On this episode that Heat Check.
Let's talk about some centers, y'all, a position that is just being almost exterminated. We talked about how the haters are wrong about DeAndre Ayton. Stop talking about my man Aton, stop talking about him a D. We gotta talk about a D as well. He's a problem, like not in a good way. Sorry, man, Anthony, I know you know this and how Shaq thinks Rudy Gobert is overrated, but really this is just about American versus euro centers.
Lots to talk about in terms of the center game.
So Anthony, let's move on. Let's drop that motherfucker beat should beat. Okay, today, I'm fired up about centers, centers getting unfairly maligned, even the centers that I don't particularly like getting unfairly discriminated and hated on against. Welcome to our Centers episode of the Heat Check. Let's start by taking at a look at a center who is just for no reason being killed by social media this year.
People just hop on. I know that he's a Portland trailblazer.
I know that nobody's watching our games, but like I'm talking about DeAndre eight and y'all, people are trying to act like he is scum on some sort of swamp land. It's like, oh no, DeAndre, I can pull up so many anti eight in tweets right now, don't.
Make me do it.
Don't make me do it right off the top of my head, because in general, people want to say bad things about him. Really, I don't understand it. I don't understand it. People are saying he's a bust. Imagine finding out eighton sucks and it's not because the city that he plays it. It's because he's bad at basketball. They could have ended with Dame staying a Blazer forever, but that guy Blazer fans praised yesterday wiped eleven years away for DeAndre Ayton. It's one after the other or after
the other. Nobody has gotten more slandered, more libeled this season than DeAndre aiden number one overall pick out of Arizona, and the shit has got to stop.
It's gotta stop, really.
And I'm not like over here caping for Ayton because he's a Blazer and that's my hometown team. I'm not caping for Ayton because he was the first player really that I ended up covering.
When I first got into media, was getting paid in media.
He was like fifteen years old playing in Adida's Nations. No, what I'm doing is I'm pushing back on the narrative surrounding him, and I am here to say it is pure bullshit. I am calling bullshit on the anti Ayton slant. Find a new slant because the fact of the matter is, not only is Ayton not suck, not only is Ayton not ass Ayten is actually quite good. Aten is bawling the fuck out right now and you're not seeing it.
You're not opening your eyes to it because it's Portland and they're boo boo and they're boom boom, and he's had some injury issues.
Let's break it down for the Aton haters.
Okay Aiitten, if you recall, was one of the centerpieces of the Damian Lillard deal, allowing Portland to get out from underneath a toxic contract of Yusuf Nurkic albatross of a deal move Dame to the Celtics. Oh yeah, that trade also brought too.
Many kamara to the Blazers.
Too many buckets, So we ended up getting two starters for an overpriced, underperforming center in Nurkic, and it was a win win.
Nurkic is playing fine basketball in Phoenix. Great dude only.
Works in a small number of offenses. And that was just not going to be Portland with this young team he wanted to move on to. He was aligned at the hip, attached at the hip with Dame.
As soon as Ayton got.
To Portland, the haters, the haters got louder, the haters got meaner. His first twenty games didn't really give much of a defense either. He was thirteen eleven and two at two stocks in just thirty one minutes per game. Not bad, but like, that's not what you want from a number one overall pick. Like, that's not what you want for someone who got max money, right, And that's the issue.
The issue is people were dumb.
And the issue is that the Phoenix Suns were so scarred by all the dog shit Euros that they had chosen over the last decade that they could not see what was right in front of their face, which was Luca. And like, let's just go over Luca's accolades for a second, because he won the EuroLeague title, the EuroLeague MVP, the EuroLeague Final four MVP, and the Spanish ACB title and MVP before being drafted at nineteen, and people were like, ah, but.
What about DeAndre Ayton? Right, like, what about.
That Caribbean kid that plays at Arizona Because Phoenix continue to take these euros that didn't work out.
They saw those accolades accolades, and they're like, but.
