The Shot Clock Pod: Wemby’s greatness, Sengun’s rise, Embiid’s rocky start and more!

V1-thepeachbasket_1_10-26-2025_091613 === Jose: [00:00:00] All right, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, Editor at thePeachBasket.net. He's Steve Purciello, a longtime educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach, athletic director, and the host of Celtic Chalk Talk. Celtic Chalk Talk is a pod dedicated to the latest news into opinions surrounding the Boston Celtics from a lifelong fan. Steve, the pod will drop new episodes every Monday. Yes, Monday. Make sure that you listen to the Celtic Chalk Talk added to your list. Steve breaks down the latest and greatest about the some team from the east. I forget which has won a few titles in the past. Apparently. I don't know. You'd have to ask Steve, but he's the host of that team or that, that quad make sure to listen. But this is a shot clock pod, the best 24 minutes of random thoughts online anywhere. This podcast was born outta the contents of Steve's 13 rules around NBA Thoughts articles which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 24 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA [00:01:00] today. We'll discuss his latest 13 rules around NBA Thoughts article where he shares his thoughts after week one of the 20 25 26 NBA season. And there are lots to talk about. Steve, are you ready? Steve: Yeah, I'm ready. Quick thing though, just out of curiosity, there's no Laker discussion today, so do you wanna go on? Jose: Yeah. Believe me. We'll find a way. No kidding. We'll find a way. Steve: I'm aware we've Jose: already had too much Celtics talk, so we're gonna have to balance the scales, so we'll find a way. Don't worry about it. I'm gonna start the timer right now. We'll start with Al Perrin Goon. He's a six 11 starting center in the NBA and a career average shooter of 27.8 from deep. He made five from long range this week. So I gotta ask you, how does that change his game? And, when I grew up watching basketball, six 11 centers didn't shoot threes, right? They didn't shoot from beyond 15 feet. How does this change the game? Let's just talk about the game [00:02:00] overall. What do you think? Steve: The game centers aren't what they used to be. They used to be people who went down on the block and. Banged and scored and thinkink. Kevin McHale, he wasn't a center, but he would just go down there. He had 30, 30,000 moves and he just could score. Centers now are more screeners, rim protectors, and naturally shooting the three makes them value valuable. That's how Al Horford has extended his career because he could hit a three and he knows his place on an offense. He doesn't have to be the main cog that he once was. So the game has changed. San Goon has got a game where he usually likes to set himself up above the top of the key meaning for those young people, that means above the three point line straight on with the basket and he'd get the ball. Now his usually he would go right and go to the basket and shoot, and he was a good player. I wouldn't say [00:03:00] great, but a good player, solid, borderline all star. He couldn't shoot a three. Now, Houston also is a team. They did get Durant. They need three point shooting. Man, V lead is gone. I don't know what he did all summer, but evidently he's become he made five or six in the first game. And he was, maybe he was hot. Maybe that's an outlier, however. However it changes the game a for Houston. 'cause it brings a defense out and opens up driving lanes for everybody. And if for, they need it for a guy like Amir Thompson because he's not a great shooter and he's better going to the basket. The other thing it does brings people out on Shang Goon now 'cause they're a threat of a three. He can go to the basket. And he's got a better shot of beating his man. So Shang Goon can raise his game from being a real good player to the borderline. Great. And with [00:04:00] that, he becomes better, if you noticed, in the first game against old KC against the game that in overtime against Houston and OKC the what was happening was they were running a lot of high screening roles with Durant and he. Now that thing changes, you can't drop as much anymore because Shang Goon could literally stay out above the three and shoot. Yeah. So the game changes a little and it gives them credibility, Houston credibility as a shooting team. And Houston does need some shooting from the three. That's the one problem. They really have. So he does that. He makes the team better, but he also makes himself. Much better and much more difficult to guard. Jose: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see if this was an outlier or not, because that's a big jump. He's shooting 500 or 50% right now from three. Great start. Let's see where he if things level off, they probably will. Let's stay with centers. Joel and bead a great center. [00:05:00] More of a traditional back to the basket center. He's on a minutes restriction, but he didn't look right against the Celtics. What did you see from Embiid? Steve: I, last night he score 20 against Charlotte, so it changes. He played the same 20 minutes and then the same pattern a little bit into the fourth quarter, and so on and so forth. In the rest of the game, I guess six minutes each quarter, but. The thing, and against Boston, he looked very tentative. We