Bronny James

[00:00:00] Speaker A: And now it's the time you've been waiting for. You're in the mix with film producer Jason Slack, aka the Talk of the town. Now, the 40 Vision films Man himself, the owner of the Jason Slack brand, the place to be is here on the Vision live network. And now, let's get it in. Welcome to the Slack is Talk podcast. Welcome to the Slackest Talk podcast, aka the Talk of the town. Now I'm your host, film producer Jason Slack, and this is season number four. And on today's show, we got an episode you do not want to miss. So without a doubt, let's get it in. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Welcome to the Vision Live Network. You are now tuned in to the Slack is Talk podcast hosted by film producer Jason Slack and presented by the Vision Life Network. The Vision Life Network is the home of a number of today's popular podcast. Since you are already a fan, you might as well subscribe. Visit www.visionlifenetwork.com, go to the Slackestalk podcast, then click the subscribe button. That's it. It's that simple. The show will be delivered to your device every time there is a new episode. Now you can hear all the talk from the 40 Vision man himself. Thanks for tuning in to the Vision Live network where you can experience our vision live. 40 Vision Films and Godstar Productions are two proud sponsors of the Vision Life Network, working together to bring us the best listening experience possible. 40 Vision Films and Godstar Productions, two marquee names in our industry today. For more information, visit fortyvisionfilms.com. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Welcome to the slackest Talk podcast, aka the Talk of the town now. And today is Thursday, May 16, 2024. And on today's show, I'll be talking about current NBA prospect Ronnie James and overall, the history of the NBA draft and how things have drastically changed as far as players getting drafted into the NBA today. As always, man, I want to give a special shout out and special thanks to all my listeners, my fan base, for tuning in with me. As always, man, it's a, it's a pleasure. It's a blessing. Y'all know y'all could have been anywhere in the world right now, but y'all right here with me. I appreciate that. And on today's show, man, I have yet another banger. And this one is dealing with sports. And you could consider this a crossover show, but this one is like, mainly it's more dealing with the business side of sports. More specifically, the business side of basketball, the operations, you know, the business side, how how teams look. More, this has more of that, that general manager feel that I've been talking a lot about lately, and I felt like this is a good topic, man. This is a good discussion to have. We're talking about Ronnie James, son of definitely, you know, first ballot hall of Famer LeBron James. And basically, you know, he has entered the NBA draft as far as I know. You know, he, he could test the waters, which he's doing right now at the combine, which we'll talk more about later. And he's still eligible to withdraw his name and return to college. But the debate is whether or not does he have, did he show enough in college to be considered a real NBA draft prospect, or is he just, like, going off of his father's name? That's the debate. You know, some people say he's ready. Some people say he's not. Some people say it's crazy, you know, that he could even enter the draft or think about this. You know, we got opinions that range all over the place. And I wanted to talk about this because, you know, I'm a coach, and I had an AAU team, you know, 13 championships. We went on a historic run here in the South Carolina area. You know, we created, we created history. And as many as y'all know, I talk about it all the time. You know, all my players went to the next level. They were attending colleges. You know, we universal. We all over. We all over the world, baby. You know, all over the world. You know what I'm saying? And this was my plan. This is exciting times, man. A lot of my players, some go to the same school. A lot will be playing against each other as fun times. And time goes by fast, man. It goes by fast. I remember, like, it was yesterday, you know, when we was winning these championships. And now, you know, I have kids going in their second year in college. I still have some, you know, going for the first time. I have, you know, kids that's entering the transfer portal. It's just, you know, exciting times, man, like, to see the options that they have and stuff like that. And what I'm getting to is time is going by fast, which means it's only a matter of time before they're eligible or, you know, I have somebody that's thinking about entering the NBA draft, and when that time comes, I want them to be prepared for it. You know, when they, when they, when they made that decision, I wanted to be like, no doubt that they belong. And I want all them to, specifically to listen to this show, listen to this episode, because after they listen to it, they're going to have a good idea of what's expected from them, because when you do, when you make decisions like this, you want to leave no doubts in people's mind that you belong in, and this is for you, you know, I'm saying, and that's what I want for all my players. That's my, that's my plan. That's my goal, and I want to speak it into existence. So, you know, I decided to do this show so they can have an understanding of what's needed and what level they should be on. Now, to start off, I want to talk about the history of the NBA draft. I want to talk about the history. I want to talk about the NBA draft that I grew up watching and became, you know, and had an understanding how it goes and what type of players are involved in this process. Now. Understand, you know, we're gonna have some drawback. You know, we got some people say, you know, that was back in the day. Things are different now and stuff like that. Yeah, I understand. That's true. Even though, like, certain