00:00:01
Speaker 1: Fair and Bias thinks you need a lunch break. So sit back and grab a bite of the latest stories in sports. This is The Nooner on The Sports Leader.
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Hey guys, it's Wednesday. That means it's a hump day. So get off those wallets. Give me those dollars. Buckner is back. Yaxel may play, may not. Jonathan Kaminga is back in the house. And oh, please don't release that Madden movie.
00:00:29
Speaker 3: Come on, guys. That always revs me up for the second part of the show. You know?
00:00:36
Speaker 2: It really revs me up for the second part of the show. I'm very excited to give you and present to you the Nooner. It is three things you got to know right now, like the 49ers trading for DeForest Buckner. I don't think we're going to find anybody that's more enthusiastic about that trade than the sound you're going to hear.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: Jonathan Kaminga is back for the Warriors.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Are you excited? Please stop the Madden movie. And we've still got a few more things that we've got to get to you as well. By the way, National Chocolate Day, which that's not why we're not doing the, I don't know, we might do the candy poll.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: We may not do the candy poll. I'm not sure this year.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: The only problem with the candy poll, speaking of chocolate, Is that Reese's is the Jerry Rice.
00:01:14
Speaker 3: It's the number one. And we've done it in the past. We've kept Reese's in there.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: And it always wins. Reese's wins by a landslide. Maybe we do worse candy. And then it's like the ones that everybody.
00:01:25
Speaker 3: Hates, you know. That's better.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: The worst thing to get in your bag. Like your candy corn, your bit of honey, all that garbage. Oh, a bit of honey is terrible. In fact, when George was young, I'd just take a bit of honey out of there. And I didn't do it to steal it and eat it. It's like chomping at a rock.
00:01:41
Speaker 3: And it's like, dude.
00:01:43
Speaker 2: You know, your teeth are going to fall out. I mean, they're going to anyway, when he was that young, but still it was like, dude, you know, but that's.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: A good idea. Like what don't you want to see in your bag?
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: See, I don't think people do this anymore.
00:01:53
Speaker 2: There's no more popcorn balls because they know he's like, you can't, people aren't going to eat those razor blade in the popcorn. You know, we don't trust people anymore. Like we used to trust people in this country. You could ride your bikes, go anywhere you wanted. There could, there could be, you know, homemade candy in your bag and you'd eat it. Cause you knew everybody in the block. And now it's like, you know, Like, you know, you go through your kid. Now you have to dump everything out and look through your kid's stuff. Like, well, we're not having that homemade caramel. We're not having that popcorn ball. You know, there's no way they don't put pennies anymore. Like people used to put pennies in your bag back in the day. Like, what's that going to do? You know, people who are righteous would put like a toothbrush in there. If you put, I'll tell you this right now, you put a toothbrush or, you know, or homemade caramels or popcorn balls or any bad stuff in somebody, you're going to get egged or something's going to happen in your house. You know, off the top of my head, just, and I, this, I don't think this would be much of a controversial take, not that we're going to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I detest Twizzlers. Twizzlers are not real licorice.
00:02:57
Speaker 3: I'm with you. I like real licorice. And I don't, I don't like Twizzlers. They're not real.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: And they have all sorts of flavors like grape and chocolate. It's like, come on, man. Licorice is not chocolate. Licorice is red vines that you get at the movies.
00:03:10
Speaker 3: And it's red. It's not black. It's red. That's the proper licorice.
00:03:14
Speaker 4: I'll give you a controversial one. I don't like Tootsie Rolls. I don't like the standard Tootsie Roll.
00:03:19
Speaker 5: I don't.
00:03:19
Speaker 3: I think it's... It annoys me. You know what's funny about that?
00:03:24
Speaker 2: God, we're taking this way too far. You know what's funny about that? They still do this. So when you buy.
00:03:29
Speaker 3: Because I was at Costco the other day, and they... They give you that like gigantic.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: And by the way, the key is you can't buy it too early because you always say to yourself, I'm not going to eat it. The kids aren't going to eat it. But what happens is if you keep it so that it's not opened, you're fine. The minute the candy gets opened, all of a sudden the kids know it's open. Like they can just smell it somehow. and they know where you hit it, especially if they get older, and then it's gone. But in that big package that you get at Costco that's like 5 million pounds, there's all the Tootsie Rolls, but you never eat these Tootsie Rolls during the year, but they have the flavored ones like lemon and lime and raspberry and vanilla.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: Right.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: It's like, those are so terrible. Come on, man.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: Like, they have this whole thing at whoever makes Tootsie Roll, and they just wait till Halloween, and then they dump all that crap on us.
00:04:16
Speaker 4: It's like, and it's always at a huge, disproportional amount, too. So it's like a bag of different things, and then always, invariably, it's like 60% Tootsie Roll.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: Nobody wants that. I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed by it. Smarties. God, I don't even know if we could get it down to four.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: You know? I don't know.
00:04:35
Speaker 5: All right.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Maybe that's for another day. All right.
00:04:37
Speaker 2: Nooner Wise, I told you and you've been waiting ever so patiently. And I'm sorry that I made you wait this long. 49ers traded for DeForest Buckner near the end of the show yesterday. You broke the news near the end of the show yesterday, right before we talked to Dirty Work. So here is, I think, the most enthusiastic person for this trade.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: Our good friend Dante Wittner. Take a listen.
00:04:58
Speaker 6: I told y'all, I told y'all last week, I said DeForest Buckner was sending out an SOS from Indianapolis, and apparently John Lynch got the damn message. The rescue mission is complete. DeForest Buckner is coming home to the San Francisco 49ers. Last week, I told y'all I speak fluent NFL frustration. When Buckner said he was sick and tired of the same song and dance every year, I translated that message for everybody. 49ers, come get me the hell out of here. And what did John Lynch do? He went and posted that man's bail.
00:05:29
Speaker 3: And for what?
00:05:30
Speaker 6: A fourth round draft pick, John Lynch. Somebody call the police because that's Highway robbery. Now let's talk football. You just added a six foot seven, 295 pound monster to a defensive line already with Osa Odigizua, Mikel Williams, Grayson Harden, Romello Height, and oh yeah, Mr. Nick Bosa.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: You're getting a veteran who can collapse the pocket.
00:05:52
Speaker 6: Inside. You know what that means? Quarterbacks can't just step up in the pocket anymore. That interior pressure is going to make everybody around him better. This is bigger than just adding another defensive lineman. This is a statement from the 49ers front office. The 49ers are 6-1. They've been dealing with injuries all season, and John Lynch is telling the rest of the NFL, we ain't waiting until next year. We're trying to win the damn Super Bowl right now. Remember what I said last week. This move almost guarantees the San Francisco 49ers a shot at that Lombardi trophy.
00:06:27
Speaker 3: The Forrest Buckner.
00:06:28
Speaker 6: Left the 49ers in 2019 after that Super Bowl season. And now he's coming back to help finish what they started. Put the champagne on ice. Get those Cuban cigars ready. And start searching for your Super Bowl tickets and flight.
00:06:41
Speaker 3: Welcome home, Buck. My question is very simple.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: Ford 588 KBR, Ford 588-5627. Is anyone more enthusiastic than that? Could you even come close to doing what Dante Wittner just did?
00:06:58
Speaker 3: I challenge you all. Is there anyone who could call.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: The show and be that enthusiastic that DeForest Buckner is coming home?
00:07:04
Speaker 3: I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it.
00:07:08
Speaker 2: Dante went out on a three-minute diet drive there. I don't think anybody's more enthusiastic. As a secondary question to that, do you agree with him? He's saying, get your Super Bowl tickets, get your flights.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: It's in LA. You can drive.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: You can sleep in your car. It's very expensive.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: I told y'all. If you've got an extra 10 grand lying around, you can go to the Superbowl. So what do you think? Are you as excited as Dante?
00:07:31
Speaker 2: He's saying, get the tickets, get the, the Superbowl tickets, get the plane tickets, go down to LA. He's saying, book your reservations. Now, are you that excited? People have wondered if DeForest Buckner is still, I don't think anybody could do it like that. A lot of people have hit me up at John Lund Radio and said, is he as good? Look, current ranks among, this is just defensive tackles, interior defensive linemen. Snaps 353, which is third. That's 82.6% of the snaps. That's going to go down. He has four sacks, which is second. He has 10 pressures, which is seventh. He has eight QB hits, which is third. He has 31 tackles among interior defensive linemen, third. Negative stops for run defense, negative stops. I don't mean behind the line of scrimmage, but there's a formula EPA. He's got 17 of those that's tied for sixth and he's batted down three passes.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: That's tied for second.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: So point is, is that amongst some average statistics and a little bit of analytical type stuff, he's still very effective. He's a, he's a very good defensive tackle. I mean, there's your, you know, there's Jeffrey Simmons. There's a few guys like that hanging around. I would say top five. He's a top five, top six, top seven, man, probably top five defensive tackle right now in the league. Probably Jeffrey Simmons is the number one defensive tackle in the league, but he's amongst many, many people as far as who they could have gotten. He's the number one guy. And I was telling Kevin Franz and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago. From a leadership standpoint, you already know this, but like I said, I was listening to a podcast this morning from a former player, and he was like, look, I know Buck. He's going to he's going to some of those young guys in the defensive line. He's going to whip into shape. They're going to be doing more workouts. They're going to be getting up earlier. They're going to be, you know, he's got a certain standard. And that's one of the things that beyond the player of DeForest Buckner that I was talking about with the young players, you're looking at, you know, linebacker like Jaden Duggar. And I know that that Fred Warner is there, but you're looking at Grayson Holton. And, you know, there's a lot of young guys along that defensive line.
00:09:27
Speaker 3: And C.J.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: West is coming back. All of a sudden, it's like, whoa, this dude, like you're held even more accountable. And that's one of the things I like. There's a lot of 30 plus year old guys on the on the offensive side. On the defensive side, I thought they needed a couple of more as well. So he is the whole ball of wax when it comes to all that. Number two of the three things you got to know. Jonathan Kaminga is back. No Anthony Edwards for Minnesota. Remember when Kaminga played for the Warriors? The NBA, second free throw in, tied at 71.
00:09:54
Speaker 5: Kaminga soaring!
00:09:55
Speaker 1: Oh, man!
00:10:00
Speaker 2: There is our friend Bob Fitzgerald on NBC Sports Bay Area. Jonathan Kaminga coming in with four games played, 11.5 points, six boards, two assists, playing about 30 minutes a game. I'm not anti-Jonathan Kaminga. There were a lot of things behind the scenes that the Warriors didn't like. Sometimes he wasn't coachable. Sometimes he was arrogant. Sometimes He didn't do exactly what they wanted him to do. And to me, I don't know if he gets booed, cheered, or it's just indifferent.
00:10:27
Speaker 3: I would be indifferent.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: It's a disappointment that the Warriors took him seventh overall and he didn't live up.
