After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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Minimum order $10. Additional terms apply. Kevin Matt talks with Matt Hardy. There's nothing like a wrestling fan, you know, for better or for worse. How do you handle that, though? We're talking about people talking about your family, what they don't know about your family, or your brother, or you... How does one handle that from a day-to-day basis? Something I joke about with the Young Bucks all the time. I said, if you would Vanity Search Matt Hardy on Twitter, I said, after you got through 100 replies, you'd want to quit the business and never be seen again.

It's just, you just learn to deal with it, you know what I mean? It's the Kick Rocks Wrestling Podcast with Evan T. Maxx. Subscribe now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll call it that, but I can't jump the gun. There's a lot to do still before we can usher in a Freaky Friday. A Freaky Fun... Oh, we could go Funny Friday. We'd go Friday Funnies.

That actually would work. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio.

I'm not that funny, actually, so I could use some of your funny to make this a Funny Friday. And then into our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence, I saw a few people, actually, who were asking how they could follow our YouTube channel or subscribe to our YouTube channel because they want producer Jay to eat broccoli when he gets back from vacation. So that has now become a thing.

All you got to do is go to our YouTube channel and, well, go to YouTube, search After Hours with Amy Lawrence, and then boom, easy to find. It pops up and the subscribe option is right there in your face. Oh, it could be a facial Friday. You get a facial on a Friday.

So, yeah, we'll get to that. We're not quite there. I'm trying not to jump the gun and get all giddy about Friday, but it's been a week. It's been a week of not sleeping. On Thursday, I woke up around lunchtime, was awake for an hour and 45 minutes.

I tried everything. I was so tired. Dog was snoring. Cat was snoring. Amy was not snoring.

Amy was not sleeping. I tried reading. I tried praying. I tried my essential oils, which generally help me get back to sleep. I tried everything.

Nothing worked until, well, an hour and 45 minutes had gone by and I was uber frustrated. We're not going to usher in a frustrated Friday or a frustration Friday. That's not happening. It's going to be a good Friday. It's going to be a good long weekend. I can feel it. I can feel it in my studio. Our phone number is 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4CBS. Coming up in 30 minutes, we're going to head to the land of the desert. We're going to head to the desert. I kind of thought we would be done for a little bit talking about Phoenix. Phoenix wouldn't be in the spotlight for a tad following Super Bowl week, but that is not the case. A bit of a spectacle to welcome Kevin Durant to the Suns. That's what we saw on Thursday. So we're going to connect with Dave King, who's been covering the Suns for a decade.

That's some lows. They had quite a long stretch in which they did not make the playoffs, but obviously back to back seasons in the playoffs, including an appearance in the NBA Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks. And so we'll get Dave's reaction to what we saw as the Suns rolled out the orange carpet, orange and purple carpet, for one Kevin Durant. That's All-Star break this weekend for the NBA. So now all the games are done until next week. If you're interested in the festivities, well, of course, they've got kind of goofy celebrity festivities on Friday. But then the All-Star Saturday night skills challenge. The All-Star Saturday night slam dunk contest and the All-Star Saturday night three point contest. With the marquee event, the All-Star game coming up on Sunday.

I mentioned this on Thursday morning, but I'll say it again. I'm not working on Sunday night into Monday because Monday is my guest appearance at Syracuse University. They're bringing me back as a guest speaker.

And so for that reason, I have to be there to be on the road to get to Syracuse pretty early in the morning. And so I will not be here on Sunday night. I figured it'd be better if I did not show up to my first guest speaking engagement at Syracuse, having been up all night.

Want to make a good impression here on the broadcasters of the future? Anyway, so I will not be here Sunday night, so I won't be here following the All-Star break. I actually won't be here following the Daytona 500, which is a new one for me. I will watch Daytona. I love Daytona. And it's not only the Super Bowl of NASCAR, it's the granddaddy of them all, they call it.

It's an iconic tradition. And even if you don't love NASCAR, you can certainly get into the Daytona 500. And we've got one of the most decorated champions in NASCAR history who will be participating again this year. So we'll talk about Daytona 500.

The duals took place on Thursday. The 500 comes up on Sunday, but I won't be here Sunday night, so I'll have to catch up with you once I get back on Monday night. So as we head into the first full weekend, or the first real weekend post-NFL season, I always like to ask you, what's your next big thing? So that will be our question as we hurdle our way into the weekend. And honestly, it's probably a long weekend for a lot of people, right?

