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Speaker 2: Slash baseball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at
Speaker 2: the volume. Happy funday, everybody, hope all if you guys
Speaker 2: are having a great start to your week. Well, Team
Speaker 2: USA at a very entertaining first game of pool play
Speaker 2: in the Olympics against Serbia as they win by twenty
Speaker 2: six points. We're gonna be breaking that game down from
Speaker 2: a bunch of different angles. I'm gonna start by just
Speaker 2: kind of going through the entire game that we're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about the decision to bench Jason Tatum and why
Speaker 2: I disagree with it, and some of the different angles
Speaker 2: that people are taking to try to make their case
Speaker 2: and that debate. Kevin Durant in his return, once again
Speaker 2: just shows this uncanny ability to just step back out
Speaker 2: on the basketball floor after taking time away to nurse
Speaker 2: an injury and then just immediately look like Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: as he comes out red hot. And then at the
Speaker 2: tail end of the show, Joel Embiid once again goes
Speaker 2: minus eight in the game his team wins by twenty six.
Speaker 2: The obvious sore thumbs sticking out on this Team USA roster.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 2: the specific reasons why that has been the case. So
Speaker 2: a bunch Team USA stuff today. You guys know the
Speaker 2: joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to
Speaker 2: Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
Speaker 2: our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSONLTS. You
Speaker 2: guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about a
Speaker 2: podcast feed where if you get your podcast on our
Speaker 2: Hoops Tonight. Don't forget. It's also helpful if he leave
Speaker 2: a raiding in a review on our podcast feed, and
Speaker 2: the last not at least keep dropping mailback questions in
Speaker 2: the YouTube comments. We're going to record one at the
Speaker 2: tail end of this week to carry us over the
Speaker 2: weekend like we usually do. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: Actually have one last note before we get started. So
Speaker 2: we came up with a decision for player rankings and
Speaker 2: the way that we're going to do it. So we're
Speaker 2: just going to do an in a vacuum list, meaning
Speaker 2: we're going to do a top twenty five players list
Speaker 2: that strictly evaluates the basketball players and how they contribute
Speaker 2: to winning in a vacuum, irrespective of the talent that
Speaker 2: they are surrounded by. Then to address that like kind
Speaker 2: of like bragging rights issue, We're just going to do
Speaker 2: one episode at the tail end of that where I
Speaker 2: tell you guys, who I think is the bragging rights
Speaker 2: Champion of the year, meaning the basketball player that accomplished
Speaker 2: the most individually within that season and deserves the recognition
Speaker 2: at least the bragging rights so to speak, of being
Speaker 2: the best player in the world. I'll give you, guys
Speaker 2: the candidates that I think are up for that position,
Speaker 2: and then we'll talk about which player I pick for
Speaker 2: that spot. So that's our workaround. We're not going to
Speaker 2: do two separate top twenty five lists. We'll do one
Speaker 2: and then we'll talk about who is the guy who
Speaker 2: has the bragging rights. We're going to start releasing that
Speaker 2: stuff when I go out of town for the summer,
Speaker 2: which is from August eighth to August eighteenth. I'm actually
Speaker 2: going to start working on the list tomorrow, but we're
Speaker 2: going to kind of bank all that stuff and just
Speaker 2: start running it while I'm out of town towards the
Speaker 2: tail end of the month in August, because this Team
Speaker 2: USA thing moves pretty quickly. There's the South sud A
Speaker 2: game on Wednesday, then they played Puerto Rico on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Then it's quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, gold
Speaker 2: medal game on Saturday, and that's it for Olympic basketball.
Speaker 2: And so from that point we have the rest of
Speaker 2: the summer to work on player rankings, and then pretty
Speaker 2: quickly we're going to be in September and we're going
Speaker 2: to be doing our season previews and starting to deep
Speaker 2: dive into each individual team all the changes they made
Speaker 2: over the course of the summer and what we can
Speaker 2: expect from them going into next season. And before you
Speaker 2: guys know it, we'll be in training camp when we
Speaker 2: get to early October. So those are just some scheduling
Speaker 2: notes for the next couple of weeks. But for the
Speaker 2: rest of this week and going into next week, we're
Speaker 2: probably just going to focus on Olympic basketball. I'm probably
Speaker 2: gonna try to find some time to cover some other
Speaker 2: teams other than Team USA as well. We'll see how
Speaker 2: that goes over the course of the next couple weeks.
Speaker 2: All right, Serbia USA, let's get into it. So, as
Speaker 2: we expected, Steve Kerr finally went with a more typical
Speaker 2: rotation instead of his line shift. So like at the
Speaker 2: first time out he put in just Anthony Davis for
Speaker 2: Joe Lumbeid, then after that he brings in just Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards I think for Devin Booker at that point might
Speaker 2: have been for Drew Holliday. But just like bringing in
Speaker 2: in one guy at a time, make maybe two guys here,
Speaker 2: two guys there, more of a traditional basketball rotation instead
Speaker 2: of the line shifts. Say he was doing like a
Speaker 2: damn hockey team in the early part of exhibition play right,
Speaker 2: which again that's to be expected as he's just basically
Speaker 2: testing out lineup combinations and seeing what works right. These
Speaker 2: are the real games, these are the ones they have
Speaker 2: to win. It also looked a lot like the last
Speaker 2: game against Serbia, where Serbia came out with just an
Speaker 2: insane amount of defensive pressure to start again, picking up
Speaker 2: full court, trying to jump passing lanes, being really physical
Speaker 2: with ball pressure in an off ball situations. They knew
Speaker 2: that one of their best advantages was we might just
Speaker 2: play harder than these guys. That was what we saw
Speaker 2: in the exhibition play. That's what we saw yesterday, and
Speaker 2: they if you guys remember in the exhibition play, they
Speaker 2: got a pick six on steph for like an inbound
Speaker 2: play where they they took the ball away from it,
Speaker 2: went down and got a layup. They did the same
Speaker 2: thing to start the game yesterday as well. They had
Speaker 2: another steal on a Joel Embiid lazy inbound pass. They're
Speaker 2: very FOURD aggressive, trying to capitalize on sloppiness and lack
Speaker 2: of effort from Team USA. But one of the things
Speaker 2: I talked about in the last game was that's a
Speaker 2: very exhausting way to play. Not only that, like it's
Speaker 2: a it's a play, it's a style of play that
Speaker 2: most teams don't use in large doses, expect especially old
Speaker 2: grown men professional teams, because they're older, they need to
Speaker 2: conserve energy resources. A lot of these European teams, athleticisms
Speaker 2: not really their strength, so that's not what they lean into.
Speaker 2: They lean more into execution and playing playing like really
Speaker 2: smart in the half court, you know basketball in terms
Speaker 2: of change of pace and just setting really good picks
Speaker 2: and using your size, using your IQ, all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. It's kind of unusual, right, And so one
Speaker 2: of the things you'll notice is if I asked you
Speaker 2: to shoot fifty catch and shoot threes right now, let's
Speaker 2: do a smaller number, ten catch and shoot threes. But
Speaker 2: you're nice and warmed up. But you shoot ten catch
Speaker 2: and shoot threes, you're gonna shoot a certain percentage on them. Right.
