Nata Edwards, Eye on CBB Podcasts/Locked on Hornets, helps Adam figure out whether the Lakers are trying to unintentionally tank or not.

Time to talk tanking and some basketball and life with my friend, Kannada Edwards, cbssports.com.

Not a describe on Twitter. All right, my friend, are the Lakers unintentionally as an organization, even without a first round pick tanking? Can you really call it tanking if you really, if it's not like intentional tanking? I said it was unintentional, but I don't think that's the thing. I don't think you can call it tanking if it's unintentional.

So you're just disorganized and poorly managed. They set that roster up with the intent of winning. I think they set that roster up with the intention of being relevant.

Now granted their idea of relevance and our idea of relevance, two different things. But there's a, I feel like there's a reason they haven't traded that 27 and 29 pick. And I think they understand that, Hey, this roster is only going to go so far and we'd rather be relevant. And I didn't think they factored in the whole thing of Russell Westbrook, not being able to shoot or West Russell Westbrook, basically being Carlton from Bella and fresh Prince of Bel Air. It wasn't trending toward this. It wasn't trending toward this like, but then they, they, they supplement Westbrook's missed field goals by bringing in Pat Beverly to miss more miss, to miss more field goals. What were they doing? Adam we all know that one friend that's going through that life crisis that keeps making bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.

And we're out here surprised that the Lakers are doing it too, especially when they're trying to gain that relevance that they thought they once had at one point. Here's what I would like. I'm an idiot.

I have, I absolutely admit that I don't know what I'm talking about. All right. Why didn't they trade Anthony Davis? That was the asset because they could LeBron James can win with other great players. He doesn't need Anthony Davis. Here's the question I have then are you going to get back the just the treasure trove of picks that the pelicans own? Like are you going to be able to negate that that's, I think they could have gotten players who could have helped them win though. And some pick. Yeah. You're not going to get everything back.

Yeah. But you were like, at what point do you trade him? Are you saying you trade them for 50 cents on the dollar? Cause I'm not sure you make up for that, that loss of, of picks.

I'm not sure you even get that back at seven, like 65, 70. It would have to get like 80 cents on the dollar for Anthony Davis and get that from him. Anthony Davis is 50 cents on the dollar at this point. We know he's going to be hurt.

We know that he is not going to be there when it counts. I mean, this is just, this is the player he is. Our friend, Bhimani Jones likes to refer to Anthony Davis.

He's not a big man. He's a tall man and that's, there's a huge difference in that and they need Anthony Davis if the Lakers are going to maximize, which they can't do now with this team. They need Anthony Davis to be a five, a center.

And he has no interest in being a center. So they're kind of, they're kind of SOL on that or, or the, the Hornets are anti tail. What are the Hornets doing? Why are they winning? I think it's early. I know. Like it won.

It's early. It's 20 games in, but I like, I don't think they were ever intentionally tanking. We're talking about this team being owned by a man that we know and has been documented over five hour long episodes of being and you think he was going to sit there and take a tanking year where you know, Steven A was going to say sell the team. Yeah. Charles Barkley was going to say sell the team. Yeah. I thought he was going to like, and mind you, he did this once 10 years ago to the day and for trying to do it for Anthony Davis and mind you, he got the same criticism that he would have gotten now.

And now on top of that, there wasn't the bridges situation or the book night situation. There's all of this stuff going around. You think he wants to tank and take all those spears and arrows and then only end up with a six pick. No, I wouldn't do it either. I, I, whatever you have to do, Michael Jordan, they should freeze an envelope for him so he can get a Victor women Yama. Have you ever seen anything like that?

By the way, I've, I've never seen anyone like Victor, Victor women Yama. The thing that I also think we kind of underestimated with this hornets team is that there was a lot of young talent that needed to learn the details. And then the one thing about Steve Clifford and his coaching staff, they're really good at teaching details and they're really good at extracting talent and winning in the margins. That's, I believe what the plan was for this team when they had to go to the emergency button and hire Steve Clifford. He's there to extract this team, extract all the details, grow them up. Because as we've seen in and out of the headlines, this team needed to grow up. But at the same time, there was a lot of talent to this team. Steve Clifford is to bring in the extract them extract this talent out and they're going to work hard when other teams and we saw it Sunday night when they beat the Hawks by 18 that yo, some of these nights other teams aren't going to bring it. They are. And that's going to get them to a 37 39, maybe even 40 wins. And we're all going to be surprised and be like, how did they get there? Because Steve Clifford does these things over and over.

