Gas Can Guy (7-5-23)

Yes, Josh Graham has opinions. There is nothing that entertains the audience and the masses more than me being bothered. And yes, he's got attitude.

Really, none of the game made sense to me. And that's exactly why you love him. When this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together. You're on The Drive with Josh Graham. Welcome to A Wednesday Drive. You are listening to WSJS, News Donk Sports for the Triad. Where it's good to be back in this chair after an extended holiday weekend. Happy 4th to all of you.

Except the folks setting off fireworks in Winston-Salem at around midnight last night. You guys are the worst. You know who you are. I'm... I can deal with it. Willow the dog on the other hand? Not a big fan of your work. Sarah Bradford I'd imagine not so much either.

As somebody who has to be up a lot earlier than I do. Anyway. While we were gone, we got our first look at Brandon Miller in action with the Charwood Hornets. And it only took one half of summer league basketball to set ablaze NBA Twitter. Or at least what's left of NBA Twitter.

Shout out to rate limits and such. Brandon Miller had more fouls than points in the first half. Then suddenly you started hearing, Oh! Michael Kidd Gilchrist all over again. This guy's a boss. LOL Hornets. Same old Hornets.

All of that. Now, to be clear. I preferred all along Skoot Henderson over Brandon Miller at number 2.

But that's ancient history now. It's now time for everybody. And especially those who wanted Skoot over Brandon Miller. To move on and give Miller a real chance to succeed here.

Because it seems like due to how unpopular the pick was. There seems to be opportunists among the Hornet fan base. That are looking to unfairly jump at this guy. At every single opportunity that they get.

For example, let's start here. Summer league basketball does not matter at all. It's not interesting. The only time that it's interesting is when Victor Webinama is going to be playing. Which by the way, he'll debut against the Hornets.

This Friday night in Las Vegas. But summer league basketball does not matter. Two thirds of these rosters, maybe more than that. Are not going to be playing in the NBA. They are glorified exhibitions.

Nobody cares if you win or lose. It's essentially wooden bat league baseball in the NBA. That's what it is. It's like following spring training and getting worked up about somebody's batting average. Or what their ERA is.

Down in the grapefruit league. That's what this is. It does not matter.

Stop acting like it does. With that said. Hornets Warriors tonight in Sacramento. Jazz fingers. Oh yes.

Super exciting. To be honest, this is probably the part you'll disagree with. You shouldn't overreact to his entire rookie season. If we're being honest about it.

Now, I'll add a couple of stipulations to that. You can overreact if he's awesome. If he's awesome right away as a rookie. Then yeah, by all means you can overreact to that.

This is just talking about if it's negative. And it takes some time for him to figure it out because god forbid he's a rookie trying to figure it out. So that's the number one stipulation. The number two stipulation being if Branden Miller hasn't figured it out in his rookie year.

And Scoot Henderson happens to be amazing right out of the gate. Those are the two situations where I'd be okay. It would be more than understanding if Hornet fans overreact in a negative way. But until either of those things happen. If until we get to that point. It's hard for me to make any types of judgments about what this guy's going to be. He turns 21 in November. The basketball draft has become the baseball draft where you're not really expecting these guys to be real rotational pieces or real dudes with a few exceptions. Maybe one or two guys until years down the line. Until he's 23, 24 years old. You're not expecting him to do a lot.

Or at least you shouldn't. Especially when you're an organization that has the longest playoff drought in the NBA like the Hornets do. They haven't been in a seven game series in seven years.

But going back to Monday. He had his debut in Sacramento against the Spurs. He showed some good things in the second half. But it's amazing that there was so much negative reaction to five points in the first half, six fouls.

Oh, boss, here we are. That nobody paid attention to the second half of what he did. In the second half, he had 13 points. On the game, with that bad half included, five of 11 from the field had this nasty driving bucket that he scored in the final 15 seconds. Nasty in a good way, by the way. He shot it decently from three, I think three of seven. And guess what? After six fouls in the first half, he only had one in the second half.

That's pretty darn good. But pretty early on here, let's set the expectations. Summer league doesn't really matter at all. His first year, if it's bad, if it's negative, don't overreact to that.

Especially early on. And even if you wanted Scoot Henderson, you gotta give the guy a chance if you're a real Hornets fan. It's time to give Brandon Miller a chance and stop talking about Scoot Henderson here. On Twitter, at WSJS Radio, if you want, and that's where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch.

Will Dalton is the executive producer of this show. W.D., how did you end up spending the fourth? So my buddy, lifelong buddy, his dad came out from Arizona for the weekend. So we played tennis, played ping pong, played pool. It was nonstop.