Speaker 2: But if I asked you to sprint up and down
Speaker 2: the court ten times first, and then I asked you
Speaker 2: to go shoot ten threes, like, you're gonna have trouble.
Speaker 2: Like there is a muscle memory that you rely on
Speaker 2: that depends on your legs feeling a certain way. It
Speaker 2: depends on your arms feeling a certain way, and that
Speaker 2: muscle memory can get disrupted in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2: Really physical games can disrupt your muscle memories. You get
Speaker 2: all keyed up from the adrenaline rush of physical confrontation.
Speaker 2: Really fast paced games can affect you in terms of
Speaker 2: like if you're a team that's used to playing slow
Speaker 2: and then you run into the Steve Nash Phoenix Suns,
Speaker 2: they run you up and down the floor, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you're exhausted and you're not making
Speaker 2: the same shots that you usually made playing without outside
Speaker 2: of norm defensive energy. That can be something that disrupts
Speaker 2: your typical muscle memory and situations like that. And so
Speaker 2: I thought it was really interesting in both games that
Speaker 2: in the exhibition and in this pool play game that
Speaker 2: Serbia came out gangbusters, playing with insane effort kept the
Speaker 2: game close for about a half but then the bottom
Speaker 2: fell out, and the main issue was the inability to
Speaker 2: knock down decent looks from the three point line right now.
Speaker 2: That was exacerbated by the fact that the USA team
Speaker 2: shot extremely well. They made over fifty percent of their
Speaker 2: threes and that's why they won by twenty six points
Speaker 2: despite falling down ten to two. But Serbia also did
Speaker 2: not shoot well. But again, I like to think of
Speaker 2: that these things are connected. You know, you guys know
Speaker 2: me like I'm I'm going to make sure that we
Speaker 2: acknowledge the existence of luck within shooting, but we're going
Speaker 2: to prioritize actual controllable factors before we start to talk
Speaker 2: about luck as the driving force of the outcome. I
Speaker 2: tend to think that when you try to play like that,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to after your jumping, passing lanes, picking
Speaker 2: up full court, doing all this crazy intense defensive energy stuff,
Speaker 2: to then suddenly slow down and trust your muscle memory
Speaker 2: to knock down a jump shot. It's just really difficult, right,
Speaker 2: So that ended up being the issue. Servey ended up
Speaker 2: falling apart late in the game, especially as fatigue became
Speaker 2: a factor. Kevin Durant checked in when it was twenty
Speaker 2: to fourteen and immediately got hot and they One of
Speaker 2: the things I liked about it too, is like Katie
Speaker 2: didn't come in gunning trying to take tough shots. His
Speaker 2: first two shots were both clean looks in catch and
Speaker 2: shoot situations. The first one was ball screen on the
Speaker 2: left side of the floor. Ball got swung to the corner.
Speaker 2: Hadi's man rotated because the cornerman, the guy who was
Speaker 2: guarding the cornerman, had sucked into the paint to help
Speaker 2: guard that possession. Katie's man dropped down. I think it
Speaker 2: was Drew extra pass up the wing to Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: wide open on the wing, knocks down the catch and
Speaker 2: shoot three right. The second one that he got was
Speaker 2: actually off of a really interesting set that Steve Kerr
Speaker 2: had them run coming out of a sideline out of
Speaker 2: bounds and it was kind of a very interesting example
Speaker 2: of five out offense. So the inbound the ball I
Speaker 2: think it was to Derek White on the in the
Speaker 2: right corner, and then Bam and Ad both go to
Speaker 2: run and set a double staggered ball screen for Derek
Speaker 2: White in the corner, but Bam just quickly slips out
Speaker 2: of it, runs to the opposite dunker spot. Anthony Davis
Speaker 2: sets the pick, Derek White comes off on the weak side.
Speaker 2: We had Kevin Durant in the corner and we had
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards on the wing right, so you have three
Speaker 2: man action, two guys spotting up on the weak side
Speaker 2: right now, in a typical like kind of standstill situation
Speaker 2: where everyone's just kind of watching, it's easy for those
Speaker 2: weak side defenders to suck into the paint and to
Speaker 2: be in a position where they can help but also recover.
Speaker 2: But by design, Steve Kerr had Anthony Edwards cut off
Speaker 2: of that weak side wing right as the action was
Speaker 2: taking place. So there's just a lot of ball in
Speaker 2: player movement, you can imagine it. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I clipped this play, It's on my twitter feed at
Speaker 2: Underscore Jason lt. You guys can find I only clip
Speaker 2: two plays from the game, but you can find that
Speaker 2: on my Twitter feed if you want to see a
Speaker 2: visual example. But as Derek White's coming off the screen,
Speaker 2: Bam slips to the opposite dunker spot and Ant cuts through,
Speaker 2: and all that is is just off ball player movement.
Speaker 2: And you know, I had someone respond to the tweet
Speaker 2: because in the let's talk about what happened on the
Speaker 2: actual play. First, Ant cuts through, Kd's man actually ends
Speaker 2: up following Ant through the lane, so Katie ends up
Speaker 2: wide open on the left wing. Derek White hits him,
Speaker 2: KDE knocks down the shot right easy offense, but the
Speaker 2: whole I had someone that responded to the tweet and
Speaker 2: he said, isn't that just a defensive mistake? Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 2: and absolutely was bad defense. But that's the point. When
Speaker 2: you're guarding off ball, it's a hard job. You gotta
Speaker 2: see man and ball. This is why you do shell
Speaker 2: drill when you're in college and when you're in high school,
Speaker 2: and they still do it in the pros. This is
Speaker 2: why you do closeout drills. This is why you work
Speaker 2: on defensive positioning. Where you are one pass away, where
Speaker 2: you are two passes away, where you are when you're
Speaker 2: the low man in pick and roll situations. All those
Speaker 2: things get repped out because of Because off ball defense
Speaker 2: is difficult, you've got to track multiple things at the
Speaker 2: same time. Now, imagine that I am guarding a player
Speaker 2: that doesn't want to cut, that doesn't want to relocate,
Speaker 2: that doesn't want to set an off ball screen. It's
Speaker 2: really easy for me to be like, he's over there,
Speaker 2: He's gonna be over there, so I can kind of
Speaker 2: key in on this play and I know if the
Speaker 2: swing pass goes, I literally know where I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: close out too, because this dude's not moving. But when
Speaker 2: there's ball in player movement, it's much harder to track
Speaker 2: man and ball as guys are going through. And if
Speaker 2: you watch on the specific play I'm talking about, as
Speaker 2: Ant cuts through, ants man is down at the nail
Speaker 2: helping on the ball screen. Super common coverage you see
Speaker 2: in professional basketball. Right as the guy's coming off the
Speaker 2: ball screen, the guy who's one pass away just sinks
Speaker 2: down to like kind of around where the foul line
Speaker 2: is so that he can dig down and try to
Speaker 2: disrupt things but also close out right. But he's he's
Speaker 2: trying to track Ant and the ball. Ant cuts through
Speaker 2: and gets behind him. He's not paying attention. He's digging
Speaker 2: down at the nail as Ant is cutting through. So
Speaker 2: then Kd's man is like, oh shit, Ant's cutting through.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go with him because ants man
Speaker 2: is not paying attention. So then he follows Ant on
Speaker 2: the cut. Then Katie is wide open. You see the
Speaker 2: point the idea there is if Aunt and Katie just stand,
Speaker 2: it's easy. I think it was bogged on Bogdanovic, who
Speaker 2: is guarding Ant on this play. It's easy for bog
Speaker 2: Done to sync down into the lane and dig down
Speaker 2: and not really give up that much of an opening, right,
Speaker 2: But as soon as there's ball, there's off ball player
Speaker 2: movement involved. It makes it a tougher job. Same sort
Speaker 2: of thing if you just imagine the interchange. Imagine if
Speaker 2: because this one was just a set play, right, this
Speaker 2: was a set play. Sideline out of bounds. We're gonna
Speaker 2: run this double drag for Derek White coming out of
Speaker 2: the corner. We're gonna have Bam slip the screen. We're
Speaker 2: gonna have Ant cut off the wing. We're gonna have
Speaker 2: Kade relocate. We're gonna get an open shot out of this.
