Speaker 1: The volume. All right, Well, good to Hoops to night
Speaker 1: here at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. Hope all you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great start to your weekend. I
Speaker 1: spent all night thinking about that Lebron James moved to Philly.
Speaker 1: Had a lot of time to kind of think through
Speaker 1: all the different angles and storylines and hit on a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that we didn't get to hit in
Speaker 1: the instant reaction yesterday. So I thought the best format
Speaker 1: for us to be able to do that is to
Speaker 1: go through the top ten takeaways from Lebron's move to Philly.
Speaker 1: You guys know the drip before we get started. Subscribe
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Speaker 1: a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. Number one
Speaker 1: simple and E Lebron really wants to win again. You
Speaker 1: know I did a video right when Lebron announced that
Speaker 1: he was leaving LA and we did a breakdown of
Speaker 1: like I think it was like top five or top
Speaker 1: six Lebron destinations. And in that list, if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: I had like all these different factors that I was
Speaker 1: talking about. I talked about like off court fit, how
Speaker 1: it goes with this family, public perception, all these like
Speaker 1: different things. And one of the segments was like basketball fit,
Speaker 1: like on court talent. One of the segments was like
Speaker 1: ability to compete for a championship. But I had like
Speaker 1: five or six different factors that I thought Lebron would
Speaker 1: consider when making his decision. And I thought that the
Speaker 1: simplest way that we can interpret Lebron's decision to go
Speaker 1: to Philly is that all those other things didn't matter.
Speaker 1: He clearly didn't care about how convenient it was to
Speaker 1: spend time with his family. There was even some reporting
Speaker 1: yesterday that you might consider like living in living in
Speaker 1: New York and taking a helicopter to Philly. I have
Speaker 1: no idea what the logistics will look like. I'm sure
Speaker 1: Lebron doesn't even know yet. I'm sure he's contemplating lots
Speaker 1: of options, but Philly was certainly one of the most
Speaker 1: inconvenient places for him to go play with the way
Speaker 1: his life has changed in terms of off court fit.
Speaker 1: What a bizarre group of personalities. You've got a second
Speaker 1: year player in vj Edgecomb, a young up and coming
Speaker 1: guard in Tyrese Maaxi, a heart of his prime All
Speaker 1: NBA player in Jalen Brown, and then kind of like
Speaker 1: a post prime injury prone Joel Embiid. It's a very
Speaker 1: interesting mix of personalities. I don't think Lebron picked Philly
Speaker 1: because he wanted to hang out with the guys, right Like,
Speaker 1: it's there's and there's just very clearly a This was
Speaker 1: just a belief that this would give him his best
Speaker 1: chance to win a championship, but also in the context
Speaker 1: of him being able to contribute and help them get
Speaker 1: over the top, not necessarily a situation like we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in our next segment, involving him going to a
Speaker 1: team that could kind of win with or without him, right.
Speaker 1: I think that that is super revealing in this case,
Speaker 1: because I've talked about this before. Lebron for some reason,
Speaker 1: because he's jovial and happy and he can be a goofball.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's famed like Austin Reeves talked about that after
Speaker 1: he left. He's just a big kid in the locker
Speaker 1: room because he's not like your stereotypical Kobe Bryant, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan like kind of like asshole personality. Combine that with
Speaker 1: like him going to Los Angeles, him being somewhat of
Speaker 1: a showman. There's a lot of people that have tried
Speaker 1: to paint this picture that Lebron James doesn't care as
Speaker 1: much about the competitiveness and the winning side of basketball,
Speaker 1: that he's more in it for these like other reasons.
Speaker 1: And I've always thought that was a ridiculous characterization because
Speaker 1: if you dig into anything, if you listen to anybody
Speaker 1: who's actually been on his team, they talk about his
Speaker 1: psychotic work ethic and how he's always showing up to
Speaker 1: the arena way before, and the way he cares about
Speaker 1: his diet, the way he manages his body, and all
Speaker 1: these different things. You only do those things if you
Speaker 1: care about winning, and Lebron himself has said, keep the
Speaker 1: main thing, the main thing. Lebron very clearly is one
Speaker 1: of the best competitors in the history of the league,
Speaker 1: certainly one of the best competitors, if not the best
Speaker 1: competitor of this era, meaning if you just quantified not
Speaker 1: his natural ability, not his his skill set, not his anything,
Speaker 1: but you just quantified his desire to win, he would
Speaker 1: be near the top, if not at the top of
Speaker 1: the list in recent NBA history and in all of
Speaker 1: NBA history. In many ways. I left yesterday going like,
Speaker 1: maybe we should have considered that more when we were
Speaker 1: talking about his decision, because the Philly decision was shocking, right,
Speaker 1: I know, I personally wasn't super high on it. In
Speaker 1: the process, I was looking at Miami and Golden State.
Speaker 1: Is my two favorites, Golden State being number one, Miami
Speaker 1: number two. I thought Cleveland around three in terms of likelihood,
Speaker 1: and then I had Philly at four. Philly ends up
Speaker 1: winning the race and had if we had paid more
Speaker 1: attention to the simple fact that Lebron cares about winning
Speaker 1: more than anything else, then we probably would have cared
Speaker 1: more about Philly. Now, it's more complicated than it looks
Speaker 1: on the surface, because there are obvious fit stuff of
Speaker 1: fit ramifications when it comes to trying to put together
Speaker 1: this type of this group of talent, Right, And what
Speaker 1: I kind of thought after thinking about that throughout the
Speaker 1: night last night, because I actually agree that, like if
Speaker 1: Lebron were to go to Miami, for example, I think
Speaker 1: they'd be better than if he would have went to
Speaker 1: Philly right away. If Lebron, even if he would have
Speaker 1: gone to Golden State, even if they never would have
Speaker 1: made another trade, because of the natural basketball fit, I
Speaker 1: could see Lebron and Draymond and Steph and you know,
Speaker 1: their four depth and their center depth. I could see
Speaker 1: them clicking more than Philly right away. Same goes with
Speaker 1: even Cleveland because they have such an existing infrastructure. I
Speaker 1: think Philly is a long term bet from Lebron that
Speaker 1: if they do happen to figure it out and maximize
Speaker 1: the sum of their parts, that the sheer amount of
Speaker 1: talent is of a level that supersedes all of these
Speaker 1: other options that he had on the table. In other words,
Speaker 1: I think Lebron looked at the situation and went, if
Speaker 1: I'm gonna win a title, we're gonna have to get
Speaker 1: lucky in terms of health. We're gonna have to get
Speaker 1: lucky in terms of guys meshing together and reaching a
Speaker 1: level greater than the sum of their parts. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the spectrum of all the available outcomes.