I'm refreshed. Competition over and over again. Like at night, are you playing cards? We played a lot of pool at night. Some Monopoly?

Yeah, I lost a lot, but. Hey, man in the arena. That's right. You stepped in the arena.

Yep, I did. Now that free agency and hockey has arrived, the Carolina Hurricanes have been pretty proactive thus far. Given how their season ended. Given how their year ended. Adding toughness was going to be a priority all along for the Canes.

And it's something that they've already addressed with just two signings. But before we get to the players, let's get to the need. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Florida Panthers, or as W.D.

calls them, Florida Panthers. They pushed the Canes around. So this became an off-season priority. Now, the Canes were not just going to add toughness and sacrifice in the way of talent. That's something that Tom Dundon made clear to Joe Oveus and Joe Giglio on their podcast.

Joe Oveus is going to join us in about 20 minutes or so, by the way. And he said, hey, we're not just going to add a ton of goons. Guys who will push people around, add some penalty minutes, just to do that.

No, we want, if we're going to add toughness, we're also going to add talent or at least maintain talent in doing so. And Carolina succeeded with that, starting with winger Michael Bunting. He doubled, get this W.D. He finished with 106 penalty minutes last year for the Maple Leafs. To put in perspective how many penalty minutes that is, second place was 53. He doubled the next closest Maple Leaf in penalty minutes.

So this is a tough dude, but it's not just adding toughness. The last two seasons, he had 20 goals. So this is a guy you instantly plug on your third line, can add some toughness, stand up for his teammates, add some grit. Probably going to help on your penalty kill when he's not the one serving a penalty.

And he could score some goals for you, too. It's a clear upgrade, say, over Derek Stepan from last year's team. And then there was the signing of Dmitry Orlov, who was a Washington Capitals defenseman. It's a two year deal. That is a steal. It's a steal because he's 31 and there were Capitals fans.

I knew this because Capitals fans were lamenting this headline while in the stands at the Baltimore Orioles games I was at over the weekend in Maryland. Wait a minute, this guy just signed to a two year deal? The Caps were talking about getting him for four, maybe five years. Why did he agree to a two year deal?

That is a benefit of being really good. Dmitry Orlov's not signing a two year deal to play for a cruddy team. No, he will sign a two year deal to try and win right now and potentially win a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes. And this guy, he's thick with two C's. This guy, he is the shortest defenseman that the Canes have at 5'11", but only Brent Burns is girthier, bigger.

He's like 215 pounds. So you want to talk toughness again? Okay, you got some experience and some guys who are a little bigger than Dmitry Orlov defensively. And you added a guy who doesn't mind mixing it up quite a bit and Michael Button from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Check and check when it comes to adding toughness for the Carolina Hurricanes. We have a pretty big station announcement that we're going to get to later this hour, perhaps after we chat with Joe Ovius. However, and wherever you are listening or watching, we appreciate you spending the time.

Unless again, you're the one setting off fireworks and scaring Willow the dog at around midnight last night. There is some station news that we've been sitting on for a few weeks that we'll get to shortly. Put a pin in that for about 10 minutes or so, because right now, Joe Ovius from the Ovius and Jillio podcast is now with us. And Joe, just want to lay out the ground rules very quickly. I just want to properly prep for you. I know since you're a podcaster, you probably aren't used to coming on this late in the day.

But this is what we call drive time. And oh, and this conversation is being transmitted on radio signals that are regulated by the FCC, which means you can't use any of those four letter words that you get away with on the podcast space. But with all that said, welcome. It's good to have you.

No, no, thanks for having me on. You'll have to tell me more about this radio thing, this terrestrial broadcast system that that I don't know. Maybe it's like vinyl will make a comeback in the near future. Who knows? Yeah. There are commercial breaks. Crazy. That exists. We love the commercial breaks.

Make sure you sit through every minute of those. I wanted to bring you on to talk about Twitter, which had a rough weekend, to say the least. Hope you're happy. It's been having rough weekends. What are you talking about? It's been a rough go since Elon Musk has purchased it.

But I hope everyone listening that your rate limits have not been exceeded at this point. But let's limit the scope to the conversation when it comes to sports, the impact of sports, because this weekend was really the first time I really started to think about what our sports consumption lives as media, as fans, what that might look like without Twitter. If the app goes away completely, how much different do you think it will be? So there's a couple of ways to look at this. There is the.

I'll put it like this. Social media. This is a larger conversation about social media in that it's getting fractured in the same way that our business has been fractured, in the same way that the television industry has been fractured. And you're seeing a lot of content creation companies like Disney, Netflix, Amazon, complaining about all the money. They're sinking into new movies and shows and hardly anybody's watching them.