Speaker 2: That's a set play. But in traditional five out motion
Speaker 2: you're supposed to do this sort of thing instinctually. So
Speaker 2: like if they're in free flowing offense and Drew brings
Speaker 2: the ball off the floor and semi transition and they
Speaker 2: just happen to run a ball screen and Ant and
Speaker 2: KD are on the weak side, if Ant is more
Speaker 2: willing to just set a pin down for KD as
Speaker 2: KD comes up in the exchange, or if kdie backscreens
Speaker 2: for Ant, or if they cut, or if they do
Speaker 2: any sort of like movement on the weak side, it
Speaker 2: makes it that much harder for those off ball defenders.
Speaker 2: You can imagine in a pin down situation. Now both
Speaker 2: of those guys are they're communicating a switch, or maybe
Speaker 2: they're communicating a hedge, whatever it is they're communicating. They
Speaker 2: now have to worry about what's going on over here
Speaker 2: instead of keying in on what's happening on the strong
Speaker 2: side where the ball is. That's why that's so important.
Speaker 2: And I actually thought it was really fascinating because I
Speaker 2: don't know if you guys saw this morning, but Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant was getting into arguments on Twitter again with people,
Speaker 2: and he was specifically getting into arguments about running organized
Speaker 2: offense versus freelance offense, right, and this is something we've
Speaker 2: been talking about a lot on the show recently, and
Speaker 2: Katie was talking about how the beauty in the game
Speaker 2: is guys just playing and it's not as structured, but
Speaker 2: there's reading and reacting, and Katie was making points he
Speaker 2: was saying, like that doesn't mean just standing around. He's
Speaker 2: like guys can cut and screen and relocate despite that
Speaker 2: not being actually a set part of the play that's
Speaker 2: read and react basketball. Katie is right, However, where I
Speaker 2: disagree with KD is. There has been an extensive amount
Speaker 2: of statistical analysis done on this specific debate, and one
Speaker 2: of the things that I've talked about krangis Tim Cranis,
Speaker 2: who covers the Lakers, did it an immaculate job, like
Speaker 2: an incredibly detailed job breaking down the difference in efficiency
Speaker 2: on a per possession basis when they run a set
Speaker 2: like an actual organized offensive look versus freelance like just
Speaker 2: ribble up the floor and do your own thing. That
Speaker 2: gap is pretty wide. It's pretty wide around the league,
Speaker 2: and so I agree with KD in the sense that,
Speaker 2: like the entire the entire purpose of a set is
Speaker 2: to get an advantage. So if you just bring the
Speaker 2: ball up the floor and you see a quick advantage,
Speaker 2: whether that's a transition, crossmatch or just because you're pushing
Speaker 2: in transition, the defense isn't set yet, so you can
Speaker 2: attack before they get their actual set half court look
Speaker 2: on defense, whatever it may be. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 2: have balance. KD actually specifically said that in his debate
Speaker 2: this more on Twitter. It's about balance, and he's right.
Speaker 2: You want to have a good amount of like freedom
Speaker 2: for guys to take advantage of advantages that appear naturally
Speaker 2: in the game. Oh I'm dribbling the ball at the
Speaker 2: court and the wrong dude picked me up he's too small.
Speaker 2: Or oh, I'm bringing the ball to the floor. The
Speaker 2: guy guarding me, he's clearly tired. I'm just gonna rise
Speaker 2: up into my transition pull up three. Katie made one
Speaker 2: of those right before the half. It was a two
Speaker 2: for one situation, caught the dude on his heels, just
Speaker 2: rose up into a shot. Yeah, you want to have freelance.
Speaker 2: You want to have freedom baked into your offense for
Speaker 2: guys to capitalize on advantages that naturally appear. But it
Speaker 2: does take a certain amount of discipline to understand that
Speaker 2: freelance basketball is generally less efficient than organized basketball, and
Speaker 2: you need to run organized basketball. Now where it gets tricky.
Speaker 2: If you guys remember from the Jimihakez interview, Jimi Hakez
Speaker 2: talked about how went in the NBA with the shorter
Speaker 2: shot clock. Sometimes you only have a chance to get
Speaker 2: the ball at the floor and run one or two actions,
Speaker 2: and then you have to get a shot up on
Speaker 2: the rim and he's right, and so there's a timing
Speaker 2: element to it. Did you get the ball at the
Speaker 2: floor quickly enough to be able to run organized offense
Speaker 2: or is it one of those things where you have
Speaker 2: a certain advantage, there's only twelve seconds left, it doesn't
Speaker 2: make sense to try to back out and run something organized.
Speaker 2: You want to free flow. That balance is an important
Speaker 2: thing to try to strike as a basketball team. But
Speaker 2: in general, I think most teams are a little too
Speaker 2: high on the freelance and not high enough on that
Speaker 2: organized offense piece. And I do think that's an area
Speaker 2: of opportunity that you see around the league because just
Speaker 2: like that play I talked about where Ant cuts through
Speaker 2: and it gets Kadi to wide open three. Just something
Speaker 2: stupid like saying like, hey, you want to run the
Speaker 2: boss screen, that's fine, But every time we see kd
Speaker 2: dribble up the right side of the floor and call
Speaker 2: for a ball screen, we need to have two or
Speaker 2: three kind of preset weak side actions that these guys
Speaker 2: are running consistently instead of just standing still, so that
Speaker 2: we can just squeeze a little bit more juice out
Speaker 2: of this, because that's really the point. Point is like
Speaker 2: if Katie running a static ball screen in a freelance
Speaker 2: situation is worth one point zero five points per possession.