00:10:33
Speaker 3: He's a great athlete.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: I don't know that he fully understands how this all works still to this day. It's nothing against him. It's just he didn't help win a championship. They would have won it without him anyway. it represented a, I'm not going to say a dark time, but it was like, Oh my God, it's Wiseman and Kaminga and Jordan pool. And look at what, not only are we really good now, we're going to be really good later. And it's like, you don't know those guys worked out. You can blame Steve Kerr, whatever. A lot of people think, ah, Steve Kerr can't develop talent.
00:10:58
Speaker 3: All right.
00:10:59
Speaker 2: But they didn't win any championships before Steve got here. So I think he can develop talent. I just think you had to earn your way onto the team at that point. It was a different team. And Kaminga got frustrated. The Warriors got frustrated. He left for Atlanta, made a little bit of a splash early. And then they went, Oh, And they let him go, didn't even make him an offer, and now he's in Minnesota. Now, look, it wouldn't surprise me tonight if he scored 20 and grabbed 10. Number one, he's going to be really motivated. Number two, there's no Anthony Edwards. So he's going to be a little bit more of a focal point for the offense. So when we talk again tomorrow and he goes 20 and 10 and you text me and you go, he got 20 and 10 last night. All right, let's see him do it with Anthony Edwards. Somebody's got to score points for the Timberwolves tonight. LaMelo Ball will some, but who else is going to score? So he's going to be counted on to score a little bit more. But it's not like he left the Warriors and broke out in Atlanta or has broken out in Minnesota. This is about what I think Kaminga is going to be in his career. Not hate on Jonathan Kaminga at all. It's disappointing. The whole situation was disappointing. From a Warriors standpoint, from his standpoint, you saw his athleticism. Sometimes you'd see him like, whoa, man, this is cool. But it just never kind of came together for him. So there's that. And then finally, one more. Is there any way to stop the Madden movie? I feel bad for... John Madden I feel bad for his family I feel this looks like an SNL skit every time we get more clips so there was a there was a new clip that was released today or excuse me yesterday and everybody was going crazy so just as a reminder if you need it this is how John Madden actually sounded.
00:12:27
Speaker 6: I'll tell you offensively to me they look great right now I think Troy Aikman is the best football and for you is the best quarterback in all of football he just looks great he's going.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: As high as you can Okay, so that's what Madden would sound like. Now, they do a clip here from the movie that they released yesterday, and everybody went crazy.
00:12:44
Speaker 3: Number one, the set looks cheap. It looks like a Saturday Night Live bit.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: Number two, he sounds like a mix between Forrest Gump, Jimmy Stewart, and Sling Blade. He kind of a little bit looks like Madden, but he sure as hell doesn't sound like him. So here's another release clip, and I'm more depressed than ever about the movie.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Heck of a first half. The Packers really did dominate there.
00:13:09
Speaker 5: That's absolutely right, Pat.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a play that Vince Lombardi spent eight hours teaching to me in class. Eight hours.
00:13:17
Speaker 6: The power sweep.
00:13:18
Speaker 3: I'm going to demonstrate it for you. I'll use it on my new telestrator.
00:13:23
Speaker 5: What is that?
00:13:23
Speaker 6: Where did he get that?
00:13:24
Speaker 5: Offensive line right here.
00:13:26
Speaker 6: Okay?
00:13:27
Speaker 5: And then up here, you've got your defense, right?
00:13:30
Speaker 4: You've got to take it away from him. You've got to take it away from him. on in here that you don't know about.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: In his head, in his head, in his head, in his head, in their heads. They're all confused because.
00:13:41
Speaker 6: Who's.
00:13:41
Speaker 3: Going to understand this? I'm torn.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Like I have a job to do, so I probably need to see it so that I can truly say it's terrible, but we've seen, they've released two or three trailers, every clip they release.
00:13:57
Speaker 3: I mean, he, he sounds the same.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: I think what they should do is have Caliendo's voice and then they'll dub it like it's a foreign movie or something. And, you know, maybe the mouth won't match some of the times, but that's okay. Just have Caliendo do the voice and have Nick Cage do the character.
00:14:12
Speaker 3: Can they do that? Anyway, it doesn't look great. All right, there you go.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: That is your– oh, by the way, injury report. Real quick on the Warriors tonight. Yaxel is on the injury report, questionable left foot inflammation slash soreness.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: Already?
00:14:26
Speaker 2: We're already having this conversation? When I was 24, it was like, come on, man. I didn't play NBA basketball, clearly, but, man.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: He's already on the injury list. Oh, that would be a bummer tonight. All right, there you go.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: That is your Nooner. Hopefully you enjoyed it. We'll reset the poll coming up next. I did ask for any of this one, but it's based on the fact that the 49ers had their Halloween party this week. So we have a question for you. We'll do that coming up next. And then we'll get into some NBA. We'll tell you about it next only here on the Sports Leader.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: Fair and Biased comes to you live from the KNBR Casino Matrix Jackpot Studios. Casino Matrix. Progressive jackpots are here.
00:15:11
Speaker 3: Where are you?
00:15:12
Speaker 1: Just drop in. 1-800-GAMBLER.
00:15:23
Speaker 3: What's happening? Thanks for joining us.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: It is a Hump Day Wednesday edition of the program. We're going to reset the poll for you in... Just a moment. But Dave DeFore is going to join us. NBA expert, coach, scout, talks NBA for a living. And he's going to join us at about 5-0 past the hour, 50 past the hour.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: And we'll ask him.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: I love getting an outside view of things because we get really excited about, oh, my God, Yaxel's the greatest ever. So we'll talk Yaxel with him. Early NBA injuries, including Anthony Edwards, who is tonight, is out tonight for Minnesota, the rest of the rookie class, trends that he's seeing, the West, the East, everything.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: It's very early.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: We have a limited sample size. But to just get an outside view of how he sees things, Dave DuFour is going to join us in about just over 10 minutes, 10 or 12 minutes. Let's get you an update on the polls. So we're doing this. We've had a lot of sports polls lately, and they've been relevant. We had one on Yaxel yesterday with one of the Niners after they lost.
00:16:20
Speaker 3: They've all been relevant.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And on a day where I'm not saying there's not a lot going on because there is, but I saw this, that the 49ers had their Halloween party this week. And you had Ricky Pearsall dressing up as Austin Powers. Romello Height was Chucky. There was a Nate Hobbs who was Dajon Love. There was a Michael Myers in there. I think it was unidentified. You had, let's see, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk, and Mac Jones. They dressed up as characters from Austin Powers. So you saw all those kind of things like that. It was a defensive lineman that was Michael Myers.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: I'm blanking.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: But the point is, is that then Nick Bosa and his girlfriend dressed up as a tandem, Crimson Chin and Clef the Boy Chin Wonder from Fairly Odd Parents. Brock Purdy and Jenna, his wife, They were Monsters, Inc. and Brock was Sully.
00:17:11
Speaker 3: You know, you got the one eye guy and then you got like the big blue guy, like whatever. My son's 22.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: So, you know, I'm not watching that stuff, but you get the idea. So the question is very simple. I will ask the question. Tim will give you the answers and the update on the poll on YouTube. And you can always hit us up at four and five. It can be our four and five, eight, eight, five, six to seven at your convenience.
00:17:30
Speaker 3: Text or call.
00:17:32
Speaker 2: The question is, do you dress up in matching Halloween costumes with your significant other? Do you dress up in matching Halloween costumes with your significant other?
00:17:41
Speaker 3: What are we looking at now?
00:17:42
Speaker 4: Well, our four choices. Number one, people are with me, 35%. No costume.
00:17:48
Speaker 5: I'm old.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: I'm dead inside. I've given up.
00:17:51
Speaker 4: 35% of the people are on the 30% or if it's forced, happy wife, happy life. Right behind that, 20% love it. We're a package deal dead last with 16%.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: No chance. I do me.
00:18:02
Speaker 4: So not a lot of individuality out there right now.
00:18:06
Speaker 3: You're a happy wife?
00:18:07
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:18:08
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: See, maybe this is why I can't keep relationships together because I'm no way I pick my own costume. And Franny and I were talking about this. There is only a forced happy wife, happy life. And I have dressed in tandem with my wife before or love it. We're a package deal. And again, there's no wrong answer, no right answer here. It's just what Franny said is what happens in my house. So my wife and I have dressed up in kind of a package deal, tandem type of a deal, whatever you want to call it.
00:18:35
Speaker 3: But I want to have a little bit of fun.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: So if she says, okay, you'll be this and I'll be that from movies or whatever, it's fine. But I like to take a little detour, you know, and just have a little bit of fun with that character. And she's like, no, like if you're, if we're going to do this, I'm this and you're that, and you know, no deviation. So he was saying like, she was a golfer and he's a caddy and he was going to put like, you know, free ball washer or something on his shirt.
00:18:56
Speaker 3: And it was, and she was like, no, you can't do that. And that's where I find it.
00:18:59
Speaker 2: So we've been together long enough to where she's like, she knows I don't want to, I don't want to dress in tandem. And so she won't even ask me anymore. So, but we'll, you know, we may be something that could be similar. Like, okay, what are you going to be? And she's not going to be something totally opposite of it. So I don't know that somewhere in the middle ground, but like we have certain rules in our relationship.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Like I'll give you another one. She always wants, like, unless, like, it's different.
00:19:21
Speaker 2: If you go to an Italian restaurant or a Chinese restaurant or something and, you know, it's served family style, then I'll share my food.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: But let's say we go, just for the sake of conversation, to a burger joint.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: And she's stuck between, like, a burger and a sandwich. And she'll say, hey, why don't you split your burger with me and I'll have a sandwich and I'll get onion rings and you can have half onions, half fries, and then you can have half a sandwich, half a burger. I'm like, if I wanted a sandwich, I'd order a sandwich. Like, I'm getting a burger and I don't want to share it with you. Like that, you know, so I'm the same way as far as costumes. Like, nah, I'm going to just do something separate. It drives her crazy. Cause like, we'll go to a place. And like I said, if, if we're having a giant chicken parm and spaghetti and you're passing it around, that's different. You know, you're like, it's kind of buffet style, but most of the time when you go to a restaurant, it's like, I don't want to split.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: She's like, you can get the steak. I'll get the fish. We'll each have a little both. I'm saying, no, no, no.
00:20:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker 3: I don't know. Like I said, maybe that's why I have an issue in life with things, but there it is. So I hope she's not listening, John. She'll just hear this second or third hand.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: This happens almost every day where then I see her and I come home and I say, Hey, how's it going? And she's like, why, why did you say this? But we are beyond that too. Like when we were first dating, it was every day. Like she'd ask, like she'd have like a pad of paper and she would be writing things down and going like, I heard you say like this, this and this.