things, like, times change, people get older, and people do things differently, not all the time and not, not all the rules and everything involving a certain situation should change. You know what I'm saying? Some things should be, should remain the same. Some things should always have that same standard. Regardless of whether you change the overall outlook or not, you still got to have certain standards, and that's what I'm here to talk about. Now, back in the day, when you had the NBA draft and you kind of knew what college kids were coming out, I would say give or take. Maybe like the first six or seven pics of the draft, you knew or you believed that you was getting a franchise player, a cornerstone, a guy that could lead your franchise an instant, day one contributor. Now in a normal situation, you know, this is one of those things that have changed. Now, before I make this statement, I'm gonna, like, discuss one of the changes. Back in the day, you know, there wasn't too much free agency. Now, let me explain what I mean. You always had free agency, always exists. But it wasn't nothing major. Like, basically players, they switched teams. It was kind of, like, rare. It was like breaking news. If a player, like, switched the team, a friend. Well, let me rephrase that. A franchise player. So, like, you know, magic Johnson played with the Lakers his whole career. Bird played with Boston his whole career. I say it. Detroit, of course, Jordan, until he, you know, he decided to come back and play with the Wizards in general. You know, you had Patrick Ewing, the Knicks, David Robinson, San Antonio players wasn't switching teams like that. You know what I'm saying? You had a franchise player. Like, he was there for the most part until he started, you know, getting old and maybe a team wanted to move on or something like that. Now, the same could be said with trades. Trade trading has always been around, but in general, it didn't involve franchise players too much unless like something was wrong, you know, something somebody didn't get along with somebody or, you know, there had to be like some kind of story behind it. But mainly the trades were like rotational players and, you know, backups and little drafts here and there. But for the most part, you know, it was kind of quiet on that front. And the main reason was, you know, there wasn't outrageous contracts yet. You know, people wasn't building brands. The basketball players were actually about basketball. It wasn't about, like, building a brand. You know, I'm saying it was. People played in the all star game. They were trying to win. Times were different than it was, than it is today. You know what I'm saying? And I say that if you are a team that picked anywhere from the first pick to the 7th pick, you were getting that franchise player normally because, you know, free agency wasn't big and trades wasn't that big. Normally that player was going to a bad team. You know, there was no tanking, but he was going to a team that had a perfect fit for him. He was. He was going to a team that was able to hand him the keys from day one, you know, that team may have had somewhat of a leader on the team already, but when that player got drafted, nine times out of ten, he was the most talented player on that team from day one. He just didn't have the experience yet, but he was the most talented. Now, when these players got drafted in the top five or top seven, they were already battle tested. What I mean by battle tested, you know, they played on some of the top teams in college. You know, they were, they were vying for either they won a championship in college or, you know, they were, they were playing for it. You know, most of these players are not all of them. They average 18 points or 20 points a game in college. They were dominating the college ranks as well. They played more than one year of college, so they were seasoned. They were developed. They were coming in the league developed already, which is, which is big. And what I say, by what I mean by develop, not only was the game developed, but their body was developed. They were going into the NBA with the NBA body already as far as, like, being in shape, as far as, like, size, strength, hitting a weight room. And you had, before you entered the league, you had the experience of at least playing against your peers like the top players, the other top players in college basketball that were also getting ready to go to the NBA, just like you. Now, everybody can't beat a superstar. You know, if somebody has to be second, you know, somebody has to be in the rotation, things of that nature. Now, some players in college, that wasn't the focal point of the team. They might, they might have been looked at as maybe the second best, sometimes even the third best, when even those players get drafted. They might get drafted in the, in the late teens, early teens, late teens or whatever. Maybe not top ten. Sometimes scouts recognize it and they still get picked in the top ten anyway. But even those number two options and number three options that go later in the first round, even they go on to become superstars because they battle tested. And they also know how it is to, to play behind a superstar or somebody that's regarded as being more talented than them. And that's key, because when you get drafted in the later rounds, you're going to a, that's when you start going to a better team. You're going. It's not, when you get drafted in the, in the late teens, early teens, it's not like you're going, you may be going to a bad team, but it's not like you're going to the worst situation. You know, when you get picked in those teams, the, how should I say, you know, the state of the teams are getting better. You know, top five is the worst. Six to ten, you're getting a little bit better when you get in those teams. Those are fringe playoff teams that are, you know, and those rosters already have talent on it. You're not expected to carry from day one or be