Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Jason Simps Podcast. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys for taking time out of your day in your
Speaker 1: busy weeks to come hang out with me for a
Speaker 1: little bit and talk some basketball. Um. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys are all uh, staying safe this holiday weekend and
Speaker 1: not doing anything stupid like running off and getting covid. Um.
Speaker 1: I promise you, it's not worth the ten days you
Speaker 1: have to lock yourself in your house after. And that's
Speaker 1: if you just so happen to not get symptoms, which
Speaker 1: makes it that much worse. My wife just finished her
Speaker 1: quarantine today and it's just getting back to work and
Speaker 1: she's you know, behind and everything, and she's really been
Speaker 1: struggling trying to float the ship from home and that's
Speaker 1: just really really hard. So I hope all of you
Speaker 1: make responsible decisions this weekend. If you're gonna hang out
Speaker 1: with your family, try to do it in a way
Speaker 1: that's not going to lead to a bunch of consequences
Speaker 1: after the fact. Um. Today, I'm gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the Laker off season. I know it's not
Speaker 1: completely done, but these last couple moves, these last couple
Speaker 1: veteran minimum spots that they have are most likely going
Speaker 1: to be used on guys who are gonna be good
Speaker 1: locker room presences because you don't wanna play too much
Speaker 1: with that chemistry on the team. So I don't think
Speaker 1: there's too much more we have to wait for there,
Speaker 1: and that if they do end up trading Kyle Kuzma,
Speaker 1: my guess is it won't happen until the trade deadline
Speaker 1: this year. So I think what you've seen in the
Speaker 1: last week is basically what you're gonna get as far
Speaker 1: as the Lakers go heading into training camping into the
Speaker 1: first few months of the season. Uh. Then I have
Speaker 1: a little point I want to make about Trey Young
Speaker 1: and Devin Booker, a couple of guys who a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are fans of Atlanta and fans of
Speaker 1: Phoenix have been defending for a long time. Uh uh,
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna explain why I think it's okay
Speaker 1: to show just a little bit of hesitancy with those
Speaker 1: types of guys after spending all those years playing losing basketball,
Speaker 1: and then, last but not least, a lot of my
Speaker 1: Steph Curry fan friends, a lot of my Golden State
Speaker 1: Twitter friends out there are always frustrated with the type
Speaker 1: of doubt that is casted towards Steph Curry, and you're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of that again this year, um, as
Speaker 1: we head into this in uh, this Clay Thompson injury season.
Speaker 1: And so I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: why I think Steph gets so much doubt placed in
Speaker 1: his direction. And honestly, you know, I understand that it
Speaker 1: can be unfair at times, but it's just the reality
Speaker 1: of his situation and I think it's why he's discussed
Speaker 1: the way he's discussed. So I'll get to that here
Speaker 1: in a little bit, but let's start with the Lakers.
Speaker 1: So I think the Lakers had a nearly perfect offseason,
Speaker 1: and I think it's okay to acknowledge the fact that
Speaker 1: it wasn't fixed. And quite frankly, if any GM was
Speaker 1: always perfect, they win a title every single year, and
Speaker 1: that's just not possible. Everybody does the best they can.
Speaker 1: They make a series of moves. You make, swings, you
Speaker 1: make uh, you make, you take risks, and you hope
Speaker 1: that most of them work out in your favor. And
Speaker 1: for the record, the Lakers did mostly good. And one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things is, uh, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of the moves that they made remind me kind of
Speaker 1: of the moves that the Cleveland Cavaliers made at the
Speaker 1: trade deadline in two thousand eighteen, in the sense that
Speaker 1: they are kind of swing for the fences types of
Speaker 1: moves that have major upside, like Tre's, like Dennis Shrewder.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, they didn't sacrifice their core
Speaker 1: identity of the team. If you remember with that two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen Calves team, they brought in Rodney Hood, who
Speaker 1: was a guy who always had a lot of potential,
Speaker 1: but no one was ever really sure if he was
Speaker 1: going to be able to, you know, uh, contribute in
Speaker 1: a winning environment. And then you know, Larry and Ants Jr.
