On this episode of the Heat Check.
Training Campus Here baby, Yes, your girl is getting psyched for the new NBA season in two weeks. Two weeks, the NBA season is getting started. Holy moly, this summer has come and gone. The fall leaves are starting to brown, the golds, the browns, the yellows.
Hell.
Yes, I will cover who has impressed so far in camp, who is injured? Spoiler alert, Kawhi Leonard, time Lord, Shadan Sharp, and we'll do a deep dive on Alex Cruzo and what he's gonna mean to the OKAC Thunder, plus some other goodies. So Anthony, my man, drop that motherfucking beat that should be Rihanna.
It's here.
It is here, folks, the long awaited NBA season and training camp.
And that means slow season's over. The news is starting to come out.
We've got Media Day, We've got all of the quotes for media day, and it is near time for some honest to god real NBA basketball, And boy have I missed it?
We have been.
It has not been a very good offseason in terms of news or drama or tea.
Really, nothing has been popping so much now.
Though, is popping around the league. One of the things I want to keep an eye on is the rookies. We're gonna be doing those rookie reports once again every week on the Heat Check. But it's fascinating to see who gets the shine early from the draft class, especially considering that this is a group that isn't coming in with the check, isn't coming in with a victor dominating the headlines. Of course, the most coverage goes to the
number fifty five pick in the draft, Bronnie James. Tell me you saw that coming right like oh lebron James and his son playing on the same team. This is what he said before his debut, just a grateful opportunity. I went in there, tried my hardest, worked my butt off. It's gonna be a special full circuit moment for me playing the Suns tomorrow. Bronni then goes out puts up
two one and one with three blocks and sixteen minutes. Also, those three blocks pretty impressive, but from a scouting standpoint, defense looked good.
Had a nice chase down, hustle block.
Offensive game of course is a work in progress, but not surprisingly, his clips dominated NBA Social which is why I have to say, you're probably gonna get annoyed, like really annoyed by how much coverage Bronnie's gonna get this year. It's gonna drive you nuts. It's gonna be on every single goal NBA show. But do not come after Lebron James's son. Do not come after Bronnie. Why because he has done nothing to bring this attention on himself. He does not ask for this press, He does not say
anything wild, but yet the press will cover him. No matter what, come, hell or high water, he is going to be in the news. Just accept it, ignore it, mute, go on Twitter, mute the word Bronny, and move on with your life.
Touch grass.
No need to come for the man's neck, No need to come for Lebron's neck. Is it fair to other players that all the mainstream media and social media all they want to do is talk about Bronnie's two points in his debut and his three blocks.
No, that's not fair. Does it bring out the haters and drugs? Absolutely?
Is it contributing to a toxic NBA landscape? For sure, But you do not have to be one of those people. He is very raw, in my opinion, probably not ready for the NBA full time. But I me am choosing to concentrate on how amazing it is that Lebron gets to play with his son in an actual NBA game, something that Lebron James has thought about largely the entire time Bronni has been playing basketball. Hey, how cool would it be if I could play with my son? And now he does?
What a story. Welcome to the modern world. This is how things work. Like nepotism exists absolutely.
And I think Bronnie's a good kid, like I think he's really like has his head on shoulders. I think he has his head good head on his shoulders. And to be honest, like a lot of people already hate him, so that I kind of hope that he balls out now. I kind of hope he impresses it. I kind of hope that he surpasses the expectation. That would be an incredible story. Is that gonna happen?
I don't know, but.
I'm going to let Bronnie James roll off of me like water on a duck's back. In the meantime, and we're not talking about Bronnie James. You do you, my guy, enjoy the spotlight, be with your dad, carpool with him. Don't carpool with him, have meals with him on the road, don't have meals with the Mona road I do. I think what was hilarious though, was that Brownie said that the vibes are better right now under JJ Reddick than
with Darvinham. He's like, or so I hear like, we don't know where you would have gotten that inside information from where Braun is just shit talking Darvingham hilarious anyway, I don't care if he averages two to one one per game. It's still a great story and I'm still gonna be rocking for this to be something that we can at least hang our hat on.
Is a good feel good moving forward.
Some early standout performances in training camp Worth talking about let's start in Minnesota, Boyle Boyd, does Tim Conley make people look dumb? Boyle Boyd? Does he know what the right moves are to make? The Wolves, of course, are still reeling from the Karl Anthony Towns trade. They still haven't integrated Dante DiVincenzo and Julius Randall into their new offense. But one guy that already seems at home, one guy that's already doing the damn thing one guy that's already impressing.
