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Learn more at vertexinck.com. Welcome to the Basket Buds edition of the Athletic NBA Show podcast on the Athletic Podcast Network.

I'm your host, Zach Harper.

It's just me and Josh Houston today. No, Jay King. God. I mean, he's allegedly watching Jason

Tatum work out right now, so he'll be late. But the reason we can't wait for him is I'm in Portland

and I got to catch a flight that I got to be honest Josh

a little worried I'm not going to catch a little worried is it is it that tight it's it's

gonna be tight it's gonna be tight Portland traffic is a nightmare bud sometimes sometimes

getting over to the to the airport but you know we'll see we'll see what happens

we got through the first week of the season uh i guess like

what memories does that bring for you in terms of like that first like what is that like you

work all off season you go through training camp you go through preseason now the games matter

the games are real is there like a nervousness there or do you do you kind of like slide into that that routine

pretty quickly? It's more of an excitement I guess because it's like again like you know you've

kind of been working in quiet for months right and then at least in OKC the crowd was always

insane. Yeah. So like that first like run out of the tunnel onto the court was exciting. Because preseason's one thing, man, like everybody's excited. But at the same time, the players are just kind of like, let's just get this over with. Yeah. You know what I mean? But then you hit the regular season and, uh, I don't know, it's kind of a mixed bag. We're like excited and you're like, ah, shit.

It got eight months.

Here we go.

Is there pressure on the team, on the thunder to score immediately so everyone will sit down?

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