Good afternoon and welcome back to Locked on NBA on today's show.

The Warriors are betting on Jimmy Butler to push them over the top.

Meanwhile in Charlotte,

Lamello Ball is fighting to prove he's still the franchise guy.

Plus, we got our first look at Kevin Durant on the Rockets,

and the host of Lockdown Rockets described it as electric.

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Hello and welcome back to Lockdown NBA.

How are you tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app. Thanks so much for making us your first listen every day. I'm Wes Goldberg. And today we're talking about the Charlotte Hornets and whether or not they could build something around La Mello Ball and Brandon Miller and some of their new rookies. Plus, we'll look ahead to Kevin Durant's preseason debut and what that means for Houston's offense. And we're doing it with the help of lockdown's local experts. And I have two of the best with me, as always, from the Lockdown Nuggets podcast, senior NBA writer for the Action Network. Matt, Matt. There's this theory that if you go through a black hole, like there's a moment where it like inverts and flips inside of itself. And it's basically like the singularity. Joe Missoula is trying to approach the three point

singularity. They took 53 three pointers last night. I had a scout text me that was like,

they're taking more of them. I am genuinely concerned that we're all going to be consumed,

but everything will be threes in the future that Joe Missula runs. Hayes is the host of Lockdown Bulls of Bulls and Bears Crater for Bletrow Report. Hayes, do you have any idea what Matt is talking about right now? I mean, yeah, Matt Matt's, Matt's doing the thing that the young people would say is us being old-timers and unks is what it is worried about three- shooting we're being unks but he's not wrong with the three point shooting is getting ridiculous we're worried about three point shooting we're worried about black holes i don't know what to make of any of this stuff anymore it's just preseason who knows but um the warriors played their first uh they played their preseason game against the trailblazers last night and steve curr went with the expected starting lineup for the first time of Steph Curry, Moses Moody, Jimmy Butler,

Jamon Green, and Al Horford. But it was the young guys off the bench logging the heavy

minutes in this game. We asked Charlie Walter of Lockdown Warriors about the mix of young and old

going on in Golden State. The Warriors had so many questions this summer about how their roster would shake up.

But now that it's set in stone, I don't think there are a ton of questions entering the season,

aside from who will get better.

And will the old players kind of progress his high 30s for Al Horford's case, early 40s players do throughout NBA history.

But there's nothing that says the Warriors shouldn't be better than they were a season ago.

Again, really good with Jimmy Butler when he joined the team after the trade, won a series in the

playoffs and continuity is supposed to be important in this game. The Warriors return to everyone, minus Al Horford. They add in Seth Curry, they add in D. Anthony Melton. They add in Horford who can space the floor. Post gets older. Pods gets older. Moody gets older. Health too, also with Pajemski.

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