On this episode of The Heat Check, it's a special interview with Mavericks Beat reporter Grant Assets of Sports Illustrated here to talk about his World Tour basketball that took him from the Fever World Cup in the Philippines to the Middle East, as well as to answer any and all questions about what the fuck are the mass up to this season. We'll also cover some of the most interesting debuts in the preseason, as well as cover any of the news that you might have missed.
You gotta get moving.
William fighting off a migraine drop that generic aas beat right now that should be Rihanna breaks breaking down all the biggest NBA storylines. So the Heat Check. The Heat Check was just a crack the best podcast covering all the drama around the association. All right, let's start out
with some news from around the league. We'll start in the NBA front office, where the league has announced something very cool in Tay Hwang, a dude who packed up and moved his family seven thousand miles from South Korea to North Jersey just to pursue his lifelong dream of being an NBA referee. Could you imagine like Scott Foster would never write like Scott Foster would never move to South Korea. If South Korea was the is the hub
of basketball, Everyone's got to pursue their dream. I just don't know why you want to move seven thousand miles to be hated by like four hundred and fifty dudes and then like, I don't know, millions of Americans. This is a guy who's going to be squarely on the reperport this year. He was just named though a full time staff referee for the twenty twenty three twenty twenty four season, which is very dope. This is a very
funny story in general, very heartwarming, but very funny. He has an incredible story that was just covered in the
Washing Him post by Ben Oliver, friend of show. But the short of it is he picked up the basketball bug as a kid, got into reffing in college, and then worked games in five continents me really likes reffing before being asked to be attend the NBA's reffing school in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he scored high enough marks to get invited into the G League, than the Summer League, and finally the NBA.
What these five continents?
That's a travel one thing the league has done a good job of is diversifying it's reft. Over the past decades, they've expanded internationally as well, and that is now the.
Next logical step.
The percentage right now of foreign born players in the NBA is twenty two percent, so that makes a lot of sense to try to get closer to that in the in the world, in the realm of NBA referees, I'm going to be looking into inta for.
Sure, more because anyone who loves.
Is kind of like masochistic, is it? Not like it's just I don't understand it. It's tremendous. Hopefully we're not going to have to cook him for being the South Korean Scott Foster.
No skits in tay uh no taking money for shaven points either. I'm sure on five continents you've learned that. Let's move on.
Let's take a look at some of these preseason debuts, shall we? Starting in Houston? Who are my League past twenty twenty three League past Team of the Year? Okasee is so pass a so last year it's the Pacers Folks and the Houston Rockets playing in the preseason. Dylan Brooks saw his first action in h town and guess what he did? Uh, Dylan Brooks things. Can I ask you if things went well?
Well, what do you think? Baby? It's Dylan Brooks. How you know they did not go well? You know they did it.
Dylan Brooks is calling himself Dylan the Villain, and so you must be doing villain things.
To keep up with that nickname. He got ejected, Tristan, what do you get ejected for?
He hit Daniel Tyson the nuts, Yeah, Tinton. Daniel Tys wasn't even supposed to be playing in the game. All of a sudden, He's got an ice pack on his crown jewels. He wishes he hadn't been playing in that game. I bet so this is what happened. Tys set a screen at the top of a key. Dylan Brooks went Chopa and hi yelled them in the hiaida hyah. Him and the Dick refs took a look at it and they were like, all right, you got to go, baby,
you gotta go hit the showers. It hasn't even been one game in the NBA season yet, and Dylan Brooks is back to doing Dylan Brooks things.
The game Dylan said this, I try to navigate a screen.
I might have tapped them below the waist, but he got right back up, So I don't know. It's just weird that every time that happens to me, I think I get picked on. So I guess this is a part of my reputation. This is gonna be a very fun season for emy Udoka in the Houston Rockets to start start figuring out how how Dylan Brooks is gonna play emy Udoka's defense, stifling defense.
Without getting kicked out every game.
I promise you he is going to engage in one more nut shot.
I promise. He also said this in his postgame What's my Name? What's my Name? Dylan the Villain? Are we serious with this? Are serious? We're gonna be watching Dylan penicillin of the Villain all year.
We're not done talking about Houston, though not by a long shot. Maybe it was a good thing that Dylan Brooks got tossed because Houston had two other players that I wanted to watch very carefully.
Cam Whitmore was one.
Cam Whitmore was a player that I was loving Evilenova. He was considered to be a top five pick, and then he slides all the way to twenty and people think, oh, maybe it's because his knees are not right.
Some people say it's because his attitude is not right.
But all I know is that Cam Whitmore has been ballin' ever fucking since, trying to put the league on notice that hey, you guys passed on me. So the Rockets end up getting two top five picks in the span of twenty picks. That twentieth pick, by the way, was the Clippers that they gave away for I want to say maybe Eric Gordon.
Anyway, Cam Wentmore made his debut and he was electric.
Fifteen points, six for ten, shooting three for four from three, four rebounds, a steal in sixteen minutes. He was a plus twenty one when no one on the Rockets was better than a plus fourteen.
Is this the Cam Whitmore team? Is this the Cam Wimore Show.
We talked about why he slipped in the draft, and it's very still an under speculation. But uh, I don't think he has character issues. He's a big boy too. You see him in person and he's he's very strong looking, very he kind of has like a body like Grant Williams, but he's he plays more like a guard. He played under control the whole game, worked hard on defense. That's
the hardest thing for a young player to do. He's gonna be, I think, a real asset for emy Udoka, and I think Udoka is gonna reward him with a ton of playing time.
Amen. Amen. Thompson had his debut and he had a box.
Score that might might make you think he was just terrible one for nine from the field, but listen, man, his game's not about scoring.
He had nine rebounds, that was leading the team. He had three assists, a steal. He was a plus nine for the game.
When you shoot one for nine and you're still a positive plus minus in the game, like that just tells you how good you actually are. The mark against him coming into the draft was, of course a shot, and that that's not slash lines not dispelling any rumors.
Fail folks. He's not a good shooter.
He's not. I don't know. I don't know if he's ever gonna be a good shooter. But what's encouraging Ben Simmons take notice. Nine shots he was one for nine. It wasn't one for four, and he was like, fuck it, I'm gonna stop shooting so everyone can stop making fun of me for being.
A bad shooter. He was like, I'm gonna chuck this baby nine times for a rookie. That's pretty impression. It's impressive. Like I like that.
Rockets aren't counting on him and Thompson to score twenty a game unless they're all from the free throw line or inside the paint. He's gonna be very valuable contributing in a bunch.
Of other ways.
And if he's patient, he works on fighting those shots that suit him.
I think he's gonna be fine. I like him.
He's gonna be a good player as well Cam Witmore. They are gonna be a very fun team. Adding Dylan Brooks and Fred Van Fleet to the squad is going to be very fun to connective tissue type pieces that I think
Are going to make them shoot up the standings this season.