Hour 1: Is There a Gap Between the Celtics and Everyone Else in the East?

Meet the new Hoker Speed Goat 7. Proven grip, comfort and control. For runners who meet the wild head on. From steep climbs, to slick descents, and loose rock. Speed Goat 7. Run Wilder. Explore more on hoker.com. You know I stayed up a little bit late last night because I had to go to Westwood. Speeds of the Cadets. Because I'm all about being there for the people. Especially the kids. Stevie A. Love the Kids. He sure does. Then I had to come and first take this morning. And I wanted to go away. But then I remembered my man Doggie. Dog was gonna be in the house, okay? And I've been going through a little bit of abuse because Shay, she could be me. Even though I love her, she could be me. But she's great. So being next to her. And being next to Doggie. And thinking about my man Wendy. Coming in with one of his outfits. Looking all diplomatic. Like a politician. I love that stuff. Then I thought about the subjects that we have to tag when I sit. Sports just touches my heart. Especially sitting across from this man. Who's opinioning me. You know what? That's first take ladies and gentlemen. That's how we roll. Two outs. Two balls. Two strikes. Detail to success that Solaris had against Lopez. And yet to get him out tonight. The two run over the first. And he hit him with a pitch in the third on the wrist. That one coming up in here. Uh oh. Uh oh. And now here comes Solaris. They're gonna start to fight. They're throwing blows. And the blink of an eye. That turned into a heavyweight bout. With Solaris and Lopez throwing blows at each other. Hello everyone. Welcome to first take. I'm a really nice person. I don't know why Stephen A has put that up there like that. Stephen A is here. Mad Dog is here on a Wednesday. Full dysfunctional family in the house. Love to see it. Let me say this. As a man that was raised by five women. Four older sisters. That's my default position. That mean to me. Yeah. That's all it is. That's all it is. I have nothing else to lean on. I gotta say she's being mean to me. That's right. That's all it is. Or sorry. Sorry. Or she's mean to me. One of the two. Some sorry's maybe should have happened yesterday in major league baseball. If you haven't seen it, we're about to show it to you. Angels and Braves win for the earliest brawl of the season. Bottom of the fifth. Reynaldo Lopez facing Angels designated hitter Jorge Soler. Lopez throws a pitch that's high and inside. Tipped off the catchers glove. And then words are exchanged. Staring happened. And the punches begin to be thrown. Soler went toward Lopez and then that's it. Benches clear. Both players were ejected. So a brawl of the highest magnitude here right out of the gates. What are we two weeks into the season already? Your reaction, doggy, to what you saw here between the Braves and the Angels. I can't blame Soler at all. He had hit a home run against him early in the game. He also got hit by a pitch. Plus he owns Lopez career wise. The pitch itself is not that big a deal. No. But he had gotten hit before that. And he had homered before that. Walt Weiss, the brave manager said, you know what? I know it looks bad. So I can't blame Soler for doing that. There'd be some suspensions. That wasn't exactly Jack Dempsey and Jesse Carpenter. But speaking of which, you were not exactly Eisenhower up at the West Point yesterday. Either I might add. I think I might have been better. But anyway, this situation here, I mean, it is what it is. You're going to see five game suspensions. And you know, and the Braves ended up winning the game. But Lopez, he had hit him already in the game, which he didn't mean it, but he did. And he had given up a home run. So I blame it more on the Braves than I do on the Angels. I don't care. I loved it. Let me be very, very good. Anything, listen, anything that involves that kind of person in the office, you don't want anybody to get hurt. You get that part. But those are some haymakers Soler was throwing. And obviously Lopez, I see him with the check left. He tried, he tried. I mean, I didn't mind it at all. I like to see the passion again. You don't want it to get to that point. But listen, let's understand and let's put this in perspective for the average layman out there. You throwing a ball out of probably a fastball in excess of 90 miles per hour high and inside. That's very dangerous. If there is a reason to get into a fight, that would be it. I would say also about this, and this is just me being cruel in a very funny way to some degree anyway. It's nice for the Angels to do something relevant. I mean, they ain't been in the postseason since 2014. They haven't had a winning record since 2015. I mean, damn it, do something to have us interested. Do something to have us interested. Right now on this season, they're on a fast track to pretty much nowhere yet again. There's six and six on the season. That's an average middle of the road team that's going to be entertaining for the first few months. And by July, they'll be irrelevant. Okay. So because of that, I'm like, anytime you're seeing fans out there having something to cheer about, hey, all the better for it. Again, we don't want anybody to get hurt. And we certainly don't want to promote violence per se. But it's nice to see the passion. It's nice to see cats willing to go at it. It's like to see a relatively healthy dislike for the opposition going on. I really don't have a problem with it, but it's really much because of the outcome as opposed to what the possible outcome could have been. Thank God nobody got hurt. I will say the angels between Joe Adele and what he was able to do in the outfield. Oh, those good catches. And now the Brawl, they've been in the news quite a bit in the last three. Three, not one, not two, three. Three, three, yeah. Let's go to the NBA. The Celtics took on the Hornets last night. Hornets a very good team. Jalen Brown at 35 points, nine rebounds. Jason Tatum at a 23. Boston took down