They're losing a ton of money. There's just a lot of things that demand your attention, including podcasts, including YouTube and everything else. I think social media is in the same boat where it used to be pretty simple back in the day. Everybody had Myspace and then everybody had Facebook. And then that fracturing started to occur.

Right. Then there came Snapchat, there was Tumblr, there was Instagram and all these other things that kind of came. And they all started wanting to be one thing and people just started sticking around the platforms they were used to. Going forward, you know, I think I've talked about this and I've put it up on YouTube as well and I've tweeted about it. I'm not sitting here telling you that I'm done with Twitter.

I mean, I'll write that thing until it's over. I mean, I'm kind of I like the platform. It's a good platform. It's a really dead simple platform. But the idea that there's going to be a replacement for Twitter is silly because people have started to go to the other little social media platforms that make sense for them, whether it's Discord, whether it's Reddit.

Sometimes it's even the apps like Slack or WhatsApp. My argument ultimately is that people are going back to a smaller group rather than broadcasting everything to a wide community. Pros and cons to this, but the Twitter that we all fell in love with 10 years ago died.

Not just when Elon Musk bought it, it was already dying. I would say it probably died in 2016, honestly, when a whole kind of group of people discovered the platform. So I'm simply arguing that, you know, there's going to be no one place that people in our business are going to be able to go to and gather all the things that we're used to gathering on Twitter. It's going to be over a variety of different platforms, whether it's Discord, Blue Sky, Instagram threads, whenever that launches this week. That's my thing. It's just this idea of a universal place where everybody can go to see what else is going on publicly. That's gone.

The ship has sailed on that one. I'm glad that you say that there are pros and cons to this, though, because one thing that has annoyed me even in the heyday of Twitter is how it just encourages people to do the same exact shows on television, on radio, it seems like. You can almost predict the beats of whoever it might be based on what was trending on the Internet.

It requires people like us to work a little bit harder. And I think what might come out of that is more diverse content and more interesting content. I would make the argument that Twitter I think the biggest the biggest con with Twitter is not the homogenization of content. I blame the seeking of the bottom line and trying to find the widest audience possible, therefore talking about football all the time that has led to content all kind of sounding the same. In our area, you know, I don't know where it is out in triad or how it is in the triad. I'm sure that the trends are very similar to what's going on in like football out this way.

You'll be surprised. No, what I'm getting at is that, you know, the triangle is a very transplant heavy areas. More and more people are moving to North Carolina. It's not just talking about college basketball all the time. It's not just talking about the big four during football season. You the creep started to happen with SEC football. And now the creep has happened with the NFL because we've got so many people from outside the market moving here that still care about their teams back home.

Now, it's easier now than ever for those people. I'll use Buffalo as the example here. Buffalo.

If you're a Buffalo Bills fan who moved to the area or a Cleveland Browns fan to move the area, you have this man. I mean, if you listen on the radio, I'm holding up a phone, which is essentially access to transistor radio in twenty twenty three. So you can constantly connect with your people back home.

It's the same thing that happens in the inverse with us. You know, many people I'm sure you've got this, Josh. You know, many people tell me, hey, man, I moved from the area and you're my connection to back home. Oh, I love it from Kentucky fans.

How many people still listen to stations up that way? Yeah. So you get you get where I'm going with it on that.

So I think that fracturing already occurred. I think the bigger the bigger plus of Twitter kind of going away and not being this ubiquitous thing that sports people have relied on is this idea that Twitter is a true sentiment of fan reaction. OK, it's it's never been a true sentiment. I mean, people go on the Internet to complain. People are typically much more like well-adjusted in real life than they are on social media.

All right. And this goes all the way back to message boards. You know, you go back to the old ACC boards dot net. You had people there that were constantly looking to fire a coach, OK, constantly. And that just eventually translated over social media. It was the same complaints, the same people mad on the Internet all the time or looking to be miserable all the time.

They just shifted where they were doing it. Now they're doing it on Twitter more than anything else. So I kind of I would say about five. Maybe a little bit longer than that, but definitely within five years, I stopped going to Twitter for a true sentiment of what was going on with fan bases. You know, like if state, you know, state lost the game in football.

Yeah, it's really easy to go find the people that want to fire Dave Dorn. But I'll tell you this story, Josh, I don't think I've told the story in a while or if I've told it at all. So you're old enough to remember the time in which Roy Williams before they won a championship in twenty seventeen. There was that gap right between oh, nine and seventeen. Now, it's not even the junk. It was it was it was kind of even before that, I think.

But maybe the junk was related to this. But, you know, UNC would lose a game or they would exit the tournament and you get people online that would want to fire Roy Williams. Right. Like that's your time out. Well, the call your time outs where, you know, Roy is old.

