Hour 2: The Wildcats get to the Sweet 16

0:00It's our biggest investment, the roof over our heads. That's why at Cossack LVC, we went with America roofing. Arizona's 2025 roofing contractor of the year. Yep, Arizona's biggest and best plus, safe 12% at americaroofenco.com. That boy's good. It's Vinnie's view on the home of the suns, Arizona sports. I've watched the NBA for a long time. I'll watch it for the rest of my life. And I will never come close to figuring it out. That was one of my takeaways from a strange 24 hours for the Phoenix suns that included a ridiculously frustrating loss to a skeleton crew of Milwaukee bucks on Saturday and a thorough 120 to 98 butt kicking of the fully healthy Toronto Raptors on Sunday. Sundays game followed recent trends. The suns jumped out to a quick eight point lead and forced the Toronto regroup timeout. Same thing had happened on Saturday when the home team reeled off nine straight points and forced Milwaukee into a timeout. The bucks responded. Toronto never did. The suns dominated every facet on Sunday. So much so that radio

1:04broadcasters John Bloom and Tim Kempton wondered aloud if the Raptors may have been suffering from the old town flu. A affliction that has a hindered visiting NBA teams for decades. If that was the case, who cares? After a frustrating two and four road trip, immediately followed immediately by the sun's latest candidate for worst loss of the season, all defined by pattern fourth quarter collapses. Jordan not's team needed this in the worst way. Lots of positives for the suns in this one. First a nice bounce back game for Devon Booker who turned into perplexing performance the night before Booker scored 25 points, dished out six assists and logged a plus 32 in 31 minutes. The fifth best single game mark in that category in his entire career. And he didn't have to play a second in the fourth quarter. Ryan Dunn played arguably his best game of the season with 12 points, including three highlight dunks, two corner threes and three steals. And maybe the best thing about Sunday, the sun's notched a win while moving one day closer to hopefully getting some injured

2:08players, including the uber important Dylan Brooks back from injury. That is today's edition of Vinnie's view. I think we came out more aggressive defensively. Yeah, offensively. There was really a difference in the stops in there. We got the team to get whatever we want from our offense. So it's really that defensive side. That's what we like down and double down on tonight. Jalen Gray and eight for 15, 20 points for him. He was a plus 15 talking about the aggressiveness both offensively and defensively. It was there from the outset. Also there from the outset. And then this has not been typical for the suns recently, especially on the second night of a back to back. They had energy from the jump and they look like the faster, quicker, more energetic basketball team from the start throughout the finish of that game last night. Yeah, they did. And they jumped out to an 11 point lead after the first quarter. And I think we have seen in recent games more often than we'd like that that lead kind of dissipates. And then

3:12then the other team gains confidence. And then you get into the fourth quarter and you get into the final five minutes. And the suns have been very, very bad. The good thing about last night's game is that didn't become an issue. They didn't have to win a game in the final five minutes. I still am very curious to see what those next games of that ilk look like. Yeah. Tomorrow night, they got Denver coming in. Denver, a much better team. What does that's a great question? What does that look like the next time the scenario that has plagued them since the all star break pops up again? Yep. They've got the lead in the fourth quarter by seven, which they did, by the way, on Saturday night against Milwaukee. And just finishing the deal. And that might go a long way in exercising those demons too, because they have been unable to take care of that part of their game. No, I know. And you can tell that Jordan, who has been peace-mealing rotations and experimenting all season long, you know that he's struggling with what do we do? We have seen Jalen Green benched for

4:14the ends of lots of games where they go for a much more defensive-minded low-risk offense, if you will. Good way to put it. That's the kindest way, the kindest phrase that you come up with at the moment, right? And then how big would we go? Do you go small? It's hard to determine which way to go. It would be easy to go full-on defense if Devon Booker has been or would be the kind of guy that could get you a bucket, no matter what's happening. But Devon Booker struggles have been, I think one of the key reasons why this team has not been able to close, they do not have a player who you can give the ball and fully expect to make a series of tough shots down the stretch. Now, Jalen Green, you can give him the ball. He'll get a shot off. But it's, it's, you're giving a ball. He might not get the ball back. Right. But I mean, like you look at Kauai. Kauai, you just give him the ball. Luca, you give him the ball. They're going to create something. And that Devon Booker,