Speaker 2: But if we run a week side cut, a week
Speaker 2: side relocation, or a week side screen, it bumps it
Speaker 2: up from one point zero five to one point two five,
Speaker 2: Then you bet your ass. Then I want my coaches
Speaker 2: and I want I want basketball teams to try to
Speaker 2: squeeze that little extra bit of efficiency out of it. Right,
Speaker 2: And so I know that's a huge detour in this discussion,
Speaker 2: but I found it super fascinating in light of the
Speaker 2: debate that Kevin Durant was having on Twitter this morning,
Speaker 2: because that's kind of one of the things that's going
Speaker 2: around the league right now, like how important is it
Speaker 2: to give your players freedom to play freelance basketball versus
Speaker 2: the realities of how efficient organized basketball is because organized
Speaker 2: basketball makes it harder for off ball defenders, end of story,
Speaker 2: makes it more to that person who quoted responded to
Speaker 2: my tweet. Yet, you're right, it's a defensive mistake. But
Speaker 2: that's the whole point running offense. You run offense to
Speaker 2: get the defense to make a mistake, and when they
Speaker 2: make a mistake, you have an advantage. Then you can
Speaker 2: play read and react out of there. And to Kdi's point,
Speaker 2: that is where the beauty of basketball takes over when
Speaker 2: you run a set and the set generates an opening,
Speaker 2: then that So let's say let's say you run that
Speaker 2: exact same set and Katie gets a wide open catch
Speaker 2: on the left, but a dude throws an excellent rotation
Speaker 2: in a great close out, Katie has to drive the
Speaker 2: close out and then you get a nifty off ball
Speaker 2: screen or a cut or a relocation that ends up
Speaker 2: getting somebody open. There is beauty in the flow, but
Speaker 2: in order to really get into the flow, you need
Speaker 2: to get the defense in rotation. And it's generally easier
Speaker 2: to do that when you run an organized offense. And
Speaker 2: so that's why it's a more complicated topic.
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Speaker 2: Katie gets too clean looks and catch chose situations to
Speaker 2: start right the one on the right wing on the
Speaker 2: extra pass, the one off the set play. Then from
Speaker 2: there that's when he started to flow into the tougher shots.
Speaker 2: Took a wonderbble pull up going to his left in
Speaker 2: the middle of the lane, knocked it down. Took that
Speaker 2: pull up three in ISO against the backup center at
Speaker 2: the top of the key, knocked it down. He had
Speaker 2: a contested catch and shoot three against Jokich in the
Speaker 2: left corner. He had a one legged fade away on
Speaker 2: the right elbow area, the two for one right before
Speaker 2: the half. Takes the pull up, or it might have
Speaker 2: been right before the end of the first quarter. I
Speaker 2: can't remember exactly, but takes the pull up three with
Speaker 2: like thirty two seconds left, and I think it was
Speaker 2: before the half, and then he had that crazy shot
Speaker 2: as he cut along the baseline and he like caught
Speaker 2: and turned into like a right shoulder fade right before
Speaker 2: the half. It's a beautiful example of like you want
Speaker 2: to build your rhythm through easy shots and then you
Speaker 2: want to go into the tougher stuff, right and like,
Speaker 2: this is something that Kde has always had a really
Speaker 2: good grasp on. Kde doesn't come out and just start
Speaker 2: taking super tough jump shots. He works his way into
Speaker 2: the flow until he finds his rhythm. Then he starts
Speaker 2: to see how far his rhythm can carry him with
Speaker 2: the higher level shot making that he is capable of.
Speaker 2: Having him out there and I think he's gonna end
Speaker 2: up starting before too long, if not literally on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: but having him out there just fundamentally alls it, like
Speaker 2: fundamentally alters the spacing of the unit because he's like
Speaker 2: on this team, he's like a super juiced up version
Speaker 2: of Michael Porter junior. He's doing a lot of work
Speaker 2: off the ball, but we're talking about one of the
Speaker 2: most deadly spot up guys literally in the history of
Speaker 2: basketball doing his thing over there, like twenty three points
Speaker 2: on nine shots. I'm always amazed specifically with Kevin Durant.
Speaker 2: I'm always amazed by his ability to step on the
Speaker 2: floor and immediately be in rhythm. So any of you
Speaker 2: guys who have played college basketball or high school basketball
Speaker 2: and they've had an injury know exactly what this is like.
Speaker 2: This is something I see with like the vast majority
Speaker 2: of NBA players. Think about your favorite NBA team and
Speaker 2: then you hear like Lakers fans like, hey, Ruy Hachimura
Speaker 2: has been out for two weeks with this injury. He's
Speaker 2: coming back tonight. What do you expect from Ruey hat
Speaker 2: Chimura in that situation. You expect him to look like
Speaker 2: rueyat Chimura, meaning physically he's gonna look like Grewyachimura on
Speaker 2: the court, but he's probably going to be rusty, right.
Speaker 2: You expect him to probably go one for four from three,
Speaker 2: not three for four from three. You expect him to
Speaker 2: look a little tired sometimes. You expect him to make
Speaker 2: a few defensive mistakes. You expect him to miss a
Speaker 2: couple reads because he's adjusting back to the speed of
Speaker 2: the game. Again, you expect that with everybody. Well, bron
Speaker 2: Like forever I remember, it'd be like he'd take a
Speaker 2: day off, or he'd take a couple of weeks off
Speaker 2: to nurse and injury, and he'd come back and it's
Speaker 2: like it's like he's mishandling the basketball. The jumper's not
Speaker 2: quite there. Like that's a super typical thing. I had
Speaker 2: a foot injury before my second year playing in college.
Speaker 2: I was terrible in the first semester. I was way
Speaker 2: better in the second semester, because it's just really hard
Speaker 2: to go from being hurt to getting back to like
Speaker 2: the full idealized version of yourself. Katie has has this
Speaker 2: bizarre superpower, and I mean, the best example of it
Speaker 2: was the twenty nineteen Finals. The dude misses a month
Speaker 2: of basketball and then step onto the floor in the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals in a must win game against one of
Speaker 2: the best defenses in the league and just smooth just
Speaker 2: comes out, starts hitting shots and has eleven points like
Speaker 2: that before he ends up having the Achilles injury like
Speaker 2: he It is remarkable his ability to just walk into incredible,
Speaker 2: high stakes, high pressure basketball and just look like Kevin Durant.
Speaker 2: It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. I
Speaker 2: literally don't know what to make of it. And it
Speaker 2: was super fun to watch him out there yesterday alongside
Speaker 2: the rest of Team USA. Lebron again was amazing. The
Speaker 2: transition pushes are the main one that are standing out
Speaker 2: to me, Like he literally looks like old freight train
Speaker 2: Lebron with his ability to just get that head of
Speaker 2: steam and drop that shoulder, get those little angles and
Speaker 2: then power through people for left handed finishes and right
Speaker 2: handed finishes. He's still operating as the hub at the
Speaker 2: top of the key and hitting cutters. A big one
Speaker 2: that you'll see is like again, just like an off
Speaker 2: ball screen where you have a shooter come off and
Speaker 2: then the screen will slip and like he hit Ant
Speaker 2: for a foul on one of those, he hit Drew
Speaker 2: Holiday for a wide open layup on a great example
Speaker 2: of what I'm talking about in terms of off ball
Speaker 2: player movement and trying to bait defenses into making mistakes.
Speaker 2: This was the second clip that I pulled and put
Speaker 2: on my Twitter feed. Basic action Lebron at the top
Speaker 2: of the key, Drew Holiday goes and sets a pin
Speaker 2: down for Steph Curry. Steph Curry's trying to come off
Speaker 2: for a three. Both defenders miscommunicate the switch. They both
Speaker 2: run out with Steph drew holiday slips, he's wide open,
Speaker 2: Lebron hits him wide open layup, and that you gotta
Speaker 2: have a guy that can like kind of make those
Speaker 2: reads and can see over the top of the defense
Speaker 2: and actually get to pass on time and on target.
