Kenata Edwards, Eye On CBB Podcast, joins Adam to talk basketball (college and professional) and who is Draymond Green PUNCHING??

This is the Adam Gold Show. Can I say I told you so? Can I say I told you so?

We're going there. You're going to start because you, as a defeatist Mets fan, saw the demise ahead of us. I also saw it out there, but I did not verbalize it, but it's okay. They're not as good as the Braves. I tried to tell you that months ago. I tried to warn you. Here you go with your optimism, Adam. And you're like, no, it's going to be fine. They're still going to win the division.

No, they're going to do that. Don't get swept by the Cubs. Don't get swept by the Cubs. But that's the type of stuff. This is the type of Mets stuff that happens.

Like Mets stuff and NC State stuff are basically the same sort of witchcraft. It happens. So did it make it more painful that the big hit was delivered by Travis Darnell? I said this yesterday to Grant McCauley who does radio and a lot of brave stuff in Atlanta.

And I put this on Twitter and I was texting with Elliot Johnson, who's going to be on with me tomorrow, and Doug Glanville. This is what made it even worse, was that Travis Darnell for like five years in a Mets uniform, actually it seemed like eight, it might have been less than five, delivered maybe two clutch base hits. And in his career against the Mets, part of that was with the Rays, the rest of it has been with the Braves. In his career against the Mets, he's got a 980 OPS. That's more than 200, it's 240 points higher than his overall OPS.

And if you took out the games against the Mets, his career OPS is like 712. It makes me so angry. We need to go find the witch doctor that Ovi has found and probably go take a trip to New Shea Stadium. I figure that we may have to do that. We just might. Meanwhile, just beat the Padres and then let's go have some fun without pressure and take on the Dodgers.

Absolutely. Max Scherzer tomorrow, by the way. Mike, if I had to wager, I would say it's Max Scherzer tomorrow and then Chris Bassett on Saturday, hoping that they can get Jacob DeGrom going game one against the Dodgers.

I think they're going to hold DeGrom to Sunday. Yeah, I read something similar to that, but I just can, because Bassett hasn't looked great. He's been fine. None of them have looked great. You're talking about not looking great. Jacob DeGrom's given up three runs a game like the last five starts. So it's been a mess. Yeah, I understand.

He gave up three home runs against the Braves. That's why they lost the game. All right, let's get to, before I get to the NBA, I want to ask you about, I read the story on CBSSports.com and Kanata Edwards, completely down with anything on CBSSports.com, including great podcasts. The potential of the NCAA tournament expanding, the transformation committee suggested 25% of the teams eligible in each sport be in the tournament, which would mean a 90 team NCAA tournament. I don't see it going to 90, but what I do see are play-in games at the top and in the middle of each of the four regions. Have you talked about this with Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander, who do the Ion College Basketball Podcast that you work on with them? I have not talked about it with them yet. We probably will bring that up because there's a new episode coming out, ironically, tomorrow live on YouTube on college basketball.

You just search that and you'll find us. I promise. The big thing about that for me is I see why they're trying to go play in games. I see why they're trying to extend the inventory because that's the only moneymaker that the NCAA really has. I do wonder if they're going to try to, if this ends up becoming the new Coke product.

And you know what I mean by Coke. You over saturate, you try to come up with something new, something that no one really asked for, that everybody loved the old product. Leave it alone.

Leave it at 68. I understand that you want 90 schools that are guaranteed, but at the same time, and this is something that's been brought up before, if everybody can reasonably make the tournament, doesn't that make it a lot harder to keep your job as a head coach knowing, Oh, you just made the plan. Oh, you just made the first round and you got eliminated there. It's going to create such a landmine for coaches, especially in mid majors and upper, upper majors that are only going to get so far that you're going to have a lot more turnover at the top. And I'm not sure that's going to actually help anybody out when it comes to this. I'm not sure that the people who make these decisions are going to make them based on what's good for coaches.

