#004 - FIba Riba

The podcast episode begins with a sponsor shoutout for Boxed Out Breaks, a card-breaking company in Australia. The hosts discuss the ongoing beef between Daryl Morey and James Harden, and how it affects Ben Simmons' situation. They also mention the lack of progress in Damian Lillard's trade talks. The hosts express excitement for the upcoming NBA season and discuss the competitiveness of the league. They mention the strength of the Western Conference and the different style of play in FIBA basketball. They recap the Australian Boomers' games in the FIBA World Cup, highlighting their slow start against Finland but eventual victory, and their challenging game against Germany. The hosts note the strong performances of Paddy Mills and Dennis Schroder. They briefly touch on controversies surrounding player eligibility for national teams. Hello and welcome back to another episode of G'day MBA, home of the triple-dribble where there is consistent banter and we take ill-advised shots. Before we start today's podcast, we'd like to thank our sponsor Boxed Out Breaks. Boxed Out Breaks is a reputable card-breaking company here in Australia, run and owned by a Celtics die-hard, Aiden breaks Monday to Fridays nightly at a very reasonable price. Card-breaking is an affordable way of collecting basketball cards with the chance of hitting rookie autos, veteran autos, game-worn jersey patch cards and many more cool inserts. Be sure to check them out on Facebook and don't forget to box out. Joining me again today is Brado, how are you mate? Good mate, how are you going? Good, good. Good working week so far? Yeah, never a good working week but it's been good enough. Come with it, we did miss last week's podcast just due, there hadn't been a lot of content, there is the continuing saga of the beef between Daryl Morey and James Harden which continues to rear its ugly head. Yeah, which I thought was strange because I thought they were the boys, you know? They were, they were apparently the boys and then yeah, Harden coming out and calling me a liar and that he would never be a part of an organisation run by him. Yeah, well this is where I always thought, again just to quickly touch base on Ben Simmons, but does this make his situation any better because now it's the second All-Star that's going through the same situation. With Morey. I know obviously Ben took it way too far and there's a lot of people out there that disagree with it and I disagree as well but at the same time I think he copped a lot of flack that he shouldn't have. Well he did and Harden has actually come out and said that he won't play if it gets to the start of the season. Well that'll be very interesting. Yeah, it'll be very interesting. And then what happens to him being, you know, then he's losing his another star, he's gone back to sort of where he was at before and he obviously wants to win a championship so. Well he's in his prime and he's given everything to that organisation so. Oh to the Celtics. Wouldn't argue. Well, if Chris Tapp's going to play, you know, there's plenty of opportunity else there. Also nothing has happened on the front of Damian Lillard and the traits of Miami. Yeah, well, that one's a hard one. I think Portland are set in their ways of what they want but so is Dame so neither party wants to really figure out an easier way of doing something so they're just like, no, this is what we want and that's how it's going to be. They're party sticking pretty solid at the moment, aren't they? Yeah, pretty solid I think, yeah. Anything else really catching your eye in the NBA? Not really. Again, like you said, it's the off-season so it's really slow but I'll tell you what, I'm really excited for the season to start. Starting off last season, just how well-rounded the NBA as like a whole with all the teams' competitiveness. Obviously you've got your bottom-tier teams that are rebuilding or something but I just like the fact that it's not two or three, maybe four teams that are your clear people that are going to get to it like when it was the Golden State-Cleveland era. It was great basketball to watch but it wasn't the best time to be any other fan of a team rather than the Warriors or the Cleveland Cavaliers. And in saying that, the West is probably the most stacked they have been in ages. Like there's six teams that I reckon could win the Western Conference final. I think it was, last year was maybe the first time that maybe the East was more strong in like the number of teams. Obviously the Denver Nuggets were just a tier above everyone else but in the way of all the teams, I think East was better but West this year is just so strong. Yeah, it's stacked. So yeah, it will make for an interesting year so luckily we do have some ball to watch though at the moment. Yeah, yeah. With the FIBA World Champs that have been underway and we've been keeping a close eye on our Boomers. In saying that, it's shown, it was in the warm-up game, was it against Brazil where Jock Lungdale went down? Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, I'm near certain it was against Brazil. He went down who, like he would have been our starting five with Reith, to help Reith as the back-up centre and the fact that Lungdale has twisted his ankle and he's out for this World Cup. The games, like I've watched all of them but watching Reith in those games, he's doing a job but we're really missing that other big out there. So you've got either Nick Kay or Xavier Cooke's being pushed from the four to the five. Yeah, they're like a stretch four rather than a five but you can still play it if you're playing fastball but the thing with fastball, when you're playing a small team, is you need to have shooters and we've got Paddy Mills and Joe Ingles who are known for their shooting but other than that, our NBA stars are like Dyson Daniels, Josh Kitty, Josh Green. Nick Kay has an ugly shot but he can knock down shots every now and then but again, you need to, if you're going to run that small ball, you need to really have good shooters around because that's the only way. Or fast. That guy that was a bit of a spokie was Chris Gilding who plays in the NBL as well and he went down injured in one of the warm-up games. He's a good player that never made it to the NBA, he's obviously really good in the NBL but yeah. One thing I do like, it's a totally different type of basketball, the FIBA World Cups. Like from the actual way that they play the game, it's so different. A completely different style, isn't it? Yeah, unless you're like a Slovenia who's got that NBA sort of all-star caliber player like Luka, then a lot of the time it's like team basketball which is, I reckon, the way to go but I guess when you've got tabs in the leagues such as like Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Tatum, LeBron, all those guys that can do amazing stuff one out, I think that's still nice to watch but it's just refreshing to see a different type of basketball. Every now and then. Yeah, yeah, most definitely. So we will do a quick recap of the game versus Finland. It was a slow sluggish start from the boys where they did look disjointed, things weren't really clicking, shots weren't falling. Against, you know, a decent Finland team led by Laurie Markkinen. Yeah, Laurie was killing us. Yeah, he was torching us but as I was watching the game I was thinking he's played pretty much the whole first half, I was like, he's gonna tie, he's not used to this sort of role. He's gonna wind them down. Yeah, and that showed in the second half where it just completely flipped where everything was starting to connect with us. Yeah. Shots were falling, yeah. Paddy Mills is, I love Paddy in the Australian jersey, he just, there's certain players like even, we'll probably talk about it in a second, but there's certain players that, you know, they do their job in the NBA but when they come back and play for their country you can just see that's the reason why they're in the NBA because they're just so good, like Schroeder torched us the other night. Torched us, and we will touch on that. Being a Celtic supporter, we watched him and he did have moments like that, even had moments like that for Lakers last year. Yeah. But when they come to the country, they play for their country, they've got all the attention, all the ball, and you can just see the reason why they're in the NBA. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, we will get onto that, but he put Germany on his back in that game. So yeah, we did have that first game, we ended up running away and winning convincingly by 26 points, so that was a good start. The game versus Germany, we always knew this was going to be the hardest game in the pool. For sure, but I still had great confidence in the lads to get there. Yeah, well I did, before the game, Mo Wagner, sorry not Mo, Franz Wagner, who's the better Wagner out of the brothers, was ruled out. He didn't actually play. He's an all-star type player. Yeah, he played really well last year in the NBA. Yeah, so the fact he was out gave me a bit more confidence, but you've still got the likes of Schroeder, Daniel Tyre, who we've watched closely. Another fellow Celtic. Yeah, another Celtic that we've watched closely. It was a back and forth game where it was tied. He got some nice blocks too that game against us. One was on Giddy I'm pretty sure too. Yeah, okay. Giddy went to the basket, thought he was at an open lay-up, and then Tysa come from behind and recovered. Wow, so good. He did. And I think that's where we got beaten was we were significantly outsized. As soon as Reece went off and we had Cooks playing the five, and you had Mo Wagner and Tysa there at the same time, they're two big bodies at five. So I thought when they named the team, even with Jock, I still thought we're really pushing it for big guys, but it's kind of nice that Embiid's not playing for France, or he's not playing is he? Nah, well I think he's Cameroon, but he's not wrong though because he had some eligibility thing because they're not making it where he could potentially play for USA or France. So he could play for USA. There was some sort of citizenship rule around. That's a whole can of worms. He's definitely not American. Nah, he's not. He should definitely not be playing for that. Especially when they've got the pool of talent that they can choose from, which again, you can see. They probably wouldn't pick him. A lot of people were talking this American team down, but they're killing it. Well, the other controversy thing is Paulo Banqueiro playing for USA and not Italy as well. There was a huge uproar about that. Did he grow up in America? He seems more American than Joel Embiid. He does. Oh yeah, easily. I think if you've at least got, again I don't know Joel's family history or whatever, but if you've at least got one of your parents from one of the countries, I think you should be able to choose. Yeah, Joel's citizen. Yeah. And obviously