The Late Night Happy Hour with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

Time is a flat circle these days, so it's easy to forget that normally the winter is filled with important offseason baseball happenings. This year, not so much, so you're forgiven for forgetting we're in the midst of Hot Stove season. It's just not all that hot. Baseball teams aren't spending any money, fearing continued COVID-related revenue losses.

One team that has been active? The San Diego Padres, who have made some power moves to try and close the gap between themselves and the Dodgers in the National League. Greg Bergman of 710 ESPN joins the show to discuss their progress.

How good has San Diego's offseason been?

How much have they shaved off of L.A.'s advantage?

Are the Dodgers still the favorites in the National League? (Spoiler alert... yes) Could they actually be better this year than last?

What about Justin Turner? Is his career in L.A. over? Will Gavin Lux finally break through? What if Cody Bellinger's shoulder still isn't quite right?

Those are just some of the questions we cover.

After, Greg explains what Tommy Lasorda meant to born-and-bred Dodgers fans, before we finish with a Lasorda-inspired game in his honor.

The Rams and Seahawks will meet for the third time this season, but this time it's for the right to advance in the NFC playoffs. Saturday's game in Seattle is expected to be a defensive battle, but will it play out that way?

Ted Nguyen, who covers the NFL for The Athletic, joins the show to preview the game. Will Jared Goff start if he's healthy? Does that mean John Wolford won't play? What kind of Wolford-centric wrinkles might LA have ready?

What other matchups will be key? Can Pete Carroll figure out how to get DK Metcalf loose against Jalen Ramsey? Can they stop Aaron Donald? And who is gonna win, when it's all said and done?

From there, we look at other games around the league. Buffalo looks like the second best team in the AFC, behind Kansas City. But is the gap closer than it appears? Ted believes it might be. And don't sleep on the Steelers, he says. Not to make the Super Bowl, but potentially upset a team that is favored to get there. He explains why.

Which game does he believe could be the best of the weekend? Try Baltimore at Tennessee. And which NFC teams have a real shot to make it all the way through?

Finally, it's a round of starting QB trivia, in which you learn how many people a year are killed by hippos. Trust us, there's a connection.

He's one of the best reporters in the NBA, and a great guy to boot. Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN joins the show. After talking about the weirdness of covering games in arenas this season - and what we miss and don't miss about the days when we were all doing our jobs in the normal way - we talk about a Lakers team that after nine games is 6-3, but clearly isn't playing with the same intensity and cohesion of last year's group.

Anything to worry about? Ohm says... no and explains why.

From there, the topic turns to James Harden. Would a team like Denver pull the trigger, given some of the maturity questions growing a little louder around young (potential) star Michael Porter Jr.? If not the Nuggets, what team would talk themselves into it? Are teams making a mistake in talking themselves out of a deal? What stars make sense for Harden to play with?

We dive into COVID, arguably the single most important determining factor of who eventually wins the title, or at the very least, how teams are arranged going into the playoffs. The Lakers have been COVID free to this point, but can they stay that way? The Sixers, after all, are suddenly dealing with a positive test to Seth Curry, and more could be coming.

Finally - at least on the basketball side - Ohm makes a great point about LeBron. Not only is he playing well, he's just in a fantastic spot mentally, and as a person. It's rare for an athlete's athletic prime to line up with his prime as a person in the way LeBron's seems to be doing. And it shows.

From there, it's a look at Ohm's shoe collection, Tupac trivia, and a discussion of The Mandalorian. He's a fan, to say the least. And are movie theaters really dead?

ESPN's Clinton Yates, a Washington, D.C. native, joins the show to discuss a truly historic 24-hour stretch in America.

It started Tuesday with the decision not to prosecute the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, followed by a pair of wins for Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff election and capped Wednesday by rioters, encouraged by the President, storming the Capitol.

We begin with his reaction as a DC native to the events of the day. What is the experience of seeing events unfold when you know the city, know the buildings, and most importantly, know people in your community who work in those spaces? What were his thoughts, not just as a Washingtonian, but a Black man who grew up there?

Clinton discusses the need for white people to believe Black people when they share the realities of life experience.

Looking at Tuesday's events, Clinton highlights the role of WNBA players in the push for social justice and meaningful change. They've been doing the work for a long time, laying the foundation for action in the NBA, NFL and beyond. We highlight the work of former Minnesota Lynx star Maya Moore, who literally walked away from her Hall of Fame career to devote her life to criminal justice reform. She is remarkable, he says, but the sacrifices Moore made are indicative of sacrifices Black women make every day.

It's always a good time when Victoria Jacobi (@CountOnVic) joins the Happy Hour, and Tuesday was no different. We covered all sorts of ground, starting with a surprisingly good start for the New York Knicks before moving on to her work with "Behind the Lens," which features NBA players like Carmelo Anthony breaking down the secrets of their craft. (Think Master Class for hoops...)

That leads to a discussion about the athlete empowerment era, and what it means for players to be able to bypass traditional media to deliver their own messages and build their own business profiles outside the game. What's the impact of social media? How do different players take advantage of opportunities? What comes next?

All that, and a lot more on a fun, loose hour of basketball talk.