Charlotte, 113-102. So the Celtics now three games behind the Pistons in the two spot, which they can lock up tomorrow at the garden when they face the Knicks who are in the three spot. Boston has won seven out of their last eight games. And now the question is, is there a gap between the Boston Celtics and everyone else in the East? That includes the Pistons. Brian Winn horses with us now. Wendy, what do you think? Good morning, gentlemen. By the way, dog, I went to the Angels game on Sunday. And I'll hear it. I'm here to tell you that Mike Trout got slammed in the hand by a pitch. We were worried about that. And I thought it broke his hand. So I understand why Soler is not happy about the ball coming inside like that. Good point. Just wanted to say that. How the hell is Wendy have time to go to a baseball game? That's really the news right there. How the hell did that happen? Dog, Cal Raleigh, they were playing the Mariners. Cal Raleigh off to a rough start, dog. Look at him. He's showing off now. He's trying to get the one home run. Boy, oh boy, what a job Mr. Winters. Who I love by the way, yours, knock him. He's a great guy, Winners. I know Wendy. He's lying on national television. I know Wendy knows better than that. But go ahead. Go ahead. Lines of the American football team. I went to the Laker game last night. Not as competitive, but that's a different story for later on. Yes, Shay, there is a gap between the Celtics and the rest of the East. Absolutely. You know, this was the big fear through. I mean, look, it was Stephen A's big fear. He's out here trying to talk Jason Tatum out of playing again a couple of months ago because he knows if Tatum comes back, they're in trouble. Not only that, Tatum came back. This was so thought out. Obviously they had to make sure that the leg was okay. But this was so thought out. He came back at a point in the season where he was going to have time to ramp up. You know, when you come back from an injury like this, I don't care who you are. I don't care how miraculous it is or whatever or what age you are or who performed the surgery. It doesn't matter. That had to be a little rusty and he was a little rusty. But now he's almost a month in now. He's gotten so many minutes under his belt and the way the Celtics play is just seamless the way they can bring him back in. Jaylen Brown's shots and minutes and usage rate hasn't suffered at all. They've plugged him right in. So if you're in the Eastern Conference and you're watching Tatum get better by the week, of course you're going to be worried. I do think that the East playoffs are going to be compelling for various reasons. They're going to be a little bit more aggressive or underselling the danger that the Knicks might bring. But there's no way you can't watch the way Boston's looked progressively each week that Tatum's come back and not say that they're the favorite for sure. Favorite maybe if I had to pick one of the four, you know, Cleveland, Knicks, Celtics, and Detroit, I would take the Celtics. I don't know if the gap is as large as Brian might think. Listen, you know the Knicks could beat them. They beat them last year and they had them beat before Tatum got hurt. They were up two games to one, about to go three-one up. So keep that in mind. Detroit does have home court. We know Stevie loves Detroit. He'll talk about them in a second. I'm not saying that I would, if I had my life on the line, I would take the Celtics out of the East. I definitely would do so because they got the two best players. So I would do it. But if you're going to also tell me, the Knicks is going to be a pain in the neck in that series. Okay, they are going to be, the Knicks are a weird team. They're up and down, towns sometimes good sometimes. We understand there's all the, we know the Knicks issues, but they're going to be a pain in the neck. They are going to give the Celtics all they can handle. They'll probably be a seven-game series and a Knicks could win a seventh game in Boston. They're going to have to because of the home court. So, although I agree with Brian for the most part, I would put him a little ahead. Brian's got him too far ahead. I wouldn't go that far. I agree with Brian. I agree with Brian because of the way Jason Tatum is looking. As an aside, I'm very upset with Jason Tatum. As great of a player as he is, he's an even better person. Love him. Love everything about him. A superstar in this league that is just one of the classiest people that you'll ever meet. You've been on this show. What I'm mad at him about is that he didn't listen to me, Shay. You know what I'm saying? You can relate because you don't listen to me. He didn't listen to me. You can relate because you don't listen to me. I'm very upset because Jason Tatum, I tried to coax him into sticking and sitting out the season. I said, it's the Achilles' Tale. You don't want to come back. You want to stay home. Just stay away. Relax. You know they don't need you. It's okay. It's all right. Okay. You can come back next season. When I said that the New York Knicks were going to the NBA finals because Jason Tatum had that damn Achilles' Tale. Damian Lillard while in Milwaukee had the Achilles' Tale. And of course Tyrese Halliburton who knocked the Knicks out the last two years had the Achilles' Tale. And damn it, it hasn't worked out because this damn Jason Tatum, I mean, it's really getting on my nerves right now. Over the last six, I'm just looking at this guy right now. Over his last six games, Jason Tatum has averaged 25 points on 46% shooting, 38.5% from three point range. By the way, he's also averaging 10.