Speaker 1: The volume. All right, Jason timp and I are just
Speaker 1: about ready to talk about the Lakers. Before we start
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Speaker 1: is guaranteed. Well, we haven't talked to Jason timpf for
Speaker 1: a long time. Jason is one of those gems we
Speaker 1: found hunting through podcast after podcast Hoops Tonight host. He's
Speaker 1: done just a remarkable job for us. His growth has
Speaker 1: been exponential, and we don't ignore him during the football season.
Speaker 1: But we got middle of Coop here is my lead back.
Speaker 1: So now we're pivoting here in about four or five
Speaker 1: days to the NBA. And I found myself about three
Speaker 1: weeks ago really starting to watch the NBA, and Jason
Speaker 1: and I are going to cut it up for about
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. Let me start with a trade deadline.
Speaker 1: A lot of times there can be sort of overhyped
Speaker 1: trade suggestions. I have not seen any irresponsible reporting by
Speaker 1: NBA guys. I don't think there's a ton out there.
Speaker 1: I think Dejontay Murray would make the Lakers better. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's a game changer. So your thought on
Speaker 1: what is a pretty quiet trade deadline.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because I think the play in tournament
Speaker 2: has made it so that more teams than ever are
Speaker 2: more willing to think within the scope of the current season,
Speaker 2: which has diminished the number of sellers. And yet there
Speaker 2: are so many teams that feel close, which has increased
Speaker 2: the number of buyers, but the problem is the majority
Speaker 2: of those buyers don't have much to offer. Like the
Speaker 2: Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns would love to have
Speaker 2: a perimeter defense upgrade, but they don't have any first
Speaker 2: round picks to offer, which severely limits their ability to
Speaker 2: go out and get somebody. The Lakers would love to
Speaker 2: go out and get an athletic guard, but they have
Speaker 2: some limitations in that they basically have this one draft
Speaker 2: pick to offer, and chances are you can't get a
Speaker 2: really great transformative player for that type of talent. And so,
Speaker 2: in a weird way, even though there are a lot
Speaker 2: of teams that would like to make trade, there aren't
Speaker 2: Just there just aren't that many trades to be made,
Speaker 2: and so I think that will kind of limit what
Speaker 2: we see over the course of the next couple of days.
Speaker 2: Of course, you never know, we'll see what happens before
Speaker 2: the deadline of desperation kicks in and some stuff starts
Speaker 2: flying around. But I have a feeling that we're poised
Speaker 2: for a relatively quiet deadline.
Speaker 1: So you follow the entire league, let's start with the Lakers,
Speaker 1: because that's always been a primary asset of your NBA knowledge.
Speaker 1: I've kind of rolled my eyes at any suggestion to
Speaker 1: trade Lebron, mostly because the five previous years before him,
Speaker 1: they had the lowest winning percentage in the league, and
Speaker 1: he saved the franchise ticket sales merch intelligence. He's still
Speaker 1: an elite scorer and distributor. I'm not giving up Lebron
Speaker 1: for nineteen year olds that may or may not hit
Speaker 1: and be players. Here's what I view the Lakers as,
Speaker 1: and you can tear this apart. I view this team
Speaker 1: as an elite score and distributor, Lebron, the best defender
Speaker 1: in the league in Anthony Davis, an excellent third wheel,
Speaker 1: sometimes inconsistent, but a good score or in Austin Reeves,
Speaker 1: excellent length. That's why they can match up with a Denver.
Speaker 1: They have excellent length, could use another shooter. I would
Speaker 1: love to see him give up a little length to
Speaker 1: get a shooter to Jontay Murray. Then I think they
Speaker 1: would be in the discussion as the third best team
Speaker 1: in the league. They're not Boston though the Celtics have
Speaker 1: no bench and they just beat them, and they're not Denver.
Speaker 1: If Yokiic Anthony Davis does about as good a job
Speaker 1: as you can on him, and he's going to give
Speaker 1: you twenty eight to eight and eight or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I think the move is a tweak, and I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm selling the future when I don't know. Because
Speaker 1: of the way the NFL draft works, I get twenty
Speaker 1: three year olds in the NBA, I get nineteen year
Speaker 1: olds who knows what they become. I have a much
Speaker 1: greater sense of a first round NFL pick than a
Speaker 1: first round NBA pick. So my take is, if you
Speaker 1: could get a shooter, give up a tad length, I
Speaker 1: think you're arguably capable of beating a Milwaukee a Phoenix.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair kind of view of the Lakers?
Speaker 2: You know, the Lakers have had such a weird season,
Speaker 2: but it makes a little bit more sense when you
Speaker 2: kind of split it into thirds. So they come out
Speaker 2: the gates and they're actually pretty solid in spite of
Speaker 2: the fact that D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reeves are both struggling.
Speaker 2: They started fifteen and nine, capped off with winning the
Speaker 2: n season tournament right then immediately after that, which was
Speaker 2: somewhat I was kind of our mutual friend Logan Swam.
Speaker 2: I was texting him at the time, I was like,
Speaker 2: I hope they don't just completely fall apart after winning
Speaker 2: this thing. They go three and ten over their next
Speaker 2: thirteen games, with some bad losses. They lost to a
Speaker 2: Spurs team that hadn't won in like a month, They
Speaker 2: lost to the Bulls, they lost to the Grizzlies. They
Speaker 2: basically let go of the rope and it does a
Speaker 2: ton of damage to them in the standings. Well, they
Speaker 2: kind of circle the wagons and they get their feet
Speaker 2: back underneath them, and they're ten and six in their
Speaker 2: last sixteen games, with some impressive wins. They beat the Clippers,
Speaker 2: they beat the thunder, they beat the Celtics, they beat
Speaker 2: the Knicks, they beat the MAVs, they beat the Warriors.
Speaker 2: So I think more or less, I'm kind of exactly
Speaker 2: where I was with this team before the season, which
Speaker 2: is they're really damn good, but they're not as good
Speaker 2: as Denver. They're not as good as Boston. So I
Speaker 2: think the silver lining and the reason why I would
Speaker 2: invest in this group is you and I talked about
Speaker 2: how Lebron and ad in a lot of ways needed
Speaker 2: to get better, especially on the offensive end, for them
Speaker 2: to be able to hang with Denver. A Lebron James
Speaker 2: jump shot last year was worth zero point nine points.
Speaker 2: A Lebron James jump shot this year is worth one
Speaker 2: point zero six points. That's an eighteen percent improvement. You've
Speaker 2: seen that when you watch the games. He's he's executing
Speaker 2: the Golden State Warriors with pull up jump shots at
Speaker 2: the end of games. He just was completely incapable of
Speaker 2: doing that last year. He had a bizarre shooting slump
Speaker 2: in last year's season. And then Anthony Davis is having
Speaker 2: the best post of season of his career. He's reading
Speaker 2: double teams better than ever, and so he's been so
Speaker 2: good and so to me. Like you mentioned that core
Speaker 2: three Austin, Lebron, and Ad the biggest question mark for
Speaker 2: the Lakers is the two guys in between. Russell brings
Speaker 2: a lot of offensive firepower to the table, but you
Speaker 2: can't play him next to Austin Reeves against good teams
Speaker 2: or not athletic enough. In the backcourt, Torrian Prince has
Speaker 2: been Darvin Ham's favorite player all season long. He is
Speaker 2: a bench player. Here's a crazy stat for you. He
Speaker 2: has started twice as many games this year as he
Speaker 2: did in the previous three seasons combined. So he's miscast
Speaker 2: as a starter on this particular team, although they just
Speaker 2: recently moved into the bench. Your opinion there that bench length.