It's time to go get the young guy that's going to care. You know, Roy came home. He did what he was supposed to do.

But now it's time to give it to Brad Stevens. Remember that? That's right. OK, well, shock smart.

It's got to be shock smart. So there was a sentiment online of like people like got to fire Roy Williams. So I, as a joke, aggregated all these tweets and it was like a pointing and laughing like, can you believe these idiots?

Right. And I trolled without not intentional. It was the whole point of it was to just make fun of this sentiment. Like, look at these dopes that are just online being mad.

Nobody really thinks this. But I actually fooled my own employer into running a poll asking if people thought Roy Williams should be fired. OK, now, I mean, all these people are no longer there, so it's whatever, but the social media manager at the time thought, oh, it'd be a great idea.

Let's put it up there. And it was a disaster. Like, what? And people got mad because the true sentiment, the true sentiment came out. It's like, why are you doing like why are you piling on? Why don't you see these people for the idiots that they are?

Right. Like these people who are just going to be miserable all the time. It doesn't matter who the coach is going to be. It's kind of like recruiting. Like once the once the guys sign, what usually happens in recruiting?

The people move on to the next class. They don't care if that guy actually pans out. They only care about the next thing. The next thing. So the same thing happens on the Internet with coaches is like, all right, we got this coach fired.

We got the new shiny object. And within two years, we're like, ah, it's time to move on to the next guy. So that's all Twitter really does is it highlights this kind of stuff.

And the sooner that we get away from that as like a as a measure of sentiment or spending too much time arguing with people who are coming at it from bad faith arguments, the better we'll be for it as a platform. Joe Obvious is with us here. Obvious and Jillio podcast. You should subscribe to that.

I strongly endorse doing that. A couple of quick hitters on the way out. How mad are people about the Canes off season? Are people generally happy about some of the moves over the last week? I guess that's another example of you can go on Canes Twitter and find people who are going to be mad about whatever because they fall in love with a player and they don't want to see that player leave. They're going to trade Brett Pesci. I mean, look, Brett Pesci is a dude, you know, is is Dimitri Orlov, who they just brought on through free agency, better than Brett Pesci?

No, no, he's not. But Brett Pesci is also an asset. And if you feel that his contract is of a certain amount to you and that's what the Canes do, then if they don't see eye to eye on that, well, you're not going to waste the final year of them if you can get something back in return. So I think I think the Canes have actually gone about this really, really smart. I think the biggest problem with the Canes right now is that we have to we're having a hard time getting out of the mentality of what the Canes used to be versus what they are now. The Canes are a cap team. The Canes are Stanley Cup perennial favorites now under Rod Bridenmore.

And the owner is going to act in such a way that's going to keep that going, which means there's going to be some moves that. Are going to ruffle some feathers because there was almost a Stockholm syndrome during that 10 year drought of no playoffs where you really fell in love, like Jeff Skinner is a good example of this. Everybody fell in love with Jeff Skinner. And when you don't have wins to glom onto, you glommed onto the player and people got really mad when they shipped them out of here. And of course, Jeff Skinner is another one of those. Yeah, Justin Faulk is a good example of that.

Yeah, that's a good one. So I'll say this to anybody listening about the Canes. One thing that the Canes have been very upfront about and the sooner you get with the program, the easier it will be for you as a fan and that they have on their spreadsheet what they think you are worth. They're not pulling any punches.

They're not playing any games. It's not a negotiation tactic is we think you're worth X. You can go out in the market and make more money. Or you can be here in this culture and find yourself in a winning situation. And Rod Brind'Amour, the head coach of the Canes, told me and Joe this a few weeks back when we did the exit interview with him.

And he says, you know how many times a guy will leave here and I'll hear from them saying, man, that the money's nice, but it ain't the same. So the Canes know this as part of their culture. And you saw this, I think, with the goaltender situation, both Freddie Anderson and Ante Ranta taking less money to stay with the team. The best example might be Dmitry Orlov taking two years. I was in Maryland when this happened and there were a bunch of cap fans all around.

Wait a minute. He took two years at thirty one to go be with the Canes. Well, that's what happens when you're a contender.

Yeah, when you're a contender, number one. Number two, that's also the Canes understanding the nature of the salary cap as well. This is really nerdy stuff, but the NHL salary cap is set to go up next year. So it's actually kind of an awkward time to be a free agent because these deals are not going to be super long deals, nor do you want them to be super long deals. So in the case of Orlov, he's getting his money instead of term. But when the deal is up, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up getting a term deal because the salary cap goes up. The Canes are also making moves in anticipation of the cap going up.