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists. This is a guy coming off an Achilles' Tale. 200 plus days ahead of what Kevin Durant and others came back from when they had the Achilles' Tale. I'm like, damn it. 13 and two with Jason Tatum in the lineup and they're an Eastern Conference Best. 11 and two since March 14th. I am very, very concerned. And the New York Knicks don't look like the New York Knicks. We've known and loved over the last two or three years. Yes, they were a good team. Yes, they're a playoff caliber team. But these are not the same Knicks. These are not the same gritty Knicks that looks like they cut your eyes out if they had to to beat you. That we watched over the last few years. This is a softer version of the Knicks. So that combined with the inexperience and being devoid of a second offensive option, like Detroit is even though Jaylen Durant can score and he's an all-star and he's a really good player. Somebody at a Knicks should have drafted. By the way, don't get me started with that. Even though that's the case in Detroit, you don't have that bona fide secondary offensive player from the perimeter. And you look at the New York Knicks being who they have been, particularly against teams with a better than 500 record. I find myself siding with Wendy on this one. I think the Boston Celtics have emerged as the team to be in the Eastern Conference by a difference. You think more than me. So I can, yeah, I will say that I do think Shay that the Knicks are somewhat undervalued. There's a few things with the Knicks I can't really explain. For example, their starting lineup doesn't play well at all in the first and third quarters. They don't fit together for various reasons. But then when they close games, sometimes they're really good. That group is really good. I can't quite explain that. I can't quite explain why, for example, Mike Brown stopped playing Muhammad Diwara, who I think is a really nice young player that should be getting more menace. All of a sudden stopped playing. So do I. I agree with that. I can't figure out why. But what I will say, guys, is the Knicks are set up to be a good playoff team. They have all of the assets and all of the tools that you need to be a good playoff team, which is why they beat the Celtics last year, because they are particularly set up to win a playoff series, including they have a closer. They have a closer who can take a game that can go either way, grab it by the throat and bring it home. Jalen Brunson has done this over and over. And for all the criticism that Mike Brown has received this year, and some of it is fair, he does have a history of being a very good playoff coach. And I've watched it firsthand. When you give him four or five days to prepare for an opponent, when you give him the opportunity to game-play between games, he does have a history of doing a very good job with his teams. So I would just say, I like the Celtics to win the East, but do not underrate the power of what the Knicks can break. Yes. I think you saw the closing aspect of that when they played the Hawks the other night. Jalen Brunson really took over in the final minutes of the game, and the Hawks didn't really have that option in terms of a quarter. We're not letting Wendy get away with that. You're not. I'm not underestimating the Knicks. I'm saying the opposite. We came into this season with expectations. This is not about us looking at the New York Knicks and walking around, not expecting anything from them. This is about us expecting more. And we've seen less. There's a difference. This is what I had to tell the great Mike Breen. When he went on the air and spewed his blasphemy about, let's not forget how wonderful the New York Knicks have been in recent memory. And since Leon Rose arrived and all of this, he's right. But that wasn't the point. The point is, this was a window of opportunity that the New York Knicks was supposed to be capitalizing on. And it does not appear like that's going to be the case. And that is what has us worried and disturbed. And people like Wendy and Breen and Kendrick Perkins and others. I'll be on Mike Breen, so. I love these people. I love these people. They're not getting away with it. They're not getting away with it. You understand? And I'm going to be mentioning Mike Breen a lot over the next few months. Damn it. Because I love him. And I am very upset. I advise you to stay away from Mike Breen. That's my advice to you. That's my guide. We love Mike Breen. The Hall of Famer. Of course we love Mike Breen. But my goodness, to sit up there and bring up, listen, we ain't won the championships in 1970. I don't want to hear anybody coming on the air lecturing New York Knick fans about how we're supposed to appreciate where we are now. Well, where are we? We released the conference finals last year. We talked about the Knicks. Atlanta might be a threat in the first round. They got to face Boston in the second round, which is why this game against Boston coming up is pivotal. We need to see how you're going to do. You got a 2-1 edge on them. But that was without Tatum. Now that Tatum's back, what you going to do? We got to see that. I want to hear about last year. I'm Janet Jackson, fam, my brother. What have you done for me lately? Woo, woo, woo, yeah. That's what I want to see. You understand? I want, what have you done for me lately? That's what I'm talking about. Last year was last year. Anything less than a trip to the finals is not going to move us. If you get to the conference finals, okay, you did what Tom Thibodeau did. We appreciate that, and that's not a failure. But you got to at least do that. Where is your tea? Can I check what's in it? What is he dancing? What's up with him today? There's something in there. You know, I mean, I got into the broadcast in Cabel Hall of Fame. That, I think, might be it. Congratulations. By the way, I hate to say it. Congratulations. Yeah, it's true. All right. Let's go to the Warriors. I didn't expect that from you. I didn't expect that from you. Let's go to the Warriors here. They snapped a four-game losing streak. They beat the Kings, or just skidding, at 21 and 59. But the real story is what happened with 315 left in the game with the Kings up one. You can see it here. Doug McDermott fouled Seth Curry with the Warriors in the bonus, sending Curry to the line. It was a really strange