And we keep forgetting that we haven't seen his movies when we absolutely have Nada the Scribe is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. All right. So I want to talk about the Brooklyn Nets here for a second. Again, all of all of these records really don't matter at this point because we're just a handful. We've been playing basketball for a week and a half.

So it's not a big deal. Whatever Brooklyn's record is. And I don't frankly, I don't even know what their record is. I know they have been losing and that's okay.

It's early. But Ben Simmons is the same Ben Simmons. He hasn't played basketball in two years or more actually. And he's the same guy at some point. Don't you have to be better than that guy because that guy is going to make it harder on everybody else.

Yeah. But I think it's different when you have a Joe Harris that comes back and a Seth Curry that comes back. That guy can you can live with that guy because that guy doesn't need to shoot everybody else around him will be able to shoot.

He's going to, you're going to have to get used to him. And I think we still got to wait that requisite 20 games. I think that Ben is going to be some version of this version of Matt and granted that you don't want that kind of version of Matt, Ben Simmons, when it's he you're paying almost 25, $30 million a year.

But at the same time, this is Josie, it's not my money, I don't have to worry about the ROI when it comes to Ben Simmons. But if he makes it easier defensively, yo, I'm like, I can live with that as long as he gets the shooters back. And if the shooters get back, they'll be fine. I saw something where they were like a 126 offensive rating was with KD Kyrie and Ben Simmons, ironically, I think they'll be fine. They're going to outscore a lot of teams. They're going to be gone and around in the playoffs. And we'll continue to do this because you know what, none of them are going anywhere. Well, that's true.

They're well Kyrie is not under contract next year. Wendy's new French toast sticks are so delicious. Some are saying that they're better than their mom's breakfast. Excuse me. Did you just say Wendy's new French toast sticks are better than my breakfast?

Mom, is that you? Answer the question. I said some people are saying that because they're so crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside and perfect in every way. Uh-huh.

And what do you think? I think it's time to tell people to choose wisely. Choose Wendy's new sweet and crispy homestyle French toast sticks. That's still not an answer.

I participated in U.S. Wendy's during breakfast hours. They unfortunately, I think the Nets understand they can't, they can sign him to whatever because where's Kyrie going to go? Like what, you're going to go play for the Hornets?

Okay, good luck. I'd love to see that happen for all the wrong reasons. Right. You're going to go to the Lakers? Oh, you're going to play for the mid-level? That'd be cool. Like where is he going to go?

He's going to be back in Brooklyn. It's only a matter of like the price tag on this. Like they're all in a relationship where they understand they're happy, they're, they're semi-miserable where they are, but it could be even worse if they leave. That's unfortunately, that's the way it is right now. What is the best story for the NBA this year? What would be the best thing that could happen to the NBA? If I'm honest, it's whoever is in that 11th draft slot gets the number one pick. Oh, okay.

Because that way we can start talking about, Hey, maybe this team, this team tried hard, did everything right, just missed the playoffs or gotten to the play in tournament, just missed and got Victor Wienbanyama. I'm with you on that. That's the best story. You know, it's funny.

Someone jumps up. I'll give you this. When we were setting up today, front office sports had a piece that the, the NBA actually considered using some sort of relegation. Take the, the two worst teams, send them to the G league and elevate two teams from the G league, which of course on its face is silly because the G league teams are affiliated with NBA teams. So that would be, I mean, just completely bonkers and not to mention the financial structure of the, of that would be completely untenable. But I wonder if you could just inverse the non playoff teams to say that the best ones get the best chance of the first pick.

I would argue this. If you're going to do that, you might as well just eliminate the draft. We might as well take that one extra step further, eliminate the draft and turn July 1st into national NBA signing day.

Oh my God. And I think we would get even more crazy ratings. You would have the Kyrie's with the Victor Wienbanyamas with the Thompson twins, with the Gigi Jackson's.