I already likes the party, you know, So do not compare Ayton and what he's done as a player based on somebody not choosing Luca. Since Ayton was picked over Luca Trey and Shaye Gilgess Alexander, everybody just wants to say the eight and sucks unlike any of those teams. Though he has played some I don't know, like played some pretty important games, went to the NBA Finals.
All those other guys have not just saying valley oop?
Could I for fresher memory with the valley oop one of the most clutch plays I've ever seen in my goddamn life. Anyway, tripping gets loud right eight and suffers a few injuries, He misses some games, then he missed a dozen games about halfway through the season. And then remember, oh, the haters got so loud when DeAndre Ayton got a DNP for ice remember that one DeAndre Ayton couldn't leave his house and couldn't go to the game because of a weather event, and everyone was.
Like, Oh, he's lazy.
Oh you can't get out of his house and his eyes he's got this much money. Like that was where we were at on DeAndre Ayton, and people started being like, Oh, this trade sucks. The Blazers should have traded Dame to Miami for Nikola Jovic, who, by the way, is doing nothing right now. So I've got some words for those people. I've got some words for DeAndre ayton haters. And the words are too and they're very loud, and they're all in caps, and it's fuck you.
Okay, that's what it is.
Once DeAndre Ayton got healthy, he's been happy. Once he got a healthy he has shown us exactly who he is. I think fringe top ten center. Past ten games, DeAndre ayten averaging twenty one thirteen to two with two stocks and thirty three minutes on average. Those are not good numbers. Those are not solid numbers. Those are great numbers. Those are very very good numbers on a very bad and an injured team. Ayighten's net rating has been a minus one point six for a team that is negative eleven
point seven during that same stretch. Also, I would like to say that there was quite a lot of anti eighten reputational slander as well. Ayton is lazy, He's got a bad attitude. I think it was Casey Holdall who came out and wrote a venomous piece on DeAndre Ayton on whose behalf?
Who the fuck knows? But that didn't help.
One of the things I love about him, though, is he's actually a very pure guy and people want to paint him as this like sullen asshole, and he's not. When asked about the perception of him nationally, he said, I just be trying to bust my ass. That's about it. Whether I look like the bad guy or not. I'm trying to be great. I'm trying to be a winner in this league. I'm trying to be known as that guy. If you're around me, you're gonna learn how to win. Woo aiden will oh Chris Paul in them, huh, some
of that Chris Paul is rubbed off on Aton. These Blazers are young, these Blazers are athletic, and Ayton will serve as the most mature veteran in the locker room outside of I don't know Malcolm Brockton. As they mature into being one of the newest the Pacific Northwest version of the Pacific Northwest Division known as.
The Oklahoma City Thunder.
There was the artist formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics, and of course he hears the haters, Ayton.
He told NBA dot Com this, I listen, I hear it. I love it.
I thank these haters for it because it's making me approach the game in the right way and carry the PDX on my back all the way. So I thank them. I'm wearing the cape all the way. Let them know, Ayton, Let him know. Let's not act like eight and some sort of like Nikola Vucevic out there either, like some sort of stiff can only do one thing like offensive minded. DeAndre Ayton is averaging twenty eleven and two and thirteen
games against Yokitch. By the way, Sabonus averages sixteen, ten and six and seventeen games against NICOLEA for comparison, and.
He's only twenty five years old. He should be hitting his prime.
He hits elbow jumpers, he can go face up I've said this before, I'll say it again. His upside is a leaner, healthier Joel embiid. That's what his upside is. I'm not saying he's gonna be that. He's only twenty five years old. He's just ready to hit his prime. Enough games like the other night where he had thirty three nineteen. I bet you he has the most nineteen rebound games of the season. I think he has five of them and a plus sixteen and a four point went over Atlanta.
Tell click Appella and go on home. Tell him it's time. Even the worst haters's.
Gonna have to shut up. Let's move on to another center. It's also maligned, but might be fairly malign. Anthony Davis. Anthony Anthony A. D. One of my first big videos ever did was a very simple question.