sequence. And then it led to Draymine Green saying, just something's not right here post-game. Listen. I saw a team tonight foul Seth Curry with three minutes to go in the game for no reason. In the penalty. I get fine when I do wrong. Just fine the hell out of people. You know, we love taking money from players. Keep firing on the teams. I've seen two fines. And we all know everybody tank. But you've seen two fines. If it was players, we snatched that money in a heartbeat. Why isn't it the same? And we see 12 teams tanking. We've seen two fines. My math serves me correctly. That's a 10 that ain't been fined. Just some quick math. Could be wrong. So don't judge me if it's wrong. But we'll keep that same energy when it comes to teams, when it comes to officials, when it comes to everybody but players. We don't keep that same energy. But this a player's league. All right. So Draymine is referring to the fines that were given out for manipulating the integrity of the game. We remember this a couple of months ago. His math is correct. 12 minus 10 is indeed two fines that were handed out by the NBA. What is the solution to tanking? Is Draymine green right here? Well, listen, we've discussed the solutions to tanking. There's a bevy of ideas that they could come up with. And we've addressed that as it pertains to Draymine Green's words. He's a thousand percent right. He's absolutely right in pointing out what he pointed out. What did he say? He sat up there and said, we know there's tanking going on. Why is it that players are the only or the primary ones being fined? We've even seen the commissioner, Adam Silver, you know, basically have a press conference talking about it. It's something that we need to address. And it's something that we intend to address. So clearly it's something, it's a dissuasive measures that are being entertained in an effort to stop the tanking. And he's talking about the teams, not the players, because when it comes to tanking, it's about the teams. It's not about the players. The players are doing what they're told to do. We all know this, okay? From an organizational perspective, it's coming right on down. When you talk about player participation, player activity, sometimes it's player load management and stuff like that. And we're looking at that in a shameful. Sometimes it's invoked and provoked by the team. You know, your strength and conditioning coach, your medical staff. You got the coaches on camera telling us, they're at the mercy of these guys, JJ Reddick. Just a couple of weeks ago, you know, sooner than that, when Luca Doncic got hurt, what did he say? He said he was examined at halftime by the medical staff and they gave the okay for him to play in the second half. We've seen other situations in Milwaukee with Doc Rivers. I'm in the middle of this. We really have no control, but I'm the one up here in front of the camera having to answer this question. But this is about Giannis and essentially the medical staff and orders coming down from up top. The game is changing. The world of analytics has taken over. You have owners who want to appear knowledgeable and as a result, higher data analysts and people like that who speak their language to run their organizations so they're communicating with owners and speaking their language got the owners thinking they know just as much basketball as everybody else. And you're imposing your will upon people who are supported. It's their work for you, obviously, to get them to do what they're doing. Somebody like Draymond is tacitly, if not directly, pointing this kind of stuff out and saying this is supposed to be a players league, but there's stuff going on that the players are being influenced by and they're being ordered, essentially, to do. And nobody is finding these guys and nobody is talking about these guys. All anybody wants to talk about is the players. Draymond Green is right. Period. I have no pushback with what he says. Floorjaws. Wendy. I typically opt out of Draymond Green's strawman arguments because, you know, it's one of his techniques that he's particularly adept at. He is correct that teams get away with stuff and don't get fined, whereas players get fined on a daily, weekly, if not daily basis. That's a reasonable point. Why he's choosing to make this foul, the Doug McDermott. I don't know what happened with that foul. It's a strange play. Doug McDermott is a cerebral player. He's probably going to be a coach like his father was. I don't know what happened with that play, but Draymond is correct that those fines that Adam Silver handed down and then quit finding teams who are doing things way more egregious. That absolutely is strange. I agree. I will just say that we are in a time right now where the entire NBA, and I'm talking about the league office, players themselves, coaches for sure, and the executives are just trying to get to the finish line. They're trying to whistle their way past the graveyard because I'm telling you, night in and night out, there are things happening in games that if you are paying attention will have you slap your head. There is crazy stuff happening in this league outside the top teams night to night. And if you take a point by point look at it, what happened with this Doug McDermott thing wouldn't rank in the top 100 of things that I've seen in the last month. So yes, it's a problem. Yes, I got to do something about it. No, I'm not sure what they're going to do. Yes, a lot of people are guilty. And that's the way it is. And if you want to have this conversation, we can have it, but I'm going to tell you, I'm going to do largely what the rest of the league is going to do. I'm going to whistle and try to get to the playoffs because if you spend more time analyzing this, it's going to drive you crazy. I promise you. There are more blowouts in the NBA last weekend, more blowouts, more than 20 points in the history of the league, 80 years, more blowouts. The games were a disaster. Go watch a Bulls game on the road. It was