From Scandal To Stellar: NBA Gambling Fallout And Opening-Week Breakouts

What's good everybody? Welcome to Frontrunner Podcast Collective where we talk like friends, argue like cousins, and somehow still leave a little smarter. I am Vince, your host, your occasional therapist, and your favorite bad influence. We here on Frontrunner Podcast Collective unpack the wins, the mess, and the middle ground with jokes, receipts, and maybe a hot take that ages badly. We got Saraya, she's gonna be producing the show, she will be providing some notes and some timely information for us so we can stay on time, on target, and drop the occasional gym to keep everybody honest. So we have a lot to get to today. Uh, we're gonna touch on the gambling um ring that involves one Chauncey Bills and Terry Rogier. We're not gonna get into it to completion or what have you because there's so much of this story that still hasn't been uh fleshed out and what have you. I think in the coming days, in the coming weeks, we'll know more, and then we'll be better prepared to talk about it. But we're gonna hit some of the major points. I'll give you my thoughts on it and let you know where we go from here and what to look for because that's the most important thing, uh, and then we're gonna talk about basketball, you know, the actual thing that we come here to talk about on Tuesdays and Fridays. We will talk about Shea Gilge's Alexander in his opening week. We're gonna talk about the Orlando Magic, we are going to talk about Wimby's performance in on his opening night and a couple other teams from there. So that is the highlights of where we are. So, on this feel good Friday, let's get into it. So, we're gonna start with the Chauncey Billets and Terry Rogier situation, they were arrested in connection to probes Bills in a mafia adjacent rig poker scheme. Rogier accused of separate insider info betting setups, and this is by the AP rooters and also ABC News. The feds described a tech-out poker room, shufflers, x-ray tables, face cards, loring wells, plus prop bets timed to early exits. It's a mess. So, what I will say about this as we get into it is that first of all, uh one of the FBI, I think this was Cash Patel, he says, fraud is mind-boggling. Two NBA players named in the headline of 30 plus arrests. So we had like actual, like real mafia folks allegedly connected to this situation with Chauncey Bills and also Terry Rogier. The whole deal with Bill Ups being arrested. One, he is the coach of the Portland Trailblazers, he's being put on immediate leave. He's been charged with conspiracy tied to crime families, part of the feds, and ABC News, allegedly, gotta say allegedly, and then we also have Terry Rogier who allegedly inside tip planned early exits fueling pop bets. So basically, what that means is that Terry Rogier got with some homeboys and said, Hey, I'm gonna feign an injury or not feeling well. And if my I was supposed to hit two three-point shots in this game, obviously I won't be able to do that. So, and this is all alleged. We don't, you know, it hasn't been proven in the court of law yet, so we can't gotta keep that on on the get our key our T's crossed and our I's dotted on this situation. The main thing about this is that first of all, the poker scheme allegedly netted seven plus million dollars. The best tied to insider info were approximately around 200 to 250k wagered on one Rogier episode. There were other charges like wire fraud, money laundering. So, I mean it's an absolute mess. This is definitely something that the NBA would not want to be tied to. Um, the the poker thing was like crazy with some stuff out of James Blonde. They had rig shufflers, x-ray tables, electric trip trade trays. I think I probably saw this on like Ocean's 11 or 12 or whatever. Now, a couple comments from some of the coaches around the league. Steve Kerr of the Gold State Warriors players get harassed by angry debtors. Um, team briefs rules routinely on this matter. Rick Carlisle of the Indiana Pacers says it's shocking. He reached out to Bills coaches, you know, uh Bills coaches, the association's supports due process. Obviously, again, we don't know if this man is, you know, we have to presume innocence and got to be proven guilty. Our guy David Alleman from the Denver Nuggets checks in education trumps, everything. The this ecosystem isn't going away. He is right about that. When the thing about it is, is that gambling is something that has been going on for ages, whether it was a backdoor back alley type of situation, somebody running numbers, or going to Vegas to place a bet. Now you can do it on your phone. You know, we can't do it here in the state of California, which is still we're still upset about that. It's just something that is just so prevalent now, and the explosion of fantasy sports kind of also led into this because there's money involved in that. You have something that is in legalized proximity of the games, and then you have things like the crop bet explosion, where you can randomly pick a guy who plays somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes in the NBA basketball game, and you can go over under on how many rebounds he can get, or whatever the case may be. Understand that this situation is gonna be a delicate balancing act for the NBA and for all major sports. The one thing, the one thing about this is that when you get the feds involved, because obviously we gotta keep because sports needs to be, it's never gonna be pure, but the actual competition needs to be pure. Even though we have our conspiracy theories on certain games and certain outcomes and all of that, the difference between the WWE and the NBA is that it's not scripted, anything could happen, that's what they sell you on. That's one of the reasons why the NBA and also the NFL and all other major sports they get live media compensation, and what I mean by that is that these networks are paying billions of dollars to put this on TV, and then the sponsors pay of billions of dollars to advertise on this product that we don't know the outcome of. Now we are having things that are telling us that well, maybe we do know the outcome, and that's where the NBA, the NFL, Major League Baseball, and also the National Hockey League, they can't have it, they can't have where their business model is under attack for being rigged, or somebody's game in the system, so we can have uh we can have a pretty much a presumed outcome. Vegas can't have it either. You think about it, if you can get a decent amount of people, and you