The time for the in the Zone, Jim Colbert shows simocats the way to make it look right with this stupid camera. So I know it's kind of crazy. It looks like a yeah, it's a it's the look it's like it's gonna fall like a funhouse world.
Look at that thing that not only does it look like it's gonna fall, it's shocking that it's not.
Yeah, it's dead square on the shot though you will get it from the here. It's like dead square. Okay, I'm doing great. Nice for lack of you cold O bring your studio. You're wearing a hoodie? Are you trying to?
I just, I just I just got pretty cold over there. And then and then I thought, okay, I'm gonna throw this on. Sometimes it's a sauna over here. Sometimes it feels like Antarctica. I never know what to expect in your studio's either, So I threw this on because it's nice and nice and cozy here in the studio. Obviously, this time of year in Florida, you look ridiculous whenever you put a sweater on. But that the studio does get cold.
But that doesn't stop anybody from twenty four and under because that seems to be exactly what everybody does under the age of twenty four does. Yep, dead of summer. They wear hoodies, full sleeve hood up everywhere they go. It's the craziest. I've never seen anything like it. My son will he walks around in a hoodie. It's ninety eight degrees outside, walking around in a hoodie. Don't get it in shorts. Dumb, so dumb. But either way, that's fine.
I don't know. I turned forty in August. I have a hard time, hard time explaining the the youth out there. I am not with it. August one, August sixth, are you serious? Yeah? Interesting, same birthday as Lucille Ball.
I'll be damn really yeah, my wife's birthdays on the fourth. Oh wow, and then my daughter is July and six.
We should do at dinner? We shouldn't.
We should just keep our distance right here in the studio, is what we should do.
Was that a store over the weekend that had social distancing stigns?
Really?
Oh? My got them? I thought that's we could probably feel those off. Yeah, yeah, this solid. So what do you got first today? Buddy? Well, let's talk. Let's talk with Orlando City. We haven't done that in a couple of weeks. They're still sitting at fifth in the East. They dropped a golden opportunity at home against a good Cincinnati team leading right, that's our divisions. They're towards the top. They picked up a four to two win earlier in the week against Saint Louis. City had its second match
this week, so did Cincinnati. So not necessarily an excuse, but it is a reason for why the game was sluggish. It took both teams a while to get going. Oh see, first shot on goal was fifteen minutes in. First shot, not first goal for a shot on goal fifteen minutes in for Cincinnati, it took twenty five minutes for them to even take a shot.
I was there, you were there for that. It was you know, here's the thing. And I love going to the games, you know, and we have to drive like forty minutes to get to the games. Love it. Excited to go. Took a nap to get their own time and have a good time. Hold on yards. It was so bad. The game was not only sluggish, but man, these guys are so chippy. The play was being stopped like it seemed like every thirty seconds, the play was getting stopped yet again, more stoppages, and it was just
like almost fighting. It was just a weird, really weird vibe for the game. And by the way, that first goal from Cincinnati, that shot was Banana's good.
I mean, it was crazy. So that team is that team is really good. And that's why I say it's a golden opportunity for Orlando City right now. They are climbing their way up the ranks. To beat teams like this when you get them at home is going to be really important for OC. You know, waiting until the eighty seventh minute in order to punch one in probably isn't going to get it done. But the summer months
have usually not been kind to Orlando City. We'll see if they're able to dig themselves out of this one. They did have a two game winning street coming into that game Saturday.
They looked a little gassed, But if I'm being honest with it, just they didn't play a real pressing defense and it seemed like Cincinnati really pressed the ball all the way, all the way up and down the pitch every single play, and Orlando just didn't seem like they had that extra edge kind of overcome that what it looked like to me.
Can I pitch something your way to both of you, because you guys are pretty plugged in on the soccer world, especially Jack. Have you heard any feedback for the FIFA Club World Cup matches that we've had at Camping World Stadium, because I've seen attendance numbers have been all over the place. Yeah. Yeah, very dependent on who it is that's playing. We have some of the bigger brands that places Camping World Stadium is filling up, and then you have other games that
look like they forgot to let people in. Oh yeah, yeah. So I was just curious, if you've.
Heard me, early on in the earlier rounds, they had a trouble. They had trouble drawing crowds. I know it was like five, six, seven thousand, but I think as you this tournament kind of dwindles down, you're getting to see the more popular teams and you are seeing larger draws.