5:15Devon Booker at different points in his career was that guy. Yeah, I don't think he's ever fully been that guy. I think he's been better at saying that guy in the past. Clutch moments. Yeah. Not recently though. Yeah. Listen, there are a couple of points in time. Vinnie brought this up because Vinnie's at the arena. Vinnie hears all the whispers and all the things that are, you know, can't be said too loudly. And that is that that Devon Booker might be dealing with something, whether it's a lingering ankle from that endgame situation, whether it's the flu, whatever it is. But there have been a couple of times in the last month, six weeks where Devon Booker has played when he, when others would have sat, put it that way. So, so it's obvious, they're obviously very, very important to him. You can hope that maybe at some point in time, he's going to get back to feeling and looking like Devon Booker. And I know this from Coverdum and you probably feel the same way that all there have been lots of times when Devon Booker for a stretch of games, you can define how long that is a stretch of games. You wonder, what's

6:17the matter with him? What happened to him? Where did, where did his superpowers go? Then suddenly, boom, he's up and down the court beating everybody through him. He's like, oh, he's back. There's probably a lot that that would explain all that that we never hear about because Devon Booker is just not yapity, yapity, yapity kind of guy. Yeah, great. It's a great point. But you're right. He has played, he has played through a lot of stuff. You know, when Devon Booker misses games, he has legitimately heard it. Yeah, which is not always the case in today's NBA. He was Jordan not talking about Devon Booker's gravity on the team. I mentioned it earlier in the year. He has a pulse of the game as well as anyone I've been around. No one wanted to be aggressive. I think that's been one of the biggest parts of our season is his belief in his teammates. Again, he's always making a right play. It's hard defensively and makes the right play to have a superstar like that. He wants to play a certain style. He wants to play a certain way. And he goes out and does it on like the night basis, playing through it, everything. Tonight,

7:21he was rewarded. Yeah, and here's Booker talking about his patient's level, staying patient with this young group of sons that are getting action right now. You know, I understand, you know, the group has the right intention. You know, you know, I do understand this a lot of guys first time around the block. So, you know, the willingness to learn, learn through mistakes and, you know, not be scared of the moment, because, you know, what, what lasts? So, I don't know, we have a good foundation when lose or draw. I love competing with these guys. And valuable minutes for the youngsters. Ryan Dunn, come on, Malawatch for a sheer Fleming. Good to see Jamari Bouye bouncing back to a degree. He had gone through a real stretch of DNPs. And then when he would get on the court, not looking like the same impactful player, he was the impactful Jamari Bouye last night. It was a good win, but now you got to build on it. And like you said, Denver coming in tomorrow, find a way to win that game. Now we're talking. Then it becomes a big game. And the last nine

8:21become a lot more interesting. Yeah. Quest for number six. Totally agree with that. I think it's a pivot game. I think that if you do not beat the nuggets, I think you can stamp the sons in as the seven seed. Yep. I would agree with you there. Uh, coming up next here on the Monday edition of Bickley and Marata Mornings, as the clock struck midnight on Cinderella forever. We'll get into that and more forever, forever, forever. Uh, that and more next, it's Bickley and Marata Morning's live from the casino Arizona and talking stick resort studios of Arizona sports, the local sports later. Hey, it's our biggest investment. The roof over our heads. That's why at Cossack LBC, we went with America roofing Arizona's 2025 roofing contractor of the year. Yep, Arizona's biggest and best plus a 12% at America roofing co dot com. Good morning to our audience in Scottsdale. I appreciate you listening, viewing, watching, following in Scottsdale this and every morning. You know, really how many Cinderella's have we really had, right? So we have Loyola. We've had

9:22DCU. We've had some Cinderella's, but we haven't had a lot of Cinderella's, but the ones that we've had kind of resonate with us. But now with the business of college athletics, uh, I think it's, it's not happening again, because if you're a good, big major player, like the kid from Firmman, uh, who's played so well, like he's not going to be a Firmman this year. And it's good and job, as Bob Richie has done, it's going to be hard to retain him. If you're a high level mid major player, like if I was head coach now, the mid major, I would tell, I would treat you like a junior college. And I tell guys, I'm going to give you a stage of platform. I'm going to help you get better. All right. And two years now, you're going to tell me where you want to go to school and I will help you get the rally night and day of Cinderella. Make the fire. Make the breakfast. Seth Greenberg, ESPN, Cinderella is dead. Well, you know what? I guess it's, uh, I guess it's apropos because there's generations and generations of people, probably everybody in this room, except for Saturday, who grew up weaned on Disney movies from Cinderella to the aristocrats to