knew for a fact that like uh Luca was gonna score over 36 points tonight. Okay, let's say you go in with 10 grand, and then somebody goes to another casino with 10 grand, and let's say you hit me a lot of the the Vegas casinos, and all of you guys are putting like 10 grand in. That's that's a big chunk of change that's getting uh taken by out of Vegas, and obviously some of these hotels are owned by other hotels, and there is this a conglomerate, so that's the reason why this is such a big deal. It's a big deal for sports because of the fact that we have to have the appeal to the audience that what you're seeing could be a random event, that something spectacular can happen, a team that is not supposed to win can win. Um, a guy could go off for a certain amount of points that we weren't expecting because he wasn't like the number one or number two option on the team. Sports gives us the unexpected, and as soon as you can go ahead and put like within a 10 percentile that is not random anymore, you kind of lost the appeal, and I wonder if the money and the TV rights would go down from there. The NFL is definitely not having this, so where are we right now? First of all, we gotta make sure that we get the due process taken care of, Chauncey Bills and Terry Rogier, along with Damon Jones, who is a ex-NBA player, he's also an ex-assistant coach in the league. He was also indicted on these charges as well, so we make sure they get the due process, and we also gotta make sure that transparency is fixed, actionables monitor indictments, you know what I'm saying? We gotta make sure that everybody stays on top of this so we be knowledgeable what's going on, and then what else has to happen is that the league itself, Adam Silver himself, needs to come out and have a strong message about this is something that was an isolated incident, and we're gonna move on from here, and we're not gonna have any of this situation get tolerated. I will say this if for some reason Chauncey Bills andor Terry Rogier is uh the charges are true, they're gone. It's a lifetime ban. You will not have anything to do with the NBA whatsoever. Keep in mind Chauncey Bills is a Hall of Famer, he would be able to go back to Detroit when they would have like alumni things and uh or like uh you know, let's say corporate events would happen and you want to bring in like your past stars. Chauncey Bills would have been part of that when he wasn't coaching, and he would get an appearance fee from the organization to be there. Well, guess what he can do if for some reason he gets a lifetime ban, he can't be around any other any NBA organization whatsoever, it's done. You might be able to see him at like a card expo, kind of like we used to see Pete Rose with his nonsense, but Chauncey Bills would never be part of the NBA community ever again in the in the and be accepted, so yeah. Can he have boys in the NBA and stuff like that? He just could not go to any NBA event whatsoever. Which sucks because if you have a celebration or like an anniversary of those Detroit Pistons teams that won championships, guess who cannot be in attendance? Now, Terry Rogier, he's kind of bounced around the league, he played for the Celtics, he played for the Charlotte Hornets and the Miami Heat. All three of his stops, I think the probably the most celebrated stop was in Boston. Now they didn't win a championship while he was there, so we don't have to worry about those types of things, but we've seen players who have not won championships, we've seen players who just became really ingrained in the you know teams' uh facilities or whatever the case may be, like Brian Scal Scalabrini, he won a title, but he was like a big player on the team. Now he's the TV analyst, he also does a lot of corporate events for the Celtics, he's a beloved member of the organization. If you go down any street in Boston, oh that's our guy Scout. He keeps it real about the Celtics, that's the sentiment around him. When you get put in a situation with this gambling stuff, and again, I will say allegedly until we know you lost all your privileges for being around the team or whatever the case may be, so it's a big deal for a lot of reasons. It's a big deal to the NBA as a whole, it's a big deal to teams and who and what they can bring back into the organization down the road. It is vital that the NBA gets a hold of this situation, this matter before it gets out of hand. So we'll leave it, we'll leave it at that. Happy Friday to y'all. The next topic that we want to talk about is a little bit happier topic. So the Oklahoma City Thunder, the defending reigning NBA champions, have played two games, one on opening night in a double overtime thriller, which I watched and enjoyed immensely. Shea Gilders Alexander was going up against the Houston Rockets, whose starting lineup consisted of Steven Adams, Alcorin Shangun, Jobari Smith Jr. Kevin Durant, and Amin Thompson. And you say, Well, okay, why why are we talking about the starting lineup of the Houston Rockets? Notice all the people that I mentioned. Literally, only one of them is under 6'10. Now, Kevin Durant parades around here like he's 6'10. We know that dude is seven feet tall. Jabari Smith Jr. is about seven feet tall. Alpine Shangun is seven feet tall. And Steven Adams is like 7'2, 7'3. So the average height of the starting lineup of the Houston Rockets on opening night was 6'10. And Shea Gills is an Alexander said, hey man, we gotta go, we gotta go to war with in the land of Giants right now because we gotta get we gotta get this busy, well, get take care of this on a real level. They went to double overtime in that game. Shea scored 40 points in that in that game. Actually, what do you got? And then last night, Shea Gilge's Alexander went to Game Bridge, the scene of the crime where they beat the Indiana Pacers, and they took their heart out of their body and became the NBA champions, right? And they played a double overtime game against the Pacers. Now, the one thing that I will say about the Pacers, and I think we talked about this beforehand, Rick Carlisle is not just because Tyrese Halliburton is hurt, just because TJ McConnell is dealing with a uh was a hamstring issue, he is not going to give up on this season. Now, I don't know what their record is gonna end up being, but they gave the defending champs, even though they were down players, they gave the defending champs all they could handle. But just like in game seven, Shea Gildas Alexander was there, he tore off the scalp clean off, he scored 55 