But, boy, just the names on the back of the jerseys, people are excited.

Joe, it is a great excitement from the outside looking in, but I think what's more exciting is how this team and that locker room feels.

I think the bonding and the cohesion began when Bam and Davion Mitchell got the team together a couple weeks prior to camp out in Los Angeles.

But this is a very connected group for a team that was put together in the offseason and They're excited about it.

And the preseason, you know, I don't want to take too much out of it because preseasons don't mean that much.

But just the way the Heat were able to score in the three games that the starters played, I mean, you had three different halves of over 70 points.

I think four quarters of over 40 points.

What would be the biggest thing you would be concerned with with the group? Would it be just health of veteran players?

But, boy, just the names on the back of the jerseys, people are excited.

Joe, it is a great excitement from the outside looking in.

But I think what's more exciting is how this team and that locker room feels.

I think the bonding and the cohesion began when Bam and Davion Mitchell got the team together a couple weeks prior to camp out in Los Angeles.

But this is a very connected group for a team that was put together in the offseason.

They're excited about it.

And the preseason...

What would be the biggest thing you would be concerned with the group? Would it be just health of veteran players?

But, boy, just the names on the back of the jerseys, people are excited.

Joe, it is a great excitement from the outside looking in.

But I think what's more exciting is how this team and that locker room feels.

I think the bonding and the cohesion began when Bam and Davion Mitchell got the team together a couple weeks prior to camp out in Los Angeles.

But this is a very connected group for a team that was put together in the offseason.

They're excited about it.

And the preseason...

What would be the biggest thing you would be concerned with with the group? Would it be just health of veteran players?

They have these cycles, right? But it feels like the valleys don't last that long, right? I mean, you talk about sort of being blessed to be there for nearly four decades, but you also haven't had to watch a lot of bad basketball.

No, we've been spoiled as a group and as a fan base and as an organization with, you know, incredible success over all these years.

And the fact that Pat Riley is, you know, going into his 31st over three decades of presiding over the heat and, you know, the Harrison Riley thing.

combination has provided all of this quality and stability over so many years.

But Ethan, in my position, and I think yours as well, when you work for a team or cover a team, it doesn't matter what kind of season you think you may have or not.

You get ready at the start of each season and you go game by game.

and you cover that team, and you enjoy whatever that season brings.

When do you first remember meeting Tib Hardaway Jr.? Oh, wow.

Is that correct?

For the first three seasons, actually for the first four seasons, the Miami Heat simulcast our games, meaning they were on television and radio at the same time.

For the first three years, Sam Smith was the play-by-play man.

He was originally the simulcasting play-by-play voice of the San Antonio Spurs.

And when the heat decided to go simulcast and they wanted a guy that had done it before, there were only a handful of teams left in the league that had, that were doing it.

Phoenix, the jazz, the Lakers at the time with Chick Hearn and Sam.

So Sam came in and I was hired.

I want to ask you, too, when you were starting out doing play-by-play, were there any broadcasters at that time that you were looking to kind of model yourself after or you looked up to until you established yourself and found your own identity in the industry?

So talk a little bit about the heart behind all of this, because it really is an extension of what you guys are trying to do from the pulpits.

Yeah, that's right, Kevin.

And thank you so much for having us on.

Excited to be joining and partnering with you.

This really started over a year and a half ago with one of my other co-founders, who's a pastor.

He's also a headmaster of a classical school.

Came to me and said, hey, are you using AI in any way? And I said, yeah, I am.

Am I am I wrong in understanding?