10:25whatever. Still weaned on Disney movies, just a different crop of, yeah, a hundred percent. I guess cropped frozen Pixar. Yeah. Frozen, Milana. Yeah. Okay. That's okay. Frozen and Milana passed me. We were weaned on Disney. Shut up, Sammy. When one, one Disney movie came out every decade because they didn't care what kids wanted. They hadn't tapped into that. If you keep the kids happy, the parents will get on. They had, they was a different time. Kids movies didn't come out when we were kids, but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. No, no, no, no. So it, but it's, you know, yeah. Look, it's the idea that the transfer portal and all the changes in college basketball have killed Cinderella. And after Thursday, yeah, there were so many people clock clocking, see Cinderella is dead. Well, bigly you're a loser. And I got duped into it too because four double digit seeds won on Thursday. And I predicted a bunch more on Friday. None on Friday.

11:28Yeah. And some of the games were just, we're just total blowouts. I mean, what Florida did to Prairie, you know, kind of just it builds the case for what Arizona did to Long Island, quite honestly, kind of builds the case like, do we need to involve every conference in this thing? Because that was ugly. The only double digit seed remaining in the in the sweet 16 11th seeded Texas. There is no way on God's green earth to paint Texas as a Cinderella story, even though they weren't expected to be here. They have more resources than anyone. Last year, the only double digit seed in the sweet 16 was a 10 seed Arkansas, also from the SEC. There's no mid majors left. You got one from the ACC, two from the big east, six from the big 10, three from the big 12 and four from the SEC. And you know what? Do we need Cinderella's to exist? Yes. Why? I don't I think we do. I heard you say this earlier today. I'm curious

12:32where this take came from. I'm just, but what does it matter? What does it matter? It adds the idea that anything's possible. It adds it means there's David and Goliath. It means we need a reminder that everything is not possible. That's that's fair. That's a that you know, in today's day and age, that's not a bad take. That's not a bad take. Don't believe in fairy tales. Don't believe that Cinderella could become a princess. Don't believe if you're not already loaded that you can get anywhere in life. Don't for a second believe. If you're a have not that you can get anywhere. You're not already a princess. You ain't becoming one. Right. You are a frog, buddy. Right. Now, the real answer to me why it does matter that you need Cinderella's is because people don't care about college basketball. You could say like, oh, there's going to be much better games now later in the tournament. But college basketball doesn't resonate like it used to. So if you don't have a rooting interest like I do with you of a the reason you're going to tune in is you know,

13:35you're going to be captured by this story sometimes and you want to see what this little plucky school from I see what you're saying. But why is college football? But it's never existed in college. But you're right. It's never existed in college football. Your college football is leaps and bounds more popular in American society than college basketball. Because people like football a lot better than basketball in all levels. People like NFL a lot better than the NBA. People like college football a lot better than they like college basketball. That's true. That is true. The there are people who believe now that it isn't just the NIL in the transfer portal that it's kind of thrown college athletics into a just a realm of the absurd. But that conference real alignment has had a lot to do with it as well. The the stacking and the merging of the super conferences and what it means from scheduling to automatic bids to all that that has had a big deal to do with it. I'll tell you the one thing that made college basketball feel sort of sort of big

14:42again to me over the weekend. It's the one constant always in college basketball. It is the star head coach. This weekend you had John Calipari and Arkansas and and coach Cal giving a really cool press conference that we're going to get into later. It's Rick Patino screaming at players scheming away to beat a much taller more athletic Kansas team. It's Tom is oh declaring that dotted kids these days are so soft. There are many coaches saying that by the way. But when you get the star coaches front and center at press conferences. It brings you back. It brings you back to a time in college basketball did matter. And I will say having a star college coach in college basketball does matter because St. John's and Arkansas have been pretty much irrelevant for years and years and years and they got Rick Patino and John Calipari and suddenly their perennial sweet 16 teams now because those players that are men with good players are going to be attracted to playing

15:46for those coaches. Yeah, too. And it's also amazing in college athletics isn't it that no matter how flawed or how many warts of coach develops. If you're really good, you're getting a gig. So you're getting back in the cycle. Look, and not for nothing. It's not just star coaches. It's star Italian coaches. It's all Calipari. I think with Rick Patino literally how many warts he's developed. I don't know. Rick Patino man knows how to win basketball games and build programs man. Thank you for me. Actually, all those guys. I'm not a I can't say I'm a John Calipari fan. I love we've had them on the show. I loved our conversation with John Calipari when he was on the show. I love listening to Rick Patino break down basketball and talk about the sport. I know all those warts. Yes. They exist on the resumes. But I think the sport you bring up a great point. That's what was big about this weekend. And for resurgent programs to do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the that's the pretty cool storyline. So far of the first weekend of the tournament.

