00:00Tyrese Halliburton of the Pacers, we thought getting back now, working back from the Achilles
00:08injury over a year ago, he took all of last year off, really started coming to his own,
00:16and now he's back on the shelf because he pulled his hamstring.
00:19So now they're down Tyrese Halliburton again.
00:22Now, the only good thing with the Pacers is that they should actually be used to it because
00:27this happened a lot last year when they were trying to make heads or tails without him here.
00:32But they're taking on the Sixers tonight, which, by the way, looks like Embiid might very well
00:37be back there.
00:38But you go down the list, Kawhi Leonard, stop me if you've heard this before, hurt.
00:43We've already talked about the Oklahoma City Thunder, the losses there with Jalen Williams
00:48and Kaysan Wallace, and you keep going down the list of guys, and I'm going, it's amazing
00:55to me.
00:55I don't know if it, we did it in the NFL, right?
00:59We're going, look at the names and the importance of these players who are not available to teams
01:05each and every week for the start of the NFL season.
01:08Well, wouldn't you know it, Craig?
01:10Here we are right here, a week and a half into the NBA season, and big name after big name
01:16after big name, not available right now.
01:19And I don't know if that's by design, because there's no tanking in the NBA, and maybe guys
01:25that have a toe, you know, their toe hurts, that means I can take a week off because there's
01:3082 games in the season.
01:32I don't know.
01:33But it certainly feels like both the NFL and the NBA, we're not talking about role players
01:39like Sixth Man.
01:40We're talking about Kawhi Leonard.
01:42We're talking about the guys that matter to teams.
01:45And it could be on the shelf for a while, including Anthony Edwards, who we won't see until
01:502027 now.
01:53Yeah, Luca also out tonight, if I'm not mistaken.
01:55I saw that he has some back spasms or something like that.
01:59Yeah, I mean, last night, Joe, when Scott was filling in for you, this was a hot topic of
02:04our conversation.
02:04And it's, you know, sort of why, you know, going into this, and you think about all the
02:10years that I've been here at Sports Grid and done the shows during the day, and then
02:13of course, done some shows at night and done some game time, some game time decisions, shows
02:19and filling in and doing those things.
02:21But to me, the NBA has become the least interesting thing for me as somebody who was a season ticket
02:28holder for the Heat and went to many games, covered Shaquille O'Neal with the Heat, covered
02:32Alonzo Mourning with the Heat all those years, covered LeBron James, Bosh, Wade, all the
02:37I mean, I've been to, you know, as many hundreds and thousands of Heat games, probably.
02:44But I just don't appreciate what it has done to the league, because I think it's unfair
02:50for fans to have to pay for tickets to go see, you know, when they want to see an opponent.
02:55And I told the story, Joe, of when I was a season ticket holder for the Heat, one of the
02:58great things was getting those hard tickets, you know, in the mail, and then seeing the
03:02logos of the Los Angeles Lakers and thinking, wow, this game, I'm going to get to see Magic
03:06Johnson.
03:07And now, I don't even know that I'm going to get to see any of the opponent's stars.
03:11And I understand the NBA has done some stuff to curb some of it and to try to get players
03:16to play more.
03:16And then there's fines, but the fines are just so minuscule in the league.
03:20And so when I knew that we were getting ready to do these shows and talking to some of the
03:25people here at SportsGrid, I'm like, like, this is not my favorite thing, like, because
03:29I love baseball, I love college football, I love pro football, but I knew that we were
03:34going to be faced, and I was going to be faced with talking a lot of NBA, and it's just
03:39bothersome that here we are, two weeks, not even into the season, and already you've got,
03:46you know, three of the top 15 players not ready to play in games already.
03:50Like, so...
03:51It's amazing.
03:52It sort of is what it is, but good luck to everybody betting on the NBA this season.
03:58Certainly, I'll do my best to give as much coverage as I can over the next six months
04:02with it, but forgive me if a lot of it surrounds just the teams that I'm watching at 7 o
04:07'clock
04:07Eastern, because after 10 o'clock, I am not going to watch those games, waiting up to see
04:11if somebody, if Steph Curry's going to play for Golden State, I have no idea.
04:16Yeah, well, and the other problem here, too, Craig, is that the NBA has become impossible
04:21to bet early, so getting...
04:23The only way I have found over the last couple of years in order to get true value betting
04:29on the NBA is betting the overreaction of the news that Aluka is out.
04:36Makes sense.
04:37Or that an ASEA is out.
04:39Those, because the market overreacts like we've never seen in any other sports, but we're talking
04:47about weeks-long injuries now, which is just head-scratching since we haven't played more
04:53than a week here.
