On this episode of the Hate Check, what is going on out in Sacramento. We break it all down with my guy, Kenny Carroway of Sacramento's ESPN thirteen twenty. We cover the Deer in Fox trade in detail, what I thought about it, what's next for the Sacramento Kangs, and we talked about the Luca trade even more as more details starts to trickle out.
Fun, fun show. Anthony dropped that motherfucking beat that should.
Be Rihanna.
Appearing on the Dlo and Casey Show in Sacramento is one.
Of my favorite things. I've running the fans of the show everywhere from New York City to Alexandria to Vegas. So the fan base since Sacramento is very strong and they are heartbroken right now. I joined Kenny Carroway and it was super fun discussion. I'm publishing it here so you can get all the tea and how I feel about Deer and Fox along with somebody who covers the team on a day to day basis, as well as the rest.
Of the NBA.
Many thanks to Kenny. Damien was out and a super producer Jesse. Let's get into it.
Oh my goodness is bringing testing because Tristan will love this conversation. Trista, what's going on with your girl? What's not much? Not much? Are you in an airport? Are you in another lounge?
No?
Got shut down? That Centurion lounge got shut down? Wait what the Atlanta Centurion MX lounge got shut down?
What is my wife?
It's my internet?
Really bad?
No, No, you're you're good now. It's it's working its way in. You're you're good now. I hear you. You sound great. How did the lounge get shut down?
They found food?
They found bugs in the food.
I'll shut you down, man, that'll do it. That'll do it. You fix that before you ever see me steping foot in there.
And they like make you pay for guests and everything, like I don't know what they're on.
It's not like a free thing.
It's not like, oh you should just you just be happy you have a place.
It's like, no, the card is the fee on the car is why I had this?
Yeah, let me in. What are you talking about?
It was like a waiting of like bugs and of food.
That's crazy. Yeah, I'm glad you got out of there when you did. That was like what a week ago?
Two weeks ago, two weeks ago. Yeah, we're in New Orleans right now.
That's right. You did say you're in New Orleans. So you're in a cafe do Moon right now?
No, I'm in the up down cafe in the Garden District. I was on the street car.
My phone needed some juice, so I popped in here to plug it in, get a little water and relax my relax, my gators.
I hear you, I hear you. There's something else I was gonna ask you. Oh so, I know the first day you got there, you did a food critique. Is that something that we've got to look forward to the entire time? You're gonna trying a different food place? Yep, every day. I might have missed it last two days, I don't know.
Yeah, food every day.
Went to Melbour's yesterday, had some wing, chicken wings, mac and cheese fries, crinkle cut. Pretty good for like a staple, you know, like a run through it.
Go to the window, grab some food. You know.
Crystal Hot sauce I think was founded here in New Orleans, which I love Crystal Hot sauce.
Yeah, yeah, shout out to the know you man, that's what that's what the family is man, It's all good. Go get you a drive through Dacri at some point. No, yeah, definitely not. I don't think you can get those in the French quarters. Well you can get daker in the French quarter, but the dray they like you go into the city. Yeah, they got to drive through doakeries like they got Burger king.
That's crazy, it's crazy.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Like it's crazy. I got that. Yeah.
Yeah, they said, oh no, the only way you can do this is the drink and dry.
That's the only way this worked.
It's been it's been four or five years since I've been there. That was last time when I saw the drive th I'm not sure they's still up, but I'm I'm assuming they are. They've been there forever.
Yeah, I saw them.
I mean I walked past them. They definitely still exist. I'm just not going I'm just not interested in going in. I went to this place called the La Petite Grocery today. For those who are subscribing, full review is on the Instagram. But I would just say it was incredible. It was one of the better meals I've had in a long long time.
I ain't gotta lie to you. I gotta subscribe. I'm slipping. That's my bad. Got it.
If my own mama can subscribe on the fixed income, you can.