16:47Yeah. Well, I mean, again, even even when you take that St. John's Kansas game, you might not know any of the players on any of the teams except for Darren Peterson. But you know, it's Rick Patino versus Bill self. Yes. You know, the second time they coached against each other. That's it. Yeah. Wow. The only other time was when Patino was at Iona. Wow. Who cares? And if it's Tommy Lloyd against Sean Miller, you'll you'll feel it. I would sign up for that. I don't think I know. I mean, I didn't watch a ton of Texas produce a team that I always, I don't I never really trust them come tournament time. But they're so experienced. They've been together forever and Matt painters are written. He's not of the level of the coaches that we're talking about. Yeah. But he's damn good. It was 500th game yesterday. He's a good coach. You could argue the coaching matchups for the sweet 16 are better than the actual like matchups.

17:47I granted they they Michigan state Yukon's going to be great regardless. But it's his own hurly. You have Shire and Shire and Patino. Yeah. You have Tommy Lloyd and Calipari. Did you see by the way, speaking of coaching matchups, did you see what they were calling UCL A versus Yukon yesterday, Kronin versus Hurley? Yes, I did. The blank head bowl. Yes. That's great. And both are and look like coming up next. Sammy's going to take us through the big stories on this Monday morning in the rush hour reboot. Bickley, Marata Morning's here on Arizona Sports, the local sports leader. It's our biggest investment. The roof over our heads. That's why at Costa, Galvesti, we went with America roofing Arizona's 2025 roofing contractor of the year. Yep. Arizona's biggest and best plus safe 12% at America roofingco.com. Summer is close, but April is a great time to get started on your new presidential pool for a limited time. Get $500 cash back and zero closing costs.

18:52When you finance your new pool now through April 30th, 2026, go to presidentialpools.com. Arizona Sports, the local sports leader. Rush hour reboot. Rush hour reboot. Getting you up to speed on everything happening at sports this morning. Good morning, 730 on a Monday. It's time for the rush hour reboot here to get you guys up to speed on what was a loaded week of college basketball NBA. Baseball's beginning to come and swing. It's opening week. Diamondbacks open on Thursday, but let's start with the suns, which was a again, interesting weekend, but 10 games left is the integration of guys coming back like Dylan Brooks, Mark Williams, Grayson, Royce. Is that the most important thing in these next 10 games? Yes, to me, it is. Yeah, it's right up there with again, trying to find ways to win games, but

19:57when you move past that, the only way the suns really have a chance to make any noise in a play-in slash play-off series is to be close to full health. So yeah, that's got to be the most important thing. Yeah, and closely followed by everybody else that is healthy right now saying no doubt. I am curious about when Mark Williams is going to return, because it seems like suddenly he had this foot injury and it was like, oh, and he's just been gone. Yeah, and I don't know if we have like in a real update either. Man, did we jinx that? I though, there did such a great job keeping him healthy. What a stretch. We were the ones saying that. It's all you and Dan. Did you expect Mark Williams to go through the whole season without an injury after what we've seen from him? I didn't, but you got to a point where you're like, oh man, maybe they got lucky, maybe they handled this perfectly. Or maybe they're geniuses? Yeah, I know. I know. Speaking of Dylan Brooks coming back, who will benefit most from his return? Everybody? Will book benefit most from it? Kind of like a

21:03weight off his shoulders, or will it be Jalen Green? Maybe a little less pressure on him. I think it eases the pressure on both, but I mean, I don't want to dance away from the question. I'm just curious to see what it looks like. How many minutes have those three played together? Not many. Not many at all. Sort of like the Bradley Beale, Kevin Durand, Devin Booker. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. They were way more expensive. Top five all time. Top five all time. All right, so the diamond back. Can I tell you what I hate about the new iPhone technology real quick? Okay, so going into last break, we were talking about the transfer portal. A buddy of mine text me and says he recently had a conversation with Randall McDaniel, who was raging about a football player who had nine years of eligibility. And I looked it up and it was actually true. Just a kid from the play of my aunt. You're all aware of it, right? Okay, so that's where I left it. And I hadn't responded to him. Our entire last segment is now sitting there as a text to him. It picked up my voice because I didn't deactivate it. So our