points in two overtimes, and the look on the face that said, You thought last June was the pick? No, I got plenty more where that came from. So he scored 90 points in two games with Jalen Williams being out. Jalen Williams is dealing with rehab on his surgically repaired wrist. We got an update in over the this last week. Rehab is going well, the time frame has still not been set on when he's gonna be able to return, but they think it's gonna be sooner rather than later, but we still don't have a timetable on that situation. We are efforting to get that, but no matter once you once you have the MVP of the league to score you know 40 and 55 points, it is excellent when you got this guy. Now, here's the we gotta get into all the numbers and what he actually did, but the actual end of the score was 141 to 135 in two overtimes. He scored 55 points in 45 minutes, so he scored more than one point per minute. Now he wasn't the only one that showed up in this game. Ben Dick Matherin, who we asked, was he gonna be able to step up? He scored 36 points in this effort, you know, while Halliburton is recovering from uh Achilles surgery. He did his best Jimmy Butler impersonation. He shot, he had fit he had 17 free throw attempts. That's very good. 17 free throw attempts. Chet Homegren did Yeoman's work, he had 12 rebounds, he had three blocks. Now his he's struggling from shooting from deep. He was 0-6 from the land of three, but the 12 rebounds and three blocks go a long way, and you know if you got Shay on your squad and he's scoring more than 33% of your points, it's it's all good. Pascal Siakam, who is now the de facto leader of the Pacers, 32 points, 15 rebounds, and 44 minutes. So my guy was doing just doing it, and this is the reason why they stayed in the game. But we need to get to SGA. I told you a moment ago that Benedict Mathering shot 17 free throws. Shea Gilders Alexander shot 26 free throws in 45 minutes. 26 free throws. He made 23 of 26. He controlled the place, he drew contact on command. It was just like Pavlov's dog. As soon as he did an up fake, the defender was in the air, he bumped, fell back, and threw up a shot, and he was at the free throw line chilling. A couple of the unsung heroes for the OKC Thunder. I'm gonna tell you right now, Sam Presty also needs to get like an MVP award. AJ Mitchell, and you go, well, who's that exactly, right? AJ Mitchell, another Sam Presty draft pick, not in the first round, no, no, no, a second rounder, 26 points, 9 and 19 shooting, he was quietly essential for the second unit. OKC as a whole had 50 free throw attempts, and they made 45 of the 50, 90 percent from the free throw line in this double overtime thriller. And you would ask yourself, how many turnovers happened in this game? Because you know, early in the season, you get you know it's a turnover fest because you know you're working out the kinks, you're getting your rhythm back, you want to have your continuity, but it takes a little while. OKC only had nine turnovers in a double overtime game. Now, Indiana wasn't too far behind them, they had 14. So literally, this was a well-played game, this wasn't just a haphazard just mess. This was a really well-played game. Homegren and Hartenstein combined for 26 rebounds. All I know is that if you're looking at Shea Gilge's Alexander and wondering if he's gonna rest on his laurels for this season, and did he have the appetite to go after like a second MVP? Well, we got a resounding answer, and that answer is emphatically yes, I am still hungry for more hardware in my trophy case at home. I might have to build a new trophy case to put in the other awards that I want to win. 55 points. I don't care if it's two overtimes, four overtimes, that's a lot of points, and 26 free throws is ridiculous. Couple of trends that we kind of need to get a hold of SGA shock profile, he had 19 paint touches, 12 mid-range, and two shots from deep. We talked about his free throw uh antics. He had a usage rate of the in this game of 38%. Well, now he needed to because obviously, with Jalen Williams out, he really is the point guard, he's the initiator. There's nobody really else that does it. Oh, Hungren a pony shot 4 of 12 inside 6 feet against Chet Hungren. Now that sounds excellent, right? We're gonna get to a story later on that's gonna dwarf that, but that is excellent. You're shooting 33 percent inside of six feet against Chet. That is outstanding rim protection. Now, our guy Siakam, he did all his work in the mid-post, he shot 58 heavy left block bias, you know, so he did all his work about 13 to 17 feet. So, what does this all mean? Basically, this Shay is about that life, he didn't just torture the Pacers, he wrote he rewrote the language of control in a season opener that bled finals, flashbacks, he carried the weight of the whistles and the whispers. Can we be in that guy? Bottom line is this is that for a season to start off like this for the OKC Thunder, complacency will not be tolerated in OKC. There's two reasons why. One, Mark Dagno is an excellent coach, and two, give credit to the team, give credit to the current roster of the Oklahoma City Thunder who bring back a lot of pieces, practically all the pieces from that championship. Here's the thing: those guys are the most professional, unassuming, their ego seemed to be in check. There's a lot of camaraderie between all the guys, and a lot of people thought it was fake last year when they would do the team interview. Usually after the game, you got the one person talking to Malika Andrews or whoever is doing the sideline reporting at the time, and OKC as a team would show up. Well, guess what? This year they're doing the exact same thing, they're all there now. Sometimes they're having fun if it's with their local dude, as far as that's concerned, they put the towels on his head and everything like that, and kind of bring him into the mix. But the results and the tenor and the tone stay the same in OKC. We are not here for a one-time trip down the road. No, we are here for multiple, and if you're going to win against OKC, you gotta value the basketball, you gotta understand and be disciplined when Shea Gilgis Alexander is in his bag, and it's really hard to do because he is as physical of a guy for somebody who doesn't look physical because he looks very sinewy on the court and he moves so smoothly, he reminds me, he's he looks very balletic when he is on the court and he's moving in and out of cuts and getting into his uh areas where he likes to go ahead and do his damage, and as soon