I'm subscribing. I just hadn't even thought about it, but yeah, I gotta. I gotta subscribe to my girlth TK. All right, Trista, you know this is crazy. All right? So let's where we're the home or we're not. I shouldn't say that we're Sacramento. You know what I mean. We're We're we are king centric here. So let's start there. A lot of people thought me and James Hamm were fighting yesterday. We weren't. But James ham is anti Zach Lavine, as you guys saw by my unethical basketball team that Trista
put together. Oh, Zach wasn't on there, and I let her know about that. I am pro Zach Levine. Sounds like you might be anti Zach Lavine.
I think what my issue with Zach is is like, do you really trust that what we're seeing this year is what we're gonna see moving forward from him? And he's had an excellent year, but it's also like the last resort for Zach. Right, we know that when last came around, they shut him down early. There was all
these reports about his attitude with the team. He remember he pushed the PR girl when she tried to stop him from doing something, and so like, Zach kind of just is not a He's not like a commensurate player for winning, right, He's not the guy you think of the lift you up, piece of certified bucket getter, and the type of buckets he takes are are sometimes really tough ones. His efficiency, like you said on your Kids, since the trade went down.
His efficiency has been awesome.
I just don't know for the money and really what the consistency looks like for Zach, whether that's the kind of guy I will want to trade for.
Right now, I get that this team needs.
A sort of pets things together on the fly, right like this was. This was not necessarily what the plan was going into the season. And you can't just up and rebuild. You've got Sabonus, you got Keegan Murray, you have pieces on here that don't want you to start rebuilding all over again. For the amount of money that Zach is getting paid though, for that to be the only piece you get back, and essentially you're only getting one good first round pick, which is the Minnesota Timberwolves
twenty thirty one pick. The twenty twenty seven San Antonio pick is not gonna be very good at all. They're gonna be a probably top five team in the West, so I don't know what that's about. And then the Charlotte twenty twenty five pick, I forgot early on that that was top fourteen protected, so that's not even gonna be a first round pick.
You might as well just.
Call that two seconds. So it's two firsts and five seconds. And I just don't really know if that's what a Deer and Fox hall should bring when mckel Bridges, who I don't think is as good as Deer and Fox.
Now.
I know that wings are more valuable in the league than point guards are, and just guards in general. But five first round picks for Michael Bridges and you get two first round picks in Zach Lavine and you don't get any other players to contribute when you need depths on this team.
I just didn't so a.
Couple of things. I want to put a stamp in Zach Levine real quick because I want to ask you something about that or just talk to you about something the Mike kel Bridges thing. I think that's a little bit of an outlier. Yeah, because the Knicks wanted Mike l and Brooklyn was like, all right, we'll trade you, but you're not You're not getting regular market rate, Like it's gonna we gonna hit you over the head if you want to do this, And the Knicks said, all right,
let's do it. And I think that's when you talk about the picks and the compensation there, I think that played a wrong. Now, that is the part of the trade that I wasn't thrilled about. What the is the assets and the draft picks they got back. I'm not saying you have to get the Atlanta picked, that San Antonio house or anything, but like, man, he couldn't get a little bit. You know better than that when you talk about the draft picks. But I'll ask you. You talk to a lot of people, and I think he
can go. I think I think he's the truth when you talk about deer Fox. But do you think he was His value around the league doesn't match up with what maybe Kings fans and people who follow the team think his value should be.
Well, I think it's should I go out. I'm gonna go outside.
Really, where the where the it's a little bit better volume here, Okay, I.
Mean we hear you good, but now we got the shad, so it's all good kind of it's not loud. This is free content too. By the way, you don't always get this content, you know, you usually got to go subscribe. But now we're getting a nice little it looks a little overcast out there, looks a little overcast.
Sev seventy five.
No, it's all good. It's all good.
Then, it's all good. It's all good. It's like seventy two humidity. Is this better?
It's great. It wasn't bad how it was before, So that's all yeah. But yes, this is works too.
Okay.
So I think it's hard to know what Deeron Fox's value is on the open market because there was only one team that that Sacramento negotiated with, and that was what kind of pissed me off, is like, what could you get from Houston, What could you get from Miami, What could you get from Orlando?
