CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Chris Fedor discuss the recent celebrity softball game featuring Cavs players, focusing on Darius Garland’s recovery from toe surgery.
Takeaways:
Darius Garland’s Recovery Status: Darius Garland is still recovering from toe surgery and is not expected to be fully ready for training camp, with the Cavaliers taking a cautious approach.
Kenny Atkinson’s Approach to Garland’s Return: Kenny Atkinson confirmed Garland won’t be rushed and emphasized the team’s depth at point guard if Garland misses time.
Evan Mobley’s MVP Aspirations: Evan Mobley expressed confidence about potentially being an MVP candidate by 2027, showing a new level of self-belief.
Max Strus’ Athletic Versatility: Max Strus showcased his exceptional athletic versatility at Garland’s celebrity softball game, excelling in multiple sports.
Mobley’s Offseason Development: Evan Mobley has been training in Los Angeles, focusing on expanding his offensive game, including developing a mid-range jumper.
Atkinson’s Philosophy on Team Changes: Kenny Atkinson believes the Cavaliers don’t need drastic changes, focusing on specific improvements like handling pressure and conditioning.
Garland’s Focus on Playoff Performance: Darius Garland’s primary focus is being at his best in June for playoff basketball, reevaluating his approach to conditioning and recovery.
Increased Offensive Role for Mobley: The Cavaliers have communicated to Evan Mobley that he’ll have an expanded offensive role next season, particularly at the start of the season if Garland misses time.
Notable Absence of Donovan Mitchell: Donovan Mitchell was notably absent from Garland’s celebrity softball game despite their close relationship.
Rich Paul’s Home Run Derby Rules Change: Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul managed to change the Home Run Derby rules in his favor, demonstrating his influence.
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Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and could contain misspellings and errors.
Ethan Sands: What up Cavs Nation? I’m your host, Ethan Sands and I’m back with another episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. Joining me today, none other than Chris Fedor, the man himself who gets all the inside knowledge, all the one on ones that he could want. And the latest one came at Darius Garland’s first annual celebrity softball game this past weekend. Before we get into the chops of the conversation, Chris, who was your standout player from the game this past weekend and maybe somebody that surprised you in.
Chris Fedor: The wrong way or the right way? There were a few guys that surprised me in the wrong way. Let me just say that some of these guys were former athletes and looked like they had never picked up a baseball bat. Now I totally understand that softball is different than hitting a baseball because the arc that it comes at and it’s underhand and you kind of have to wait for it. But man, some of these dudes were having a hard time getting it out of the infield for the Home Run Derby. I’m not going to put him on blast though, not going to specify who it was, but let’s just say there were more than a few of those guys. But on the other side of the spectrum, Max Straight Druce can win anything he plays. I saw him last year at training camp when the Cavs were throwing the football around and he was hauling in one handed catches from whoever it was and then he was spiking a volleyball another time when I saw him. So I just don’t think there is a sport that Max does not excel in. And he was awesome. He won the Home Run Derby. He hit a home run to lead off the celebrity softball game. So it was not a surprise to me that that Max was really, really good in the softball environment. He kind of felt the way that he showed up and the swag that he carried himself with going into that game, he felt like he was going to put on a show. And he definitely put on a show. He was. Him and Josh Cribs were probably the best hitters that participated in the celebrity softball game.
Ethan Sands: Yeah, I saw him smack a couple of homers for the Home Run Derby. I was not surprised by the power. But obviously playing baseball, growing up and then playing other sports, there’s always this thought process that other athletes can play baseball or softball the same way that these players do. And as you mentioned, Chris, it’s just not the case. There are guys that play football or basketball and come and play baseball and some throw the bat because they cannot wielding the same kind of way. And I just think everybody’s first time seeing somebody who has never played baseball or softball before. It’s a jarring experience because these guys think that they’re world class athletes, think they should be able to have success in whatever they do. That’s not the case for everybody.
Chris Fedor: Clutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, he changed the rules in his favor. Midway through the Home Run Derby. He went to somebody and he said, hey, look, for me, a home run is not hitting it over the fence, it’s hitting it onto the grass in the outfield. So he was able to advance to the championship round from his side because they changed the rules and he was actually able to hit a couple of home runs by just hitting it out of the infield. Max Strus had real home runs over the fence home runs.
Ethan Sands: So.
Chris Fedor: So it was a little bit different when you got to the championship round between Max Drus and Rich Paul because they changed the rules back and they said, no, no, no, no, no. For the championship round you have to hit it over the fence. And that was just not going to happen for Rich. But I give him a lot of credit and he just shows how much power he has in every walk of life where he was just able to change the rules to benefit him in a great way.