Speaker 2: They have All these guys like Rui Hachimura and Jared
Speaker 2: Vanderbilt are really good, but they can't really play on
Speaker 2: the perimeter on both ends the floor the way they
Speaker 2: need and so bringing in someone like a Dejonte Murray,
Speaker 2: another guy that they wanted last summer that they didn't
Speaker 2: get who I know they're looking for again this year,
Speaker 2: is like a Bruce Brown or even like a smaller
Speaker 2: move on the margins with a team like Brooklyn for
Speaker 2: something like Royce O'Neil and Dorian Finney Smith. Getting quality
Speaker 2: NBA starters at the two and three will give them
Speaker 2: their best punchers chance. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: Colin like is Denver just better than everybody, because that,
Speaker 2: I think is what's causing a lot of the reticence
Speaker 2: here is whether or not they can even beat them.
Speaker 1: I talked about this on the Herd today. If you
Speaker 1: look at the history of the NBA, teams have been
Speaker 1: very even those Utah Chicago series very even. What was
Speaker 1: the difference Michael hitting key shots Spurs Dynasty was largely
Speaker 1: Duncan hitting key shots. Shaq and Kobe beat the Blazers
Speaker 1: in Game seven on a series of great shots. Late Lakers,
Speaker 1: I would argue, we're out played for much of that series,
Speaker 1: trailed in several games. So if you look at the
Speaker 1: history of the NBA, the best player wins. It's not
Speaker 1: always the best bench. Denver's bench is average, it's not
Speaker 1: always the best support system. Michael Porter in the finals,
Speaker 1: he's been such a hit and miss up and down player.
Speaker 1: Yolkis just makes big baskets late. And so I don't
Speaker 1: think the Lakers are worse than Denver and Boston for
Speaker 1: any other reason then the best player on the floor,
Speaker 1: So Boston, I still I'm going to transition to them
Speaker 1: to a second. I still have my misgivings about Boston
Speaker 1: because I don't love their best player as much as
Speaker 1: I love Denver's or the Lakers or Milwaukee's. But I
Speaker 1: tend to think the Lakers are the third best team
Speaker 1: because Jokic is the world's best player, and I do
Speaker 1: think that a Celtics starting five is really really good
Speaker 1: and usually good at home. So let's pivot to the
Speaker 1: East coast. We'll come back west because I'm starting to
Speaker 1: fall in love with the Clippers, and that sentence I've
Speaker 1: never uttered in my life. I want to go first,
Speaker 1: Let's go to Boston. So listen. I know their starting
Speaker 1: five is great. I don't love Missoula. I think he's
Speaker 1: a little over his skis at times in big games
Speaker 1: against a Spolstra, in big games against Malone, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: trust him in a big series. I think he gives
Speaker 1: away a game in a series. They don't have a bench.
Speaker 1: I do really like their starting five. I think poor
Speaker 1: zingis is of just a unique body that it's he's
Speaker 1: just hard to match up with. He forces you to
Speaker 1: pay attention to their fourth best player, and he's a
Speaker 1: weird body type. But I see this is that we're
Speaker 1: trying to convince ourself to what Tatum is. I know
Speaker 1: exactly what poorzingis is. Not a great leader, not always healthy,
Speaker 1: but a very effective score and a unique body type.
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday Elite Score B level score, Elite Defender B
Speaker 1: level score. Jalen Brown great athlete, better every year, a
Speaker 1: little bit of a star ceiling, but an excellent player.
Speaker 1: With Tatum, it's different. I think people think you know listen,
Speaker 1: next year he's Kobe and this year and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: he's never going to be that. It's not his personality.
Speaker 1: He is an a player, a top eight guy in
Speaker 1: the league, but he doesn't have a little bit of
Speaker 1: that kind of get me the ball, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be selfish for six minutes. It's not in him. It's
Speaker 1: why he's a terrific team player. But I think we
Speaker 1: keep waiting for the next level of Tatum and I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's a two way player, excellent, love him, team guy,
Speaker 1: but this is what he is. There will be games
Speaker 1: six and sevens when he's on the floor with a
Speaker 1: Lebron or Steph and you're like, he's the second best
Speaker 1: player on the floor. He's just not that player. Is
Speaker 1: that an unfair appraisal of Jason Tatum and the Celtics.
Speaker 2: It's it's so funny because you can't talk about this
Speaker 2: with Celtics fans because they're so that this their record
Speaker 2: is incredible. They have all these boxes that they're checking
Speaker 2: and it's like, this looks like the best team in
Speaker 2: the league except for guess who. Their last four losses
Speaker 2: were against the Lakers, the Clippers, the Bucks, and the Nuggets,
Speaker 2: and specifically those four games. Their offense faltered in every
Speaker 2: single one of those games. And the bizarre thing with
Speaker 2: this Celtics team is they have attached their fate to variants.
Speaker 2: They attempt the most three point shots in the league.
Speaker 2: When they're going in, they look awesome. When they're missing,
Speaker 2: their offense completely stutters, and they can be beat by
Speaker 2: anybody basically, and even Jason Tatum himself, And like, you know,
Speaker 2: this is the most disappointing thing to me. He came
Speaker 2: into this this season, he put on more muscle. He's
Speaker 2: one of the most physically impressive forwards that we have
Speaker 2: in the league. And he comes into the season he's
Speaker 2: posting up more than ever. And then somewhere after, like
Speaker 2: twenty games or so, he stopped posting up as much
Speaker 2: and he went all in on this stupid pull up
Speaker 2: jump shot, which has now become a half of his
Speaker 2: shot diet. This is a crazy stat for you, Cohn.
Speaker 2: They're nine players in the NBA that have attempted at
Speaker 2: least four hundred pull up jump shots this year. Okay,
Speaker 2: Trey Young a small guard, shake yieldess, Alexander a finesse guard,
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson a smaller power guard, Steph Curry a smaller guard,
Speaker 2: Devin Booker a decent sized two guard but who's not
Speaker 2: a great athlete. Donovan Mitchell a good athlete, but he's small,
Speaker 2: Luka Doncic a ford who is more ground bound and
Speaker 2: doesn't have a lead athleticism. And then Anthony Edwards and
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum. So all these other guys, they do it
Speaker 2: because they have to. That's how they're in the NBA.
Speaker 2: And not to mention all of those guys, Trey Sga, Jalen, Steph,
Speaker 2: Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Luka Doncic, they're all great at
Speaker 2: that shot. They get more than a point per pull
Speaker 2: up jump shot that they take. The problem is is
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum. And by the way, Anthony Edwards has to
Speaker 2: be lumped in here because he's the same type of guy,
Speaker 2: disgustingly good athlete, just a ridiculous athlete who bails the
Speaker 2: defense out by taking these long pull up jump shots.
Speaker 2: And Jason Tatum about a half of his shot diet
Speaker 2: is a shot that is worth less than a point,
Speaker 2: which is his pull up jumper. For years now, he's
Speaker 2: never been able to make it at a high enough clip,
Speaker 2: yet he is attaching his destiny to it. And it's
Speaker 2: discouraging because again, he is six ' nine, ripped freak athlete,
Speaker 2: can bully people to the basket, do all of this stuff,
Speaker 2: and he's bailing the defense out more often than not.
Speaker 2: And like, you know, it's so funny. It used to
Speaker 2: be like a Tatum's young, He's figuring it out. Tatum's young,
Speaker 2: He's figuring out. He's he's gonna be twenty six in
Speaker 2: this playoff run. This is usually the time when players
Speaker 2: figure it out. Now, I don't want to bail on
Speaker 2: him because I've seen enough like there in game you know,
Speaker 2: five and six against the Heat, he kind of looked
Speaker 2: like he started to figure some stuff out before he
Speaker 2: got hurt in game seven. It's not over for him
Speaker 2: by any stretch of the imagination, but it's it's just
Speaker 2: discouraging for a player this deep into his career, with
Speaker 2: the athletic tools that he has to basically cut everyone
Speaker 2: a break by taking such high difficulty shots that he
Speaker 2: can't make it a high enough clip to really punish defenses.
