Brooklyn Nets Podcast: The Glue Guys - Ian Eagle Interview

The Glue Guys start with the sad-sad event that was the Knicks-Nets game. (17:00) Nets play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle to talk possible trade deadline deals, evaluating LeVert, and Super Bowl prediction. (52:30) News Around the League: Carmelo Anthony trade rumors and LeBron-Barkely feud.

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So what are the headlines? Eagle talks about which players are untouchable: probably three; whether the Nets might for a point guard at the deadline: “absolutely:” the price tag for Brook Lopez: call it high; and how the Nets did oh so well in the 2016 draft what that means for Sean Marks and Trajan Langdon’s rep.

Eagle told Brian Egan and Michael Smeltz that the he thinks that there are “very few untouchables” (21:03) on the Nets roster, notably rookies Caris LeVert and Isaiah Whitehead and Jeremy Lin, who he believes despite his injury is “in for the long haul.” (21:50).

LeVert and Whitehead, he added, are particularly important for Sean Marks and Trajon Langdon because general managers know they “build your reputation in the draft” and the new guys in the front office did very well in 2016.

Asked if the Nets might consider going for a point guard at the deadline, Eagle replied that it’s “absolutely in play.” (22:40) not because they don’t have confidence in Lin but because they learned their lesson about point guard depth and “they’re not locked into anything.”

On Brook Lopez’s future, Eagle reiterated what Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Stein have said in recent weeks, that the Nets “are not giving him away.” (25:25). Eagle suggested in fact that the Nets will likely want a lottery pick in this draft and another future first round pick. If not, he told Egan and Smeltz, “Lopez could be part of this next year.” (22:45)

“I know the asking price is legitimately high,. Look around, not a lot of guys who can do what he does,” he added. “I don’t believe they’re going to get desperate and feel the need to dump him.”

Eagle spoke as well about the “different culture” in the Nets organization (29:30) and offered an example of how Marks et al get player input even on things like travel schedules.

“Even something that might be considered minute, like how you travel, days off,” he explained. “After a game even if you have a day off in the city coming up, usually in the NBA, it's been, ‘hey, just get out of Dodge.’ Play your game, no matter what, get out, not matter what time it is. The Nets have changed that. they adjusted that. They've asked the players their opinion on how their bodies best recover. I just hadn't see that happening.”

The YES announcer spoke as well (31:30) about LeVert (“his upside is through the roof”) and Whitehead (“he is an NBA player ... a guy they wanted”). Eagle said he thought LeVert has developed faster than he thought and is most likely to be a “catalyst” in the NBA while Whitehead, pressed into service as a point guard, could wind up as a “combo guard.”

On non-Nets issues, Eagle spoke about his dream assignment and who he thinks will win the Super Bowl, and how Tom Brady caught him eating a donut.

Good stuff.