in 160 to 10. Here's one thing I would say about Jemon and I didn't, you know, the play is weird and I'll let you guys handle the play. McDermott's a smart guy. Why would you foul there? This is the same Golden State team and the same coach who when they came to Madison Square Garden on a Sunday about three weeks ago, nobody played. Nobody played. So that coach, who was a great coach, came from the Popovich rundown who never played, who played, didn't play Duncan and Genobly and Parker on national TV in Miami and Stern find them like you wouldn't believe. That coach, Kerr, nobody load management is more than him. And when they came to New York a couple of Sundays ago in NBC, go check a look at the lineup. Jemon didn't play. None of them played. It was a disaster. It was an embarrassment to the league. So I understand his point last night. That was terrible what the Kings did, but the Warriors are a team that can't say anything about anybody else based on what they do. I don't know about 12 teams tanking and Wendy, maybe you'd know better than me. It feels like 10 teams tanking. The 10 teams that are not available for the play and the playoff. I would say nine. Nine, 10 teams. I'm in a nine, 10 ring. Right. I'm in a nine, 10. That's probably the more accurate situation here. But the blowouts and the tanking strategy, at some point we're going to run out of draft picks too. Like I know we got the lottery, but beyond the like, you just have all these teams tanking for lottery picks. Like you used to tank for the number one or number two pick. That's what we see sometimes in the NFL. Now we've got nine, 10 teams tanking. Well, you got a good draft. They got a lot of good players. Correct. All right. We got to go. Let's start. Start lineup for the Golden State Warriors against the New York Knicks at the garden. A few weeks ago, what doggy was talking about. Zemski. Host. Guy Santos. Will Richard. And some guy. Malevi line. Leon. National television too. National television. That was the starting lineup. For the Golden State Warriors. Wendy. Quick response to that. I would just tell you that there are players that are getting pulled out of games in like the middle of the third and fourth quarters who are having the games of their lives. And they're getting pulled out of games because their teams might win. They're getting it's the incentive structure as well. In fact, poor, poor Bryce Sends above from the Utah Jazz is having an incredible day. They played the Thunder the other day and he was thrilled. You want to know why? Because he was allowed to play 40 minutes. He keeps scoring 20 points in 20 minutes. He finally got to play 40 minutes because his team had no chance of winning. He scored 34. The whole thing is upside down right now. That's terrible. All right, Wendy. Thank you. Coming up, more details continue to emerge from the brewing tension between Giannis and the Bucks. Shamsherania, who's been all over this story, will join first take next. Plus, Michael Ballone was introduced as the head coach at North Carolina yesterday. How quickly will he get those tar heels back to the top? That's next. All right, let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. 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Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm juju Chang from 2020 and ABC audio listen now to bridge of lies wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back on ESPN dot com, Sean Shirania did a deep dive into the fractured relationship between the honestly to come on the box while also detailing the deteriorating relationship between the head coach dock rivers and the players. So we now welcome in Sean Shirania right now. Good morning, Sean. How are you? Thank you for being with us this morning. What stood out most to you about the situation that continues to keep unfolding here. Yes, Shay. I mean, I just think back to last summer and the last 11 months. This is not a saga that has just come out of nowhere in the last few weeks that's been predicated on the second half of the season. And as I talked to sources around the team sources around players involved, people involved in all this is this could all have really been avoided. But the Bucks last summer when Yannis and Junco privately behind the scenes approach them in May along with his agent Alex Sarracis about listen, the time is now to part ways. The time has come to move on. John Horst, the general manager, dock rivers, the head coach team ownership. They were aligned because the leadership of that organization had convinced ownership that we have a contending roster. We have a team that can compete and win. And as much as Yannis made it very clear in his private conversations with John Horst, the general manager of the team that he had serious doubts about this team's ability of this team's talent of this team's culture to actually win. They decided to rebuke his trade efforts to keep him. And that's the tension that you see take place. I had one team source tell me in the last several days that when you have a star player that's one foot in, one foot out, you're just not going to win. And that tension has permeated across the Bucks organization from ownership to management to the coaching staff to the players. And you know, there's several words I can use right now. Dysfunction, chaos. Steven A, I'll just put it plainly like this. You have a top three to five player in the world right now that has publicly and privately sparked and created and promoted an investigation into his own team. That I think speaks volumes across the NBA. And I think it does. But I think for the purposes of this discussion, I want to get a little bit into Coach Doc Rivers. Is he an innocent bystander in all of this where it's the powers that be putting the heavy hand down upon the organization and compelling him to make decisions that he otherwise would not want to make. And he's just stuck in the middle like he alluded to on charity the other day where he said, you know, all of