Speaker 2: And between that and then as a team them leaning
Speaker 2: so heavily on three point variants. They've made themselves beatable
Speaker 2: in a way that a team that talented really should
Speaker 2: not be beatable.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to go back west to the Clippers,
Speaker 1: who I saw dismantle the Celtics in Boston from the
Speaker 1: opening tip. So a couple of nights ago, I'm out
Speaker 1: and Lawrence Frank is sitting next to me, and we
Speaker 1: just chop it up for an hour, and I said, man,
Speaker 1: was I wrong on that deal? I said, I hated it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, h ya, YoY, what are you going to
Speaker 1: do with Westbrook? He went to the bench where he's
Speaker 1: planning about twenty three minutes a night and doing really
Speaker 1: good things in that twenty three minutes. Last night he
Speaker 1: had a couple of beautiful passes against the Hawks. E
Speaker 1: Kawhi and Paulovo's tremendous two way wings. They've got plumbly
Speaker 1: you know, they've got some size. But I said, I said,
Speaker 1: you're a beautiful team to watch. The ball movement. They
Speaker 1: don't have a single player in the top thirty five
Speaker 1: in ball usage, and you can see it. I think
Speaker 1: they're the most beautiful basketball right now in the league.
Speaker 1: To watch. Jason the Clippers ball movement they get a
Speaker 1: great shot. Three out of four times down the floor,
Speaker 1: they get beautiful shots. They have surging offense with like
Speaker 1: a coffee in a Westbrook off the bench size, experienced wings,
Speaker 1: veteran point guard, experience, head coach. And I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: watching them. I know it's the Hawks, and I know
Speaker 1: the Celtics probably now I'll just give I'll give them
Speaker 1: the win over the Celtics. That's a credible win. And
Speaker 1: I'm watching those two games and I'm like, this offense,
Speaker 1: you can score your way to a title. There's no
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan in this league now, like you can score
Speaker 1: your way to a title. Yo. Kich is not a
Speaker 1: great defender. Milwaukee's not a great defensive team. I think
Speaker 1: we have to take the Clippers seriously. I think they're
Speaker 1: a mash offensively. Westbrook deserves credit and Harden, Lawrence Frank
Speaker 1: said right now in his career all about winning most
Speaker 1: coachable guy. So your takeaway on what you're watching.
Speaker 2: With him, I think with James Harden, we overestimated. I
Speaker 2: think going into that deal, how much like his playoff
Speaker 2: shortcomings really play a role in the regular season, which
Speaker 2: is they don't like James Harden is still even last
Speaker 2: year in Philly, one of the best regular season offensive
Speaker 2: engines that you can have in the league. That specifically
Speaker 2: is of great value next to Paul George and Kawhi
Speaker 2: Leonard because they are both very much tip of the
Speaker 2: spear type of scores. If you can get them into
Speaker 2: advantage situations, they can kill people. Paul George has been
Speaker 2: playing with like a defender closing out at him most
Speaker 2: of the season this year, and he's so damn good
Speaker 2: when you give him that type of advantage, right, and
Speaker 2: just in general, their overall floor organization with James Harden
Speaker 2: has just made offense so much east for them, which
Speaker 2: was interesting because early on they struggled offensively with James Harden.
Speaker 2: That took a little bit of time for them to
Speaker 2: figure out. Now the offense is clicking in addition to
Speaker 2: the defense, and now they're beating everybody. The other part
Speaker 2: of it, too, is when we really look at the
Speaker 2: Clippers as a regular season team, they've been more on
Speaker 2: like the Lakers side in years past, where they're kind
Speaker 2: of just getting through the regular season. And one of
Speaker 2: the things that NBA history has told us is Denver
Speaker 2: Nuggets one seed Warriors before Steph Curry sprained his foot
Speaker 2: right there with the Suns at the top of the West,
Speaker 2: the Bucks one seed, the Lakers one seed, the Raptors
Speaker 2: a two seed. Like the team that is a veteran
Speaker 2: team that has talent that attacks the regular season with
Speaker 2: like a real ferocity usually wins the title. And so
Speaker 2: the Clippers, I think, just from the top down, have
Speaker 2: approached the season with a lot more urgency this year,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's a big step in the
Speaker 2: right direction for them. Now, I want to be clear,
Speaker 2: there's some question marks surrounding this team. They're twenty third
Speaker 2: in defensive rebounding. That's usually a big red flag for
Speaker 2: the playoffs. They also attempt twenty six pull up jump
Speaker 2: shots per game, which is the second most in the league,
Speaker 2: and right now they're making them at a really high rate.
Speaker 2: But we've seen what happens when I mean when they
Speaker 2: lost to Denver in the bubble, that's what happened. Their
Speaker 2: pull up jump shots went cold and they didn't really
Speaker 2: have another punch at that point. But to be clear,
Speaker 2: all these teams have holes. Boston has offensive issues, Milwaukee
Speaker 2: as defensive issues. So it's not like the Clippers issues
Speaker 2: are you know, the only team in the league that
Speaker 2: has that type of red flag. But the way I
Speaker 2: look at it, it's it's one last thing on the
Speaker 2: James Harden front that I think we didn't properly account for.
Speaker 2: In Philly, he was getting the best perimeter defender every night.
Speaker 2: Tyre Smaxy was viewed as the secondary action point. They're
Speaker 2: throwing the forwards at Joel Embiid. He's getting the best
Speaker 2: guy on the other team at guarding a perimeter initiator
Speaker 2: who you're throwing your best guy at for a perimeter weapon.
Speaker 2: With the Clippers, you're probably throwing it at Kawhi, You're
Speaker 2: throwing your second best guy at. You're probably throwing it
Speaker 2: at Paul George. James Harden is getting quality matchups every
Speaker 2: single night. I think just in general, there's lower pressure
Speaker 2: on him in this postseason. There's if you actually look
Speaker 2: back last season, they were below five hundred in the
Speaker 2: regular season and in the playoffs when James Harden shot
Speaker 2: below forty percent. They did not have that margin for
Speaker 2: error in Philly for James to have a bad night.
Speaker 2: With the Clippers this year, they're well above five hundred.
Speaker 2: When James Harden shoots below forty percent, there's margin for air.
Speaker 2: James can go off the reservation and they just keep
Speaker 2: trucking right along. And so I think they just kind
Speaker 2: of increase their margin for error. They improved their regular
Speaker 2: season offensive organization. But once again, it will come down
Speaker 2: to Kawhi and Paul George knocking down pull up jump
Speaker 2: shots when they get into the postseason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Westbrook comes off the bench, where he's
Speaker 1: often the best guard on the floor. You know, when
Speaker 1: he comes in at the eight minute mark, he's only
Speaker 1: playing like twenty three minutes a night, but he's first
Speaker 1: of all, he's always been an energy guy. I'm never
Speaker 1: worried about that. But I think he really he deserves credit.
Speaker 1: He just said, listen, Carmelo really struggled to adapt to
Speaker 1: his role off the bench for like three years. Westbrook's like,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. And it's I mean, when Terrence manager
Speaker 1: fourth best starter in the starting five, You're like, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a good team. And I think it's a
Speaker 1: really brilliant point. They're a little bit of a matchup issue.
Speaker 1: So because Kawhi and Paul George are very similar, I
Speaker 1: think Paul's the most underrated player in the league. He
Speaker 1: gets this whole playoff p and then you go look
Speaker 1: at his playoff numbers. They're not bad at all. They're
Speaker 1: not bad at all. So I think he's a really
Speaker 1: underrated player. And he and Quire very similar players, So
Speaker 1: you have to pick your poison. And if you start
Speaker 1: looking like the other night, and Kawhi is still such
Speaker 1: an effective player because of his hand size down low,
Speaker 1: he's really he's really a problem. He's so strong. Paul's
Speaker 1: more of a pure perimeter player, Kawhi can go inside.
Speaker 1: I think they're just a matchup problem. I think they're
Speaker 1: a matchup problem with Westbrook off the bench, and I
Speaker 1: love watching him play. So let's go back east to
Speaker 1: the Knicks. So I watched the entire game Lakers Knicks.