We might as well, if we're going to do that, we might as well reward everybody by saying, Hey, why don't we eliminate the draft? Yeah, but how did the Sacramento Kings feel about that? You mean the Sacramento Kings that have been getting the fourth pick and have had this culture of like, this is where like the culture would actually matter. Like, cause they look at, look at the Minnesota Timberwolves, they were supposed to be better this year. I thought they would be better. They're already bickering.

You have Carl Anthony towns talking about Anthony Edwards eating habits. They're only a week in culture matters. These kids are going to, again, these kids will have more information about the culture of, of a locker room than we ever will. They'll pick places.

They're not going to pick the winners. They're going to pick the places that they can play and they can get to that second contract. People like they're going to be places that you think, okay, they're never going to play there.

Okay. See being one of them, Charlotte may be another, Orlando may be another that are going to be like, okay, we can play here. We can get our second contract. We can get paid and there are going to be plenty of teams that are going to be willing to be that first contract spot for them. And therefore eliminating the draft is always going to be the better alternative to whatever fix we think of the draft is going to be because unfortunately the draft is always going to have those massive flaws and you can't, and it will always be game done for you. So we keep the completely unfair first contract because all the players that's all unfair, but that's fine. That's the way the owners want it.

They don't want to pay these guys. So we keep that, but eliminate the draft. So when Benyama can go say, Hey, I want to play with LeBron. So we can go play with LeBron. That's the way to say, you just saved the Lakers, canada. I know I saved the Lakers, but at the same time. Would you imagine Victor and LeBron having a conversation and be beautiful. And then we would get Kareem getting salty about another Lakers center passing him in legacy.

There's, there's a whole bunch of storylines that we haven't yet to think of. And basically we all do that by eliminating the draft or better yet, maybe Victor goes to the Knicks and the Knicks become nationally relevant for the first time in almost 30 years. I'm trying to remember. I fixed the league.

You did fix the league. I'm trying to remember when they were nationally relevant because I mean, I grew up in Nix man. Yeah.

Okay. They went to the finals in 99. That was the Spreewell team.

Yes. Yeah, I guess. I guess they were. That was kind of a surprise though, getting to the finals.

So I'm not. Maybe the Carmelo Anthony years. No, they were just, they were sort of a side show. They were just an attraction, but they were the next outer side show. That is true.

That is true. And I think that if you go when, if you went back to the, to the seventies, the Knicks were legitimately good. My favorite era of Knicks basketball was the Bernard King era and Hubie Brown. I loved when Hubie Brown was the Knicks head coach. That was my era of Knicks basketball. Final thing, basically because you're based in Charlotte.

You and I have had this conversation before. Is it malpractice from the front office that the Panthers turned down to first round picks for Brian Burns? I need to know what the picks were. Like if they were, if they were picks this year, if one of those picks was this year, 28th this year, 28th this year, 28th next year, Wendy's new French toast sticks are so delicious. Some are saying that they're better than their mom's breakfast. Excuse me. Did you just say Wendy's new French toast sticks are better than my breakfast?

Mom? Is that you? Answer the question. I said some people are saying that because they're so crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside and perfect in every way. Uh-huh.

And what do you think? I think it's time to tell people to choose wisely. Choose Wendy's new sweet and crispy homestyle French toast sticks. That's still not an answer.

And participating US Wendy's during breakfast hours. Yeah, no, that's malpractice. It's malpractice. I understand, like I understand where anyone's like, yeah, you don't know when those picks, but if it was 28 this year and you have, I don't know, five and 28, you can still move up and get a quarterback. Like you can get the quarterback you need. And as much as I like Brian Burns, like he's still, you're still regarding him kind of on potential and he misses entirely too many sacks.

You cash, you cash out high with him. If it was DJ Moore, this is a completely different conversation because you're going to need someone for that young quarterback to come in and perform, but he wouldn't bring that much anyway. I don't know about that one because I think about the A.J. Brown deal with that. And A.J. Brown brought back a pretty decent haul. And that was for a guy that clearly the Titans didn't want to pay for. So I would personally say DJ Moore, you got to give me three for that. You got to give me like the A.J. Brown deal.