00:20:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm an entertainer. I might embellish this out of the other, like, you know, kind of no big deal.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Every once in a while though, she'll hear something like second or third person. And then she'll say, well, why did you say that? And I'm like, well, yeah, because I mean, that part is 100% true. I don't share my food and I don't generally dress in tandem and she doesn't really ask me anymore about it. So I'll ask her again today because I'm not really sure what we're going to do. I have no idea. You have to go to one of those Halloween stores at the last second, right? Some place went out of business and then you got to go over to the Halloween place and get something like last minute.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, Like it's definitely last minute. Today's the 28th. Oh my gosh. I don't even know what I'm going to be. So anyway.
00:21:14
Speaker 1: All right.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: That is our poll question. Your package deal. Happy wife, happy life. I'm myself or I'm dead inside. Those are your four. I can't believe I'm dead inside is by the way, it's just winning in a landslide. I'm dead inside. That's unbelievable.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. Our audience knows themselves, John. They know themselves. I'm dead inside. Just nothing.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: So they just like, I guess everybody just ignores it. You can't, let me ask this then to our wonderful audience. You don't turn your lights off though, right? I mean, you at least give out candy. Like if you say you're dead inside, does that mean you don't give out, that you don't give out candy? Do you turn your lights off and don't give out candy? Is that what we're talking about with no costumes and you're dead inside?
00:22:00
Speaker 3: Is that no candy or nothing?
00:22:01
Speaker 4: As one of our texters so astutely put out, 831 says, I go load management.
00:22:06
Speaker 3: I take the night off and just hand out candy. Load management.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Because when I was growing up, about every house was into Halloween. And now in my neighborhood, even though, like I said, I said about 30% of people put actual Halloween lights, which I think is a high amount. But I would say that in my neighborhood, I don't know, it's maybe 60, 40 that people are welcoming, whereas there's just people who turn their lights off completely. And, you know, our kids at our house, they're not going trick-or-treating anymore. We may go to a party, but, you know, it may or may not be the exact day of Halloween, but... if I'm home, yeah, I'm giving away, I'm giving out candy. It's just that I know that I'm gonna have to drive the day of Halloween to get the candy because that big bag that my wife got at Costco is I'm sure is gone.
00:22:50
Speaker 3: Just gone.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: Just, you know, that little, there's like a corner of it and they open it up. The kids open it up just a little bit and they keep taking a little, a little, a little, then after a while, they're like, hell with it.
00:22:58
Speaker 3: And then they just take the whole thing. It's crazy.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: All right.
00:23:01
Speaker 2: I'll get some of these text messages at 415-808-KMBR, 415-808-5627.
00:23:06
Speaker 3: That is the poll question today. Let's talk to Dave DeFore coming up next.
00:23:09
Speaker 2: Dave is going to give us a macro look, a wide lens look at the NBA with a special look at the Warriors. But what is he seeing is the trends so far, lots of injuries, but we'll go through the West, the East, everything. And of course, we'll discuss the axle next only here on the sports leader.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Fair and Biased comes to you live from the KNBR Casino Matrix Jackpot Studios. Casino Matrix. Progressive jackpots are here.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Where are you?
00:23:48
Speaker 1: Just drop in. 1-800-GAMBLER.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us. Fair and Biased on a hump day Wednesday. The Warriors have the T-Wolves. No Anthony Edwards, but Jonathan Kaminga comes back. Let's talk to Dave DeFore. Let's widen out the lens, talk a lot about the NBA. We'll put a little Warriors in there as well, but Dave is with The Athletic. Make sure that you're following him at DaveDeForeNBA, and Dave joins us courtesy of the UMA guest line.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: What's happening, Dave?
00:24:13
Speaker 2: How are you?
00:24:15
Speaker 5: You know what, man? I'm not too bad. I'm uninjured. That makes one of us. I know. How about you? It feels like everybody I'm watching trying to play basketball keeps getting hurt. If we can get past these injuries, man, things would be great.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's start with that.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: And I'm always, you know, because this happens in the NFL early and everybody starts complaining that, you know, there's too many injuries and this and that. But it does certainly seem like there's more injuries than there normally is and to big time players. And as you know, the Warriors are hosting where we are, the Timberwolves tonight, not having Anthony Edwards for two months when a lot of people are really high in the Timberwolves, bringing over ball, kind of changing their team. A lot of people thinking, you know, maybe the third best team in the West and all of a sudden two months they're out.
00:24:56
Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards is terrible.
00:24:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and here's the difference between football and basketball. Number one, football is a collision sport. Basketball is not. Like, a lot of these injuries are non-contact. You know, you think about the Achilles tears that we've seen over the years. Jalen Suggs with his knee the other day. You know, it's stuff like that. But also, one player has such an outsized effect on the game because there's only five on the court at a time. And we've got three guys who are top 30 players, two of whom I think are consensus top 10 in Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Edwards. All are out right now. You know, Jalen Williams is going to miss the season. And he's I mean, he's a top 25 guy, all NBA defender, all NBA 13 guy like he is a really great player. And so when these guys go down, it totally changes the league. Whereas I could say, you know, the steps between, let's say, an average NFL starting quarterback and his backup is probably closer than Jalen Williams backup to him. as far as skill goes and importance of the team. Because, you know, like the 49ers, Brock Purdy, to me, man, he's underrated by the general, I think, football audience, it seems. But he wins a lot of games. But he has such a great team around him that they could probably go a couple of games if he misses. You know, it's a lot of scheme stuff. Whereas what Jalen Williams does, you can't replace that. What Anthony Edwards does, I mean, he hit 47 points the other night on this bum knee that he had operated on. And it's just like, okay, well, his backup is Io De Sunmo. How's that going to go?
00:26:27
Speaker 3: That's a little bit of a drop-off, Dave. I'm going to admit it.
00:26:29
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a drop-off. Dave DeFore at Dave DeFore NBA. It's great talking ball with Dave today. And we're talking a little injuries in the NBA. We'll move on to some other stuff. But just since you mentioned Jalen Williams, too, because they've got a couple of big injuries early, Jalen, and they've got a couple of guys out of their starting lineup. And, like, at the end of the year, we saw if Jalen Williams is healthy at the end of last year, maybe they– beat the Spurs in that series. But does that change the West? Because it's San Antonio, Oklahoma City, you draw a line, then there's another level after that. How much does that drop OKC in the West to you?
00:27:02
Speaker 5: Poor Cason Wallace. Cason Wallace also out for the year, and you couldn't even remember his name just then. I mean, Jalen Williams, they got his number up on top of that tower in OKC. You know, you've got Sam Presti with one of the most somber, and rightfully so. Like, this is a catastrophic injury. But one of the most somber press conferences I've ever seen an NBA GM give. And, like, Cason Wallace also after the year is just like, hey, it's an afterthought. But I think that the reality is what we saw with Jada was so visceral. And with Cason, it just looked like, oh, man, he bumped his shoulder. He'll be back. And then that's a shock. And so there's no way that losing two starters, and especially the level of Jalen Williams in the case of Wallace, doesn't affect the West. I think it just makes the West a little bit more wide open. Because the Thunder, to me, should have been the favorites. I mean, they weren't healthy all last year. And they gave San Antonio everything that they could handle. San Antonio has come out of the gate. I don't like what's happening there. I think the three-guard lineup is probably not going to work long-term. But the longer it takes him to figure that out, the more of a problem it's going to create. I think they need to get Tobias Harris healthy. He's going to be the starter. But man, I don't know if you caught him playing the Kings last night. Kings such a great get right team because they're awful. And it's like having a scrimmage against, I don't know, a high school team or something like that.
00:28:19
Speaker 6: And it's out there.
00:28:21
Speaker 5: And he's like, yeah, I mean, he's eight of ten in the first half from three. And it's like when he's pouring 20-something points in the paint, you're like, oh, wow, this is what they could look like if they had a guy who could shoot out there instead of one of these other guards. You know, Dylan Harper, not a good enough catch-and-shoot guy. Same with Stephon Castle. Defense is just not respecting him. It's making him more hard. So until they figure that out, I think the West is pretty open, man. I still believe in the Wolves. I think when Anthony Edwards comes back, As long as he's healthy and in shape, they're going to keep on rolling because you see what the results from the first four games where they barely had any chemistry was incredible. So I imagine by the time we get to January, February, they're going to be rolling. I think the Lakers are a little bit underrated. They're going to be able to score against every single team. And if Walker Kessler can just game by game, keep them in it defensively, if they could figure out some way to guard at the point of attack, I think they're dangerous. And I think the real team to watch out for, because they now look so complete, is the Houston Rockets. Getting Fred VanVleet back, I made fun of this all last year. I said, OK, Fred VanVleet's not solving all their problems. Turns out Fred VanVleet solves enough of their problems. The bigger ones are much smaller now. You know, I'm looking at them in fourth quarters where they used to collapse. They've been solid here in the last few games, including against Atlanta, where they really took off in the fourth quarter and got, you know, like without Kevin Durant, they sat him the entire fourth. And I think that that stuff that's going to be important for them last year or this year. Kevin Durant played 72 games last year. He's 38 years old. Their goal should be 65 games for him and 30 minutes a night. And if they can do that, they can beat anybody. come to spring.
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Great stuff from Dave DeFore at Dave DeFore NBA and check him out at the athletic as well as we're taking an early look at trends in the NBA lots of injuries looking at the West as well let me throw the Warriors in and more specifically Yaxel Lindenborg what's been your early impression both on and off the court from the Warriors rookie?
00:30:19
Speaker 5: Man Steph Curry just can't get any love everybody wants to talk about Yaxel Yaxel has honestly been amazing You know, I'm reserving judgment on the Yaxel experience, I would say. But on the court, man, he makes so much sense for them. Number one, he's big, and they are tiny. You know, there are times where the tallest guy on the court is Draymond Green, and he's, what, 6'5 1⁄2 in the right shoes? I just think having a guy who's a legit 6'9 and has that kind of body, you know, he's an adult. This is not a 19-year-old draftee. This is a guy who's 24 years old. He can go rent a car, I'm pretty sure. They're not going to check his I.D., And so he goes out there and it's like adding another big body on the court, which they just desperately in need of. And the fact that the shot looks real, that he can handle as well as he can, and that we're watching him kind of evolve game by game already. Like this is, again, that maturity of being a more ripe and developed player already. And I wonder if Yaxel has a great year. Let's say he turns into a really good player. If he might be the start of a trend that we see where these guys, they stay in college because they're second rounders. And there's good NIL money now to keep you around and develop. And he's kind of like a late bloomer. And you look at him and it's like, well, this is an NBA player who maybe wasn't one three years ago. And definitely not this one. He's more of a proven commodity. But I just think he's got room to be a really special player there for the Warriors because they need him. Like right now, he's the second best player on the team behind Steph Curry. I mean, it's just, that's an astounding thing to say for a team that has the pedigree that the Warriors have, but that's where I'm at with it. I think they should be featuring him as much as they have. I appreciate the fact that he's learning the nuances of the NBA game and how to actually get to the free throw line and how valuable of a skill that is, especially when it comes to the defensive end. Cause on offense, if you go to the free throw line, your defense gets a chance to rest and that Warriors defense is, they're not going to be very good if they're running on teams. So I think that his role is super important. So, yeah, I've been very impressed, actually, on the court.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: Dave DeFore, join us. I think that's a perfect explanation. And I'm interested because I've said the same thing about the age.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I mean, everybody gets it.