Speaker 1: Now Og didn't play in Randall, But I mean the
Speaker 1: Lakers beat the Celtics without Lebron and Ad so Julius
Speaker 1: Randall shouldn't be the difference. I think Grimes was out.
Speaker 1: But my takeaway and the Knicks is this, First of all,
Speaker 1: I always thought Jalen Brunson was a one A Maybe
Speaker 1: he's a one twenty seven a game. I love his leadership,
Speaker 1: his IQ, his toughness, I think he's the best. Nick
Speaker 1: sent Ewing. It was never a huge Carmelo fan, didn't
Speaker 1: give you anything on the second on the defensive end,
Speaker 1: and a little bit selfish, wouldn't step back and hit
Speaker 1: threes for years. He just got stubborn on the twos.
Speaker 1: So if Bronson's an A, I do believe you need
Speaker 1: a very strong two. I think Og and Randall are threes.
Speaker 1: Good threes. And at the end of that game, if
Speaker 1: Brunson's not hitting, forget Randal because Randall would be slowed
Speaker 1: down by a D. He's not getting any cheap points.
Speaker 1: Eighty's the best low post defender in the game. And
Speaker 1: I look at the Knicks and what I've seen Jason
Speaker 1: in the last three years with them is patience, and
Speaker 1: part of me is like, just go get a two,
Speaker 1: and then part of me is like, no, that's the
Speaker 1: next You've been desperate. I'mari Stodameier. You always reach on people.
Speaker 1: Is there a player in the league if not this
Speaker 1: trade deadline, next trade deadline, because I think they needed too,
Speaker 1: so address if you think the Knicks do. If Brunton's
Speaker 1: not hitting late like he wasn't against the Lakers, boy
Speaker 1: they go dry fast. I mean they go drive fast. Now,
Speaker 1: Randal didn't play, but I don't think o g or
Speaker 1: Randall are elite scores per se. Is there a guy
Speaker 1: in the league that you say, you know what? I
Speaker 1: thought it was Karl Anthony Towns. I was kind of
Speaker 1: in that for a while. Is there a guy that
Speaker 1: you would like for that role?
Speaker 2: For them, the patience is the perfect way to put it,
Speaker 2: because they could have jumped on Donovan Mitchell and now
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where it's at the time
Speaker 2: of the trade, we didn't realize Brunson was this good.
Speaker 2: So like maybe internally they were like Brunson's our guy,
Speaker 2: and maybe that was some of the reasoning behind it.
Speaker 2: But the point is is waiting ended up being smart
Speaker 2: because then Jalen Brunston popped and now they can kind
Speaker 2: of be more patient and in terms of waiting for
Speaker 2: who that next guy is. I thought the Ognnobi trade
Speaker 2: was was genius because it didn't waste any sort of
Speaker 2: super legitimate asset in terms of their pursuit of an
Speaker 2: eventual star. I think one of the reasons why that
Speaker 2: Laker game looked the way it did is the Knicks
Speaker 2: are very much like a physically imposing team, like they
Speaker 2: are very much like a power beat you up for
Speaker 2: forty eight minutes, classic Tom Thibodeo type of team, right,
Speaker 2: And when you take Og and Julius out, they just
Speaker 2: become small really fast, especially with Mitchell Robinson out of
Speaker 2: the lineup because he's been injured, although he might come
Speaker 2: back before the end. But I mean this won't come
Speaker 2: as any secret to anybody who's listened to you and
Speaker 2: me talk about this before. But we're both really high
Speaker 2: on Jaln Brunson, and I think like I think Jalen
Speaker 2: Brunson has entered into that conversation with the best guards
Speaker 2: in the league. Like I think he's just on that
Speaker 2: pure Really we're on an extended stretch now where he
Speaker 2: not only that he's improving and like to take it
Speaker 2: even a step further. Look at the playoffs last year,
Speaker 2: he straight up out played Donovan Mitchell head to head
Speaker 2: and one a series.
Speaker 1: Frankly, Jason, I think he's a better player than Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 3: He's I think he's tight.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's quite. I shouldn't even say this anymore.
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta get over with this. I think
Speaker 1: he's a better leader. I think he plays with a
Speaker 1: very steady temperament. I know exactly what I get from
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson every game I watch him, Donovan I get,
Speaker 1: I get stretches where I get he just like forgets
Speaker 1: his teammates. I think Brunson is a top you can
Speaker 1: name it, but I think he New York loud. He's
Speaker 1: classic Villanova, tunes out the noise, coachable leader, grown up
Speaker 1: defends like I'm sorry, but I have I think he's terrific.
Speaker 1: I love him.
Speaker 2: To Donovan Mitchell's credit, He's having the best season of
Speaker 2: his career as well. The Calves are literally the two seed.
Speaker 2: He's having the best defensive season he's had of his career.
Speaker 2: So I want to give Donovan Mitchell some credit. But
Speaker 2: I agree with you, Jalen Brunson is a better basketball
Speaker 2: player than him. But then he also went toe to
Speaker 2: toe with Jimmy Butler. The reason why they couldn't beat
Speaker 2: the Heat last year was Julius Randall was a complete
Speaker 2: non factor in that postseason run. Now, in his defense,
Speaker 2: he was hurt. He had hurt his ankle right before
Speaker 2: the playoffs and was pretty beat up throughout that playoff run.
Speaker 2: But to your point, the Knicks have already shown us
Speaker 2: they can make some noise with just Jalen Brunson, so
Speaker 2: you can imagine what a number two would do for them. Now,
Speaker 2: the question is who the guy that I know that
Speaker 2: they've been waiting on is Joel Embiid. But I do
Speaker 2: get somewhat concerned about with his injury history now like
Speaker 2: here we are again with him with his knee, struggling
Speaker 2: to make it through a regular season. But I think
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid is a guy that had their eyes on.
Speaker 2: I think if the war, if the Lakers just absolutely
Speaker 2: like floundered this year, like just an absolute disaster end
Speaker 2: of the season, I put like a like a five
Speaker 2: percent chance that someone like Lebron could potentially either opt
Speaker 2: out of his deal this summer and sign there on
Speaker 2: like a mid level exception, or opt in and do
Speaker 2: the James Harden where basically you opt in and ask
Speaker 2: for a trade and then try to do that. Because
Speaker 2: I look at Lebron, James is basically, even at this
Speaker 2: phase of his career, just a way better version of
Speaker 2: Julius Randall, which kind of is a shoeing fit to
Speaker 2: that position. You know, what I mean so like, But
Speaker 2: I think when it comes to the Knick's patience has
Speaker 2: been the name of the game. Jalen Brunson has bought
Speaker 2: them the ability to be good.
Speaker 3: While they wait for the right guy.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, there's no reason
Speaker 2: to jump at anything unless it is the I wouldn't
Speaker 2: trade for a single guy unless he was better than
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 3: It literally is that simple to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Brunson is the future of the Knicks.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: you know, you hear this. I think it was said
Speaker 1: about Jayleen Brunson. He's a little guy. You don't win
Speaker 1: championships with little guys. And the NBA is getting bigger.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a certain recent formula size in the league.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you, as the league gets younger,
Speaker 1: I think there's an increasing value in maturity and leadership
Speaker 1: as the league gets younger. It's why Lebron is so valuable.
Speaker 1: And I think Tatum in New York, you can get
Speaker 1: lost to that city. I mean that that shit, that
Speaker 1: city eats guys up like that. You're not. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember guys like Jeremy Shack. I mean that's why
Speaker 1: the great Jeremy Shockey was a great New York giant,
Speaker 1: just not ready for the city quite right. If you
Speaker 1: go to the history of New York, go look at
Speaker 1: their stars. Jeter, Aaron Judge, Eli Manning, what's the theme
Speaker 1: go home? All about the sport, grown ups with the media,
Speaker 1: good background, adult, you know, relationships with family. It's funny.