as you think you have him bottled up, he can go ahead and give you that chicken wing or give you his shoulder, put it squarely into your chest, and then bounce off you and throw up like a 17-footer. The dude is great, but not only is he great in talent, he's great in discipline, and he's great in understanding what it takes to have repeat success in this league. The 55 points is not an accident. This is a guy who consistently scored over 30 every almost every single game last season. I believe that Shea Gilders Alexander he played in 74 games last year. He had 65 games where he was over 30 points or more. Every item in the in the arena follows Shea Gilders Alexander. Legends don't chase validation. The Thunder are not coasting, they're recalibrating to defend their championship. Who put three or two three uh three piece back to back? This is a young team who's getting better. Chet is gonna get better, like we said before, Shay is hitting his prime, Jalen Williams is going to get better. We didn't even talk about or discuss Casey Wallace. They have pieces who aren't playing right now who will contribute to this team before the season. Is done. Oh, and they still got like 12 first round draft picks and something like 20 20 plus second round picks. By the way, that's what AJ Mitchell was. He was a second round draft pick. And that dude put up 26 points. Another plum draft pick for Sam Chresty. So they draft it well. They find the right type of personnel. The coach teaches discipline. And there's a there's actual way of doing things in Oklahoma City. They're all striving for excellence, whether it's excellence in their individual goals or also that can be blended in with their team goals. It's a wagon right now in Oklahoma City. And it's a wagon on fire. So careful for those who try to get in front of that wagon. But we might find one guy. And before we get to that next story, I do want to make mention. We did a preview show on Tuesday. It is up right now. Also, with that preview is a 10,287-word document that accompanies that preview podcast. Preview podcast is about 2 hours and 30 minutes long. So you needed a blog that goes along with it. I'm telling you, it is well worth it if you have to consume it in like chunks. I understand, but it's well worth it because it gives you a real snapshot into some of the teams that we're talking about right now, and some of the teams that we really believe are going to have a lot to say about how this whole story ends at the end of this season. So it is uh to me, it's a masterpiece. To me, it's some of the best work that we've done, and I hope that you guys enjoy it. Now, getting to that guy who wants to step in front of that uh wagon that's on fire. Did anybody check out Wingley's uh Opening Night? Now, here's the best part about this. Victor Wingbayama went into Dallas, Texas, so that means it was Cooper Flag's ogre night as well. Victor did not care at all about Cooker Flag playing his first NBA game. He's like, I've been there and done that. It's time for me to move on to something else. Victor Wingbayama in his first game this year. Now, mind you, this is a guy who had to abruptly stop playing basketball last year because of a blood clot issue. He had deep vein thrombosis. There was a scare for a little while and then he got cleared. Victor Winwayama dropped 40 points. Now he didn't drop just 40 points on Dallas. Let me tell you who was guarding him at different intervals of time in that game. He did it against Derek Lively. Now, Derek Lively, if you remember when they were going when Dallas had Luca and they were in the finals, one of the things that a lot of people were impressed with was the rim protection that Derek Lively gave to the Dallas Mavericks. Another guy who guarded Winbayama in that game was one Anthony Davis. Now, Anthony Davis hasn't won a defensive player of the year, but he has been all defense first team on several occasions, and he was no match for what Victor wanted to do, and we'll get into all of what Victor did in one second. I'm gonna reiterate now Wimby isn't becoming anything. Okay, let me say that one more time. It's inevitable, folks. The the science, experimental stuff that he was doing the first couple years, that's all that's all gone. Victor Wingbayama has arrived. He's in his third season. He has adversity behind him. He went out and trained with Shaolin Monks over the summertime to work on his discipline. Everything is going to run through him, and we're gonna talk about how it did. So they beat the Mavericks 125 to 92. Victor scored 40, but it wasn't how it wasn't that he scored 40. Check out this stat line. He was 15 to 21 from the field. Free throws, he shot 11 of them, he made 9. 15 rebounds, three blocks, and his box plus minus was a positive 31. Not bad. Not bad for a guy who's just trying to figure it out, right? But we won't stop there. The rookie of the year last year, Stefan Castle, 22 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists. De'Aaron Fox did not play in this game. So who saw that point guard? Stephon Castle. He was a plus 24 in his box plus minus. Now Flag, who is our choice for rookie of the year. We're gonna get to a couple other rookies who have excellent games, but he scored 10 points, 10 rebounds. He didn't have any assists, and he was playing the point guard position, and I'm gonna get to that momentarily. I gotta have a real strong talk with our guy, Jason Kidd, who is the Mavericks head coach. AD put up a pretty good game. He had 22 points, 8 rebounds, but he had no answers defensively for what was coming at him. Now the Mavericks did work competitive in the first quarter. The Spurs from that point on outscored the Mavericks 97-63. Wendy dominated this game. Now, how did he do it? Primary actions that he used was a quick and roll and short rolls. Castle hit Wendy on early seals because he was huffing it down the court. The Spurs scored 31 fast break points in that night. Now, here's the best part. That's where Wingby did a lot of his damage. And the reason why I bring that up is because last season Wingby was shooting a bunch of threes, you know, to you know see what the range was. Now he did hit some threes in this game, but a lot of Wingby's damage against the Dallas Mavericks came in the paint. He dunked on a lot of people that night. There were windmill dunks, there were like plastic man extension dunks, there were just hammer dunks that he threw down on people. It was it was it was bad. Now the ball movement for our pace or our squares was 24 assists on 