Speaker 1: Does Philly have a lower floor than Golden State, than Miami,
Speaker 1: than Cleveland, Yes, I do believe so. But the ceiling
Speaker 1: with all those guys, if they do figure it out,
Speaker 1: is higher. And I think Lebron was looking at it
Speaker 1: from the perspective of his opportunity to if they do
Speaker 1: capture that ceiling, achieve what he ultimately wants, which is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to win a championship. I thought that was
Speaker 1: really fascinating. He kind of showed in his tweets yesterday too.
Speaker 1: If you guys remember he was like saying about family
Speaker 1: and saying about money, and like, clearly not because he
Speaker 1: took a veteran minimum contract and he moved twenty five
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from his family. So like, it's very
Speaker 1: clear that Lebron is like, if I'm gonna do this,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna put my body through this, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to dedicate myself to this craft for an additional
Speaker 1: year or two, I'm gonna do it with the intention
Speaker 1: of hoisting the trophy. And he clearly thought Philly had
Speaker 1: the best opportunity for him to do that. Now, again,
Speaker 1: I think there's an argument in debate surrounding like, I
Speaker 1: do think there are versions of this story where other
Speaker 1: options would have been better for him than Philly, But
Speaker 1: I don't think the best case scenario for any of
Speaker 1: the teams is as high as Philly's best case scenario
Speaker 1: was number two. No, Lebron is not ring chasing. Now.
Speaker 1: This is a subjective kind of like phrase that we're
Speaker 1: looking at here, and there's a lot of different interpretations
Speaker 1: of it. Like if your basic interpretation of ring chasing
Speaker 1: is just is Lebron trying to win the title? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's ring chasing. He's been ring chasing for twenty three
Speaker 1: years now, so like even Steph Curry on the Warriors
Speaker 1: right now is ring chasing. He wants to win a ring,
Speaker 1: right Everyone wants to win. No one wants to play
Speaker 1: on a bad team. I don't. I've yet to see
Speaker 1: an NBA player that goes into a situation or raises
Speaker 1: their hand and goes I would like to play on
Speaker 1: a bottom ten roster so that I can try to
Speaker 1: win the title and have it somehow mean more. Even
Speaker 1: though no team has ever won the title without a
Speaker 1: great accumulation of talent, Even in situations where teams do
Speaker 1: supersede their talent level. It involves low level players achieving
Speaker 1: a level of greatness that even extends beyond what their
Speaker 1: reputation is. Right, you go back to you go back
Speaker 1: to like twenty the twenty twenty three Nuggets and it's
Speaker 1: like Jamal Murray just goes absolutely ape shit. Right, you
Speaker 1: go back to the twenty twenty two Warriors and it's
Speaker 1: like best season of Andrew Wiggins's career. And Jordan Poole,
Speaker 1: who's like basically a non factor in the NBA right now,
Speaker 1: was this incredibly important six man microwave score. Right, you
Speaker 1: go back to we can go on and on and on.
Speaker 1: You go whether it's the twenty eleven MAVs with Jason Terry,
Speaker 1: if like you look at like the twenty twenty Lakers
Speaker 1: and Rajon Rondo randomly shooting really well from three in
Speaker 1: that entire playoff run, like you're either super talented or
Speaker 1: you're very talented, and some of your lesser talented players
Speaker 1: like play better than they've ever played in order to win.
Speaker 1: You don't win a title without having talent. So, in
Speaker 1: the very basic sense of the term, is Lebron ring
Speaker 1: chasing because he wants to win a championship in the
Speaker 1: same way that every competitor would want to win a
Speaker 1: championship and would want to play on a team that
Speaker 1: is capable of winning a championship. Yes, so what is
Speaker 1: my subjective interpretation of like the negative connotation of ring chasing.
Speaker 1: To me, that would be going to a team that
Speaker 1: can win without you, going to a team that is
Speaker 1: a legitimate championship contender with or without you, And that
Speaker 1: is a completely different ballgame. And like, if Lebron had
Speaker 1: gone to San Antonio, I think calling it the derogatory
Speaker 1: form of ring chasing would have been a fair characterization.
Speaker 1: If Lebron would have gone to Oklahoma City, I think
Speaker 1: it would have been a fair characterization of the negative
Speaker 1: connotation of ring chasing. But outside of those two scenarios,
Speaker 1: none of these teams are legitimate top tier championship contenders
Speaker 1: without Lebron Lebron. The whole thing is, if look at
Speaker 1: how we viewed Philly before this situation, We're like, oh,
Speaker 1: Jylen Brown kind of clunky fit. You know, Tyre's maxy
Speaker 1: good player, Jolan Bie can't stay healthy. You would have
Speaker 1: just viewed them as a second or third tier contender.
Speaker 1: But nothing is in terms of a legitimate threat to
Speaker 1: go win the championship. You plug Lebron James in there,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, the ceiling is there. They have
Speaker 1: a legitimate championship ceiling. And so that's what I mean
Speaker 1: when I say, like the if, like if the Sixers
Speaker 1: win a championship this year, Lebron's gonna be such a
Speaker 1: substantial piece of that equation. And if Lebron is not there,
Speaker 1: or if Lebron goes and plays extremely poorly or gets injured,
Speaker 1: you're not giving Philly a chance at all whatsoever. Like
Speaker 1: I hate to bring Kevin duran into this equation, but
Speaker 1: like that's that's why that situation is so specifically referred
Speaker 1: to as like the kind of poster boys. Situation for
Speaker 1: ring chasing is like the Warriors won seventy three games.
Speaker 1: They were too heroic performance is from Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving and a banged up Steph Curry for the
Speaker 1: and a suspension to Draymond Green for the Cavs to
Speaker 1: barely beat them. Otherwise they would have been repeat championship champions.
Speaker 1: They had won already, They were this close to winning again,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Durant signed with them, outright as a free agent.
Speaker 1: That is why that situation comes with the backlash that
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant faced. To me, this is pretty par for
Speaker 1: the course for any other free agent player, a player
Speaker 1: that demands a trade, that wants to leave their team
Speaker 1: and change situations, but go to a situation where they
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to win. And of course Lebron has
Speaker 1: an opportunity to win in Philly now, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. There's a lot of ways it could
Speaker 1: go wrong. It is the furthest thing from a sure thing.