00:32:31
Speaker 2: It's almost like the way I put it together was when NBA teams draft, it's like Leonardo DiCaprio in Girlfriends.
00:32:38
Speaker 3: If you're past 20, they don't want anything to do with you.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: But now, like you said, and look, I think that if somebody, if God built something that the Warriors needed right now, it was that, right? Because he's 23 years old. He's played a lot. He's going to come in here because the Warriors, they couldn't afford to go down the, you know, the Kaminga James Wiseman path again. They needed somebody to play, as you pointed out, right now. And to the guiltiness of not talking about Curry, you're right, because yesterday we spent the whole show talking about Yaxel's 31 defense. And Steph didn't miss a shot and scored over 20. And it was like, hey, man, I went eight for eight.
00:33:12
Speaker 3: I scored 20. Like, all we're going to talk about is this kid.
00:33:15
Speaker 2: But I think what it is for the Warriors fans is they never had that person to succeed, Steph. And I'm not saying that Yaxel's going to do that. But they legitimately, I think, have a piece for the future. And Podjemski's a nice player. And they've got some role players on this team other than that. But I think Yaxel can be a player that can start this team in the right direction.
00:33:34
Speaker 3: I think that's what kind of everybody's thinking. And so they're, like, freaking out about it.
00:33:38
Speaker 5: Well, it's possible. But also, listen, this is Steph Curry, man. And this happened when Kevin Durant was there. Kevin Durant had the best seasons of his career because of Steph Curry. Like, Steph Curry is the scariest dude to ever touch a basketball on a basketball court on the planet and in the universe, in human history. And so everything Yaxel's doing, I mean, Steph has made his life easier. The entire system that they run is The defense cannot lose Steph. They can lose anyone else. So, you know, when I look at what Yaxel's doing, I think, wow, this is what happens when you have a good player next to Steph Curry every single time. He's the greatest single boat riser in NBA history because he takes the defense's attention for 94 feet. You have to double him at half court if he's got the ball. And so this is the right situation for a guy like Yaxel who's got a good head on his shoulders. understands the game, it's not too fast for him, and his body is built for it, he should be playing like this. And the fact that Jonathan Kuminga never fully developed in the G League, I think that was a huge mistake for him going to the Ignite. Turns out it's been a pretty big mistake for most of the players that have been there in hindsight and just could never figure that out. And then with James Wiseman, the guy played, what, nine games of basketball in his senior year and freshman year of college? I mean, bad drafting is bad drafting. There were other guys in those drafts. I mean, imagine if they had taken Tyrese Halliburton, he would have been the guy to, you know, you probably win a championship or two, maybe with that guy, you know, a lamello ball. Like he would have been just a different player in the NBA, you know, all the, the, the knucklehead stuff that he got away with in Charlotte. So there's a lot of, to me, I think bad drafting, bad pieces, the actual great pick right piece.
00:35:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they needed them to absolutely. Dave, before you go, we'll probably do this on Friday. When you were a kid, was there something that they dropped in your Halloween bag? Because everybody does bus candy, but what was the one thing that you were like, if they give me this candy, I'm going to egg this house?
00:35:44
Speaker 3: What was the worst candy? What is the worst candy?
00:35:47
Speaker 2: All right, man.
00:35:48
Speaker 5: I might be the worst person to ask this. I wasn't a big candy guy growing up, oddly enough. But like, you know, I always like, I like the gummy stuff. So like, you know, Starbursts or Skittles or things like that. Like I actually, you know, some houses, you know, you'd get like the fruit snacks that I'd even, oh, that's not too bad. But any of that, any kind of peanut, you know, the fake marshmallow peanut thing. What is that? Whatever that's called. Nutty Buddy. I don't know what they're called.
00:36:18
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:36:19
Speaker 6: Okay.
00:36:19
Speaker 5: Any of that stuff. Any of those sticky things. Peanut buttery, taffy type of candies. No good. And anything that looked like it was in your grandma's candy dish. I just don't need individually wrapped. What is this? Halls? Are these cough drops? I don't, I don't want any of that.
00:36:42
Speaker 3: No, nothing like that. Nothing like that. And you know, we're, we're past the days of like bars though.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:36:49
Speaker 2: In Northern California, we were talking about John Madden cause that, that movie looks terrible.
00:36:53
Speaker 3: It's going to come out.
00:36:54
Speaker 2: But anyway, uh, He lived in a place called Pleasanton. You would drive there because Madden didn't just give away full-size bars. He gave away the monster bars that you would get at a movie theater or something, like the double Snickers. People would actually drive there and have kids go up to the house and you'd get these monster chocolate bars and stuff.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: That was fun, man.
00:37:18
Speaker 5: I can't believe you brought up a movie and didn't bring up Ayesha Curry's Rope Who.
00:37:24
Speaker 2: Bank hallmark movie yeah yeah that's here man like.
00:37:28
Speaker 5: We may do a watch along on the show uh we're trying to come up with some way to cover this i mean this is a watershed moment in nba history this is steph curry no not at all.
00:37:40
Speaker 2: That's wonderful yeah that's the big question yeah that is a good question probably no they wouldn't do that be legit man she's good at everything she does she's amazing Dave, that was fun, man.
00:37:53
Speaker 3: We got to do it again. You're the best. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it, man.
00:37:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:37:57
Speaker 5: Good hanging out. Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker 2: All right.
00:37:59
Speaker 3: Let's do it again.
00:38:00
Speaker 2: At Dave Dufour NBA at Dave Dufour NBA and check them out on or in the athletic does tons of podcasts. He's got Q and A's up there. I'm checking everything out right now. Very cool stuff from Dave Dufour. Make sure that you follow him at Dave Dufour NBA.
00:38:15
Speaker 3: That was fun, man. It was really good.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I still don't know what he was talking about, though, because a Nutty Buddy is an ice cream item. He said he wasn't a guy to ask, but here was the most controversial thing he said at the end was he said fruit snacks were okay.
00:38:29
Speaker 3: Remember that? You would get those.
00:38:30
Speaker 2: You'd have the health-conscious parent, and even though those have sugar, they're not as bad. Maybe they have some vitamin C or something in them, and they were made by Welch's, and you'd get a little pack of those. They'd throw Welch's fruit snacks in your bag, and you're just like, no. like the minute they would before i got back into the dark because they've got a you know they got their light on in their um at their house or whatever so by the you know you kind of take about five steps they shut the door those fruit snacks are on their lawn like you know i appreciate the sentiment and everything but i'm gonna have to go home and you know separate all this stuff out of my car but i might as well just while i can see it still in there and there's a little bit of light here i'm not doing when he dropped uh halls what is this halls that that made me laugh.
00:39:09
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker 3: People used to do that. Not anymore.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: Like I said, people just, the only thing that I think irks kids nowadays, I could be wrong. You could be in for an egg in or a toilet papering, uh.
00:39:19
Speaker 3: Fun size, like fun size. Isn't even a bite.
00:39:22
Speaker 2: You know, like the little tiny size I'm talking about, or maybe fun size is like the little one. I don't even know what the one that's even smaller than fun size is. You know those kind?
00:39:33
Speaker 4: Again, the first Tim's Tuesday Taken trivia I ever did was about fun size candy bars. And I put it out there. I said, who is this for? This sucks. Like, it's not fun for anyone. And there was a lot of hate mail for that.
00:39:47
Speaker 3: And the people.
00:39:48
Speaker 2: very angry parents about, uh, they're like, Hey man, we're at least giving you something. But it's like the minimum you should give out. You do you, but the minimum you should get out, if you're going to do like candy bars or something is the one that's like a two bite small one. Like the one that looks like a BB. It's like, what am I going to do with this? Like you open it up and it's like the wrapper.
00:40:07
Speaker 4: Was more expensive than the candy.
00:40:10
Speaker 3: Stop it. You know, I don't know.
00:40:12
Speaker 2: Fun size egg is the two bite one, but the other one that's like, it's like a corner of a candy bar.
00:40:18
Speaker 3: Super fun size, right?
00:40:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker 3: Whatever that is. It's a whore. It's come on, man. And that's what we would do too.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: When we go home and we separate them all out and they do have, and I think it's like Snickers has them, the tiny ones, Milky Way, Three Musketeer. I don't think all of them do it, but it is a tiny bit of candy. And it's like, yeah, but I was nice enough to give it to him. And it's like, eh, I don't know, man. You might as well, in that case, you should just turn off your lights. Like don't even give them out. It's embarrassing for you.
00:40:47
Speaker 3: I'm doing the absolute bare minimum. Here is a mini, a mini size, whatever.
00:40:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker 2: The mini size, whatever that is. Uh, we probably have a winner in the clubhouse.
00:40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:58
Speaker 2: Nobody likes almond joy or mounds. I can handle almond joy more because it's got the almond in it, but just mounds. And I do like dark chocolate like you, but the, the dark, the mounds, like, come on.
00:41:11
Speaker 3: That's an egg. And like, sorry, sorry.
00:41:14
Speaker 2: Mounds is an egg and like you drop a mounds in there it's like come on man seriously i know you do that straight out of comedy because nobody likes mounds i don't know if they make those anymore sometimes you feel like a nut sometimes.
00:41:27
Speaker 3: You don't want want want want i.
00:41:29
Speaker 2: Don't think they make that anymore they do they make the mounds yeah and the difference you know obviously i was more of a mounds guy than almond joy because it was dark chocolate but yeah I got to have crunch in my candy bar. I got to have something in there. It's got to be something. There's got to be something in there. Like Milky Way. Milky Way is no good because it's just, you know, the nougat.
00:41:47
Speaker 3: It's no good.
00:41:49
Speaker 2: Mounds is just, I like the dark chocolate, but it's just coconut. Like there's nothing crunchy in there. So there's my opinion.
00:41:54
Speaker 3: It's probably wrong. All right. Point is, thanks to Dave DeFore. That was really a lot of fun to have Dave on the show. Appreciate it.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: All right, let's get you some national headlines. We still have a rousing version of last call. And actually, you know what we have to do? Maybe a part of the national stuff, we'll bring back the Alex Smith. And then we have the Ernie Johnson, right? We're going to start with that coming up next. Ernie Johnson has announced his retirement, which means Charles Barkley is going to be gone, which means inside the NBA should be gone or done after the season, right? Or will they try to actually save it? We'll talk about that and other things in national headlines next, only here on the SportsCenter.
Speaker 1: Fair and Bias thinks you need a lunch break. So sit back and grab a bite of the latest stories in sports. This is The Nooner on The Sports Leader.