Speaker 1: Was a very athletic and exciting prospect that was playing
Speaker 1: for the Lakers. George Hill was a guy who had
Speaker 1: played in a bunch of big playoff series with Indiana
Speaker 1: and with San Antonio. There was a lot of like
Speaker 1: hope that those guys would potentially raise the ceiling. But
Speaker 1: then in the postseason when the ship hit the fan,
Speaker 1: they were able to fall back on their core lineup,
Speaker 1: which was j R. Smith and Kyle Korver, Lebron, Kevin
Speaker 1: Love and Tristan Thompson, and they did that to beat
Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers in the first round, and they went
Speaker 1: back to that lineup often in the later rounds of
Speaker 1: that of that playoff run. The point being, they made
Speaker 1: moves that were aggressive, that had the ability to potentially
Speaker 1: lead to massive, a massive raising of their ceiling. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, they kept their identity. And that's
Speaker 1: what I love about these Laker moves. Montrese Harrold could
Speaker 1: end up being a massive ceiling raiser for the Lakers,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about why in a minute. The same
Speaker 1: goes for Dennis Schroeder. But again, if the ship hits
Speaker 1: the fan and those guys are really painting out, You've
Speaker 1: still got Alex Cruzo, you still got Contous Contavious called
Speaker 1: Well Pope, you still got Lebron, you still got Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: you still got Mark Keith Moore's Wesley Matthews is basically
Speaker 1: a reasonable facsimile of Danny Green. He can fill his
Speaker 1: role pretty well. The point being is those that Keith
Speaker 1: signing and that Contavious call Well Pope signing, we're both
Speaker 1: extremely important because they allowed the Lakers to maintain their
Speaker 1: core identity so they can fall back to that brand
Speaker 1: of basketball should things not work out with their more
Speaker 1: aggressive moves that they made in the off season. So
Speaker 1: that's what I liked, and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about um you know what, I what I really
Speaker 1: like about those individual players. But the one thing that
Speaker 1: made this offseason less than perfect in my opinion, was
Speaker 1: the montrez Harold signing. And I know a lot of
Speaker 1: my Laker friends out there are taking a glass half
Speaker 1: full approach to this, and don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 1: am too. I also believe that Montrese will work out
Speaker 1: at least to some extent with the Lakers, but it
Speaker 1: was the one real shaky move in the sense that
Speaker 1: it caused a lot of dominoes to fall with other
Speaker 1: players on the roster and it really hamstrings their uh,
Speaker 1: their flexibility moving forward. So, for instance, as you guys know,
Speaker 1: that Montrese Harold signing triggered the hard cap for the Lakers,
Speaker 1: which led to, among other things, Dwight Howard and Avery
Speaker 1: Bradley leaving because both of those players, had they not
Speaker 1: had a hardcap, the Lakers would have been able to
Speaker 1: match their contract offers and they would have come back. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, let's say I said, I said, from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, the only player that I thought was worth
Speaker 1: the hardcap was Serge Ibaka. I thought that he significantly
Speaker 1: raised the Lakers ceiling because of his perimeter shooting and
Speaker 1: because he's a very good defense of player at the five,
Speaker 1: And so that was the one move that I thought
Speaker 1: was worth all of the potential dominoes falling the Avery
Speaker 1: Bradley leaving the Dwight Howard leaving the hard capping of
Speaker 1: the of the team for the rest of the season.
Speaker 1: That was the one guy that I thought that was worth.
Speaker 1: But we don't know for sure whether Surge would have come,
Speaker 1: So even in the scenario where Surge was for sure
Speaker 1: going to the Clippers, I still think Montrez wasn't worth
Speaker 1: all of the other handicapping that he did to the roster.
Speaker 1: For instance, for a lot of you guys who have
Speaker 1: said to me in recent days, Wesley Matthews would have
Speaker 1: triggered triggered the hard cot. That's true. However, you can
Speaker 1: use a portion of that mid level exception without triggering
Speaker 1: the hardcap, and the Lakers could have used that portion
Speaker 1: of the of the mid level exception to sign Wesley
Speaker 1: Matthews instead of using that biannual exception. In addition to that,
Speaker 1: they could have brought back to d White Howard. So
Speaker 1: let's say Dwight Howard takes all of Tress minutes or
Speaker 1: a portion of Tress minutes, and even though he's a
Speaker 1: very different player, you can actually you can relatively assume
Speaker 1: that he'd give you roughly seventy percent of his expected
Speaker 1: impact on the game, because at least the defensive matchups
Speaker 1: that played him off the floor theoretically will do the
Speaker 1: same thing to Montrese. And while Montrese Harold has a
Speaker 1: much higher offensive ceiling, Dwight Howard did have a much
Speaker 1: higher defensive ceiling. So consider that to be not a wash.
Speaker 1: Tris is a better player, but Dwight Howard is at
Speaker 1: least in the same ballpark of impact in that position.
Speaker 1: So theoretically, it's not just signing Montrese Harold. It's signing
Speaker 1: Montrese Harold, and it costs you Dwight, and it costs
Speaker 1: you Avery Bradley. So there was a universe where the
Speaker 1: Lakers could have had a more conservative approach to the
Speaker 1: off season. Let's say they call they call Surge Baka,
Speaker 1: and Serge Baca says heck no, I'm playing with Kauai.