What could you get from any team that needs a guard right now?
And Deeran Fox's he's a top twenty player probably in the league, top twenty five player in the league. But at his best, he's not only a bucket getter, but a clutchbucket getter. And I think people are kind of being a little bit shady in terms of his three point percentage because they say, oh, he's not a good three point shooter, but he's improved his three point game a lot. So it's hard to say what his value is around the league because all they were doing was negotiating with san Antonio.
Yeah, and you know when when you got the rich Pauls and you got the team saying, hey, like we're only going to san Antonio. Letting that be known around the league, I don't know how much you would get. That also maybe takes away from his true value, right Like if it was a true open market, maybe you could get you know, somebody better than Zach Lavine. But when the market is stunted by him, you know, only
wanting to go to a certain place. And the other thing about it was we saw this team on you know, Tuesday and on Saturday, and how they looked distracted and dishoveled. It's like, oh man, I'm not trying to do this for another forty games, forty five games. You kind of had to get him out of there, so they were
kind of up against it. I believe in trying to make a deal, and I actually think they did a good job getting a guy like zach Lavine when you consider they were kind of putting the crunch the way they were.
But think about this outside of a salary matching component. The Bulls last year were willing to attach a first round pick to takes.
Yeah, I'm sorry. The people in the background selling you, hi, young lady in the background, how you doing this is ESBN thirteen twenty. No, this is hilarious. This is great. I love New Orleans. I love New Orleans.
Sorry she was in the mix?
Was she?
She was in the mix?
But no, so so I thought they did pretty good to get a zach Lavine back. But but you just but.
You got distracted by the cute little girl.
But the Chicago Bulls were willing to attach your first round pick just to take zach Lavine.
That's one first round pick for that. So what did you really get?
So you got one first round pick for for de Aaron Fox if that's how it all ended up shaking out, and five second round picks. I know the second round picks are getting more and more valuable in the league. If you can find like a good a good GM to be able to call through those assets and get.
The kind of guy that you want.
And obviously that's like, that's critical if you're going to try to package picks.
Together to get somebody.
But I don't think Zach Lavine was When we spoke last last week, Kenny, you said, if it wasn't Devin Vessel and Steph Castle, you were it was unacceptable. Now all of a sudden, we got people sort of trying to like rationalize that this.
Is a good trade.
Know what happened was I saw I saw them play Tuesday, and I saw them play Saturday, and I said, this team is da as is like, so, so here's what you want, Like I don't necessarily want to go into the doldrums this year, like still try to make the playoffs, like try to compete. I think that's how the organization is looking at it. Like you've got a responsibility to
Malik Monk, who just signed with you. You got a responsibility to Marta Rows, and you got a responsibility to DeMont to Sabonas who signed an extension and more importantly, you got a responsibility to all these people that you up the season ticket prices to like a like forty five percent this year, to not say, hey, oh, out of nowhere, Dearreon don't want to be here, so we're gonna go try and get Cooper flag. You got a responsibility to
these people. So you saw it, well, she agrees. So you saw how they played on Tuesday, right after we spoke, and then you saw how they played on Saturday, and this team was dead. And at that point it was like, all right, you gotta kind of adjust a little bit.
Now.
I'm not gonna take anything. If we can't get Stefan Castle or Devin Vasel, go talk to Chicago. Cuse, get me a zach Lavine or go talk to a zach Lavine type. It didn't have to necessarily be him, but I had to get somebody back to replace a lot of what Daran was giving you, at the very least
on the offensive end moving forward. But you're right, I did say that before, but that was after saying this this team is dead with Fox on the roster for another forty games, Like, I don't want to live that life. So he switched up.
Yeah, he switched up fast.
Did you see them play on Saturday night? I switched up after the first scored. I was like, nah, this is done. Can't do this.
Yeah, And that's the thing that I'm really I posted this last night, I think it was last night yesterday. I just find it to be very disrespectful how he's going.
Out, you know.
Yeah, And and the farewell letter of oh I always wanted to end my career here. I never thought it would end this way, you know, fans, I just want to let you know.