Speaker 1: The twenty seventeen Warriors won fifteen straight playoff games. They
Speaker 1: weren't even remotely threatened. There was no adversity. There was
Speaker 1: very little in what you would consider it to be
Speaker 1: difficulty in their pathway to a championship. If the Sixers
Speaker 1: win the title this year, it's gonna be tough. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be hard, there's gonna be adversity. There will almost
Speaker 1: certainly be a series where they're down to one, down
Speaker 1: one zero, down three to two because they don't have
Speaker 1: this like natural fitting, perfectly talented basketball roster. So like
Speaker 1: to me, Lebron is certainly trying to win a championship,
Speaker 1: but I would not call this move the kind of
Speaker 1: negative connotation of ring chasing number three getting into some
Speaker 1: of the basketball stuff that we didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to hit yesterday. And again, my brain was just moving
Speaker 1: one hundred miles an hour as I was processing everything
Speaker 1: with that move, and we kind of hinted at it
Speaker 1: early in the show, but I never got around to
Speaker 1: talking about it. Defense to transition is gonna be a
Speaker 1: very important part of how this team succeeds, and I
Speaker 1: want to dig into that on two specific levels. One
Speaker 1: the Nick Nurse piece of this, and then two the
Speaker 1: half court issues that they could very well have and
Speaker 1: how much much their transition talent could help counter that problem. Okay,
Speaker 1: so first of all, just looking at the talent level.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this before with Nick Nurse, where every
Speaker 1: single team I've ever watched him coach has this like
Speaker 1: emphasis on trying to force turnovers, being aggressive, a lot
Speaker 1: of like Ford aggression at the level coverages and pick
Speaker 1: and roll blitzes, ball pressure, you know, when you're hedging,
Speaker 1: your hedging and attacking the basketball, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of like really aggressive coverages Because Nick
Speaker 1: Nurse likes to force turnovers, and he wants to get
Speaker 1: out and transition as much as possible off of those turnovers. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the things I've always talked about is like,
Speaker 1: when it comes to coaches, I don't want them to
Speaker 1: have a coaching philosophy, at least not be completely married
Speaker 1: to a coaching philosophy irrespective of surrounding talent, because there
Speaker 1: are certain teams where it's like, Eh, maybe that's not
Speaker 1: the way you should play given the type of players
Speaker 1: that you have. Right this though, is a roster that
Speaker 1: in many ways is perfectly built for that Nick Nurse
Speaker 1: style of basketball right now. You know, Jalen Brown, for example,
Speaker 1: has received criticism over the years for not being as
Speaker 1: good at forcing turnovers, but I actually think he's very
Speaker 1: capable of that. Lebron James is a big turnover forcing
Speaker 1: defensive playmaker. You have speed at the guard spots, you
Speaker 1: have the ability to force turnovers with this group of talent,
Speaker 1: and so I actually think it accentuates Nick Nurse's coaching
Speaker 1: style well. And then when they force turnovers, they're going
Speaker 1: to be frightening in transition. The speed of Tyrese Maxi,
Speaker 1: the speed of VJ edgecomb. Lebron is still at age
Speaker 1: forty two this year going to be one of the
Speaker 1: best transition players in the NBA. Jalen Brown is one
Speaker 1: of the apex athletes in the NBA. This is a
Speaker 1: team that has the opportunity to be very, very good
Speaker 1: in transition. So there's a couple of specific ways to
Speaker 1: look at that. One just pushing as a habit. So
Speaker 1: regardless of outcome made shot, missshot, turnover, block shot, long
Speaker 1: missed jump shot, whatever it might be, get out and
Speaker 1: run like a bit of Nick. Nurse needs to build
Speaker 1: running habits in this group at the start of training
Speaker 1: camp so that it just becomes second nature for them
Speaker 1: to run, run, run, run run. Lebron is such a
Speaker 1: good defensive rebounder and outlet passer that I think this
Speaker 1: has the ability to work extremely well, and then when
Speaker 1: he doesn't get the rebound, he himself can be very
Speaker 1: impactful in transition running the other way. But again, this
Speaker 1: is where these things are connected. The habits only carry
Speaker 1: you so far in terms of running. You also have
Speaker 1: to have habits in terms of the things that actually
Speaker 1: get you going in transition, which takes me to number four.
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Speaker 1: Who's going to fill the dirty work roles on this
Speaker 1: particular team. So there are guys in this starting lineup
Speaker 1: that are certainly capable of doing things in terms of
Speaker 1: dirty work that will help this team. Like we know
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid is a great drop coverage defender who can
Speaker 1: block shots, rebound, start the break right. We know Lebron
Speaker 1: James can be one of the best back line defenders
Speaker 1: in the league while also being switchy so he can
Speaker 1: guard multiple positions on the perimeter. He can play passing
Speaker 1: lanes on skip passes in pick and roll when it
Speaker 1: does have to go to the level, he can fill
Speaker 1: in behind and make plays at the rim and do
Speaker 1: all sorts of things there. We know Lebron is very capable.
Speaker 1: He's been called a Swiss Army knife his entire career.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown has the ability to be an apex perimeter
Speaker 1: defender in this league, if not the best, close to
Speaker 1: one of the very best. Like if I need a
Speaker 1: guy to guard the other team's best guy, Jalen Brown's
Speaker 1: near the very top of that list, and then we
Speaker 1: know VJ. Edgecomb has a ton of talent as an
Speaker 1: athletic kind of defensive playmaker. All those guys have the
Speaker 1: talent for it, but for various reasons over the course
Speaker 1: of their recent years in their career, it's not something
Speaker 1: they've done. Lebron, I think a combination of his age
Speaker 1: and his lack of belief. Like Lebron, this is going
Speaker 1: to be by far Lebron's like the season of this
Speaker 1: phase of his career where Lebron actually believes in his
Speaker 1: ability to win a championship the most. And I generally
Speaker 1: believe that when Lebron actually smells blood in the water,
Speaker 1: when he actually thinks he has a chance to win,
Speaker 1: he takes things to another level. The dead giveaway for me,
Speaker 1: look at the difference between twenty nineteen Lebron in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty Lebron. The difference in what he looked in all
Speaker 1: phases of the game. When he was with Lonzo Ball
Speaker 1: and Josh Hart and Brandon Ingram versus when Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: was in the building and it was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: like I can win the title this year. Lebron was
Speaker 1: laser focused from start to finish, I think he should
Speaker 1: have won MVP. That year is the one year I
Speaker 1: actually thought he got robbed of MVP, and then he
Speaker 1: wins the title. Right, So Lebron a lack of belief
Speaker 1: and just reaching that point in his career, he didn't
Speaker 1: have as much energy reserves that led to him having
Speaker 1: inconsistent effort in the dirty work in previous seasons. Jaylen
Speaker 1: Brown last year especially not his best defensive season, in
Speaker 1: large part because he had such enormous offensive responsibility. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like that's the tricky piece of this is how much
Speaker 1: are those guys, under these circumstances where they have more
Speaker 1: depth of talent and they have more ability to conserve
Speaker 1: resources on offense to be able to devote resources towards
Speaker 1: the dirty work. How much are they willing to do
Speaker 1: that because again, getting stops, getting defensive rebounds, forcing turnovers,
Speaker 1: by giving effort. In Nick Nurse's scheme, that's going to
Speaker 1: be a huge part of how they trigger the transition possessions,
Speaker 1: which are going to be by far their best offense.