One of the most controversial picks in the entire draft, Rob Dillingham. They pulled up the draft rights. They picked up the draft rights on him, and a lot of people thought that it was a reach six to one guard out of Kentucky. He was either gonna be the steel of the draft or an absolute bus because he was so small. Turns out, even though he didn't look good in the summer League because he was still fighting through an injury, he looks.
Pretty pretty good, like pretty good. Playing against the Lakers. He put up twenty one one in four. He was three from six and three.
He was shifty on offense, He's got a little wiggle in his step, play decent defense. He's not gonna be asked to do a lot. He's not gonna contribute full time starter minutes. But from the look of things, once Mike Conley retires, he might just step right in.
Could be a spark off the bench, could be a bucket. He's a bucket. He's a bucket.
Another standout so far pains me to say this as a Blazer fan, Dalton Connect of the Lakers. He was had sixteen three and two, had a steel had a block against the Wolves, seven for thirteen. On a team that desperately needs three point shooting, the Lakers will need Dalton connect. That's what they will need. They will need him to do the damn thing. He can look good for stretches. He can finish with contact, which is a ste skill really that you cannot learn, gotta be born
with it. Like Maybelee Lebron loves him, said he's a pro.
He's ready to go right now. Don't have any reason to disagree with him on that.
And I think he's a really good pickup for the Lakers. Finally, we got to give you an update on Ben Simmons, who once again is putting out videos on the internet and people say he looks incredible in the offseason workouts and he's even shooting threes again for the third fourth year in a row. Ben Simmons says that he feels physically ready to play at a high level, and he got to the point last year where he was good enough to get on the court, but wasn't one hundred percent.
But at the end of the day, he's here now and this is the situation. He feels great. He put in a lot of time and a lot of work in he was playing with another herniated disc, so that was probably a big reason why this is a second surgery in a couple of years.
Blah blah, bah blah blah.
Same situation, situation, different area in the back. But now he's clear to go and feels great. I am going to take a different approach with Ben Simmons. I've cooked them, He's been barbecued. His barbecue crisp has been barbecued again this time.
I actually hope that Ben Simmons is right.
I'm gonna actually hope that he's healthy. I want to know what he looks like healthy. I don't know if he's any good, but no one does because he hasn't had a healthy back and literally since he left Philadelphia, and even before that, remember he had that surgery in the bubble and had to leave.
I think the league is.
More fun when Ben Simmons is playing well. I like those box scores, those fun box scores three points thirteen to twenty one rebounds are insane. Those are like very funny. That's the kind of guy like it's he's a mystery. No player in recent memory, I think gives you such strong opinions on either side, and I kind of what's the controversy of the league. He's an elite defender, He's a terrific passer, he's a good rebounder, and I think he has the physical abilities to be a good offensive player.
But mentally, we just don't know.
It's easy to forget that that wasn't always the case that he was offensively broken. There was a time where he averaged seventeen points a game. I hope that he can fix it. I hope that he can come back because I miss debating people about Ben Simmons, and now no one has any issues to debate about him. He seems to be quite People are quite clear on what he is and what he is not. We have a lot more to report as camp continues in the new season.
Barrels down on us. He still has a Brooklyn Net for now, all right, Moving on.
I didn't do a team by team preview for the season for the first time this year.
I just feel like everybody's kind of doing That doesn't mean that there aren't teams that we should talk about.
One team that I want to talk about, one team that I'm super interested in watching this year is okay see, which is I think, you know, bold choice, right, everybody wants to talk about okay see, But honestly, the roster moves that they've made this offseason make this I think a very different team than they were last year and they were the one.
Seed in the West.
They added the big man, and iHeart they swapped out Josh Giddy for Alex Caruso, and to me, that's the most important move that this team has made outside of the draft since probably.
Moving Russell Westbrook.
I personally, I fucking love Alex Crusoe. The Lakers have not recovered since they let him go. I will go to my grave saying Austin Reeves is not Alex Crusoe, not even close. Can't carry his water nothing, And what we know he brings to a team is not just elite defense. He's like basically an assistant coach on the floor. Aaron Wiggins had some comments to one of the reporters four days into Okac's camp. I think this proves the point.
On a acy.
He said, He's just very smart, A very smart guy who knows the game really well, A big communication guy on both ends of the court.
You can see his.