50 made buckets, so it's you know one to two ratio knockback. Their defense for 16 turnovers, they scored 19 points off those turnovers, and Dallas offense stalled AD and Clay, they isolated, meaning they were trying to do ISO brawl, that didn't work because just the the defense just loaded up on them, they didn't have a lot of movement as far as certain. I don't know if they were trying to keep things simple for Cooper Flag or whatever whatever it was, but they needed to move around, they need not be as stationary as they were because here's the other thing Luke is not there, so you don't have to have people married to the corners, and you need to manufacture points, and especially when you're going up against somebody like Victor. Victor is going to in a sense shut down the paint area, you're gonna have to make sure that you are finding little crevices within the defense to get your shots off, and this whole like okay, I'm married to this corner and what have you. No, you gotta slash, you gotta move around, you gotta go through picks and what have you to go ahead and get buckets, especially against Victor Wayne Wyama. Now the Squares, they had Castle, like we said, he was point guard, he orchestrated the offense like a veteran. I know I said that he was going to have to really kind of change positions, and I still believe that. This is one game. I'm not sitting here, you know, changing everything that I thought after one game. No, I'm just saying that he is capable of running an offense, he looked like a veteran, uh, he pushed early offense after every rebound, and he has support. Vassell was out there doing it. Our guy, our rookie, Dylan Harper, was out there dunking on people. It was a glorious situation. They forced the Mavs into late clock isolation with no structure or no rhythm because the defense was suffocating. San Antonio was locking people up on the perimeter. Now that had a lot to do who who and what Steven Castle is. DeFron Castle was getting it done on multiple levels, not only being the point guard, but being the point of attack defender. Some of the statistics from this game is mind-blowing. The Mavericks shot 37% from the field, where the Spurs shot 57% from the field. The paint points, we told you that the Spurs had 68. The Mavericks had 26 points in the paint. This is a team that fields Derek Lively Jr., who is an absolute just perennial log threat, and Anthony Davis. Cooper Flag likes to get to the rim. So for them to only have 26 paint points that tells you right what you need to know. That Victor Wingbayama was controlling that paint like a sheriff, and I'm talking about an honorary sheriff. You know, he was not playing no games. So, with all that being said, what do we need to take away from this game, this opening game? One Wingbayama has laid claim to I'm here. Meaning, like, we are gonna start to see the takeover. I don't know how long it's gonna take. I don't know if it's definitely not gonna take three years, but by the end of this season, is Victor Wingbayama gonna be top five in MVP votes? Could be. Could the Spurs make a playoff run where they're not just a play-in team, they're actually part of the top six? Maybe. And here's the the scariest part: he scored 40 points and he did a lot of his damage inside the painted area against really good defenders. Now I love Jokic, I think Jokic is phenomenal, but Jokic is not a great defender, and they're not uh some of his toughest battles as far as like the people who are going to defend him well. Well, he just played one of them. Now he'll have to play Rudy Gobert, who's also in the West. Okay, but for every Rudy Gobert, there's gonna be two or three teams like the New Orleans Pelicans, where he they're not gonna offer any rim resistance. Do we think Sacramento is gonna offer rim resistance to Victor Wimbayama? Yeah, he'll get a challenge against Utah. He will probably get a challenge from Houston. OKC is gonna try to smother his guards as far as that's concerned, so he might do a lot of his damage, bringing up the ball, and then getting into the paint himself. But there's 15 teams in the West. You can probably count on one hand how many teams really have actual excellent rim protection. That means that there's 10 other teams or nine other teams that Victor Wenwa Yama is gonna go up against, where he's just gonna have a feast of frenzy of just dunks and layups and just easy buckets because he's seven foot seven. Dominance is coming, and it's coming in the form of a set. Well, they list him as seven foot five. Okay, I guess we'll go with that. We don't actually believe that, but a seven foot five alien, who now I think really understands who who he is, and he's still growing into who he is, which is even more dangerous. Because yeah, I he can hit the three. There were dribbling expositions in that game that you just sit there and you go go, oh my god, that is 7 foot 5 doing that. With an 8-foot wingspan, just absolutely nuts. Victor is here, defensive player of the year, no doubt. My question is, is he first team all NBA? And how high does he finish in the MVP voting this year? And I don't think I'm I don't think I'm speaking out of school at all. I don't think there's any hyperbole about what I'm talking about. I think we are now seeing the emergence of a of an absolutely supernova star, and there was never a doubt, but it's so cool to see it when it really starts to go, okay, I'm gonna assert my dominance, and that is what we saw with Victor that night. So, do you believe in magic? Do y'all believe in magic? Cuz the Orlando Magic beat the Miami Heat 125 to 121 in their opener, and it was all the things you wanted to see. Paulo Gancaro was out there with Franz Wagner doing their thing, they both scored 24 points, but FRPC favorite Desmond Bain was also out there doing big things. Jalen Suggs was back from knee surgery, all is well. My man had a steal and a layup to flip the momentum. He also had a pull-up dagger with 58 seconds left. That was the difference between this the game. So let's get into this a little bit. It was all the like I said, it was all the things you wanted to see. Paulo and Bronz carrying the the water, game chipping in with 23, shooting three of seven from three point land. What else is new? Jalen Suggs being who Jalen Suggs is, which is a point of attack defender at the highest level of the highest order, and they just Miami didn't know, didn't know what hit them. They had this game, they were up by nine late in the fourth quarter, and the magic put it on them. Now, Norman