Speaker 1: Jeter close to his family, Eli Manning, Brunson's dad in
Speaker 1: the NBA, Aaron Judge. A lot of times they're small
Speaker 1: town guys. If you come to New York as a
Speaker 1: star a Rod, you're a big free agent and you
Speaker 1: get all this expectation, it eats you up. Jalen's the
Speaker 1: opposite cast off for Dallas. All he has to do
Speaker 1: is prove stuff Like Villanova. He is your classic. I mean,
Speaker 1: Eli Manning went to Ole, Miss Jeter struggled to the
Speaker 1: minor leagues. Who's Aaron Judge, He's from Fresno, New York
Speaker 1: has a prototype. You're a little overlooked, undervalued, good background, family, college.
Speaker 1: I think that's so the league's getting so young, that
Speaker 1: these older players that can bring maturity to me. Jason,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just it's like I say about Lebron,
Speaker 1: It's like Lebron, it could be a you know, he's
Speaker 1: like a coach, general manager, star on the floor. He's
Speaker 1: thinking about who am I, who should I have relationships with,
Speaker 1: Who can I elevate, who should be on the floor
Speaker 1: with me. I mean he's thinking through every possession and
Speaker 1: every game. I don't know. I just can't say enough
Speaker 1: about Brunson. I think he is New York's next star.
Speaker 1: I love him. I think he's the best quarterback in
Speaker 1: that city.
Speaker 2: To his credit too, like he signed up for this
Speaker 2: like the MAVs.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a little different in the annual value, but
Speaker 2: the total contract value that the MAVs offered him was
Speaker 2: pretty close to what the Knicks offered him. He straight
Speaker 2: up said, I want it. I want the pressure. I
Speaker 2: want Like he signed up for what New York brought
Speaker 2: to the table, and he's not just thrived in that environment,
Speaker 2: he's completely exceeded expectations. We have a couple of big
Speaker 2: Knicks fans that helped produce soups tonight, and I talked
Speaker 2: with them about this behind the scenes, and like it's
Speaker 2: crazy how that one singular signing transformed the entire landscape
Speaker 2: of the knickt future because they got, like, think about
Speaker 2: Jalen Brown just signed a deal where in the final
Speaker 2: year he's gonna make like seventy million, Okay, like in
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson's making in the twenties, and he's giving you
Speaker 2: superstar production. Like it's crazy. It's crazy what that one
Speaker 2: move has done for that franchise.
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Speaker 1: go back to the West Coast and the Warriors. Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson end of games being benched cominga now is starting
Speaker 1: to really play well. Not exactly sure why it took
Speaker 1: so long? Did Chris Paul start the unlocking? Has Steph Curry?
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot of times we forget these
Speaker 1: guys come into the league at nineteen. It just takes
Speaker 1: a long time to get your footing. I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're a podcast or a broadcaster, a basketball player.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of reps. She got me on
Speaker 1: a treadmill in games, so I've said before I would
Speaker 1: move everybody but Steph and Draymond, and I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to add Cominga to that. So look at their
Speaker 1: current state. Can they make a move? Is do you disagree?
Speaker 1: Would you? I mean nobody's moving Staph, would you move Draymond?
Speaker 1: Would you move Cominga? What's the future look like for them?
Speaker 2: So it's funny because like a month ago it was
Speaker 2: it was leaning heavily towards the Kaminga trade. Yeah, to
Speaker 2: give you an idea of just how crazy this Cominga stretches.
Speaker 2: He had never in his entire career at back to
Speaker 2: back twenty point games ever, not once, and then he
Speaker 2: notched up eight of them in a row. Like he
Speaker 2: he in his last ten games is averaging twenty five
Speaker 2: points on sixty one percent shooting from the field, like
Speaker 2: he's on an incredible run, flashing like true superstar upside.
Speaker 2: And so like a month ago, I was actually pitching
Speaker 2: on my show, I was like call the nets and
Speaker 2: be like, here's Jonathan Kaminga, Andrew Wiggins and Moses Moody.
Speaker 2: Give me Michale Bridges like a legit number two for
Speaker 2: Steph and Dorian Finney Smith.
Speaker 3: That way we have some two really versatile two way
Speaker 3: forwards to.
Speaker 2: Put between Draymond and Stephen Clay and go make another
Speaker 2: run at this thing. Cominga's made that not an option anymore.
Speaker 2: Like he's just so he's so damn good that you
Speaker 2: can't afford to let go of that upside.
Speaker 3: Here's the problem. He's twenty one.
Speaker 2: So like like we talked about last year in the finals,
Speaker 2: Michael Porter Junior is twenty five, and he struggled on
Speaker 2: that stage. It is a it is very much a
Speaker 2: man's game when you get to the later rounds of
Speaker 2: the NBA playoffs. And so here's the thing, Like, I
Speaker 2: feel more sure than ever that Kaminga has star upside,
Speaker 2: but I also everything of NBA history tells me that
Speaker 2: he's not gonna push Steph into title contention this year either.
Speaker 2: And so they're kind of in this weird thing where
Speaker 2: it feels like a gap year in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: because they can look.
Speaker 3: To make a move.
Speaker 2: They I know they've looked to move Andrew Wiggins. I'm
Speaker 2: sure they've looked at all these sorts of ancillary moves,
Speaker 2: and they may still make a move for like a
Speaker 2: Dorian Finney Smith from the Nets and just like a
Speaker 2: throw like Moses Moody and another one of their smaller contracts.
Speaker 2: That way, for a veteran forward, they might call Orlando
Speaker 2: and get a backup center or something along those lines,
Speaker 2: like a Wendell Carter Jr. Who knows, But none of
Speaker 2: those guys are really transforming their outlook within the scope
Speaker 2: of this season, I think, like in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: especially with Steph only being thirty five. And Steve Kurt
Speaker 2: basically said this in his press or the other night.
Speaker 2: He goes, We're not gonna get anything better in the
Speaker 2: trade deadline than Chris Paul coming back to shore up
Speaker 2: the bench, then Gary Payton coming back to shore up
Speaker 2: their perimeter defense, and then Jonathan Kaminga's rise is an
Speaker 2: influx of talent its own way, and they're actually starting
Speaker 2: to trust him a little bit more at the end
Speaker 2: of games.
Speaker 3: Steph in a big.
Speaker 2: Possession against Brooklyn last night, just threw the ball to
Speaker 2: Kamina in the post and got out of the way
Speaker 2: and he drew a fout got to the foul line.
Speaker 2: He's actually been really gifted at getting defenders out of
Speaker 2: position and getting to the foul line this year. So
Speaker 2: like it's weird because in a weird way, it kind
Speaker 2: of turns this year into a gap year because I
Speaker 2: don't think they have enough. But Kminga's upside is more
Speaker 2: than enough to make up for that in the big picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean again, he's twenty one. I think
Speaker 1: we forget college football players come with three to four
Speaker 1: years they're on a college campus. These kids, you put
Speaker 1: them in the NBA, they can't go to the hotel, lobby, bar,
Speaker 1: they're kids just and then then you bring them in
Speaker 1: Jason and they're not getting any real game time minutes,
Speaker 1: so they're not getting they're not you know, in the NFL,
Speaker 1: even a rookie who's kind of a miss, he's on
Speaker 1: the field, he's on special teams. So you can only
Speaker 1: do so much with practice in your eight preseason game.
Speaker 1: So I have a soft spot for like the Comingas
Speaker 1: when especially they run a system that catch and react
Speaker 1: system that is not for nineteen year olds, Like it's
Speaker 1: just it eats people up. So to me, Cominga's always
Speaker 1: looked the part length, twitchiness, vertical hungry. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time. Wiseman I always thought was a weird fit.
Speaker 1: I don't think Kaminga's weird fit at all. I think
Speaker 1: he fits. I just think he's a kid. And this
Speaker 1: is I mean, you're talking about a sophisticated offense that's
Speaker 1: almost European the way it plays, it's functioning. I mean,
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell came there and had years in the league.