Speaker 1: There's no way in the world I'm coming to LT
Speaker 1: to play with the Lakers. Okay, fine, you signed Montrese
Speaker 1: you excuse you signed Dwight Howard at his ten percent
Speaker 1: raise or whatever it was for three million bucks. You
Speaker 1: signed Wesley Matthews for the half of the mid level exception,
Speaker 1: you sign uh, you signed Marcus s al for the
Speaker 1: veteran minimum contract, and you signed Avery Bradley for his
Speaker 1: regular ten percent raise or whatever. Now you've got that
Speaker 1: extra body in the back court so that when you
Speaker 1: play down size, when you play Lebron at the four
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis at the five, you have the ability
Speaker 1: to have five guards to rotate through those three spots
Speaker 1: as opposed to four guards because k CP Alex Caruso,
Speaker 1: Dennis Shrewder, and Wesley Matthews or your core four. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the Lakers are told Avery badly, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we plan on playing a lot of talent Horton Tucker.
Speaker 1: We don't know. I'm just operating under the premise that
Speaker 1: the Lakers could have had those guys back, had a
Speaker 1: little bit more death. Dwight Howard fits into whatever that
Speaker 1: Montrose Harrold role is and then most importantly, as the
Speaker 1: season progresses, if a need arises in a Nick Betune
Speaker 1: type of player comes available, you have the ability to
Speaker 1: sign him. You have the ability to constantly go over
Speaker 1: the cap for a veteran minimum contract as the season progresses.
Speaker 1: Who knows who's gonna get hurt, who knows what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You always have that fallback option of signing a veteran
Speaker 1: minimum player that is off the table as a result
Speaker 1: of the Montrese Harold signing. And so as a result,
Speaker 1: now your only option to improve the roster or to
Speaker 1: add depth should injuries become a problem is you have
Speaker 1: to take a bigger salary player. You have to take
Speaker 1: somebody like a uh like a Montrese Harold or a
Speaker 1: contagious call Well Pope, and you have to trade them
Speaker 1: and take back multiple players. That's your only way to
Speaker 1: fill roster spots at that point. Because the hard cap
Speaker 1: is the hard cap. There's absolutely no exception to that rule.
Speaker 1: Just ask any Golden State Warrior fan who was rooting
Speaker 1: for them last year. So my my whole point following
Speaker 1: kind of to put a bowl on it, is that
Speaker 1: the Montrese Harrold signing in a vacuum for nine million
Speaker 1: dollars a year is amazing. Maybe he raises your ceiling.
Speaker 1: He certainly helps with your bench lineups, and you've already
Speaker 1: got your core crunch time guys. So if Montrese doesn't
Speaker 1: really work as a crunch time player, you can fall
Speaker 1: back to your core lineups. So it makes sense in
Speaker 1: that context. However, when you actually factor in all of
Speaker 1: the other dominoes that fell, losing Avery Bradley, losing Dwight Howard,
Speaker 1: losing the flexibility to sign veteran minimum players later on
Speaker 1: in the season, I thought that that was a mistake.
Speaker 1: And with all of those potential losses, I thought Sergebaca
Speaker 1: was the only player that would have been worth tying
Speaker 1: off all of those other loose ends to get, And
Speaker 1: so I thought that that was the one, you know,
Speaker 1: one potential thing that would have been a mistake out
Speaker 1: of this offseason. Other than that Roblinka completely oocked it
Speaker 1: out of the park. I think Wesley Matthews is a
Speaker 1: much better player than Danny Green. I think he's much
Speaker 1: better at the point of attack. I thought Danny Green
Speaker 1: and his tendency to give up a lot of straight
Speaker 1: line drives really hurt the Laker defense. I thought it
Speaker 1: caused them to exist too much in chaos, which while
Speaker 1: they were good at that, it wasn't ideally what you'd
Speaker 1: like to do. And and ironic, and the most important
Speaker 1: thing is existing in chaos takes a lot of energy.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the big reasons why the Lakers
Speaker 1: would on some nights have inconsistent defensive performances because effort
Speaker 1: is hard to bring on an on a night to
Speaker 1: night basis. And if you've got a lot of guys
Speaker 1: that are giving up straight line drives, you're gonna constantly
Speaker 1: be living in rotation, which is gonna expose a team
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily play hard on that particular night, which
Speaker 1: the Lakers, like I said, had a tendency to do
Speaker 1: from time to time. Raised on Rondo and Danny Green
Speaker 1: were both the worst players on the Laker roster as
Speaker 1: it as it pertained to giving up straight line drives.