Powell, who came over from the Clippers, had an excellent game, he scored 28 points. Our guy, bam, out of bile, had 15 points and 12 rebounds, he did his thing, and Devion Mitchell started for the Heat, which is crazy 16 points, 12 assists. So they had there was some good nights had for a lot of players, but my whole thing is that when Desmond Bain is going to have a true shooting percentage of 65% in his first game out with the Orlando Magic. I think the proof of concept of this actually working and getting actual shooters in the building in Orlando was a good thing. Say Vince, we knew it was gonna be a good thing. We've been talking about them having getting outside shooting for the last couple years. Well, it's a difference between getting outside shooting and getting somebody who is one of the best outside shooters, one of the best movement shooters in the game. That's what Desmond Bain is, and that's what he's bringing to the table for the Orlando Magic. Couple things that kind of drew my attention, Van Carroll attacked mismatches all night long. He had 12 free throw attempts, and anytime Miami got a switch where they were they had a smaller person on Vancaro, he punished them. Absolutely punished them. He was slipping and sliding through screens and cuts and hitting floaters, and he was punishing over rotations. So good the great thing about having Desmond Grain on the court, right, is that okay, you gotta account for him, and if you account for him and he's not uh an unwilling passer, he'll go ahead and make the right play. If he's gonna make the right play, that means now your defense is overextended, and it's gonna be another, it's not gonna be the first pass, it's gonna be the second pass. So, what I'm talking about is that like let's say in a screen pick and roll, right? He comes off the screen, he gets the ball. Okay, now the defense is loaded towards him. He might have tracker his guy if the pass is skipped over to the other side of the court, the weak side of the court. Now you gotta go ahead and adjust your defense there. And if there's a quick pass to the corner, you're not gonna have a lot of times to adjust, and then that's also gonna give opportunities for people to make cuts into the lane, shoot a pass right there, and then it's just gonna work. So, Sugs did his thing, like I said, the defense towards the end was amazing. He changed the tenor of that game, Suggs did, with his passion, with his aggressiveness. He forced two turnovers on Norman Powell himself towards the end of the game. Wendell Carter is actually healthy right now. His verticality disrupted Mitchell and and uh Mitchell Adelbower lob sets, which is great. The final eight minutes, this is what Miami did. Seven turnovers, two offensive fouls, zero rhythm. Obviously, they were out without Tyler Hero. That makes a complete difference in what you're doing as a team, and this is why our guy Davion Mitchell was out there starting. Now the Sugs Boncaro pick and roll, the one four actions generated constant rim protection. They shot Orlando 35 free throws, the second chance execution, the Magic had 18 second-chance points. That was all Carter and Bataze, they were we're litness on the boards, late clock composure. They had three straight four-quarter scores via drives or short rolls. Because you know what? When you're running your offense and it's all clicking, guess what? You don't feel pressure, you don't even see the clock. Oh, clock has five seconds on it. Don't worry about it, it's good. So if Paulo Guncaro is gonna shoot 12 free throws in a game, and then his short roll reads, he had three assists with solid kick outs to the shooters, and obviously, he's gonna feel more emboldened to do that if you got Desmond Gain lurking out there. They switched effectively onto guards, especially onto Mitchell, and they definitely kept it calm in the fourth quarter, even though they were down by like nine. The coast star was eight of thirteen from the field with four assists, and he scored duplicate 24 points. He gave them just balanced pacing, controlled, left to right drives, late skip passes, punished Miami's rotations, and his defense anticipation was excellent. He had two steals in the game, he had one deflection, um, and saving a baseline layup. So our guy Wagner wasn't flashy last night, but his consistency was punctuated by the win. And then again, Desmond Bang, what can you say, man? You get 23 points in your debut, you are plus eight in clutch minutes, you know what I'm saying? So you were out there getting it done when the team needed your most. Defensively, you held Powell to Norman Powell, who is an absolute flamethrower if you let him. He was 3-9 in the second half, and then you got solid production from Carter and Suggs. Suggs scored 14 points on 6-7 shooting. He had two clutch plays that define the fourth quarter. We talked about those, the defensive stops that he had. We also want to say that Orlando was not the same last year when Suggs went out. When he had the knee surgery, it was almost like the heart of the team was just ripped out of his body, and they could not recover last year. And if Wendell Carter Jr. is going to give you a game where, yeah, it wasn't spectacular, but nine points, eight rebounds. But here's the key factor to this he had five offensive boards, so that means five offensive second chances. So you don't need a ton, but if you can get the dirty work done with the five offensive boards, it's all good in the hood. Orlando looked older than his years in that in that game. The Magic didn't win with highlights, they won with habits. Their closing execution wasn't luck, it was by design. When your young team starts flinching, when they just stop doing that, when they are are just when you feel confident in yourself, like if for some reason, and it can happen with one person, and I'm not saying Desmond Bane is the the alpha and the omega of everything, but when you get somebody like Desm Bain, he can give you a confidence factor, he can give you a swagger where it's like, you know what, man, we're good. We're good. Just play our game, we'll be okay. Play our game, play our rhythm, play our tempo. We don't we don't have to worry about what they're doing, let's just worry about what we're doing, and it just allows you to flow, it allows everything just to move in a crispy way where you're sitting there and you're just in that flow state, and it doesn't matter what's going on. That's where Orlando was against the Miami Heat. Now, speaking of somebody who was in a flow