Speaker 1: They spit him out. They were just like not interested
Speaker 1: the guys that have worked Iggy bog It, you know,
Speaker 1: like older Wiggins, older veteran players that can come in
Speaker 1: and find a spot. So I'm I'm glad to see
Speaker 1: sort of cominga flourishing because I do think he looks
Speaker 1: the part. I think he's a really special athlete. Let's
Speaker 1: go back east to the Sixers. I'm zigzagging here, but
Speaker 1: if for our podcast audience, I want both coasts. I
Speaker 1: don't want to bore you with too much leftter coast.
Speaker 1: So I defend the NBA on the Joel Mbiat injury. First,
Speaker 1: it was random. A guy fell on his knee. It happens. Secondly,
Speaker 1: the NBA didn't want to create this structure where you
Speaker 1: have to play seventy nine percent of your games. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it. They created it because when
Speaker 1: the TV contract is up. Advertisers came to them and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'd be nice if Yannis was available for the Saturday
Speaker 1: night game. We're paying, you know, eight hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a commercial. And it became sort of a three year
Speaker 1: load management pattern, which there's no data to suggest that
Speaker 1: it makes you better. We've learned that this year that
Speaker 1: the load management's a lot of nonsense. So the league says, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're a players league, but we needed to play more games.
Speaker 1: So you know, you can argue, well, Embiid shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been playing, but Embiid missed his first two years because
Speaker 1: of injuries. He's had chronic injuries as many bigs do.
Speaker 1: It was going to happen. He's been hurt every year,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to blame the league on this.
Speaker 1: But we got into this discussion the other day and
Speaker 1: the name I threw out because I'm old. Somebody said,
Speaker 1: who is Embiid if he never wins a title? Because
Speaker 1: all the bigs have dominated. I watched my first game
Speaker 1: in seventy two with Wilt titles, Kareem titles, Shack titles,
Speaker 1: a Keem titles, Duncan big titles, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, is he ewing? Bob Lanier, who again
Speaker 1: at my age was a dominant big showed up in
Speaker 1: bud Light or Miller Lite commercials, whatever it was. But
Speaker 1: I think that's what Embid is. I think you have
Speaker 1: to look at him like Ewing and Ewing got to
Speaker 1: two finals. You have to look at Embiad and say, listen, injuries,
Speaker 1: weird teammates. But I can't make him a top thirty
Speaker 1: player ever. He statistically great, He's the closest thing to Shack.
Speaker 1: But for bigs, you know, in a sport where you
Speaker 1: have a genetic advantage, you're seven too, Like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hold you kind of accountable for trophies. They've never been
Speaker 1: to the conference finals. We always bang on quarterbacks that
Speaker 1: don't win Super Bowls, but there's limitations on what you
Speaker 1: can do with twenty two guys on the field. I
Speaker 1: want Biggs dowin trophies. Is that a fair criticism of Himbati.
Speaker 1: He's not a top thirty player, He's just a top
Speaker 1: thirty talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, he was having one of the best regular seasons
Speaker 2: that we've ever seen before. He got hurt this year,
Speaker 2: But like he was also having one of the best
Speaker 2: regular seasons we've ever seen last year, and then the
Speaker 2: knee started to break down, got to the postseason, and
Speaker 2: his jump shots started missing, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: everything kind of fell off for him. He kind of
Speaker 2: reminds me of that conversation we were having earlier involving
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards, where he has attached a
Speaker 2: good amount of his success to jump shooting. Like to
Speaker 2: Nikola Jokic's credit, most of his shot making is like
Speaker 2: little push shots and hook shots that are around the basket,
Speaker 2: which have more like playoff, you know, resiliency, so to speak,
Speaker 2: Like it just translates better to that phase. Like last year,
Speaker 2: Joel Embiie knocked down all those little face up jab
Speaker 2: step jumpers in the regular season, and then he couldn't
Speaker 2: make him over Al Horford and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the bottom fell out for him. So, but I think
Speaker 2: it's important to acknowledge the injuries, and some of that's
Speaker 2: outside of his control. Some of that also is kind
Speaker 2: of historically, you know, not exactly the most shocking thing
Speaker 2: in the world for a player his size to kind
Speaker 2: of encounter some recurring injuries on that front, I think
Speaker 2: the tougher question is as it pertains to the NBA
Speaker 2: regular season, is like you might have to super load
Speaker 2: manage Joel Embiid from now on. You might have to
Speaker 2: literally hold him down to fifty games in a season
Speaker 2: and never let him play more than three times in
Speaker 2: a week, or do whatever it is you've got to
Speaker 2: do to maintain his knee, because if the issue is
Speaker 2: he's hurt every year in the playoffs, then you have
Speaker 2: to find a way to get him there. You have
Speaker 2: to find a way to get him there. And you
Speaker 2: know what that might involve, not chasing seventy points against
Speaker 2: the Spurs. That might involve taking more nights off along
Speaker 2: the way. And like you know, as far as the
Speaker 2: six sixty five game limit thing goes, because our colleague
Speaker 2: Draymond Green came out critical of it the other day too.
Speaker 2: To me, it's kind of it is directed criticism in
Speaker 2: the sense that, like, I think a limit like that
Speaker 2: makes some sense. It's an award, it's a regular season award.
Speaker 2: You should participate in the regular season if you're gonna
Speaker 2: get that award. The bigger issue is if you don't
Speaker 2: let the press affect your salary. Take that part out.
Speaker 2: That's the part I don't understand. Make it so that
Speaker 2: the people voting on the award aren't directly affecting your
Speaker 2: ability to negotiate your salary.
Speaker 3: That's where the issue is because I.
Speaker 2: Want players to play more frequently, but I don't want
Speaker 2: them to play on a bum knee for money. That's
Speaker 2: where it becomes an issue.
Speaker 1: So here's my thing, Jason. If I said to you, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna screw with your base salary, Jason at
Speaker 1: the volume, I'm not gonna screw with your fame, your
Speaker 1: personal life. I'm not gonna screw with your social media money,
Speaker 1: your shoe money, but your bonuses. You have to hit
Speaker 1: eighty eight podcasts a year. I don't think that's outrageous.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Fox came to me, Colin, We're not
Speaker 1: gonna scoo with your salary, your social the volume, but
Speaker 1: that six hundred thousand dollars bonus a year. You gotta
Speaker 1: work two hundred and eleven days on the year. That's
Speaker 1: all the NBA is saying, we don't want to touch
Speaker 1: any of your money. And these guys now make social
Speaker 1: shoes overseas advertisements you're not getting the bonus, you're not
Speaker 1: getting the plaque money. We're out on that. I think
Speaker 1: that's incredibly, incredibly reasonable reasonable. Okay, Now that this isn't
Speaker 1: a because I love the NBA and I now I
Speaker 1: pivot every year early I would say mid to late January,
Speaker 1: I kind of pivot to the NBA, and I just
Speaker 1: I'm so deep into college and pro football stuff. I
Speaker 1: just can't do it, of course, And so over the
Speaker 1: last I would say two weeks. Now I'm watching a
Speaker 1: game a night, sometimes to a night. So two things
Speaker 1: can be true. As a sport in America gets more international,
Speaker 1: the quality of the sport is better, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: help attendance or ratings because the sport becomes less domestic
Speaker 1: and less recognized. So hockey and baseball and now the
Speaker 1: NBA are much more international. Arguably best players now international players.
Speaker 1: Certainly in the NBA, we're on a heater now about
Speaker 1: four or five years. All the MVPSGA, Luca Embiid, Yannis
Speaker 1: Wemby by next year late okay, so Jokich, So that
Speaker 1: I don't worry about the NBA in terms of stability aesthetic.
Speaker 1: Some have criticized the way it looks. I don't worry
Speaker 1: about that. Playoffs come mid range, basketball comes right back, guys,
Speaker 1: meat buckets. But I do think in terms of ratings,
Speaker 1: I think the NBA, to get the seventy five billion
Speaker 1: they want, is going to have to spread it out.
Speaker 1: It'll be less dependable on significant one, big, significant network.
