because they make it easy to bet before tip off. 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- [14:16]
Coca Cola Announcer
What a matchup we got, y'.
- [14:17]
Doug
All.
- [14:18]
Coca Cola Announcer
This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The babe is rocking and the crowd lit Chance echo drum beat Everybody showing that school pride Game like this yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors and everywhere. And in ice cold Coca Cola. That's a winning combo no matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.
- [15:02]
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- [16:07]
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- [17:32]
Colin
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- [18:12]
Doug
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Colin
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Doug
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- [18:37]
Colin
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- [18:43]
Doug
Jason I was wondering if you could share your take on how to evaluate two way players. A few days ago Wemby said Jokic is the best offensive player in the world but not the best defensive player in the world. He said the best player in the world is himself, Giannis or sga. I think he, along with many NBA fans don't understand that Elite offense is more important and more valuable than elite defense. Is Jokic an elite defender? No. But his overall positive impact is still vastly superior to Wemby's and clearly superior to Giannis's. And Shays, what are your thoughts on this and how we should correctly or accurately evaluate two way players versus a one way offensive goat like Jokic? I think you broke it down really well yourself and I want to give you some credit there. Like I the way I look at it, your value to your basketball team is unique to what your team needs from you, right? And so yeah, like if you are the type of weak defender that can be really difficult to build an elite defense around, that's problematic. But even if you are a below average defender, if you can at least do some things well enough to where they can build a functioning elite defense around you, then your offensive gifts become dramatically more valuable than a guy who's an elite defensive player. But that cannot impact the game at the offensive level. The reason why is because you can schematically, through good game planning, through mixing up coverages, through attention to detail, through habits and consistency, through having good supporting role player talent, you can build an elite defense without needing an elite defensive superstar. It is very difficult to be an elite offense without an elite offensive superstar. I argue it's impossible. You need fundamentally a player that can break the defense over and over again and create the types of advantages that will drive success consistently on the offensive end of the floor. So where I disagree with Wemby is like, give me Jokic and, and a good decent group of defenders around him versus Wemby and a good group of a decent kind of league average offensive players around him. I think Jokic is going to be able to break San Antonio's defense with his supreme offensive gifts and be good enough defensively with the talent he has around him rather than. If you look at San Antonio in that example, it doesn't matter if the four other offensive players around him are all solid. If Wemby can't break the defense down to the extent that a guy like Jokic can. And that, that's kind of like what the way that I've always looked at it, it's just, it's, it's easier to build a good defense around a offensive minded superstar than to build an a great offense around a defensive minded superstar. I've dealt with this personally since LeBron aged out. And you know, LeBron's always been good in his old age, but he's not been a defense breaking offensive engine. Not since he was not since like 2021. Really, ever since Solomon Hill dove into his ankle. We've only seen very brief spurts where LeBron's actually been that type of legit, awesome offensive engine, like very briefly last year, surrounding the trade deadline for like a month, right? But it's been rare. And so before then it was fine with A.D. but then all of a sudden, like, you A.D. could be this. I thought he was the best defensive player in the world before Wemby came around. But it didn't matter because they weren't good enough offensively because AD and LeBron at his old age were unable to break defenses down the way that they needed to in order to capitalize. So like, another really simple way to look at it is like the 2023 Denver Nuggets were an elite defense in the postseason despite having Yokich and Murray. The 2024 Mavs. Now they ended up running into an awful matchup for them. A Boston Celtics team that could truly spread them out and really target Luca's point of attack defense at a higher level. But like we saw other matchups like the Clipper series in the first round of that, that year where Lucas defense was fine because they didn't have five elite shooters on the floor and so they were able to offer the help when they needed to help. Like that was a unique kind of matchup problem regarding a Celtics team that had five good shooters on the floor at all times, which is not something we really see in the NBA anymore, right? Like that was kind of like a unique kind of flash in a pan kind of thing. Dallas constructed a good defense through that entire season post trade because they had good defenders around Luca and then they had this supremely gifted offensive player that can push them over the top. So like, that's why I've always been geared that way. I just generally think a defense breaking offensive weapon is the hardest thing to come by in the NBA and kind of like a fundamental need if you want to win a championship. Unless you have a supreme talent advantage. Like you have five $30 million players like the Boston Celtics, right? Or you have Oklahoma City last year. Like, I think Shay's a considerably better offensive player this year than he was last year in terms of just game flow, late game stuff, the over the top shooting, like from the three point line. He's even more efficient from short range twos, right? But the reason why they won the championship last year is they had this all time great defense, right? Like that was a unique trait. It wasn't Any one defensive breaking weapon. It was just a bunch of really good defenders working together. Right. I just generally think that that that off that defense breaking offensive engine is the hardest weapon to come by in the NBA. Who do you think shoulders the most responsibility for the warriors