the guy, you know, you're expected to fit in, which you have already been doing in college. Now, in many cases, those number two options in college turn out to be better than the number ones. And I can list, like, many examples of that. And it's just about coaching and it's about scouting. You know, it's about recognizing talent. And I feel like those are one of my, that's one of my specialties, recognizing talent. Case in point, the North Carolina Tar heels. You know, Michael Jordan played with James Worthy. James Worthy was the man over there. But I would, you know, I would like to say, you know, Michael Jordan has a better professional career in the NBA. I don't think nobody would argue with me staying in the Tar heel Lane in college, Antoine Jameson was the guy. You know, he played alongside Vince Carter. But professionally, I would say Vince Carter had, you know, the better professional career. And there's a lot of cases like that. A lot of cases like that now. You know, there's sports, there's sports shows all over the world. There's experts that have their opinion, and the talk of the town always seems to be, you know, who's better? Is Jordan better or LeBron better? Are the players back in the day better than the players today? You know, it's a worldwide debate, and it's a debate that's going to go on forever. And it's always an entertainment, entertaining conversation, and it always will be. But truth be told, you know, we would never really get to find out because those players can't really play against each other. Spoiler alert. You know, I mean, I keep it real honest. Like, I keep it real here on the Slackest talk podcast, and that's no different. But the reason why I bring this up, you know, people like Gilbert Arenas, he thinks that the players today are better than, you know, the Michael Jordan era and stuff like that. You know, he's one of the shows I listen to. And like I said, you have to be a fan of what you do. And I disagree with that, respectfully. And I'm a fan of NBA players today. I have nothing against them. Like I just said, you know, I got kids that's getting ready to go to the NBA. I'm speaking it to assistance, you know what I'm saying? I got a team, a U team of players that's getting ready to go to the league in the next year or two. You know what I'm saying? I'm a fan of today. You know what I'm saying? It's just an opinion. Right? And one of the things that I noticed about, like Gilbert Rinas, and not just single him out, but I noticed, like, one of the things that gets said, it's more shooting, it's better shooting is more, and it's more scoring and in the game today than it is back in the day. And what I would ask is, and I I agree with that. I agree, I believe that it's more scoring today than it was back in the day. And now I'm thinking about it, it's kind of questionable because back in the day, they had some high scoring teams, too, you know, saying. But I would say that I think the defense has gone down. The defense has become less than the party. Plus, the new rules has allowed, like, more scoring. That's one of the things. But the question is, even with more scoring and more talent, why does it seem like the college players today are averaging less the college prospects that came out? You know, in the late eighties, early nineties, it seemed like you averaged twelve points or 13 points in college and you're a top ten pick nowadays. Now, I'm all for opportunity, and I believe certain people get overlooked. And I just gave you an example of that, of how, you know, sometimes you're not the best player on the team in college, but you can go on to have the better NBA career. But I also do think that there's a standard and a player needs to show a certain level, a certain level of ability before they could be considered a strong candidate to be selected in the NBA draft. And when I come back here on the Slackest Talk podcast, we're gonna talk about what some of those standards are, what needs to be seen, and how you can be taken serious as a draft prospect. Keep it locked. It's the slackest Talk podcast. What's up, world? What's up? Slack is talk community. It's your boy 40 vision films. And we back here again with another slackest talk question of the week. And I gotta say, man, y'all been on your sports ish lately, and this is no exception. This week's question is regarding the NBA playoffs and this, and we're talking about the NBA Finals. What matchup do you think is going to happen? And for this question, the nominees are, is it OKC versus the Boston Celtics? Is it the Minnesota Timberwolves versus the New York Knicks? Is it the Denver Nuggets versus the Indiana Pacers? Or is it the Cleveland Cavaliers versus the Mavericks? Now, Cleveland has been eliminated, so we can take that off the list. And they also also gave me an option of other meaning. If I don't like none of these choices, I get to pick my own. And on this one, that's exactly what I have to do. On this one, I'm going to go with the Denver Nuggets versus the Boston Celtics. I think as far as on the Denver side, I think, you know, they obviously, the defending champs, Jokic, even though I don't think he should have, he won another mvp, I think they should have gave it to a man. Shot is. Shot is here. Shot, Gildress. Okay, see, that's a different story. But Denver, the defending champs, I think they're on another level right now. Minnesota? No. KC. They're young and up and coming. Dallas is just not. I don't think they have enough. And Boston all year long has just been on a another level than anybody else. And aside from that, you know, I wouldn't mind to see my boy Tatum, who of course want to do. I wouldn't mind seeing him get his first championship. So overall, I think that would be a good matchup. Boston versus Denver. Y'all know how I do it. I'm a Chicago Bulls fan. It doesn't really matter to me either way. I'm here for the entertainment part of it. But for this question on Slackest talk, I think it's going to be the Denver Nuggets