- 2 months ago
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00:00His dogs are about to be re-returned to him here in about 11 minutes.
00:04Right?
00:04Because I'm sure the dogs are watched by someone while he's gone.
00:06No doubt.
00:07River Island's guest line.
00:08Bob Fitzgerald is with us.
00:10Man, you're a real one for coming on with us right now, Bob.
00:13Well, why wouldn't I come on to talk about sports?
00:16What is this?
00:17Somebody die of cancer or something?
00:19Definitely not.
00:20No.
00:20No, definitely not.
00:21That's somebody who's focused on the right things, Bob.
00:24Yep.
00:25You guys are looking at things the wrong way for the Irish.
00:28We just won the national championship from 1993 because head-to-head matters.
00:34Ah, there you go.
00:35There you go.
00:36And good luck.
00:37I mean, 1989, Miami beat us head-to-head.
00:40They were the national champs.
00:41We were number two.
00:421993, we beat Florida State, but somehow Florida State was number one and we were number two.
00:48Wait, when people vote, they screw Notre Dame?
00:50What, is this a new thing?
00:52I mean, yeah.
00:53That is the right way to look at it.
00:55And good luck in the we-don't-want-to-go bowl, which I think you guys are going to be idle in.
01:02Yeah, well, it's because we have so many players going to the NFL that wouldn't be playing in a meaningless exhibition game,
01:08so why should they injure themselves or ruin their careers?
01:10There you have it.
01:11There you have it.
01:11Well, I tell you what, when this NBA season comes to an end, I'm going to vote for the Warriors to be one of the playoff teams, Bob.
01:17Well, you know, on a serious note, when you have a committee of people that are ADs and they vote in the best interest of their conferences for money,
01:28why is anyone surprised at this?
01:31Nobody is surprised by this.
01:33Yeah, this whole thing, this is maybe not as corrupt as FIFA, but it ain't far off.
01:40Well, not if it's not.
01:42It is corrupt.
01:42Yeah, exactly.
01:43But it's understandable.
01:45If you're the athletic director for Arkansas and you're the head of the committee, you want your SEC teams in there because you get money.
01:54If you're the ACC and 17 of your teams, all of them are going to miss the playoff, you have to vote for the ACC teams so you get money.
02:06Last year, Notre Dame went to the national championship and got $20 million and shared it with, oh, nobody.
02:14Exactly, exactly.
02:15So do you think they were going to vote and give that team, who is probably the top three or four team in the country,
02:22that you're going to give that team the money when you have an opportunity to screw them?
02:26No, you're going to screw them.
02:27As is anyone that has a vested interest in something, given a chance to vote, you're going to vote in your own interest.
02:34This is not some shocking thing.
02:37No.
02:38I mean, Fitz, watch this transition.
02:40You're right.
02:40That is understandable.
02:41What's not is this emergence from Pat Spencer.
02:45Yeah, baby.
02:45I mean, like, wow, come on, man, give us a sense of, like, I don't know, the organization's level of surprise
02:54or just what you see over these last four games.
02:58Well, here's the thing.
02:59It's not just the last four games.
03:01I mean, Pat Spencer, you know, best lacrosse player in the country.
03:05Then he plays one year of college basketball.
03:08Then he ends up in the Warriors, you know, G League program, and this is year four now.
03:13And he's just gotten better and better and better.
03:17And this offseason, what did Pat work on?
03:21He was not a great shooter, per se, okay?
03:23Was not a threat from the three-point line.
03:25Didn't have a great jump shot.
03:28Was more of an energy guy, Tasmanian devil.
03:30Always a good passer because of lacrosse stuff.
03:32So he spent all summer working on shooting the basketball.
03:37And he's improved, like Guy Santos has improved, like Trace Jackson Davis has improved,
03:42like Quentin Post has improved immeasurably on the defensive end.
03:48It's like that's what young players do or younger in the, you know,
03:50Pat's age is older but young in the sport.
03:54And so I just give him a ton of credit.
03:57And so the ball movement, the energy level, the fitness, the shooting,
04:01and just the bravado of being an elite athlete, this is not, you know,
04:06it's a wonderful, you know, kind of development.
04:08But it's not like, oh, Pat Spencer's some bum that all of a sudden magically showed up
04:14and is playing real basketball.
04:16I mean, he's an excellent player, and he's one of the better players on the Warriors right now.
04:20And I hope that that will portend to him continuing to play.
04:24But, Fitz, I wonder about when Steph is back and, you know, Draymond's able to go.
04:29Like, where do these minutes come from?
04:31Who's going to miss out on the minutes that Pat's been enjoying?
04:34I think we could always play the whack-a-mole on the minutes thing, Dibs,
04:39in terms of they have a ton of good players.
04:42And so having them all healthy at the same time, what a pleasant problem that would be.
04:48But that isn't the NBA way sometimes.
04:51You know, we're seeing that with Steph missing nine of the Warriors' first 25 games.
04:55So with Jimmy Butler and Steph and Draymond and Al Horford
04:59and then the various bumps and bruises and injuries, that'll all sort itself out.
05:05But I think you've got the Anthony Melton back.
