Atlanta Hawks

That is Chad Ochocinco Johnson, the third member of the Big Three.

He's an Atlanta Hawk great.

He's a seven-time NBA All-Star and an All-NBA selection.

Little Rock, Arkansas native.

And then you get to a few days before training camp.

What's going on? Where is he? Is he healthy? At some point in the lead-up to training camp, Porzingis had a recurrence of this POTS issue that has debilitated him going back a couple of years now to the end of his time in Boston and obviously during his time with the Hawks.

And it's an affliction that can come out of nowhere, and basically you have to start over in your preparation to be able to come back and play.

And so I feel like at some point Porzingis, when this happened again, even though he had signed, had come to the conclusion, hey, I don't want to do this anymore.

Only Coach Joe has an Uncle Blaylock.

No relation to former Atlanta Hawks player Mookie Blaylock.

At least, I don't think so.

Hello and welcome to this Friday installment of the Al Galdi podcast.

Also on Monday's show, I'll talk Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, college basketball, and college football.

The Caps this weekend have one game home to the Florida Panthers Saturday afternoon at 1230.

The Wizards this weekend have two games at the Atlanta Hawks Friday night at 7 and at the Oklahoma City Thunder Saturday night at 8.

College basketball this weekend includes Maryland versus Georgetown at Capital One Arena Saturday night at 7.30 and includes two games for Virginia home to Northeastern Friday evening at 5 and a game against Arkansas at Capital One Arena in the Capital Showcase Sunday afternoon at 1.

And in this part of the schedule, where the margins are very clearly very thin for a team that hasn't figured out the best way to play together yet, It can really cost you, and I think it has really cost the Cavs over the past week or so.

They've lost three out of four, and I think a big part of it, and I know that Hawks' loss was the second night of a back-to-back, and they had a very, very bad second quarter, which has been a theme over the past week or so.

the Cavs have played in the past week.

Plus the Cavs have played four games, one against the Hawks, one against the bucks and two against the thunder.

They've played probably three bad quarters, like legitimately bad quarters.

And I know they got outscored by the bucks in the fourth quarter of that game, but that was just mop up duty.

Magic are currently 2-6.

Last year, they started 3-5, and Game 8 was a pretty depressing 127-112 defeat to the Atlanta Hawks.

Orlando was coming on to face the Boston Celtics, who were not who they would eventually become for an NBA Cup game, and won that game by 13.

Just like we're projecting, the Magic got to 6-6 and eventually got to 45 wins last year.

And again, it's one of those things where a lot of the things that reasonable people were concerned about he hasn't you know definitively proven that he can be a good high volume three-point shooter right he hasn't definitively proven that he can finish around the rim at a high level but all of the positives of the kingston fleming's experience have been on display so far and the fact that he's already earned his way into the starting lineup, I don't think he's going to be relinquishing that starting job anytime soon.

So it's just been really nice to see all of the, all of the best things that I could have hoped for from the Kingston Fleming's experience coming true so far for the Atlanta Hawks.

Yeah.

I think the difference of, you know, Fleming's and breweries kind of, you know, first, you know, eight games of their rookie campaign is that Fleming's is like such a, more of a like exciting pop off the page like type of player especially like with the hawks like they're fourth in the east right now right um and with burry's like he has a more like all around type game of like, he is going to do a lot of things well, and we're just ready for that pop, right? The pop kind of has already sort of happened for Fleming's, but I think with Burry's, like it's only going to be, like we said, like a matter of time, but yeah, I think, you know, for our two guys, not, not too bad to start the season for sure.

And then you get to a few days before training camp.

What's going on? Where is he? Is he healthy? At some point in the lead-up to training camp, Porzingis had a recurrence of this POTS issue that has debilitated him going back a couple of years now to the end of his time in Boston and obviously during his time with the Hawks.

And it's an affliction that can come out of nowhere, and basically you have to start over in your preparation to be able to come back and play.

And so I feel like at some point Porzingis, when this happened again, even though he had signed, had come to the conclusion, hey, I don't want to do this anymore.

The two worst teams in basketball currently.

Out in the Southeast, it's going to be the Hawks at 5-4.

The Wizards, 4-4.

Heat, 3-5.

Obviously, that is incredibly anecdotal, but more so just watching him on the court, I continue to not understand what happened at Golden State.

I kind of don't, and even to a lesser extent, where he plays well in the playoffs for Atlanta, and they... showed no interest in signing him.

So, I mean, I'm sure Kaminga holds some responsibility for that on some level.

I just, I don't know.