Experience in the way that he plays. I've been able to watch him and hear from him. He's always coaching guys on the court. He always is a good feel for different looks that he has learned and knows how to put other guys on the court. So on both ends of it. He makes good reads on the offensive end, and he's able to see defenses really well. Then when he's on defense, he knows how to disguise different looks and maybe set up different things. Very smart player on
both ends of the court. So the interesting thing is that you'd think, with this being shake Gilders Alexander's team and a team filled with athletic defenders, this kind of on court coaching wouldn't really be needed or even maybe even welcome. But if you watch the series against the MAVs where Okay Soe got run out of the playoffs in six games, which they probably should have won game six, but that's another story. What they really lacked was someone
other than Shay to organize the defense. And I think that's what Alex Crusoe will do.
That is his special time.
Let me explain what he brings to the table, because I think it's kind of hard to see in the box score, and I'll kind of want to break it down. I saw a great thread by a reditor who broke this down beautifully. His name is Go su Rus Go Sue Russ. Evaluating guard defense is very tough, but basically it breaks down into five things. Defensive rebounding, force turnovers, on ball defense, rim protection, and off ball defense. None of these things are very easy for us to track.
In every category, though, Alex Crusoe is either the league leader or in the top ten percent. So let's look at force turnovers, which is steals plus offensive fouls drawn. Last year, alex Crusoe averaged three steals and drew one and a half offensive fouls per one hundred. That equals four and a half percent of the turnovers per one hundred possessions, which leads the league in the NBA and is well over three times as good as league average.
So how good is he? Well?
Two years ago, his encore defensive rating was in the ninety seventh percentile, which is better than Yannis on the Bucks, who was surrounded by Brook Lopez Andrew Holliday at.
The time, all defensive players.
And while I remind you his running mates were Zach Lavine and DeMar Derozen. Even NBA two K had him ranked as the second best perimeter defender in the world, and now he's replacing Josh Giddy, who is a negative minut He was a negative eight point two net rating in twenty two to twenty three and a negative ten point one last year, mostly due to his defensive rating in the one twenties. Even a friendly OKC blog grated
Josh Giddy a D plus. So now into that void steps Alex Crusoe, who's a better three point shooter, but really any offense you get from him is probably a bonus because he's going to lock down your opponent's best offensive player. He even said this in an offseason interview. Obviously, I kind of wear my heart on my sleeve and I go for it every night. That's just kind of what I have to do to be impactful in the league, and that's something that I'm going to continue to do.
Play to win, play for the team.
Those are the things that I've held true to myself throughout my whole career, whether I've been in the G League or on a two way or on championship teams. Those things work for me, and they usually work for my team. This is the kind of guy that the thunder need to get over the top Shay doored Chet, Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso. That is a nightmare to try to play offense against. And that's the glue that
holds it all together. Is the man that they jokingly call the janitor in LA all the way up to the point where he helped the LA Lakers get a freaking ring and Alex Crusoe was a huge, huge part of that. Let's move forward a few injuries to report from around the league. The first one the Pelicans lost Trey Murphy for at least a month due to hamstring injury. That is horrible news, never good news for a Pelicans team that just continues to be reeled with injuries.
For three straight years.
Trey Murphy is coming off an insane season. He was so good last year offensively, he stepped up his game fifteen to five and two with one and a half stock stock stocks per game, lockdown defense.
The Pelicans I think.
Are a bit of a dark horse this season, as Willie Green's gonna be looking to find a way packed into a.
Packed West to take the top seed.
But with injuries like Trey Murphy, this is not a good start this season in la as they get ready to open the Intuit Dome, and in Englewood, the Clippers are dealing with another season of Kauai injury reports.
Currently he's rehabbing his right kney. We don't really know how bad it is.
He had another piece of surgery over the offseason, which we did not know about, he says. According to Kawhi, I feel good. Just been taking my time getting stronger, getting ready. We're just taking it slow, just trying to get me back on the floor. Once those conversations come, we'll see what they're talking about on the best approach for back to backs. Could be a couple of weeks, could be a couple of months. We really can't tell. Never can tell. With Kawhi Leonard. This is not good.
This is now the start of the six year the Kauai has struggled to stay on the court. In fact, last year, sixty eight games was the far most he's ever played in over half of a decade. But of course then you add to the playoffs and he was injured again, and that has not stopped.
Him from being Kawhi.
He told a reporter in an unsolicited manner that he's been watching the new guys in camp like Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Junior, and says that nobody has stood out to me so far. Kawhi, kawhi, you can't say that, my guy, you cannot say that. I really think that the Clippers that add a crossroads, they are locked into some bad contracts. We've got Norm Powell saying that Paul George Leaving is additioned by subtraction in a loader West.