Ethan Sands: What are we talking, Chris? 200 foot fences, 300 foot fences.
Chris Fedor: What moved up from what they’re supposed to be. Obviously it was the way back to what it is. For the Lake county captains. I would say probably like 2:15 maybe because they put a makeshift orange fence. When you have these celebrity softball games, they put up these makeshift orange fences so that these guys don’t have to hit it all the way as if they’re a minor league baseball player. So I would say probably 215. If I had to guess, I didn’t really step it off. I could have, I could have. That would have been some intrepid reporting. But I wasn’t there. You know, a long time ago, my mentor said that just because you are at an event, the event may not be the most important thing. And it was in reference to summer league. When I was at summer league a couple of years ago, he said, look around the arena, who’s there, who matters? And in this case the celebrity softball game, while it was fun and it was good to interact with these guys and it was good to see them try and hit some dingers in a celebrity softball game or in the Home Run Derby, that was secondary to the fact that it was access to Kenny Atkinson. It was access to Max Struse. It was access to Tristan Thompson, Darius Garland. There was a big Cavs contingent there. Obviously, it was Darius’s celebrity softball game. So my duty being there was talk to as many people as I possibly could in that kind of environment. And it was fun that I was trying to talk to one of the players and they’re like, are you serious? This is a celebrity softball game. Do we really have to talk about this? And I was like, yeah, we really do. It would be really, really nice. I’m the only reporter here that is ready to talk to you guys. So you got to do something with your time. Why not talk to me? And then they did. They were just joking, of course, but it was funny that they were like, really? We gotta talk to you in August. Come on, man. Can’t you wait until training camp?
Ethan Sands: I have some ideas of who that might have been on the other end of that. I’m not going to throw them under the bus. But as you mentioned, Chris, this was a celebrity softball game. And one player that I’m not saying he didn’t show up because he didn’t want to be there, but was not in attendance. That I was very surprised. Was not there was Donovan Mitchell. One, because he has a great relationship with Darius Garland. Two, he loved him some baseball. Not seeing him on the lineup, not seeing him on the lineup card. Coming into the celebrity softball game made me a little bit interesting. Maybe he thought that he would have gave Max Drew a run for his money. But to the main event, Darius Garland, who was not allowed to run during this celebrity softball cake, he still did take an at bat, according to the video of Cleveland Cavalier’s social media team. What did he look like? Chris, I know you got to talk to him and we’ll get into that a second, but how did he look being out there on the field taking a couple hacks and all of those good things?
Chris Fedor: Yeah, I think you hit on it there. The big thing when it comes to Darius, where he is in terms of his recovery, he just isn’t able to run. He isn’t able to run up and down the floor, sprint, full go, anything like that. The way that he described it to me was about a week ago, he finally got on the court to do some light workouts, basketball related workouts. He can lift all he wants to, and he has been lifting. He looks stronger, he looks bigger. That was obviously a point of emphasis for him this off season, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of stuff on the court because of his recovery from toe surgery. So he’s obviously been in the weight room and he’s been lifting and he’s been packing on even more muscle and trying to get bigger and stronger for the 82 game grind. And then what he hopes is, is a deep playoff run, but he’s just doing light stuff. When you talk about encore basketball activities and it’s August, right? It’s been been about two months since he had that surgery on his toe. So it tells you kind of where he, where he’s at in terms of his recovery and his progression. It’s still a long way away from him, you know, participating in meaningful basketball related activities. And I think it was always interesting that when the Cavs sent out the press release shortly after the surgery was officially announced, they didn’t say that he was going to be full go at training camp. They, they did say that they expected him to make a full recovery and they expected him to be back to basketball related activities. That was a very vague thing for a reason. But the sense that I got in being around him is that this has been a slow process and it’s two months since and he still isn’t able to run. In fact, he was trying to go somewhere quickly so that he could make an announcement on a microphone. He was on the opposite side of the field or something like that, and they were waiting for him to make some kind of intro announcement of hey, thanks for coming out to support the Darius Garland Foundation. And he was kind of like speed walking because he knew with all of the Cavs people that were there in attendance, including president of basketball operations Kobe Altman, who was on one of the teams, he knew that going into a jog or even going into a run probably wasn’t going to be the best look. And he’s not allowed to do that at this point of his recovery. So he kind of did a speed walk over to the microphone and it just kind of again, it highlights where he is at in terms of this recovery and kind of how much further he has to go to get himself into basketball playing condition. I also talked to Kenny Atkinson, that story is going to come out on cleveland.com this week. And I asked him, I said, you know, as a coach, you lost Ty Jerome and Darius is obviously recovering from toe surgery. Are you anticipating Darius being ready for training? And he said, no, I don’t decide these things. It’s going to be up to Darius and the training staff led by Steve Spears bureau. But he said, I, I don’t expect him to. And I want him to take his time with this and we’re not going to push it, we’re not going to rush it. So I think the fact that the Cavs said long ago in that release he’ll be back to basketball related activities by training camp, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to be full go and he’s going to be ready for five on five and it doesn’t mean that he’s going to be ready to scrimmage. I think it’s going to be a slow recovery process and I think the Cavs as they have been throughout the course of the last half decade, basically with any injury, they’re going to continue to take a cautious approach, especially when you’re talking about big picture goals and what matters most for this organization. The other thing that Kenny said is he feels comfortable and confident in the guys that they have to play that position. If Darius does miss time at the beginning of the regular season, which is what is being expected at this point in time.