think he didn't wanna shoot the ball, didn't want the ball, and was very content in screening and staying out above, above the three line. And he took a three, a couple threes and he didn't make much. But the point being he really didn't wanna be part of the offense. What I start thinking is finished or. Is he scared mentally? And is he rusty? So there's a whole mess of things going on that, that you are thinking when you are watching him. Last night he looked a lot better probably because he made a couple threes early [00:06:00] and that gave him a little bit of confidence to, to do other things with the ball. It's a jury that's still out. I think what he does understand is the game has changed on his team. It's a guard oriented team, not a big oriented team, because at the end of the game, if you were watching Quentin Grimes hit A three to win the game, really with a couple about, I don't know, five, 10 seconds left. After it was over, EMBI was not in the game. And if you think about, we'll talk about that in a second, but he was the first guy up to come to one of the first guys up to, to congratulate crimes, which told you something. The other thing that's really interesting when you think about it, Nick, nurse, their coach is got 20 minutes to spread out. How does he wanna use Mbbi knowing it's mbbi and not knowing what he looks like right now? My mind would say I'm gonna play him the last four or five minutes of the game. I'm gonna put him back out there. But he hasn't [00:07:00] done that. Jose: Right. Steve: That's a subtle message that he doesn't think MB is really there. And anyway, you got Ma Maxie and Edgecombe. They're the story. Yeah. So you're gonna use them and what does it leave be? And one more thing. And this is for whatever it's worth. The other guy in this is Paul George. Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Steve: An all pro. He's hurt. Which has been like a regular story, but when you think about it, I believe there's $112 million tied up in those two for the next George, I believe, has two more years, and Beads got four and I, and bead I think is around 59 million a year, and it's gonna go up. Speaker 3: Yeah. Steve: So if there's 112 and I forget exactly the cap number for tax, but let's say it's one 50 that doesn't leave a lot [00:08:00] of money. And Max, he's gonna get his 30. He does get his, his money. Sure. So what do you have left before you're in that second apron? I don't know the number, what a second apron is. But, and you can't think about trading George or Embiid who's gonna take them. The only way they can get rid of them is to attach a bunch of draft picks with them to trade. Who's gonna do that? Nobody. So Philly as Edgecomb, a rookie, so you know, his contract is gonna be low for four years, but in a couple years. I guess MB will be just about done and so will George, but they're gonna be looking for big money. So will McCain, who's been hurt, right? He'll be back soon. Once he comes back, he's in a second year. He'll be closer to the bigger contract. Yeah. So I don't know where they're gonna do it. And then by the way, when you have a team, you need 15 guys. A lot of teams go with 14. What the hell are you gonna pay the rest of that team? [00:09:00] Yeah, they've got some real issues with them. Jose: Yeah and when you have those issues, you wanna be a team that's, competing for a championship. And I don't know if the Sixers right now, or they certainly didn't last year, but before we move on from the Sixers, we got a call out that they are two for two in their last two drafts with McCain. And you mentioned Edgecombe. That's not easy to do, but they've done it. They've got two really good players and hopefully things are set for the future. Speaking of the future, there's an a plus segue. You said Victor Wema is the future. And I'm not gonna disagree with that. Come on. But then you invoke the name of Wilt Chamberlain when you compared this guy. When you were talking about this guy, which took me back a little, you watched, you actually saw Wilt play. I never got to see Wilt play, but I've seen the numbers. I've seen the highlights. You. I'm still taking aback. Tell me why you invoked the name of Wilt when talking about Weby. Steve: Aren't you gonna ask me if he compares with George [00:10:00] Micen? When I saw him play? Jose: You said George. I didn't know you saw George Steve: Mic. I'm not that old. But in fact, he played for some team and then they moved and the place they moved tries to claim their championships. And it's really ironic. I don't know what you're talking about. Personal Lakers I knew told you they'd come up and I knew it was gonna be you that brought 'em up. I knew it because when we talk about most championships, we have to take away a few from the Lakers. Okay. What were we talking about before? You we're talking about Weby? We're talking about the future. You watch the other game. You know what I thought was remarkable? They were opening game. He made a move. He went around this man and went to the basket and it looked like he didn't even jump and he dunked it backwards. The first thing in my mind was, how big is this man? Yeah. And when his arms were all raised, are you talking about he could touch the rim just standing on his toes, but putting that aside. [00:11:00] I believe the second game, first game, he had 40 something