Because it's President's Day on Monday, and so there are other people who this is your last time that you'll be listening until Monday night. So I guess we're on the same page. We can put a poll up on Twitter, or we can open it wide, and you can just answer on your own. Maybe we'll do a poll on Twitter, and then if you want to respond you can, but we'll also do a post on our Facebook page. So certainly, the Daytona 500. March Madness is on the horizon. Maybe your next big thing is the Masters, now that we've seen this Genesis Invitational with a lot of the hoopla surrounding Tiger Woods, finishing with three consecutive birdies and big smiles. There's a lot of buzz always when Tiger is golfing, and this is his first PGA sanctioned event in seven months, and so good to see him finish strong, good to hear the roars of the crowd in Riviera. And so that could be your next big thing, would be the, I guess it would be moving to the East Coast when the golf does, generally about this time of the year, so February into March they'll start to pick up on the East Coast, and then the Masters is, actually kind of funny, the Masters is the weekend that I start my vacation, so I won't be on the radio this Sunday night on the Masters either.

Man, I know how to pick them. I'm missing some big stuff this year. But it also happens to be my birthday weekend, which is why I've decided to take that time off. In fact, I think it's my birthday weekend and it's Easter, so it's a huge weekend. The Masters is getting, I mean, it's getting thrown into the mix with what is a huge weekend anyway.

But maybe that's your next big thing. So you've got the option of NASCAR and college basketball and golf, but you could also say the stretch run in the NBA, or maybe you're looking ahead already to the NBA and the Stanley Cup playoffs. Maybe what you care most about is spring training and opening day in Major League Baseball, or maybe you are just here for the combine and then the NFL draft with all of the free agency sandwiched in between. So I generally say April is the second busiest month of the year.

October is the busiest month of the year, but April is a pretty close second. And so on this Thursday night into a Friday morning, I would like to know what's your next big thing. So we'll have a post up on both of our social media sites, but you can find us on our show Twitter, After Hours, CBS, or on our Facebook page. I can tell you in Phoenix, their next big thing is putting Kevin Durant in a son's uniform and getting him on the court. It may be a while. We're not exactly sure when he'll be able to join his teammates, his new teammates on the court.

But he says this was the destination. If he was heading out of Brooklyn, Phoenix is where he wanted to be. They experienced a lot the last couple of years. You see the growth in his team when Monte took over. When James came here, I see the culture started to change, the way they played on the floor, the energy they played with started to change. I always loved playing here in Phoenix. The fans always showed love to just good basketball in general. They always cheered their fans on, but they showed love to the opposing team as well.

So I knew this would be a great place to play and a great place to continue to get better as a player. So Kevin Durant references not only Monte, who is Monte Williams, the head coach, but also James Jones, who's a former NBA player himself and is the sun's general manager now. And if you think about the top four, it's pretty snazzy.

There's a lot of star power there. Chris Paul, of course, the longtime NBA point guard who still runs the show and still is capable of double figure assists every time he steps on the court. And I do like the fact that Chris has a mid-range jumper. It's a dying art in the NBA. Then you think about Devin Booker, a healthy Devin Booker, who's one of the most dynamic point guards, or one of the most dynamic, I guess, really fills the role of a shooting guard more, but one of the most dynamic backcourt mates in the league. DeAndre Ayton is also energetic and athletic and can be explosive and can be an asset on both ends. And then KD, who we know when healthy.

Now that's been the knock the last couple of years. Ever since the blown Achilles in the finals in 2019, he's had trouble staying healthy. I believe it's just his build. He's nearly seven feet and he's slight, and his body has taken a pounding over the years. And so he now deals with knee and ankle and injuries the lower part of his body.

Not unusual for seven-footers. I mean, that happens a lot, and he's played a lot of years and a lot of miles in the league. So maybe you don't have him on the court for all 82 games. I can imagine even if he was healthy all the way through, they would want to do a little bit of load management with him, as in take a load off KD. So you've got this group that not only will put butts in the seats, but should certainly be able to score points. And Kevin Durant is definitely a defender. He takes pride in his defense. So, yeah, on paper, the Suns are brilliant. Although, I suppose nobody wants to hear me say that on paper, the Nets looked brilliant, too.

