BAD Surprise For Lakers vs Thunder, Rockets Think Reed Sheppard Is STEPH CURRY?!

An unpleasant surprise for tonight's

game one of Lakers versus Thunder.

Lakers fans, you're going to be pissed

about this. Plus, the Houston Rockets,

their offseason trade plans revealed.

Are they making even more mistakes? I'm

Trevor Lane. This is the Basketball

Bulletin. Make sure you hit that

subscribe button. Join me, Donnie

Freeman. Donnie, how you doing, my

friend?

>> I was doing pretty good until I saw this

dire news.

>> Oh my gosh,

I said it. I said it last time that the

NBA can never allow this to happen

again. And here we are. Tonight, James

Williams will be part of the Lakers

versus Thunder game one officiating

crew. This is for anybody who does not

recall this is the official from what

was it game four that ejected DeAndre

Eaton that ejected a doo thorough from

the game. And it's not just a Lakers

thing. has ejected a number of players.

Got involved in that Suns game, made a

mess of that. We said it at the time,

this official, this officiating crew

needs to be taken off of the playoffs.

They made an absolute mess of multiple

games already. God forbid they actually

referee a game that is close that could

be decided. Those games were not decided

by the officials, but they've made a

number of mistakes. James Williams

specifically, very quick trigger,

ejecting players. ejected a due Theo for

nothing for for no reason. Just said

that's it. One technical ejection for

Duth Theo and somehow he's assigned to

game one tonight.

>> Uh he uh two things. Uh is he going to

be pro Lakers today? That could be

interesting. An interesting uh pivot on

this.

>> What to like make amends or something?

>> Maybe. I don't know. Uh secondly, Zack

Zarba is there. I don't generally have a

problem with him, but I I mean

>> I mean I can't really say that cuz

somebody's going to be like, "Oh, I hate

Zack cuz XYZ." The key thing with this

is that these guys So my point is that

he uh Williams must be pretty good at

his job contrary to popular belief

because I mean they keep on putting him

on these crews and and and leading these

crews in the NBA playoffs when they're

under a lot of scrutiny. But the thing

is that these guys do get graded. They

don't put them out there in front of the

world, you know, to publicly talk about

these things. Most of the time they do

have the pull report where we get some

information from that, but they I mean,

apparently he's grading well because

he's just constantly on these games. So

>> then something's flawed with that

grading system.

>> Apparently he's getting graded well,

man.

>> Right. I mean that it's like when we dig

into advanced analytics or something and

if it comes out showing that you know a

a player who's just an okay role player

is somehow more impactful than a true

superstar then you don't go oh well this

must be fact. You go back to the drawing

board and say okay something's wrong

with the analytics right I mean we all

saw him erroneously mistakenly

eject players from game and we had

issues as well with the uh with the

Thunder and the Suns game. I maybe that

was just a couple of bad nights for him.

I hope that's the case.

>> Yeah,

>> but I've got some concerns, you know,

given how physical this series uh

projects to be. And

I'm so worried about Lou Dort, Donnie. I

am so worried about Lou Dort doing

something shady out there. Uh a Laker

Now, if a Laker retaliates, is that

going to be an injection? I don't know.

I don't know, man.

I I'm not super thrilled about this.

>> I mean, let Thunder fans tell it. Lou

Dort's not a dirty player. The whole

world seems to be in consensus with

that, but Thunder fans are in denial

about that.

>> I get it. Stick up for your guy and

everything, but the dude is tripping

people out there on the floor, throwing

an ex throwing the leg out behind him to

try to trip players and stuff. Like,

>> that's like that's like Warriors fans

saying Draymond isn't a dirty player. I

don't even think I've ever even seen

that. Everyone knows full well. I mean,

this is the same guy that like Draymond,

he freaking launched himself off Sabonis

that one time.

>> Remember that?

>> The stomp.

>> Yeah, remember?

>> He's the same guy that was getting

ejected for kicking dudes in the nuts,

man. Like, what are we doing here? So,

Lou Doran is cut from that same cloth.

Anyway, I I'm a little bit worried about

that. And that's the one thing about

that is if you're a team with bringing

back players from injuries, you

absolutely need to be concerned about

that. But they're going to be very

physical out there and you just have to

hope that it's called fairly. Now, uh

just quick note on that,

>> even calls doesn't mean fairly.

>> Correct.

>> That I think that's where people kind of

get confused like, oh, they both shot 15

free throws. It's even, you know, so

>> or spare, I should say.

>> The team the two teams shooting the same

number of free throws does not mean a

correctly called game. That's not the

way that works. Um, I just I want to go

I want to leave a game saying I didn't

even really notice the officials. That's

the ideal, right? That's the ideal

scenario. That's that is a job well

done. If you leave a game and there's

you didn't think twice about the

officials throughout the game because

everything was just called

appropriately.

>> Yeah, exactly. And I just want to say

this before we move on. Uh, the Lakers

are I think the Thunder are like 15

point favorites. I think I saw that was

LeBron's biggest underdog of his career.

And so if they lose this game or this

series, I don't think it'll be because

the officiating in any way, shape, or

form. I like to throw that out there

because sometimes people have of hearing

what we're not saying. So

>> you're right. We We are not That's very

true. We are not saying if the Lakers

lose this series, it's because of the

officials. Almost certainly that will

not be the case. There are games where

an official has made a decision that has

changed the outcome. But but you've got

to pick out specific in general. You

don't look at a game and say, "Well, the

officials are the ones who who cost the

team this game. The Thunder are a very

very good team. They beat the Lakers

will be because they are a very very

good team." And that's and that's that.

Um

I don't want to see good players get

ejected for no reason. And that's what

we saw the last time he officiated a

Lakers game. That's my concern.

>> Yep.

>> All right. We need to talk about the

Rockets. The Rockets, are they going to

blow it up now? Now that they got got

bounced round one by the Lakers, are

they going to blow it up? Is Emodoka on

the way out? We've got some fresh intel

on that front. Uh, first quick shout out

to our sponsor and that is prize picks.

You guys can check them out. Use the

code HMA. Link is in the description

down below. Uh, play $5, get $50

instantly. I already threw some picks

out there. I I'm going to stick with

stars. I'm going to say LeBron more than

17 and a half points against the

Thunder. I think they're going to use

him in the post a lot. And SGA more than

28 and a half points against the Lakers.

I think they don't have a clear

defensive option to help on SGA. So,