LeBron is back + NBA Cup Preview
The Athletic NBA Daily
The Athletic
4.1 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, and Es Baraheni discuss the Cavaliers recent struggles, LeBron James' arthritis, and Franz Wagner's injury for the Orlando Magic. Then, the gang makes their pick for the NBA
Cup quarterfinals.
Host: Dave DuFour
With: Es Baraheni and Zena Keita
Executive Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Audio/Video Producer: Grayson Moody
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for December 8th, 2025. I'm Dave DeFore here with Zena Keda and S. Berra Henni. |
| 0:14.0 | Coming up, is it time to panic for the Cavs? Probably. LeBron James is old, which you wouldn't know it on Sunday. |
| 0:20.8 | And we're going to make some cut picks for the quarterfinals. |
| 0:24.5 | Good morning, everybody. What's up, guys? Hope you had a good weekend. |
| 0:29.3 | Morning, morning. Yeah, you guys were busy all weekend. Going to games. |
| 0:34.2 | Zena's on TV, Saturday night, Sunday night. |
| 0:37.7 | S, just living life, you know. Just being at the games. Zina's on TV, Saturday night, Sunday night. S, just living life, you know. |
| 0:40.8 | Just being at the game. |
| 0:42.3 | Not in Toronto. |
| 0:44.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:44.8 | I'm moving in slow motion. |
| 0:47.8 | That's right. |
| 0:48.4 | And we're all going to be in Vegas next week for the for the semifinals and then for the finals of the NBA Cup so we're |
| 0:56.0 | going to talk about the the NBA Cup quarterfinals games later on in the show but I got to |
| 1:01.2 | start and Zina I want to start with you here you got a chance to to dig in on Cavs Warriors the |
| 1:07.6 | other night and we've been worried about the Cavs for a minute. |
| 1:11.3 | They're not really living up to last year's expectations. |
| 1:14.9 | We knew that this year would probably be a little bit of a step back, just to be more |
| 1:19.2 | experimental. |
| 1:20.0 | You know, they have to address the failures that they've had the last few years in the |
| 1:24.5 | playoffs. |
| 1:25.5 | And I just don't like what they're doing. |
... |
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