once you choose, you have to stay with that team and that's it. Like Kyrie with America and Australia. Could have played for both. He came out and said that. I wish I did. In saying that, and this is off topic to basketball, but there was a league player called Brad Thorn who represented Australia in league, switched codes over to Union and played for the All Blacks, like New Zealand All Blacks in Union. Well, that's a loophole. You can get away with that because it's not the same league. I just don't like it if it's the same league. What's going on? Yeah, definitely. Sorry, we went a bit off topic there, but yeah, it was a costly fourth quarter. There was a few late turnovers. One from Paddy, where Schroeder was hitting down the other end. Paddy turned it over and yeah, they end up winning 85-82. Dennis Schroeder being the player of the game, having himself quite the night, 30 points and 8 assists in 32 minutes, which yeah. He's so quick. So quick, dude. So quick. He is a liability on the defensive end. Yeah, definitely. I reckon the liability thing with defence is that obviously a point guard is going to be a liability no matter what. You can't switch certain, unless you're like a Marcus Smart who can defend all positions. There's not many of them. Through a holiday, yeah, there's not many. Even, again, this day and age, Lebron's a bloody defence liability. I don't know if it's just because he's getting older or whatever, but yeah, I don't know. I feel like because it is a team sport, you need to figure out what your team is. If you have no defence liabilities like the Celtics had last year or the year before, we could have anyone switch and that's why our defence was so great. We had guys that could guard from, if you were a point guard, you could guard all the way up to the five spot and Marcus Smart showed that. But at the end of the day, it is a team sport, so you've just got to make sure you either switch or you get through the screens to make sure that you aren't accidentally on a player that you shouldn't be and that's what the offence is trying to do, so you've just got to play better defence, I guess. Definitely. And this will come out Wednesday morning, so the game between the Boomers and Japan will have already been won by the Boomers, run and won. Well, it is in Japan too, this game. In Japan, we have to win. We have to win, which would take us over to the side which will look likely for a quarter final against Slovenia, Luka Doncic, the man we've been talking about. Also, the team that we beat for the bronze medal in the Olympics, so it could be, not a grudge match, but they wouldn't have forgotten that. Yeah, it's funny what a 10 does to Luka, doesn't he? He looks like he's shaved about 20 kilos off, he's looking like he's 18 again. I know. But, yeah, he's a good player, he's a really good player. He has his faults, like our mate Jimbo will say, definitely has his faults, but there's a reason why he's the number one guy on an NBA team. He is good at what he does. He is that good. He is a generational talent. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Jim. He's a pro, and it's pretty cool when someone can slow the game like that and still play, like Larry Bird did it. Most of the time, guys use their speed and quickness to get around the court and get to the rim or get to their spot, whereas it looks like Luka is almost in that slow mode, but he can still get to what he needs to get to and do what he needs to do. Which is pretty incredible for someone of his age. Yeah, well, I think I've heard a couple of people even say they call him the Baby Bird. Yeah, right. A reference to Larry Bird, because a bit of a... Yeah, there you go. Not as good. Nowhere near as good. Nowhere near. Nah, who knows. Yeah, he's still got a long career ahead. A long way to go. Yeah, we shall see. So, yeah, we have to get the job done tonight. I dare say they'll see it as a disappointment, otherwise. Oh, definitely. Not making the quarters. Definitely. Because they did have one of the easier pools. We were talking about it before, I think it was Group A was quite an easy pool, which had the Dominican Republic, Italy, Angolia, and I can't think of the fourth team. Yeah, but it was the easier one. Because the way I see it is there's certain teams that you got, even though we just had a look at it with the Bahamas team. Oh, yeah, for the potential 2024 lineup. Yeah, like, normally, when we were growing up, there was like America. Then your European team, too. Spain, Argentina. Spain, Argentina. For Spain, it was the Gasol brothers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Germany. Germany's always been good. We've always sort of been around the mix, but obviously, last, what was it? Just a two behind, really. Yeah, just because, again, we talked about it last one, but it's going to change in the next, hopefully, five to six years with all the growth that's coming out of the basketball and the youth in Australia. So, hopefully, only good things to see. We've seen how many players are in the Australian team that are NBA now. All right. Thibault, Mills, Giddey, Josh Green, Langdale. Evno's not playing. Jack White. Yeah, Jack White and Juop Reeth are both fringes. Reeth was playing summer league for the Trailblazers. Paddy Mills. You said Paddy Mills? Yeah, I said Paddy. God, there's Xavier Cook, who's playing for Washington. MVP season and then got into the NBA. MVP season for the NBL and then that ended up getting him a spot in the team. I feel like Joe Ingle's the other one. Joe Ingle. Yeah, he's the other one. We're not far off of it. Probably 10. 