Hey, magic fans, this is just into Silva and you're listening to End the Zone, the show of the Orlando Sports Fan. All right, business owners, let's talk. I don't care how big or small your business may be. If you think we can help, reach out to me. Advertising is expensive in twenty twenty five, and I can get you in the door at an incredibly reasonable rate here on iHeartRadio. There are people who spend money on this show that are only spending one hundred dollars out of
pocket per month. So if you want your good names spread to our thousands of loyal sports fans, email me and we will get you started. Kravitz at ninety six to ninety game dot com. I will respond to you directly. We have an update on the witch hunt. I told you earlier in the show that my wife had told me that she was on the search for a two foot statue of a witch that you put outside in the yard. She was very excited about this thing, and they sell it at Cracker Barrel and they had not.
And the only reason I know this is because she called the store to see if they had this item that had gone viral on TikTok and the truck was arriving today sometime between noon and seven pm. So, me, being the good husband that I am, I stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way to the studio to ask the fine people at the barrel do you have this witch? I'm walking around showing employees the picture of the witch. They didn't have it yet. Well I got sent the photo.
It is now in the backseat of my wife's car. She was able to secure the witch statue, So stress no more, Tyler, We got it and you fail. Yeah you try. I went. You know, like, how cool would it have been if I was the one that secured the statue? That the brownie points that this would award me early in July coming up with this Halloween decoration. So how would you have tried to manage it?
Would you have tried to surprise her with it when you got home from the studio today? Would have just been sitting there staring at her when she got into walk through the front door of the house today? How would you try to manage it? Because how funny would it have been if you were able to secure one earlier? She swings by on the way home from work and gets another, and then you have not one, but two two foot witches.
You never you never want to call your wife crazy. But I know I know how my I know how Mallory's brain operates. So I would tell her because I would fear that exact move that what happened. I told her, Hey, I went there and they didn't have it. Sorry if I did that in a way to swerve her, and then she I knew she was gonna go yeah, because the the reason it wasn't there is that the truck just hadn't arrived yet, right, So you're gonna look out
what this is. I'll send you the picture of this thing. It's, uh, it's pretty cool. Cracker barrel witch. Yeah, I think I see it. Yeah, I mean it's uh, it is it's a witch tree, so it looks like a tree. Yeah, you got that, I got it. What do you think? Kind of creepy?
I'd say that you have to really love Halloween or witches in order to spend hard earned money on this, But who am I.
To say whatever? I mean, whatever makes her happy. But the battle, the next battle, Now what this becomes is July fourth, fireworks go off, We lay our heads on our pillows. Wake up it's now July fifth. I think she's gonna want to put some of this stuff out, and I don't know. I think I might have to. I'm gonna fight her on that one. It's a little it's a little too early for Halloween.
You're a little too new to the neighborhood, I think to where you are specifically, Like you can even get the title of crazy Halloween people. And I think there are worse things to be in a neighborhood. But this will be not your first Halloween, but your first full July in that house.
If I'm not mistaken, you are correct. It's a little too early, Yeah, to be really crazy Halloween people. Don't let your kids walk by their house. You don't want to be those I think August is fine if you're really into Halloween. I think August July. It's just it'll be up too long's I'm not anti decoration, but you don't want to have decorations up so long, whether it's Halloween or Christmas or picking whatever holiday. If it's up for too long, then by the time you get to
that holiday, it's not special anymore. That's the problem. You want to keep this stuff unique. Yeah, and you can't keep it unique if it's up for six months. So we we not only have an update in the witch Hunt, we also have an update in NBA free agency. The late move to come down. Free agent sharpshooter Tim Hardaway Junior has agreed to a one year deal with the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets have had a really strong offseason
so far, very deliberate in their moves. They traded Michael Porter Junior and an unprotected first round pick in twenty thirty two to the Brooklyn Nets for Cam Johnson. They also brought Bruce Brown back on a one year veteran minimum deal, so very clear what this team is trying to do. They want to add more depth around Nikola Jokicic and that depth needs to be three in d guys. That's going to help the team defend and help Jokic spray out to even more three point shooters. So I
like the moves that Denver has made. They are clearly going to be one of those teams among the many in the Western conferences arms race than the West, they are one of those teams that you have to take seriously next year. I like the way that the team is reloading we.
Talk about the weaklink era and why the under the three and D wing guard combos, it's endless. The Indiana Pacers getting the best out of guys like Ben Sheppard. The Knicks were kind of the variant to all of this. The Celtics with what Peyton Pritchard is six Man of the Year and Sam Houser the minutes that he was able to provide off of the bench.
That's kind of the era.
It's not only having the superstar, but okay, you need to not lose too much when your eighth, ninth, tenth men are out there on the court in the biggest moments. And Denver locked in this offseason that they are not going to have the weakest link on the court. With the additions that they have made, the probably the most strategic without a major splash that we've seen this offseason.