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Hey guys, it's Wednesday. That means it's a hump day. So get off those wallets. Give me those dollars. Buckner is back. Yaxel may play, may not. Jonathan Kaminga is back in the house. And oh, please don't release that Madden movie.
00:00:29
Speaker 3: Come on, guys. That always revs me up for the second part of the show. You know?
00:00:36
Speaker 2: It really revs me up for the second part of the show. I'm very excited to give you and present to you the Nooner. It is three things you got to know right now, like the 49ers trading for DeForest Buckner. I don't think we're going to find anybody that's more enthusiastic about that trade than the sound you're going to hear.
00:00:51
Speaker 3: Jonathan Kaminga is back for the Warriors.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Are you excited? Please stop the Madden movie. And we've still got a few more things that we've got to get to you as well. By the way, National Chocolate Day, which that's not why we're not doing the, I don't know, we might do the candy poll.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: We may not do the candy poll. I'm not sure this year.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: The only problem with the candy poll, speaking of chocolate, Is that Reese's is the Jerry Rice.
00:01:14
Speaker 3: It's the number one. And we've done it in the past. We've kept Reese's in there.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: And it always wins. Reese's wins by a landslide. Maybe we do worse candy. And then it's like the ones that everybody.
00:01:25
Speaker 3: Hates, you know. That's better.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: The worst thing to get in your bag. Like your candy corn, your bit of honey, all that garbage. Oh, a bit of honey is terrible. In fact, when George was young, I'd just take a bit of honey out of there. And I didn't do it to steal it and eat it. It's like chomping at a rock.
00:01:41
Speaker 3: And it's like, dude.
00:01:43
Speaker 2: You know, your teeth are going to fall out. I mean, they're going to anyway, when he was that young, but still it was like, dude, you know, but that's.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: A good idea. Like what don't you want to see in your bag?
00:01:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: See, I don't think people do this anymore.
00:01:53
Speaker 2: There's no more popcorn balls because they know he's like, you can't, people aren't going to eat those razor blade in the popcorn. You know, we don't trust people anymore. Like we used to trust people in this country. You could ride your bikes, go anywhere you wanted. There could, there could be, you know, homemade candy in your bag and you'd eat it. Cause you knew everybody in the block. And now it's like, you know, Like, you know, you go through your kid. Now you have to dump everything out and look through your kid's stuff. Like, well, we're not having that homemade caramel. We're not having that popcorn ball. You know, there's no way they don't put pennies anymore. Like people used to put pennies in your bag back in the day. Like, what's that going to do? You know, people who are righteous would put like a toothbrush in there. If you put, I'll tell you this right now, you put a toothbrush or, you know, or homemade caramels or popcorn balls or any bad stuff in somebody, you're going to get egged or something's going to happen in your house. You know, off the top of my head, just, and I, this, I don't think this would be much of a controversial take, not that we're going to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I detest Twizzlers. Twizzlers are not real licorice.
00:02:57
Speaker 3: I'm with you. I like real licorice. And I don't, I don't like Twizzlers. They're not real.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: And they have all sorts of flavors like grape and chocolate. It's like, come on, man. Licorice is not chocolate. Licorice is red vines that you get at the movies.
00:03:10
Speaker 3: And it's red. It's not black. It's red. That's the proper licorice.
00:03:14
Speaker 4: I'll give you a controversial one. I don't like Tootsie Rolls. I don't like the standard Tootsie Roll.
00:03:19
Speaker 5: I don't.
00:03:19
Speaker 3: I think it's... It annoys me. You know what's funny about that?
00:03:24
Speaker 2: God, we're taking this way too far. You know what's funny about that? They still do this. So when you buy.
00:03:29
Speaker 3: Because I was at Costco the other day, and they... They give you that like gigantic.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: And by the way, the key is you can't buy it too early because you always say to yourself, I'm not going to eat it. The kids aren't going to eat it. But what happens is if you keep it so that it's not opened, you're fine. The minute the candy gets opened, all of a sudden the kids know it's open. Like they can just smell it somehow. and they know where you hit it, especially if they get older, and then it's gone. But in that big package that you get at Costco that's like 5 million pounds, there's all the Tootsie Rolls, but you never eat these Tootsie Rolls during the year, but they have the flavored ones like lemon and lime and raspberry and vanilla.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: Right.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: It's like, those are so terrible. Come on, man.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: Like, they have this whole thing at whoever makes Tootsie Roll, and they just wait till Halloween, and then they dump all that crap on us.
00:04:16
Speaker 4: It's like, and it's always at a huge, disproportional amount, too. So it's like a bag of different things, and then always, invariably, it's like 60% Tootsie Roll.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: Nobody wants that. I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed by it. Smarties. God, I don't even know if we could get it down to four.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: You know? I don't know.
00:04:35
Speaker 5: All right.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Maybe that's for another day. All right.
00:04:37
Speaker 2: Nooner Wise, I told you and you've been waiting ever so patiently. And I'm sorry that I made you wait this long. 49ers traded for DeForest Buckner near the end of the show yesterday. You broke the news near the end of the show yesterday, right before we talked to Dirty Work. So here is, I think, the most enthusiastic person for this trade.
00:04:56
Speaker 3: Our good friend Dante Wittner. Take a listen.
00:04:58
Speaker 6: I told y'all, I told y'all last week, I said DeForest Buckner was sending out an SOS from Indianapolis, and apparently John Lynch got the damn message. The rescue mission is complete. DeForest Buckner is coming home to the San Francisco 49ers. Last week, I told y'all I speak fluent NFL frustration. When Buckner said he was sick and tired of the same song and dance every year, I translated that message for everybody. 49ers, come get me the hell out of here. And what did John Lynch do? He went and posted that man's bail.
00:05:29
Speaker 3: And for what?
00:05:30
Speaker 6: A fourth round draft pick, John Lynch. Somebody call the police because that's Highway robbery. Now let's talk football. You just added a six foot seven, 295 pound monster to a defensive line already with Osa Odigizua, Mikel Williams, Grayson Harden, Romello Height, and oh yeah, Mr. Nick Bosa.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: You're getting a veteran who can collapse the pocket.
00:05:52
Speaker 6: Inside. You know what that means? Quarterbacks can't just step up in the pocket anymore. That interior pressure is going to make everybody around him better. This is bigger than just adding another defensive lineman. This is a statement from the 49ers front office. The 49ers are 6-1. They've been dealing with injuries all season, and John Lynch is telling the rest of the NFL, we ain't waiting until next year. We're trying to win the damn Super Bowl right now. Remember what I said last week. This move almost guarantees the San Francisco 49ers a shot at that Lombardi trophy.
00:06:27
Speaker 3: The Forrest Buckner.
00:06:28
Speaker 6: Left the 49ers in 2019 after that Super Bowl season. And now he's coming back to help finish what they started. Put the champagne on ice. Get those Cuban cigars ready. And start searching for your Super Bowl tickets and flight.
00:06:41
Speaker 3: Welcome home, Buck. My question is very simple.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: Ford 588 KBR, Ford 588-5627. Is anyone more enthusiastic than that? Could you even come close to doing what Dante Wittner just did?
00:06:58
Speaker 3: I challenge you all. Is there anyone who could call.
00:07:00
Speaker 2: The show and be that enthusiastic that DeForest Buckner is coming home?
00:07:04
Speaker 3: I highly doubt it. I highly doubt it.
00:07:08
Speaker 2: Dante went out on a three-minute diet drive there. I don't think anybody's more enthusiastic. As a secondary question to that, do you agree with him? He's saying, get your Super Bowl tickets, get your flights.
00:07:19
Speaker 3: It's in LA. You can drive.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: You can sleep in your car. It's very expensive.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: I told y'all. If you've got an extra 10 grand lying around, you can go to the Superbowl. So what do you think? Are you as excited as Dante?
00:07:31
Speaker 2: He's saying, get the tickets, get the, the Superbowl tickets, get the plane tickets, go down to LA. He's saying, book your reservations. Now, are you that excited? People have wondered if DeForest Buckner is still, I don't think anybody could do it like that. A lot of people have hit me up at John Lund Radio and said, is he as good? Look, current ranks among, this is just defensive tackles, interior defensive linemen. Snaps 353, which is third. That's 82.6% of the snaps. That's going to go down. He has four sacks, which is second. He has 10 pressures, which is seventh. He has eight QB hits, which is third. He has 31 tackles among interior defensive linemen, third. Negative stops for run defense, negative stops. I don't mean behind the line of scrimmage, but there's a formula EPA. He's got 17 of those that's tied for sixth and he's batted down three passes.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: That's tied for second.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: So point is, is that amongst some average statistics and a little bit of analytical type stuff, he's still very effective. He's a, he's a very good defensive tackle. I mean, there's your, you know, there's Jeffrey Simmons. There's a few guys like that hanging around. I would say top five. He's a top five, top six, top seven, man, probably top five defensive tackle right now in the league. Probably Jeffrey Simmons is the number one defensive tackle in the league, but he's amongst many, many people as far as who they could have gotten. He's the number one guy. And I was telling Kevin Franz and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago. From a leadership standpoint, you already know this, but like I said, I was listening to a podcast this morning from a former player, and he was like, look, I know Buck. He's going to he's going to some of those young guys in the defensive line. He's going to whip into shape. They're going to be doing more workouts. They're going to be getting up earlier. They're going to be, you know, he's got a certain standard. And that's one of the things that beyond the player of DeForest Buckner that I was talking about with the young players, you're looking at, you know, linebacker like Jaden Duggar. And I know that that Fred Warner is there, but you're looking at Grayson Holton. And, you know, there's a lot of young guys along that defensive line.
00:09:27
Speaker 3: And C.J.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: West is coming back. All of a sudden, it's like, whoa, this dude, like you're held even more accountable. And that's one of the things I like. There's a lot of 30 plus year old guys on the on the offensive side. On the defensive side, I thought they needed a couple of more as well. So he is the whole ball of wax when it comes to all that. Number two of the three things you got to know. Jonathan Kaminga is back. No Anthony Edwards for Minnesota. Remember when Kaminga played for the Warriors? The NBA, second free throw in, tied at 71.
00:09:54
Speaker 5: Kaminga soaring!
00:09:55
Speaker 1: Oh, man!
00:10:00
Speaker 2: There is our friend Bob Fitzgerald on NBC Sports Bay Area. Jonathan Kaminga coming in with four games played, 11.5 points, six boards, two assists, playing about 30 minutes a game. I'm not anti-Jonathan Kaminga. There were a lot of things behind the scenes that the Warriors didn't like. Sometimes he wasn't coachable. Sometimes he was arrogant. Sometimes He didn't do exactly what they wanted him to do. And to me, I don't know if he gets booed, cheered, or it's just indifferent.
00:10:27
Speaker 3: I would be indifferent.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: It's a disappointment that the Warriors took him seventh overall and he didn't live up.