If you're talking about Brian Burns, two first round is absolutely appropriate. And I don't, I think I'm closer to you saying malpractice and I'm not at this point. I appreciate you agreeing with me.

It makes me feel good. Canada Edwards at not a describe on Twitter. You're the man. I appreciate your time, man. We'll talk to you. Talk again very soon. Absolutely. We'll commiserate over the Mets.

It is what it is. They got to the playoffs. They got to the class. We're the Mets. Right?

Like what NC state complaint if they got to the, you know, one of the, you know, the answer is yes. Nevermind. I apologize for that. Uh, thanks man. Talk to you later.

Talk to you soon. You got it. All right.

Half time. All right. Sticking with the theme. Spooky theme. Are we, uh, we're doing ghosts again. Yeah, so the headline got me with this one. And then I read into it more and I thought, okay, uh, things that make you say, what? So you can now get buried alive.

I can. Uh-huh. And dug back up, but only for $57,000, buried alive, writing this down, check, then dug back up. So you won't like die, die exhumed only for 57 G's, $57,000. That's it. Is there financing?

Uh, maybe potentially you could get a care credit card because you know, that's appropriate. This is a startup in Russia that is offering people to be buried alive. Now the reasoning for this is because it's supposed to give you a renewed lust for life. I guess if you need some spark, um, and that comes with a full fake funeral, according to your religious customs, of course. So like, will I know who comes to my funeral? That would be interesting. Maybe they'll have a guest list in a video so you can see it.

That would be very interesting to see who comes and see how they, what the conversations are. Uh, so do they, I mean, they have to bury you in something where you can breathe. Yes. Right. Here's, okay. Here's the kicker. This is what they call the perk of this whole situation. You get to keep the coffin as a souvenir.

I would want for 57,000, I would want to keep the coffin. You might as well for when the real time happens, you know, can I, can I, I mean, I have to ask a question. Yes.

How did you find this story? Oh man. Cause I love digging. Haha. Get it. Oh gee. Are you serious? Get it.

Did you just do that? How did you find this story? I have my, uh, I have my ways.

Oh, that's incredible. I have my ways. So yeah, no, this is a real legitimate thing. Now if you don't want to go like full force into this, just dip your toe in, you can have an online funeral version that only cost $15,000.

Can I be, can we do this exact same thing, but with cremation? Ah, you know, I don't think it works out though. Really? Yeah. Don't think so.

No. Good thought though. Way to think outside the box. Cremated and then somehow like put back together. Fire today. Oh man. Again. I'm done. Time to go home. Time to go home. Yeah. No, I'm sorry.

I had to, when I saw this story, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe you started halftime entertainment with that. I know. It's downhill premiere.

Everything is downhill. So yeah. Anyway, that in case you need something to make you, um, I guess grateful for being above ground, you could go below ground for this 7,000. I mean, you only need a handful of people to who have 57,000 disposable dollars to do this. I mean, you get 10 people doing this. You're set. Exactly. You don't have to actually work for real.

10 idiots who think that this is it. Right. That's what I need. I need to be buried alive and then exhumed. How long are you kept, uh, below, uh, below, uh, didn't say that.

So I guess maybe just enough until you like, feel grateful to tap out. Maybe there's a bell. You ring it like when you're done, like, okay, I'm good with life. Can we go see a movie? You got to wait till the funeral ends. True. Who, to see who actually brings you the flowers, literally and figuratively.

Imagine if you didn't wait till the funeral ends and the expression on their faces. Uh huh. Now you're really. Here we go. All of those people are the people who answered yes to have you seen a ghost boom from yesterday.

That's it. And hopefully they're a friendly ghost ties all together. It does also another spooky theme. So as we've talked about, I love scary movies and I did not realize this, but apparently people who love to watch scary movies versus people who don't like to watch them at different times of the day. So there was a poll on just when you like to watch horror movies. Now people who don't like watching these scary movies prefer to watch them at night. You would not think that you would think they'd want it to be bright and sunny out so they don't see Freddy Krueger coming around the corner or they can't see them.