I'm so grateful for you.
First of all, compare that to Kavon's letter, Like Kvons was like, oh, yeah, okay. It's like the difference between a guy who breaks up with his girlfriend and tries to convince the girlfriend she broke up with him and a guy and a guy who gets broken up with and tries to convince her like that he broke up with her and he started you know what I mean.
Yeah, a lot of people got it picked up on the wording.
On the wording there, it was like, well, if you wanted to spend your whole career there, why are you selling Why are you out there on the basketball court not giving your all, why did you hire Clutch Sports to begin with, which is notable for squeezing franchises. Why did you make this contentious?
Why are you.
Pretending you did not say, hey, get me up out of here. Why it didn't have to be this way, It didn't have to be so toxic so fast. And I think when you look at how he was to this franchise and what we all thought twelve months ago it would be and could be, well maybe a little more than twelve months ago the start of last season, and what he did against the Warriors with a broken finger, it just went left so fast, and he's he and Clutch are responsible for it going left, like very in
terms of how he handled it. Now.
I don't think that the Kings have.
Surrounded him with maybe as much as he would want, And Kenny, you've been very clear that like, how much more do you want? But if they're telling him that they're gonna do X, Y or Z and they don't, there's a reason to be frustrated there if they can't get deals done and he feels like they can't get him done and he's getting the Dame treatment.
Where neil O'Shea was like, oh, we're gonna get CJ.
McCollum and and not like a high value Marquee player to be alongside him as a co star. But they went and got DeMar de Rosen and that wasn't exactly the.
Most clean fit. That was somebody that was on the market that they could go out and persuade to come there.
But he has a responsibility to live honorably and to come and show up honorably, just as we hate Nico Harrison for what.
He did to Luca, like, I think.
That the onus and the responsibility should go on on Deer in terms of how he acted on way out too.
I agree. And this happened when I'm with Damien. I'm not gonna involve I'm not gonna involve anybody. I'm not gonna speak about nobody or nothing like that. But there were when when.
No, I know there were other factors involved.
Yeah, But what I'm gonna say is there were tweets that were put out there that were, you know, trying to kind of say like, oh, no, I don't know what you're talking about. Nothing that ever happened. We didn't ask for he didn't ask for anything. YadA, yah yah. You combine that with the goodbye letter and the wording and there. And my thought was like, hey, stop playing with us, man, Like, stop playing with us, Like we don't know what we were seeing, what we were hearing,
what people were telling you. Guys were telling people like stop playing Like if you if you wanted to go, I'm not gonna look at you crazy, because like you said, he has reasons because of being you know, lied to or not being able to get it. Like fine, that's the reason, but don't mind us, and don't play with us right now and say, oh we we wish we would have been here forever. Nobody was telling you to leave. What are you talking about.
Yeah, you had the opportunity to sign for the same amount is you're going to sign anywhere else. You didn't make all NBA, and so that caused you to think about your life and your future. And maybe you're going to Texas because there's no state tax. Maybe you're going there for family reasons, to be.
Closer to where you grew up, closer to.
Where your family is on both sides of the aisle there, and that that's fine, like you have that you have that choice, that's that's up to you. But don't lie about it, don't don't sell on the court and play poor, poorly, or not give your full effort and tell us that you're not trying to leave and that we're getting it all wrong. That's just that's to me, puts a sour taste in the fans' mouth. And you've been there too long to do that to the fans.
That's all. That's always saying. One last thing that I want to say about Zach Levine, which maybe maybe I'm a maybe I'm just a sucker for a good story or something like that. But he had his issues, you know, previously in his career, whether it's injury, attitude, all this other stuff. I posted the other day on Twitter, and I remember when this happened. I remember when I saw this on media day, his media day talk like nobody asked him a question and he had this long talk
about you know, I did some soul search. What you said? What's good? What's good?
Do you hear that bumping?
Is that tweaker?
Do you If you had to guess what car that was coming out of? What would you guess?
I would say.
A like an old school That's what I would say as well.