00:10:33
Speaker 3: He's a great athlete.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: I don't know that he fully understands how this all works still to this day. It's nothing against him. It's just he didn't help win a championship. They would have won it without him anyway. it represented a, I'm not going to say a dark time, but it was like, Oh my God, it's Wiseman and Kaminga and Jordan pool. And look at what, not only are we really good now, we're going to be really good later. And it's like, you don't know those guys worked out. You can blame Steve Kerr, whatever. A lot of people think, ah, Steve Kerr can't develop talent.
00:10:58
Speaker 3: All right.
00:10:59
Speaker 2: But they didn't win any championships before Steve got here. So I think he can develop talent. I just think you had to earn your way onto the team at that point. It was a different team. And Kaminga got frustrated. The Warriors got frustrated. He left for Atlanta, made a little bit of a splash early. And then they went, Oh, And they let him go, didn't even make him an offer, and now he's in Minnesota. Now, look, it wouldn't surprise me tonight if he scored 20 and grabbed 10. Number one, he's going to be really motivated. Number two, there's no Anthony Edwards. So he's going to be a little bit more of a focal point for the offense. So when we talk again tomorrow and he goes 20 and 10 and you text me and you go, he got 20 and 10 last night. All right, let's see him do it with Anthony Edwards. Somebody's got to score points for the Timberwolves tonight. LaMelo Ball will some, but who else is going to score? So he's going to be counted on to score a little bit more. But it's not like he left the Warriors and broke out in Atlanta or has broken out in Minnesota. This is about what I think Kaminga is going to be in his career. Not hate on Jonathan Kaminga at all. It's disappointing. The whole situation was disappointing. From a Warriors standpoint, from his standpoint, you saw his athleticism. Sometimes you'd see him like, whoa, man, this is cool. But it just never kind of came together for him. So there's that. And then finally, one more. Is there any way to stop the Madden movie? I feel bad for... John Madden I feel bad for his family I feel this looks like an SNL skit every time we get more clips so there was a there was a new clip that was released today or excuse me yesterday and everybody was going crazy so just as a reminder if you need it this is how John Madden actually sounded.
00:12:27
Speaker 6: I'll tell you offensively to me they look great right now I think Troy Aikman is the best football and for you is the best quarterback in all of football he just looks great he's going.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: As high as you can Okay, so that's what Madden would sound like. Now, they do a clip here from the movie that they released yesterday, and everybody went crazy.
00:12:44
Speaker 3: Number one, the set looks cheap. It looks like a Saturday Night Live bit.
00:12:47
Speaker 2: Number two, he sounds like a mix between Forrest Gump, Jimmy Stewart, and Sling Blade. He kind of a little bit looks like Madden, but he sure as hell doesn't sound like him. So here's another release clip, and I'm more depressed than ever about the movie.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Heck of a first half. The Packers really did dominate there.
00:13:09
Speaker 5: That's absolutely right, Pat.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a play that Vince Lombardi spent eight hours teaching to me in class. Eight hours.
00:13:17
Speaker 6: The power sweep.
00:13:18
Speaker 3: I'm going to demonstrate it for you. I'll use it on my new telestrator.
00:13:23
Speaker 5: What is that?
00:13:23
Speaker 6: Where did he get that?
00:13:24
Speaker 5: Offensive line right here.
00:13:26
Speaker 6: Okay?
00:13:27
Speaker 5: And then up here, you've got your defense, right?
00:13:30
Speaker 4: You've got to take it away from him. You've got to take it away from him. on in here that you don't know about.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: In his head, in his head, in his head, in his head, in their heads. They're all confused because.
00:13:41
Speaker 6: Who's.
00:13:41
Speaker 3: Going to understand this? I'm torn.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Like I have a job to do, so I probably need to see it so that I can truly say it's terrible, but we've seen, they've released two or three trailers, every clip they release.
00:13:57
Speaker 3: I mean, he, he sounds the same.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: I think what they should do is have Caliendo's voice and then they'll dub it like it's a foreign movie or something. And, you know, maybe the mouth won't match some of the times, but that's okay. Just have Caliendo do the voice and have Nick Cage do the character.
00:14:12
Speaker 3: Can they do that? Anyway, it doesn't look great. All right, there you go.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: That is your– oh, by the way, injury report. Real quick on the Warriors tonight. Yaxel is on the injury report, questionable left foot inflammation slash soreness.
00:14:25
Speaker 3: Already?
00:14:26
Speaker 2: We're already having this conversation? When I was 24, it was like, come on, man. I didn't play NBA basketball, clearly, but, man.
00:14:32
Speaker 3: He's already on the injury list. Oh, that would be a bummer tonight. All right, there you go.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: That is your Nooner. Hopefully you enjoyed it. We'll reset the poll coming up next. I did ask for any of this one, but it's based on the fact that the 49ers had their Halloween party this week. So we have a question for you. We'll do that coming up next. And then we'll get into some NBA. We'll tell you about it next only here on the Sports Leader.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: Fair and Biased comes to you live from the KNBR Casino Matrix Jackpot Studios. Casino Matrix. Progressive jackpots are here.
00:15:11
Speaker 3: Where are you?
00:15:12
Speaker 1: Just drop in. 1-800-GAMBLER.
00:15:23
Speaker 3: What's happening? Thanks for joining us.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: It is a Hump Day Wednesday edition of the program. We're going to reset the poll for you in... Just a moment. But Dave DeFore is going to join us. NBA expert, coach, scout, talks NBA for a living. And he's going to join us at about 5-0 past the hour, 50 past the hour.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: And we'll ask him.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: I love getting an outside view of things because we get really excited about, oh, my God, Yaxel's the greatest ever. So we'll talk Yaxel with him. Early NBA injuries, including Anthony Edwards, who is tonight, is out tonight for Minnesota, the rest of the rookie class, trends that he's seeing, the West, the East, everything.
00:16:01
Speaker 3: It's very early.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: We have a limited sample size. But to just get an outside view of how he sees things, Dave DuFour is going to join us in about just over 10 minutes, 10 or 12 minutes. Let's get you an update on the polls. So we're doing this. We've had a lot of sports polls lately, and they've been relevant. We had one on Yaxel yesterday with one of the Niners after they lost.
00:16:20
Speaker 3: They've all been relevant.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And on a day where I'm not saying there's not a lot going on because there is, but I saw this, that the 49ers had their Halloween party this week. And you had Ricky Pearsall dressing up as Austin Powers. Romello Height was Chucky. There was a Nate Hobbs who was Dajon Love. There was a Michael Myers in there. I think it was unidentified. You had, let's see, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk, and Mac Jones. They dressed up as characters from Austin Powers. So you saw all those kind of things like that. It was a defensive lineman that was Michael Myers.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: I'm blanking.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: But the point is, is that then Nick Bosa and his girlfriend dressed up as a tandem, Crimson Chin and Clef the Boy Chin Wonder from Fairly Odd Parents. Brock Purdy and Jenna, his wife, They were Monsters, Inc. and Brock was Sully.
00:17:11
Speaker 3: You know, you got the one eye guy and then you got like the big blue guy, like whatever. My son's 22.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: So, you know, I'm not watching that stuff, but you get the idea. So the question is very simple. I will ask the question. Tim will give you the answers and the update on the poll on YouTube. And you can always hit us up at four and five. It can be our four and five, eight, eight, five, six to seven at your convenience.
00:17:30
Speaker 3: Text or call.
00:17:32
Speaker 2: The question is, do you dress up in matching Halloween costumes with your significant other? Do you dress up in matching Halloween costumes with your significant other?
00:17:41
Speaker 3: What are we looking at now?
00:17:42
Speaker 4: Well, our four choices. Number one, people are with me, 35%. No costume.
00:17:48
Speaker 5: I'm old.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: I'm dead inside. I've given up.
00:17:51
Speaker 4: 35% of the people are on the 30% or if it's forced, happy wife, happy life. Right behind that, 20% love it. We're a package deal dead last with 16%.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: No chance. I do me.
00:18:02
Speaker 4: So not a lot of individuality out there right now.
00:18:06
Speaker 3: You're a happy wife?
00:18:07
Speaker 5: Wow.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:18:08
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: See, maybe this is why I can't keep relationships together because I'm no way I pick my own costume. And Franny and I were talking about this. There is only a forced happy wife, happy life. And I have dressed in tandem with my wife before or love it. We're a package deal. And again, there's no wrong answer, no right answer here. It's just what Franny said is what happens in my house. So my wife and I have dressed up in kind of a package deal, tandem type of a deal, whatever you want to call it.
00:18:35
Speaker 3: But I want to have a little bit of fun.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: So if she says, okay, you'll be this and I'll be that from movies or whatever, it's fine. But I like to take a little detour, you know, and just have a little bit of fun with that character. And she's like, no, like if you're, if we're going to do this, I'm this and you're that, and you know, no deviation. So he was saying like, she was a golfer and he's a caddy and he was going to put like, you know, free ball washer or something on his shirt.
00:18:56
Speaker 3: And it was, and she was like, no, you can't do that. And that's where I find it.
00:18:59
Speaker 2: So we've been together long enough to where she's like, she knows I don't want to, I don't want to dress in tandem. And so she won't even ask me anymore. So, but we'll, you know, we may be something that could be similar. Like, okay, what are you going to be? And she's not going to be something totally opposite of it. So I don't know that somewhere in the middle ground, but like we have certain rules in our relationship.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Like I'll give you another one. She always wants, like, unless, like, it's different.
00:19:21
Speaker 2: If you go to an Italian restaurant or a Chinese restaurant or something and, you know, it's served family style, then I'll share my food.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: But let's say we go, just for the sake of conversation, to a burger joint.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: And she's stuck between, like, a burger and a sandwich. And she'll say, hey, why don't you split your burger with me and I'll have a sandwich and I'll get onion rings and you can have half onions, half fries, and then you can have half a sandwich, half a burger. I'm like, if I wanted a sandwich, I'd order a sandwich. Like, I'm getting a burger and I don't want to share it with you. Like that, you know, so I'm the same way as far as costumes. Like, nah, I'm going to just do something separate. It drives her crazy. Cause like, we'll go to a place. And like I said, if, if we're having a giant chicken parm and spaghetti and you're passing it around, that's different. You know, you're like, it's kind of buffet style, but most of the time when you go to a restaurant, it's like, I don't want to split.
00:20:03
Speaker 3: She's like, you can get the steak. I'll get the fish. We'll each have a little both. I'm saying, no, no, no.
00:20:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker 3: I don't know. Like I said, maybe that's why I have an issue in life with things, but there it is. So I hope she's not listening, John. She'll just hear this second or third hand.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: This happens almost every day where then I see her and I come home and I say, Hey, how's it going? And she's like, why, why did you say this? But we are beyond that too. Like when we were first dating, it was every day. Like she'd ask, like she'd have like a pad of paper and she would be writing things down and going like, I heard you say like this, this and this.
00:20:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm an entertainer. I might embellish this out of the other, like, you know, kind of no big deal.