We've got somebody like Devin, Chris, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Ayton, guys that work. And I wanted to be a part of that, so I'm excited I'm here. I'm looking forward to trying to add as much as I can to the group already.

Like I said, they built themselves up and built the structure and the infrastructure for themselves already, and I'm looking forward to adding to it. It will become part of his legacy eventually. No one's disputing his talent. No one disputes his skills or his desire to hoop.

Those are unquestioned. He's a great two-way player. He will be a Hall of Famer. But, and there is a but, I don't know that it matters anymore because you think about the NBA's all-time scoring leader and LeBron James played for Cleveland, then Miami, then back to Cleveland, then Los Angeles. He just picked and chose wherever he wanted to go. And I don't want to say whichever way the wind blew, but whichever team, whichever franchise, whichever city fit how he felt and his desires at the time. Wasn't really about the team. It was about LeBron. It's always been about LeBron.

Great. He's made a living out of that and he's been nearly 20 years in the league and is still durable and is still playing and is breaking records and setting new ones left and right. With Kevin Durant, it will definitely become part of his story, part of his legacy for better or for worse, that he left the Oklahoma City Thunder where he and Russell Westbrook, in fact Russ has more stops than he does now, but he left Oklahoma City to join the Warriors, won a couple of titles there, and then decided he wanted to break out on his own, kind of like Kyrie. And so he goes to Brooklyn where it's an unmitigated disaster. There is no other way to describe it.

Something along those lines, a total mess, a breakdown of epic proportions. It's not as though it didn't happen because he got paid a hell of a lot of money to be in Brooklyn and only play a handful of games. But he leaves that mess behind him. He leaves that mess in Brooklyn and now gets to start fresh, which is of course the beauty of being one of the best players in any sport because part of you gets to write your own script. And it happens a lot in the NBA, more so in other sports because these contracts are guaranteed. So yeah, he's embracing this opportunity. He wanted to be in Brooklyn.

He's got these great teammates around him. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks, we heard a lot of the same stuff when you landed in Brooklyn. So then what exactly broke down with the Nets? What went wrong? We just didn't get on the court enough. I think when you seen James, Kyrie, and myself, it was amazing basketball for 17 games though. But you need, in order for you to win a championship and be a great team, you just need more time on the floor. It's another story about why we didn't get on the floor together, but we just didn't get enough time on the floor.

And those are Hall of Fame players that I learned a lot from every day and I'm wishing them the best as well. It just didn't work out. I'm glad that there was a reaction from the people that were in the arena because yes, it is slightly ludicrous that they only played, as it turns out, 16 games together. For whatever reason though, that meant KD was out.

Kyrie was out. It still smacks of, we messed it up, but thank God we don't have to stick around with the sinking ship. If they say the captain always goes down with the ship, yeah, not in this case. They ran the ship aground and then booked it out.

But if nobody else cares, then I suppose I'll get over it at some point. Alright, so coming up following the update at the bottom of the hour, we'll get the inside scoop and the intel from today's introduction with Kevin Durant, as well as what the Suns are saying behind the scenes. Bit of a concern for the Milwaukee Bucks as they end their first, well it's not even the first half, as they end this stretch before the All-Star break with a win, but also with an injury. And we've also got the introduction of Jonathan Gannon in the desert. Phoenix is all the rage these days.

And Tiger Woods, round one at the Genesis Invitational. So plenty to talk about. Please find us on Twitter after our CBS and then our Facebook page as well. We want to know what's your next big thing in sports. What is your next big thing? It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Colby White slashes his way to the cup. Gets past everyone but missed it as it hung on the rim. And now Giannis gets tangled up and he's down.

Underneath the rim. And let's see what he's, what's ailing him now. Looks like maybe his right hand, boy this is the second time in as many games that Giannis has gone down.

And it has been a decidedly different reaction here in Chicago to what we saw in Milwaukee the other night. It looks like his right wrist is what he was holding. His hand to some capacity. We're hopeful the x-ray was clean and, you know, he's got a sprain. We'll just, you know, I think see how he feels tomorrow.