Ethan Sands: And as we mentioned, right, this is an injury that’s lingered since the end of the regular season when Darius was missing a couple of games and then again when he re aggravated it in Game two against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference first round. And it sidelined him for almost as many games as he had missed the entire regular season season. Chris, that was the biggest takeaway for me. And again, these injury things take time and we know that he’s going to want to heal because he wants to be ready in June. Obviously he wants to be out there in late October, November, December, but that’s not the most important thing for Darius Garland, being ready for April, May and June is more important than playing in preseason games and playing in the first month of the season. Obviously he wants to get out there within the first 10 games, but whether or not that’s going to be possible is the bigger question for the Cleveland Cavaliers. And also we’ve talked on this podcast before, Donovan Mitchell has dealt with a calf injury for the last two playoffs, right? Darius Garland has also been injured for the last two playoffs, not as significantly as his past year, a year ago when they were in Boston, but he was still dealing with that back injury. He was still having to sit on that heated pad and all these things. So I think the Cavs, again, as we’ve talked about on in the past, have had this plan to go into the playoffs as healthy as possible and they might even take an even more cautious approach if that’s possible for this next season. Knowing that they did everything right during the regular season, and still they had injuries come up and flare up and derail their postseason run.
Chris Fedor: And you know what, Ethan? It’s not even just being ready for playoff basketball. I think for Darius, it’s trying to find a way to be at his best for playoff basketball. And that’s a big difference. Because if you think back to two years ago, you know, he had missed so much time during the regular season, that six week stretch with a fractured jaw, and it caused him to lose a lot of weight, and he just wasn’t in the shape that he wanted to be in mentally and physically going into that playoff run. So even though he had some good games against Orlando and other good games against Boston, he just wasn’t at his best during that playoff run. And if you talk about this past year, once again, he wasn’t at his best during their playoff run. And I think Darius wants to show that, yes, I can be a playoff riser, yes, I can be a high level playoff performer. And I think to this point, Ethan, he feels like he’s been robbed. For whatever reason, it just hasn’t worked out in his favor. And maybe it’s something that he has to reevaluate when it comes to his recovery, his conditioning, how he ramps himself up as the season goes along. He still is technically a young player that’s trying to figure out certain things throughout his own career. You know, Donovan Mitchell, it took him time to figure it out. LeBron James, it took him time to figure it out. Like, these guys want to be at their best going into, into the playoffs. They want to be in the best shape possible, physically and mentally, so that they can perform at the highest level. And Darius, to this point, it feels like he feels like he’s been robbed of that opportunity to show what he could potentially be as a playoff performer. And I think there are legitimate questions still attached to Darius. Look, throughout the course of the regular season, Kenny Atkinson, even into the playoffs, Kenny Atkinson was talking about, hey, we need Darius to be 28 and still of 25. Even Kobe Altman, president of basketball operations after the season, he was talking about the timeline for contention and the timeline for competing for a championship that Donovan Mitchell is at and how it’s not exactly in line with Evan Mobley and Darius Garland and Jared Allen and some of these other guys. And I think that’s what people in this organization have kind of been alluding to. And that’s, I think, why Darius said what he said to me at the celebrity softball game about you know, for me, it’s about being at my best in June, and it’s not just being healthy in June. It’s not just, you know, getting through the grind of the regular season. It’s like, what kind of conditioning do I have to be in? What kinds of recovery do I have to implement into my daily routine? It’s. It’s figuring out all those kinds of things so that he can prove whether or not the front office can figure out whether or not he can be a guy that helps them win a championship. And he just hasn’t had that opportunity to be at his best when the Cavs have needed him to be at his best. And like I said, some of it’s bad luck, for sure. Some of it is a fluke situation, for sure. But the other part of it is, you know, all these guys owe it to themselves to kind of take a look in the mirror and ask themselves some difficult questions about why does it keep happening to me? And is there something. Maybe there isn’t, but is there something that I can do that better positions.