22:06entire last segment. Set it to him. See what he thinks. He can give us some feedbacks and notes. Okay, you got nothing to do this afternoon. Read this. Sorry, Sammy. Oh, no, you're okay. I was just going to, you know, can I elaborate? You know what I hate when that does happen? If you go back and look at it, it's very accurate, except when you're doing voice text on purpose. And it's not accurate. It doesn't, it doesn't run about anything. That's really funny. That's very, very, funny. So I was just going to bring up that the Diamondbacks, they start their season on Thursday. And the athletic, they ranked all the opening day lineup. So just the hitters. And what are your thoughts on them having the Diamondbacks 17th on that list? I saw this. It was interesting because Major League Baseball did a similar exercise and had him 10th, which I think might be too high. I think it's somewhere in the middle of those two numbers. Yeah, but what the athletic set is, look, you got no questions about Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Pradomo and Katal Marte. And it's

23:10terms of terms of a threesome. If you were just going to rank your top three hitters in the lineup, it'd be way higher a rank for the Diamondbacks. It's the rest of the lineup. Who's going to be this year's Geno Suarez? Who's going to be two years ago, Jacques Peterson? Who's going to, who's capable of being like, oh my goodness, this guy is having a career year. And you'd feel great if Lord of Scoriel Jr was starting the season on the active roster. He's not. And you look at the corner and feel positions. And there's big questions. Well, those guys are very accomplished players, but can they produce at a level that's going to keep them very competitive offensively? But you want to talk about uncertainties. Look at that Diamondbacks bullpen. I was last time I saw that many question marks. It was on the Riddler's costume, babe. The last time I saw that many righties was never mind. I'm not going to. Well, that's what I was going to lead to. The next question is out of the bullpen, who do you think right now is the most reliable pitcher? I don't know. That's a, that's a problem. Were you taking a back a little bit when Cage Stroud

24:11gets that down? Yes, I was too. I didn't like it one bit. Okay, so now let's transition to the tournament. We've talked a lot about needing Cinderella's, the talks of U of A, but what was in your guys' mind the best game this weekend? It depends on how you, I mean, for intrigue, it was hard to beat Kansas and St. Jones, but pretty darn good. But that was, I mean, that was a rock fight for a lot of that. And the offense, and especially in the first half was terrible. I think the high point Wisconsin game was fantastic. That one was great. I love the Nebraska Santa Clara game. Oh, yeah, the band of Santa Clara gets screwed. Oh, Paul, Paul, poor herb sendek, my goodness. Nebraska Vandy was really good Michigan state. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Louisville was really good. That's, I mean, you could think of all the good games, because there was only about five and a 48. And you know, listen, Fran Frischilla, if you go

25:15into the show, yes, if you go and do a deep dive on high point, it is really unbelievable what that school is. I saw it's insane. How high and posh it is. I saw a video of social media video and it looked like it may have been like, it was definitely AI narrated. I don't know if the footage was real, but if the content, if the content was real, it's unlike any other university on the planet. It's insane. They have like five star restaurants. We're going for free. It's like a country club. Yeah, yeah, the housing is unreal. By the way, in terms of fees, tuition, it, I mean, it's expensive. Education's expensive. I don't know this, but it doesn't seem like it's way out of whack with other institutions. No, it's not. And my next NCA tournament question is, is Arizona walking into the best player left in the tournament in Darius A. Cuff and Arkansas? I think the hottest player. Okay. This reminds me of, and Jared will remember this. I think it was

26:22actually in the round of 32. Arizona had to play against Ohio State when they had D'Angelo Russell. And D'Angelo Russell was like a phenom. And I remember thinking, wow, how are they going to shut down D'Angelo Russell? And guess what? They shut down D'Angelo Russell. I might have been in the sweet 16. Was it? I don't know. It might have been in the I think it was a Saturday or Sunday game. Look, A. Cuff is the real deal. They played defensive twice this year and they've done really well against them twice. Yeah, they did. So I think Arizona wins that battle. Yeah, he looks nasty. And I want to update our little bracket challenge that we've been doing on the show here. So I did it. We didn't exactly establish a point system, but I did it. I thought we did. Well, yeah. So it's one point per like one point rounder 64 win two points. Yes. Yes. Okay. So right now it was and it was the double points for your double digit seats. Oh, okay. Yeah. Do you mean you're the one that