00:20:42
Speaker 2: Every once in a while though, she'll hear something like second or third person. And then she'll say, well, why did you say that? And I'm like, well, yeah, because I mean, that part is 100% true. I don't share my food and I don't generally dress in tandem and she doesn't really ask me anymore about it. So I'll ask her again today because I'm not really sure what we're going to do. I have no idea. You have to go to one of those Halloween stores at the last second, right? Some place went out of business and then you got to go over to the Halloween place and get something like last minute.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, Like it's definitely last minute. Today's the 28th. Oh my gosh. I don't even know what I'm going to be. So anyway.
00:21:14
Speaker 1: All right.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: That is our poll question. Your package deal. Happy wife, happy life. I'm myself or I'm dead inside. Those are your four. I can't believe I'm dead inside is by the way, it's just winning in a landslide. I'm dead inside. That's unbelievable.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. Our audience knows themselves, John. They know themselves. I'm dead inside. Just nothing.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: So they just like, I guess everybody just ignores it. You can't, let me ask this then to our wonderful audience. You don't turn your lights off though, right? I mean, you at least give out candy. Like if you say you're dead inside, does that mean you don't give out, that you don't give out candy? Do you turn your lights off and don't give out candy? Is that what we're talking about with no costumes and you're dead inside?
00:22:00
Speaker 3: Is that no candy or nothing?
00:22:01
Speaker 4: As one of our texters so astutely put out, 831 says, I go load management.
00:22:06
Speaker 3: I take the night off and just hand out candy. Load management.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Because when I was growing up, about every house was into Halloween. And now in my neighborhood, even though, like I said, I said about 30% of people put actual Halloween lights, which I think is a high amount. But I would say that in my neighborhood, I don't know, it's maybe 60, 40 that people are welcoming, whereas there's just people who turn their lights off completely. And, you know, our kids at our house, they're not going trick-or-treating anymore. We may go to a party, but, you know, it may or may not be the exact day of Halloween, but... if I'm home, yeah, I'm giving away, I'm giving out candy. It's just that I know that I'm gonna have to drive the day of Halloween to get the candy because that big bag that my wife got at Costco is I'm sure is gone.
00:22:50
Speaker 3: Just gone.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: Just, you know, that little, there's like a corner of it and they open it up. The kids open it up just a little bit and they keep taking a little, a little, a little, then after a while, they're like, hell with it.
00:22:58
Speaker 3: And then they just take the whole thing. It's crazy.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: All right.
00:23:01
Speaker 2: I'll get some of these text messages at 415-808-KMBR, 415-808-5627.
00:23:06
Speaker 3: That is the poll question today. Let's talk to Dave DeFore coming up next.
00:23:09
Speaker 2: Dave is going to give us a macro look, a wide lens look at the NBA with a special look at the Warriors. But what is he seeing is the trends so far, lots of injuries, but we'll go through the West, the East, everything. And of course, we'll discuss the axle next only here on the sports leader.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Fair and Biased comes to you live from the KNBR Casino Matrix Jackpot Studios. Casino Matrix. Progressive jackpots are here.
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Where are you?
00:23:48
Speaker 1: Just drop in. 1-800-GAMBLER.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us. Fair and Biased on a hump day Wednesday. The Warriors have the T-Wolves. No Anthony Edwards, but Jonathan Kaminga comes back. Let's talk to Dave DeFore. Let's widen out the lens, talk a lot about the NBA. We'll put a little Warriors in there as well, but Dave is with The Athletic. Make sure that you're following him at DaveDeForeNBA, and Dave joins us courtesy of the UMA guest line.
00:24:13
Speaker 3: What's happening, Dave?
00:24:13
Speaker 2: How are you?
00:24:15
Speaker 5: You know what, man? I'm not too bad. I'm uninjured. That makes one of us. I know. How about you? It feels like everybody I'm watching trying to play basketball keeps getting hurt. If we can get past these injuries, man, things would be great.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's start with that.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: And I'm always, you know, because this happens in the NFL early and everybody starts complaining that, you know, there's too many injuries and this and that. But it does certainly seem like there's more injuries than there normally is and to big time players. And as you know, the Warriors are hosting where we are, the Timberwolves tonight, not having Anthony Edwards for two months when a lot of people are really high in the Timberwolves, bringing over ball, kind of changing their team. A lot of people thinking, you know, maybe the third best team in the West and all of a sudden two months they're out.
00:24:56
Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards is terrible.
00:24:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, and here's the difference between football and basketball. Number one, football is a collision sport. Basketball is not. Like, a lot of these injuries are non-contact. You know, you think about the Achilles tears that we've seen over the years. Jalen Suggs with his knee the other day. You know, it's stuff like that. But also, one player has such an outsized effect on the game because there's only five on the court at a time. And we've got three guys who are top 30 players, two of whom I think are consensus top 10 in Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Edwards. All are out right now. You know, Jalen Williams is going to miss the season. And he's I mean, he's a top 25 guy, all NBA defender, all NBA 13 guy like he is a really great player. And so when these guys go down, it totally changes the league. Whereas I could say, you know, the steps between, let's say, an average NFL starting quarterback and his backup is probably closer than Jalen Williams backup to him. as far as skill goes and importance of the team. Because, you know, like the 49ers, Brock Purdy, to me, man, he's underrated by the general, I think, football audience, it seems. But he wins a lot of games. But he has such a great team around him that they could probably go a couple of games if he misses. You know, it's a lot of scheme stuff. Whereas what Jalen Williams does, you can't replace that. What Anthony Edwards does, I mean, he hit 47 points the other night on this bum knee that he had operated on. And it's just like, okay, well, his backup is Io De Sunmo. How's that going to go?
00:26:27
Speaker 3: That's a little bit of a drop-off, Dave. I'm going to admit it.
00:26:29
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a drop-off. Dave DeFore at Dave DeFore NBA. It's great talking ball with Dave today. And we're talking a little injuries in the NBA. We'll move on to some other stuff. But just since you mentioned Jalen Williams, too, because they've got a couple of big injuries early, Jalen, and they've got a couple of guys out of their starting lineup. And, like, at the end of the year, we saw if Jalen Williams is healthy at the end of last year, maybe they– beat the Spurs in that series. But does that change the West? Because it's San Antonio, Oklahoma City, you draw a line, then there's another level after that. How much does that drop OKC in the West to you?
00:27:02
Speaker 5: Poor Cason Wallace. Cason Wallace also out for the year, and you couldn't even remember his name just then. I mean, Jalen Williams, they got his number up on top of that tower in OKC. You know, you've got Sam Presti with one of the most somber, and rightfully so. Like, this is a catastrophic injury. But one of the most somber press conferences I've ever seen an NBA GM give. And, like, Cason Wallace also after the year is just like, hey, it's an afterthought. But I think that the reality is what we saw with Jada was so visceral. And with Cason, it just looked like, oh, man, he bumped his shoulder. He'll be back. And then that's a shock. And so there's no way that losing two starters, and especially the level of Jalen Williams in the case of Wallace, doesn't affect the West. I think it just makes the West a little bit more wide open. Because the Thunder, to me, should have been the favorites. I mean, they weren't healthy all last year. And they gave San Antonio everything that they could handle. San Antonio has come out of the gate. I don't like what's happening there. I think the three-guard lineup is probably not going to work long-term. But the longer it takes him to figure that out, the more of a problem it's going to create. I think they need to get Tobias Harris healthy. He's going to be the starter. But man, I don't know if you caught him playing the Kings last night. Kings such a great get right team because they're awful. And it's like having a scrimmage against, I don't know, a high school team or something like that.
00:28:19
Speaker 6: And it's out there.
00:28:21
Speaker 5: And he's like, yeah, I mean, he's eight of ten in the first half from three. And it's like when he's pouring 20-something points in the paint, you're like, oh, wow, this is what they could look like if they had a guy who could shoot out there instead of one of these other guards. You know, Dylan Harper, not a good enough catch-and-shoot guy. Same with Stephon Castle. Defense is just not respecting him. It's making him more hard. So until they figure that out, I think the West is pretty open, man. I still believe in the Wolves. I think when Anthony Edwards comes back, As long as he's healthy and in shape, they're going to keep on rolling because you see what the results from the first four games where they barely had any chemistry was incredible. So I imagine by the time we get to January, February, they're going to be rolling. I think the Lakers are a little bit underrated. They're going to be able to score against every single team. And if Walker Kessler can just game by game, keep them in it defensively, if they could figure out some way to guard at the point of attack, I think they're dangerous. And I think the real team to watch out for, because they now look so complete, is the Houston Rockets. Getting Fred VanVleet back, I made fun of this all last year. I said, OK, Fred VanVleet's not solving all their problems. Turns out Fred VanVleet solves enough of their problems. The bigger ones are much smaller now. You know, I'm looking at them in fourth quarters where they used to collapse. They've been solid here in the last few games, including against Atlanta, where they really took off in the fourth quarter and got, you know, like without Kevin Durant, they sat him the entire fourth. And I think that that stuff that's going to be important for them last year or this year. Kevin Durant played 72 games last year. He's 38 years old. Their goal should be 65 games for him and 30 minutes a night. And if they can do that, they can beat anybody. come to spring.
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Great stuff from Dave DeFore at Dave DeFore NBA and check him out at the athletic as well as we're taking an early look at trends in the NBA lots of injuries looking at the West as well let me throw the Warriors in and more specifically Yaxel Lindenborg what's been your early impression both on and off the court from the Warriors rookie?
00:30:19
Speaker 5: Man Steph Curry just can't get any love everybody wants to talk about Yaxel Yaxel has honestly been amazing You know, I'm reserving judgment on the Yaxel experience, I would say. But on the court, man, he makes so much sense for them. Number one, he's big, and they are tiny. You know, there are times where the tallest guy on the court is Draymond Green, and he's, what, 6'5 1⁄2 in the right shoes? I just think having a guy who's a legit 6'9 and has that kind of body, you know, he's an adult. This is not a 19-year-old draftee. This is a guy who's 24 years old. He can go rent a car, I'm pretty sure. They're not going to check his I.D., And so he goes out there and it's like adding another big body on the court, which they just desperately in need of. And the fact that the shot looks real, that he can handle as well as he can, and that we're watching him kind of evolve game by game already. Like this is, again, that maturity of being a more ripe and developed player already. And I wonder if Yaxel has a great year. Let's say he turns into a really good player. If he might be the start of a trend that we see where these guys, they stay in college because they're second rounders. And there's good NIL money now to keep you around and develop. And he's kind of like a late bloomer. And you look at him and it's like, well, this is an NBA player who maybe wasn't one three years ago. And definitely not this one. He's more of a proven commodity. But I just think he's got room to be a really special player there for the Warriors because they need him. Like right now, he's the second best player on the team behind Steph Curry. I mean, it's just, that's an astounding thing to say for a team that has the pedigree that the Warriors have, but that's where I'm at with it. I think they should be featuring him as much as they have. I appreciate the fact that he's learning the nuances of the NBA game and how to actually get to the free throw line and how valuable of a skill that is, especially when it comes to the defensive end. Cause on offense, if you go to the free throw line, your defense gets a chance to rest and that Warriors defense is, they're not going to be very good if they're running on teams. So I think that his role is super important. So, yeah, I've been very impressed, actually, on the court.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: Dave DeFore, join us. I think that's a perfect explanation. And I'm interested because I've said the same thing about the age.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I mean, everybody gets it.