Speaker 1: It's getting more international, and unless you follow European leagues,
Speaker 1: which people don't unless they're diehards, you're not going to
Speaker 1: really see them in March madness. They're going to go
Speaker 1: to bad teams finally make an imprint in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Wemby By year three now Wemby again is already iconic.
Speaker 1: It feels like but that the NBA will be less
Speaker 1: viewed going forward. The basketball will be better, the playoffs
Speaker 1: will be intense, but it will be thin. It will
Speaker 1: be international, like hockey and baseball. I mean, hockey looks
Speaker 1: so much better today than ten years ago. It's so
Speaker 1: much faster. I mean, baseball is insane. Oh Tani is
Speaker 1: significantly better than Babe Ruth. The quality of the NBA's
Speaker 1: it's off the hook. It's just I mean, the idea,
Speaker 1: the reason you can't stop anybody is because seven footers
Speaker 1: can pull up for threes. You have to defend them.
Speaker 1: So there's no bigs in the paint, and you don't
Speaker 1: have a hand checks, you can't stop anybody. There's a
Speaker 1: real at last night Hawks Clippers, it's three hundred points.
Speaker 1: Guys were trying. There's nobody in the basket because the bigs.
Speaker 3: Are so much skill.
Speaker 1: The Plumbly is a rare guy that doesn't shoot a three.
Speaker 1: It's like when you see Plumbly, it's like, ah, a
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties player. I can guard the basket. So the
Speaker 1: way I look at the I do worry about it.
Speaker 1: If we're gonna talk about ratings, I just think in
Speaker 1: a more distracted society, it's not gonna be a great
Speaker 1: ratings league. It's gonna be a great talent league. Is
Speaker 1: that a reasonable appraisal going forward?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you.
Speaker 2: I actually think I think they could lose ground even
Speaker 2: on the on those like specific TV ratings numbers, because
Speaker 2: I think attention span is getting less and less and
Speaker 2: the league is becoming more and more of an inventory sport.
Speaker 2: Like they're adding the N season tournament, they're adding people
Speaker 2: play in tournament. They're just it is very much like
Speaker 2: you're not getting the Like I saw the number from
Speaker 2: the AFC Championship game. It was like half a Super.
Speaker 3: Bowl, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like it's like you're not getting those kinds of numbers
Speaker 2: from an NBA slate where it's like you the Lakers
Speaker 2: play the Nuggets TNT major game on Thursday, kind of
Speaker 2: a big game too, Like the Lakers are on a
Speaker 2: three game winning streak, like they could they beat Denver
Speaker 2: on Thursday, kind of changes the tone and tenor of
Speaker 2: their season in so many different ways. They also could
Speaker 2: lose by forty and it could be nothing, because that's
Speaker 2: just the reality of the way the NBA season is
Speaker 2: set up. And so to me I look at it
Speaker 2: is I look at it more optimistically, just in the
Speaker 2: sense that I don't ever really see the NBA as
Speaker 2: being the huge, gigantic rating draw in a singular contest
Speaker 2: the way that the NFL is. It is an inventory sport,
Speaker 2: and I think that expands to the global potential too,
Speaker 2: just the ability to earn you know, little bits and
Speaker 2: pieces of income from a ton of different sources rather
Speaker 2: than these big singular events, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I also I feel you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the people are intellectually dishonest. If you don't like
Speaker 1: the NBA, keep it to yourself. I love the NBA,
Speaker 1: and my criticisms are based on I love it. Here's
Speaker 1: what I see. So I've watched the same number of
Speaker 1: NBA for as long as I can remember. I watch
Speaker 1: football until about mid January, February starts, I start getting
Speaker 1: into it, and by I'll take a vacation for a
Speaker 1: week after the football season, all kind of unplug from sports.
Speaker 1: I come back and I'm into the NFL free agency
Speaker 1: in the NBA, and I'm watching a game or two
Speaker 1: every night. So and I think the quality is off
Speaker 1: the hook. But I do think international players have a
Speaker 1: couple of advantages. They get into those academies and play
Speaker 1: against older men early. They don't have the distractions of
Speaker 1: our domestic players. You know, they don't. They're just over
Speaker 1: there in Lithuania working on hoops, playing against older men.
Speaker 1: They don't have the social media platforms like we do
Speaker 1: over here. They have them, but they're not. I mean,
Speaker 1: America is different, you know, it's just we're staring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they have and so our guys come in distracted.
Speaker 1: I mean, a Jamarant Zion. They're stars when they're like
Speaker 1: nineteen years old. Meanwhile, Wemby can come in here and
Speaker 1: frankly kind of hide. Except for diehards. Yannas sort of
Speaker 1: hid for four years. Jokich absolutely hid for five. Yes,
Speaker 1: so our guys can't hide. Ja Morant comes in, he's
Speaker 1: a star. Zion's a star. So I think there's some advantage.
Speaker 1: It's just to be in the international player. I don't
Speaker 1: think the AU system big picture, makes our players better.
Speaker 1: I think it makes them something. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: it is. Steve Kerry guys like that, but I don't
Speaker 1: think the NBA they're going to get their money. We
Speaker 1: all need content, we all need content. I just saw
Speaker 1: Fox ESPN. Warner Brothers just started a new streaming service,
Speaker 1: so it's like, listen, the games are going to be played.
Speaker 1: And the reason they're doing that so they can afford
Speaker 1: other sports to go up against Apple and Amazon. But
Speaker 1: I think the league's fine. But I think what's happened
Speaker 1: Jason is everything outside of the NFL is niche. By
Speaker 1: the way, everything in Canada outside of hockey is niche.
Speaker 1: Everything in England outside of the English Premier League is niche.
Speaker 1: You just have to own It's okay. Every country has
Speaker 1: the sport. Cricket is the national pastime. In England, nobody
Speaker 1: watches it, right, It's a soccer country. So I think
Speaker 1: the NBA is in great shape because I do believe,
Speaker 1: just like a podcast or a radio show, if your
Speaker 1: content's good, you're fine. Whatever's happening to the platforms, the
Speaker 1: content of the NBA's really good, so it's fine.
Speaker 2: It's built for social media. The highlights are completely insane.
Speaker 2: It can be digested in smaller portions. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, Like to your point, it's like the NBA's
Speaker 2: awesome at everything except for the big singular TV event.
Speaker 2: That's kind of like their biggest weakness in so many ways,
Speaker 2: even extending into the NBA playoffs. I mean, we watched
Speaker 2: you and I watched the Lakers last year literally deliberately
Speaker 2: punt games in the playoffs, like they went through Memphis
Speaker 2: and Golden State in the exact same pathway they were
Speaker 2: like win game one, who cares?
Speaker 3: Game two?
Speaker 2: Win Game three and four? Who cares Game five? Like
Speaker 2: there's just so much less urgency on a night to
Speaker 2: night basis, And I don't even think that can be recreated.
Speaker 2: It's not possible. I mean, the NFL's urgency extends into
Speaker 2: the regular season. It's the craziest thing. It's appointment television.
Speaker 2: I have all my family and friends, very few of
Speaker 2: them watch NBA basketball. All of them watched the NFL.
Speaker 2: It is so much more culturally resonant. And my thing is, like,
Speaker 2: I'm not of the opinion that the NBA should even
Speaker 2: be compared to the NFL. The NFL is like an
Speaker 2: entirely different entity. But the NBA in and of its
Speaker 2: own kind of self is succeeding in a lot of
Speaker 2: different ways, and I think it's getting better. I think
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned the officiator or the playoffs. When
Speaker 2: you get to the playoffs and things kind of get better.
Speaker 2: That's the interesting thing to me, is like officiating, to me,
Speaker 2: is one of the bigger issues in the NBA, and
Speaker 2: then we get to the playoffs and they kind of
Speaker 2: get it right, you know, So like so like, even
Speaker 2: on that front, I feel like I'm kind of nitpicking.