Speaker 1: There was almost no resistance from quicker guards who are
Speaker 1: trying to get past them. Replacing those two guys with
Speaker 1: Wesley Matthews, who's one of the better point of attack
Speaker 1: defenders in the league. In terms of not giving up
Speaker 1: straight line drives, and Dennis Shrewder, who's not the same
Speaker 1: level of player defensively as Wesley Matthews, but certainly a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot better than Region Rondo. Adding those
Speaker 1: two guys into the Laker defensive scheme, I believe will
Speaker 1: make them much more reliable night in and night out
Speaker 1: as a defensive team, which will carry them in the
Speaker 1: regular season, and and it will prevent them from having
Speaker 1: things happen like what they had last year, which was
Speaker 1: we're way better than all these teams, but we're just
Speaker 1: gonna drop a game in each playoff series because there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a game where we come out and we
Speaker 1: just don't have our energy that we usually do. As
Speaker 1: far as Montrese Harrold goes, if there's a there's like
Speaker 1: a best case scenario in a worst case scenario. So
Speaker 1: the best case scenario is getting next to Lebron and
Speaker 1: getting into peak physical condition, as Lebron tends to do
Speaker 1: with his teammates, getting next to Anthony Davis, who can
Speaker 1: help cover for some of his defensive limitations, getting with
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel, who is an extremely gifted defensive coach, and
Speaker 1: as You've seen in a lot of these postseason UH
Speaker 1: interviews that have been done, the Laker prayer players have
Speaker 1: raved and raved about just how great Frank Vogel is
Speaker 1: preparing for an opposing offense and with his scouting reports
Speaker 1: and stuff. Your hope is that all of those things
Speaker 1: that I just said lead to Montrez Harrold becoming a
Speaker 1: better defensive player than he had been in with the Clippers.
Speaker 1: And if that happens, then you're looking at that peak
Speaker 1: potential scenario, which is Mantres is a home run who
Speaker 1: massively raises the ceiling of the Lakers, But even in
Speaker 1: the scenario where it doesn't work out that way, he
Speaker 1: continues to be a defensive liability. The Lebron's, the Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis is, the Frank Vogels of the world cannot help
Speaker 1: him in that regard. He still is a bench weapon.
Speaker 1: He still is a guy. The Lakers were giving significant
Speaker 1: minutes to JaVale McGee, who, while he had his defensive flashes,
Speaker 1: was such a space case and rotations and getting out
Speaker 1: of position. He always left his feed. He had no
Speaker 1: discipline to stay on the ground. JaVale McKee was was
Speaker 1: not a great defensive player. Even uh Dwight Howard in
Speaker 1: some playoff series got played off the floor. So Montrese
Speaker 1: just is another guy like those two who comes with
Speaker 1: some defensive limitations but can help you in the bench
Speaker 1: lineups that can help you against specific defensive schemes. They're
Speaker 1: going to be They're going to be matchups where defenses
Speaker 1: switch everything, and it's going to help to have Montrese
Speaker 1: Harrold as an option as a player who can bully
Speaker 1: a smaller player in a post up mismatch that he
Speaker 1: brings a lot of things to the table that make
Speaker 1: it so that his floor is higher, meaning that the
Speaker 1: ugly version of whatever the Montrese Harrold experience looks like
Speaker 1: still ends up being pretty good and pretty impactful for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. As far as marcusol goes, I view him
Speaker 1: as a uh A great risk in the sense that
Speaker 1: it's impossible for him to be any worse than say
Speaker 1: JaVale McGee was right like we were just talking about.
Speaker 1: So from that standpoint, you've got a player that even
Speaker 1: if he plays fifteen minutes a night for only fifty
Speaker 1: games of the season, at the very least, if you
Speaker 1: manage him and you keep him healthy, he's just an option,
Speaker 1: he's a wrinkle, he's a guy that just gives you
Speaker 1: another way to win. And that's important in the sense
Speaker 1: that in a playoff series, it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: an audible that you can call to try to get
Speaker 1: things moving if you're stuck in a matchup where you
Speaker 1: can't really get the offense moving or whatever the problem is.
Speaker 1: And then that night and night out in the regular season,
Speaker 1: as you're dealing with load management, as you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the fatigue and the and the struggle that comes with
Speaker 1: playing that much basketball dragged out over that many months,
Speaker 1: especially on this quick turnaround, having that veteran presence is
Speaker 1: so important for for this particular type of season for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. So again, all those things I just said,
Speaker 1: all of those signings, all of those moves were about
Speaker 1: as perfect and off the off season as you could
Speaker 1: possibly hope for as a Laker fan. I just think
Speaker 1: that the Montrese Harold signing has potential to be what
Speaker 1: will what will look back at as a mistake. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: if you find yourself in a pivotal late round playoff
Speaker 1: series against the Lakers. Let's say it's the Western Conference
Speaker 1: Semifinals and you're playing the Warriors, are playing the Denver Nuggets,
Speaker 1: You're playing the Utah Jazz, and it's Game five and
Speaker 1: the series has tied it to The Lakers have the
Speaker 1: ability to put out Alex Carusoe, contagious called Will Pope,
Speaker 1: Lebron James, Anthony Davis, and either West Matthews or Mark