00:32:31
Speaker 2: It's almost like the way I put it together was when NBA teams draft, it's like Leonardo DiCaprio in Girlfriends.
00:32:38
Speaker 3: If you're past 20, they don't want anything to do with you.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: But now, like you said, and look, I think that if somebody, if God built something that the Warriors needed right now, it was that, right? Because he's 23 years old. He's played a lot. He's going to come in here because the Warriors, they couldn't afford to go down the, you know, the Kaminga James Wiseman path again. They needed somebody to play, as you pointed out, right now. And to the guiltiness of not talking about Curry, you're right, because yesterday we spent the whole show talking about Yaxel's 31 defense. And Steph didn't miss a shot and scored over 20. And it was like, hey, man, I went eight for eight.
00:33:12
Speaker 3: I scored 20. Like, all we're going to talk about is this kid.
00:33:15
Speaker 2: But I think what it is for the Warriors fans is they never had that person to succeed, Steph. And I'm not saying that Yaxel's going to do that. But they legitimately, I think, have a piece for the future. And Podjemski's a nice player. And they've got some role players on this team other than that. But I think Yaxel can be a player that can start this team in the right direction.
00:33:34
Speaker 3: I think that's what kind of everybody's thinking. And so they're, like, freaking out about it.
00:33:38
Speaker 5: Well, it's possible. But also, listen, this is Steph Curry, man. And this happened when Kevin Durant was there. Kevin Durant had the best seasons of his career because of Steph Curry. Like, Steph Curry is the scariest dude to ever touch a basketball on a basketball court on the planet and in the universe, in human history. And so everything Yaxel's doing, I mean, Steph has made his life easier. The entire system that they run is The defense cannot lose Steph. They can lose anyone else. So, you know, when I look at what Yaxel's doing, I think, wow, this is what happens when you have a good player next to Steph Curry every single time. He's the greatest single boat riser in NBA history because he takes the defense's attention for 94 feet. You have to double him at half court if he's got the ball. And so this is the right situation for a guy like Yaxel who's got a good head on his shoulders. understands the game, it's not too fast for him, and his body is built for it, he should be playing like this. And the fact that Jonathan Kuminga never fully developed in the G League, I think that was a huge mistake for him going to the Ignite. Turns out it's been a pretty big mistake for most of the players that have been there in hindsight and just could never figure that out. And then with James Wiseman, the guy played, what, nine games of basketball in his senior year and freshman year of college? I mean, bad drafting is bad drafting. There were other guys in those drafts. I mean, imagine if they had taken Tyrese Halliburton, he would have been the guy to, you know, you probably win a championship or two, maybe with that guy, you know, a lamello ball. Like he would have been just a different player in the NBA, you know, all the, the, the knucklehead stuff that he got away with in Charlotte. So there's a lot of, to me, I think bad drafting, bad pieces, the actual great pick right piece.
00:35:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they needed them to absolutely. Dave, before you go, we'll probably do this on Friday. When you were a kid, was there something that they dropped in your Halloween bag? Because everybody does bus candy, but what was the one thing that you were like, if they give me this candy, I'm going to egg this house?
00:35:44
Speaker 3: What was the worst candy? What is the worst candy?
00:35:47
Speaker 2: All right, man.
00:35:48
Speaker 5: I might be the worst person to ask this. I wasn't a big candy guy growing up, oddly enough. But like, you know, I always like, I like the gummy stuff. So like, you know, Starbursts or Skittles or things like that. Like I actually, you know, some houses, you know, you'd get like the fruit snacks that I'd even, oh, that's not too bad. But any of that, any kind of peanut, you know, the fake marshmallow peanut thing. What is that? Whatever that's called. Nutty Buddy. I don't know what they're called.
00:36:18
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:36:19
Speaker 6: Okay.
00:36:19
Speaker 5: Any of that stuff. Any of those sticky things. Peanut buttery, taffy type of candies. No good. And anything that looked like it was in your grandma's candy dish. I just don't need individually wrapped. What is this? Halls? Are these cough drops? I don't, I don't want any of that.
00:36:42
Speaker 3: No, nothing like that. Nothing like that. And you know, we're, we're past the days of like bars though.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:36:49
Speaker 2: In Northern California, we were talking about John Madden cause that, that movie looks terrible.
00:36:53
Speaker 3: It's going to come out.
00:36:54
Speaker 2: But anyway, uh, He lived in a place called Pleasanton. You would drive there because Madden didn't just give away full-size bars. He gave away the monster bars that you would get at a movie theater or something, like the double Snickers. People would actually drive there and have kids go up to the house and you'd get these monster chocolate bars and stuff.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: That was fun, man.
00:37:18
Speaker 5: I can't believe you brought up a movie and didn't bring up Ayesha Curry's Rope Who.
00:37:24
Speaker 2: Bank hallmark movie yeah yeah that's here man like.
00:37:28
Speaker 5: We may do a watch along on the show uh we're trying to come up with some way to cover this i mean this is a watershed moment in nba history this is steph curry no not at all.
00:37:40
Speaker 2: That's wonderful yeah that's the big question yeah that is a good question probably no they wouldn't do that be legit man she's good at everything she does she's amazing Dave, that was fun, man.
00:37:53
Speaker 3: We got to do it again. You're the best. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it, man.
00:37:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:37:57
Speaker 5: Good hanging out. Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker 2: All right.
00:37:59
Speaker 3: Let's do it again.
00:38:00
Speaker 2: At Dave Dufour NBA at Dave Dufour NBA and check them out on or in the athletic does tons of podcasts. He's got Q and A's up there. I'm checking everything out right now. Very cool stuff from Dave Dufour. Make sure that you follow him at Dave Dufour NBA.
00:38:15
Speaker 3: That was fun, man. It was really good.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I still don't know what he was talking about, though, because a Nutty Buddy is an ice cream item. He said he wasn't a guy to ask, but here was the most controversial thing he said at the end was he said fruit snacks were okay.
00:38:29
Speaker 3: Remember that? You would get those.
00:38:30
Speaker 2: You'd have the health-conscious parent, and even though those have sugar, they're not as bad. Maybe they have some vitamin C or something in them, and they were made by Welch's, and you'd get a little pack of those. They'd throw Welch's fruit snacks in your bag, and you're just like, no. like the minute they would before i got back into the dark because they've got a you know they got their light on in their um at their house or whatever so by the you know you kind of take about five steps they shut the door those fruit snacks are on their lawn like you know i appreciate the sentiment and everything but i'm gonna have to go home and you know separate all this stuff out of my car but i might as well just while i can see it still in there and there's a little bit of light here i'm not doing when he dropped uh halls what is this halls that that made me laugh.
00:39:09
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker 3: People used to do that. Not anymore.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: Like I said, people just, the only thing that I think irks kids nowadays, I could be wrong. You could be in for an egg in or a toilet papering, uh.
00:39:19
Speaker 3: Fun size, like fun size. Isn't even a bite.
00:39:22
Speaker 2: You know, like the little tiny size I'm talking about, or maybe fun size is like the little one. I don't even know what the one that's even smaller than fun size is. You know those kind?
00:39:33
Speaker 4: Again, the first Tim's Tuesday Taken trivia I ever did was about fun size candy bars. And I put it out there. I said, who is this for? This sucks. Like, it's not fun for anyone. And there was a lot of hate mail for that.
00:39:47
Speaker 3: And the people.
00:39:48
Speaker 2: very angry parents about, uh, they're like, Hey man, we're at least giving you something. But it's like the minimum you should give out. You do you, but the minimum you should get out, if you're going to do like candy bars or something is the one that's like a two bite small one. Like the one that looks like a BB. It's like, what am I going to do with this? Like you open it up and it's like the wrapper.
00:40:07
Speaker 4: Was more expensive than the candy.
00:40:10
Speaker 3: Stop it. You know, I don't know.
00:40:12
Speaker 2: Fun size egg is the two bite one, but the other one that's like, it's like a corner of a candy bar.
00:40:18
Speaker 3: Super fun size, right?
00:40:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker 3: Whatever that is. It's a whore. It's come on, man. And that's what we would do too.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: When we go home and we separate them all out and they do have, and I think it's like Snickers has them, the tiny ones, Milky Way, Three Musketeer. I don't think all of them do it, but it is a tiny bit of candy. And it's like, yeah, but I was nice enough to give it to him. And it's like, eh, I don't know, man. You might as well, in that case, you should just turn off your lights. Like don't even give them out. It's embarrassing for you.
00:40:47
Speaker 3: I'm doing the absolute bare minimum. Here is a mini, a mini size, whatever.
00:40:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker 2: The mini size, whatever that is. Uh, we probably have a winner in the clubhouse.
00:40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:58
Speaker 2: Nobody likes almond joy or mounds. I can handle almond joy more because it's got the almond in it, but just mounds. And I do like dark chocolate like you, but the, the dark, the mounds, like, come on.
00:41:11
Speaker 3: That's an egg. And like, sorry, sorry.
00:41:14
Speaker 2: Mounds is an egg and like you drop a mounds in there it's like come on man seriously i know you do that straight out of comedy because nobody likes mounds i don't know if they make those anymore sometimes you feel like a nut sometimes.
00:41:27
Speaker 3: You don't want want want want i.
00:41:29
Speaker 2: Don't think they make that anymore they do they make the mounds yeah and the difference you know obviously i was more of a mounds guy than almond joy because it was dark chocolate but yeah I got to have crunch in my candy bar. I got to have something in there. It's got to be something. There's got to be something in there. Like Milky Way. Milky Way is no good because it's just, you know, the nougat.
00:41:47
Speaker 3: It's no good.
00:41:49
Speaker 2: Mounds is just, I like the dark chocolate, but it's just coconut. Like there's nothing crunchy in there. So there's my opinion.
00:41:54
Speaker 3: It's probably wrong. All right. Point is, thanks to Dave DeFore. That was really a lot of fun to have Dave on the show. Appreciate it.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: All right, let's get you some national headlines. We still have a rousing version of last call. And actually, you know what we have to do? Maybe a part of the national stuff, we'll bring back the Alex Smith. And then we have the Ernie Johnson, right? We're going to start with that coming up next. Ernie Johnson has announced his retirement, which means Charles Barkley is going to be gone, which means inside the NBA should be gone or done after the season, right? Or will they try to actually save it? We'll talk about that and other things in national headlines next, only here on the SportsCenter.