10, 10. 10 to 12? Yeah, of NBA players. It's crazy. Back five or six or even seven years ago. Yeah, one to two blokes. Actually, probably longer than that. I'm getting older than I think, but back in high school, there was lucky to be one NBA player. Yeah. Andrew Gaze, I think, was the only bloke. Yeah. Andrew Gaze. Yeah, then Paddy when- Yeah, then Paddy when he finally come through and then you got Joe and you got Dele Dover, all those kind of guys, but again, you had three players and the rest was NBL players. It's good to see us get up there, but I think the whole world in general is starting to catch up, especially now that I think there's a lot of players that would have played for America, but now they want to have more shot at playing this, so they go and play for other teams that they're originally from or- It's only great for the game. So that Bahamas team that we're talking about, so you've got Deandre Ayton, Buddy Heald and Eric Gordon, I believe. Oh yeah, Eric Gordon. And then the potential lineup to join them was Clay Thompson. I swear Clay played for America, didn't he? There he is. At one stage, he's never played for America. Yeah, yeah, he has. Again, I'm not entirely sure how the rules work around that. Sorry, I'm just getting it up because it's actually frustrating me. So I've found it here, so the potential players that they could be taking, so 2024, that's the next Olympics in Paris. They can have the Mobley brothers, so both Evan and Isaiah Mobley, Naz Reid and Clay Thompson to be joining Deandre Ayton, Buddy Heald and Eric Gordon. That's a stacked team. Really good team. But this is the thing, when it comes to the Olympics, the American team, if they do really well here and they show everyone that they're really good, this team, which they are, they're all top tier guys in the NBA that's in this American team, they're just not the all-stars that they have available. They're just not their best starting five that they have to pick from. It just depends if America feels threatened by other teams after this FIBA World Cup. They might just bring in the big dogs. You've got your Tatum, LeBron, Booker, Durant, all these dudes that could play for America and the B team almost is just plough and food teams. New Zealand had a good start. I think the Harker scared the Americans a little bit in that first quarter, but then after that it just looked too easy for them. While we're actually on this, I'm going to bring in one of the listener questions that I had lined up for later, but it will actually tie in well here. So our good friend Brocko, old Brock Joe, he goes, nothing Lakers related, which is nice, nothing there, but he said, are USA a lock for the FIBA World Cup? Boomers are a juicy $10 before last night's game. So that was, oh God, that was back on Friday that I put out the poll for questions. But are USA a lock, or do you look at a team like Canada where they've got SGA? I think it would have been a lot closer if Jamal Murray was playing for Team Canada. The fact he's out, not entirely sure. So do you see USA being a lock, or do you think Canada, or potentially a team like Germany could give them a run for their money? I just feel like with the American team, the only people that can beat them is themselves. They're just too good. Until you get a country that can put together a team where at least, because you think about it, the guys that are playing now are still starters. You know what I mean? The guys that we have playing for Australia, Giddy, and I don't even think Paddy Mills is a starter anymore. Paddy's no longer a starter. So you've got Giddy as a starter, Dyson's not a starter. Matisse might be at the Blazers because they're pretty weak. I think he's still a starter every now and then for Philly. Outside of that though. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's like the other teams. Like Germany, who we lost against, no starters. But it's not like we're playing a best of seven either. You know what I mean? Or you've got to do, like you said... You've just got to get that one game. You've just got to get that one game where America do beat themselves. And you do have a look at their line-ups, like Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, Tyree Talibert, and... They can all shoot. Yeah, they can all shoot, but what I'm getting at is here, none of them have had that Eastern Conference final, or Western Conference final, or... Yeah, like no one's had that big match game sort of thing. Definitely, but I think... Does that make sense? Sorry, you go. I think the NBA games, like towards the end of the season, or if you come up against a big team, I think that intenseness, if that's a word, is... The high intensity moment, yeah. Yeah, I think that's almost either bigger or better than a FIBA World Cup game, if you know what I mean, because the crowds that they would draw to that, the televise, everything would just be a lot bigger. So I don't think that's the issue. I think it's the issue that, like you were just saying, is they don't have that second chance. You've got your quarterfinals, your semis, your finals. That's it. If you have one bad game, then that's it, you're done. And there's no, oh, it's alright, we've still got three games to make up. That's also why I don't hate the loss that we had against Germany, because we would have learnt a lot from that