I still think that Houston is the most revamped to bring in Kevin Durant, but I really like the trade to get cheaper Cam Johnson for Michael Porter junior swap and to free up the money to bring in guys like Bruce Brown and Valanciunas and Hardaway Junior.
I really like the offseason for the Nuggets. The way that the cap works in the NBA, it has created I think a very similar type of build. It's different in how you get there, but the finished product for a lot of these teams that our championship caliber are fit, they're all built a very similar way. You have your superstar, you have your batman. That batman has his robin. For the Nuggets, using them as an example, Nikola Jokic is
the superstar. Gotta have that guy. If you don't have a superstar in the NBA, you're never gonna win a championship, except for the Detroit Pistons that did it back in two thousand and four, but they were, you know, they were the unicorn. You have to have that superstar. They have it in Jokic. You have to have the the secondary star who's a clear step down from the superstar, but it's still good enough to carry the team in
important moments. That's Jamal Murray. You have to have the superstar role player, a guy that he is absolutely a role player, but is the top of the line a Tier one role player. That's Aaron Gordon. And then you have to have depth. And the Nuggets now have all of those things, and the depth is what they were missing before. Moving off of Michael Porter Junior has allowed
them to get there. I think you could look at OKC and they're built the same way, a younger version with guys that are still able to mature into more developed roles. But Sga is the star, Jalen Williams is the co star, chet Holmgren is the star role player, and they have depth and a lot of these teams are built that way. I think something interesting as well to keep in mind with Denver is a rookie from last season, Dayron Holmes out of Dayton who did not play.
He had a season ending injury before the year got gone. I don't recall exactly what it was. We'll see how that hampers him.
But he was an experienced forward center combo coming out of Dayton, very athletic, and he's still kind of a question mark of what he can.
Be in this league.
So I think Aaron Gordon may have drawn some comps for day run home. So that's kind of It's kind of the Nicola Topitch situation for the Thunder. You have another first rounder that you just get to drop in next year, and it's like adding another free agent, so I think it's a interesting to see how he meshes with the squad as well.
NBA free agency has seen a flurry of moves, but not everybody is pleased with the action and entertainment of it all. We have a clip from Chris Haynes, NBA reporter on NBA TV's Free Agency special last night, reading a text that he got from a prominent voice from within the league.
I want I'm not going to mention the name of this individual, but this is a high ranking NBA figure. It's been in the league for years. They said free agency is dead, and they think it's bad for the league because it's usually one of the league's biggest attractions. We have to remember that this is entertainment and we can't take that away. How do y'all feel about that? Do you do you believe that promise?
My guess, by the way, is Magic Johnson. I think Magic Johnson sent him that tame prominent figure been in the league for years and is worried about the league's entertainment value. That to me, we know Magic Johnson is an opinionated guy and he cares about the health of the league. My guess is Magic Johnson. But either way, it's an interesting point and it's certainly not wrong the
dead part. Free agency has created a flurry of moves, but free agency itself, with the stars of the league being mobile this time of year, it is certainly not what it used to be, the days of Lebron James making a live TV decision or Kevin Durant holding your Fourth of July holiday hostage because he's a free agent. I mean, we had a year. You go back to that Lebron year. We had a year where Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh were free agents in the
same year. We're just not gonna see that anymore. We haven't seen it in years. Free agency is not what it used to be. Free agency is where you fill out your roster, you get a roll guy, maybe you get that big that you needed. But the superstars, they don't ever see unrestricted free agency. And I do miss it. I miss that being part of the equation. NBA free agency to me is still entertaining. But to say it's as entertaining as it used to be would be an absolute lie.
Well, I think it's the trade off of it because we have seen the kind of flip where now there are cases going both ways. We'll continue to see big time free agents, not the Lebron caliber of guys, but still big time free agents signing contracts.
They still will sneak through the cracks.
I think that Kyrie Irving's extension and Miles Turner on paper, those were the two biggest financial contracts that we saw in this this free agency. But yeah, it's kind of flipped where if you're not drafting your star, then you trade for your star and then you sign your role players in free agencies, where it used to be kind of reverse, you would have trade to fill in the cracks around your star if you weren't able to draft them or go out and get them in free agency.
So I think any negative that can be thrown towards free agency, it can be a positive towards the trade deadline and just trades overall. In this league that you still have guys is the top ten players in the league getting dealt around the deadline and through the offseason. So I think it's just a bit of a trade off.
But there certainly is a point to it that you don't have any players making in this free agency period making or signing a deal that is worth more than an average of forty million dollars a year.
He's right on the door at thirty nine, so we can even bump him. That's one. But there was never even a question as to whether or not he was gonna stick around with Dallas. Right, don't even count. I don't even think he counts.
Then you have three guys, including Kyrie, that signed for twenty five or more, the other two being Fred Van Vliet and Miles Turner. Those are your top three guys in this period of free agency. You only have six that signed deals worth fifteen million or more, Dennis Shrewder, Nikyle, Alexander Walker, and Santi Al Dama.