I mean, coaches can argue one way or the other. I don't think that's going to be a consideration for them. I think the only consideration for them isn't about fair, isn't about, man, there's some good teams left out because no, there aren't. There are some bad teams allowed in.

Not bad, but mediocre teams, mid as a, this is the word of the day here, mid teams that are allowed in. I just think that they're looking at this as a money to money deal. We need another layer of income coming in, which as I'm thinking about this means that it's probably going to be more than just expanding the first four to call it the early eight. But maybe an entire layer of first round games that maybe they can push onto a streamer, onto an Apple, onto an Amazon.

Or a Paramount Plus. That would make a lot of sense too, to get another layer of dollars coming into the NCAA, because as you said at the beginning, 100% true, it's the only moneymaker for the NCAA. It is. And that's what worries me about this is that they're trying to make this money and trying to make up from what they don't get from college football. And there's probably a better way to do this. And this is more like, hey, let's start schedule, making sure that these games in November, they are the best marquee matchups we can do. We can't have just Baylor versus a D2 school or very low division one school. We can't have like, think about it like this, Adam. We're talking about a schedule upcoming where in the first seven days, I think the marquee matchup is Gonzaga versus Michigan State. And that's on the aircraft carrier. And that's the only reason we care.

That's what I'm talking about. Start scheduling these games, start treating this schedule like it actually matters. If we can get time where, okay, the December schedule matters, then conference play matters. And then by the time we're at February, we're talking about down the stretch conference tournaments upcoming and march. You don't need to expand the tournament to make college basketball matter more. They actually just have to care. And that's 90% of my problem with this is that the college basketball season, due to the fact that college football makes so much money, has become an afterthought and has become incredibly niche. Now, granted, I live in this niche and this niche does pay me very, very well. But at the same time, I would like to see college basketball matter more and use some foresight and not have to go to gimmicks to extend everything.

And I think the only thing everyone sees is expansion and expansion, unfortunately, is a gimmick as well. Two quick things about that. I really want to get to some NBA stuff, but one, Kentucky's schedule is great. Kentucky gets it. And they're doing the home and home with Gonzaga.

They've extended that for six years. Most of these games are going to be neutral sites, but they are going to play on campus sites. I wish, like, I don't criticize Duke for their schedule, but I would like to see more from Duke and their schedule.

For the most part, there's going to be like seven or eight automatics and then the rest of it. And, you know, other than the ACC Big Ten Challenge game, there'll be neutral site games, which I'm not against neutral site games. But there is something to having college basketball games on home floors because the atmosphere is what sells all of college sports.

But again, I just just think that they're looking at this from it's purely, purely inventory. Let me get to Draymond Green throwing hands at Jordan Poole. And I know that Warriors are mad because why are we doing this? It's not even a regular season situation where he's mad at Kevin Durant because he knows Durant's going to leave and they get into an argument that they have to be separated.

What the heck happened there? I'm pretty sure this is over money because you got to remember that Draymond's a free agent. Now, granted, he does have a player option.

He doesn't necessarily have to exercise it if the market is out there for him, which I kind of doubt there actually is the market out there for him. This is also about Jordan Poole starting to feel himself, which I get it. You were the third musketeer. You replaced, who was D'Artagnan, Draymond Green. Draymond Green, when he starts feeling insecure about his position on the team or in or feeling insecure about the team, he starts trying to fight and throw hands. We've seen this before. Hello, Kevin Durant. We've seen all of this before from him. So this is just another piece of the playbook. We know Draymond, I don't want to use malcontent because it goes a little bit too far.

But at the same time, we're talking about a guy that can be kind of iffy and he kind of is just who he is and you have to deal with it. And at some point, the Golden State Warriors are going to say no more. And that point might be next season. This may be the last run where we see Draymond, Draymond Green in a Warriors uniform. And you know what?

That's okay. I think we see Draymond next year on the player option at the very least. I have a hard time seeing a separation between Draymond and stuff.