Okay, good.
People were sitting next to our our season ticket holders, and they're big fans, they go to all this stuff. They actually asked a asked us if we went to any of those games, and we told them no, they said they've been good games, but I didn't ask them about the crowd.
So, okay, onto basketball my world. Okay, let's talk about the Orlando Magic first and then we can kind of spray out from there.
Okay, but can you answer something real quick before we even get into that. Regarding the Magic. The headlines that they regarding Moe Wagner and the other player, Caleb Caleb Houston,
they were kind of weird. It was kind of odd because if you don't understand how contracts work and how, you know, how all of that verbiage of how they maintain players, it would lead you to believe that we're trying to get rid of those two players by not picking up their option or something, which is a possibility.
Yeah. So they both had what are called team there in the NBA, contracts are very complicated. You have team options for some players, you have player options for others. Some contracts have no options, you just play out your contract. For these two guys, they had team options. That means that the option is on the team as to whether or not they are extended for the final year of their deal. For Wagner, he had if the Magic said we don't want you to enter free agency at all.
We don't want to negotiate with you. You pick up the option and you pay Mo Wagner eleven million dollars for next season. That's the end. That's just and then at the end of next year he would become a free agent. For Caleb Houston, it was two million dollars, and that those were options that they declined. They might move off of them, they might not. I think what happened is they declined those options so that they could get into negotiations with other players and see if they
want to upgrade their roster. It gives them flexibility, and it also I think it does do right by Mo Wagner specifically because he's the better player of the two to go out and test the market. Hey, if you can go make fifteen million dollars a year somewhere else, we're not going to stand in your way. It also, we'll use that money on someone else on our side, and so I think it's it's kind of best for
both worlds. The Magic can then engage in conversations because they're cash strapped up and in the NBA world, thirteen million dollars is not a lot. You can sign a pretty significant player at thirteen million dollars a year, somebody a role player that can help you off the bench. And so that's something that they can now engage in those conversations. And if they don't end up finding anybody that they're in love with, then they'll settle back on
the guys that they declined options for. I would put it at a seventy percent chance that Mo Wagner's on the team again. His little brother is one of the starts of the show. That's kind of why I don't think he's going anywhere. He loves it here. The team loves him. He's an energy guy. He brings so much intangibly to this basketball team. Caleb Houston more likely that they actually moved off of him, but we'll see what happens.
Free agency does open up tonight, so you're gonna get an idea pretty quickly as to who the Magic could be going after. And who do you think or if anyone. Yeah, they've been relatively stingy in these times over the last few years, though, have they not well? Last year? I usually yes, because they had been pinching pennies to get ready for this big push that they're making right Now, last year they doled out one of the bigger contracts
in free agency to Contavious Caldwell Pope. They brought him in veteran from Denver, helped them win a championship, helped the LA Lakers win a championship a couple of years prior, just didn't really work out. He was still really good defensively. The three point shot just evaporated in Orlando. So that was part of the reason why they gave up as much as they did to bring in Desmond Bayin. They had to offload that really bad deal that they signed
last year in free agency. They move off of that, and now we are going to get back to pinching pennies mode because the team has a lot of money invested in the players that are on the court. Jalen Suggs already signed a massive extension, Franz Wagner already signed a massive extension, and Palo Banco is about to sign one probably within the next forty eight hours. Those guys, and Desmond Bayne's contract is not light either. So you've got four of your starting five that get paid handsomely
relative to NBA players. They are spending money. Let anybody in any conversation that you have about the Magic, say that team is cheap. They are spending through the nose for the young, talented group that they have right now. The problem is is the way that the NBA contracts and salary caps are aligned, it does make it very difficult to then add money on top of that, even if you've decided to push all of your chips in right. Yeah,
so they are up against it. You're not going to see the magic through free agency make some big earth shattering move. Those players also aren't out there. There's like one big name, Miles Turner, the center for the Indiana Pacers. He's available, He'll be way too expensive for the Magic. You're looking at names that are not going to get you excited. Duncan Robinson, Luke Cannard, Gary Trent Junior, Tias Jones.
Every one of those sounds like a NASCAR driver, every one of them, especially Tias Jones. Yeah, definitely, I would just say, don't worry about the name. Just go to the stats page on ESPN and if the guy is a career thirty eight percent three point shooter or better, so somewhere in between the range realistically of thirty eight to forty two percent.