It's a question I'm a little afraid to ask again.
People called me all kinds of names back then, when TikTok was a different place. I said, is Anthony Davis soft? And the answer continues to swirl upon my brain. It's to hiss twenty twenty one, first time I said it aloud on a microphone.
Haven't come to an answer yet.
I think, folks, we may beginning to our answer.
I don't want to say it.
He's a perennial defensive team candidate, one of the players that's consistently mentioned in the MVP race before every season, almost every season, though we hype.
Them up, even me.
I look at my little fucking note sheet that I have with my friends, and you know what I did.
You know what I did? You know what I did?
I put Anthony Davis as my MVP and Defensive Player of the Year vote, and he's nowhere close to either one. And normally it's derailed by injuries. And this year that is just not where we're at, folks, And that, to me is.
Where we're hitting the rubber on the road.
Anthony Davis has already played more games this season since he has than he has in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, and the Lakers how fifteen games left.
So it's not injuries. Why are we talking about ad the whole.
Bones of paper, no bones of bones of glass, skin of paper.
It's not a thing anymore.
But this is the following stat and why we need to have a talk. Anthony Davis is oh in ten against Demonis Sabonis the other night was the tenth one in seven against Joel Embiid and ohen seven against Nikola Jokic.
So let's do a little Mas school.
He's two and fourteen, two and fourteen in twenty four, two and twenty four against the top centers in this league. And when I say two and twenty four, I don't mean they outplayed him. I mean his team is two and twenty four when those other centers are the centers that are eating him alive and spitting out his bones of glass in it.
In other words, since the twenty twenty one twenty.
Twenty two season, Ad is one in twenty four against elite centers and is getting bodied, just getting absolutely marked. He's played Jokic three times, given up twenty.
Eight, twelve and nine with two stocks a game.
He's played one game against mb this year, given up thirty eleven and one with four stocks. He's played Domos four times this year. The rebound numbers for Domos are really ugly.
He's given up nineteen, eighteen and nine. And Domas is not a guy that's that big either. He's not a.
Chunk alunk a d baby. What you're doing, these are not all defensive numbers, folks. But more troubling really is the mentality. So they ask him, a d you're oh and nine, this is before the game. You're oh and nine against a bonus.
And he says, I don't really care about that. I'm all about the team. It's not a one on one thing. Doesn't bother me.
Excuse me, a mister Davis, mister Davis, Uh, do you know what the can we repeat the question? I'm not sure you you hurd us correctly because your team is losing games when you're on the floor versus those other guys, and your answer is I'm not about individual matchups. Here's what friend of show Jovon Buja had to say about how badly Sabonis beat that ass the other night.
He says it's gonna be rough once again.
Sabonis's success against Davis was a key difference in the outcome. Sabonis improved a ten to zero against Davis in their head to head matchups, a revealing record that underscores Davis's struggles against bruising centers who can push him around in the paint yet also drag him away from the basket
with the combination of shooting and passing. Sabonus posted his second triple double seventeen points, nineteen rebounds, ten assists against the Lakers in the past week, and his lead leaguing twenty third of the season, which many of his stats accumulated directly on Davis's.
This is my part. Don't peace this, folks, is not just day problem, but the problem.
I uh, it makes it hard when you see these stats to not.
Say, is Anthony Davis like a one B, one C player.
I know what he can be. We all know what ad his potential is. AD could score thirty fifteen seven, four blocks, five blocks, two steals.
But the problem is that he doesn't. Right.
The problem is that somehow, some way, you look up and Anthony Davis. You're looking at his stat sheet and you're saying, twenty two ten and three. I'm sorry, what that's not fucking good enough against the Kings, against the Bucks, twenty two.
Thirteen and five. No, sir, can't have that.
We need you putting up forty, which you did, by the way, against Check's notes the Washington Lizard. I'm sorry, dog, you can't average twenty five to twelve and four when you fade like a newspaper in the sun facing physical centers Lebron. Excuse me, mister James, I think you've got a co star problem.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
If you're a Genie Buss, you need to take a hard look in the mirror and decide. Lebron's at the twilight of his career. We don't have shooters. Can we count on Anthony Davis if he is the lynchpin of.