See how he feels the next few days and continue to evaluate it. He's a guy that is attacking the basket all the time and, you know, he's fearless and he takes a lot of falls. So you kind of learn to just expect him to always bounce back up and that's what we're hoping for for this one.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Not what the Milwaukee Bucks wanted to see. Even as they get the victory on this Thursday night, their final game before the All-Star break. And move within a half game of the Boston Celtics atop the Eastern Conference. So they're both sitting on 17 losses, that's it. Very impressive records for these two teams as we get to the All-Star break, right. So you've got the Celtics who have played 59 games. You've got the Bucks who have played 58 games.

Now think about it. Out of 82, you're talking what, 71, 72 percent of their game. So nearly three quarters of their schedule.

Which means coming out of the All-Star break, it's not the second half, it's the stretch run. And these two teams, despite injuries, have survived to the point where they only have 17 losses apiece. So just a half game separating them atop the Eastern Conference. And they are the only team above a 70 percent winning percentage. Right, so they both have better records than the Denver Nuggets. So these are the top two records in the NBA as we hit the break. But Giannis is the guy that you can't really afford to play for very long without.

And so as you hear with Dave Cain on Bucks radio, he leaves in the second quarter of their win over the Bulls. When he, he's attempting to block a shot at the rim. We know that athleticism and of course a guy who not only poses just a big brick wall if he wants to be, but has the long arm of the law too that he can reach up and he can really impact and affect shots. So he's trying to block a shot at the rim. And because he's on the move, his momentum carries him into the support, the backboard support, the hoop support and the backboard support. It's called the stanchion.

I don't love that word so I call it the support instead. It's essentially the column that's holding the hoop in place. And so he runs into that. And he was holding his wrist on the sidelines before he went to the locker room. Now Mike Budenholzer later finds out that the x-rays are negative. And so they're pleased to hear that the injury seems minor, could be a sprain, could be a strain. Either way, you can't afford to be without him for a long period of time. Drew Holliday had been playing at times without Chris Middleton, right? So he's on a minutes restriction now. But Drew's not going to freak out over it.

It's not a freaky Friday for Drew. We seem to be hurt a little bit worse than that and wouldn't have 40, 40, 40, 50 and 50 in the finals. Wait, I'm sorry, did he say finals? Maybe he met the All-Star Game finals? No, isn't Giannis a captain of the All-Star Game? So, finals then.

Alright, good to know. Drew Holliday played 28 minutes in this one, the victory in Chicago. 15 points for him to go along with nine assists and six rebounds. Giannis only had two points before he left, which, I mean, I'm thinking that's going to impact his scoring average. That does not matter. I'm pretty sure Drew Holliday said finals.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Now this team is still riding a long win streak. Now a dozen games. So people wanted to point to, oh, well, they beat the Celtics without four of their starters.

And yes, that is true, but you only play what's in front of you. And this time of the year there are a lot of athletes who are injured or nursing injuries or playing hurt or batter bruised and getting nights off. I mean, this is a late All-Star break. They've moved it.

I'm sure you know this or you could figure it out. They keep moving it back because the NFL has moved back the Super Bowl. And they do not want to play the same weekend as the Super Bowl. They also do not want to host their All-Star game the same weekend as the Pro Bowl is taking place because that's where everybody is on their way to the site of the Super Bowl. They do not want to host their All-Star game during championship weekend or divisional weekend. So the NBA has pushed its All-Star game and its festivities back to accommodate football or really just to not get dwarfed by the NFL in its postseason and everything that goes around the Super Bowl.

So for that reason, it's much later in the year than it used to be. And so the Bucks, along with every other team, have been trying to manage injuries and just guys who are banged up and nicked and worn out. But they have won 12 in a row.

And that is nothing to sneeze at, especially this time of the year. So what exactly have they learned about themselves over the course of this win streak? Relentless. You know, no matter what, we're going to come and bring it.

We're going to give our best fight and we're going to live with the results. Oh, that's Javon Carter on TNT. Right, there was a doubleheader on TNT. The other game featured the Clippers in Phoenix, but that was not the big story in Phoenix.

Nope, the game itself almost secondary to what happened earlier in the day. So we're asking you on Twitter and on Facebook, and producer Jay's put up a spot on our show Twitter. Here I'll retweet it.

ALawRadio or After Hours, CBS. I guess we're not going poll. Instead we're going, what is your next big thing in sports? So that's where we want you to weigh in and let us know what next big sporting event.