this is going on. It really should be kept private, but I'm sitting here and I'm in the middle and I have to talk about it. Is it that or is there more to Doc Rivers involvement that you know what you're trying to tell us about? Which one is it? Yeah, I say when Doc Rivers was hired in 2023 midseason replacing Adrian Griffin, it was clear to me several sources around the team that that was ownership's decision that he had Jimmy Haslam West Seedens. That's their that was their guy. That's who they wanted to hire. And he has had a lot of say a lot of control of everything that goes on within that Bucks organization. So when it comes to roster, when it comes to the team dynamic, when it comes to obviously he has control over his rotations, his lineups, all of those things. Doc Rivers is at the center of everything with the Bucks. This is an issue where last summer, if you address the Yanis situation, how does this season play out? We don't know. But listen, John Horst and Doc Rivers were 100% aligned with the team's direction, with the team's roster, with selling Yanis on the fact that they felt this team was a contending team in the Eastern Conference. So as much as everyone now wants to potentially, you know, one thing that's been mentioned mentioned to me in the last few days is now everyone wants to run from responsibility, whether that's the players, whether that's the coach, whether that's the general manager, the team leadership. Across the board, it's obviously about accountability. And we've seen Yanis come out on multiple different local interviews and be very, very direct with his feelings and how he feels about the team's culture, the team's identity, the team's moves. And that is something that the Bucks are dealing with right now. It is total dysfunction and chaos there. What's Doc, what would you classify Doc Rivers? And Doc Rivers, by the way, is welcome on this show anytime. He knows that. But I have to ask you this question. Why would you classify Doc's relationship with Yanis and Tukumpo? We clearly see how Yanis is feeling about the organization at this particular moment of time. We haven't seen any evidence on a public platform how he feels about Coach Doc Rivers. What would you classify that? What are your sources telling you, you hear about that relationship? Steven, across the entire roster, I reported it in my story. There's been a season long disconnect from the top to the bottom. I'll give you a story. There was a team shoot around meeting on March 21st in Phoenix. Doc Rivers called it with his veteran players. One by one, Torian Prince, Kao Kuzma, then he got to Miles Turner, told Miles Turner, multiple people in the room told me, he told Miles Turner, listen, I'm disappointed in your play, expected more from you. Everyone's exiting the meeting. The two players that were in address that hadn't spoken yet were the two long standing players. That's Yanis and Bobby Portis. They both then speak up because the meeting's ending. So listen, these two guys are your two long standing players. They have a voice too. And when it gets to Yanis' turn, he actually, multiple people in the room, again, tell me this, Steven A, he actually ends up in front of the coaches, in front of everyone, supports Kao Kuzma, supports Torian Prince. And when he gets to Miles Turner, says, listen, I'm not disappointed in you. I felt I let you down. I wasn't on the court. I wasn't next to you on the court. I let you down. This is on me. This is my fault. And so that lets you know where everything is at, how Yanis, he's come out multiple times praising, just praise Joe Missoula in a local interview about how Joe Missoula has handled his team and not made excuses about his team's play. I'm not saying that was directed at anyone, but I think there's a lot of comments that have come out around that Bucks organization where, especially from a player's perspective, where you get a delve, a deep dive into how they feel. All right, Shoms, really good stuff here. Thank you. We appreciate you taking the time this morning to kind of break this down. We'll talk to you a little bit later. Let's now bring in Doug and Brian Winhorse as well. And Wendy, we heard Shoms kind of detail it there. The Milwaukee Bucks, they're kind of free falling at this point. They're 31 and 48. Tremendously struggling. Every day that passes, something new seems to be coming out of that locker room. That's just not good. What is your reaction to what Shoms just told us? It's just exhausting. I need a scorecard to keep track of everything that's going on with the Bucks. And so I've kind of just thrown my hands up and said, I can't keep track of it. Here's what I know. I know that when Yanis has started this season, the Bucks are under 500. I mean, when Yanis plays your teams under 500, you don't have a good team. I don't know what else to say. I was in this chair last summer when the news came out that they were cutting Damien Lillard to sign Miles Turner. I almost fell on the floor right there. It was one of the craziest roster maneuvers I've seen in my 23 years covering the NBA. And I remember checking in with the Pacers because I felt terrible for the Pacers. The Pacers were, you know, moments away from maybe winning a championship and then they had this terrible injury and then they lost Miles Turner and they were like, look, we can't pay him 100 million. We don't think he's a $100 million player. We hate to lose them. We don't think he's a $100 million player. And I was like, well, the Bucks do. And he has not been a $100 million player this year. This roster is not a good roster. And that's where we, you know, all of the details that Shams reported on it, everything that Doc has said and this player has said and that player has done, not great, but it's a bad team. It's a bad team and Yanis had a terribly injured season. Everything else is an outgrowth from that, is a mismanagement of what the situation was back in the summer. Yeah, I think there's, I'll echo what Brian said is an