That might tie into what they're trying to do with Sebastian Aho, who hopefully they'll knock that deal out here soon because he's supposed to be the next captain. Joe Obvious from Obvious and Jillio, thanks for the time. It's good. It's good to hear from you and good to see you. Bye, man. See you in a couple of weeks. All right.

I think all the levels are set. Showtime now. You're on the drive with Josh Graham.

France grades in about 15 minutes. A lot for us to get to since we were not in this chair live on the Fourth of July or on Monday. Over the last four or five days, the Charlotte Hornets have made some moves. Lamello Ball signing his rookie extension, Miles Bridges agreeing to return to Charlotte for one year and then he will become an unrestricted free agent a year from now. There's still some stuff being worked out with P.J.

Washington that isn't quite official yet, but none of these moves should really be all that surprising to you. The Lamello piece, he was always going to sign the rookie, the rookie max because literally nobody has ever turned that down. There's just so much risk to turning down a contract like that, especially when you're as unproven as you typically are three years into your career. And secondarily and specifically with Lamello, when you've been off the floor as often as he has, you don't want to turn around or turn away a contract that's as lucrative as what Charlotte's going to give him.

When you've had difficulty being on the floor last year, dealing with a myriad of different injuries. It felt like this is also a historic contract. W.D., do you realize that this is the most lucrative contract in the history of the Charlotte Hornets? And in fact, it's worth more than twice the amount of the next most lucrative lucrative contracts. There were two contracts the Hornets have given out worth $120 million. Can you name the players, the two of them, that were given $120 million tied for the record amount the Hornets have handed out before this Lamello contract worth $260 million obviously shatters it? Was Kimball Walker one of them? He was not.

Really? In fact, the fact he wasn't given the max is why he decided to go into free agency and join the Boston Celtics. MKG wasn't? No. Time period? Last 10 years. Last 10 years.

I don't know. I would have thought Kimball would have been it. Gordon Hayward and Nick Batum. Wow. $120 million. Those are the record contracts in Hornets history. $260 million for Lamello on this extension.

So that shouldn't really surprise you. Miles Bridges. He's going to play in Charlotte next year and this is the part that's big for Charlotte. He's an expiring contract because he's an unrestricted free agent a year from now. That all but guarantees he's not going to leave Charlotte without Charlotte getting something back. If you have any doubt that Miles Bridges is going to walk away from the franchise a year from now, you trade him at the deadline. And the reason why he decided he wasn't going to take big swing and restricted free agency this year and look at offer sheets and things of that nature is because he wasn't going to get the money that he wanted from teams given his situation a year ago and not playing and having a 10 game suspension to start this year.

Miles, he was not going to get market value. What he feels he is as a player. The only way you drive that value up is by getting back on the floor and playing.

Getting back on the floor and performing. So this year it's the NFL, it's the NBA equivalent to the NFL prove it deal. Where hey, Hassan Reddick signed one year with his former college coach Matt Ruhl, played for the Panthers and then earned himself a huge payday with the Eagles. That's what Miles Bridges is looking to do in his final year with Charlotte unless Brandon Miller shows enough and LaMelo Ball takes a big step. And they show enough that Miles is convinced he wants to stay.

I'd say that's very unlikely though. Which means when you get to trade deadline time, you hope that Miles has been healthy enough and injuries have not been a problem for Miles. You hope that he's been healthy.

You hope that he performs and there's enough that you're going to get back that you don't have issues with him walking. And if you think that's the likely scenario, and I do, that's all the more reason to bring PJ Washington back. You're dealing with his restricted free agency right now. There's some rumors regarding the Dallas Mavericks that maybe that's a place that he could end up and they might extend a lucrative offer sheet for him. There might be some sign and trade possibilities. If that happens, maybe Charlotte has an opportunity to move off of Gordon Hayward's salary. Someway, somehow, that would be a priority for Charlotte if they're able to do so. There's still stuff to be worked out there. But among the moves that we've seen thus far, no big surprises among the two biggest ones.

LaMelo Ball signing the rookie mags and Miles Bridges decided to return one more year in Charlotte. On Twitter, at WSJS radio, if you want in, that's where we're streaming video in addition to Twitter and on Twitch. However, wherever you're watching or listening, we appreciate that. My name is Josh Graham, WD, Will Dalton is the producer of this program. WD, did you try to go to sheets yesterday on the 4th of July? I tried it. Where? So, I'm kicking myself today. I missed out on it. Did you try to go to the one on Windover, the sheets?

Yeah. That's a nightmare. That's the last place I would try to go. I tried the one on Windover.

