00:00More on that coming up here in a little bit later on.
00:02Mary Kay Cabot going to join us here at 8.22 this morning.
00:05Lima made me almost have to address some of the things I was called yesterday on the internet.
00:09Maybe I'll get to that here in a second.
00:10I do want to say, yesterday was a front...
00:14Well, I'm going to get to that here in just a few minutes, okay?
00:16Kenny got to experience the wrath, finally.
00:19We've been trying to tee this up forever.
00:21Can I just talk about the Cavs before we get into our garbage?
00:24Can I just mention something that matters?
00:26Our Cavs who have three signature victories.
00:28You guys, oh, they don't try hard.
00:30Oh, they plod up and down the court.
00:32Oh, fat James Harden, how much is he going to eat?
00:35I never call him fat.
00:36And you know what?
00:37Three signature wins.
00:38The other problem is the three not signature wins.
00:41We're not worried about those.
00:42What are you talking about?
00:43We're talking about Minnesota, Philadelphia, New York, who's next?
00:49I think the signature loss to the Hornets is much more indicative than the signature wins.
00:54Put that in Sharpie right there, buddy.
00:56The signature dishes that James Harden's been enjoying.
00:59Okay, he called him fat, not me.
01:00I just want to let that be known.
01:02I didn't call him fat.
01:02He looked in shape to me last night as he was dazzling with the basketball.
01:06Did you see vintage James Harden at 37?
01:08Between the legs.
01:09Between the legs.
01:11Backstep, three ball, good.
01:12That's the problem.
01:13That is the problem.
01:14That's the problem that every general Cavs fan has.
01:17Harden putting Brunson in the torture chamber.
01:19This is it.
01:20This is interesting.
01:21You wanted me to get into the Shador stuff.
01:23You've been getting into it with the Harden stuff.
01:25I've been seeing some of the things where there have been some people going,
01:28why is your boy talking about James Harden?
01:30Why isn't your boy talking about James Harden walking up and down the floor?
01:33Why isn't your buddy talking about James Harden where he looks like he's got the gut the size of you,
01:37Ken?
01:37Walking into 32 points against the defending champs last night.
01:42Back to back.
01:42Best player on the floor.
01:43You make me say nasty things about a team that I was excited about the glorious win.
01:47That's what you pull out of people.
01:48Absolute evil and nastiness.
01:50That's why you're you, and that's why there's days where, yes, I absolutely hate your guts.
01:54Had that basketball on a yo-yo last night.
01:56Let me tell you this.
01:58Let me say.
01:59You have to agree with this.
02:01This is why it doesn't help the case.
02:04Because for a lot of folks, last night's win, as excited as I was about last night's win,
02:11only justified to them.
02:12And I saw it when I tweeted out how good of a glorious win it was for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
02:17And you heard it earlier in this show, and if you missed a moment, well, you can always
02:21use the rewind feature on the free Odyssey app powered by integrated restoration and local
02:25experts in water, fire, and storm disaster restoration.
02:288, 0, 7, and 31 seconds for those scoring at home.
02:31They said that.
02:32If they're not going to try every night, then I don't need to tune in every night.
02:35I don't got to pay it.
02:37There is such a feeling of when you give somebody credit card information.
02:42And it is the same thing as if you were the boss.
02:45Some of us have been bosses.
02:47I've never been a supervisor or anything like that.
02:50But it's the same premise.
02:52Because you were either an employee or an employer, if you're listening to this.
02:57You want an honest day's work for what you pay for.
03:00And it does backfire a little bit, as excited as I was.
03:05Malik Thomas was great.
03:06By the way, Malik Thomas is going to get you, he's going to give you your full days.
03:09You're going to get time and a half on that one every day.
03:11Every time he's out there, he's going to go balls to the wall every single time.
03:15But when you've got a guy like James Harden, who's 37 years old, who comes with baggage to the fans.
03:20And even though I was defensive of him last year, they're going to go,
03:24Okay, Ken, he was great because he was at MSG.
03:27Because he was in New York.
03:29I need something if I'm going to do this every night.
03:31And that's why I'm telling you, and I hate to be this way, but it's the truth.
03:35That's why they're going, Yeah, I'm going to keep the $19.99 a month.
03:38Because if they're bad, that's one thing.
03:43That's one thing.
03:44We can scream and yell at Kobe Altman all day long.
03:46If James Harden's truly out of gas, that's one thing.
03:48But if James Harden is turning it on and turning it off, all that does,
03:54you know there's a lot of fans out there that can't stand him and couldn't stand him when we got
03:58in.
03:59All that does is justify their feelings of how they had when we traded Darius Garland for him.
04:03You know the hard thing about this, Kenny, and I totally understand those complaints.
04:07They're warranted.
04:07Doesn't sound like you do.
04:08They're warranted.
04:09Tickets are really expensive.
04:10Now subscribing to a watch basketball team that always used to be on.
04:13Sounds like you want to make them spend into destitution to watch basketball.
04:15Well, the hard part, well, he should have just been betting on him last night at MSG.
04:18He got all that money back easily.
04:19Well, my buddy was telling people to do that.
04:20But I will say that, think of the alternative.
04:25If James Harden is run into the ground based on a regular season overload and then he's not alone,
04:31if you're asking the same amount of Donovan Mitchell, well, no fans are going to want to watch this team
04:35come playoff time
04:36because it won't matter.
04:37The season will be over.
04:38So it is the delicate balance of, and by the way, can you imagine how hard this is for Kenny
04:43Atkinson?