Or maybe it's not an event, it's more a time of the year. If we're talking about Stanley Cup playoffs, NBA playoffs, they take months, right? March Madness, that's coming up pretty quickly. But it's Daytona and the start of the NASCAR Cup season. It's also spring training now. Pitchers and catchers reporting officially in the next couple days. We're starting to get a lot of chatter coming out of both Arizona as well as out of Florida. And I was actually speaking to a friend of mine in Houston on Thursday. And he said to me, well we were talking about potentially getting together when I'm there to visit my mom in a couple weeks. And he said, oh nope, I'm going to be at spring training.

So he works in the baseball industry and that's what's on the horizon now. So maybe that's what you're excited about. I know that there are some fans who not only love the start of baseball and opening day, where hope springs eternal, but also equate it with the beginning of spring. Though if my crocus is there any indication, spring has already sprung in my neighborhood. But we're supposed to have temps down below freezing actually on Friday night. So I hope that they bundle up. I've got my daffodils growing. They're not open or anything, but I can see them sprouting up out of the ground.

It is very strange. I'm headed to Syracuse on Monday and I was thinking, great, maybe I'll get some snow up there in western New York. Because when I graduated from Syracuse in May, when I was there getting my masters, it snowed on graduation day in May. And really, because of the lake effect, you can drive through western New York. Buffalo and Rochester residents know this well. And you can get a snow squall and white out conditions regardless of really the time of year.

That can happen essentially from September on through April or May. But I saw a photo on the Syracuse website or the Syracuse Twitter or something like that where they had 62 degrees on Wednesday and were holding meetings outside. Okay, so I guess I'm not going to see any snow in Syracuse either.

That's a bummer. I love snow and we've not had any stickable snow. We had 4 to 5 inches in my neighborhood going back to November and I was thinking, yes, this is going to be one awesome snowy winter.

Marco is giving me evil eyes right now. He apparently does not share my adoration, my appreciation for snow. I don't mind snow if I don't have to drive in it.

I'll even deal with shoveling it as long as you don't have 3 feet. I mean, these days, the majority of Americans figure out how to work from home. So, you know. I'm not one of those.

You used to? Yeah, you told me to stay home, I stay home. But now you tell me to come in, I come in. I don't want to have to drive through the snow.

Okay, well there's none, so don't worry about that. Okay, coming up, we're going to head to a place where there's no snow in the desert. Phoenix Suns introduced Kevin Durant. It was a party!

It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. I know how significant a championship is to a franchise and to a city and I've been a part of two of those. And I'm looking forward to, you know, getting back on that road to try to do it again. But I know how tough it is and how hard it is. And this fan base is looking forward to cheering for a winner. So, I want to go out there and prove every night that we got a chance to win.

And, you know, that starts with the work we put in every day in practice. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. That is the unmistakable voice of one Kevin Durant, introduced in Phoenix on Thursday. What a way to wrap up their last day before the All-Star break.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We are pleased to welcome Dave King, who's got the bright side of the sun and is a longtime insider for this NBA team with all of the ups and all of the downs. He was there for the Kevin Durant introduction. Dave, what's the reaction to what you saw on Thursday? Well, it's really interesting. I've never been to a player press conference.

I've covered the Suns for over 10 years. I've never been to a player press conference with 3,000 fans also watching at the same time. So, they staged it in the arena, on the floor of the arena. They had, like I said, about 3,000 fans up in the stands. They gave out free tickets for it. The media folk were in the first couple of rows.

We just took turns using the mic and asking questions. It was funny because any questions regarding Kevin's time with the Nets were met with major boos because these fans didn't want to hear about that. These are Phoenix Suns fans. Any questions that were asked about the Phoenix Suns were big cheers and all that.

Both before and after Kevin Durant answered questions. It was fun. Did they sell tickets or did they just open it up for the first 3,000 fans? They sent tickets to season ticket holders, I believe, is what they did.

Like free ones. They didn't sell tickets. But the tickets were sent to people's emails, so I assume it was season ticket holders who got in. In order not to get booed right off the top, Dave, what did KD say about how this came together with the Suns and his attitude about being in a new place for the rest of the year? Well, he certainly seemed happy.

Of course, it helps when you've got 3,000 fans totally cheering every move you make, every gesture you make. Definitely this was the most gregarious I've seen Kevin Durant in an interview. He was very talkative. He gave good explanations.