Speaker 1: The accumulation of talent for them can be clunky in
Speaker 1: the half court, but it will not be clunky in transition.
Speaker 1: When this team gets advantage running up the open floor,
Speaker 1: they're going to be more athletic than all the other teams.
Speaker 1: With so much scoring and finishing and playmaking talent on
Speaker 1: the floor. In those open force situations, they're going to
Speaker 1: be devastating. But again, it's going to hinge on the
Speaker 1: idea that they're able to force turnovers, get defensive rebounds,
Speaker 1: get stops, which is going to put a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on the stars to do their jobs. There are
Speaker 1: dirty work guys on the roster. Dominic Barlow is actually
Speaker 1: one of my favorite kind of like Swiss army knife
Speaker 1: role player forwards in the league. I think he's going
Speaker 1: to play quite a bit for this team. Dean Wade
Speaker 1: obviously is going to be plugged into many of these lineups.
Speaker 1: Is to do everything kind of versatile, dirty work forward.
Speaker 1: There will be dirty work players that end up on
Speaker 1: the floor. It's been reported that Contavious Calwell Pope is
Speaker 1: going to be joining this team eventually. He's a guy
Speaker 1: that can help in that particular area. He's been a
Speaker 1: very important starting caliber player on two different championship teams
Speaker 1: in the last seven years. There are gonna be guys there.
Speaker 1: But knowing that Max he's gonna play thirty five plus minutes,
Speaker 1: knowing that Lebron's gonna play thirty five plus minutes, knowing
Speaker 1: that Jay leb Brown is gonna play thirty five plus minutes,
Speaker 1: knowing VJ. Edgecomb is gonna play thirty plus minutes, and
Speaker 1: Embied when he's healthy, he's gonna play thirty plus minutes.
Speaker 1: It's going to be incumbing on those guys to be
Speaker 1: willing to do the dirty work, or they won't force
Speaker 1: as many turnovers and get as many stops and defensive
Speaker 1: rebounds as they're capable of getting, which will cause their
Speaker 1: defensive ratings to suffer, which will limit their ability to
Speaker 1: get out in transition, which will get them stuck in
Speaker 1: the half court, which will then lead to some of
Speaker 1: the clunkiness, especially early in the season. Number five, I'm
Speaker 1: really curious to see how Embiid's lack of foot speed
Speaker 1: fits with the rest of the guys on this team.
Speaker 1: So Lebron still one of the fastest players in the
Speaker 1: open floor in the league. Not as laterally quick as
Speaker 1: he used to be, but still an I'd say he's
Speaker 1: still easily a top five percent athlete in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown's like a top one percent athlete in the NBA. VJ.
Speaker 1: Edge comes a top one percent athlete in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Tyrese Maxi maybe top five percent because he's not, you know,
Speaker 1: the most vertical or the most strong or anything, but
Speaker 1: he's just so lightning fast. Right. So you've got like
Speaker 1: four legitimate upper tier athletes in the NBA, and then
Speaker 1: you have Joel Embiid, who, even back when he was
Speaker 1: young and healthy, was kind of a lumbering, kind of
Speaker 1: clunky type of athlete. Right. The reason why I think
Speaker 1: this is an interesting fit is if you kind of
Speaker 1: dig into again the way that Nick Nurse is going
Speaker 1: to want to play defense, the way he's going to
Speaker 1: want to trigger transition attacks, that foot speed kind of
Speaker 1: like fit with Embiid is. And if you dig back
Speaker 1: into like Embiid's career and his time with the Sixers,
Speaker 1: they consistently had transition defense issues that used to be
Speaker 1: the way that Nikola Jokich would always give the Sixers problems.
Speaker 1: I know Embiid won some major battles with him there
Speaker 1: towards the end, but one of the ways that Jokic
Speaker 1: would have his success with the Sixers was just pushing
Speaker 1: the ball the floor and beating Embiid down the floor
Speaker 1: just with transition, kicked passes and guys running their lanes.
Speaker 1: They were vulnerable in transition because Embiid struggled kind of
Speaker 1: transitioning end to end. And so whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: on defense with Embiid needing to be aggressive in coverages
Speaker 1: and get up to the level and cover ground, or
Speaker 1: whether it's in transition as the game just turns into
Speaker 1: an up and down game which favors the other four guys.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious to see how well Embiid just keeps up.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better way to describe it, he
Speaker 1: to me, even though when he's healthy, I think brings
Speaker 1: a lot of other value, which we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about in the next segment. His lack of footspeed, to me,
Speaker 1: is going to be something I have my eye on
Speaker 1: early in the season, just to see how well it fits.
Speaker 1: Because going from Paul George and Kelly Ubray to Jaylen
Speaker 1: Brown and Lebron James, you're just going to another level
Speaker 1: of athleticism at your three and four spot, and this
Speaker 1: is going to be a team that emphasizes defense to transition.
Speaker 1: Just curious to see how Embid keeps up number six.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to see what this looks like with
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid spacing from the five spot. I talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot with Lebron in his free agency, specifically
Speaker 1: surrounding Nikola Jokic. If you guys remember I a little
Speaker 1: bit with the Warriors as well, with guys like Corford
Speaker 1: and Porzingis, but you know, I always just factor Draymond
Speaker 1: in for most of their best lineups. I looked at
Speaker 1: Denver and I was like, well, you know, with Cam
Speaker 1: Johnson and Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic,
Speaker 1: imagine Lebron just operating with no big at the rim.