How far we can go in the playoffs.
If that is the case, it's gonna be another long, cold, rough offseason in my.
Tough That was a tough one.
Tough to say all those things, but the truth had to be said.
Let's move on out turn.
To a couple of centers who always find the limelight, and I think they hate each other. I really, I really do, Shaquille O'Neil and Rudy Gobert. It centers on literally, but it centers I'm the most tired of all basketball subjects next to Lebron versus MJ. It's kind of another version of there's no more defense in this league.
It's so soft.
Now listen, first up, let me preface it by saying I love me some Shack folks, great dude, tons of self awareness. Knows he's lazy, right, but he is coming perilously close to being old man yelling at clouds. He said this about Rudy Gobert the other day on his Big podcast to his guest Mario Chalmers, former Miami Heat player who's out there just going crazy for bam Adebayo for Defensive Player of the Year.
Shack agreed.
They've been fighting for bam to get Defensive Player of the Year for like ten years now. Anyway, Shack agree and said, I never thought Rudy was a great defensive player either. What it is, there's not a great a lot of great centers that are making him play defense. He's not doing it against Yoker because he has to be engaged. But when he's going against another guy, he's seven to six. By the way, that's not true. By the way, that's not true. Let me correct the record.
I think he's just seven feet just flat. If you lay it up, he's gonna block it. Defense to me is guard that motherfucker shut him down. You want to impress me, hold Yokich under fifteen points. Now, you plan all that week side blocking shots. That's cool, but it ain't gonna work against guys like me and Yoke Joker and embiid OUI Oohie Shack.
He didn't have to do all that. He didn't have to say all that.
I don't necessarily agree with Shack, because you guys know how I feel about Rudy A bonge Rudi. As much as I can't stand his ass, the people that play against him and with them kind of think he's the best defensive center in the league right now. That's kind of the way it is.
He's been awesome this year.
The Wolves are the number one defensive team in the NBA, and they were not before he got there, when you had Kitty Kat out there playing five, getting in found in trouble.
And it's probably not the time to get this takeoff.
Really could have been maybe last year that was maybe the best time in defensive Rudy. The subject of centers not playing defense was on the mind of some of Gobert's fellow Euros. Nikola Vusovich said this in response to No Chill Gil saying Euros were soft and that they were to blame for the lack of defense in the NBA. By the way, we didn't even talk about that. What the fuck is Gilbert Arenus even saying, honestly, I think he's I think he's not him. I think it's weekend
at Bernie's where no chill, gild just says whatever. Anyway he says this, I have nothing to say about that. But I think it's very hard to play defense in the NBA. This is Nicola Vusovich. Part of it is the change of rules, where a lot of it was favored offensive players.
With the three point line now and.
Everybody's just shooting so many threes and you have at least three or four guys that can just shoot threes and get.
Hot at any time.
Senator Dario Sariz decided to elaborate as well about the real difference between hoops and the US versus Europe. The gap between the US and Europe is closing because you learn.
To play five on five in Europe.
Here in the US, they actually learned to play one on one in basketball. That's kind of the difference between NBA and Europe. They are probably a lot more skilled in one on one. I think this is applying to defense as much as it does to offense.
Shack incredible one on one defender, but.
The way he like poop poo's the weak side block Like, I'm sorry, that's that's how rotations work.
Okay, that's that's that's okay, we can have that. That's an American thing.
Oh me me versus you Mono E mono. Everyone clear out. Let me block that shit. Dude, you don't have to do that. You don't have to go one on one with Jokic. They're putting you in a switch.
Okay. The system is designed to limit what he does.
Well, that doesn't always work, not because he sucks at defense, Rudy, but rather because Jokic one is unstoppable and cannot be contained by any person or any team on Earth. He breaks every system like a stick in a machine. All of a sudden, things just start going haywire. Besides, there's a reason, though, like the Jokic is like, oh yeah, the Wolves are.