disappointing season? The players, the coach or the front office? Who do you think shoulders the most responsibility for the disappointing results of the years since the warriors Last title in 2022? Seems to me there's plenty of blame to go around except for Steph at this point. Thanks. Love the show as always. I agree with you fully. Like there are certain guys like I think Moses Moody generally has reached his potential and has become a player that you know based on where he got picked has exceeded expectations. But when you look down the rest of the list, like I'd argue you talk about the the since 2022. I'd include this into this season because of what they did last summer. The ownership group and their unwillingness to let go of Jonathan Kaminga and the fact that he was clearly a bust relative to where they picked him has set this franchise back. Because they had an opportunity to trade him two years ago for a guy like a Pascal Siakamurino, Giann and Obi and they refused. That was when he was at his peak value. Now he's nowhere near worth that much, but at the very least they could have turned him into Malik Monk this last summer and everyone was like, no, you can't include Buddy healed. How much are you guys leaning on Buddy healed right now? How much is Buddy yield vital to your success right now? You guys could have used a guard who could break the defense down off the dribble, beat people off the dribble and generate quality shots when Steph was off the floor. Still this year. 119 offensive rating when Steph is on the floor according to Cleaning the Glass, they can score when Steph's out there. They just can't score when he's off. Now it gets a little deeper because the defense hasn't been as good. We'll talk about that in a second. But I think that the front office and ownership group, mainly the ownership group, deserves the majority of the blame for the circumstance because they were unwilling to admit that they busted on Kaminga and they needed to move him earlier on in the deal. And so as a result, now they've got him in this weird distressed asset situation where his value is probably lower than it's ever been. And that's just kind of the, the, the, the, the predicament that they're in. I, I, I would, I wouldn't say it's quite as low as it was last summer because now he's no longer a restricted free agent and so he's technically an expiring salary too. There's a couple other elements to it, but like to me, Jonathan Kaminga should have been traded two years ago and then should have been traded this summer. And just every opportunity that the warriors have had to do so, they've just not done it. And so they haven't been able to flip him into a piece that they can actually use when they're trying to win basketball games. The down the line it gets tough, right? Jimmy Butler, although he's been better as of late, hasn't been good enough this season compared to the type of salary that he's getting paid. Right. Draymond Green hasn't been been nearly as good defensively as he's been in years past. I think he's been a considerable drop off there that has affected the team on the defensive end of the four. That's why they aren't dominating Steph's minutes like they have in years past. And so I think it goes down the line like some of the old guys are starting to age out. Jimmy wasn't as good as he needed to be to start the year. I think the schedule played a role too that just got ran into the ground. Like there's this weird thing that happens in the NBA where if you get off to a great start, you can easily handle like a 3 and 8 stretch. But if you start the season and you have a 3 and 8 stretch early in the season, it can be like devastating to your entire kind of vibe in the locker room, right? And I think the warriors kind of dealt with a front loaded schedule that kind of beat him into the ground. But you might have had a better chance of surviving that if you flip Jonathan Kaminga before the season for a Malik Monk that helps you on offense. If you have a better start to the season from guys like Jimmy and Draymond. Like, I think there was a version of this story that could have ended better than it actually did. Do you think the Lakers would be worse if they traded Reeves for Men Thompson and Reed Shepherd? You, I know you said you wouldn't consider trading Reeves unless you're a sure number two next to Luke or just a better player, but I don't know. The more I watch Reed, I feel like he can eventually be something close to that at least. So here's the thing. This is my, I was wrong about Reed shepherd in the early part of the season. Early in the season I viewed him as like completely overmatched when he was on the floor. I didn't think he shot the ball well enough for the types of looks that he was getting. I didn't like his on ball reps and I thought he was a bad defensive player. We've seen a much larger sample now and like the shooting is legitimately awesome. And this is where I got to credit Sam Vicini. This is why I trust Sam so much. Sam is like a guy. Whenever I have like an opinion on a young player, I always like text Sam and I'm like, hey dude, what do you think? And I like texted Sam early this season and I was like, dude, I just don't see it with Reed. Like what's the deal? Like I don't understand what all the buzz is about. And to Sam's credit, the one thing he kept hammering was like the dude can shoot. Like he can like really shoot it. So like he's going to start making shots and that will help this team. And Reid has taken a significant leap in that department to where he's knocking down shots not just on the catch but off the dribble at a really high rate. He's like 21 for 51 this season on off the dribble threes. That's going to be a huge boost to an offense and it's been a. It was like basically how they beat Denver on, on Saturday last week, right? So like that part is popped. However, there is a gigantic chasm between Austin Reeves and Reed Shepherd. Defensively like Austin Reeves is bigger considerably and stronger considerably. So like even though he can get targeted sometimes and I think you got to have like a more nuanced conversation when it comes to guards because there are. Unless you're a professional defender or you're like, I mean even Anthony Edwards who's an apex athlete, struggles sometimes in off ball defense and attentiveness and can struggle to navigate screens because he has so much attention and energy being devoted to the offensive end of the floor, right? Like outside of role player guards that specialize in defense, almost every team has a guard that's going to get attacked in action. So like everyone always is like, oh my God, look at Austin, he's getting picked on. It's