That is not the case.
It's a bug. What is a bug? A beetle? It's a beetle. If that was coming it sound like they were playing a tweaker. They were playing a little jello coming out of there.
That's crazy, that is insane.
And Buddy came out in the car and not looking like he drives a beetle coming out like.
Go oh, man, never judge the book by his covery. You got it, can't do it?
No, you never know in these streets back to media day and the good story go ahead.
Yeah, No, So Zach talked about Look, man, I had to do some soul searching and I had to look in the mirror, and you know, I want the past to be the past. I'm moving forward in a positive direction. And I only bring that up because he's done that, like he has done that since then, and he's played that way. He's handled himself as a professional like he
said he would. And do you think it's it's possible that maybe he has turned a different turn over a new leaf in his career and this is the way he is going to be moving forward.
Yeah, I think that's definitely possible. What I'll say about Zach is you're right. He came in from the off season and realized I could languish here in Chicago. I could just spend the restless contract becoming a joke, sitting on the bench, because Chicago wants to have a development situation with all their young guys. If they can't trade me and they don't feel like they can boost my.
Stock, then what am I even really doing there?
And then you get into a situation if your contract is over and you've been playing that way or not playing much at all, or in a diminished role, and oh no, and no, there we go, and now your contract moving forward?
Now your contract?
What does he saying, don't know what is he talking about? Well, don't say that, because then he gonna know that.
You listen, it's not my business.
He said, what you want over here? Hey, look you want some of that grab over there?
Dad?
Hey, hey, look at that girl in the white shirt day.
So I think he had a wake up call. But I think the good thing is that he knows that the Sacramento Kings as a whole when he was his hottest, when he was in the crossroads of his career for a contract, the.
Sacramento wanted them.
It's not like a, Oh, we just need the salary match, you know, we need to get rid of Deer and Fox.
It's a fire sale and we want to figure it out. It's no we wanted you to begin with.
So I think there's like a benefit to to that situation for him as well.
I think he's gonna do good out here. Man. I don't know what that results in. I don't know if means like he can't play a.
Lick of defense, can he? I think that's cap.
I think that's cap'sk I think that's cap. I think that's overblown. I don't think he's cool.
Tell me what his defensive rating is right now?
James went over it yesterday. I think it's like, no, I think it's like one sixteen or something like that. It's it's uh, it's higher or worse than Foxes, right, but yeah, somebody I think it was our guy, Bobby Gerald, or maybe it was will Ze. They put out that for their career. I think it's better than dearon Fox's like and it's like they're the same. It's like one fourteen point five to one fourteen point three or something like that. I think that I'm not saying he's I'm
in Thompson, but I think he's not Luca. He's not Luca.
He's he's Luca.
He's not Luca. That's caps Luca. He's not Luca. He's not Luca. But that's Luca.
Can sometimes put his body into people.
This big body. That's a big, big body, a big body. Let's go there, man, because this is this is crazy. This is this is still crazy. Three four days later, this is still crazy Luca getting traded to the Lakers. Did you ever think there was any world that this would have happened like now, like before he signed the extension, like maybe later in his career, but now, did you think there was ever any world?
Remember when Mark Cuban said, if it was between me, Luca and my wife, I'm serving her up divorce papers.
That's what That's what he said.
So I never thought the MAVs would want to get rid of somebody who is so marketable internationally and for the city of Dallas, a guy who just took you to the finals last year.
And I don't really care that he's fat. I don't care. He doesn't look that fat.
Actually he's a big guy, and yeah, he's not shredded that's that's not gonna probably ever be him.
He's not going to be built like Lebron James.
But he can get you thirty fifteen and ten on any given night, right, and he can put a team on their back and score sixteen in a row and dig you out of a deficit, win games. He's single handedly probably won three playoff games last last playoffs himself, right, like that forty two point game he had game against Minnesota Timberwolves with that step back, like he had.
Some more key moments. So no, I didn't. I didn't imagine that that would happen.