Ethan Sands: Me for that him getting stronger is going to help him. Kenny Atkinson has kind of alluded to this throughout last season when talking about he needs to take better care of his body. That being the similar comparison to Stephen Curry and the comparison to what their bodies needed to endure and change, especially on the defensive end. There was another part of the celebrity softball game that wasn’t a part of the game that was intriguing. And it was a reporter going up to Evan Mobley and asking him about the possibility for him to be an MVP candidate. And. And he brought up the possibility for that to be in 2027. And Chris, obviously, we’ve talked about this a lot this off season. It’s gotta be the season for Evan Mobley to take another jump and realize that he has to either act or play like he’s a number one option on this team. And for him, it’s not only playing like it, but more so mentally and thinking like it. Right? And I think him coming out and saying that is already a good step in the right direction. And obviously, the NBA also came out with a compilation for his Defensive Player of the Year, because it’s NBA Defense week, where they share all the plays on. On social media. Took me back to the. The time where we are standing in the locker room and he has Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Tristan Thompson behind us all, like, who’s Defensive Player of the year? Say it. Say it. And they’re like, evan Mobley, defensive Player of the year. 4. Exactly. But, like, it wasn’t pushed this time. There were no extracurriculars behind him. It was Evan Mobley talking to one person and having the confidence to say, I think I can make 2027 happen. I think I can make it happen in the next couple of years, being in these MVP conversations. And obviously Kenny Atkinson and Donovan Mitchell have talked about that at summer league prior, so it’s probably a conversation that they’ve had as well. Chris, what do you think it says about his mental state and also his readiness to take that next step again after a year where he already took a major leap in his career?
Chris Fedor: Well, I mean, for the last couple of years, various people inside the organization, Ethan, have. Have been trying to get Evan to think this way. They’ve been trying to get Evan to believe this. And look, it started at All Star Weekend when. When Evan was talking about the next wave of star in the NBA and the future of the league and the next MVP candidates waiting in the wings. And he basically says, it’s me or Wemby. So for him to say that at All Star Weekend, it’s not a surprise that when these conversations continue to come up about his ceiling, what he wants out of his career, he is going to say these things. Kenny Atkinson has been saying it, Donovan Mitchell has been saying it. They’ve been trying to get Evan to think this way and believe in himself to the highest level. And it does feel like it’s starting to resonate, and it does feel like Evan’s carrying himself a different kind of way. It does feel like Evan’s talking in a different kind of way. It does feel like this is Evan Mobley. As much as he’s maturing as a basketball player, he’s getting comfortable with who he is off the floor as well. And I think that’s a big deal for somebody like him. I also think that part of the conversation that the Cavs have had with Evan throughout the course of this off season is, hey, you’re going to be more involved in the offense, you’re going to get more touches, you’re going to get more usage. You’re probably going to do some pick and roll stuff. You’re probably going to do some playmaking stuff. We don’t have Ty Jerome anymore. We probably are going to be without Darius Garland for a chunk of of the first part of the season. It might be a week, it might be two weeks, it might be three weeks. Who knows? But during that time, you’re going to have more responsibility. During that time, you’re going to have more of a role within this offense. And I think that message has gotten through to Evan as well. And I think Donovan and K Kenny both talked about it throughout the course of last year. You know, the next step, what they saw as the next step for Evan wasn’t about his three point shot. It wasn’t about dribbling the ball up the floor and initiating offense. It was learning how to be a star. And there are so many different levels to that. But Kenny Atkinson said over and over and over again he’s still learning how to be a star. And Donovan Mitchell even said he’s still learning how to be a star and everything that that entails. And if, if he starts to carry himself on the court the same way that he’s been talking since All Star, like look out. Because we understand what he can be from a skill perspective. We understand the versatility, we understand the elite level defense, we understand the evolving offensive game where he’s getting more and more comfortable out on the perimeter. But if there’s a mentality shift for him and there’s a new aggression that he plays with on a nightly basis, that’s the thing that this organization has been trying to pull out of him since 2021. That’s the reason why Paul Pierce has been saying some of the things that he’s been saying, why Kevin Garnett has been saying some of the things that he’s been saying. You know, why all these other people, Kendrick Perkins has been saying some of the things that he’s been saying because they feel like if he harnesses that, if he channels his inner demon, then you are talking about an MVP candidate. You are talking about somebody who might be right there with Victor Wembanyama, might be right there competing with Jokic and Giannis and Shay Gilous Alexander and his teammate Donovan Mitchell and all those things for the status of who’s the best player in the NBA, who do you want to build a franchise around? Probably not the answer is Donovan Mitchell in that particular question. But all of those different conversations that they have on first take or these NBA general manager surveys or whatever the case may be, if he becomes that, then all of a sudden he becomes a mainstay, unlike a lot of those lists in a lot of those conversations. And it feels like it’s going to translate on the court, but it feels like it’s starting to click mentally for him and he’s starting to believe it to the same degree that everybody else in this organization already believed.