and 11 or 12. He doesn't rebound like Wilt did, but he scores. But in the second game, he had nine blocks. He almost had a triple double in the back doorway, meaning by instead of a sis, getting that Speaker 3: right starts Steve: talking about the numbers this guy can put up and just think what's gonna happen when a night where he's can't miss. Yeah. The numbers he can put up again, what is he 23? What has he got? As long as he stays healthy he's not even close to being good, his potential yet. It, it just boggles the mind and when he's on the court, you can just see the whole game is about him. He's just the show. Yeah. And God, again, staying healthy and I always wonder 'cause it's a pingus body and Pingus has trouble staying on a court. Yeah. I always [00:12:00] wonder if this guy stays healthy, the numbers he's gonna put up. I could see, I know Wil had ridiculous that one year where he averaged so much, but I could see this guy averaging 35 to 40 a night. I can see all that and I can see the interesting thing is there's talent and usually the best player like yo is a tad better than the second or third best player. If Weby fulfills his potential, you've got Weby and about 10 notches down as the next player. Yeah. It's just it's beyond belief. Seven six, he can shoot threes. Go to the basket. He can, he's a one man defense. What more, if he only makes 60 million in his best years, that's like underpaid. Yeah. In BA terms, I guess is the best way to put that. Jose: Yeah. And you did age him a bit. He's only [00:13:00] 22. Which is just absolutely mind boggling. But will. As phenomenal as he was. I think when you take a step back, how many championships did he win? I think he only won one, right? Two. One or two. One or two. Yeah. Steve: I think with team in, and he won one with, philly with with Philly? Jose: Yeah, Steve: with Jackson. Jose: And, because I don't wanna take away anything from Wendy's Greatness 'cause he's great. But are they doing right by him in San Antonio? Does do you see the foundational pieces of a really good team that could win at all? Steve: Oh yeah. Okay. Castle's a player. Yeah. And Harper's a player. I what? I, what I and then Sohan a nice bench player. Kel Johnson's a good player. Vasal is a good player. They've got players. Yeah. What I can see, and this is a little crazy, but I can see them trading Diara Fox because yeah, I dunno. If Harper is that good. Do you need Fox? Yeah. [00:14:00] And they can get a haul back for Fox. Sure. It just, and if that happens, it's almost becomes Oklahoma City, meaning he's got Sam pre, he's got draft picks, he's got everything. How could they fall apart? Because as these guys wanna make more money. He is gonna be able to, and he's a great talent evaluator, or his scouts are, but he makes great picks, so they could just keep that going forever. All they have to do is pay Shea, pay Williams and Holmgren and then work around that. Jose: Yeah. This time you get credit for this segue 'cause this is absolutely perfect. Speaking of the Oklahoma City Thunder we talked about this last week. One of the things I enjoy, talking to you is I, you call out players that I'd never heard of and then I get to follow, right? And so you did that again this week. Introduce us to the Oklahoma City Thunder player. AJ Mitchell, Steve: by the way, Trey Johnson I think had 17 the other night. But AJ Mitchell. Isn't it [00:15:00] interesting? He was born in Belgium played for UCal, Santa Barbara Gaucho player. What's that? What'd you say? Santa Barbara. Those are the gauchos. That's right. But played for them. Pretty, regular career. The Sam Presti going back to him second round 38th pick. In the draft last year, he played about 35 games, didn't play a lot, and I, it didn't play in inconsequential in tough games, close games. All of a sudden this year you see this guy come in off the bench and I'm watching it. I'm saying, wait a minute. This guy he. He's not like letting other people handle. He was the offense. And I'm saying, my goodness where did he come from? And that's what I did a little research on him. And in both, both his first, first two games he was just a great offensive player. I don't know. I don't know if they have room. For [00:16:00] another when Wa Williams. What a good problem to have. Yeah. Again, and go back to what I said, he's in the second year, two more years under the rookie contract. So you begin to move out other people and you can move him in that place. I just, in Oklahoma City, if they do things right and I have no reason not to believe they will. They can win or be. In the finals or whatever for the next five years. I don't know. Yeah. But they can be, because generally a team, and I'm gonna use the Knicks. The Knicks are all in, but to go all in, they had a trade, all their draft pick, most of their draft picks, they had a trade, every asset they had, Oklahoma City. They haven't trade any of their assets and they have picks from other teams. Yeah so it just, what, what has been done there, you probably won't see anything like that since Red [00:17:00] RA in the Celtics back in the sixties, in the fifties and sixties. Really? But, you won't see, they could just, they could dominate. Jose: Yeah, it's it's absolutely scary to see how good they are. And they started this season, the team, now we're moving away from Mitchell, but the team