You have just smile ear to year.
We're about the moneyball. That's bitch, We're about to moneyball this guy. Give him the bag.
Give you know.
It's so funny because Orlando when they first came to be a kind of part of our reputation was the three ball. But Dennis Scott, like, nobody shot more threes than the town. And now we can't get anybody can make shoot twenty five percent.
So I'll take that to the next level because that was during the Shack years. Yeah, you had Dennis Scott that was one of the best three point shooters in a league that didn't shoot a lot of threes. He was special in that regard. Then you go to the Dwight years and stan Van Gundy started to change the way that basketball was played in the NBA. They went one in, four out, so it was Dwight Howard in the middle, and then he would spray out to four
other guys that can knock down threes. That's what made them, that's what made them dangerous offensively. Was that stop When you think about the Heido Turculeuse and JJ Reddix, Ryan Anderson, Richard Lewis, all these guys could knock down threes Jamiir Nelson and they're so far away from that right now. They have to find somebody else. Desmond Bain is gonna help a lot. He's one of the best three point
shooters in the league. There was a great pickup via trade that they got, but they have to add someone else because one player cannot buoy your entire team three point shooting wise.
You have to at least somebody, have somebody that can at least scare them a little bit, because again, if you could double up one dude and basically shut down the three ball and then contain everybody else, which I don't think is going to be very easy this year because I mean we do have some good players. Yeah, and you know everybody's gonna be pretty healthy next year.
Well, I mean it just comes down to strategically. You have Palo and Frands that want to score by attacking the basket. They want to get into the paint and they want to cook. That's what they want to do. Well, if the opposing defense doesn't respect your three point shooting, they're just gonna pack the paint and they're gonna go, Okay, we're gonna put a wall in front of your two best players, and now they can't score efficiently because we
don't care about everybody else. If the Magic start to stretch the defense out, and all of a sudden, Palo gets to go one on one with a defender, he's gonna win that battle more times than not. And so that's what you're looking for. You're trying to stretch the defense. The only way to do that is for them to respect your three point shooting, and right now the league does not.
Yeah yeah, and they shouldn't.
We've given them a rhythm to absolutely not even scary a little. So when they get to the playoffs, teams go okay, go ahead.
Yeah yeah, right. That's when you know it's bad. When nobody's being guarded out there, you're give them and the.
Magic fans they're wide open. Yeah, they let it. When you're wide open. Sometimes in the NBA, it's because they let you be wide open.
We were at the basketball version of when you came up to play a little league baseball and everybody started shouting easy out that's exactly. Or bring the field and bring the bring the players in, you know, bring the outfield in. That's that's the most disrespectable day. That's how we got treated by Yeah, I remember that, remember those days.
Not me. I was a pretty good baseball player, but sure, that's what I say too. That was my sport. Okay, So staying on the NBA, this is on the seatier side of things. But I'm curious to get your take on this since you and I have talked a lot of gambling over the last couple of weeks on this show. Malik Beasley, who is one of those. He's one of the guys that I would have brought up moments ago in talking about adding three point shooting for the Orlando Magic.
But is he was incredible last year for the Detroit Pistons. But right now he is under an investigation through the US District Attorney's office for betting on player props. This would have taken place during the twenty three twenty four season. This guy is about to sign He's an unrestricted free agent. He the deal he would sign is going to be north of forty million dollars and right now nobody's going to touch him because he's under federal investigation for betting
on him for what. So this is what the story is. At least one prominent US sportsbook detected unusual heavy betting interest on Malik Beasley statistic. So I'll pause right there and explain what happens. These sportsbooks monitor all the action
that they get. This is a specific prop on a somewhat random player for rebounds, and all the sudden bets start pouring in at large numbers, large amounts of total bets and the amount of dollars that are being bet on for everyone that's placed, and all of a sudden, you go, okay, why, all of a sudden, when this guy gets let's just call it, five thousand dollars a game over the the the United States, we have five
thousand dollars being placed on this guy every single game. Now, all of a sudden, in this game, it's twenty five thousand dollars that raises red flags. They end up talking to, you know, the people that police this stuff, and that's how these investigations happen. A gambling industry source point into
a game between the Bucks and the Trailblazers. On January thirty first, twenty twenty four, the odds on Beasley recording fewer than two and a half rebounds moved significantly because there was so much action on his under at two and a half rebounds, which is a really random prop to be betting on, and Beasley wound up finishing with
six rebounds, so the over actually hit. But what the if you're reading the tea leaves here, is that Malik Beasley is talking to other people saying, Hey, at the under tonight, I'm not gonna get rebounds.