versus the Boston Celtics and the NBA Finals. That concludes this week. Slackest talk, question of the week. I appreciate y'all keep the questions coming and we'll do this again next week. Peace. If you are a musician, dj, podcaster, radio host, or you do anything dealing with an audio platform, check out a company called Sonar. They specialize in musical WordPress names and services. If you are looking for a good mp3 audio player for your radio station or something to showcase selling your music online, Sonar is right for you. They have hundreds of professional templates for you to choose from and to give you the look you're looking for, visit Sonar IO. That's S o N a a r IO and set yourself apart from the competition. And we here, it's your boy slackest talk, aka the talk of the town now. And we talking about the NBA draft and Bronny James overall in general as an NBA draft prospect, should he enter the draft, will he get drafted? You know, does he stay in? Does he go, you know, I mean, go back to school? What are your thoughts, man? Hit me up on social media and let me know. But on our first segment, you know, I kind of was going over, you know, some of the basics, some of the history of the NBA draft and, you know, some of the numbers were suspected with a first round or draft pick. Talent, you know, should look like, you know, what's expected, things of that nature. And in this segment, man, I want to dig a little bit deeper into it and I want to talk about how, you know, the times have changed and how the draft is, is now looked at. Now, at first we talked about how, you know, you had a top five, top seven selection. You know, you were getting a superstar. You were getting the cornerstone, a franchise player. Nowadays, it's not necessarily like that. Nowadays, I no longer think that that's true. And this is gonna sound like, you know, or come off as, you know, hating. But if you listen to the logic, you know, you hear me out, you would understand, like, where I'm coming from. Back in the day, you know, a player played, you know, went to college his senior year or played three years. You seen him do it on the cop, you know, dominate the college level for three years. Nowadays they doing, you know, one year and they averaging twelve or 13 points. I don't know if you can look at that and feel like that's a guarantee. Every now and then, you know, somebody like Wendy comes along and you might get, you know, Anthony EdwardS and, you know, you might get two or, you know, three after that, like, things become a little unclear. People do draft and stash. They draft them and, you know, they draft overseas players and they have no intentions of bringing them over to another three or four years. They drafting on potential with what they believe a player could be instead of what they seeing them do. There's all kind of differences, you know, all kind of, you know, differences in politics, you know, and a lot of business aspects of it going on now. Now this is just to explain why I don't necessarily believe, like, that's true all the time is because when you do that, when you draft in potential of what you think somebody might be or you stashing somebody on the other end, it takes away an opportunity for somebody who has shown it and somebody who is showing it now and somebody else that's ready to step in the door now, you know what I'm saying? And that's what you call like, waste, wasted talent now. Now, as I mentioned earlier, in college you have what you call like a number one option, you know, the so called, you know, best player on the team. I talked about how sometimes that's not always the case. Even though, you know, he's putting up the highest numbers on the team in college, he could be playing with a guy that's more talented than him. That second guy is just not given the opportunity. And I even gave you a couple of examples of it. You know, Vince Carter, Antoine Jameson, Michael Jordan, James Worthy. There's a whole bunch of cases of this now. That's where the scouting comes in. That's what the scouts get paid for. You know, that's what makes the money, you know, finding the dominants and the roughs and the people that's not highly celebrated and stuff like that. That's where, you know, good scouting comes in at. And I'm a believer in this because that's what I did with my AAU team. I took kids that were from teams that played with their school that wasn't, they wasn't featured as number one. But I knew they could be that and I gave them the opportunity to be that on Dreamer League and they delivered. So, you know, I know all about that. You know, and what's happening now is people are getting drafted in the top five and you're not. There are players that's coming off the bench in college, that's going in the top ten. There's players that's only playing a certain amount of games, that's getting drafted, that's still getting drafted in the top ten, top 15. There's all kind of situations like players that you never heard, you know, players overseas. Like I said, drafting stash. People averaging below probably like ten points still, still getting drafted. And for every guy that's, that's averaging ten or eleven points, that's getting drafted, there's somebody that's averaging 20 something that's not getting drafted. And the goal of the NBA or any professional league should always be to acquire the top and the best talent. Now this drafting players off the bench and the draft and stash and all that and drafting for potential, it has a good side. GiaNnis the greek free he was so, so. He was a 6918 year old. He didn't put up dominating numbers, but there was something, there was, there was some talent there to look at. And Milwaukee gave him the chance and look at him now to go back further in the day. Portland drafted Vita Sabonis years before he ever, like, played a game in the NBA. Like years like he was supposed to play with Clyde Drexler. And, you know, Portland drafted him and chose the way. And when he did come over, even though he was