I do. But also at the same time, I see a guy like John Kaminga who has taken steps forward and who has become really, really good. I see a guy like James Wiseman who has looked phenomenal in the season thus far. Now granted, it's preseason.

But you're talking about if you can replace that, if you can find a reasonable measure of replacement, an acceptable measure. And Steph's okay with it because at some point Steph's going to get tired of it too. Like if you get all of that, I can see him being dealt off and being like, hey, expiring contract, go and have it. And again, you again, heavily used Draymond give off to the highest bidder and some team that's going to need the culture boost, AKA, maybe the Charlotte Hornets. A team like that is going to need a guy like that that pays attention to the details, can play a little bit, can play a little bit of defense and be a grownup. Yeah.

Draymond Green being a grownup. Semi. Yeah.

I don't know about that. Compared to other teams. Compared to other teams, he may be a grownup to some. I have a hard time unwrapping my mind around Draymond Green in another uniform. I really do.

But you know a lot more about these things than I and I absolutely bow to your expertise on this. The Lakers, Russell Westbrook said, we're just going to go. If I've got the ball, I can go. Lebron, you go. Anthony Davis, you go.

Are these people crazy? What is going to be different this year than last year with the Lakers other than maybe Anthony Davis will be healthy? I wouldn't go that far about Anthony Davis being healthy, but what I would tell you is that they actually like the coach. It's kind of clear. They actually like the coach.

And they, the message didn't get lost. Lebron likes the coach, feels what he's trying to do, trying to make this a little bit more player friendly. Outside of that, I can't tell you what's going to be different. This team, if they get 50 games combined where Anthony Davis and Lebron play together, they're at minimum a playing team. We know that much. If they get less than that, they're going to be in the same spot they're in now. They were last year. And oh yeah, you know who owns their first round pick this year, right? That's either the New Orleans Pelicans.

So yes. So this may be a spot where Victor Wenbanyama may, again, the Lakers may end up winning the Victor Wenbanyama sweepstakes and at the same time have to give that to New Orleans, which would be hilarious. And which is what I'm rooting for quite honestly at this point. I would not root for Victor Wenbanyama, who I've now seen highlights of, and I'm frightened. 7-3 fluid athlete with the ball. Are you kidding me? Playing already against men, so I'm not worried about will like Chet Holmgren, will he get broken when he starts playing against men?

Wenbanyama is dynamite. So my final thing is about the Pelicans. Is Zion really back? And if he is, are we going to look out for New Orleans?

I'm not going to go look out for New Orleans yet. I think the Warriors are better in the seven game series. I think Clippers are sneaky dangerous because they're only going to need 50 games from PG and Kawhi and they'll be ready.

But after that, it gets kind of dicey and I would honestly put, I think New Orleans is a top four team in the West, quite honestly. I think they're that good. I think they're going to be incredibly excellent. They're going to be fun to watch as long as Zion's healthy and they've done enough to where I'm pretty sure that they don't have to have a healthy Zion to be really, really good to be top six good in the West. That's how good I, but Zion makes them dangerous. Zion makes them probably Western Conference semi-final dangerous, maybe Western Conference final dangerous.

That's how good they are. Oh, man. I just want Zion. I want Zion to be healthy and I want it.

I want the world to see it because that he is as electrifying an athlete as we've seen in the sport in a long time cannot Edwards not have described on Twitter will be okay. We just got to get past the Padres. I don't even believe this. This is setting up for this is setting up for disappointment. I'm telling you now, Adam, take your point now.

Take your black cloud and go somewhere and I'll talk to you later. Absolutely. I'll happily take that out. Gosh, if I didn't I didn't love you so much. We'd have we'd throw hands.

We'd be dream on a Jordan pool right now. All right, man. I'll talk to you later. See not Kanata Edwards. Well, I don't need that kind of negativity. I don't I don't play negativity. This is the Adam Gold show.