Speaker 2: Lebron's done an amazing job with that. In the second half,
Speaker 2: he really started to get that pick and roll chemistry
Speaker 2: with Anthony Davis going. He had one on the right
Speaker 2: wing where he hit Anthony Davis, he got a left
Speaker 2: handed layup, he hit Anthony Davis for an and one
Speaker 2: for a lob dunk at one point. Lebron is just
Speaker 2: continuing to do a masterful job of just orchestrating this
Speaker 2: team USA offense. Twenty one points, seven rebounds, and nine assists,
Speaker 2: another monster stat line for him, just thirteen shots. Devin Booker,
Speaker 2: I thought, hit a couple of huge threes early in
Speaker 2: the game and help situations that kind of loosen things
Speaker 2: up when the USA team got off to a slow start.
Speaker 2: Steph's gravity, just him running around has been a huge help.
Speaker 2: I talked about the play again, like the reason why
Speaker 2: those two defenders make that mistake of running out with
Speaker 2: Steph so that Drew gets open. Is because as a defender,
Speaker 2: you're terrified of Steph getting open, and you're gonna default,
Speaker 2: or if you're gonna make a mistake, you're gonna you're
Speaker 2: gonna accidentally leave the other guy open. You're never gonna
Speaker 2: accidentally leave Steph open. And so that's gravity, that's that's
Speaker 2: just the inherent fear of Steph's shooting ability that creates
Speaker 2: opening else openings elsewhere on the floor and just in general.
Speaker 2: He's running around like absolutely crazy throughout the game, and
Speaker 2: it's just creating openings. There was a dribble hand off
Speaker 2: with Lebron where his man is top locking him. It's
Speaker 2: on the left wing, his man's top locking him, making
Speaker 2: it really hard for him to fight over. He curls
Speaker 2: around Lebron. Lebron does a nice job of like pivoting
Speaker 2: into the DHO to get some more contact on Steph's man.
Speaker 2: Hits Steph with the bounce pass as he's going towards
Speaker 2: the rim that draws embiids man over. He drops it
Speaker 2: off to Embid easy little short five foot jump shot
Speaker 2: generated by just Steph being willing to run and run
Speaker 2: and run and run, and it's just helping to keep
Speaker 2: things open. Drew Holliday hitting open threes. He had fifteen points.
Speaker 2: His cutting one of the things that I've talked about
Speaker 2: a lot with Drew Holliday with the Celtics, and they
Speaker 2: do this with Derek White too, but Drew Holidays as
Speaker 2: a really a really good grasp of openings to cut
Speaker 2: and not be lazy and go to the three point line.
Speaker 2: Generally speaking, you feel like you're doing your job by
Speaker 2: staying at the three point line because you're giving three
Speaker 2: point spacing. But as I've always said, three point shooting,
Speaker 2: while it is the most efficient shot outside of the rim,
Speaker 2: it is not as efficient as shots at the rim.
Speaker 2: Those continue to be by far the most efficient shots
Speaker 2: in basketball. There was a play steph ended up missing
Speaker 2: to three on this sequence, but Drew Holliday's running up
Speaker 2: the right side of the floor. His man's playing a
Speaker 2: little on the high side. There's nobody under the basket,
Speaker 2: and there's nobody in the corner, and Drew sees an opportunity.
Speaker 2: He could run to the corner or just stay on
Speaker 2: the wing. And he's still spotting up and creating spacing right,
Speaker 2: but his man was playing on the high side and
Speaker 2: staring at the ball, and so Drew's like, screw it.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna cut to the basket, cuts to the basket,
Speaker 2: catches underneath all the Serbia dudes just close in on him.
Speaker 2: He ends up throwing it out to Steph. Steph gets
Speaker 2: a wide open three. He just happened to miss it.
Speaker 2: But like Drew has just been a really nice connective
Speaker 2: piece on this team because of his ability to cut,
Speaker 2: because of his ability to make those extra passes. There
Speaker 2: is a play where one of Joel Embid's good plays
Speaker 2: in this game, Joel and bad cuts in the middle
Speaker 2: of four. Drew Holiday cuts back door and be beautiful
Speaker 2: pass to Drew on the cut that draws Lebron's man
Speaker 2: and help Lebron cuts and Drew drops it off. Lebron
Speaker 2: gets it dunk again. You'd think and be posting, what
Speaker 2: if Drew and Lebron just stayed on the wing in
Speaker 2: the corner. Yeah, that's technically creating space, But what do
Speaker 2: I say? Off ball, cut, relocate screen. Those three things
Speaker 2: make it a lot harder for the off ball defender.
Speaker 2: Drew cut, his defender got lost as a result, that
Speaker 2: forced Lebron's man to step up Lebron could have been like,
Speaker 2: I'll take a corner three. No, why would I take
Speaker 2: a corner three when I can get a dunk that's
Speaker 2: worth that's worth two points every single time he cuts
Speaker 2: back door. That's two cuts instead of two spot ups
Speaker 2: that leads to a dunk instead of a three. That
Speaker 2: might be worth one point four points per shot for
Speaker 2: a good shooter. Right, So, like the these are the
Speaker 2: kinds of things that I think are vitally important, And
Speaker 2: like Steph is doing that all the time. He's just
Speaker 2: running and sprinting and running and sprinting. Drew's doing that,
Speaker 2: he's cutting, Lebron's cutting. That's what I like about that
Speaker 2: starting unit. Like Drew, Steph and Lebron, they're like professional cutters,
Speaker 2: that's what they do. And that that sort of thing
Speaker 2: has just kind of helped loosen things up for that
Speaker 2: offensive unit on the Serbia front. Like I talked about,
Speaker 2: same thing that happened last time. They just got really
Speaker 2: really Oh one last note on Drew Holiday. Drew Halliday's
Speaker 2: defensive pressure continues to be really impressive. He had two
Speaker 2: steals that both led to pick sixes. He ripped Jokic
Speaker 2: on a post up right around the foul line that
Speaker 2: led to Lebron getting it dunk and then he jumped
Speaker 2: a passing lane and got a left handed layup out
Speaker 2: of it. I think Drew has been amazing, Like it's
Speaker 2: interesting on a team like this that he just seems
Speaker 2: like he has to start, but he just does like
Speaker 2: I think Drew. I think Drew just has to start
Speaker 2: on this team Serbia. The cold shooting again, same thing
Speaker 2: that happened last time. The swarming of Jokic again. Tmusa
Speaker 2: is just constantly throwing three of the best possible dudes
Speaker 2: in the world that you can throw at Jokic. I
Speaker 2: think embiads a little overrated defensively, and I think that's
Speaker 2: been on display in this in this Team USA situation.
Speaker 2: But he's one of the few big bodies that can
Speaker 2: kind of make things tougher for Jokic in the post.