Ethan Sands: And I think Kobe Altman of all people, president of basketball operations would look at that as a win. 24 year old Evan Mobley already being second team all NBA and all star defensive player of the year and things are clicking. Donovan Mitchell has been talking about this for a while. This is the worst that Evan Mobley is going to be, right? And he had a season where it felt like he was elevating himself into a tier of okay, well, how good is he going to get? And Kobe Altman has been preaching for the last three, four years. We just have to be patient. We just have to wait. We’re setting it up for it to work out. All you can keep hoping for is for his mental state to get to where his physical attributes already are, right? Like if your mental capacity can catch up to your physical abilities, you’re going to be a monster. You are going to be a star. And we’ve talked about the superstar mentality all throughout the summer, especially when it pertains to Evan Mobley. But there is a delusional confidence that you need. There’s a confidence that some players around the league that aren’t stars have, right? Ty Jerome, unshakable. Always ready for the moment, always ready for the opportunity. Even in the playoffs, I’m not shooting well, I don’t care. I’m going to keep playing my game and split putting shots up. That’s delusional confidence. That’s what the Cavs need out of Evan Mobley. Take 20 shots a game, but not even that. If you’re having a bad night, it does not matter. Keep shooting, keep getting to your spots, keep attacking. And the assertiveness, the aggressiveness is the key word that we’ve talked about at length. Chris, in a previous podcast you mentioned JB Bickerstaff having a note in his locker. And for preseason for a year, like, I think that can’t just be a word anymore. It has to be a mentality, it has to be a statement, it has to be a declaration of what MMOB is going to do this year. And I think we’re getting little bits and pieces. Obviously the season hasn’t even gotten underway. We haven’t even gotten the preseason. The preseason schedule just came out and we’re already getting inklings of, oh yeah, this kid might now be making the right moves, the right jumps in his mind to be able to play how we’ve all seen it come out and what we all expect to happen.
Chris Fedor: And beyond that, he’s obviously putting in the work behind the scenes. I was talking to Evan about what his Summer has looked like what kinds of things he’s been focused on this off season. He’s taken two separate vacations, able to get away, decompress, get over the pain of, of what happened in the second round playoff exit against Indiana this past weekend at Darius’s celebrity softball game. That was the first time he came back to Cleveland. It was the only time that he’s been back in Cleveland because he’s been in LA and he’s been doing these runs with, with his trainer Olin Simplice. And there are a lot of NBA guys that work out at Academy USA in the LA area. So he’s been playing against some high level NBA players, trying to sharpen his skills and trying to test himself in that kind of environment. And those are competitive runs from everything that I understand. Look, it’s not playoff level basketball, it’s certainly not regular season level basketball, it may not even be preseason level basketball. But it’s high level competition for what summer usually entails. And he’s being able to work on some things from an individual standpoint and test those out in that kind of environment against real NBA players. And that has been beneficial for him since the moment he came into the NBA. And it’s going to be beneficial for him. It feels like it’s going to be beneficial for him, you know, this off season and he’s really put his, his head down and he’s tried to make a specific focus on some of the things that, that he’s working on and making sure that he is a different, not completely revamped offensive player, but different enough from an offensive standpoint that the Cavs can use him in a multitude of ways, especially if they’re going to go a stretch at the beginning of the season without Darius Garland.