Wow.
And that's the way that this stuff goes.
I saw a little video today about a player. I didn't even look at it. I just saw the video thats it rolled through and it's like it was this guy playing defense and it wasn't even kind of funny. A guy had him out on the three point line, made one quick little move and the dude just stood there by the guy bounce, you know, just basically dribbled around him.
Yeah.
I mean, no effort at all to defend the guy at all. And I guess this is the guy in play because obviously, if there's one thing he's doing this with, it's probably not stopping.
There right exactly. And that's why I mean this, This one instance that ESPN points out to me is not enough to warrant an entire investigation, especially when the people who bet on the side that took the most money lost the wager. So there has to be something else out there, some other evidence for them to launch a
fully fledged investigation against this guy. What I find fascinating about this and where there is a little bit of egg on my face as somebody who has spoken out at quite a loud volume of this will never become
an issue for prominent NBA players. You mean the sports gambling, Yeah, where you have guys that are shaving points, that are throwing games for the sake of winning bets, either for themselves or acting as a tipster, because nobody has more inside information about how game's gonna go than the one that's playing it. Whatever side of the equation it is, we've seen players in basketball. Johntay Porter is a name. Jhontay Porter is an end of the bench guy that
spent five minutes in the NBA. For someone like that to be part of a federal vent investigation shaving some points because he knows, hey, I'm only going to play for two minutes. Take my under. He bets it. He tells his friends to bett, and all of a sudden, there's unusual action on the fifteenth guy on the roster. Right, that's the kind of thing that, unfortunately that is going
to happen with the legalization of sports betting. What I did not think we would see is for prominent NBA players that are making a significant paycheck that are somewhat household names to be part of something like this. I didn't think we'd see it. And Malik Beasley is I mean, the guy isn't Lebron James. But this is as close as we've gotten to a legitimate NBA starter being part of a federal investigation that involves betting. Isn't this kind of one?
Wouldn't this be a way that somebody could pay their their crew back without giving them their money. Like if you had a crew that kind of took care of you, coming up right protected, you made sure everything was good, a couple uncles, maybe a brother in law, something like that, but you couldn't get You don't want to give them your money because you're still just earning your money. But
wouldn't that be a way to pay them back? Could and say, you guys want to bet this touch but he tells him to bet the under and then he gets the over.
That's the that's the weird That's the weird part about this particular instance that ESPN brings up is because I mean that obviously would be more of a red flag if he finished the game with one rebound and he went, okay, well, a bunch of people that bet that cash the ticket. But if there are other examples that are out there, then absolutely, that's exactly what these sportsbooks don't want that.
That's why they don't Now that there's legalization. The good thing about legalization is that this stuff gets uncovered because the draft Kings and the Fanduels and the hard rocks that are out there are quick to pick up the phone to go you need to investigate, right because they're taking our money. Yeah, they don't like that.
Well, also to erect the reputation of the platform. You know, people won't even think they have a chance if they think it's rigged. Somebody asked about thirty seconds of Dolphins news.
The Miami Dolphins traded Jalen Ramsey, the star defensive back. He's been on the block for the last couple of months. He kind of knew he was going to get traded. They wound up dealing him to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They get back Minka Fitzpatrick, who's a guy that they drafted back in twenty eighteen star safety in the NFL. He's getting a little long in the tooth. So is Jalen Ramsey.
So it's a little bit of a swap of two guys that at their best in their NFL careers have been two of the best defenders in the league that are both starting to age out a little bit, and I think it's just kind of a pick your preference thing. The Dolphins also sent their tight end John news Smith, so there's a little bit of a hole at that position. But Jalen Ramsey's a loud mouth that is overpaid, perfectly fine with them moving off of them.
Preseason starts in what three about eight weeks it'll be.
I think it's the last day of July. Is the Hall of Fame game. I cannot wait. Good toe any buddy, Yes he has a good lab for Rando Gravitz.
Single from threnal six at ninety six to nine. The game all right, four our seven nine sur