27:26came up with that rule? Two points for if for any game one by the double digit seeds, you get two, you get double the points. Stay tuned to the end of the show when he'll give you the update on the points. That's what he's just about to say. Got it. Somebody likes callying on the air. I had it. But now, yeah, you know, I switch it. No, I think I think my total zero. So you don't have to tell him. I know that Dan. Dan now is in first. I'm in second. Jared third. Vinnie fourth. And Jared Carlin's bracket in the work solo second right now. Oh, that's not my good leader going into last night. Had it was in the 99th percentile. Yeah. But then also had Florida or any of the whole thing. Wait, that's not the Jake Harlan there is not me. What do your wife? It's Bennett. Isn't it? No, it's Jackie the jet. Oh, okay. Well, there we go. And this is I'm and this was after you were proclaimed the king of football. I'm in 65th place. If that

28:30that makes me look good. I went from the last time I tried to went from fourth place after day one somewhere in the 40s. But I also had Florida go into the finals. Okay, so. And my dad has Florida in the final four. So I don't know if that's going to last long. Nonetheless, yeah, he picked the Texas upset was one of the things. The final perfect bracket was finally wiped away last night when Tennessee beat Virginia. It lasted longer than 26 million brackets. The last one. Wow. Didn't even get through the first one. I don't think we will never see a perfect bracket. Correct. I begged to differ next year. I'm all over. Okay, there we go. There you go. I've been sleeping up all these years. Study now. All right, we're all rebooted. Coming up next. Don't worry about what's going on with the Houston Rockets. Somebody's top five all time. Did you know this? Do we have to talk about this guy? We'll get into that and more NBA next. It's Brooklyn, Marata mornings on Arizona sports, the local sports leader.

29:31Arizona sports. Fallen. Floor burns with Bickley and Marata. I just dunk it. I just break it. Shemper about to send good pick to Durant in the corner. That happened over the weekend. Kevin Durant, a jumper from the right corner. He is now fifth all time on the NBA scoring list, surpassing Michael Jordan for fifth place. On that list, here was more from Kevin Durant post game, reflecting on the account. I'm getting to five more to go. But it is pretty sweet to be in the same category with the greats. I mean, like I've said, a lot of these guys have inspired me to come out here and work on my my game as much as I can and contribute to a team in a positive way. So I've been inspired by all these players that I'm

30:31either coming close to or passing up and MJ is in the world of his own. He's in the plan and the galaxy of his own is somebody that I look up to respect. Who would basically shape the game for me. You know, so grateful for everybody that invested in me on my friends, family, teammates, coaches, you know, I couldn't get up and be here without them. Obviously, a major accomplishment. Oh, yeah. Of course it is. Yeah. You're top five and you're in that stratosphere. And he said he's got more to go. Up next would be Kobe Bryant, who's about 1300 points ahead of Kevin Durant at this point. I think they should take him out of the game when he ties Kobe Bryant. Not let him pass it and make it a tire after the. Yeah. I mean, that's and make every bucket he scores afterwards, subtract from the total. Right. We have to consider the feeling of Lakers fans. I agree. You really do. You really do. Um, he's more than 47 hundred of 46 hundred points away from Carl Malone for third place.

31:36That might be untouchable. What's the number? How far away? 46 hundred. That's like hard to house. What's what's the amount of points someone usually gets in a year? I'll highlight the score gets close to 2000 points. Yeah. Yeah. So you need two and a half more good years. Right. And then Karim at 38,387 and nobody's touching LeBron. If they do, imagine the patch they'll get nobody's touching LeBron for a while. But there's, I mean, you know, Luca 15 years from now. Yeah. Luca is scoring at that level where he's going to make a run at the top five. He started young enough. Do you see Luca playing for 20 years? No chance. There's not any chance on this planet that that happens. And if he does, he'll be playing 35 games a year. That's true. Look, I have a lot of fun with LeBron, but one of the reasons why LeBron is so far

32:36away ahead of everybody and played for 23 years is whatever methods he's used to take care of his body. Oh boy. He's taken care of his body. No, and I mean, serious. You have to spend millions and millions of dollars to take care of your body to that level. I don't know how much evidence has to be out there for people to at least wonder about LeBron and PEDs. Again, you're talking about doctors and people who have been, who have been indicted and that kind of stuff. You're talking about former teammates who have said stuff. Don't they test in the NBA? Don't they test in the NBA, isn't it? He's never failed any tests. So what does anybody do? Memo to deandre eight and anybody who gets busted by drug tests in the NBA these days is an idiot. You got the schedule. Yeah. Hey, that's something. Hey, that's up. But you're right. You're right.