hurt, he put up. You know, he gave Portland some great years. They had some great playoff rounds, so the draft and stash thing could work out. Drafting piles on the bench and finding dominance in the rough, it works out. Now, let me tell you the flip side of that, the downside of that. Ronnie James, if I heard right, as averaging what, like five points a game and it's one college season. He is currently, you know, participating in the NBA combine and reports were, you know, vertical is off the chain. He hit nine three pointers in a row. You know, his three point shot, his percentage was off the charts. And, you know, leaping ability, athleticism is all a plus. And he's just checking all the boxes. He's, you know, showing up right now, I got a story for that, too, that I'm gonna share with you. But now let's say, you know, he gets drafted, right? He stays, he gets drafted and, you know, he goes in the first round. Let's not even talk about, you know, how the career turns out and stuff like that. Cause he's, you know, love it. Young kid. Going to the NBA is everybody's dream. No doubt about it. Have no, no, nothing wrong with that part of it at all. We just talking about the draft, the level, the expectations. That's what this is about. Now if you start to go on that merit, we start to work on the merit of, hey, you know, the numbers in college don't matter. All you have to do is go to the combine, test well, put up good numbers, and then you're automatically a first round pick. Let's say that happens and that becomes the normal, right? It's going to open up pandora's box for the NBA, and it's going to be the start of some problems for the league. And I'm gonna tell you why. And it's not, like I said, nothing against, like, Ronnie. I'm talking about the NBA draft, the numbers and, you know, the expectation and as far as, like, your resume and what you gotta show in college, you know, to be considered, you know, NBA prospect. The same, same. The same thing would be said if it was anybody else, right? The NBA. Now, getting back to the situation at hand, the NBA saw this problem years ago when they had kids coming out of the woodworks, like, declaring for the draft out of high school, right? Let me give you that story. So back in the day, you can go to the NBA straight out of high school if you felt like, you know, you was on the level. Now, at first, there were certain people, there were certain people here that did it. Like LeBron, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady. The list goes on, right? But now going, you know, going into what I'm talking about here, they were off the charts. Kevin Garden net numbers were ridiculous. 20 something points he averaged, like, damn near triple double. Kobe Bryant was. Was killing high school. Tracy McGrady was killing it. Everybody that came out of high school was killing it. And then they were almost. Garnett was good right away because he was 611, because Kobe and Tracy McGrady were guards. You can't say right away. It took a little adjusting because logically speaking, you know, everybody is not 611. There's not a whole bunch of. Back then, there wasn't anywhere a whole bunch of 611. Cats in the league that could come in and just dominate a six six guard, you know, six six guards were everywhere. 611 is special. So Garnett had, you know, greater success right off the bat than McGrady and Kobe and all them. Now, you know, the people that did it, that came straight out of high school, their numbers was exceptional. They were off the charts. Like, you knew they were ready or you felt that they were ready. But then something happened. There was kids that said, oh, you know, man, you know, we can go to the NBA right out of high school, and we can get paid and, you know, we can go to the league like that. We ain't gotta go to college. Everybody and their mother, next thing you know, started declaring for the draft. There were point guards in high school that was declaring for the draft, and you just. They were good, they were decent, but they wasn't off the charts. They wasn't exceptional. They. They were just. They were putting up numbers in high school. But point guards, a dime a dozen, there was nothing special about them. It wasn't like they were averaging 40 points or something crazy that just said that. This made you say, oh, yeah, that person is ready, you know? And next thing you know, they were like six one guys coming out of high school. There wasn't, instead of the 611, six six, there was six one guys, 511, you know, just regular, regular joes entering the draft, and these guys wasn't ready. You know, they. They got drafted on potential. Maybe some didn't get drafted at all, but once you did that and declared for the draft, you can no longer go to college. And not only did that team that drafted you, you know, they got set back, but these players couldn't go back to college and their careers got messed up. And, you know, some of them hung around for a little while, but others didn't. And the NBA lost all that talent. You could almost say, like, they lost a whole era of talent, man, of kids trying to, you know, go to the NBA straight out of high school because they. They wasn't ready. You're not battle tested. You didn't have a body. There was nothing special about you. And they flamed out. This is kind of going to be similar because it's just the way the world works, man. It's the way the world works. When one person do something, it opens the gates. Everybody's going to try to do it, and it's just going to become an epidemic at the end, man. It's just going to become a flood at the end. If. If this becomes a situation where, you know, your college numbers don't matter. Um, your height. Well, I ain't gonna say height and weight, because if you can play, you can play no matter what size you are, whatever, you know, so that doesn't, like, factor in. I would say, though, that it would help if he was 6869 or something like, you know, six six or better. I think people would like that