To kick off 2021 - after a quick breakdown of LA's weekend win over the Cardinals, pushing the Rams into the playoffs even while the QB situation is fluid - we welcome the great Lang Whitaker to the show. Formerly of Slam, NBA.com and GQ, Lang now serves as coach and GM of Grizz Gaming, joins the show. We start talking Marc Gasol, someone he got to know while Gasol was in Memphis and what having him means not just on the floor, but to a franchise and a city.

Not surprisingly, the review is positive.

From there, we get into Ja Morant - how well-equipped is Memphis' young star to handle the burden of elevating a small market team to excellence? And how's that giraffe the zoo named after him doing?

We talk cooking with Lang (who hosts a segment on the Grizzlies media site called Cooking With Lang), and finish things off with a dive into NBA culture in the social media age.

Tuesday: @CountOnVic

The NBA has its first COVID-19 interruption of the 2020-21 season, and it's not James Harden's fault! Well, it's sort of his fault, but not for the reasons some might think. On a night where the Rockets/Thunder game was postponed, we welcome Rohan Nadkarni, NBA writer at Sports Illustrated, to the show.

We start on Harden's mess, the Rockets' mess, and what might soon spill into the NBA's mess if players across the league don't stay vigilant about protecting themselves. Meanwhile, how is Harden's violation of league protocols and general thumbing of his nose at Houston's management is making it harder for him to actually get what he wants?

Then, it's on to the Opening Night Battle of LA... won by the Clippers. It's the first game, but what might have been instructive, insofar as matchups later in the season are concerned? Were there any clues on how a playoff series between these teams could go?

From there, it's on to Rohan's outstanding feature story on Davis. How did Kobe play a role in his development? What about Lakers assistant coach Mike Penberthy? We talk Jimmy Butler (based on another excellent story from Rohan) and why so many people missed the mark with him.

Finally, a game of Rob Pelinka Trivia, in honor of Rob Pelinka's birthday.

So apparently, the Lakers know a winning formula when they see it. Losing to the Clippers in the opener worked out last season, so Tuesday night, as the NBA kicked off the 2020-21 season, they tried it again. The LAC beat the Lakers 116-109.

But before that, we got another example of just how good the Lakers are at stagecraft, as they turned what could have been a sad and underwhelming ring ceremony, staged in an empty arena with rigid social distancing guidelines, into something really fantastic. First, they had frontline health workers from UCLA Health "present" rings to team staff. Then for Frank Vogel, Rob Pelinka and the players, their families delivered messages of congratulations and love. It was awesome, and clearly moving for the players. And by the way, it's another thing that helps attract players to the franchise.

It leads to a conversation about what "Lakers Exceptionalism" actually is -- a form of extreme competence that allows the team to win. That's how it was when Dr. Buss was around, and they're back in a similar place now.

Then, it's on to the game. How did the new guys look? What went wrong? Anything to worry about? As for the last question, no, but it's certainly possible the Lakers could look a little more like a work in progress than last year's team did over its first 20 games. Vogel has already noted how the Lakers will need to be careful with LeBron and Davis, minding their workloads. They won't be the only ones. Rotations will need to be tweaked, and changes in personnel - the center position has much less shot-blocking, for example - will require more adjustments. They'll likely win a lot more than they lose, either way, but how much of a work-in-progress will the Lakers be?

Finally, a look at the Clips. Oh, by the way, they won this game, and they're really good, even if you'd still pick the Lakers to win the conference.

The NBA season starts Tuesday, and Monday provided plenty of action, as the last set of rookie contract extensions dominated the news. Of course, the Lakers took care of that on Sunday, with Kyle Kuzma re-upping for three years and $40 million. We start the show talking about the deal, and why it was supremely sensible for all parties involved.

Everyone wins, here.

Next, SI's Michael Pina, who did some of the best writing around the action in the playoff bubble, joins to talk about Anthony Davis and expectations for him this season. Is an MVP a realistic possibility? How about the Clippers? Are they a real challenger to the Lakers? He thinks so, and also makes a compelling argument for Kawhi Leonard as the best player in the NBA, entering a season tailored to him winning an MVP.

Finally, we cap off that conversation with speculation on where James Harden might land.

Andy and Brian wrap the show reacting to Michael's choice of the Clippers to win a title. If it's not the Lakers, they're one of two teams (Milwaukee being the other) with what seems to be the best shot as we kick things off this year.

The NBA is about ready to kick into high gear, and with that in mind, we welcome Clare de Lune (@ClaireMPLS), host of the "Dimes and Dozens" podcast to get ready.

We start with how good the Lakers look, given how far ahead they were at the end of last season. Meanwhile, the Clippers are being accused of criminality centered around Jerry West and the luring of Kawhi Leonard to LA. What might it mean for The Logo if this stuff turns out to be true?

Meanwhile, Claire has adopted the Lakers as her team, since moving to LA. One big reason? She was a huge LeBron fan, and they arrived at the same time. So will Lakers fans accept her as one of their own? Or is she a bandwagoner. It gets into one of the more unique things about the NBA - that fans follow players as much as teams. Along those lines, are people undervaluing James Harden, beacuse they don't like him?

Finally, we dive into Claire's new single "The Jump," which she records under her project, Tiny Deaths.

https://www.tinydeaths.com/music