state, the Philadelphia 76ers played the Boston Celtics. Okay, now did Joel Embiid play? Yes, he did. Did he play a lot? No, he didn't. But we talked about specifically, I think, in the um the last part, we talked about the backcourt and the future of the 76ers. It's like listen, don't worry about yeah, you might go through some downtimes because you know Embiid's impact is just not gonna be what it was, and we'll get to that momentarily, but man, kudos to Tyrese Maxie and kudos to rookie VJ Edgecomb because he looked awesome in this game. Philadelphia ends up winning 117 to 116. Joel MB shot one of nine from the court, he leaned into being a decoy duty and the Sixers won anyway. I mean, we need to get to this because it was crazy. So how do I want to how do I want to contextualize this? One of the hardest places for somebody coming into the NBA is the guard position because the guard position, there's so many great ones in the league, you know. You gotta do stuff on defense, you know, you gotta be able to assert yourself on offense. It's just hard for guys to come in and just like get it right away. And I'm not saying that every game is going to be like this for edge comb or whatever, but man, did he show us what he was all about? Because my god, he scored 14 points in the first quarter, you know what I'm saying? Like, come on, dude. Some of the details that we really need to talk about. There was a stretch where Maxi hits three quick threes at the 1049 mark, the 1033 mark, and the 943 mark. This dude hit three great threes, and then following that up at the 858 mark and the 826 mark, Edgecomb hits a transition layup and then hits a trail three, and TD Garden goes quiet. Threes over two. So here's the thing Boston, who is absolutely a three-point shooting team, right? Philadelphia made 16 3s, 16 of them. Maxie had 15 in the fourth quarter, edgebone had nine in the fourth quarter. It was it was an onslaught, it was just an onslaught. So this is what the four we talked talked to talked about what maxi and edgecomb did in the fourth quarter. Uh very hit a go-ahead three, Grimes hit free throws, and then Edgecomb hit two free throws to go ahead and put them up for good. And again, here you are in a flow state. Early offensive threes, they had they had drag ghost screens in the pull-up threes, 43-point attempts. You would think that was Boston. No, that was not Boston, that was Philadelphia. Now, the the ring protection, not as great. Cada has 17 on 7 of 8. They spam the in uh empty corner, pick and roll, spam, pick and roll. They hit lobs, they hit 45 cuts. White was an absolute engine, free throw manufacturing was on point. Rescreen craft, he was just absolutely a monster, but man, they just could not take the onslaught of what the Philadelphia 76ers was gonna bring them. Again, Maxi had 40 points, he was 13 of 24 from the field, he was seven of nine from three point land. This was elite pull up three. Hesitation burst. Absolutely. He had relocation on lock and late clock heroics. This was Tyrese Maxie in a nutshell. Did he play defense? Yeah. Because he was on the ball, hawking, getting deflections, and things of that nature the whole game. VJ Edgecomb for his trouble. This is his first game out, right? You're playing in TD Garden. Right? It's not an easy place to play, especially for the Philadelphia 76ers. 34 points. 13 to 26 shooting. 5 of 13 from 3. Transition Assassin. He hit trail threes. He was an absolute menace when he slashed to the to the court. His body control is ridiculous. It is absolutely stupid. He can switch from 2 to 4 on guys just on his athleticism. Now I know you don't have a scouting report on him. You didn't understand his anticipation of passes and all that. And obviously, as we start to go further into the NBA season, people are going to have a scouting report on him and say, okay, we gotta be a little more cautious with the basketball when we're throwing it across the court. But his athleticism allows him to get to things that lot not a lot of people can get to. Quentin Grimes had 18 points, five assists. He was basically all the pick and rolls that were done, his physical nature as a chaser through those pick and rolls was absolutely astounding. He took late on ball reps against Pritchard because Pritchard was trying to get it, get at him. Short memory, after his turnovers, he made the game winning free throws to go ahead and seal that victory. So shouts out to Quentin Grimes and what he did. But Edge Cone was the story. Now Maxi was a story, but what I'm saying is Edgecomb was the story because you're a rookie, you come in, you score 34 points. By the way, it's a Sixers debut franchise record, third most in the in a in an NBA debut across the board, and the 14 points in the first quarter, that's also a debut record NBA-wise, not just Philadelphia 76ers-wise. So my man chose violence right away when he woke up and had his omelet for breakfast. He had his sausage and his orange juice. He was like, I'm gonna come out here to the TD Garden and I am going to stand on Lucky and I'm gonna stand on business, and I'm gonna show the Boston Celtics what I'm all about. So there is that. Now we will get to MV later on as far as that's concerned. It it did not look great. He was one of nine, he scored four points. Um I don't really want to, you know, it's one game. I will say that. It's not one of those things where it's a manufactured oh rivalry week and all this other stuff. No, that's a real rivalry. These two teams do not like each other. Now, obviously, the the the stars on the marquee are different because Jason Tatum is out with the Achilles injury, you know what I'm saying? Jamie Brown did play, which you know we didn't think he was going to, but he did play. He wasn't gonna miss this game. But the Celtics don't have the front court to deal with teams, and here's the thing when you have an Uber athlete like VJ Edgecomb, and you have Tyrese Maxie who's challenging the paint on every occurrence that they can, and then they're kicking out to three-point shooters that's gonna be wide open because the Celtics defense collapsed to towards the paint, it's gonna be that way. And when you see Maxie 7-9 from three-point land, and his pull-up three game was off the charts, and there was nobody who could stay in front of him because his hesitation to burst weapon like was so crazy. He slowed down, there was like three times in a row in the third quarter where he just kind of came down, and he's you know, he's not like he's not going fast, and then all of a sudden, it was literally like a gunhead went off, and he is a blur, and he's past the defender who's guarding him, and the secondary of uh the secondary defender that is trying to squeeze off the lane. Oh no, I'm through that. I'm getting to the rim at this point. Oh, you got a big there. Let me kick it out to the three. No, no, no problem whatsoever. By the way, it's gonna be the same thing when VJ Edgecombe goes in there. I'm gonna be standing here out at the three, and I'm gonna be automatic tonight. 