would give it an extra edge, you know what I'm saying? There's 6162 guards all over the place, you know I'm saying? But again, if you could play, you can play, you know what I'm saying? If this becomes the new thing where the college stats and the numbers don't matter, all you have to do is go to the combine and show out. There's gonna be hundreds and thousands of prospects lining up to try to do that same thing. Now, if he does it, he gets drafted and he becomes, he lives up to the height, and, you know, he becomes a player. Hey, okay. You know, we found a new avenue, a new way of doing things. But if it doesn't work out and you have hundreds of people doing this, it's going to cause a setback for the NBA because teams will be drafting, you know, players that just aren't ready. They're not ready. And in any sport, you know, like I said, I'm all, you know, I'm down for change. I understand that things are not going to remain the same and all that. And, you know, regardless of what sport you're talking about, it could be basketball, baseball, football, hockey, whatever. I understand that there's more. There. There's more stuff that goes along besides whether or not the player could actually play. Like, their attitude, you know, work ethic, how they carry themselves, the environment, the preparation, attitude, how. How good of a teammate they could be. Are they able to be coached? It's a lot that goes in, into it. There's a whole lot that goes into one individual player when you evaluate and you do your research. But one thing that should always remain the same, I don't care what year it is, when you evaluate a player and you look at a player, and that's any sport, any sport, the first thing that you should look at and the first thing that you should notice is whether or not this guy could actually play the game. That's number one. And two, is he good at it? And then you get into everything else. But if you start ignoring the actual play and you look at everything else, you might be setting yourself up for a disaster. And I'm gonna take a. I'm gonna take the last break here on the slackest talk podcast. And when I come back, I'm gonna talk to you and tell you a story about how when you look at other things besides the play, what can happen to you and how it can set you back. Y'all go get something to drink real quick, man. We be back. Y'all don't want to miss this. It's your boy slykers talk. You know what the most important thing about building a brand is? Deciding who handles all your web development and marketing needs. Visionworks is the one stop shop for all your business needs. The team at Visionworks provides all services like logos, website design, hosting, emails, service, and much more. You can even buy everything you need from their store. Just go to visionlivehosting.com and choose from thousands of business products and plans. Start today and thank me later. Follow the Slackest Talk podcast on Facebook, Instagram, or your favorite social media platforms. And we back here on the Slackest talk podcast, we talking about Bronny James and we talking about the NBA draft. Is he ready to turn? Probably. What does these kanban workouts mean? And what is the future of the NBA draft from here on out? Now, you know, I'm a student of the game. I love the game of basketball. I grew up on it. It's my first love. I'm glad that my son plays. I'm glad that I was able to coach. I'm glad that I was able to win championships, all that good stuff. I watched the NBA, I watched college, I watched some high school. I love the drafts, you know, the playoffs. I love it all, man. Just being out there on the floor, being competitive, I love it all, man. I'm all for it. Now when it comes down to the combine, right? I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter. I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter. But also, I'm not going to tell you that it's everything either. Now, in any sport, you have to be an athlete first. You have to be an athlete in any sport. You want somebody that's able to run, you want somebody that's fast, you want somebody to be able to jump, you want somebody to be able to turn the corner. If you're a football player, you know, you want somebody to be able to change direction. You have to be in shape. You know, you have to get up and down the court. The play doesn't stop until the whistle is blown. You know, it could be a good. Four or five minutes straight with no whistle. And you have to keep up pace. Not just your pace, but the pace pace of the other team or the pace that your coach want to play. There's a lot that that goes into it. You have to be strong. There's going to, you're going to be going up against people that's bigger than you, you know, stronger than you. And you have to have some strength. You have to have strength to post people up. You have to have strength to stop people from posting you up. All of that stuff matters. If you're a baseball player, how far can you throw a baseball? You know, you have to have a strong arm. Football. If you're a quarterback, you know, are you accurate? How far can you throw? The mental side of it, you know, can you read the defense? That goes for football. That's mainly football, but basketball as well. You have to. You have to be able to recognize and understand how this team is playing you and to call the right plays and understand what personnel you have on the floor, your attitude, your mentality. Are you a leader? Do you like to defer to other people? You have to be vocal. You have to call out the picks. You have to call out something that you recognize. You have to talk out there to each other. Communication is key. You have to build. You have to have some experience. You have to build what you call. I'm losing the word. You have to build chemistry with your teammates. That matters. Just simply knowing where somebody is on the floor all the time, that helps. That helps a whole lot. You have to be dedicated. You have to love the game. You have to be