33:36When it comes to LeBron and longevity, when you look at his career and the games played and it's what he's, he's at over 1600 now in the most minutes we've ever played. Yeah, but also on the on the Luca point, Luca might be the only player in NBA history who repeatedly gains weight during the season. It is a test. What was the story? I'll ask off season. Have you seen Luca? Oh my god, he's ripped. Yeah, guess what? He's really good at basketball. He's not really good at maintaining a physique now. We know this. LeBron James is averaged 37.7 minutes per game over 23 seasons. That's pretty remarkable. There's no other. That's really remarkable. There's no other way to slide now. It's, it's beyond remarkable. Luca gaining weight during the season is like when Arty Lane got fatter after he got addicted to cocaine. It doesn't seem like it makes sense.

34:37Speaking of Luca, he was the latest to reach the 16 technical threshold. That happened on Saturday. They beat the Orlando magic. So it was looking like he was going to be suspended for tonight's game against Detroit big game for both teams. They rescinded the technical. They also rescinded the technical on goga batazzi of Orlando. But Luca coming out and saying the things that he said about the nature of the comments that set him off to get the technical in the first place. Apparently something about Luca's family coming out of the mouth of goga in a foreign language. He didn't appreciate it. No, but then goga came out and said, I would never say anything like that. I'm respectful of everybody's family. Yeah. I guess it was lost in translation. But I did watch and obviously you can't hear what was said and you don't have the translation. But the level of activity I am for Luca, Luca planes constantly. He probably should have 50 technicals this year.

35:40There's great restraints shown by NBA officials. But you really like Luca, don't you? But I know I didn't think that was worthy of a technical in the first place that it should have been rescinded. Again, I don't know what was said. It was between two players. If you're talking like that to an official, obviously that's going to happen. And they were trying to quell some some emotions. But does this seem like there's been a lot of rescinded technicals this year? Are we just because of Dylan Brooks? You're more or close to it. We went through this with with Jay Crowder at a certain point in recent Sun's history. Are these referees punished for this? It's really amazing. To me, it really says so much about the modern day NBA player. And I'm going to put Devon Booker loosely into this category as well, although he is not nearly as whiny as Luca is. It's really amazing to me that on this level, no coaches can course correct these character flaws, basketball character flaws of these players.

36:44It's amazing. Luca, I don't know how many times you have to watch footage of Luca complaining and being a defensive liability because of it. When you get into these situations, there was the playoff game when he was in Dallas against the Phoenix Suns. You remember that? That game he came out. He was burning. He was like a wild jackal the way he was acting on the court. And it's amazing to me that at that level coaches fail to really, really address hard issues with players. It's hard to, it's hard to call their tendencies. Sure is. If you have somebody that burns that hot, do you, do you want to cool them down? Well, then there's that. Yeah. At that point, any coach that Luca is going to play for for the rest of his career is going to take the good with the bad. The problem is, the problem is is that every coach in the NBA knows that if you're going to have a chance to last, you're going to have any jobs, security at all, you have got to align yourself with your best player and basically do whatever that best player wants. So you're not going to get real crazy. JJ Redick tries. JJ Redick in the NBA gets about as close to that line as

37:50I think I've seen any coach, but officiating from night to night and you'll hear players say this, you heard coaches say this, they just want some sort of of consistency with the way, especially on technical files. Last night, I almost felt bad for Jamal Shad of Toronto. It looked like he was the victim. Like he was just getting picked on by the officials and then he got teed up and his facial reactions and what he was saying in response was hilarious. He's like, what did I do? I didn't do anything. Right. And they just kind of made his life a living hell for the first half of that game. I don't, I don't, I see, I fundamentally disagree. Players say that all they want is consistency that what players want is the calls to go their way most of the time. That's what they want. True. They want they want preferential treatment on offense and they don't want to be calls the files of these calls that are consistently. I want the calls to consistently go my way. You're right. You're right. That's what they want. They want consistency. I got to read between the lines a little bit coming up next. Big's going to kick off the second half of the Monday show with

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