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Hello and welcome to the tampering podcast, part of the Athletic NBA Show Network.

I am Sam Amick, NBA National Writer at The Athletic.

We got Anthony Slater out west.

We got Fred Katz out east.

We've got NBA regular season basketball around the corner more specifically gentlemen

we got some awards talk today we're going to try to project predict analyze pontificate

about awards this season now the listeners might be like whoa whoa whoa record scratch little

early for that what What are we doing?

The general idea is to just get a sense of what we think might happen in the six months to come in terms of best players, best teams, you know, best executives, meaning like, hey,

if you made some great moves in the off season, which ones we think are going to pay off.

So that is the structure of the show this week.

At the top, though, however, quickly, Slater and I are going to talk about Kings Warriors.

We are there last night for our preseason extraordinaire.

And once we get that conversation done, guys, I'm handing the microphone off this week because Fred Katz is a more capable and a more prepared host than myself this particular week.

I'm not giving it beyond this week, Fred, but I've been on the run.

You got thoughts, ideas, structures.

You're sharp.

You look, you know, far more put together than me.

...