7-9 from three? Are you kidding me? The only dude that had a better three-point shooting night over the like the last couple nights was Aaron Gordon. Okay, now I don't know if you caught that act last night, because it was last night. Aaron Gordon was 10 of 12 from three-point land, he put up a 50 burger on the Golden State Warriors, right? And you go, oh, that's cool. Denver must have whooped the he must, they must have just taken the Warriors lunch. No, they didn't. You know why? Because Steph Curry is still that dude. Because Gordon had 50, and that's great, but a 50-point game and a loss, because that's exactly what happened. Steph Curry is 2-0 this week. Gold State Warriors are 2-0 this week. They came in to crypto.com arena and they put it to the Lakers, and then the Denver Nuggets thought they were cute, they thought their whole situation was sweet. Steph is like, this is the chase center, man. This is the bay, this is where I dwell, and I'm gonna hit threes. And by the way, Steph Curry attacked the paint last night like young steph, like this was like 27-year-old Steph in his back, he got to the rim on so many occasions, and why is that possible? Because Jimmy Butler is a complete basketball player. Not only did he get to the free throw line way too much, like 17 times, he also orchestrated the offense and allowed Steph to be who he needed to be. So Steph scores 42, Jimmy chips in with 26, and the Golden State Warriors win by six in a thriller against the Denver Nuggets, and that was literally the Aaron Gordon three-point performance is the only performance that's better than Tyrese Maxies the other night against the Boston Celtics, and I needed to bring that up, and you'll say, Well, Vince, why did you need to bring that up? Because, hey, Philly beats Boston, Boston usually wins on the road in the fourth, you know what I'm saying? That's what they usually do. While the face, the MVP face was one and nine, which is Joel and B. I'm telling you right now, that dude looked slow, and his left leg, it looked like he was dragging it. And I wonder if we have reached the time of Joel MB's career, and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic right now, I'm being real serious. I wonder if we reach the the the point of Joel MB's career where he's a role player, and I know 76ers fans don't want to hear that, but and can't does he have the mental capacity to do that? Can he go from star and I get a ton of opportunities to let me help these young fellas reach their potential and you know in all of what they need to be, and I just be kind of a back, you know, a background player. His willingness to go ahead and do DHOs for VJ Edgecone was it was nice. My whole thing is is that does Joel and B look better as he continues to play? We don't know, we don't think he's gonna be playing back-to-backs at all. But it was shocking to see Joel B play the first game of the year. So we're talking about the least wear and tear on your body, and you look like you were haggard, you look slow, you looked um somewhat lethargic out there, and hey, again, way to step up, Tyrese Maxie, way to step up, VJ Edge, and Quentin Grimes. Those guys put it in, and they put out the win at the TD Garden, which is a place that was kind of a house of horrors for them for over like the last three years. So, good for them. Now, I want to give you a little scheduling situation so we kind of know where everything is. Now, the next week or so, we're gonna because we want to kind of flesh out some of the great performances and things of that nature. We're definitely gonna do that last year. We had segments where we were doing like the individual divisions and looking at all the teams in those divisions. We are still going to do stuff like that for sure. It might not come back until December, right? We want to get through the month of November, we want to highlight and celebrate those who are putting in work. We want to talk about some of the rookies and what they're doing and how they're looking. We want to do all that, and then here's the other thing that we want to do is that we gotta go ahead and get our NBA draft coverage for 2026. It's never too early, it's never too early to look at the draft, so we will be doing that. So, this next month is gonna be dedicated to hey, let's get the season started, let's see how some of these teams are playing, let's see how some of these new faces and new places look, and let's celebrate some of the great performances in this league, and along the way, let's start building storylines, right? That's what we are here to do is go ahead and have that, and also give you some information as it comes along the desk, and hopefully, we can do it in a real entertaining manner. So that is what we're gonna look like for the next month, and then as we get into December, we'll start breaking down divisions and you know, maybe we can do conferences and like oh, who's our top eight in this conference, and whatever the case may be, do power rankings and all of that. So that is our plan for you over the next 40 days, right now, right? And then we as we get closer and closer to Christmas, you know, we got we always got something cooking for Christmas. I can't wait to do it again. If you've been around, if you have been a day one, you know we do something real real special for Christmas. I will talk about it as we get closer to it right now. Don't worry about it. Let's just enjoy basketball, let's not talk about gambling right now. We're gonna talk about these teams, we're gonna celebrate these players, we're gonna talk about these rookies, and we're gonna give you some draft stuff. So, with all that being said, the best part of you is you surround yourself with people who give you light, insight, joy, and accountability. Appreciate those out loud. That's your real wealth, and if you're still finding your tribe, know this you got one here with us at frpc. Until next time, keep your mind sharp, your heart open, and your circle tight. I'm Vince for Soraya, we out. Happy weekend to all deuces.