Speaker 1: Keith Morris depending on the matchup. And I know those
Speaker 1: guys are going to completely stifle you on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor. And I know those guys are
Speaker 1: gonna be able to find and quality offense on the
Speaker 1: other end, because Lebron is the best basketball player in
Speaker 1: the world, and Anthony Davis is the third or fourth
Speaker 1: best basketball player in the world, and all those other
Speaker 1: guys fit those roles absolutely perfect. So they have exactly
Speaker 1: what they need to win, and they might have what
Speaker 1: they need to be even more dominant than they were
Speaker 1: last year. And why is that important? Because, like I
Speaker 1: tweeted this morning, the Lakers were one of the most
Speaker 1: dominant champions in the history of the league. If you
Speaker 1: look at just this century, from the year two thousand on,
Speaker 1: they're right there with the two thousand one Lakers, with
Speaker 1: the two thousand seven Spurs as one of the most
Speaker 1: dominant playoff teams that we've seen, basically only the two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen Warriors being demonstratively better. So from that standpoint
Speaker 1: of well, the two thousand one Lakers too, but the
Speaker 1: point being, they are already so so good, and so
Speaker 1: what was beautiful about Rob Polinka did. What Rob Plinka
Speaker 1: did was he took some swings, but he salvaged those
Speaker 1: core pieces that the Lakers needed to at least have
Speaker 1: a fallback plan that we know is capable of winning
Speaker 1: an NBA championship. All Right, we're gonna move on to
Speaker 1: UH quickly to trade Young and Devin Booker. M So,
Speaker 1: there are a lot, like I said, a lot of
Speaker 1: Atlanta Hawks fans, a lot of UH Phoenix Suns fans,
Speaker 1: a lot of like general NBA fans who have been
Speaker 1: all over Twitter over the last couple of days going like,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys have done nothing but trash tray
Speaker 1: Young blah blah blah blah, and now he's gonna get
Speaker 1: to go do his thing blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Defensive of the fact that we most of us. I
Speaker 1: like to think that I'm in the majority on this one.
Speaker 1: We're about to throw a party for a guy dropping
Speaker 1: thirty points a game, giving up more than thirty on
Speaker 1: the other end, and losing almost every night. It just
Speaker 1: was never anything that was significant to me when there
Speaker 1: were other players in the league who were doing more
Speaker 1: winning efforts. And I'm going to use myself as an
Speaker 1: example here. My first year playing in college, I played
Speaker 1: uh Pimo Community College, which was a local junior college
Speaker 1: in Tucson. I literally lived with my parents and commuted
Speaker 1: to and from uh to and from classes and to
Speaker 1: and from games, and I put up monster numbers. I
Speaker 1: had over thirty points in a game. I had a
Speaker 1: half dozen games where I had over twenty points. I
Speaker 1: was dunking on dudes, I was shooting three pointers from
Speaker 1: twenty five ft from the basket. It was awesome. We
Speaker 1: went four in our team was awful. And what was
Speaker 1: so interesting about that is each successive year after that
Speaker 1: I played for better teams. After that, I wanted to
Speaker 1: play for a better team. So I sent a highlight
Speaker 1: tape out and I ended up getting signed by a
Speaker 1: junior college in Utah that was a much much better
Speaker 1: team and we want a lot more games. And my
Speaker 1: scoring went down and I only averaged I think twelve
Speaker 1: points a game that year. I only got over twenty
Speaker 1: points once I had. Most of my scoring efforts were
Speaker 1: in the teens. And it was because I was playing
Speaker 1: winning basketball. I I wasn't taking the same you know,
Speaker 1: terrible shot selection. I was taking shots within a flow
Speaker 1: of in offense. I didn't have super fresh legs on
Speaker 1: the offensive end because I had to focus on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor. And you know what, I
Speaker 1: still was an All Conference player. I was not an
Speaker 1: All Conference player at Pima, even though I was putting
Speaker 1: a much better numbers, because the coaching staffs around the
Speaker 1: conference who were responsible for voting for those awards, they
Speaker 1: didn't care about the big white dude at Pima that
Speaker 1: was scoring a lot of points while they were beating
Speaker 1: us by twenty. They just didn't care. And more power
Speaker 1: to them. I don't blame them. And yet in Utah,
Speaker 1: when I was scoring less, but I was playing a
Speaker 1: role on a on a program that was winning a
Speaker 1: lot more games, I ended up getting an All Conference
Speaker 1: on it because the coaches were actually paying attention to
Speaker 1: what I was doing impacting games. And then the following
Speaker 1: year after that, I played for one of the best
Speaker 1: teams in the country. I played for an n ai
Speaker 1: A school who's top five in the n A I A.
Speaker 1: We beat an n C Double A Division one school,
Speaker 1: and I was playing alongside two All American guards. And
Speaker 1: guess what, I only averaged like six points a game.
Speaker 1: I was Trevor Reesa. I shot spot up threes. All
Speaker 1: of those isolation opportunities I was getting, all those postop
Speaker 1: opportunities I was getting, those were gone. Now I was
Speaker 1: playing a completely different role in a much like in
Speaker 1: a in a in not just a winning environment, but
Speaker 1: a championship level winning environment, and I had to play differently,
Speaker 1: and I got a lot more respect from my from
Speaker 1: my peers, not only in on that team, but around
Speaker 1: the league doing what I was doing for that specific
Speaker 1: team as one of the best teams in the country.