incredible amount of Yanis fatigue. You know, Oz Talk is a fan. Wake me up when it's over. Wake me up when Yanis ends up at the Knicks, which he won't because they have nothing to trade. Wake me up when he's with the Nets. Wake me up when he's on, you know, the Spurs with Wemba Yama. Wake me up when Yanis has another chance in his words to win a championship. They should never have fired Mike Buhlhozer when they got rid of him. Yanis did not play in that series against the Heat. Buhlhozer had just lost his brother to a car accident and Yanis didn't even play. A lot of coaches were annoyed by that. He didn't go out there and play. Well, you know, he was, if he, a game time decision every game, then they fired Buhlhozer and he'd been a mess ever since. They fired a million coaches, they've been a mess. Now listen, one thing, Brian's the expert on this, not me. Litter wasn't going to play this year anyway. So as a result of that, they felt, you know what, we got to try to keep Yanis happy, got to try to be competitive. So we're not going to be able to have him play after the Achilles. So let's get rid of him and then we can have room to sell Miles Turner gives us a fighting chance. Turns out that turned out to be a lousy decision because, you know, I guess Turner's had a bad union. You're right. He's not on the main. Good player. Good role player. He gave him so much money though for him not to, not to help that roster. Well, he's, you know, he's, you're right. He's a good role player. He's not a guy that you can have as your second best player on the team. But again, I think the overall theme for me and you guys know, we all know Doc, he's a great guy, is wake me up when Yanis has his scenery that he wants on a good team, win a championship, play 70 games, have an opportunity to win a title. Right. Because I think a lot of fans are losing every five seconds you hear about Yanis. Well, get this settled eventually. Please. It's tiring. It's what I would ask is that there needs to be, I don't know if the right word is compassion or empathy, but there needs to be some of it for Yanis. You know, it's one thing when you're an American born player, when you're over, when you, you coming from Europe, when you're from Greece, you know, I mean, you don't know, it's like you're honest, but in the same breath, you sort of find yourself feeling alone to some degree and you don't want to be is, you know, upfront and outwardly with your emotions, you know, because you're not, you know, you're not surrounded by your peace. That's why they got his brothers on the squad and stuff like that because you want to be with people that you know you can trust and you feel that and clearly that's something I'm sensitive to that. I'm sensitive to being sensitive to how Yanis chooses to handle something because he may be, you know, I'm here playing basketball, but the second the season is over, I'm going back overseas. I'm trying to be in my comfort zone and stuff like that. If we were someplace else other than America, how would we be? How much sensitivity would we have towards being someplace else adapting to that culture and making all the right decisions? I just want to be sensitive to that when it comes to Yanis Center to Kumbh. That's number one. Number two, the story here to me based on what Shams had said, based on what Wendy just pointed out is Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers, ladies and gentlemen, has been coaching in the NBA for 27 years. Orlando and Boston, Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia, now Milwaukee. Okay. 27 years. Doc Rivers was just not going into the whole thing. And here's what we're talking about with him. Doc Rivers has to deal with that because somewhere along the way, no matter what level of fault he truly deserves or not, he's culpable to some degree for the narrative that's out there right now. When I'm reading a quote and he's asked about his future and he says, quote, I won't answer that, but I have grandkids that I want to see. I'll put it that way. I'll let you figure out from there. That is at least the third time that I've had a problem with a quote that Doc Rivers has given this year. Now, somebody that has known him in the full disclosure, me, the will bonds of the world, other, we've known Doc Rivers 30 years. I love the man, respect the man, nothing but love for him. Okay. But here's the reality. Doc Rivers walked into this season before a game was played, doggy saying, this is it for me. I'm going to put it out on front street. He's talking about retiring. He was talking about retirement this summer. Didn't say it definitively, but was talking about retirement. This could be it. Knowing that and knowing that Yanis indicated he wanted out. How do you keep him? You got to get, you got to move him. You got to move him. Now, again, if I'm going to trust Shams, Doc, God say, Doc ain't up in there. You know, Mr. Little Innocent and they don't have any say whatsoever. Now, Doc will tell you about ownership and what have you. On one hand, his personality, Wendy, there's no way that that's Doc Rivers. Anybody that knows Doc Rivers, Doc Rivers is a strong dude now. You know what I'm saying? Opinionated will let you know where he stands. Obviously, he has a lot of faith in his knowledge about the game of basketball. He ain't going to be some type of little quiet little mouse out there. But the flip side is I saw him with the Los Angeles Clippers and I saw Lawrence Frank come from an assistant coach who he brought in to be in his boss as president of basketball operations over the damn organization while Doc Rivers is still coach. I never thought I'd see that happen, but it happened. So again, we don't really, really know. But in the end, if you know that whether it's of your own volition or it's something that you're going to be compelled to do that coming into this season, this could be it for you. You got and you hear your star inside say, I want out. You got to move him. You can't have this season