game. Definitely. I would have done video sessions on little areas that they could improve on. I think Gideon had a great game either then. Yeah. He had a lot of hype coming into this whole FIBA World Cup, not just from Australian supporters, but everyone in general was saying that he would be one of the main players to watch, and I think he's just got a little bit of high expectations on him, and it might be getting to him, but he looked really good in that first game against Finland. Yeah. Yeah, he nearly posted a triple-double. Yeah, and he just didn't quite have it there with Germany, and I'm not too sure what it was, but unfortunately Gideon relies on playmaking, rebounds, all that kind of stuff, and getting to the rim. He can get to the rim, but again, not having those bigs to draw away the defensive bigs out of that hole, it makes it a lot harder for him to drive to the rim, and he's got to rely on his shot, which isn't his greatest attribute. Yeah. Yeah, most definitely. He can knock them down, like any NBA player can knock them down, but it's the consistency of knocking them down is what teams want. That's not his strong point. Because you have that quick turnaround. You can go down the other end and they can knock down a three, you come down and miss a shot, they come back down and knock down another three, that's six points in a matter of 15, 20 seconds. Yeah, a game can change pretty quickly. Very quickly, so. So, I guess we can talk about the disappointing team so far of the tournament, which would be France, who have already been eliminating after going 0-2, losing to Canada, which I'd say was not expected, because they've still got a great team. They've got Nicholas Batum, Rudy Gobert, Fournier, they've got some decent NBA players. Yeah, for sure. So, the fact they lost to Canada, you're like, yeah, okay, we're that, but losing to Latvia without Kristaps Forzingas, like that's, yeah. Which, just want to touch base on that. This is going to be a bit of a Celtics related thing. Yeah. But I am hoping, but I think, but I'm more hoping that the Celtics, I don't know, I'm not too sure on how bad this injury is to stop him from playing here. I think the Celtics are just so scared with what happened to Gallinari. Great, yeah, great point. You know, that was only last season, exact same situation. Yeah, it was that Euro-basket tournament. The Euro Cup, yeah. So, I'm hoping that he's okay and they're just using that as an excuse so that Latvians out there don't get angry that he's not playing. But, yes. It's always fully prepped for the NBA season. It's always fully prepped, there's no risk being taken because we've just given away a lot for him. For him to go and play the FIBA World Cup and get injured and then not play the whole season like Gallinari did, that would just destroy the Celtics because we did give up a lot. It would fucking ruin us. Like, we gave up smart, heart and soul for this bloke. Yeah, yeah. They're putting a lot into him, so. So, I'm hoping that that's what it is. I really hope it's nothing serious. But again, our sort of season relies on him being fit and fit for a long time. He stayed fit pretty well last year. Just hopefully he can carry it over to ours. So, that's what I'm hoping, that whole Latvia, you know. That's the whole situation. Again, I didn't watch the game, but yeah, well done Latvia. Who else have they got to know? That's a huge effort. In that pool. Team Latvia team. Oh, honestly, I don't think they've got any NBA players. I think it's just all Euro players. Isn't that what I was talking about before, with the different style of play? Team basketball. Team basketball, team camaraderie. There is a few of them playing together in the European leagues. Like, yeah. And that's the difference with all the other countries compared to America, is that America are a little bit arrogant in the fact that they know that they can just put together a super team with ease. Yeah. So, they don't really give a shit about playing together during the season or anything like that, because they're like, it's alright, we've got a pool full of NBA stars we can pick from. We'll just chuck them together and they'll come out and flog everyone. They'll come out and make it work. But when you have guys who have played in Euro leagues and all these other different leagues where they actually play together for long periods of time, it's just like chemistry. It's just like anything. Same with the NBA. You can go with this big three that no one's ever seen together before, like the Phoenix Suns. And you see them from, like, well down in the pecking order, in terms of betting. Oh, shit, they've just signed Bradley Beal to go alongside DeAndre Arden. Well, DeAndre Arden, but to go alongside Booker and KB. Automatically they just get boosted to, like, favourite, second favourite, but it doesn't mean they've got team chemistry. It doesn't mean they're going to gel. Exactly. How do you know that all three of them are going to play together, which is, we're going off topic here again, but they just seem so ball-dominant players. I don't understand how a big three can be, like, a ball-dominant players. Like, our big three, when the 08 Celtics won, was, I don't know if you'd count Rondo in there, but it'd be like Ray Allen. It would be a big four somewhat. Yeah, Rondo, Allen, Garnett, Pearce. All those players besides Pearce. Allen's a catch-and-shoot guy, right? So he has Rondo to facilitate, pass the ball around. Same with