Speaker 1: And specifically, Lebron in this phase of his career has
Speaker 1: been consistently, even in his late thirties early forties, one
Speaker 1: of the highest volume, highest efficiency basket attackers in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And for him to do that playing alongside and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: A DeAndre Ayton, Jackson Hayes, for him to do that
Speaker 1: alongside you know, like just all the different variations of
Speaker 1: centers that came through LA is really impressive to me.
Speaker 1: And if you go back to like some of the
Speaker 1: craziest sequences in Lebron's mid prime, like with the Calves,
Speaker 1: whether it was with Shanning Fry at the five or
Speaker 1: with Kevin Love at the five, Lebron reached these levels
Speaker 1: of like straight up unguardability because of the ability to
Speaker 1: space from the five spot, and you combine that with
Speaker 1: his ability to get to the rim and his ability
Speaker 1: to pass. It creates this like extremely difficult to guard dynamic.
Speaker 1: Now it's not as straightforward with Philly because bj edge
Speaker 1: Come can go hot and cold as a shooter. We
Speaker 1: saw that in the postseason running of games where he
Speaker 1: hit a bunch of threes, and he'd have games where
Speaker 1: he misses all of his threes. Right. Brown last year
Speaker 1: a low thirties as a spot up three point shooter
Speaker 1: in terms of percentage, like forty fifth percentile in terms
Speaker 1: of overall spot up efficiency. So there's some trickiness there
Speaker 1: in terms of like those guys actually knocking down enough
Speaker 1: shots to really make this work. Em Beat himself is
Speaker 1: very much a rhythm shooter. Like when he's healthy and
Speaker 1: he's playing every game, he can get really hot from three,
Speaker 1: and then when he's not playing very often, the three
Speaker 1: point shot can kind of come and go. That was
Speaker 1: something that happened to him in the postseason this year,
Speaker 1: as he obviously was in and out of the lineup
Speaker 1: coming into the playoff run. But like there's a version
Speaker 1: of this story, whether it's through Jalen Brown having a
Speaker 1: good catch and shoot season VJ edgecomb improving and b
Speaker 1: just being healthy and in rhythm, or whether it's lineup construction.
Speaker 1: So it could be Okay, we have a lineup with
Speaker 1: you know, Justin Edwards and and Anthony Simons who could
Speaker 1: both really shoot, and like let's say Dean Wade has
Speaker 1: a good shooting season and it's Embiid at the five
Speaker 1: with Lebron, you know, or like different variations like that,
Speaker 1: maybe cacps in that group. Whoever, it might be different
Speaker 1: combinations of five man groups where you have a good
Speaker 1: amount of shooting on the floor and you have Joel
Speaker 1: Embiid at the five. I'm excited to see some of those,
Speaker 1: like kind of fun floor spacing dynamics where Lebron actually
Speaker 1: has a legitimate stretch five on the floor. And there
Speaker 1: were some examples. I was looking through some of the
Speaker 1: Team USA footage today. There was a clip going around
Speaker 1: from the Serbia game where Lebron was burning Jokics for
Speaker 1: helping off of Embiid. He hit him for corner three
Speaker 1: on the left side in the first half of the game.
Speaker 1: He had another one in the right corner where he
Speaker 1: hit embiad and Be pump baked and Yokics jumped out
Speaker 1: of his shoes and Be just drove and threw down
Speaker 1: a dunk. And like, I'm just really excited to see
Speaker 1: Lebron play in potentially five out spacing again, something we
Speaker 1: haven't seen in years, and even at age forty two,
Speaker 1: I think there's a version of that story where Lebron
Speaker 1: could be devastating as a basket attacker. Again. I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, we saw bits and pieces of it.
Speaker 1: We saw the Lakers go to five out groups with
Speaker 1: Lebron at center in the Timberwolve series, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: when those guys were on the floor, they scored the
Speaker 1: ball really effectively against the vaunted Timberwolves defense. We saw
Speaker 1: groups in the Russell Westbrook years where Lebron would play
Speaker 1: center simply because they didn't have any centers that could play.
Speaker 1: So we saw it on occasion. But I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see like a real full season where some of their
Speaker 1: best looks could involve real five out spacing number seven.
Speaker 1: This is the latest example of how fortune favors the bold.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've talked about consistently over
Speaker 1: the years is, like most of the examples in NBA history,
Speaker 1: where you look through and a team actually pushes their
Speaker 1: chips into the middle, so to speak, it tends to
Speaker 1: result in a championship for one reason or another. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say it tends to result in a championship, but
Speaker 1: a lot of our champions involve situations where they made
Speaker 1: some sort of bold or aggressive move at some point
Speaker 1: down the line, right, whether it's the Knicks and pushing
Speaker 1: their chips in on Michale Bridges, Karl Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: Ojan Andobi over the previous few years. You know, Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City's not as much of an example, but if you
Speaker 1: dig into, like you know, Boston going after Christaps Porzingis
Speaker 1: and Drew Holliday, You go into Denver in their move
Speaker 1: for Aaron Gordon and how that that was a risky move.
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon was kind of an undervalued player coming out
Speaker 1: of Orlando, right, And we can go on and on
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dig too much further down NBA history,
Speaker 1: but there's just a lot of different examples where it's
Speaker 1: like you push your chips in. You know, we're going
Speaker 1: to make a move for Kawhi Leonard even though he's
Speaker 1: not promising us that he's going to stay beyond this year,
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, we're hoisting the trophy
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen in Toronto. Right. So, like there's just, you,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, a lot of the things in life that
Speaker 1: are worth having involved some sort of risk in one
Speaker 1: shape or another, Right, And I just thought Philly was
Speaker 1: the example of the team that said we're going to
Speaker 1: be aggressive and this has a chance to be clunky,
Speaker 1: this has a chance to not work, this is a
Speaker 1: chance to not be good enough. But hey, maybe just
Speaker 1: maybe we can get Lebron James out of this situation.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, we have our best
Speaker 1: chance to win the championship in a quarter of a century. Right,
Speaker 1: you dig into, you know, some of the stuff surrounding
Speaker 1: the other decisions. I was, I was thinking about this
Speaker 1: with respect to the Warriors, and we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: Warriors in a minute, But like, like if you look
Speaker 1: at what happened with this Lebron situation. He made some
Speaker 1: he did some probing behind the scenes of like, okay,
Speaker 1: is Anthony Davis gonna come with me? Is Kyrie gonna
Speaker 1: come with me? Is that even plausible from the trademarket standpoint?