willing to work out every day. You have to be willing to put in the work. You have to be willing to study film, study your opponent. Does your opponent like to shoot? Does he like to go right or left? Is he left handed or right handed? What moves does he like to go into before he gets off his jump shot? It's good to know these things because you have to have an advantage. You're trying to get every advantage that you can because everybody's a professional. This is not a matter of you're bigger than the person or you're just more athletic or you're just, you know, you overwhelm your opponent. There's no such thing. No more. These are all professionals you're going against now. So all details count. And I'm all for it. I'm all for it. But these things at the combiners is not everything. You still have to go out and perform. You still have to go out and play the game. Whatever sport that this person is in, they're going to be playing the actual game more than they work out, more than they practice, more than they study film. And the production on or off the field or on the court is where it's at, is what matters at the end of the day. Now, as far as the combine, right? Let me tell you something about the combine. Let me tell you a story about the combine. And I know this is a different sport is football, but again, you know, athletic is athletic. You know, training is training. You know, at the combine, at these combine events, there's no defense going on, there's nobody in front of you. You're just seeing how high you could jump, how good of, you know, how good you could pass with nobody in front of you. All types of events, you know, with nobody in front of you, which, you know, I'm glad that you able to do, but it doesn't be actually doing it in a live game with, you know, defenders trying to stop you from doing it. Now let me give you a story. Different sport, but same issue about the combine. My team, the New York jets, you know, we were in the market for a quarterback. We had the number two draft pick and there was this guy named Zach Wilson, quarterback, BYU. And it's combine season. You know, the, the jets were, you know, undecided on who they wanted to take. It was between, basically between him and Justin Fields. Right. You a football player, you know what I'm talking about. Or football fan rather. You know what I'm talking about. Well, anyway, the combine came around and Zach Wilson, he did this one play, they had him going to receivers. He did this one play where, you know, he ran to one side of the field, he do the football across his body for about 40 or 50 yards and he hit a receiver on the money. Everybody was like, ooh, ah. Everybody was just going crazy. That was just the best draw that they had ever seen before. And blase, blase, blah. You know, this is, this kid is going to be great. Yada, yada, yad. All the hoopla and all that kind of stuff. Now was it a good throw? Yes. Was it impressive? Yes. Can everybody do that, make that throw? I'm not sure. Right? I'm not sure about that. But it's the combine. There was no defense being played. There was no 300 pound lineman in his face trying to jump on him. There was no hand up, you know, there was no, he wasn't being harassed. There was nobody trying to stop him. It was a free throw, no harassment, nobody in front of him, clear vision, the whole nine. Everybody went crazy. The jets drafted him. And, you know, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I mean, I'm not gonna carry this on. The man turned out to be a bomb, you know, couldn't read defense. Just basically couldn't do anything, you know, at all, man, at all. We got top talent around him. He still couldn't produce. He would overdo receivers, he would throw balls in the dirt. And if he got. If he do for over 120 yards in the game, it was like paradise. Now, I'm not saying that that's going to be Ronnie. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just giving you an example of what could happen when you go off the combine and the combine alone. When you go off the combine and you ignore what somebody does on the court or on the field, you're asking for trouble. Big time trouble. Now, the result of that, because we took him, it set us back. We still have been set back. I believe that if we had any other quarterback in the league, we would probably have a championship by now. And the end result, we had to go out and get 40 year old Aaron Rodgers, and we have to pay him 35, 40 million the season. So this is the kind of thing that could happen right now. I'm not going to say. I'm not saying that that's him, but these things, this is what happens, or can happen when you go on the combine and you ignore what happens on the court and performance wise. Now, let's finish up by actually talking about Ronnie, right? He averaged five points a game. Five points. Now, you don't want to write them off and just look at the five points. That's not fair. You have to. You have to. You have to treat this like anybody else. You have to, like, take a deep dive in and let's look at all the information that we got. You have to look at what is his natural position. He's six one. I hear that. He's not a point guard. Okay, so is he a knockdown shooter? And if so, you gotta keep in mind that he's six one. Most shooting guards are six four and up. So there's that. Um, you have to talk about fit. You know, if he's six one and he's not a point guard, what type of guard is he gonna be able to fit next to that counts. When you look at his college numbers, how was he playing against, you know, the level of competition that he faced? Was he. Was he consistently going against top notch NBA prospects in college, that matters. And that seems. That's one of the things that get overlooked a lot. The level of competition that you face, a lot of people ignore that. And going back to Zach Wilson, he played at BYU. They didn't play Clemson. They didn't play Alabama. They didn't play Michigan. They didn't play Auburn. And those are the schools where