Speaker 2: And he still had twenty points in eight assists. Serbia
Speaker 2: played Team USA even in Nikole Jokic's minutes. He played
Speaker 2: thirty one minutes they were even. They got outscored by
Speaker 2: twenty six in the other nine minutes, which is insane.
Speaker 2: He had nine post ups for fourteen points, including passes
Speaker 2: that equals one point five six points per possession. Just
Speaker 2: Jokic continues to be incredibly impressive. The one thing that
Speaker 2: continues to concern me with him though, one for seven
Speaker 2: on jump shots against Team USA, struggle to knock down
Speaker 2: jump shots in the exhibition game as well. That's the
Speaker 2: one thing with Jokic that I can't figure out, Like
Speaker 2: he just has not shot the basketball well since he
Speaker 2: won the title in twenty twenty three, and I think
Speaker 2: he's going to have to fix that, especially in light
Speaker 2: of some of the personnel downgrades that Denver's dealing with
Speaker 2: going into next season.
Speaker 1: The NFL seasons right around the corner. Will be breaking
Speaker 1: down all the off season storylines on the Colin Cowherd
Speaker 1: podcast My Best Takes guests like my buddy Nick Wright.
Speaker 1: Check out the Colin Coward podcast, part of the Volume network,
Speaker 1: available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: All right, two topics that I want to hit for
Speaker 2: you out here, Jason Tatum and Joelen So. Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: gets a DNP coach's decision and this was a big
Speaker 2: surprise to me. Now, before I get into my kind
Speaker 2: of rationale on it, I just kind of tried to
Speaker 2: dig around and see what people were saying in terms
Speaker 2: of what the rationale behind what Steve Kerr's decision was.
Speaker 2: And the main case that I saw floating around was
Speaker 2: like Katie wasn't ready to start, so Katie would typically start,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't, so Katie was kind of in that
Speaker 2: bench forward role that Tatum would typically be in. And
Speaker 2: then Devin Booker they considered to be like a better
Speaker 2: ball mover, a guy who's like a really quick decision
Speaker 2: maker in five out, and again that's really what I
Speaker 2: think drives most of this for Steve Kerr. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of like Celtics fans that are making it like, oh,
Speaker 2: the Warriors are just mad because the Celtics are kicked
Speaker 2: our butt last year. This is a jealousy thing. It's
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case. Guys like the Warriors
Speaker 2: beat the Celtics in the finals two years ago. There's
Speaker 2: no reason for them to be insecure about this matchup.
Speaker 2: They beat the Celtics on the biggest possible stage to
Speaker 2: win the title. They're just old now, that's why they're
Speaker 2: bad that that's that's not an issue. So I don't
Speaker 2: think it has anything to do with that. I don't
Speaker 2: think Kerr has some sort of personal vendetta against Jason Tatum.
Speaker 2: I think this is about basketball worldview. This is something
Speaker 2: I talk about all the time, Like I have a
Speaker 2: basketball worldview. I have a specific way that I like
Speaker 2: to play, that I think teams should play, but like,
Speaker 2: that's not the only way that teams think, and that
Speaker 2: team strategize, and that teams want to play, that coaches strategize,
Speaker 2: and that coaches want to play. Everyone's got different strategies here,
Speaker 2: and I like and I think I think in retrospect,
Speaker 2: we can look at the way that team, that the
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors have played and look at it and
Speaker 2: go like wow. Like often Steve Kerr would leave two
Speaker 2: of his forwards on the bench. He'd go with like
Speaker 2: he'd have you know, Moody and Kaminga on the bench,
Speaker 2: and then he would have Brandon Pizemski, Steph Curry, and
Speaker 2: Klay Thompson all out there at the same time, and
Speaker 2: you're like, wow, they're way too small and not athletic enough.
Speaker 2: But what Steve Kerr is thinking there is Steph Lightning,
Speaker 2: quick decision maker, lightning, quick read and react guy in
Speaker 2: five out, same for Clay, same for Pozamski. That's what
Speaker 2: he's thinking. I think that that Jason Tatum as a
Speaker 2: guy that has a little bit of a tendency to
Speaker 2: catch and hold. I think that Steve Kerr just kind
Speaker 2: of like doesn't like his his play style as a
Speaker 2: fit within Team USA. I don't buy that, though. I
Speaker 2: don't think that's nearly enough of an excuse to leave
Speaker 2: a guy who is at Here's the thing do think.
Speaker 2: Do I think Tatum is a top five player in
Speaker 2: the world. No, he got First Team All NBA because
Speaker 2: his team has five thirty million dollar players and they
Speaker 2: won sixty four games. I do not think Jason Tatum
Speaker 2: is one of the five best basketball players in the world.
Speaker 2: But like in this setting, he's still a guy that
Speaker 2: absolutely has to be in this rotation. He's at least
Speaker 2: he's a top ten player. He's in that six seven,
Speaker 2: eight nine range. He belongs in this rotation. He specifically
Speaker 2: plays a need. You can't justify starting three guards on
Speaker 2: a team that has Tatum, Lebron, Katie, Anthony Davis, and Bam,
Speaker 2: all guys that can play the like Bam and AD
Speaker 2: can play the four, Lebron can play the four. There
Speaker 2: are lots of minutes at the three available that needs.
Speaker 2: That is a misallocation of resources to have a top
Speaker 2: ten player that plays a specific position of need. You're
Speaker 2: starting three guards, Steve Kerr, You're starting three guards, and yeah,
Speaker 2: Like Tatum is a bit of a slower decision maker
Speaker 2: than most, but I still think he's above average at
Speaker 2: reading the floor. I know he hasn't played as well
Speaker 2: with Team USA as he's capable of. He's still in
Speaker 2: this nightmare shooting slump. His form is all jacked up.
Speaker 2: He's got a hitch in there, He's got multiple hitches
Speaker 2: in there. His form looks crazy. He's got bad misses,
Speaker 2: jumpers off the reservation. But he still brings so much
Speaker 2: to the table. We're gonna talk about EMBID in a minute.
Speaker 2: The EMBIID thing is so much more complicated because he's
Speaker 2: struggling on both ends of the floor. He's jankin things
Speaker 2: up for them on offense, and he's not doing enough
Speaker 2: on the defensive end of the flour. Tatum is an
Speaker 2: elite defensive rebounder and an elite front court defender, So like,
Speaker 2: there's literally no excuse that lack of like quick decision
Speaker 2: making is not nearly enough of an excuse, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: to leave a player of this caliber on the bench.
Speaker 2: You can't DNP Tatum and start three guards. That is
Speaker 2: a decision that I can't get behind. And so again
Speaker 2: what I would do. I think you start Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: and Devin Booker spot. I think that's very simple. Shoe
Speaker 2: and fit there. Now you don't have three guard lineup.
Speaker 2: Katie makes sense with the starters. Then you put Tatum
Speaker 2: in Kd's slot with the bench guys. And again, this
Speaker 2: is not about the Celtics, Like I saw Bill Simmons
Speaker 2: saying that, like Jason Tatum should be in Lebron's spot
Speaker 2: running the show because Tatum won a lot more games.