Speaker 1: But ultimately he ended up picking just based on the
Speaker 1: current roster of the team that he thought gave himself
Speaker 1: the best chance to win. And what ends up happening
Speaker 1: is you have a lot of these teams, like the
Speaker 1: Warriors we'll talk about in a minute, who are like, well,
Speaker 1: are we gonna get Lebron? Because if we're not gonna
Speaker 1: get Lebron, I don't necessarily want to put all this
Speaker 1: steak in the skin in the game and potentially handcuff
Speaker 1: our ability to rebuild in the future. And so then
Speaker 1: they hesitate and they don't do anything, and then the
Speaker 1: opportunity passes them. One of the things I talked about
Speaker 1: during the process, if you guys remember, is I was
Speaker 1: worried that Lebron, even though I wanted him to go
Speaker 1: to Golden State, I was worried that Lebron would look
Speaker 1: at Joe Lacup and go, you have all your picks,
Speaker 1: and all you've done is pass on really good players
Speaker 1: every time they've come available. I don't trust you to
Speaker 1: actually put your chips in the middle when the opportunity comes.
Speaker 1: Bob Myers and my Ganzy, they were incredibly aggressive this
Speaker 1: summer between the move for Jalen Brown, again identifying him
Speaker 1: as an asset that was undervalued because of the way
Speaker 1: these analytic departments looked at him. Whether it was you know,
Speaker 1: going after a guy like Dean Wade, going after a
Speaker 1: guy like Anferny Simons, like meaningful upgrades like Dean Wade
Speaker 1: can start for your team in a playoff game, in
Speaker 1: a pan Jaferny Simons is a valuable sixth man microwave score,
Speaker 1: like just putting, like making real attempts to just be like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put together the best possible roster we can
Speaker 1: and maybe through that we can persuade Lebron to come right.
Speaker 1: Bob Myers, going on Rich Paul's podcasts, you know, openly
Speaker 1: advocating there were, you know, a lot of ways that
Speaker 1: could have gone wrong. There's a version of it where
Speaker 1: you don't get Lebron and your team's just not good enough. Right,
Speaker 1: There's a version of it where even just Bob Myers
Speaker 1: going on the podcast, maybe it ends up rubbing Lebron
Speaker 1: the wrong way and feeling like a dynamic he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to involve himself with. It was risky, All of
Speaker 1: it was risky, but it was all an example of
Speaker 1: them pushing their chips in the middle. And now, if
Speaker 1: you really dig into it, it's like they didn't just
Speaker 1: trade Paul George for Jalen Brown with a couple of picks,
Speaker 1: one of which was a really good pick and another
Speaker 1: one was a kind of a mediocre pick. Now you
Speaker 1: dig into it, and it's like, in one summer they
Speaker 1: added Dean Wade, Anferny Simon's, Jaylen Brown and Lebron James
Speaker 1: for basically a bunch of contracts that were six million
Speaker 1: or less in terms of the free agent signings the
Speaker 1: toe and basically one really good first round pick, another
Speaker 1: pick first round pick that's you know whatever, and a
Speaker 1: bad distressed contract in Paul George. So like, when you
Speaker 1: actually piece it all together, it's like an insane acquisition
Speaker 1: of talent for one summer, And again, I just will
Speaker 1: it work? Who knows? Is there a version of the
Speaker 1: story where the sixers don't win the championship. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'd argue they have the fourth best chance right now
Speaker 1: behind New York, Oklahoma City in San Antonio. Like they
Speaker 1: it's certainly risky, but the point is is, like I
Speaker 1: like their chance as a hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: at fourth than if they didn't get Lebron or if
Speaker 1: they didn't get Jylen Brown. And they were running back
Speaker 1: basically the team from last year, and they were like
Speaker 1: ten or eleventh on my list right Like, it's just
Speaker 1: they push their chips in and now they have a chance,
Speaker 1: and it's a hell of a lot better than a
Speaker 1: lot of these other teams out there that don't have
Speaker 1: a chance. Which takes me to the other to number eight.
Speaker 1: What the fuck are the Warriors doing? They have passed
Speaker 1: on every opportunity to make a move to support Steph
Speaker 1: Curry that involved any sort of substantial risk. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny when you're talking about going all in so
Speaker 1: to speak, around an older player, there's this belief that
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you're mortgaging your future for a small
Speaker 1: increase in your chances to win. I know this talking
Speaker 1: point because I heard it constantly surrounding Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and people being like, oh, well they're just not quite
Speaker 1: good enough. If you move this pick to go get
Speaker 1: whoever it is, it's not really going to demonstratively improve
Speaker 1: their chances to win, So why would you do it?
Speaker 1: And that ends up becoming the rationale And I would argue,
Speaker 1: the only way you're really going to mortgage your future
Speaker 1: is if you make a move for a like an
Speaker 1: expensive move for a player whose timeline doesn't match up
Speaker 1: because they're too old. Right, Like, I like, I understand
Speaker 1: why a team wouldn't want to trade a bunch of
Speaker 1: picks for Andrew Wiggins in his age thirty two season
Speaker 1: and get one or two good years out of him,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you're like, shit, we gotta go, we
Speaker 1: gotta trade him, and he's not worth as much as
Speaker 1: he used to be worth. I understand hesitance in that
Speaker 1: specific regard, but like when it comes to young, great
Speaker 1: role players, they are an asset in and of themselves.
Speaker 1: If the Knicks wanted to trade ogn and Obi right now,
Speaker 1: even on his big contract, they would get a haul
Speaker 1: for him. Any one of these teams that has a
Speaker 1: really good role player that they want to trade, they
Speaker 1: could trade them like this, If the Oklahoma City Thunder,
Speaker 1: We're like, you know what, we want to trade Alex
Speaker 1: Crusoe right now. Alex Cruso's probably getting you multiple verse
Speaker 1: round picks at least one, and so it's really frustrating.
Speaker 1: He is an older bet, by the way. I that's
Speaker 1: what bothers me about this, like hesitance the Sixers, or
Speaker 1: excuse me, the Warriors passing on Pascal Siakam, passing on
Speaker 1: ogn Andobi not calling up New Orleans this summer and
Speaker 1: being like, hey, we want Trey Murphy and Dejonte Murray.