Well, no, it's the opposite. And people who like scary movies supposedly like to watch it during the day. I can say as someone who likes to watch scary movies, no, I want it spooky. I want candles lit. I want to be scared because I don't need to be in a box.

I just want, you know, like you got to live in the moment. So I don't know. But this poll says that, you know, that's how people like to watch them.

So who knows? I don't like to watch them. Well, see, and I was going to say for you, does it matter when it doesn't like to. So you don't care whether it's light or dark. I will say this though. During the day, I'm not watching a movie.

No, I'm not. Just not any movie. I don't care what the movie is. During the day, I'm not watching it. The only, only, only time I think I ever watch movies when the sun is like still out is if it's one of those rainy days.

Like if it's just a gross and it might as well be halfway dark, like if it's rainy or it's super cold and it's a snow day or something, I could see snuggling up and like watching a movie in the afternoon. But no, we used to in a way, a little bit of a tradition, although it wasn't an every year thing, we used to oftentimes we would go to movies on Christmas day. Oh, yeah. It's like a traditional, that's when they release a lot of big movies.

It is. That's the day I saw Godfather 3. Oh, perfect. I think that was the last time I went to a movie on Christmas day, to be honest.

Not to date anything. Gosh, that movie was so bad. Yeah. I remember exactly where I was when I saw that movie. Don't you hate it when you're disappointed for a movie? That movie was so bad. I know. See, sequels, I don't know.

That's a whole other topic, but. Godfather 2, arguably better than Godfather 1. Very true.

So it's not across the board, depends on the series, if you will. But Godfather 3 was wholly unnecessary. It was. And on a good note, not a bad note. And last thing.

So I know we've talked about it being cuffing season now. So now I'm thinking about, was it a bear? Was Cuffington a bear? I think so. Paddington is a bear.

Paddington. Yeah. You had the last portion of it, right? I think I, I think I. Maybe. I think I combined two things.

Bears that are dating are Cuffingtons. I think I combined two things. Maybe that's what they are. Yeah, I did. What? I did. I combined two things. And that's, and that's fair.

And some people will know where my mind was at, are laughing right now. It's okay. That's what we do.

That's what we're here for. Well, if you are dating someone, this, this whole thing, this article in particular kind of spun off. Okay. So the interesting part is a spin off from the original one. Apparently there is a steak company like Beyond Meats.

Have you heard that? Yeah, absolutely. Those kind of burgers. Yeah. Well, they're making a steak where it's a fake steak now. Okay. Yeah. And so this whole like article was just about whether people who eat real steak would eat this fake steak, but this then spiderwebs into a different article, which says a lot about a person.

Okay. If you like your steak well done and you put ketchup on it, and this is a first date, don't count on a second date because your date will be judging you. And I thought there's two faux pas in this. Why are you getting your steak? Well done.

A real one. And then why are you putting ketchup on it? Well, if it's well done, you have to at this point.

Cheese and ketchup help everything bad. That's out of necessity. Yeah. It's just...

Yes. So if you go on a first date and you get a steak, hey, and I know people love ketchup, so I get it. Some people love it. But if it's a really good steak, you don't need ketchup.

I don't know. That's my personal thing. They've already ruined it, so it doesn't really matter. And we're talking real steak here, not a fake one.

I have not had a fake steak, so I cannot say what that tastes like. They're doing amazing things with Beyond Meat. They are. They do a lot.

There's a lot. So, yeah. But just in case.

First date. Maybe go for like tacos. Yeah. Yeah. You can do non-meat tacos.

Do fake tacos. Yeah. Sure.

Why not? You can put all the ketchup you want on them. Gross. But yeah. Yeah, that is. I know.

I completely agree. Uh-huh. Wendy's new French toast sticks are so delicious, some are saying that they're better than their mom's breakfast. Excuse me. Did you just say Wendy's new French toast sticks are better than my breakfast?

Mom? Is that you? Answer the question. I said some people are saying that because they're so crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside and perfect in every way. Uh-huh.

And what do you think? I think it's time to tell people to choose wisely. Choose Wendy's new sweet and crispy home-style French toast sticks. That's still not an answer. I'm participating U.S. Wendy's during breakfast hours.