Speaker 2: That's stupid, Like you swap Lebron and Tatum this year,
Speaker 2: the Celtics still win the title. They have five thirty
Speaker 2: million dollar players. We don't need to overthink this, Like,
Speaker 2: it's not about what Tatum deserves in terms of what
Speaker 2: he accomplished in the NBA. It's about the fact that
Speaker 2: Tatum is too fucking good to leave him sitting when
Speaker 2: you're starting a three guard lineup that is getting rolled
Speaker 2: at the start of every single game. Slide Katie into
Speaker 2: the starting lineup, put Tatum in with that bench group,
Speaker 2: make sure he gets his opportunities. He's too good of
Speaker 2: a player to not take advantage of what he brings
Speaker 2: to the table. But I think this is all about
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr's offensive philosophy. He's obsessed with lightning quick decision
Speaker 2: making and his blender of an offense and Tatum is
Speaker 2: a little too deliberate, and I think as a result
Speaker 2: of that, Kerr has favored his guards. That's why he's
Speaker 2: playing Devin Booker, That's why he's playing Derek White, that's
Speaker 2: why he's playing Drew Holliday. Guards from birth are trained
Speaker 2: to be lightening quick decision makers. That's what guards do
Speaker 2: at every level. And so I think that's why Steve
Speaker 2: Kerr just kind of gravitates to those sorts of guys.
Speaker 2: I actually think, like I said, I think it's hilarious
Speaker 2: in retrospect watching the way that he was coaching that
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors rotation. And again, this is the thing,
Speaker 2: there are different basketball philosophies guys like I talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: like there's a trade off. Steve Kerr knows the tradeoff
Speaker 2: Steve Kerr knows that when he decides to play three guards,
Speaker 2: whether it be with the Warriors or with Team USA,
Speaker 2: he knows he's making gains in offensive decision making and quickness,
Speaker 2: he's making gains in ball handling, and he's losing ground
Speaker 2: in physicality, defensive, rebounding, transition athleticism. Like he's making a
Speaker 2: trade off, right, and we, by the way, we've seen
Speaker 2: the opposite version of that. The twenty twenty Lakers were
Speaker 2: the exact opposite version of that. They sacrifice ball handling
Speaker 2: and quick decision making and had some moments where they
Speaker 2: struggled in half court offense, but they had Alex Crusoe
Speaker 2: and KCP and Danny Green, Lebron and Anthony Davis out there.
Speaker 2: They were so damn big and sodamn athletic. They were
Speaker 2: a monster defensive rebounding team. They were a monster defensive team.
Speaker 2: They were a monster transition team. That was a trade
Speaker 2: off that Frank Vogel took. Frank Vogel said, I want
Speaker 2: to lean into my team's strength, which is size and
Speaker 2: size and mobility on the perimeter, size and mobility underneath
Speaker 2: the basket. We're just gonna be a wrecking ball, physical team, right,
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. Like Steve Kerr has looked at
Speaker 2: a very similar roster. Steve Kirk could do that with
Speaker 2: this group. Steve Kerr could look at this group and
Speaker 2: he could go, I'm gonna go Steph Tatum, Kadi, Lebron
Speaker 2: ad We're just gonna be huge. We're gonna switch everything,
Speaker 2: We're gonna lean into that. He could go super athletic.
Speaker 2: He could bench KD and he could go we're gonna
Speaker 2: go eighty bam, Lebron, Tatum and Anthony Edwards at the
Speaker 2: point and be like offense can be a little JANKI,
Speaker 2: but we're gonna beat the shit out of people because
Speaker 2: we're bigger and stronger and faster at every single position.
Speaker 2: Like he has different angles he can go and it's
Speaker 2: very clear to me. Again, I don't think this has
Speaker 2: anything to do with Kerr having hang ups about the
Speaker 2: Celtics or about Tatum. I don't think this has anything
Speaker 2: to do with what Tatum accomplished with the Celtics. I
Speaker 2: think this is strictly just a basketball philosophy that Steve
Speaker 2: Kerr has. He prioritizes quick decision making on the perimeter. Therefore,
Speaker 2: he has gone with more of his guards instead of
Speaker 2: his forwards. But there's no justification. Look at the course.
Speaker 2: Look at the course. The guard corps on this team
Speaker 2: is Steph Ant, Derek White, Drew Holliday, Devin Booker. The
Speaker 2: ford core on this team is Lebron James, Kevin Durant,
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum, Anthony Davis, bam at A Bayo. I would
Speaker 2: argue that's the strength of the roster. Lean into size,
Speaker 2: Lean into your forwards. So there's no excuse for having
Speaker 2: Tatum outside of the ten man rotation. Has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with him winning the title, has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with winning sixty four games, has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: making first team All NBA. It had has everything to
Speaker 2: do with the fact that he's too good at basketball
Speaker 2: to leave what he brings to the table on the bench.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk to Joel Embid, then we'll get
Speaker 2: out of here. So he got off to slow start again,
Speaker 2: missed a little short jumper on a catch and pick
Speaker 2: and roll. He missed a couple of free throws after
Speaker 2: getting fouled underneath the basket by Jokic. He got beat
Speaker 2: to the rim by a small guard and drop coverage
Speaker 2: like he's in drop coverage, but he's standing really upright.
Speaker 2: And then this little unathletic guard just went right around
Speaker 2: Embiid and made a layup off the glass. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Like this is the bare minimum
Speaker 2: of what they have to get out of you in
Speaker 2: this role. He immediately on the same play, gives up
Speaker 2: the layup, takes the inbound pass and just throws it
Speaker 2: right to the other team and they get another They
Speaker 2: were down ten two like this, like it. It was
Speaker 2: a complete disaster. He was minus eight in a game
Speaker 2: that Team USA won by twenty six points. That's that's
Speaker 2: legitimately hard to do. And again, like guys like Embiid
Speaker 2: has had high moments with this team, He's had good moments.
Speaker 2: I had good moments in this game. The back door
Speaker 2: cut pass to Drew Holliday that led to the dunk
Speaker 2: for Lebron. He had an and one little right shoulder
Speaker 2: fade against Jokich, hit a little pocket pass or drop
Speaker 2: off pass, short jump shot off a pass from Stapf
Speaker 2: like he made. He had a big block on a
Speaker 2: play where a guy got behind him and he swatted
Speaker 2: him off the glass out of bounds. In the second half,
Speaker 2: like Embiid had his moments, but it's these disastrous stretches
Speaker 2: of mistakes like he had at the start of the game.
Speaker 2: You can't afford to go down ten to two in
Speaker 2: single elimination basketball like that could get you beat, that
Speaker 2: could cost you a gold medal. And so this is
Speaker 2: like a legitimate concern that I have for this team.
Speaker 2: And like, and here's the thing, I don't think it's
Speaker 2: that complicated. I still think that Joel Embiid is a
Speaker 2: better franchise cornerstone, a better best player on the team
Speaker 2: than Ad and Bam by a pretty sizable margin. But
Speaker 2: the reality is there are different ways to play the
Speaker 2: game of basketball. And what Joel Embiid plays with the Sixers,
Speaker 2: that style of basketball is it's very different than the
Speaker 2: style of basketball the team USA is playing, for instance,
Speaker 2: it's very similar. Let's just take it like this put
Speaker 2: embad on the seventy six ers. It's a brute force
Speaker 2: attack right, much less ball in player movement. The seventy
Speaker 2: six Ers had the fourth fewest assists in the entire
Speaker 2: league last year by total assists. They're not a team
Speaker 2: that it's just flowing from side to side, and there's
Speaker 2: a ton of ball in player movement. That's not what
Speaker 2: they do. Embiid can catch, he can hold, he can cook,
Speaker 2: he can throw two or three jab steps. He can
Speaker 2: hit dribble combinations if he wants. Why Because the Sixers
Speaker 2: need thirty five points and six assists out of him
Speaker 2: every single night. So it's a great fit for Embiid there.