Speaker 1: Then I was scoring tons and tons of points for PIMA.
Speaker 1: And I say all that to say this, I understand
Speaker 1: that trade young, super talented. I understand that Devin Booker
Speaker 1: is really talented. I was really impressed by what he
Speaker 1: did in the bubble because he was winning games, but
Speaker 1: The bottom line is, I think it's just normal human
Speaker 1: nature to feel to to just to say show me
Speaker 1: the money, to basically say, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: form my opinion about Trey Young. I'm gonna form my
Speaker 1: opinion about Devin Booker now now that they're playing with
Speaker 1: enough talent to get the job done. Because guess what
Speaker 1: if Devin Booker is averaging twenty seven points a game
Speaker 1: on effective field goal percentage and his team goes and
Speaker 1: and twenty three or whatever it is, that adds up
Speaker 1: to seventy two. I just rushed that, so who knows.
Speaker 1: But if he does that and then he proceeds to
Speaker 1: be as effective in a you know, playoff run, now
Speaker 1: we can have a conversation about how he's one of
Speaker 1: the twelve or thirteen best players in the league. And
Speaker 1: the same goes for Trey Young. It's okay to ask
Speaker 1: them to do it in a winning effort before giving
Speaker 1: them that that that recognition, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like I was able to get a highlight tape from Pima.
Speaker 1: I was able to leverage that into an opportunity to
Speaker 1: play basketball at a higher level. But it's not like
Speaker 1: anybody was giving me a trophy for what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Then It's not like anybody was giving me any real recognition,
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't have been. It is a lot easier
Speaker 1: to score thirty points a game as a terrible team
Speaker 1: who rolls up into Los Angeles, or heck, you're at
Speaker 1: home in Atlanta and l A has flown to town
Speaker 1: on a random February Tuesday, and Lebron and a d
Speaker 1: are looking at each other like, man, let's just get
Speaker 1: through this one. And they've barely scouted you, and they
Speaker 1: don't care, and you can put up thirty points because
Speaker 1: they're sleepwalking through this random regular season game. That is
Speaker 1: different then what it's like as Chris Paul and Devin
Speaker 1: Booker and the forty eight wins Sons roll up into
Speaker 1: a meaningful Sunday primetime game, you know, against the Milwaukee
Speaker 1: Bucks in Milwaukee, and Janice and coach Budenholzer have been
Speaker 1: sitting in a room looking at a white board telling
Speaker 1: each other that you're dangerous and that they need to
Speaker 1: bring their a game to beat you. That's an entirely
Speaker 1: different type of operation. And I think it's okay to
Speaker 1: withhold any sort of opinion about Trey Young and Devin
Speaker 1: Booker until they show us they can do it in
Speaker 1: this type of role on a team that's dangerous, where
Speaker 1: whether or not they perform to what their expectation is
Speaker 1: is the difference between winning and losing, not the difference
Speaker 1: between losing by thirty or losing by twenty. So that's
Speaker 1: why I'm at with Trey Young and Devin Booker. Asked
Speaker 1: me again in a few months, then I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how I feel about them after they've played some real basketball.
Speaker 1: So the last thing I want to talk about today
Speaker 1: is this, Uh, the last thing I want to talk
Speaker 1: about today is this Steph Curry phenomenon that's been going around.
Speaker 1: So a couple of my close friends that are Golden
Speaker 1: State fans have frequently complained to me about the fact
Speaker 1: that while every other superstar receives a certain amount of hate,
Speaker 1: you know, which is normal, I guess, in the social
Speaker 1: media era of of NBA basketball, that Steph Curry gets
Speaker 1: more than your average superstar, that he is too frequently
Speaker 1: by too many people perceived to be not even among
Speaker 1: the top tier of superstars in the league, and that
Speaker 1: he is incredibly painfully underrated. And for the record, I
Speaker 1: agree with them. I think that step is painfully underrated.
Speaker 1: I think he's the second best player in the league,
Speaker 1: and I think that he's the twelve or thirteen best
Speaker 1: player of all time. And I am a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of believer in what he does to impact winning night
Speaker 1: in and night out, and I believe he deserves that recognition.
Speaker 1: But I think there is a reason why there are
Speaker 1: so many people that don't agree with me on that,
Speaker 1: and the reason why Steph has so many detractors in
Speaker 1: the world, And it's a simples alt of the fact
Speaker 1: that there's just a lot of question marks surrounding steps
Speaker 1: individual impact in in his UH championship pursuit over the
Speaker 1: last decade. And when I say question marks, I don't
Speaker 1: mean that you know, you can't possibly reach any sort
Speaker 1: of conclusion. I'm just saying that there it is possible
Speaker 1: to interpret some of the things that have happened to
Speaker 1: him over the past decade as not a result to him.