I don't even know if this is a plan team. I really don't.
Speaking of snake bitten, my Portland Trailblazers continue to struggle again from an injury standpoint. First, Robert Williams a player that they're definitely trying to get off of, trying to get a first round pick for, and he is not healthy again. He has a Grade one left hamstring strain, which he got in the first couple.
Of days of training camp this week.
He's now expected to miss two weeks, which probably means he's not gonna be ready for the start of the season. Probably gonna be you know, we always see those setbacks.
It's gonna be tough. This guy can't catch a break.
Rob Williams is one of the more talented big men in the league, and I just don't know what's up. I just cannot understand why he can't get it together. From a health standpoint, he needs to probably put together a stretch of like fifty healthy games so that they can increase his trade value. But right now, with Klinging and Ating, there's really not much for him in the rotation.
But even more concerning than Rob Williams is that is it.
Shade and Sharp is hurt again, and I'm starting to get nervous. It's the same shoulder he had an injury on before. This time is a small posterior posterior labral tear in his left shoulder, which will sit him four to six weeks. He's a player who relies on his athleticism. It's gonna be hard for him to play freely when he has injury like this. He's only twenty one. He's played in just thirty two games last year. Didn't progress as much as they wanted. I am starting to get
worried about Shadon Sharp. I am starting to not not know what to do with Shadon Sharp. He has the potential to be generational. Seventh overall, pick one of the guys that I think has the most upside in this league.
But if he can't progress because.
He's always injured, I don't know if that athleticism is going to translate into the league. The best ability is availability. I really hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong. Shade Sharp is one of the most fun players in the league for me, but if he has another season like last year, I will be officially ready to hit the panic bucket button. Finally, a bit of fascinating news that ties into the biggest story in the past few
weeks in the basketball world. ESPN reported that they hired Michael C. Wright for one reason and one reason only, to cover Victor wembin Yama. That is his entire beat. Wow, she just goes to show you how popular Victor wembenyams. Like, how smart ESPN is to have someone cover him specifically.
That's like a very non ESPM move. Actually, remember back when ESPN hired Brian Windhorst to cover Lebron when he went to the Heat, and pretty much every Chicago NBA reporter in the nineties was just on the Jordan Beat, So this isn't new to the NBA, but it is new to the WNBA, which is why I bring this up.
Longtime reporter Christine Brennan is getting cooked by old WNBA media because ninety percent of her articles on the w this year are about Kaitlyn Clark, which probably is not shocking because she is the reason that women's basketball is having a moment, So why should we be shocked when
she gets so much coverage. There is an unlimited demand for Caitlyn Clark videos, articles, interviews, and I know that that probably drives people insane, especially old school debut fans, especially old school w media, because they see it as unfair, and in a way it is unfair, but it is also a fact of life and sports. For example, I just recently saw Greg odin former Bust for my Portland Trailers.
There's a former double number one overall pick.
He said, the year I retired was the year that Timothy Mosgoff no disrespect, got fifty million. I wanted to kill everybody in the fucking world. I hated life. I was so depressed. If they threw him fifty million, I was like, all I need to do is beyond the team and that's twenty million easy. It hurts my heart just talking about it. The point being everyone gets pissed when they miss out on the gravy train. It's not fair that Cheryl Swoops didn't make generational money during her career.
She deserved that money she did.
It's not fair that the w didn't get the attention that it deserved before Kaitlyn Clark came into the game.
And there's more to come. And it's not just Caitlyn that's gonna bring more eyeballs.
But you cannot change the past, and the future is now and it is a six to one girl, six feet girl from Iowa with a ponytail.
And if that makes people.
Mad, you're just gonna have to get over it because she's gonna make a lot of people very rich. And Christine Brennan being on the Caitlin Clark beat does not surprise me. And Tiger Woods got the entire PGA paid money that they had never dreamed about before, and then the live came around. The money is just flowing in golf now. That is the way it goes, So get used to it.
Anyway. We gotta get up out of here.
I am in New York City to be honored as one of the top women in media. I am incredibly honored and grateful and shocked actually to be honored.
But that's why I'm here.
I'm doing this from a hotel room in the Lower East Side, one of my favorite places in the entire world. Go check out Hanoi Place if you haven't checked it out. Had some fun tonight. That is all the time that we have for this episode of The Heat Check. Come back next week for an all new episode. We're gonna start being a little bit more consistent when I get back from New York. Check out the feed for past episodes and many episodes which drop unexpectedly, like the Cincinnati Bengals.
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