He's an open Mic is it in the Zone. Maybe fit's a little bit of both.
I don't know about you, but I'm just so excited they're back together.
Oh thank god, here's bank Pin Kravits with the crossover. The crossover is off and running.
And anytime I get it, fans to chop it up with this tie ride.
Here.
My day and my week is better for it.
And no it's not Mike Yankey this week my former co host Stefan, the People's Champ.
What's happening baby? How you doing man?
I'm doing great.
I'm feeling good.
I'm excited to get into the fourth of July weekend. It's gonna be an extended one for us on in the Zone.
The thing I have to ask you first and foremost is are you gonna yell at me about candy again?
Oh my god, Brandon Grabbits, I am. And so it's And the most fun part about that whole thing was that we literally end up doing half the show about candy, so much show that I renamed open Mic to the Candy Bar Podcast because we just talked about candy, and every time I wanted to talk about something else serious, somebody would say something outrages that I'd be like, what are you kidding me? That's disgusting, Why would you even
eat that? So it was great, It was great. My Milky Way is what I heard, right, I heard Midnight.
Milky Way midnight. It's not that the Milky Way is a mid candy bar.
I want you to know this morning listener.
Definition to h D when you bring in the dark chocolate.
No, it's like going from mud on your shoe to sand in the car. That's what it's like. I want you to know. Morning listeners were dragging you for even considering Micky Way as a top anything.
But I haven't tried it.
I'm gonna go check it out, even though Milky Way is disgusting, so I don't.
I don't have any expectations. I do like dark chocolate.
You're gonna love this.
Please give me a full review at any time, and then if it's positive, I'm gonna post stood on the Zone DS group page.
If it's negative, I'm gonna delete the text message.
I was wondering if there is a candy bar podcast out there, because there could be a market for this, you know, Yeah, there's a podcast for just about everything these days. But candy bars are pretty popular. It looks like there is a candy bar podcast, but it hasn't been updated since twenty twenty two. Their last episode was Nutrageous Versus Chocolatey pay Day.
Okay, I love.
That that was their last episode because I as a fan of the Payday. When they release the Chocolate pay Day, I was super excited and then I tasted it and it was terrible.
It was terrible, and I was so upset and disappointed. It was awful. So we might have our broadcast.
So you know, we've we've been talking about everything that's happening with the Magic and all of these other teams.
And one of the things I said on the air the other day is that watching what's going on with these other teams, especially after Dan Lillard got released, right and now you've got DeAndre Ayden moving over into the to the Lakers and all this kind of stuff, And I'm like, this makes me feel so comfortable as a Magic fan, right like, because I know that my team is not going to participate in any of that level
of drama. I know we're solid, we have a foundation, we know where we're going, our all of our fans know what to expect right, some of those expecs expectations a little high, some of those expectations a little low.
We all know what to expect.
Out of this next season, and even out of the rest of the off season, nobody's like, oh my god, are they going to deal Palo? Right, And so it made me feel very comfortable as a Magic fan, But it also made me wonder, is there anybody that's untouchable when you've got Luca being traded and Dane being released? Is there anybody that's untouchable in the NBA?
Uh, Victor wenbin Yama is probably pretty untouchable. I think Yephirs would hang up on you rather quickly that it seems like Denver they've reloaded around Nikola Jokic, Yeah, a good reason, some multi time MVP. I'm thinking they wouldn't even entertain a phone call on that anybody else.
I mean, I think Palo is untouchable.
Ish Ish exactly ish.
In in today's NBA world, everybody for the most part, you're taking the calls at shake Gill, just Alexander, There's no way in Oklahoma City would entertain that conversation. But the list is really short, it is, and I am proud of the way the Magic have built this team. It's taken time. I would use the analogy of it's like the difference you look at teams like the Lakers, the way that they're operating the Knicks versus the Magic, who are a couple of stages behind where OKAC is.
But it's the same sort of path. Yeah, build from within, you add pieces here and there. It's defense, it's culture, it's you know, or organic, if you want to use that word.