Rondo. He doesn't necessarily want to have the ball to score. He wants the ball in his hands to make other guys free, to make their job easier. Paul Pearce is a bit of a, you know, make-his-own-shot kind of thing. But then, yeah, Garnett, who's just a hard worker, you know, just the Marcus Smart kind of hustle. And that's what teams need. They don't need three dudes that can give you 60, because it's not going to happen, because they need the ball in their hand all game to score that 60 each, you know? So, look, it's always cool to see how they go, but I'm not the biggest fan of that kind of shit. I'd prefer to see, you know, get you a couple of stars in different roles and then get you role-players around them and then you can work off that. And that means your star player can get more ball, he can get into rhythm easier. But, you know, if you're trying to... if you don't know who to pass it to, then it starts to get a bit funny and, like, oh, should I take this shot because KD's over there? Like, he's due for a shot. He's due for a shot, then, you know, you're just not playing your own game, so... We went down off the beaten path there, didn't we? We started talking about France being a disappointment. In a roundabout way, France is a disappointment. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And on the other scale, a team that probably wasn't tipped to do much, qualifying for their first FIBA World Champs, South Sudan, in their first World Cup game, beating China. Like, I know it's not much beating China, but the fact that, yeah, they're a... But China's, again, like, not that small of a country and they're starting to put a lot more money and time into sports over there now. And they've just got this weird, hard sort of work ethic, the Chinese, you know? Once they start getting into something, it's just like, work, work, work, get good, work, work, get good, so... And they're so secretive, so you don't know what the hell's coming out of that country sometimes. For all we know, they could have NBA-calibre players, but they just won't let them go play in the NBA. I don't know if there even is any Chinese NBA players in the league at the moment. Let's have a quick look. Because you had Yao Ming on the team, which is the biggest name ever. And it's quite large in China. Houston and James Harden is massive over there. Yeah. Like, huge in China. None of the names here ring a bell that I've seen. I will look into it, though. But South Sudan end up beating them by 20 points. 89-69, which is a convincing... And who is the only NBA-calibre players in that team? Again, I've sort of been a little bit off the... South Sudan, yes, because we had a warm-up game against them, South Sudan, leading into the tournament. And Wenning Gabriel, that was on the Lakers' roster last year, he was the backup to AD. Yep. He's there playing, and outside of that... Yeah, again, I'm sorry if I am missing someone, but, yeah, no-one really stands out. Again, that poor country would probably have a lot of players, like, I'm pretty sure the Makers, like, the Maker and that would have been from South Sudan, but instead chooses to play for Australia. Again, because... So I don't know where he's gone, ever since that big... Oh, against... Was it against the Philippines? Yeah, that big flying kid thing. It was nowhere near anyone. I haven't really heard too much about him since then. Yeah, no, Shawna was telling me the other day, or he asked a question, he was like, why isn't Thornton in the team? I was like, are you fucking taking the piss or what? But he was somewhat being serious. I don't know where he's at or what he's doing, but he wasn't a bad player, like, at the time. He kind of just fell off. And that's why I said to Shawna, I said, like, yeah, I think he's passed his time. I think I said to him, I think he's over in the, like, China league or something. He wouldn't be... He'd be younger than Dele, wouldn't he? Probably on. I think he was maybe the same draft class as Marcus Smart, 2014. Yeah, right. Anyway, again, we're just making... We're just shooting the shit at the moment. Yeah, just shooting the shit at the moment. So outside of that, we can talk about a few individual performances, like Luka doing what he does, putting a slip in the air on his back. Grabbing a monster stat line. I know it was only against Georgia, but 35, 10 and 6, like, it can't really be ignored. I do want to watch that. Obviously, you know what it's like being a dad. It's hard to get time to do anything. Fair timing is hard. And then when the kids are settled and in bed... Boom is at 9 o'clock tonight, which is very late. That one I will be staying up for. Yeah, I have to, but it's late. That's when I'm usually snoozing, I reckon, by that stage. Yeah. So the boys better win, because I'm staying up to watch them, and I'll be off it if they don't, and I've got to go to work tomorrow. Tired as hell. It's for no reason. Nah, that... Yeah. They will be winning. I think there's too much pride in that team. But, yeah, just back on Luka, like, this is what he does, whether it is for the Mavericks or whether it's for Slovenia, he's just, yeah, generational talent. But the guy that was in the NBA, I don't know if he is any longer in the NBA or not, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, in a losing team for Jordan against New Zealand, putting up, in 43 minutes, putting up 39 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Wow. Yeah. They call him the left-handed