Speaker 1: Because even if you don't get Lebron, even if you
Speaker 1: have to run it back with Steph Curry and Draymond
Speaker 1: Green and Trey Murphy and you lose, you can turn
Speaker 1: around and trade Trey Murphy again because he's young and
Speaker 1: great at basketball. The best thing you can do as
Speaker 1: a basketball team is continue to improve your basketball team.
Speaker 1: The Sixers, for example, the Jalen Brown trade, Will they
Speaker 1: get the same haul that Hall quote unquote that Boston
Speaker 1: got for Jalen Brown. Maybe not, But if they turn
Speaker 1: around and wanted to trade Jalen Brown next summer, you
Speaker 1: don't think they'd get something for him. Of course they would,
Speaker 1: He's Jalen Brown. And that's what I don't understand about
Speaker 1: any of this process from Golden State. There's this idea that, like,
Speaker 1: their draft picks are the only assets they have that
Speaker 1: give them the ability to build post Steph Curry. I
Speaker 1: don't see it that way. A draft pick or a
Speaker 1: good basketball player in his prime are both valuable assets.
Speaker 1: So if you can move draft compensation and get really
Speaker 1: good basketball players that both in the short term supports
Speaker 1: your ability to compete with Steph Curry, but also gives
Speaker 1: you a better chance to convince a guy like Lebron
Speaker 1: James to come to town, and you can turn around
Speaker 1: and move that young player if you need more draft
Speaker 1: picks in the future. It's a no brainer to me.
Speaker 1: And instead, Golden State has hesitated every single time at
Speaker 1: the one yard line when they've been in these situations
Speaker 1: based on this like perceived belief that those draft picks
Speaker 1: are their key to the future. One of the things
Speaker 1: I've always said is, like, there's no guarantee that your
Speaker 1: draft picks gonna land in a good draft. The number
Speaker 1: one pick in like a Zachary Risasche draft, or hell,
Speaker 1: maybe in a stacked draft, like one of these top
Speaker 1: four guys, one of these top four guys this year.
Speaker 1: There's a good chance that one of these top four guys,
Speaker 1: you know, Caleb Wilson, Cam Boozer, Darren Peterson, A J. Deabontsa,
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that one of them is just
Speaker 1: not very good. That's that's the game. And it's like that.
Speaker 1: It's like that family guy joke about the what's in
Speaker 1: the box, the mystery box of thing, where it's like,
Speaker 1: you have this mystery box of these draft picks. But
Speaker 1: for years now you've had Steph Curry, who, even in
Speaker 1: his post prime, has continued to be a top ten
Speaker 1: player in the NBA. And there is no guarantee, In fact,
Speaker 1: it is very unlikely that that pick will become a
Speaker 1: top ten player. There is a good chance that of
Speaker 1: Caleb Wilson, Cam Booser, AJ DEBONSA, Darren Peterson, that none
Speaker 1: of those four ever become top ten players in the NBA.
Speaker 1: That's a legitimate possibility. They might all kind of hover
Speaker 1: in the ten to twenty range. It is exceedingly rare
Speaker 1: to actually get a player that good, and I feel
Speaker 1: like it has been an example of mismanagement the way
Speaker 1: that the Warriors have failed to be aggressive on any
Speaker 1: of these young, great role players that both could have
Speaker 1: helped Steph compete, helped them convince a guy like Lebron
Speaker 1: to come and help them in the future by virtue
Speaker 1: of them being an asset that they can turn around
Speaker 1: and flip when they need to. And I feel bad
Speaker 1: for Warriors fans. I feel bad for Steph Curry. They
Speaker 1: are going to run back next year a team that,
Speaker 1: even when healthy, was a playing team in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: and their second best player is rehabbing his acl right now.
Speaker 1: It's very dark. They're in Golden State. I two more
Speaker 1: quick ones. Number nine, The Miami Heater are a multi
Speaker 1: year project. I think They're one chance to compete in
Speaker 1: the short term was to get Lebron. Rich Paul basically
Speaker 1: said himself in a one of those pods with Max
Speaker 1: Kellerman that he viewed the Miami Heat as like a
Speaker 1: multi year cycle, like he did not think they would
Speaker 1: compete for a championship in year one and that their
Speaker 1: best chance would actually be in year two. That, by
Speaker 1: the way, should have been a clear indicator to all
Speaker 1: of us that Lebron probably wouldn't going to Miami, the
Speaker 1: fact that his agent was openly saying that he didn't
Speaker 1: think they could win this year. But now, especially that
Speaker 1: Lebron's not in the pickture, this is a multi year project.
Speaker 1: They are going to be so devoid of backcourt talent,
Speaker 1: overall ball handling and shooting around Giannis and Bam, center depth,
Speaker 1: a variety of other areas where there's weaknesses in this
Speaker 1: roster that they are going to need a multi cycle
Speaker 1: approach to try to build a contender around these guys.
Speaker 1: Between other moves they make this offseason in terms of
Speaker 1: free agent signings, whether it's Russell Westbrook, Demarta, rozen Bradley Beal,
Speaker 1: whatever ball handlers become available to them, the moves that
Speaker 1: they can make at this upcoming trade deadline, the following summer,
Speaker 1: the following trade deadline, we're talking about basically four cycles
Speaker 1: here for them to be able to have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to compete for the twenty twenty eight NBA Championship, and
Speaker 1: it's going to require it's going to be a thin
Speaker 1: road for them to walk, because they need quite a
Speaker 1: bit of talent at some key position groups. I do
Speaker 1: think they need a backup center, like pat Riley talked about.
Speaker 1: I do think they're gonna need a good amount of
Speaker 1: ball handling and shooting talent that's going to be hard
Speaker 1: to acquire over such a short period of time with
Speaker 1: the asset constraints that they have. But between Rich Paul
Speaker 1: admitting it and now Lebron actually kind of turning them
Speaker 1: down this Heat team, it's going to be a very
Speaker 1: delicate balance over these next four cycles again summer deadline,
Speaker 1: summer deadline for the Heat to turn that roster into
Speaker 1: a championship roster. The number ten Lebron is still very
Speaker 1: much one of the best needle movers in the NBA.