It's the difference between renting and owning a.
Home, right, that's what exacts like, Yeah, you're.
Just constantly that lease is constantly coming up, and.
You're in scramble mode and you're probably overpaying, and rent prices are high versus it's patient and it's boring. But when it's time to catch in the chips, all of a sudden, you're sitting on some real equity and it feels like that's what the that's the world that the Magic are living in. Yeah, you patient fans have hated the process, but I think right now you're seeing the payoff.
Exactly.
If this doesn't even if for whatever reason, next year is a disaster, the Magic could pivot they.
Can pivot these.
Other teams, Like if forty year old Lebron doesn't work for the Lakers, they're kind of screwed for a couple.
Of years, exactly.
And that's the thing I love about what I'm looking at at with the Magic organization. And it's funny because when we first brought these guys in into the front office, that's what we were work wanting, right, that's what we were expecting that they were going to take their time and they were going to build a franchise, not just a team, right. And then a lot of people got like you said, they got anc they got frustrated, They tried to get what's where's the team? Where's the team?
And now you can see, here's where the team is, and there's a franchise behind the team, there's a culture behind the team. The only thing left to do is to win. That's all that's.
Left is to do the winning. That's something that's the hardest part.
But well, yes, very much self so, I don't want to pencil them in just yet. It makes me uncomfortable how confident everybody is that this team is just going to march to the Eastern Conference finals.
Yeah, I think it's going to be quite that easy.
And for me it was what it was a thing where it's like, okay, so as the guy who routinely over sells what the Magic are going to do. Now now I'm listening, I gotta peel it back. I'm listening to everybody else, and I'm like, slow it down. Wait a minute. It's not Eastern Conference Finals or bust for this team. You gotta chill on that a little bit. It's we expect the second rounte, we expect second round in the playoffs. I expect to be fighting for Eastern Conference Finals.
Right.
I won a five game, seven game series if it's five games for US or seven games against them, right, But you got to chill on that. We're automatically in the ECF just because everybody's hurt. Like it's a long season still in the.
NBA, last one for me.
You guys spoke a lot about soccer this week on Open Mic, So golf clap to you. Given the people what they want. I think maybe I never know what to make of this sport. Do you feel like the love for the sport of soccer amongst Americans in this city of Orlando has risen decreased or leveled out over the last ten years has.
Been kind of the.
The soccer era, if you will, in Orlando, and I still cannot get a read on how how a general public feels about this sport at.
A professional level.
I would have to say leveled out, like there was a moment where there was a spike, right And even this is before MLS. Before MLS, I sometimes feel like before MLS it was way more popular than it is now. But I see the popularity has increased, but I also see that it decreased a little bit, and it's leveled out to where the regular everyday person in Orlando who's not paying attention to sports, not paying any attention to Orlando City soccer, not paying any intention to the Pride.
Maybe their company had a Hey, whoever makes the most sales today gets two tickets or four tickets for their family or something like that, and they go to a match here and there, and they feel the atmosphere, they think it's cool, they think it's off them, but it's one of those Hey, I did this thing in my city one time and it was really fun, and they're
not becoming season ticket holders, right. Well, then you have the people that love the sport, that are routinely filling the stadium, and there's stragglers here and there, but I really believe that it's a level out space. If I had to put on a scale of one to ten and ten being this is the sport we care about in the city and one being like we don't pay it any attention at all, I'd put Orlando City Soccer probably around a four. I wouldn't even give it a
six yet, because it just has moments. It has spurts and moments where it's like, oh, look what happened. And somebody on the show the other day said it greatly. They said, you know, the Pride are national champions, and we give them, we don't pay them any attention.
What's it's And it is crazy.
It's a disservice to them that we don't pay more attention to that. It feels to me like this Apple TV deal is one of the worst things that MLS could have ever done. It was a cash crab for them, in my opinion, and I have no numbers to back this up. This is just the feeling that I get Orlando City fans. You can count all of them. They all go to the games. If you don't go to the games, you probably don't watch them at home.