I tried one. Oh, you drove to multiple. I drove around yesterday because I was kind of all over the place yesterday. And there were some BPs and Shells that were doing this too.

It wasn't just sheets. Is that right? Yeah, because I was like trying to find a spot.

God bless America. Yeah. $17, or wait, $1.77.

77.6 cents. And I tried to do that thing where I was like, okay, it's going to be busy all day. Let me wait till tonight when everybody's done this already. That's what I did.

And still just like I tried one on Battleground. Well, I went, I was driving back from Charlotte. We went to the pool, cook out, hung out. And on the way back, we were in Welcome, North Carolina. And we saw that there was a Sheetz gas station right off the highway. And it was about 830 at night, so we pull off. And this, the cars weren't out in the street the way it was in the morning.

We're off Stratford Road. I decided, well, first off, I was just going to, I only had a half tank. So I was just going to go to Costco and fill up. So I packed myself my potato chips and a, and a sandwich bag. Was it your hot dog? Yeah. I was going to go get some gas and then go get a hot dog.

He brings his own sides. Costco was closed. Yesterday? So I was like, you know what? Yeah. I guess I may. So I went a couple of blocks away where the Sheetz was, and it was a line of cars into the street.

Mm hmm. So I turned it around and said, you know, I'm hungry. I got my potato chips in this bag here. I don't, I don't want to wait for gas. I only have a half tank. So I wasn't going to go. But then I was going to give a, get a carwash either way. And Sarah Bradford said, ah, don't get a carwash yet. I love carwashes. Apparently it's one of her things and we can bring Willow the dog too and see if she likes the carwash. Okay.

So welcome North Carolina. We pull off. They have a carwash and they have the gas tank.

It's not as long as eight 30 at eight 30 at night as it was like at 10 in the morning, 10 or 11. So I'm in line and 15 minutes later I get to the gas tank and the person in front of me doesn't need gas for his van. Just had one of those big freaking tanks that he filled up with gas.

I saw a few people do this. That person's the worst. It's hard to be worse. Is that person worse than the person setting off fireworks at 1130 at night on the four of July?

Which person's worth? You don't need gas, but you're just taking a gas person because it is the fourth of July and it's long lines and we're all sitting here waiting. At this point I needed gas cause I drove the Charlotte and I'm driving back. So I got a full tank of gas, less than 20 bucks. And then nobody, this is part of the thing that ticked me off too.

Nobody was in line for the carwash. So, so sheets gives you this deal, gives you this great deal and you, you don't go buy something in the store. You don't go through the line. You just take the gas.

That's exactly what they did. Terrible. So we went into the carwash, great carwash. They had like flashing lights and stuff. I saw. And Willow the dog, she got a little nervous at first, but then she, I think she really liked it by the end.

I couldn't tell. She, she looked like she was enjoying it or she looked terrified and she looked like she was in a rave with all those lights. There were a lot of lights and a lot of sounds. Willow's first rave.

Yes, that was Willow's first rave everybody. She enjoyed it. It was a zoo, but we got gas for less than $20. And Hey, with the new car that I got from modern last year, it's a hybrid. I drove all the way to Baltimore and an hour and a half on the way back before I had to fill up.

So filled up a little bit and then got gas for less than $20. Your boy's winning. Just not the O's.

And there's nothing that's douchier than say referring to yourself as your boy, except maybe grabbing gas from a gas tank when you don't need gas, having one of those big tanks or setting off fireworks at midnight on the 4th of July. When the world zigs, Hayes Permar zags, he joins us from Sports Channel 8 from a mountainous portion of North Carolina. On the 4th of July, when people go to the beaches, Hayes runs to the mountains or something like that, right Hayes? Man, I got to tell you, the temperatures up here in the mountains make a pretty compelling offer in the middle of July. It feels like I'm in Canada, minus the choking smoke. So yes, I'm loving Ash, Watauga, and what other counties I've been in. Ash County right now currently, great place.

Shout out to Watauga County. A lot of people listen to the show out that way. Hayes Permar, he's in our parts.

We'll claim that at least anyway. We've got ticket giveaways that we will have the option for anybody who calls to win. Matchbox 20, Thomas Rhett, and Foreigner are going to be in our parts. Thomas Rhett in Greensboro, Matchbox 20 up the road in Charlotte, and both in Raleigh and in Charlotte. Foreigner will be in town too.

Your pick of what concert you want to go to when we give away those tickets or your choice of any of those tickets later in this segment. Before we get to skips or plays with Hayes though, the Carolina Hurricanes have been making some moves, and even though you've been nestled up in the mountains, I'm sure you've followed a few of these things. Do you have a feel of this?