Ethan Sands: Yeah, Chris and I wrote about Evan Mobley’s development this, this summer in an article at the very beginning. Like five things that Kenny acted in it, it can instill in Evan Mobley for his off season. And the most important one for me was putting body on body, right? Because him being physical, him being able to withstand the grueling nature of being a five man, like he is going to have to go body to body and figure out what moves can work, what moves can’t work. And especially if he’s going to be bringing the ball up more, having guard like players guarding him in the off season, trying to take the ball away from him, not the coaches that are going to slap your wrist and try and tell you what you’re doing wrong, but more so like somebody actively trying to take the ball from you on a daily basis is much more beneficial for a player like him who’s already to a different caliber. But you don’t need cone drills as much as you need to go five on five or one on one or try and find your spaces. And the other thing I’ve been very happy to see is he’s also trying to implement a new mid range game into his arsenal. He’s got the three point shot that’s been developing and growing. He’s got the post game, he’s got the back to the basket, the face up game that’s all capable of working. But if he’s able to add in that little Carmelo shimmy and fade away into his game, that’s going to be nasty. Especially as a seven footer where it’s already hard for a lot of these players to even try and get their hand up in your face to the point where it’s going to disrupt you.
Chris Fedor: Think about some of the comparisons that that have been made for Evan since the moment he came into the NBA. I mean the ones that, that are used most often, Chris Bosh, Kevin Garnett, Anthony Davis, they all had that kind of weapon offensively that you’re talking about there. It just diversifies the way that he can attack a defense in the way that the Cavs can attack a defense. It changes the spacing. It takes him away from potential clunkiness with Jared Allen because they’re not occupying or trying to occupy the same space on the floor. They’re not in the same area that makes them most comfortable. If Evan can get most comfortable from the elbow extended like kg, like Chris Bosh, like Anthony Davis, it just changes the look offensively for the Cavs. It changes the way that they can attack. And in my conversation with Kenny Atkinson and I think we talked for close to 10 minutes actually while the Home Run Derby was going on. That was the hard thing about this whole event is that you only had so much time with these guys because they were obviously there for a different purpose. And I wish I would have had more time with Darius Garland. Obviously there were questions that I had for him that I wasn’t able to get to because he did a little group session to talk about his foundation and talk about why he did the celebrity softball game and that usual stuff. And then afterward I pulled him to the side right outside the visitors clubhouse at the Lake County Captain Stadium. And it was during a time that he, he was trying to get onto the field so that he could play host. He was the host of the day. So he kept saying, like, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I totally respect that. So, yeah, there were more, more details that, that I wanted to get into with, with Darius, but there was only a short amount of time, so I had to try and figure out what I thought were the most pressing questions and the most important questions. And it was the same thing with, with Kenny Atkinson. This wasn’t a sit down in his office, you know, for 25 minutes. The, the way that sometimes it goes for me during training camp or during the regular season or something like that, you take what you can get. And him and I talked for probably about 10 minutes while the Home Run Derby was going on. And he didn’t participate in the Home Run Derby, so it was a little bit better from, from that standpoint. And, and one of the things that he said to me, he’s like, you know, sometimes when these teams lose in the playoffs and it’s a loss that they don’t expect, that they didn’t want, they reevaluate everything and they come to a conclusion that drastic changes are required. He said, with us, I didn’t ever feel like that was necessary. Yeah, I had to do things differently moving forward. I probably have to do some things differently. I have to evaluate lineups, I have to evaluate rotations, I have to evaluate counters to, to what the defense takes away from us within our offensive system. But he said, you have to be really, really careful when you’re a team like us that had success to make drastic changes, whether it’s with personnel or whether it’s with the scheme. So he said, I just want it to be known that we’re not going to make wholesale changes to what we do because what we do, we feel like works. There are certain things that we obviously have to work on. How do we handle pressure? How do we get into our sets quicker? How do we build up better conditioning so our guys can play 40 to 44 minutes in a playoff game and still be effective? But he said, I don’t think this is a situation where we have to make wholesale changes either to the roster or to what we do. And I thought that was a very important point.
Ethan Sands: And with all that being said from Chris Fedor and myself, especially breaking down the celebrity softball game and how much information came out of that that will wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to something this is where you can send in your weekly hey Chris questions. We’re cutting it down to about three episodes a week so you can get your podcast anywhere. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, all of those podcasts platforms are going to be getting us three days a week until about mid September. But to get Subtext Questions in for our hey Chris podcast, which still will be every week, you need to sign up for a 14 day free trial or visit cleveland.comcavs and click on the blue bar at the top of the page. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast, it’s your podcast and the only way to have your voice heard is through subtext. Y’ all be safe. We out.
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