mumba. Yeah, cool. Yeah, so that's also cool to see the Kiwis, see them get a win. How do they look? Have they got another game in them to try and make it through? Yeah, they do, but they... Well, actually, they've got to play Greece. So Greece is still a good side, even with Giannis. They've played USA, they were comfortably beaten by about 20 points in that one. 20 points, yeah, yeah. But again, that's... But there's no reason why they can't beat Greece. Yeah, I think, again, that's just another one of those countries that have players that play with each other all the time. A fair few of them are in the NBL too. Yep. And I just, again, we were talking about it before, I just can't believe Steve Adams doesn't play for him. Like, he would be so good for that team. Yeah, I know. So good, but obviously, we were speaking that something happened with him and the New Zealand organisation, and he just hasn't gone back since. Must have been pretty bad, but if, like, if it's a... You'd go, you know what, fuck yous, I'm not coming to play, if it was bad. You'd get over it after a year or two. You'd get over it after a couple of years. You made millions and millions of dollars playing for the NBA. Why wouldn't you just come back and represent your country? But he's a good guy, and seems like he's got a good personality and he's head screwed on, so whatever it was, it must have been pretty fucking bad. Must have been, yeah, something serious. Yeah, who knows? Because, yeah, he seems like one of the nice guys. Well, he seems like one of the... Not bad boys, but he seems like the strongest guy in the NBA. You hear a lot of players, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the strongest guy in the NBA. He literally picks up centres and moves them away when you're trying to find his place. Yeah, but he seems like a really nice guy at the same time. All of his interviews and stuff he does, he's, you know, just relaxed, happy, chilled. I couldn't imagine he'd be the kind of person to hold a grudge unless it was really bad. Yeah. But, again, we're sort of going off track. We don't have a script. We don't really have to stick to a script at the moment. There's not much on. It's a very quiet time in the league. I was meant to bring it up before when talking about France. I was listening to Paul Pearce's... Not Paul Pearce, Jesus. Paul George's podcast today, Podcast With P. He said that Nicholas Batum is retiring after this. Oh, yeah. Not just from National, but from the Clippers as well. Oh, wow. He had a good career at the Hornets too. Yeah, he was at the Hornets. Pretty much Hornets and Clippers, wasn't it? I think so, yeah. There's probably someone else before that where he... Jesus, mate, can we get old now? All these players are starting to retire. When LeBron starts to retire and then all that, you're just going, Jesus. And then all the players that are good, like people that we look up to, like Tatum and fucking Brown, they're like six years younger than us. I know. They're like, oh, I'm a grown-ass man looking up at a 24 or 25-year-old kid. 19-year-old. Yeah, no, I'm 19. No, I was talking about Brown. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the other thing I want to touch on too, just about the Boomers, was listening to a different podcast, Andrew Bogart's podcast, Rogues With Bogues or whatever it's called. I haven't listened to that one too much. I listened to the Austin Rivers. Yeah, yeah. So it was actually pretty funny to find out that, you know, you get invited to camp up in Cairns and whatnot, invitational only, and Del Vadova wasn't taking no for an answer, that he wasn't a part of the original 15 or whatever it was, and he's like, nah, like I'm coming to give it a crack, and if you still don't think I'm worthy, you can tell me in person that I haven't been selected for the squad. Like it's a pretty ballsy move, and I guess he's probably somewhat, I don't know, deserves... Definitely, 100%. Like he was a part of that Boomers stage where they were building the Boomers culture. Yeah, he was around for the bad days, and then he was there when we won the bronze. Yeah, exactly. So I do get where he's coming from, but do you take it that far, where you're like, no, like I'm coming, if you haven't been given an invitation? The way I see it is like he's a part of the Australian basketball culture, like as much as anyone wants to say, like he's won an NBA championship, he's played alongside LeBron James, which that championship, he wasn't just sitting on the bench warming it. Like he didn't get major minutes, but he still come on and had to make an impact in that short period of time. Which his minutes that he was playing were pretty impactful. Yeah, exactly. They weren't huge minutes, but he played a role. At that stage of the season where it is the two best teams playing, you don't have any chances of slip-ups for minutes. You can't just put in a scrub in there because then you'll just get absolutely pounded for it. Whereas he stood up and did what he needed to do, and again, talking about him and the Australian basketball team, what he's done with them, he should have at least just been like, yeah, look, you didn't make the 15-man squad, but come along with the journey because we could use someone like you in the locker room. An experienced guy to help out the likes of Dyson Daniels and Xavier Cooke, Josh Hitty, who are all on their first boomers camp really. Yeah. Paddy and Joel and that can only do so much. You