You're a fan and you're willing to admit it, like me. Do you have an emotional reaction to what you've seen the Canes do thus far? Yes, we've got many guys with intimidating Russian sounding names. I think there was a Kharkov, and then there was a multi-syllable like a Taraslavov.

All these are good things. Orlov. You know when you're getting these Russian sounding names that, did we finally lock up Tarasovdov? Tarasenko? They have not locked up Tarasenko, and Orlov is the defenseman that the Canes added. Yeah, Kharkov. Kharkov.

Can't wait to have him. Look, you know me, whether it's recruiting with high school kids, the college teams, or signing free agents in the NHL. I can hear all the hype, but I need to see them on the ice. As soon as we see them in PNC arena, I'll be able to tell you who Orlov is. But no, from everything you read, I'll admit you can see why the bleacher reports of the world and all the other sports places they do draft grades, but even better, they do winners and losers of free agents here to draft.

I don't even care to read in depth. I just want to go in there and see those people listening to Carolina Hurricanes as winners. In fact, I can't remember what report I was just reading that had Carolina Hurricanes as losers because the guy was saying these free agent moves mess up our cap space.

I was ready to sign a letter to the editor of whatever this Canadian stupid outlet was. Yes, it's fun as a fan to get draft grades and free agency grades that are all A-plus winners. I love it.

Yeah. Does the same logic apply to NBA Summer League? You just need to see some guys out on the floor, or do you not care at all? Summer League's fun to see. It's fun to see Brandon Miller play. 20 minutes. 20 minutes, Permar. ESPN 2. You've got Brandon Miller facing the Golden State Warriors.

20 minutes. But I feel like it was such a hornet's, so hornet's to be like, Victor Wabinier, the first game ever he's going to play is against the, no wait, actually, you know what, we're not going to waste him against the Hornets. Not even in Summer League. I got bad news for you, Permar.

I got bad news. What? He's going to make his debut Friday, Victor Wabinier in Vegas, and it's against the Hornets. That's what I mean.

That's what I mean. And it's against the Hornets. Wait, it is against the Hornets?

Yeah, the Hornets play them in Vegas on Friday night. Oh, okay. Okay, good. But we played this first the first time. Yes, two nights ago.

Okay. And it was like, yes, Victor's going to play in Summer League, but he's not going to play overnight against the Hornets. It felt like they were trying to keep something cool for the Hornets, but it's good to see that we actually will be his opponent for the first game.

Yeah, I'm sure Hornet fans will love that, the fact that they got the number two pick. And here's the guy you almost got, and he's going to be dunking on Leaky Black's head on Friday. It's hard to care about Summer League beyond seeing, you know, picks one, two, and three make their very, very, very first appearances on the court. Maybe some of these, you know, fun stories like Javari Parker or Leaky Black locally or whatever. But no, Summer League's hard for me to get into, unless you're there.

Let's play Skips or Plays with Hayes. So WD's pulled a song from Foreigner, Matchbox 20, and Thomas Rhett, which leads to the obvious question. Listeners are going to have an opportunity to choose between those shows which one they're going to go see. If Permar had his choice and it could be at any venue, so taking convenience out of it, which of the three are you going to see, Foreigner, Matchbox 20, or Thomas Rhett?

Ooh, that is tough. I don't know who the third guy is, so it's not Thomas Rhett. And like, Matchbox 20 and Foreigner have both have elements of like, neither one are calling to me, but both of them, like neither one would I be like waiting online to buy tickets for. But both of them, if you handed me free tickets, you were like, hey, I got great tickets and Foreigner's playing in an hour, Matchbox 20 playing in an hour, and I'm not doing anything.

I'm not like mad. I'm like, all right, I can get behind either of these concerts, you know? Ultimately, it's also, there's like childhood nostalgia versus high school nostalgia. I may have to go Foreigner just because it may seem more like the radio of my youth is actually coming to life and playing. I don't know, maybe through this, Skips or Plays with Haze, I'll chase my answer.

Yeah, we'll see. What's the first song you have for Haze? We're going to start off with some Matchbox 20.

It's a song from their debut album in 96, Back to Good. You really go in deep cut, Matchbox? Well, if it's... What?

What? This is the Matchbox song you chose? Yeah. Debut. Just because it's a debut doesn't mean it's good. Isn't this the same album it has?

Yes, it has 3AM on that album. Yep. Yeah, I'm going to skip on this. I'm mad.

I'm upset. Clearly, WD doesn't know Matchbox 20's music and he didn't ask for someone's help. He didn't. No, he did not. It sounded like Matchbox 20 covering a Foreigner song, to be honest.

Kind of did. We'll get there. All right, what's next? We'll get to some Thomas Rhett right here. We're going to pick up the mood a little bit. This song is... Get the skips out of the way.