they're sending prospects to the pros. So how well did he do against those guys that are going pro? That factors in when you look at his minutes. Okay, if he didn't play a lot of minutes, who did he have in front of him? Is the person in front of him? Are they going. Are they going to the NBA? If so, you could maybe make a case and say, well, he just wasn't given a fair shot. But now, if the guy in front of him is not an NBA prospect, then that might be a problem. If you couldn't get on the, on the, on the floor, you know, with a guy that's not going to the NBA in front of you, then that needs to be looked at. What is his specialty like? Like, what does he do best? Like, Steph Curry shoots threes, clay shoots threes. Draymond plays defense. Rebound, you know, give you a little bit of everything. Kavon Looney rebounds. Everybody has a specialty. Not to say that they just do that one thing, but this is like, something that they great at. Like, what is he great at? Once you identify what he's great at, you have to decide, is that something that you need on your team? Obviously, if you feel like he was underutilized in college, do you have the guard on your team, all the players on your team, that that would be a fit for Bronnie to be able to unlock the potential that you think hasn't been tapped yet? That's the biggest question. That's the biggest question. If you're going to decide that he's worth drafting and he is an NBA player, then you have to admit or have to know that he didn't show. He didn't show it in college. So then the question becomes, do you have the guard or the type of team that can fit the unlocked potential that Brownie has? That's your biggest question. And if the answer to that is yes, then you draft him. If the answer to that is yes, without a doubt, you draft him. If you feel like you can unlock if you feel like he has unlocked potential and that potential that hasn't been tapped is a weakness on your team, then by all means, you draft him. But when you draft him, you have to have the patience and the willingness to him to develop and to also see it through. If you're gonna spend a draft pick on it on him, you owe it to yourself to develop him and see your vision through. If you don't see the vision through, then you just drafting them, to be drafting them. And if I'm Ronnie, as I go through this, this process of testing the waters, that's exactly, this is exactly what I'm looking to hear. Like, listen, we understand that, you know, your numbers in college may not be up to par, but we watched you. We like you. We think that, you know, you wasn't played correctly. You know, you have a lot of untapped potential, and the type of potential that you have is currently a weakness on my team. I could use you. I'm willing to. I'm willing to draft you. And when we draft you, I'm just not drafting you, just to drive you. I willing to develop you and see this operation through. That's exactly what he needs to be. You know, he should want to hear when he makes his decision whether or not to stay in the draft. Now, as far as me, y'all know how I get down here on the slackest talk podcast, I have to give you an answer of whether I think he's ready or not. Me personally, I don't think so. But then again, there's a lot of people that. That wasn't ready, that left anyway to go to the NBA. That left college anyway to go to, you know, the NBA. But the thing that I'm concerned about is he's six one. If he was six five and up, and I know, you know, it's gonna be a lot of drawback. You know, height is not everything. You know, if you could play, you could play. And that's. That's true to an extent. But what I'm getting at you, six one, the league is just littered with good point guards all over the place. And he played college with two good point guards and Boogie Ellis and I believe Isaiah Collier and them two were coming out. You know, in the draft, there's ten to 15 other guards his height that's also coming out. So the league is just flooded with 6162 point guards all over the place. For me, it's just a matter of if he needs to be developed, it's a matter of not being lost in the shuffle, you know, going to the right team. And he's not a traditional point guard. He doesn't really have a defined position. That's my take. And, you know, I would develop more. And I understand, you know, times have changed. That's just not the way, like, people are doing business. I understand the urgency. You know, he wants to be in the league with his father and vice versa. I get that. And also, you know, he had a medical scare, you know, about, you know, a couple of months ago, you know, over a year ago. So that that probably factors in as well. But that's my take. With the right team, you know, somebody willing to be patient, there's a window that this could work. But now to end this, and, yes, I have to go there. Mark this down, write it down. Take a picture of it. You heard it here first. Here on the Slackest Talk podcast, there's going to be a team, an NBA team that does draft him. If he decides to stay in, there's going to be a team that drives him, and they're gonna draft him in hopes of maybe the possibility of his father also someday, possibly joining the roster as well. And maybe this has been worked out already. Rumor has it that LeBron was recently at a Cleveland Cavalier game, and it is time for him to change teams again. And also, not for nothing, but the Cleveland Cavaliers have recently just got eliminated from the playoffs. Just saying. But we'll talk about that another day. This has been the Slykers Talk podcast, aka the Talk of the town. Now, I'm your host, film producer Jason Slack, and we almost at the end of May, so the draft is right around the corner, so we don't have long to find out the answer. So when the time comes, man, we'll do another episode on this. Until then, we'll be back again to talk next week. Peace. You're listening to the slack is talk podcast, aka the talk of the town. Now. Now find out what's going to happen next.