05:07That's a great development.
05:08Yeah, Pat playing well, that's a great development.
05:10Yeah, Pajemski, who's been excellent now the last several games, that's a great development.
05:14So, you know, give Steve the problem of, hey, there's so many good players that are playing well.
05:20I mean, whoever you put in is getting it done,
05:22which I think is what the Warriors have been waiting for for a couple weeks.
05:26Bob, the other side to it, obviously, I'd like to make a distinction
05:30between how the Warriors handled Jonathan Kaminga's situation at the end of last year
05:35versus what happened yesterday.
05:38Because last year it was, this isn't quite gelling perfectly
05:42and we've arrived at really high-leveraged games,
05:46so we don't have time to keep working on this.
05:48And they put Jonathan on the bench.
05:52Yesterday, look, it's a Sunday in December.
05:55On a back-to-back with star players missing.
05:59So this one hit a little bit differently for some people.
06:02Where do you think this situation is going?
06:05Well, he started the game the day before.
06:07So he's in the starting lineup.
06:11I think this is more just combinations in the way Guy Santos has played.
06:15And honestly, the return of Jimmy Butler.
06:18I think that's, you know, you aren't going to play Kaminga over Jimmy.
06:22So I think in terms of his role and what he's doing,
06:26there's going to be nights for J.K. for sure, where he has more of an expanded role.
06:29There's going to be some bench nights for him.
06:31There's going to be some starting nights for him.
06:33So I don't think that's going to be any different.
06:35But he also is clearly kind of working his way back from the knee issues
06:39because, you know, you want him fully bouncy and healthy and energized
06:43like you saw the first several games of the season
06:45before he went out and missed those eight games.
06:48How big are those last two games, Bob, in terms of, you know,
06:51not the team's confidence or the fans' confidence,
06:54but just in general about, you know, going out there
06:57and winning without Steph and Draymond in back-to-back games on the road?
07:01I think it's huge, Dibs.
07:02I think that, you know, Kalena came up with something
07:05that we're going to have fun with is the spirit bar.
07:08The spirit bar of the team when they had the loss in Philly
07:12was at an all-time low because you should have won that game.
07:19And that would have been an incredible comeback from 24 down,
07:22building on the comeback from 22 down against OKC
07:25and the first game of a road trip, and that could have been a disaster.
07:29They could have come home 0-3, you know,
07:31squandered three games in the Eastern Conference,
07:33still playing without Steph.
07:35And been miserable.
07:37So then you turn it all around in Cleveland
07:39and just continue it in Chicago.
07:42The spirit bar is jacked up, getting ready for all these days off,
07:47and then a home game against Minnesota,
07:49and then, you know, one day or to Portland,
07:51then a couple more days off before you see Phoenix twice.
07:53Like, the schedule's good.
07:55The team's healthy.
07:57They play good.
07:58They got two wins.
07:59You're back home.
08:00Like, the spirit bar is way up right now.
08:03So I think that those two wins can't really be overstated.
08:06I think they came at just the right time and just the right way.
08:09Yeah.
08:09Can you also put into words what these four days of no games in, you know,
08:15in everybody's own beds, what this means to this team right now?
08:18I don't think the average fan could even understand the kind of having played 15 road games already,
08:27having the, you know, 14 games and, you know, 18 games in 31 days in 14 different cities.
08:32I mean, there's so many numbers I get confused.
08:34It's one of the, I mean, this was the biggest, like, end of the round against Marvin Hagler
08:40for the first couple months of the season where you're just trying to stay upright
08:43and stay afloat while he's pummeling you.
08:46So they've made through it.
08:47I honestly think if you told me nine games without Steph and games without Jimmy
08:51and games without Draymond that you'd be 13 and 12,
08:55given what the gauntlet they've kind of run through, I actually feel pretty good.
08:59But it's just a matter of now.
09:01These are teams ahead of you.
09:03Minnesota is directly ahead of you.
09:05Phoenix is ahead of you.
09:06Portland has bothered you twice already this year.
09:09Like, these next games are all kind of measuring stick games
09:11because you want to get these in wins.
09:14You want to win tiebreakers.
09:15And the goal has always been top six, and the goal is still there
09:19and I think very, very possible for this team.
09:22All right, Bob, introduce everybody to your dogs before you go play with them for a little while.
09:26Man, I tell you what, you know, I'm gone for three or four days,
09:28and when they get back, they're like, where's the food?
09:31Where's dad?
09:32Where's, you know, the toys to play with?
09:34Like, so they're never good during radio interviews.
09:36They're not behaved.
09:37Yeah, I get it.
09:38There's two of them, right?
09:39There's two of them?
09:40Well, I got my daughter's dog.
09:42You know, she's a nurse at Stanford, so when she's working,
09:44she drops off little Louie and Rockne shows them the ropes,
09:48and they're both not very quiet dogs, so they reflect their owner.
09:51Okay, perfect.
09:52Well, go run around with them for a little bit,
09:56and thank you so much for letting us interrupt.
09:58Always, guys, always.
09:59Good talking to you.
10:00Be good.
10:00Good talking to you.
10:14Good talking to you.
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