two set two overtime wins, which tells me a lot about, everybody's number one out to get them, which is what you expect for a world champion. And then just the g I don't know the wherewithal it takes, to not do it once but twice. Steve: This is a very good, if you watch basketball. You're getting games like that, the team that's done, it usually wins. Yeah. They, and I'm gonna give you a great example. Last night I had a little bit of, I was watching, tells you, I have no life, but I was watching Philly and Charlotte. It's a fourth quarter, Charlotte's up by 5, 7, 8. And I'm thinking to myself, are they gonna pull this off? In the last three minutes, they come. Philly comes back. [00:18:00] Yeah. Comes down to really a tie game. What about 30 seconds, 27, whatever. Quentin Grimes hits that three as I was talking about before. Speaker 3: Yep. Steve: Qu Grimes is a bench player. But you have to think Philly in a game against Charlotte expects to win and Charlotte is thinking, here we go again. And you see this often in the NBA where the good team figures it out at the end. Rarely do you see that weak, not weaker, but the poorer history, the team that's had more losing over the last couple years figure it out. So that's something Oklahoma City has in those double overtime games. Jose: Yeah, no doubt about it. Speaking about a team with great history, a team that is a winning team, but they're old, they're like really old the geriatric state warriors. I hope the name sticks 'cause I just coined it. What are we gonna see from that team this year? Are they gonna be good? They gonna be bad. Is it gonna be a rollercoaster ride? Like you said Steve: you [00:19:00] saw it the other day. They went out, they beat Denver. Great game at Thursday night. Yeah, Thursday night. Overtime you got three guys. Your three best players are 35 or older. So they win that game. Now they have to come back the next night against Portland. Portland's a nice team. Sure. Portland's going through a little bit of a problem with Chauncey Miller and so on. Yep. But Portland goes out and drills him. Why? First of all, Al Horford didn't play it. That's not a major thing. But he didn't play in that game 'cause he doesn't play back to back. But you're asking those 35, 36, 30 7-year-old people to be able to come back and play two nights in a row. What I'm going to say is this. Now don't forget, golden State played home against Denver. So you, you throw that out because they, it's a little advantage, but what I'm gonna say is this Golden State could meet anybody at any time. However, depending on the schedule, they can lose to anybody at [00:20:00] any time. Meaning if they're playing a back to back against the weaker team, second game, they can get beat. So it's a very, it's a very interesting situation. It will be real interesting if they stay healthy in the playoffs. Can the old guys do it again? In my lifetime, the only time I saw an old team and this is in, going back, what is that, 55 years ago, 56 years ago was 69 Boston. That was the only time I saw an old team win a title. It was Bill Russell's last year to win a title though with a bunch of old guys throughout the years in all sports teams get these old guys and they think one more, one more run. And it doesn't usually happen. But that's the only time in my mind I can recall and I could be wrong in sports of an old team being able to do that. And they won that playoff series where was, oh, it was in LA when there was supposed to be [00:21:00] balloons for the Lakers and it didn't quite work out, but yeah. In the fabulous forum. But anyway, I remember that night very well. Jose: Okay. I have no idea what you're talking about. Of Steve: course. I, at the end of the game when he was interviewed, asked what their, what his cigar in his mouth said, what are they gonna do with those balloons? Jose: But anyway. Steve: What's, when did Jose: this become Celtic Chalk talk? This is, you got the wrong thought. Steve: Every day. Every day. Jose: No. I hate to end on this note, but better than that note, we gotta talk about the gambling thing. All right. You brought it up before Chauncey somebody that you know, I liked as a player a lot is caught up in this. I don't know man. It's a state in the NBA, the fact that we have to talk about it at all. But what are your thoughts? What are yours? You know it, I'm trying not to dive too deep into it, but I did read a little bit about, it and people's thoughts on it. I think it was Barkley who said, it's less addiction and more stupidity that's built on these, the competitive [00:22:00] nature. You're talking about guys who have been the best at what they do forever, and you've got this, I can't fail. Complex mentality. And it's so easy, right? When you think about, the betting, the props the over the under, man. Just sit out and we'll bet the under easy peasy lemon squeezy. Nobody get, everybody's, everybody wins. It's so easy. You've got this complex that you can't be touched. And it's the competitiveness, which we love from our players and they just it's that mentality that drives them to do this. 