need a couple of those guys that, you know, they're playing, so they're going to be getting frustrated or they're going to be thinking things differently. Whereas Dele will be just on the side. He'll be able to see everything from a different point of view, and he can just come in and tell the boys what's going on and stuff. Yeah, I think that's a little bit of political bullshit in that, whatever's going on there, but I back it. Fuck it. Go up to Cairns. Go up and, what's the fucking place I died? Gilligan's. Gilligan's. RRIP, Bredo. RRIP. Bredo's soul's still up there. It's still a trigger, the word Cairns for me. We'll have to go back for a revisit. Maybe. We'll see. Next camp. But have you got any irrelevant news that you want to touch on? Irrelevant news? I've got relevant news in terms to the podcast. We'll be heading to the Hobby Hangout on Sunday the 14th of October. We'll be holding a little store there. So if you are heading to the Hobby Hangout in Sydney, yeah, be sure to come up and say hello. We'll have plenty of cards for sale for those that are MBA collectors. Yeah, we'll just have podcasts. There's a chat. Yeah, podcast information. Just a nice little meet and greet. Just getting the word out there. Yeah, just getting the word out there. We're not talking to nobody. Well, that's it. Rather than just speaking to the five friends that we have listening on regular rotation. We hit 50, I think, the other day. Yeah, we hit 50 the other day. I'll take that. Yeah, shout out to you all that are taking time out of the day to listen to us. But, yeah, if you are into card collecting or just the hobby itself in terms of, yeah, sorry. It's a great time. Yeah. Yeah, well, we went down there last year. It was unreal. It's in the university. It's not there this time. It's not there? It was at the University of New South Wales last time. This time it's at the Roundhouse, which is in Randwick. Dangerous because it's on a Sunday. Could even go down on a Saturday. Spring carnival time. Yeah. Yeah, no. Who am I kidding? Maybe we can. I don't know. It could be still a business trip. I reckon the keys would be changed. The locks would be changed to the house. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if someone got home with the two young ones. Yeah, so it is a good time. It's all kinds of shit. I sold heaps of my cards really easily and then bought myself a Larry Bird signed jersey in the same place. Yeah, that's right. They do live breaks. The bloke that we did work did some breaks with Sebo. Yeah, Cash Money Break. Cash Money Break. They do live breaks. He did a live break, which he hit some really nice, actually I'm pretty sure it was the Bill Russell signatures, New York signature that he hit that day. Yeah, nice. But yeah, it's just fun. They sell them, you know, if you're in the year, any kind of collectibles. I bought a little Tatum toy, which... Yeah, well that's it. It's just not basketball cards. No, it's just not cards. It's not dominated by that. It's all... Yeah, there is actual signed basketball. Signed basketball. Signed jersey. Jersey. Like you said, the pop vinyls, the figurines. Yeah, yeah. Trading games, posters, magazines, yeah. And like I said before, if you want to sell cards, it's probably the easiest place to sell. I'm pretty sure Cherry, they have their own little store and they have a bloke there that is just buying in bulk. And it was literally like I walked up to him with 10 cards and said, what could I get for this? And he goes, well, what do you want? And you being the good bloke here, I just gave him a little whisper in the ear and said, 500, 500. I was going to say like 200 or something. And the bloke was like, looked through them and was like, yep, 500, here you go. What's your account? Bang, bang, through. Straight through. It's a good time. It's fun. People down there just chatting, talking a lot of basketball, which is what we all love and that's the reason why we're doing it. Yeah, most definitely. So yeah, that's what's coming up for us. That's in October. I will put a link in our Instagram that will take you to the Hobby Hangout website if you do want to buy tickets. The other thing, we have made a few, a couple of changes to the tipping competition. We're just going to make it a $50 entry and then we'll just divvy it up. There'll be like a winning prize and maybe, depending how many people we get into it, maybe like a top five or top ten prize money. Oh mate, it's bloody hard. I don't know how you were going to put that together but I was very impressed. It's very different to other sports where teams are only playing once a week. You've got some teams play four times a week. Yeah, there's games on every day so I think the best way. And like eight games a day too. Yeah, exactly. I think the best way that we are going to do is that we found out that ESPN do actually run a competition so we'll just run it all through that. There will be a password on it just so, yeah, it's for the people only that have paid entry and just for our community as such. Definitely. I'm definitely keen on that. Anything else? Or do we wrap it up on that note? No, I reckon that's a good chat. That's us. Good yarn. Any short ones? Yeah, 40 minutes, not too bad. Probably a couple of minutes of clipping out. I can do that tonight by watching the ball. Yeah, yeah. So no, other than that, go Boomers, go Celtics. Go Boomers but most of all go Celtics and yeah. Enjoy your day. We'll catch you guys soon. See you guys. Bye.