Yeah, we went through translation here. We went through an entire free agency first wave where the really good players get signed. Not a single franchise changing alters your timeline. Type of player was secured in free agency, not one.
I'd have to look through this further. I think you only have one All Star, and Kyrie Irving. I think that he is the only player on this list that has an All Star appearance.
James Harden would have. The other one was his A. He was a free agent heading into this summer. Yeah, but it was never a question as to whether or not he was going to stick around. That's why, you know, and the computer's chiming in on it too.
Well, that's why I don't see James Harden on this Technically Lebron Lebron, Well, Lebron wasn't a free agent.
He could have been a free agent, but he opted in. But either way, I don't I don't know those guys. There's never question as to whether or not those guys were weren't going to stick around where they were.
Yeah, I'm trying to think with Harden of why he isn't on this list, in particular because he still had he wasn't an unrestricted free agent at all, right, I guess he would have been at one point once he declined the team option and then extended.
So he's not on this.
List that I'm looking at a spot trock dot com dot com, but he he certainly probably should qualify for this list. But it goes to the point that Santi al Dama's one of your top five free agents this offseason, and that is probably an issue. But on the other side of that, role players are still exciting. I have gotten text from casual NBA fans in my life saying
whoa NBA right now? Just because you get the flurry of Sham's notifications and it all happens so fast, and every team in the league, for the most part, is getting involved in it. So whatever team you follow is probably getting a piece. So has it lost its flair its star power? Probably perhaps? But is it a Lacklusser event. No, I don't think so.
I think what those big names did was create this buzz that exists around NBA free agency, and then free agency changed. But without what was in the past, which was much bigger than it is now, we wouldn't be as excited about it. So there is it is ingrained in you as an NBA fan to get excited about this time of year when it's impactful, but not nearly as impactful as it used to be. Tip of the cap to the Atlanta Hawks. I thought they absolutely crushed it.
They have had probably the best offseason them in the Houston Rockets, it's those two and Denver. I like what they've done, but Atlanta and Houston have had the best offseason so far. I don't feel better about anybody else comparatively to how I felt about them before than those two basketball teams. The Hawks acquired Nikhil Alexander Walker and assigned in trade four year, sixty two million dollars. They signed Luke Kennard to a one year deal where eleven
million bucks. They make a deal to get Kristaps Porzingis. They now have a legitimate starting five. They've got real depth, and they've got youth that can still get better. You know, you have a number one pick from a year ago in Zachary Resiche, Dyson Daniels, who is a most improved player kind of guy. And then the Houston Rockets they get Kevin Durant, that was the big find during this offseason. And they signed Dorian Finney Smith that's a great role
player type of guy. We've seen a lot of those around the league that have been signed over the last twenty four hours. And then Clink Capella they add to a three year deal twenty one and a half million dollars for them. Who knows what the Milwaukee Bucks are doing. Ty Jerome landed with the Memphis Grizzlies three years, twenty
eight million dollars. He's making nine point three million dollars per year D'Angelo Russell goes to the Dallas Mavericks and Brook Lopez to the LA Clippers, and of course your Orlando Magic getting Tias Jones as their backup point guard, a guy that has been on the Magic radar for.
Quite some time, Danzo Russell, I think an another all star in this free agency class. Just to backtrack a bit, but I wouldn't sleep on this Tias Jones signing. Now we talked about it to open up the show. Does this push the Magic over the finish line? Are they done with the ross or no? They still have some money to play with, still have two open roster spots. I need imagine that they exercised that one way or another.
But once something I didn't get to in the open of why I think that this Tias Jones, three years overdue for the Magic is such a great fit.
Is that you got him at a really good price.
Some of the counterparts that we talk about that Luke Kinnard did go for eleven million dollars to Atlanta and four million in the grand scheme of thing.
Is it a ton no?
But it's the difference between the Magic having what eight million dollars to play with and four million dollars to play with for those remaining roster spots. When we talk about Mo Wagner, why wouldn't the team opt into an an eleven million dollar team option because they're probably looking to get him for like eight on a multi year deal.
So that four million dollars it is, it is very valuable.
The Angel Russell at eleven point six, Dennis Shrewder at fifteen million dollars, Nikole Alexander Walker at fifteen and a half ty, Jerome a nine point two. These aren't average annual salary. So when you look at those numbers and you get Tias Jones for seven, I think it adds to the grave of why you know it gets an extra half point for this Magic deal. However, you great it because I think you got him on a really team friendly deal.
And he brings a lot of things to the table that the Magic are looking for. A says to turnover ratio is probably his best quality, and then his three point shooting. He's been lights out the last couple of years forty one percent from three point range. If you want an extended ten minute breakdown of the Tias Jones deal and learn a little bit more about him Five things you need to know about Tias Jones. You can check out the latest episode of the zone Heads podcast.
That's the bonus content that you get that you don't get from this live three hour show. That's the zone Heads podcast. The Tias Jones breakdown found there. The Future of sports betting puts the power back in