Speaker 2: If you took Bam and Ad and put them on
Speaker 2: the Sixers, they're immediately a way worse team because they
Speaker 2: don't they're not equipped for that style of basketball. That's
Speaker 2: not what they do. But if you put Embad on
Speaker 2: Team USA, they need him to set ball screens. They
Speaker 2: need him to roll quickly into openings in the middle
Speaker 2: of the floor. They need him to make decisions when
Speaker 2: he catches, their quick decisions off the catch. They need
Speaker 2: him when another guard drives to quickly catch outlet passes
Speaker 2: and to quickly flow into the next action on the
Speaker 2: other end of the floor. They need him to sprint
Speaker 2: up and down the floor and transition. They need him
Speaker 2: to defend at a high level. They need him to
Speaker 2: rebound at a high level. Bam and Ad, that's where
Speaker 2: they are in their money. They are professionals at that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. That's why those two guys look excellent
Speaker 2: in this format, playing this style of basketball, and Embededd struggles.
Speaker 2: And this is different from the Tatum thing because it's
Speaker 2: similar to the Tatum issue, right, Like Tatum on the
Speaker 2: Celtics where they need him to be more of an
Speaker 2: advantage crater and more of a screener. It like he's
Speaker 2: involved more frequently with the action. It makes sense for Boston, right.
Speaker 2: But there's two huge differences between the Tatum thing and
Speaker 2: the Embid thing. One, a ball stopper, specifically at the
Speaker 2: center position is the worst place for one in five
Speaker 2: out offense. That is the bridge guy, that is the
Speaker 2: guy that bridges the action from one side to the
Speaker 2: next to ball mover at that position. And Secondly, Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum is an excellent athlete who's very durable and in
Speaker 2: great shape, and he sells at the dirty work stuff.
Speaker 2: Embiid doesn't. He looks out of shape and he's struggling.
Speaker 2: So like with Tatum, it's like, you're willing to live
Speaker 2: with some of this because he's gonna bring so much
Speaker 2: other good to the table. Embiid's been a borderline disaster
Speaker 2: on both ends of the floor. And like, and we're
Speaker 2: getting to the point now, guys, like the sample size
Speaker 2: is too small to just hope that Embiid figures it out.
Speaker 2: Like they play Sousedan on Wednesday, Puerto Rico on Saturday,
Speaker 2: quarterfinals on Tuesday, semi finals on Thursday, next week, finals
Speaker 2: on Saturday. That's five games, guys, we have five games
Speaker 2: left with this group, Like, there's not enough time, Like
Speaker 2: Embiid is miles and miles and miles away from figuring
Speaker 2: out how to play this style of basketball, and so
Speaker 2: he's not going to figure it out before the end
Speaker 2: of the gold medal game. And again, if you keep
Speaker 2: starting him and you keep dropping down ten two to
Speaker 2: every single team, that could be something that's very dangerous.
Speaker 2: When you get to the elimination round, you could make
Speaker 2: the case that Embid should benched entirely. Both Bam and
Speaker 2: AD are better players in this setting, and you need
Speaker 2: to find minutes for Tatum. And an easy way to
Speaker 2: do that is stop playing three centers. If you play
Speaker 2: a D with the starters and BAM with the bench,
Speaker 2: guys Tatum, all of a sudden, all these minutes open
Speaker 2: up for Tatum and then Steve Kirk and keep playing
Speaker 2: all the guards that he loves to play. Right, you
Speaker 2: could argue it should be a Lebron ad front court
Speaker 2: and then a Tatum Bam front court for the bench unit.
Speaker 2: You could argue that's the way it should be. But
Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to bench Embiid entirely for
Speaker 2: all the obvious political kind of backlash that would come
Speaker 2: from that. Right, But you also can't keep starting him.
Speaker 2: If you keep digging a hole like that every game,
Speaker 2: that could be really dangerous when you get to the
Speaker 2: elimination round. So what I would do is just put
Speaker 2: m b with the bench group. At least there you're
Speaker 2: surrounding him with more size and athleticism to cover for
Speaker 2: his defensive deficiencies. You can't play Embiid alongside thirty seven
Speaker 2: year olds about to be thirty seven year old Steph
Speaker 2: and about to be forty year old Lebron, especially if
Speaker 2: you move Kde and the lineup. He's getting old too.
Speaker 2: You can't just play Embiid, the out of shape guy
Speaker 2: who sucks at the dirty work stuff, alongside the old guys.
Speaker 2: Put him on the bench with Ant and Tatum and
Speaker 2: Bam and these freaky athletes. Put him out there with them.
Speaker 2: They'll cover for his shortcomings in the dirty work, and
Speaker 2: that unit needs help on offense. He can bring that there.
Speaker 2: It's just less of a big deal if he co
Speaker 2: ops possessions there. But again, like this is not an
Speaker 2: indictment of Himbiid as a basketball player. He's one dimensional
Speaker 2: in terms of his play style right now. He needs
Speaker 2: to play the style he plays with the Sixers, but
Speaker 2: he is a world beater at that style. It's unrealistic
Speaker 2: to expect him to slot into a five out read
Speaker 2: and react, trust your teammates, keep the ball moving type
Speaker 2: of offense in a few weeks when he's never done
Speaker 2: that in his career. It's just hard to do. And
Speaker 2: so I'm not surprised that he's struggling, and I just
Speaker 2: hope that Steve Kerr makes the adjustment before it turns
Speaker 2: into an issue in the elimination round. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that is all I have for today. Like I said,
Speaker 2: TOMORROWM gonna start peeking at player rankings. I'm also going
Speaker 2: to start taking a look at some of the other
Speaker 2: Olympic games see if there's anything worth hitting on that front.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting the show
Speaker 2: the game plan for the rest of the week on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: south to day in game. I think I'm going with
Speaker 2: Colin Coward after the game, so it's very possible that
Speaker 2: we won't have a show until Thursday morning because I'll
Speaker 2: be going with Colin that day, and then I plan
Speaker 2: on doing a mail bag late in the week. I
Speaker 2: don't think we'll cover Puerto Rico because it's just not
Speaker 2: an interesting enough matchup, and then we're going to head
Speaker 2: it in next week and it's pretty quickly going to
Speaker 2: be the Metal the elimination round, so it should be
Speaker 2: fun from there. Again, I appreciate you guys for rocking
Speaker 2: with me. I will see you on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: The volume well, so, guys.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Speaker 2: OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
Speaker 2: if you guys would take a second and leave a
Speaker 2: rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
Speaker 2: supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
Speaker 2: do that, I'd really appreciate it.