with him and hold on to him. You can't do that because you get what you're getting right now, which is a superstar that even though he's been injured most of the year still averaging 27 to 9 on better than 60 percent shooting from the field. The bottom line is that he don't want to be there. And when you have somebody that is unhappy that is that significant to what you want to do. You got two choices. Make him happy or let him go. And you can't make them happy. You can't make him happy if you're Milwaukee because you don't have the assets to do it. Or you don't want to play him. No, you don't have the assets to improve the team is what I'm saying. Right. So you don't have the assets to improve the team. You got to move them. They made a mistake holding on them. The real question is, was it just the organization upstairs or was it dock rivers and the organization all aligned in making a decision that obviously was faulty. Yeah. And every day that passes, this seems to get messier and messier like Yannis wanted to play with his brothers. It sounds like the other day they both. Well, he always wants to play with his brothers. Right. They wouldn't let him play. Right. They wouldn't let him play. Obviously they don't want him to get hurt. It's just a messy situation right now in Milwaukee. Coming up here on the first take the Michael Malone era and Chapel Hill is underway. We'll take over the Duke Blue Devils as the top team in the ACC. We got a new chapter on tobacco road. We'll talk about that next. Welcome back to first take Michael Malone was introduced as the next men's head basketball coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels yesterday. The press wasted no time in asking about the rivalry between UNC and Duke of course. I'm excited to be a part of that rivalry. I want to add to that where I want to you know I want to win. You know, and I know that Duke is a program down the road and they've had success but you know as I said earlier I didn't come here to be second best I didn't come here to lose in the first round of the ACC tournament. You know I came here to win and went at a big level. I mean how much that gets you going if you are a Tar Heels fan do you think Mike will compete with Duke right away doggy I like to know what the NIL money is because Duke's a private school Carol is public school Duke spends a fortune I don't know if Carolina with pan Pelle check or the things that pain him at the NIL I'm assuming the number is fairly close but if anybody thinks that Mike Malone is not going to go down to the ACC and be competitive. I tell you I'm not knocking you but Davis but let's be honest is he going to blow a 19 point lead the second half against the ginger Commonwealth with all he knows in the NBA scenario and everybody who wants to pound on them now for the Denver situation. You know while he didn't do a great job at Denver they wore out of a what has Denver done this year since they got the same records to do this year. I'm not beating Oklahoma City in an NBA play that I'm beating and then I think the Spurs in the second round. You don't know that all that I think I just agree with it. I'm not saying I'm saying they could lose but if more of Jamal Murray gets off. It is possible. Listen my point is it's not like Denver's won 65 games with Malone off the team and the same record that had last year's Malone he got and they all they they flew out of the face of them they killed when he got fired last year I think he'd be fine I think Carolina be a very good team next year you get to a point where you get tired of hearing the same voice no matter how effective that voice is Mike Malone is a hell of a coach he's a hell of a basketball mind 6 year $50 million contract he's worth it. Let me be very very clear he is worth it because the man knows basketball he can coach he's a good man is a good person too and I think the kids will gravitate to him I only have one source of trepidation because we all know my favorite rivalry in all the sports is Duke North Carolina basketball and I'm always room for North Carolina I just love it okay even I don't hate on Duke but the Billy Kings of the world the J. We got to get tired of them do keys okay but I got love for them but I really really love North Carolina that's just me okay. Can he recruit against John Shire. And that's important because this is not Mike Shashashke. There is not supposed to be a huge discrepancy between John Shire. At Duke and North Carolina if they get one all American you should be getting other because let me tell you something when kids come to Duke or North Carolina they're coming because of the other school you're not going to North Carolina without thinking about beating Duke you're not going to do without thinking about beating North Carolina that's the mentality which means that when they rank number one you better be in the top 3. If they think I thought you better be right there it can't be Duke's number one and you number 17 or 20 now that don't work that ain't going to cut it. I think Mike Malone knows that and I think because of that that is why I got confidence in him but he has to prove it that's the only thing that I have a question about I have no question about his basketball I can in his coaching ability and his ability to relate to the young players I think Mike Malone is a damn good hire and I think he deserves the job. There's only been one coach and N C double a history that is one both an NBA championship and a N C double a tournament championship and that's Larry Brown right so we'll see Michael more than he's become the center. Coming up here there is a war of words going on with the Lakers following their 3rd straight loss we will have JJ Redick for you and you will hear his words. Following last night's loss plus Kevin Durant in the Rockets won their 7th straight game could Houston eclipse Denver for that 3 seat in the West or they better off just saying right where they are coming down the wire in the NBA with the stuff next.