Speaker 1: And I would say that those people are wrong, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying there's a reason why they've reached that conclusion.
Speaker 1: The reality is these are facts. Now. In two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: Steph Curry benefited from a great deal of injury luck
Speaker 1: on the way to winning a championship. He played amazing.
Speaker 1: He apt in my book, he was the finals MVP.
Speaker 1: In my book, he was a champion. But there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who look at that playoff run
Speaker 1: and go, hey, you somehow skipped out on Chris Paul.
Speaker 1: You have somehow skipped out on Kyrie Irving. You know,
Speaker 1: even in those other matchups, there were some injuries that
Speaker 1: played a role. Like okay, like but let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: And then two thousand sixteen comes along and he loses,
Speaker 1: and then Kevin Durant comes into the picture and they
Speaker 1: win twice rather handily, but Kevin Durant was in the picture.
Speaker 1: Then two thousand nineteen comes around, Kevin Durank gets hurt
Speaker 1: and they end up losing. And then comes around and
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson's out all season and he's broken down with
Speaker 1: injury all year, and they end up missing the playoffs.
Speaker 1: The point is, if you're a smart basketball fan who
Speaker 1: is watching the games and you see Steph Curry's impact,
Speaker 1: you can reach the conclusion that it's obvious, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that he is largely responsible for the success of that franchise.
Speaker 1: Over the last decade and undercutting that as silly. But
Speaker 1: the reality is there is a whole lot of evidence
Speaker 1: that a lot of things have broken Steph Curry's way,
Speaker 1: and just from a shallow perspective looking at it without
Speaker 1: really digging into deep And I've said the same thing
Speaker 1: about Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, both of
Speaker 1: them when they decided to join forces, given the amount
Speaker 1: of talent that was already on that Golden State roster,
Speaker 1: they added confusion, a lack of clarity to their standing
Speaker 1: in the league. When you do it on a more
Speaker 1: traditional contender, when you do it on a team that's
Speaker 1: one of the best teams in the league instead of
Speaker 1: ten times better than every other team in the league,
Speaker 1: it's really easy for folks to point at it and say, hey,
Speaker 1: look like that guy is clearly the best player in
Speaker 1: the league. There's a reason why Lebron haters sounds so
Speaker 1: silly when they start trying to tear him down. There
Speaker 1: is so much evidence, in so many circumstances, on so
Speaker 1: many different rosters, that he's gonna that he's capable of
Speaker 1: winning a championship. Give him a broken down Dwyane Wade
Speaker 1: and Chris Bosh he can win a title. Give him
Speaker 1: kind of flawed superstars and and Kevin Kevin Love and
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving. He can win a title. Give him a
Speaker 1: stretch big like Anthony Davis, who is one of the
Speaker 1: best defensive players in the league and a gifted offensive player.
Speaker 1: He can win a championship. Give him bad rosters, he
Speaker 1: can carry him to the NBA Finals. There are all
Speaker 1: of these different examples in his career that takes away
Speaker 1: the fog. It has a It leaves a clarity surrounding
Speaker 1: his career that makes it obvious what his impact is.
Speaker 1: Whereas with Steph Curry because of the great deal of
Speaker 1: good fortune. Every star benefits from some amount of good
Speaker 1: fortune over the course of their career. That's how they
Speaker 1: end up in the pantheon of NBA greats. But Steph
Speaker 1: Curry's good fortune that he encountered is at another level.
Speaker 1: It's not very often that you can win a championship
Speaker 1: where all of the best teams lose their lose core
Speaker 1: star rotation pieces. It's not very often that you can
Speaker 1: already have a championship contending roster like the Lakers, and
Speaker 1: then add to that a perennial MVP candidate who's one
Speaker 1: of the eleven or twelve best players of all time
Speaker 1: in the heat of his prime, and add him to
Speaker 1: that mix those sorts of things. When you make that
Speaker 1: decision to play together and that circumstance, you take away
Speaker 1: some of the clarity of your own impact. Now, I
Speaker 1: say props to step Curry, because that shows you that
Speaker 1: he cares so much more about winning that he doesn't
Speaker 1: even care about his individual accolades to the extent that
Speaker 1: he would willingly look at that situation and go, If
Speaker 1: I had Kevin Durant, people might think he's the best
Speaker 1: player on this team. If I had Kevin Durant, people
Speaker 1: are going to think, I, you know, ran from a
Speaker 1: with the Cleveland Cavaliers. If I had Kevin Durant, it's
Speaker 1: going to diminish what my personal legacy might show in
Speaker 1: the eyes of many. And he did it anyway, because
Speaker 1: all he cares about is winning. All I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that's what happened. Making that decision diminished some of the
Speaker 1: clarity surrounding his own personal individual greatness, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you have an army of mouth breathers out there who
Speaker 1: aren't really watching the games, who don't really see what
Speaker 1: Steph Curry brings to the table, and they use that
Speaker 1: as an example to undercut what he has done in
Speaker 1: his career. Obviously, Steph is talented enough to carry this
Speaker 1: limited Warriors team and a stacked Western Conference to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I absolutely think he's capable of that. But the reason
Speaker 1: why you're gonna have all these guys saying he can't
Speaker 1: is because they haven't seen it yet, because he's had
Speaker 1: such a good run of fortune over this stretch of
Speaker 1: his career, and a lot of those folks never watched
Speaker 1: him back in with Jared Jack and a baby Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson and a baby Draymond Green carry that team to
Speaker 1: win a to within a couple of wins of knocking
Speaker 1: off the Spurs. They weren't even watching him back then.
