The Athletic NBA Daily
6 Young Players on the Rise + Hawks keeping Trae Young? | Slam N Jam
22 Feb 2025
Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of NBA Basketball, all star weekend aftermath, Defensive Player of the Year Odds, and 6 players the guys think are poised to make a leap in the last part of the season. Then they are joined by Lauren Williams of the Atlanta Journal Constitution to discuss the Atlanta Hawks and the future of Trae Young, how Risacher has performed, and the emergence of Dyson Daniels. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Lauren WilliamsExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
Welcome to the Saturday Slamma Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking about the updated Defensive Player of the Year odds, the players that are making a pre-leap, and then Lauren Williams joins the show to talk about the Atlanta Hawks. But to start with, Al, tell me about the top stories this week.
Well, Andrew, our top story this week was All-Star Weekend in San Francisco. In the Skills Challenge, one of the teams won. More importantly, that little trickster Chris Paul tried to break the game by not even attempting to make a three-pointer and instead just throwing the balls haphazardly toward the basket.
Thankfully, the league stepped in to uphold the sanctity of the Skills Challenge, which again, one of the teams won. In the three-point contest, the big question was whether Damian Lillard would three-peat as champ, but he did not. Instead, it was Tyler Hero in his first All-Star game who won the three-point contest, defeating Darius Garland and Buddy Heald in the final.
We would see a three-peat on Saturday, however, as Mac McClung did four pretty cool dunks and easily beat the other three contestants, winning his third straight dunk contest. As for the actual All-Star game, the big news this year was the NBA's new format. Ditching the typical 48-minute game, the NBA finally listened to all of us Kevin Hart fans who have been clamoring for more Kevin Hart.
Hart was on the broadcast team. And spent the night cracking my ass up. Thankfully, he did finally get serious for the main event, pretending like inside the NBA isn't going to be on TV anymore. Ernie and the gang were honored at half court, a beautiful sendoff that was sadly cut short by a basketball game that had double booked the court at the same time.
While All-Star Weekend was a big event for the NBA, the actual top story this week was the news that Victor Wemby would be shut down for the rest of the season due to a blood clot in his shoulder. The Spurs announced that this is an isolated event. They do not expect any long-term issues, but it's a disappointing end to a great season for Wemby, who put up 24-11-4.
while leading the league in blocks, something that he will continue to do despite not playing another game. He has a 74-block lead on the number two player, Walker Kessler. Wemby will, however, miss out on a likely Defensive Player of the Year award and a possible All-NBA spot as well. Now, is there a possible Ewing theory with Wemby and the Spurs? Don't do that. No, not at all.
But the Spurs did win their first Wemby-less game post-All-Star break against the Phoenix Suns, who have now lost seven of their last eight. Another player who won't be playing for a while, like Wemby, but for a completely different reason, is Bobby Portis. Portis was suspended 25 games for violating the league's anti-drug policy.
In a statement, Portis explained that he took an unapproved pain medication, Tramadol, when he intended to take Toradol, an approved medication. eighth with only three games remaining in the regular season. Is there a possible Ewing theory with Portis and the Bucks? Question mark? No, it's Bucky Portis.
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