Good, long answers. But it was a lot of softball questions because this was an intro press conference with Kevin Durant and because of all the fans there. He had very few hard questions to answer. He seemed extremely excited about it. I asked him a question about what is it about Devin Booker that got Chris Paul and now Kevin Durant who want to join him so badly that they got themselves traded to play with him. And he just went on just saying how great he thinks Devin Booker is. He thought he was great for a long time. So quiet and mature about the way he plays the game. And then he ended with people are going to teach classes about how Devin Booker plays the game. And this was two minutes after KD had said, yeah, there's a lot of pressure on me. I'm one of the greatest of all time.

And he's not humble, but he's also very respectful at the same time. And I thought that was interesting. Dave King is with us from Phoenix, covers the Suns for SB Nation and also has the Bright Side Sun. That is the biggest Suns website in the world actually.

We're Suns only 24-7. And it's under SB Nation. It's a great place to go if you're a Suns fan. You want to hear the latest news and also analysis and thoughts about how the team is doing and opinions.

It's a great place to go. Well, we appreciate your insight here on After Hours, CBS Sports Radio. So then, Dave, what did he say about his time with the Nets and the very short era that was? Yeah, he gave less of an answer than Kyrie did a few days ago when asked an oppressor.

And some of that had to do with the fans booing the person who asked a question of him about how his Nets tenure went. And he basically just said, we only played 16, 17 games together. That's the bottom line.

It's as simple as that. If we had been healthy, it would have been different. But if we weren't healthy, he actually said there was a terrible ending to the whole thing. He actually used the word terrible. But he didn't really go much beyond, hey, it's over now and I'm looking forward to my next chapter.

Okay. Well, good thing that that works in the NBA where a lot of guys get to start fresh, hit the reset button, and go play with a different group. What have Devin Booker and Chris Paul and some of the other Suns like DeAndre Ayton said about welcoming Durant into their locker room and onto the court? Yeah, so Devin Booker has just been so respectful and reverent. He's just like, I can't believe I get to play with one of the greatest of all time. Chris Paul has said that, you know, has talked glowingly about Kevin Durant as well.

My favorite answer when asked that question was DeAndre Ayton, because basically he is embodying all of us. Because when I asked him, I said, what do you think about playing with Kevin Durant, one of the greatest of all time on your team? And he just looked at me and said, I am still trying to answer that question myself. I don't know. I'm looking forward to it. I don't know what's going to happen. Big smile.

He couldn't stop smiling about it. He'll be the kid in the candy store the rest of this season where Booker and CP3 and Durant will take it very, very seriously. DeAndre Ayton is just going to be the guy who just feasts off everything and enjoys his chance to play with those guys. This is a group that has a lot of potential. We saw them obviously get into the NBA Finals a couple years ago where they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Now adding KD makes it a completely different foe, a completely different opponent. But what has kept them in that big group in the middle of the Western Conference this year? Why are they not higher in the standings?

The simple answer is health. Devin Booker missed almost two months. He missed so much time.

He didn't qualify for the All-Star Game even though he won Player of the Month in November. Chris Paul missed over a month of time. There was just so many injuries. The Suns at times were playing with an injury list longer than starting lineup.

I mean it was six, seven guys at a time being out. And it's really tough to keep continuity when your lineups in some games were a couple of two-way players and three league minimum guys. So that's why the Suns are down at their fifth in the standings going into the All-Star break. But they're only a game and a half out of third. And while Memphis and Denver are kind of pulling away a little bit, any team on a really good run is going to get up to third or second by the end of the year. And then no one's going to want to play the Suns in the playoffs. So I think they just need to take care of their own business, get on their own run, playing really well going into the playoffs. And it might be different than a year ago when the Suns were playing poorly going into the playoffs.

And it showed and they couldn't close the deal. So they're looking forward to just finishing on a good note and then being ready to take over when the playoffs happen. Dave King is with us from Phoenix talking Suns basketball and what could be as we head into the All-Star break and then the stretch run actually. Because the teams are already about 75 percent of the way through their schedule.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. When you think about the Western Conference right now, Dave, what's your impression? Because it's not just Phoenix. There's a huge group of teams that are kind of all clumped together within a few losses of one another. Yeah, it's pretty wild in the West, that's for sure. It's going to be fun to see how the matchups go in the playoffs. But you've still got the Clippers, if they're healthy, they have just as much a chance to win a championship as the number one Nuggets. The little problem with the Nuggets is that they don't play great defense. In the postseason you've got to play great defense.