Speaker 1: They don't understand all the things that he's done, and
Speaker 1: that's how you end up with this type of scenario
Speaker 1: where you've got all of these guys that are massively
Speaker 1: undercutting one of the twelve best players ever. I think
Speaker 1: it's really unfortunate. Hopefully it goes away here over the
Speaker 1: next few years, as Steph puts together a couple more,
Speaker 1: you know, championship level campaigns, best player in the world
Speaker 1: level campaigns, maybe some of that doubt will leave. But
Speaker 1: that's that's why we are where we are. And what's
Speaker 1: gonna be really unfortunate. And I've talked about this on
Speaker 1: Twitter a few times over the past couple over the
Speaker 1: past week. There's some danger here in this Warriors team.
Speaker 1: Warriors team, there's some danger here that it could end
Speaker 1: up going like the two thousand nine teen Lakers. You've
Speaker 1: got a lot of young players. I know, Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: has been in the league while, but he's still pretty young.
Speaker 1: And this center they picked up, I'm I'm blinking on
Speaker 1: his name right now, um, but with the number two
Speaker 1: overall pick, it's a really really young player. And then
Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of young role players and your
Speaker 1: only veterans on the roster. It's basically it's basically Draymond
Speaker 1: Green and Steph are the veterans on the roster. Brad
Speaker 1: Wannamaker is really young, Kelly you Bre is really young.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of youth on that roster. It's a
Speaker 1: lot like that's twenty nineteen Lakers team. So if Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: who has shown a tendency to be banged up in
Speaker 1: his career. He's missed a lot of games in almost
Speaker 1: every single season outside of maybe two thousand seventeen. The
Speaker 1: reality is he might miss some games, and if he
Speaker 1: has a lebron esque season where he misses games, he
Speaker 1: misses fifteen games, that team will miss the playoffs. Because
Speaker 1: that's what happens in the Western Conference with how talented
Speaker 1: all the teams are. From one to this year, it's
Speaker 1: like one to fourteen, But back in there were you know,
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve really really talented teams. You just you
Speaker 1: need your best guys to be there every night or
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be enough for you to get there.
Speaker 1: And what's gonna be really unfortunate, and I'd say that
Speaker 1: there's roughly a coin flip chance of this happening is
Speaker 1: if Steph Curry has another season where he's pretty banged
Speaker 1: up and they end up missing the playoffs. That army
Speaker 1: of voices that has undercut Steph Curry for his entire career,
Speaker 1: based on all of the things that I just said,
Speaker 1: those people are just going to continue to get louder
Speaker 1: and louder, and I think that that's really unfortunate. Alrighty,
Speaker 1: so um, I am still working on scheduling with Raj.
Speaker 1: You guys know him as unwritten rules on on here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get him on next week and we're gonna
Speaker 1: break down each of the Laker off season moves in
Speaker 1: a little more depth. Is one of my favorites. I
Speaker 1: think he's a really really smart guy. He really breaks
Speaker 1: down a lot of film. He's uh one of the
Speaker 1: nerds that I think brings great perspective. And I say
Speaker 1: basketball nerd as a as a complimentary, uh term, but
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to breaking some down some of
Speaker 1: these moves with him. I'm still planning on doing my
Speaker 1: special Star Wars breakdown. It's just a holiday week has
Speaker 1: been a little crazy, and then, like I said, me
Speaker 1: catching COVID kind of threw everything off. But we'll get
Speaker 1: to that next week as well. And then NBA training
Speaker 1: camps are starting, and I'm pretty sure that we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a Laker preseason game here within the next couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, so we'll have some liquor basketball to break
Speaker 1: down soon. But anyway, as always, I really really appreciate
Speaker 1: all of you for your support and for your listening
Speaker 1: and just continue to stay tuned to my Twitter feed
Speaker 1: and let you know when I plan on doing another
Speaker 1: one of these. Look out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, in
Speaker 1: YouTube as well. I'll tweet out the links if you
Speaker 1: missed part of this show and you want to see
Speaker 1: the whole thing. All right, guy, happy, have a happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Like I said, be careful, it's not worth catching covid.
Speaker 1: I can promise you that. Enjoy the rest of your
Speaker 1: week and I will talk to you guys next week.