Oh I'm positive, If I'm positive, you do not watch them at home. Like I think it would have been better if they had a spot on the CW then being on Apple TV, because at least somebody could stumble across them at some point in time, you know. And Apple TV is already not the most popular streaming platform out there. So now you got what could be considered a fringe streaming platform with a fringe sport that have all mixed together to try to see if we're going
to become the next big thing. And it's like, that's not how it happens.
Yeah, this isn't raw moving to Netflix, you know, not at all. You were already still in a in a phase where you wanted people to find your sport and then you hit it like it's like we're playing hide and seek with soccer right in this country.
All right.
So we did a thing the other day where we said, hey, what is your expectation for your team? Right your NFL team? You we all yet not get back up, come on back. We all tend to at the beginning of the season think a little highly of our our teams. Unless our team is expected to do very well, then we try to try to bring the expectation down a little bit so that we're not so disappointed. Right, And so the question was then, so, thinking about your team for next season,
what is your expectations for your team? So, Kravitz, as a Dolphins fan, I've tried to get you to convert numerous times. You apparently appreciate the pain. So as a Dolphins fan, what is your expectation for the Dolphins next season?
I'm a loyal guy, Steffan. I don't know what I know you.
I don't know the best qualities of you that well.
Thank you, I appreciate that. I think.
If Josh Allen tears his ACL, I think the Dolphins can win the AFC East. If that doesn't happen, I think most likely they hover around. You can't go exactly five hundred and a seventeen game schedule right anymore. So I think they win eight or nine games and they probably just miss out on the playoffs. I think this team's gonna be decent. Their schedule is pretty light. It's relatively speaking, as light as an NFL schedule can be.
Because everybody's kind of tough in their own way. And you also don't know what the back end of the schedule looks like and what these teams are gonna be. But you know when you have you start the year with the Indianapolis and the Patriots, and the Jets and the Panthers, you get the Falcons and the Browns in there on the schedule. There are a lot of winnable games on this schedule, but there's just not a lot to be confident about right now. I don't feel like
the team made any improvements in the offseason. They just looked at an average roster, moved off of an old piece in Jalen Ramsey, exchanged him for another relic in Minka Fitzpatrick, and they're just like, we're just gonna see if we can win with the group that we didn't win with last year.
It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
But based on the schedule, if if tuas you can't break down the Dolphins without saying the words if two is healthy.
You cannot. I'm glad you put it in there.
I think when he's on the field, he has gotten a lot better as a quarterback in the NFL, which is he's so valuable to this team. I think Tua can win games, especially in September. He can win football games. But to say that my expectations are high would would be a lie. So a typical eight and nine season for the Miami Dolphins. Let's let's strap in and get ready. We got an exciting ahead of us this year.
Listen, I'll give you nine to eight, ten and seven, right. I think there's gonna be some surprise wins there. But I also, like you said, is Tua gonna stay healthy? What's gonna happen with your defense?
You know?
Is your O line going to be able to stay staying consistent throughout the course of the season. And then on top of that, I look at Mike McDaniel when I say, we went from looking at you as the genius, the new genius of the NFL to kind of back to not buffoon status. But it's kind of like, oh now, now what? So it'll be very interesting to watch, especially as a Dolphins fan. For you, I don't have to worry about all that as a Raisin fan. But you know, we'll see how things go for you, guys.
My expectation for you guys is pretty high.
Well that's the problem.
Conference championship appearance and then a flame out against a better proven quarterback in the playoffs.
We'll see how that all shakes out.
Well, I look at it and say that Lamar has he has stare stepped his way through in the playoffs. So out in the first round, out in the second round, out in the conference championship.
His next step is to go to the super Bowl. Period, Like that's it.
Hey, they all said that Matt Stafford couldn't do it until he did it right. Well, I'm I'm a believer. Eventually he'll break through the crossover