It may be unstoppable offensively though, so we'll find out. Memphis is really young. The Sacramento Kings are kind of surprised to be there as much as anybody is. So it's going to be a really interesting playoff when all those seedings shake out. It could be that the three or four or five seed ends up in the Western Conference Finals shooting for a Finals appearance. Not only did they bring guys in, or Kevin Durant namely, but they also shipped a bunch of guys out.

Any thoughts on how long that might take them to get adjusted to one another? Well, at the very top end I feel like Kevin Durant is going to fit in pretty seamlessly because he's very malleable. He fit in with the Warriors and he had the Thunder and the Nets and all that.

He's a pretty easy guy to play with because he's just so freaking good. It's the other guy, like you said, they lost Mikel Bridges and Cam Johnson in the trade for Kevin Durant. They brought in a Terrence Ross who was a buyout from the Magic tonight against the Clippers. Terrence Ross led the team, led the Suns in shot attempts. That dude is not afraid to shoot.

He was born with a green light coming out of the womb. So the Suns are going to have to figure out how to integrate their other parts. They're basically very top-heavy now like any quote-unquote super team. The Suns haven't proved anything yet to show that they are one of those. But they're very top-heavy with their top four with DeAndre Aiden, Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant. And then beyond that they're kind of a bunch of 6th, 7th, 8th guys in a rotation. And someone's going to have to step up.

So we'll see how that goes. And sometimes you get through postseason and you win a championship anyway. Because what is the heat? Miami Heat, Lebron, you know, the Heatles. Then Mario Chalmers in their starting lineup. So it just depends on how good really it's going to come down to how good those top four are.

And then the rest of the season will just be kind of shaking out the rest of the rotation. Well and it certainly depends on when KD is available. So what do we know about when he might be able to play again?

You always got to read the tea leaves, right? So when I asked him earlier today when he'd be available, he didn't give a definitive answer. He said, soon I'm close right after the All-Star break hopefully, but I'll leave it up to the trainers. But then just during the game tonight ESPN announced that they have moved a Tuesday night game, Suns against the Thunder, to an ESPN game starting at 8 p.m.

So maybe they have inside information. You got to read the tea leaves on Kevin Durant's availability. It's possible he'll play next Tuesday. Before I let you go, Monty Williams is one of those guys who's been around the league a long time. He stays fairly even keeled.

A lot of respect internally but also externally. What has he said about adding a player of this caliber to the Suns? Well Monty is one of those guys who doesn't give you great answers. You know the first thing he says is, I'm only focusing on today's game. I'm not thinking about that in the future.

I can't because we've got to win today's game. But in the times he has, like it's not right at a pregame or something like that, he has said that they're just going to try to keep it simple with their schemes. But he feels like Kevin Durant can fit easily into the offense and defense that the Suns already have. And they don't have to tailor them other than just letting Durant bend the offense and defense to him.

You know what I mean? So you don't have to change the scheme to make Kevin Durant fit. Kevin Durant will just fit in and just be better than anybody else has been in that scheme. So that's the thought right now.

They're not going to tweak a ton. They're going to try to incorporate him as it is and then modify from there as you find everyone's strengths and weaknesses. Always a lot of fun when the fan base is excited and the locker room is buzzing.

And man, his debut will be something to behold maybe on national TV. But you can find Dave on Twitter at Dave King NBA and he has got the Bright Side of the Sun blog. It's huge. Join the fun for SB Nation. We appreciate a couple of minutes, especially on such a busy day. Dave, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me on. We should all land on our feet the way that Kevin Durant has and be hailed for the fact that we're the incoming king. Incoming king after a three and a half year experiment that did not seem like royalty in Brooklyn.

Did not leave that kingdom in better shape than when he arrived. However, that's I don't want to say that's how we always are as sports fans, because there are times we get all moral and we pick and choose and we decide we have ethics as sports fans. But generally what we want is to win championships. The bling is the thing. The ring is the thing. And the Phoenix Suns, well, they don't got that. And so it certainly is understandable that 3000 fans would show up and be excited and applaud KD. When is he back on the court? That's the question. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.