04:45He's been managing some veterans, like in this case Donovan Mitchell, who has been on fumes at the end of
04:51the year in the playoffs,
04:52every year that he's been here, on fumes.
04:54He'll offer up a virtuoso performance, and then by the end he needs five guys to pick him up off
05:00the floor
05:01because he has been so gassed putting the team on his shoulders.
05:04And then James Harden, who was totally gassed in the Knicks series last year.
05:09At least he was healthy.
05:10Hey, you want guys to be healthy because you've got no shot if these guys are banged up come playoff
05:16time.
05:17So how do you do that?
05:18How do you stagger the minutes?
05:19How do you make sure to get these young, exciting players like Proctor, Malik Thomas,
05:24and Peyton Watson has not been good offensively, but you saw what he was capable of injecting some life
05:30into a team that didn't have any life, that looked like they were the walking dead the last time they
05:36played.
05:36You needed guys to get up and down the floor.
05:39And I know you take it for granted.
05:41No, they're NBA players.
05:42They should be doing that anyway.
05:43Yeah, but this team wasn't.
05:45And Kenny Atkinson was about to pay the ultimate price for that.
05:48Who knows what would have happened if they would have got run off the floor last night.
05:51So it was nice.
05:52They built a lead.
05:53They preserved a lead.
05:54They had young guys hitting huge shots, looking unafraid.
05:58And then James Harden, this is key.
06:00You needed to see him do it.
06:02Even me, who had been defending the move, the trade for Garland, who had been talking about how much of
06:07an upgrade he was,
06:08the fact that his contract allowed you to go get Peyton Watson a wing that you just didn't have,
06:14athletic, young, spirited, that could block three-pointers, that could block guys at the rim.
06:20He had a bunch of those in the last game.
06:23You needed to see James Harden channel some of James Harden.
06:28And I thought that was a really important takeaway.
06:31Not that I expected every night.
06:32Not that I even want him to dictate the flow every night.
06:36That's what you would have wanted 10 years ago from James Harden.
06:38Not on this Cavs team, not now.
06:40Not at the expense of some of these other players.
06:42But it was huge to see that he could still do it in a meaningful game.
06:46The Knicks were absolutely trying to win that game last night.
06:48You could say, yeah, back-to-back.
06:49I don't care.
06:50They still, you saw McBride getting up and down the floor.
06:53Shamit getting up and down the floor.
06:55Karl-Anthony Towns dominated Evan Mobley for most of that game.
06:59They were trying.
07:00And I'm glad you said all this.
07:03But all it's going to do.
07:05My first thought was relief.
07:06When I saw James Harden play well last night, because it was on ESPN.
07:09You can watch it if you wanted to.
07:10Did you think he was done?
07:11He was totally watching it.
07:11We weren't going to see it again.
07:12Because there's always going to be, like, I got to consider everything.
07:16So, yeah, my first thought is, oh, come on.
07:18He's not done.
07:20He's not out of gas.
07:21He's not washed up.
07:23And then, you know, things continue.
07:25And you've got to go, well, am I just denying the truth?
07:28It'll look bad.
07:28Because I hate to be the one.
07:29I don't, I hate being, like, I got so mad at you years and years and years ago when we
07:33got LeBron.
07:34We got LeBron back.
07:36And you were like, well, does he still have the same lift?
07:38Because I remember the first year he kind of, they started off, they had that loss against the Knicks.
07:43I think it was the Knicks they started off with.
07:44Yes, they did.
07:44And then, they looked, I mean, like, you saw that.
07:47I will never forget they were on a fast break.
07:50It was like a three-on-one.
07:51You're like, oh, my God, this is something I've never seen in a Cavaliers uniform with these guys before.
07:55And that included LeBron's first trip.
07:57And then as the season went on, I remember you and I were arguing, bickering with each other about whether
08:01or not he'd lost a step.
08:03And I'm going, man.
08:04And he's jumping.
08:04I remember we were talking about his vertical.
08:06And when you say a guy loses a step, I mean, that's a personal affront.
08:09Well, he said a lot of personal things in this fan base about James Harden on the other side.
08:13So, I try to learn from those experiences.
08:15But I do have to consider the age of 37 years old and that LeBron's LeBron and James Harden is
08:20not LeBron James.
08:22And my first thought was relief to see him play well.
08:25But then I go, this is what people talk about.
08:28This is why he will drive a fan base crazy.
08:31Because he will decide when he decides.
08:34He will turn it on and he will turn it off.
08:37And his off button is not like LeBron's off button where his off button, when we had him, was still
08:4327 a night and a win.
08:45His off button is what we saw against Charlotte.
08:48What we saw in other games this year, so far.
08:51And so that, it's a backhanded sort of relief.
08:55Because now I've got to wonder, okay, what mood is James going to be in?
08:58Are we going to be upset with Kenny?
08:59Are we going to walk out there and seemingly tank it?
09:03It's backhanded.
09:04It's the win of the year.
09:05They've only had six of them.
09:06It was a glorious win.
09:07I loved it.
09:07But it does give up fan going, hmm.
09:10Maybe they're justifying all my concerns that I yelled at these guys about when we got James Harden.
09:15Coming up at 845, yeah, I'll address one of the, it's not really an elephant in the room, but I'll
09:19address it.
09:19But coming up here about Cleveland Browns and Shador Sanders and everything that was going on yesterday.
09:24Coming up next, Mary Kay Cabot, who joined us yesterday when the news broke about Deshaun Watson.
09:28How long will Deshaun Watson be the starter, even though he's the starter for Sunday?
09:32She'll answer that question in five minutes on The Fan.