The toughest team in the NBA to play. Do you think it's because of Karl Anthony Town. You think that's that's the person he's talking about.
No, he's talking about Rudy Gobert, and Karl Anthony Town's platooning him like it's a fucking gang bang okay, and they're just they're just going weak side, backside, all the sides. And there's a reason Denver's defensive scheme is led by a euro and they're the defending champs. There's a reason that all the good centers in the NBA are non American. Jokic, Porzingis, Shane goun Yo, honest, if you can call him the center,
Rudy Dolmas, Wemby, Lusevich, Valanchunis. The best American center is bam Adebayo and my man DeAndre Ayton, and he's.
Even him, He's even Cribbin.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, bam Adebaio to Nigerian Paris. So we're starting to get real fuzzy on American right, Like Aiden bam planned.
For non American teams.
Could bam Adebaio had the invite to play for Team Nigeria. I know he was on Team USC Tmusa, Jared Allen, Mitchell, Robinson, Chet Holmgren. Not like the most convincing list of American centers if you're honest, The game has changed since Shack dominated the paint. Even Wemby the latest center out of Europe to take the league by storm, he knows. Even he knows Rudy's good, even he knows Rudy has defensive prowess.
But with the proviso. When he asked whether he Rudy should be Defensive Player of the Year, he said this, I know that Rudy Gobert has a very good chance of winning it this year and it would be deserved. Let him win it now, because after that, oh av la av la, Rudy, that is no longer his turn, Victor. Victor's like, yo, this, Let this old head get his last one because after that, I'm getting ten in a row. Okay, I'm gonna average eight blocks a game and five steals.
Nice to see.
Wemby allows someone to have the crown before he decides to go out and take it for the rest of his career. Since we're talking centers, here's my top ten current centers.
In the NBA.
Jokich number one, Joel Embiid number two, Domas three, Wemby four, bam Adebayo five. BAM fans will not like that. BAM fans will not the band fans. They will not like that. I didn't put him above I didn't put Porzincis above you. Bam and I thought about it real hard. Rudy Shane Goon, I put you above Rudy Okay Bam, Rudy Shang, Goon, Chet and Jared Allen. I think in terms of the
future of the American center, I think it's Chet. I think he takes over and I can see a day where he and Wemby are the two best centers.
In the league.
Finally, this final Center news serves as Trista's Dopez Superstat of the Week aka the stat of the week that only.
Comes every three weeks.
Daniel Gafford, the center for the Mavericks, had his streak of thirty three straight made basket snapped in the first quarter against OKC. That's crazy. That is an absurd stat. I had to read that again to fully process what it meant.
Let's say it again so that we all know.
Daniel Gafford had a streak of thirty three straight made basst and that was snapped the other night against Oka.
See in the first quarter.
There's only other one other person that's ever made more. Let me let you guess this pause for a second. Let's just put this Spotify or the Apple on pause, and just dude, it was Will right like it's Will Will fucking Chamberlain, who was also Center thirty five straight made baskets in nineteen sixty seven.
What an alien?
You can't convince me otherwise, Wimby's gonna be the new Wilt. God, Damn Daniel, you leave the Losington Lizards and then you go on Oh I thought I was a damn Daniel like YouTube.
Damn Daniel.
You leave the Washington Lizards and then you go a week without missing a shot. You probably went weeks without making a shot in Wizardland.
Anyway, Was it that bad? There? Blink twice if you're still traumatized, Yes, I'm sure it was. That's why your.
New nickname is man who Cannot miss Gafford. That is all the time that we have for this All Center episode of the Heat Check. Come back Monday for an AMNI episode. Maybe we do some guards check out the feed for past episodes of many episodes which drop unexpectedly, like a mid season mid major conference tournament going down as a one seat. Do not forget to follow the heat check that was convoluted. Do not forget to follow the heat check as we had down the stretch. That
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