'cause you brought it up in your article, right? These are multimillionaires and their risk and everything for 50 grand payout. It makes no sense, but I think that's the only way it makes sense to me. I don't know. That's my thought. Steve: I I agree. You know what I, and I don't wanna get too philosophical, but when you go through in life when things are going great, you think you're sure can't be petted. Nothing can go wrong. Yeah. And I think that goes with it. Now, if you read about Rosie's situation, [00:23:00] he called a friend, childhood friend of his. And told him that he was gonna go out, in the first quarter or whatever. Yeah, Rosie was probably thinking, and I'm trying, I don't wanna, but I'm going to put thoughts into, probably think I'm making ridiculous money. Why not get my friends and get them to get some money. And he threw that tip. Now the friend sold that information and made money as well as betting. That's where it gets a little, if he would've, if he would've kept it to himself, he would've made money and probably we'd be fine. Yeah. Zi shouldn't have done what he did, but I understand, because Zeer grew up in, not wealthy in Ohio. His father did jail time, a lot of jail time. It's, it's not been an easy life, so he's making it. Probably his friends aren't Right. So I get it. I get it. But again, when you're making that money. You've gotta be very [00:24:00] careful about the people you run into, the people you get to know and what they want out of you. Yeah. That's a very interesting thing and the few times I've known some people of some fame, they're usually a little they're feeling you out to make sure you're not, looking Oh. To make something outta him. So that was my thought, but, and by the way, Jalen Brown made a statement where the NBA's gotta do no more for us. So we don't do this. No. The NBA talks to these guys about this stuff. Speaker 3: Yeah. Steve: The NBA tells them about money and how to invest money. They try to teach them all that stuff. So I don't quite go there. And then we've gotta look at something in our lives, and I'm an old person, but I'm gonna say this sometimes when things go wrong. Stop pointing your finger. Look at yourself. Speaker 3: Yeah. Steve: And you know what, okay, Jaylen, I got your point. But if didn't make that phone call, we wouldn't be here right now. As for Billups, I, I guess because he [00:25:00] made a lot of money. It was a hall of famer. We think those people make all good decisions in life. And they don't. Speaker 3: Yeah. Steve: And I think Chauncey Billups. Made some bad decisions. But does that speak to the fact that because he has money, you only make good decisions? No. You're human and you make stupid decisions at times. Yeah. That would be the best way to, to put it. Jose: Yeah, I mean there's no positive spin. It's ugly. And the only thing we can hope is that it's contained, right? And resolved. But, I heard a mafia representative, 'cause they're talking to everybody about this. So somebody who was in the mafia and now out of the mafia and he's talking, they asked his opinion and he begs basically said, listen, it's been there from the tip. It will never go away. Each, they're gonna catch a few people, but gambling is here to stay and it's not gonna go away. So yeah, Steve: Jay Jaylen Brown made that statement. What he needs to realize I guess he's making about 55 [00:26:00] million what he needs to realize. Gambling's paying a lot of that. Because it's part of this money going into the league. Remember, 50% of the gross goes to the players in salary. So if FanDuel and all those other Yeah, Speaker 3: yeah. Steve: Works, were involved, you make a little bit less. So you gotta realize once you, you buy in with the devil this stuff happens. And the other thing too, and it's really interesting, if you watch anything, they're talking about what's called prop bets. Which meaning, which means is Jalen Brown gonna score 20 points tonight, is who's gonna get, in fact the Super Bowl. I think there's a way you can bet on who's gonna win the coin. Flip. Flip. Jose: Yeah. Steve: Yeah. So they've developed all kinds of these crazy props, so things are gonna happen. It's common sense if you are a player, not common sense, but if you're on the sinister side. If you're a player, wait a minute. They got [00:27:00] me scoring 10 tonight, but if I hurt my leg in the first quarter, I ain't scoring 10. Yeah. It just it's just sensible. So maybe they need to start by removing prop bets. Speaker 3: Yeah. Steve: And I do think back about 10 years ago when trial when good goodell, the commissioner of the NFL said, gambling no. Good. With the NFL. Jose: Yeah. Now, Steve: It's right in the middle of it, Jose: yeah. Yeah no. Easy way to spin it. We just have to hope that things don't spiral outta control. 'cause they certainly could. But you heard it, the buzzer went off. We kept going 'cause it's what we do, but our time is up. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 rules, maybe thoughts article. We will link it wherever you are watching or listening to this. To show today. Also, one last shout out, make sure to listen to the Celtic Chalk Pod or Celtic. I conflated both of those, the Celtic Chalk Talk podcast, which Steve will drop tomorrow and every Monday. And of course, make sure to read Steve's entire article. We [00:28:00] just mentioned that also, please subscribe. Follow, comment, all that stuff means the world to us, and we're grateful for all of it. Join us next week for more random NBA thoughts is after we recap week number two of the NBA, we'll talk then. Thanks Steve. Thank you.