Speaker 2: So like I'm generally an NBA optimist, I'm just a
Speaker 2: realist in the sense that they'll never ever compete with
Speaker 2: the NFL.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, I worked. I'm at FS one. It's number
Speaker 1: two to ESPN, to Very Good Life. There's so many
Speaker 1: advantages to not being the NFL. The scrutiny in the
Speaker 1: NFL game to game is insane. They flush out seven
Speaker 1: coaches a year. I mean, a quarterback basically gets to
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving of a second year and if you're not
Speaker 1: good upstairs, they're moving on. Zion has had a weight
Speaker 1: issue for four years and they're still in on him.
Speaker 1: So there's advantages of being two. A lot of people
Speaker 1: at PEPSI made a lot of money. I think to
Speaker 1: your point, I don't think you worry about anything other
Speaker 1: than I will say I've always believed that college basketball
Speaker 1: has a place in the NBA. I think you can
Speaker 1: kind of get you they. I wouldn't know Zion without him.
Speaker 1: It's for the casual fan. You meet these stars in
Speaker 1: March and it's like, oh my god, I want to
Speaker 1: watch Zion. He doesn't play at Duke. He's just another
Speaker 1: Jalen Green. I mean, the has no idea who Jayleen
Speaker 1: Green is. So my only knock on Adam silver As.
Speaker 1: I wish he would just say to college basketball, hey,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a microwavable version of us. You get
Speaker 1: three weeks where everybody watches the sport. Then you wrap
Speaker 1: your arms around Zion in college basketball and you can
Speaker 1: get some of those college basketball people that feed into
Speaker 1: the NBA. I've never thought the Listen, you can make
Speaker 1: an argument, the more popular your college sport is, the
Speaker 1: more popular the league is. So college football is number one, NFL,
Speaker 1: number two is college basketball, NBA three is the College
Speaker 1: World Series Baseball four, and then then college hockey right
Speaker 1: like so, So I mean, if you look at it,
Speaker 1: you're the more popular your minor league system is. It
Speaker 1: absolutely is a push in your major league platform. So
Speaker 1: I I don't know. I think the NBA's fine.
Speaker 3: I did you like the nd season tournament?
Speaker 1: Thought it was great.
Speaker 2: I don't understand the good it was amazing. First, Adam
Speaker 2: Silver's bat in one thousand.
Speaker 1: So, first of all, if you're upset about Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: or purple basketball courts, get a life, like who gives
Speaker 1: a shit? Secondly, is there's no question when I watched
Speaker 1: those games. I mean Lebron was first of all, he
Speaker 1: shot fifty seven percent. He was all in. So when
Speaker 1: your stars buy in, I'm like, Okay, Lebron's I mean
Speaker 1: the Lakers played like it was playoff basketball Lebron in
Speaker 1: his twentieth year, nineteenth year. So again people are nitpicking.
Speaker 1: I thought the n season tournament, I don't say it's
Speaker 1: a home run, stand up double quality of it. I
Speaker 1: mean Indiana was playing or aresof Lakers were playing their butt.
Speaker 3: The players, they felt like games.
Speaker 1: I thought they bought into it way more than I
Speaker 1: would have. I first I thought this is hoky, and
Speaker 1: then I watched like my second game on the court,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, these guys are playing, this is like,
Speaker 1: what was it December? I'm like November. I'm like, these
Speaker 1: guys are all out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was exactly the tent pole that the regular season needed,
Speaker 2: because like the NBA season, it's kind of like you
Speaker 2: go through two thirds of it and then there's the
Speaker 2: trade deadline, then there's like the stretch run, but it's
Speaker 2: almost like a big sink in the middle there and sometimes,
Speaker 2: like like Colin, I don't blame you for not watching
Speaker 2: the NBA in December and January. It can be not
Speaker 2: only can it be a little boring, it can also
Speaker 2: be it can also give you a lot of really
Speaker 2: fake results, like the Utah Jazz went won a bunch
Speaker 2: of games in a row in the middle of January.
Speaker 2: You know, like like this, this is the time of
Speaker 2: year where like youth and athleticism kind of rises to
Speaker 2: the surface in so many different ways. And the NBA
Speaker 2: needed something a tent pole between the start of the
Speaker 2: season and the trade deadline, and that what the that's
Speaker 2: what The n Season Tournament served as a breakup of
Speaker 2: monotony and so many.
Speaker 1: Also, the NFL has taken away their number one marketing day,
Speaker 1: Christmas to some degree. So the NBA is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're going to take that away or minimize it there,
Speaker 1: we're going to create an n season tournament before you
Speaker 1: get to your tournament. So it's all listen in. The
Speaker 1: NFL has always been playing around with the calendar. I
Speaker 1: think I think Adam said, okay, you're going to f
Speaker 1: us on Christmas and we're going to create urgent. By
Speaker 1: the way, some of those plan games got numbers. These
Speaker 1: commissioners used to be buddies. Now it's now you're all
Speaker 1: fighting for Amazon Modey. Nobody's buddies anymore. So the NFL
Speaker 1: moved free agency moved into Christmas, and the NBA says,
Speaker 1: so we're going to create urgency before I thought it worked.
Speaker 1: And also, the NBA has always been about the trade
Speaker 1: deadline on it's in my everybody's at fifty games now,
Speaker 1: so you get to about game fifty five sixty, everybody
Speaker 1: tightens everything up, the rotations get tightened up. You coach
Speaker 1: with an eye on the playoffs. I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a great stretch run. I think Boston and Denver
Speaker 1: the best teams. Neither has a good bench, and I
Speaker 1: think there's some Milwaukee's Lakers, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Minnesota. Can't
Speaker 1: wait to watch it. Jason Timp hoops tonight fifty minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll do more of this stuff. It's great seeing you.
Speaker 1: You're crushing. You're going to see a lot of adjacent
Speaker 1: stuff on my feed now as I kind of go
Speaker 1: heavy football and now the NBA is getting good. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell y'all, say what you want. Give the Clippers
Speaker 1: a chance. If you're listening to this podcast, it is
Speaker 1: beautiful basketball. It is no high usage rate, tremendous movement.
Speaker 1: Next time we'll we'll talk Oklahoma City Thunder. We're not
Speaker 1: ignoring Demver, Minnesota, but watch the Clippers. Play if you're
Speaker 1: a casual that is good basketball. That is beautiful basketball,
Speaker 1: ball movement, shot makers, shot creators, mid range, post ins, transition,
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 2: Final thoughts, Paulin, I just wanted to say congrats to
Speaker 2: you on three years with the volume. It's crazy because
Speaker 2: like a year ago, you and I had a similar
Speaker 2: conversation about how crazy the growth has been, and even
Speaker 2: in the years since, it's been even crazier.
Speaker 3: Like I've been.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, obviously being a part of
Speaker 2: it has been an honor, but like getting to see
Speaker 2: what you've built and from what it was at the
Speaker 2: beginning to what it is now, it's just incredibly impressive.
Speaker 2: And I just wanted to say congratulations.
Speaker 1: Well, you're really valuable to us, and I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the thing we lean in, we lean into some gambling, NBA,
Speaker 1: NFL and strong opinions, and you're such a unique voice
Speaker 1: in basketball. You know, we got Jenkins and Jones who
Speaker 1: culturally are so important to us, Draymond Green the player,
Speaker 1: and I don't think there's anybody in the country that
Speaker 1: breaks it down like you. I think you give people
Speaker 1: a really data driven, smart former player context that matters.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, listen. I get called a hot
Speaker 1: take guy, but I've said before I can't watch every game.
Speaker 1: I've got to cover all these sports, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you broad views of stuff you really dig deep.
Speaker 1: I think it's necessary and I think you're the best
Speaker 1: in the country at it, and I love it so
Speaker 1: good See Anyboddy.
Speaker 3: Good to see you too, Colin. Looking forward to next.
Speaker 1: Time Oops tonight. Jason Timpf Money at the volume, the volume,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: take a moment rate and review