like Steph Curry gets picked on. Like literally everyone's targeting Shay Gildis Alexander on the Thunder in action as much as they can. Like if there is a skill guard on the other team, you're Trying to attack them in action. That's how it goes. And there's a big difference between, like, this guy's getting targeted and this guy literally can't defend. And like, Reed was getting mercilessly picked on by the Kings down the stretch of that game. DeMar DeRozan was targeting him. Dennis Schroeder's targeting him. And he looked completely physically overmatched because he's so small. And so I really like Reed, and I think he projects well to be like a good sixth man in this league in the short term. And maybe in the long run, he improves enough defensively by putting on some muscle and just becoming more scrappy and physical to become a player that can become a dead serious, like, top five guy on a, on a championship level team. Like a legit starting five, closing five kind of guy. But right now I view him as a guy that is not up to the task just because of his physical limitations. So, like, to me, like, I don't think Reed is on track to become, like, a guy who could be a number two for Luka on this timeline. Maybe a different young star guard at some point in the future. But I don't. I think he's two years away from being two years away, so to speak, from being, like, good enough defensively to be able to hold up in some high, like, high leverage lineups in big spots. All right, last question. How can Giannis and Wemby be on this list? This is regarding our top 10 list with as much time as they have missed. I'm a Knicks fan, but where's Jalen Brown? Where's Jamal Murray, who's having an insane year? Where's Austin Reeves? So this was in reference to my top 10 list. And again, like, that was not like a who I think is the 10th best. Who are the 10 best players in the world? Like, for instance, I had Anthony Edwards at 10 on that list. I had him at 5 before the season. If you asked me where ranks in the league, I'm still ranking in five right now. I'm not about to change my mind based on, you know, a couple of months of basketball, of regular season basketball. Mind you, that list was strictly meant to indicate who's had the 10 best seasons so far. And again, you're splitting hairs. Like, how are you going to bump a guy like Jalen Brunson off that list? Like, Tyrese Maxey has been freaking awesome. Anthony Edwards just, like, want to head to head against Shea. Like, the guys on that list were all really good. So I said this in the show but I mean it like that list is longer. There's like 13, 14 guys that you could really consider and like Alper and Shangun I are could easily argue. You could easily argue. Has had a top 10 season this year. Jaylen Brown for sure. Austin Reeves up until the recent stretch he struggled before he got hurt. I did think he was about the 8th or 9th or like the 9th or 10th best player to start the season. Donovan Mitchell I'd argue could be in that conversation. Jamal Murray. We've had a lot of guys who've been playing at a really high level. It's a small sample size. As the sample size gets larger we'll circle back. You know we had a slow week last week because of the in season tournament. There wasn't a lot of games right. So it made sense for us to do something like this to kill some time. But you know things are going to get busy when we circle back in the summer. It's a much more complicated conversation. We'll have an entire 82 game slate for all these teams. We'll have a playoff run. We'll have so much more data to really kind of parse out who goes where. And even then it gets tough. Guys like dude, the, the top tier and second tier stars could very well be 17, 18 players deep when we go next summer. This last year it was like, I think it was like 14 if I remember correctly. So like a lot of this is just how talented the league is and you start throwing out that like, oh, this guy's a top 10 guy. This guy's a top 10 guy. And it's like start making your list. Who you kicking off. A lot of these dudes are really good at basketball. It's a lot harder than it looks on the surface. All right guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show again. I hope everyone has a happy holiday and that you enjoy the next couple of days with your friends and family. We'll be back on Friday with some Christmas day reaction. I will see you guys then. Doug.
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Doug
Its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds more with Liberty Mutual.
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Colin
Fascinating.
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It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.
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Is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
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What a matchup we got, y'.
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Richard Sherman
All.
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Coca Cola Announcer
This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The band is rocking and the crowd lit. Chance echo drum beat. Everybody showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere. And in ice cold Coca Cola, that's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.
- [35:47]
Doug
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past.
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Colin
Physical and mental breaking points.
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Doug
You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000. This is where mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down.
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Colin
Trainer games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com did you.
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Doug
Know Microsoft has officially ended Support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop.
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Colin
Voted PCMag's Reader's Choice top laptop brand for 2025.
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Doug
Thin and ultra lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere. And Windows 11 gives you access to.
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Colin
Free free security updates and ongoing feature upgrades.
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Doug
Visit lgusa.com iheart for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11. PCMag reader's choice.
- [36:45]
Colin
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
- [36:46]
Doug
This is an IHEART podcast. Guaranteed human.