Yeah, that's right. Get it out. Get some of that, Thomas Rhett. I like this song.

I'll knock you when you choose bad songs, but if you choose bangers, I'll let you know. It took everything I had not to skip it, as soon as I heard the name of the song was Get Some of That. Oh, was it Gimme Some of That or Get Some of That? Get Some of That. Get Some of That. Yeah, both terrible and the song is backing it up.

I'm skipping those. Oh my God. Sometimes you can hit a sharply hit liner and it just goes right to the left field or sometimes, WD. That just happens.

You get into ruts. Yeah, I've done it. I bet you have.

What's the last song for Hayes-Burma? All right, let's get some foreigner in here. Maybe give me some pride points.

Hot-blooded. Come on, Hayes. No. I gotta be honest, I did not see this coming.

What? I don't like it. I'm smiling.

I'm smiling. This is good July music. This is a play. Yeah.

Hayes-Burma. I would love to hear it. I would smile seeing that in concert right now. I thought I want to know what Love Is was coming right there.

I was ready for it and in fact, I'm bummed out I'm not listening to that song right now. At least I can get an Eye of the Tiger though. That's my foreigner? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know they sang Eye of the Tiger.

Huh. He went upbeat... wait, double check that Eye of the Tiger is by Foreigner. I don't think that's right because Survivor sings Eye of the Tiger. Yeah, we need to fact check that real quick. Yeah.

Survivor sings Eye of the Tiger. Yeah. I lied. Get out of here with that. I lied.

He was like, it's three syllables, ends in E-R, Survivor, Foreigner, it's the same thing. Yeah. Well, okay. Enjoy Permar, the rest of the mountains and we'll talk to you next week. I will enjoy these temperatures. You guys stay cool.

I'll talk to you soon. Yeah. There he goes. W.D., I feel a bit sluggish and the reason I feel sluggish is because Tom Hamilton, our general manager, thought it'd be a good idea just to bring some quarter pounders with cheese in here to the studio. Yeah.

And what did you do before you got here earlier? Well, no, I mean, I had a couple of quarter pounders with cheese. That's right. A couple of them, yeah.

Here's the thing. When's the last time you had a quarter pounder or any McDonald's in that matter? It has been maybe a decade.

Long time. Yes. Ice cream?

And how good did it taste? You know what? That was a good quality.

That's what I'm saying. Sounds like I'm from Pulp Fiction. That was a good quality burger. High quality. That was a high quality burger. Tasty burger? It was a tasty burger.

I think clearly there's like some sugar in the burger slash bun themselves. I think it's one of those places that you should have every once in a while. And when you do, it's going to taste amazing.

It's a good experience. But if you have it multiple times in a week, let's say, or even multiple times in a couple of weeks, not going to be the same taste. It's not going to taste as well.

No. Or taste as good. You're going to get sick of it. That's right. I like that analogy.

Because that's true. I actually enjoyed that. Maybe once a year, get yourself some McDonald's.

I enjoyed that today. Fries? I don't know if McDonald's would appreciate that endorsement.

Hey, maybe eat here more than once a year. But I don't know, it had been years, plural, since I had some McDonald's. McDonald's knows what they're doing. The fries are undefeated. Never lost.

They know what they put in their food. Don't blame us. I honestly don't know where I stand. I know, sports talk, you have to have opinions.

Just throw them out there and defend them to the death. Chick-fil-A fries, Bojangles fries, McDonald's golden fries. I don't know. I just don't. I don't know how to rank them. I don't want to rank them. I do.

Really? I do want to rank them. How would you rank them? I don't know. I'd have to think about it. I don't want to, because I don't want to make one of them mad.

I like them all. For different reasons. Are these curly fries in there anywhere? I probably... No. No.

They're just not... I think Bojangles probably is eliminated from it, because it's not the actual fry itself. It's the seasoning that gets you... If you didn't have the seasoning, how much you enjoying those fries?

Probably not as much. No. McDonald's is the classic, man. The Chick-fil-A waffle. They are good. I think I'm going to go Chick-fil-A waffle over the McDonald's golden fry.

I think I'm going to do that. They feel and taste like they're healthier for you. I know that's not the point. I don't care. I know you don't, because I mean, why would you eat fries? McDonald's seems more greasy. You get out of here when you start slandering one or the other. I'll go with you. They're all great. I'll go with you on the waffle fries.

Stop. I will go with you on that. We're not going to slander any of the three. They are crispy. They're very crispy. We're just trying to pick between three supermodels here. We're not going to slander any of them. Is Wendy's anywhere in this mix with their sea salt fries? Absolutely not.