Speaker 1: This whole saga has been very fascinating to me, and
Speaker 1: there's some uniqueness to it in the sense that, you know,
Speaker 1: how often do you have a legitimate All NBA level
Speaker 1: player when he's healthy. I would argue he's probably we'll
Speaker 1: see how we do in the player rankings when we
Speaker 1: get into the summer, but like he's in my book,
Speaker 1: somewhere around the top fifteen, top twelve regular season player
Speaker 1: and somewhere around like a top seven or eight playoff
Speaker 1: player in the entire NBA. For a guy like that
Speaker 1: to be available to just sign outright at a veteran
Speaker 1: minimum contract is kind of an unprecedented dynamic in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and it was a combination of a bunch of factors.
Speaker 1: You know, the way the CBA has changed it so
Speaker 1: that good teams don't have cap space. Like the one
Speaker 1: good team that had like a substantial amount of cap
Speaker 1: space this summer was a Lakers team that didn't want
Speaker 1: Lebron and that was clearly trying to move in a
Speaker 1: different direction and wanted to use that cap space on
Speaker 1: young talent to surround Luca, which put Lebron in this
Speaker 1: situation where he was going to be choosing between either
Speaker 1: bad teams with cap space or good teams that didn't
Speaker 1: have cap space as a free agent or a sign
Speaker 1: and trade dynamic, or he could go to a team,
Speaker 1: but he'd have to send out a bunch of salary,
Speaker 1: which would sap the team he's going to of talent.
Speaker 1: Very different from previous iterations of the NBA when you
Speaker 1: go back decade where it was more common to go
Speaker 1: to a summer and a good team would have some
Speaker 1: cap space available just by virtue of the way the
Speaker 1: league has changed, and now players tend to extend with
Speaker 1: their teams rather than go to free agency, which means
Speaker 1: most player movement happens through the trade market rather than
Speaker 1: through free agency. So it's just this confluence of events
Speaker 1: that led to this super unique situation. But the basketball
Speaker 1: world stopped. The basketball world stopped for a month here
Speaker 1: literally because Lebron James was a free agent. And this
Speaker 1: is a guy who entered the league in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. This is a guy who legitimately will turn
Speaker 1: forty two years old this season and substantially altered the
Speaker 1: championship picture in the NBA. You look around the league
Speaker 1: and it's like, the only teams you're putting over Philly
Speaker 1: for sure right now are okay, see in San Antonio,
Speaker 1: the two freaky talented young teams in the league led
Speaker 1: by Apex Superstars, and a New York Knicks team that's
Speaker 1: a defending champion. Even with all of the question marks
Speaker 1: and all of the stuff. With that Philly team, you're
Speaker 1: putting him forth because you know, Lebron James plus that
Speaker 1: type of talent, his leadership and his ability to kind
Speaker 1: of help things coalesce gives them a dead serious chance,
Speaker 1: and I just think it's crazy. I can't believe it
Speaker 1: that here in the summer of twenty twenty six we
Speaker 1: were talking about a Lebron James free agency that stopped
Speaker 1: the basketball world and substantially altered the title landscape. And
Speaker 1: it just as another feather in his cap as one
Speaker 1: of the great basketball players of our time. And I
Speaker 1: think if he wins the championship in Philly, and again
Speaker 1: that's we're a long way from there right now. But
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talking like what does it
Speaker 1: mean for Lebron's legacy, And Lebron's legacy is stamped. It's
Speaker 1: not really something that I think is up for changing
Speaker 1: at this point. But what it does to me is
Speaker 1: reinforce what is the strongest part of his basketball case,
Speaker 1: which is, as you dig through NBA history or his history,
Speaker 1: I should say he's so versatile that he's been able
Speaker 1: to take many different different types of rosters and turned
Speaker 1: them into legitimate championship contenders. Whether it's like Larry Hughes
Speaker 1: and Sasha Pavlovich and Drew Gooden and zydronisolgowskis competing for
Speaker 1: a championship in seven, or it's the the Moe Williams
Speaker 1: version of the team in the late two thousands. Or
Speaker 1: it's Wade Bosh, or it's Kyrie Kevin Love, or it's
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis, or it's you know, Luka Doncic, Jen Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: or it's this team. There have just been so many
Speaker 1: different iterations where Lebron's taken on different roles. I'm partnering
Speaker 1: with a scoring guard here, I'm partnering with a elite
Speaker 1: big here, I'm partnering partnering with a non shooting slasher
Speaker 1: like Dwayne Wade. I'm partnering with all these different types
Speaker 1: of players, and he's just always been able to kind
Speaker 1: of figure it out and compete for a championship. And
Speaker 1: famously he's won a title on every team he's been on.
Speaker 1: And if you were to win a title in Philly
Speaker 1: and win his fourth title with this excuse me, his
Speaker 1: fifth title with his fourth different team, it would just
Speaker 1: be another resounding statement that of that case that I've
Speaker 1: always talked about for Lebron's goat case, which is his
Speaker 1: goat case, is very simply if you were to draft
Speaker 1: a team from scratch in a all of NBA history,
Speaker 1: in a fantasy draft and you had the number one
Speaker 1: overall pick, and you got to have that player for
Speaker 1: his entire career, and everything else is up in the air.
Speaker 1: Who your number two is, Who the rest of your
Speaker 1: roster is, all of the injuries and different things that
Speaker 1: can happen throughout an NBA career. Which player gives you
Speaker 1: the best chance to win the most championships? It's Lebron
Speaker 1: because you can do the most things, and he's going
Speaker 1: to play the longest, and he's going to be at
Speaker 1: the highest level for the longest, which gives you the
Speaker 1: best chance to win. And if he was able to
Speaker 1: win a championship with Paul George Tyres, Maxi, bj Edgecomb
Speaker 1: and Joel Embid in the year twenty twenty six, that
Speaker 1: would be perhaps the most resounding defense of that particular statement.
Speaker 1: And again, long way from there, but that's the opportunity
Speaker 1: that he has in this particular season. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: It's all I have for today is always a sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
Speaker 1: We are taking tomorrow off. We will have an episode
Speaker 1: on Monday morning that I already recorded before the Lebron trade,
Speaker 1: talking about different number twos. Who's like the best fitting
Speaker 1: number two for our top five superstars in the NBA.
Speaker 1: That's just a short, little quick episode coming out on Monday.
Speaker 1: From there, next week I want to do a contender
Speaker 1: rankings where we go over the where we kind of
Speaker 1: go over the current contention landscape now that Lebron is
Speaker 1: actually signed. That will be going out on Wednesday. He'll
Speaker 1: probably have a mail bag on Friday, and then we'll
Speaker 1: end up starting our player rankings as we head in
Speaker 1: the following week. Again, as always, I appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll see you
Speaker 1: guys on Monday.