I did know that they were frustrated by him, and I guess I get that. But it does feel a little personal. It feels like Nico Harrison if you sort of dig into how things went over time, players that Luca loved playing with that he just got rid of players that Luca wanted that they would not go out and get and then they just like got Monty Morris instead. It's like you, why don't you try at least to keep Luca happy?
I don't know, and to do it for.
Anthony Davis, who if you have questions about durability and you have questions about availability, and I know Anthony Davis has been awesome and available a lot, despite the fact that he's not available right now for the last eighteen months.
He's not a particularly durable dude. He's they call him Anthony. There is no Luca.
Nickname that shows that he's never on the court. It's Anthony day to day Davis. It's skin of paper, bones of glass like that is. Those are names that people have given Anthony Davis.
We don't have any of those names for Luca.
We have one of them.
Beat what Tubby called fat Luca.
Fat Luca, Okay, but he's on the court being fat, giving you thirteen fifteen and ten thirty fifteen in ten.
Huka. That is another.
Yea, who ka don They said he better he should He had to have smelled like bad decisions, hookah and cigarette smoke like.
I don't care if Luca is out there with the blunt in his.
Mouth, like you keep Luca there the level. I don't care if they go to the finals this year and beat Boston or whoever comes out of the East. I don't think you ever get the love back from the fans.
I just don't think they're.
Gonna forgive you you get the excitement that Luca provides on a night to night basis for the next ten to fifteen years. That being ripped away before his Supermax extension and costing them him one hundred and sixteen million dollars when he had no intention to leave and wanted to spend his entire career there.
That's tough.
I don't know how they allow it. I really don't know how this was allowed.
Nah, that's tough. That's tough. I was telling the homie the other day. You can't if you signed Luca to the extension and he's just out of shape and he's it's just bad. I don't think you can get fired for that. You can get fired for trading him. Is as simple as that. Like, if you're looking for job security, like Harrison's gonna get fired. Who thinks he's gonna make it in the next five years?
Not me? And also, what I do think is pretty shady is for people who don't know a lot about Nico Harrison. So, Nico came up through Nike. He was a VP of basketball operations. His number one signature athlete.
Forever was Kobe. He and Kobe were thickest thieves. They were peas and carrots.
So that was like where he sort of built his entire career in the basketball space. And Rob Plinka, the GM of the Lakers, Kobe Bryant's former agent. So you mean to tell me that you're just gonna give your guy like a good buddy deal and not tell anybody about it. When he was the most coveted They called him the most untouchable player in the league outside of maybe I don't know Yannis, but even Jannis has had
some friction with the Bucks. And then you're just like, hey, you the way he said it too, Like we were just chilling over a coffee and I was like, hey, would you want Lucay, Like would you would you maybe want Luke? Yes? I do, yes, and not not to allow the open market to give you multiple PI and multiple players, and like, you want Anthony Davis, Anthony thirty
one year old Anthony Davis. That was the guy that you thought above anyone else in the league because you probably could have had anybody outside of maybe Sga and Wemby and maybe honest, outside of those three, you could probably have anybody else you wanted and picks, and you were like, no, it's Anthony Davis or nothing.
For me, fire Wolf Fence. I ain't gonna lie to you. I ain't gonna lie to you, man, TK go back, enjoy some Beignet's, enjoy all the There's no green in New Orleans. It's all brown fried fruit.
No.
I had a bunch of green, had a nice green salad today.
Well maybe I'm just not looking for it when I'm there.
You're not looking for it.
That's that's it, man, And go get some uh some dakers at the drive through spot. That's what.
Love y'all.
All right, that's all the time that we have for this episode of The Heat Check. Come back Friday for a un episode and check out the feed for past episodes and many episodes which drop unexpectedly like KD trade rumors. Why at this point? Who knows? Do not forget to
follow the Heat Check all season long. That means download, subscribe, But tell your friends, all of them, even the ones you haven't talked to in years, and follow the Heat Check at TikTok and Trista Creek on Twitter, ig and threads met his new social media platform where I post every day. Thanks again for listening. To see you next time.