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Speaker 1: All right, wellcon to WHO'SAIDI here at the volume, A
Speaker 1: hoo all you guys are having a great week as promise.
Speaker 1: Today we're hitting our mail bag. A bunch of you
Speaker 1: guys dropped a bunch of really good questions. Remember, if
Speaker 1: you want to get questions into the mail bag, go
Speaker 1: into our full episodes type mail bag in the comments
Speaker 1: with a call in. That's the thing, and I look
Speaker 1: at as an indicator of a mail back question, write
Speaker 1: your comment in there or your question in there, and
Speaker 1: then we'll get to them, typically on Fridays throughout the season.
Speaker 1: I've just been doing a lot of traveling in March,
Speaker 1: so we've been on a funky schedule. But after the
Speaker 1: next two weeks, I finally am done traveling for the
Speaker 1: rest of the season and we'll get back into our
Speaker 1: kind of Friday schedule from there. That's how you guys
Speaker 1: can drop questions. You guys, ote the joke before we
Speaker 1: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Not YouTube channel
Speaker 1: so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow
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Speaker 1: We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
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Speaker 1: you guys follow us there in the last not least.
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned earlier, keep dropping mailback questions in the
Speaker 1: YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. First question, Hello,
Speaker 1: and thank you for the amazing content every week. My
Speaker 1: question is about the new Warriors with Jimmy Butler. After
Speaker 1: the All Star Break, the Warriors had the second easiest
Speaker 1: remaining schedule in the league. So our thirteen to one
Speaker 1: in the games with Jimmy is it a bit inflated
Speaker 1: and not an accurate depiction of their team. So I
Speaker 1: think a couple of different things are true. Like, I
Speaker 1: think it's okay to acknowledge that the Warriors have had
Speaker 1: an easy schedule while also not overthinking what this team
Speaker 1: is actually capable of doing. They've been an elite defense
Speaker 1: all year. Their offense has been the issue in this stretch.
Speaker 1: Steph is playing by far the best offense he's played
Speaker 1: all year, and Jimmy Butler has helped unlock a bunch
Speaker 1: of different dimensions to the offense that weren't there in
Speaker 1: the past. So like, on the one hand, like, do
Speaker 1: I know for sure how good Golden State is compared
Speaker 1: to the best teams in the league. No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I Also, I'm not sure we're gonna find out until
Speaker 1: we get to the playoffs. They've got five games left
Speaker 1: against the upper tier in the Western Conference. They've got
Speaker 1: two against Denver, one against Monday night. We're covering that
Speaker 1: game live. This mail bag is being recorded on Monday,
Speaker 1: so you guys will already know the result by then.
Speaker 1: But there's one more against Denver, a game against the Lakers,
Speaker 1: a game against the Rockets, and a game against the Grizzlies.
Speaker 2: Those will be.
Speaker 1: Opportunities for us to learn more. But like again, like
Speaker 1: the teams that I view as the as the primary
Speaker 1: barriers for any team's success in this league are the
Speaker 1: Thunder out West and the Calves and Celtics out East,
Speaker 1: and we're just not going to get to see it.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, again, even though some of
Speaker 1: that is being left up to you know, hypothesis from us,
Speaker 1: there's a huge part of it that's like, let's not
Speaker 1: overthink it. The Warriors have beat the Thunder twice this year.
Speaker 1: They've beat the Celtics this year. In those games, it
Speaker 1: was a combination of elite defense and Steph rising to
Speaker 1: the occasion and everybody playing well off of it, and
Speaker 1: so like, while there is a good amount of hypothesis here,
Speaker 1: I think it's my personal hypothesis would be that that
Speaker 1: team is one of the top tier teams in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference. Like I think they're at least on the
Speaker 1: same level as Denver and the Lakers, and probably closer
Speaker 1: to the Thunder than we're willing to admit. At a
Speaker 1: certain point, you just don't want to overthink it elite defense,
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Like, I don't need to do
Speaker 1: a ton of second guessing whether or not that team
Speaker 1: is capable of doing damage in the Western Conference. Next question,
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer that the twenty twenty one Lakers
Speaker 1: would have repeated if Lebron and ad were healthy. What
Speaker 1: do you think? Also, you have the best basketball content
Speaker 1: out there keeping up. Thank you so much for the
Speaker 1: kind words. So I think so, hey, really is this simple? Like,
Speaker 1: do you think that the twenty twenty one Milwaukee Bucks
Speaker 1: or the twenty twenty one Phoenix Suns, or the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Hawks or the Clippers of that Kawhi Leonard those were
Speaker 1: literally the final four teams that year as all of
Speaker 1: the elite teams that were great in the previous year
Speaker 1: broke down from all of the extra wear and tear
Speaker 1: that they took on from the bubble, And so like
Speaker 1: they're legitimate champions. The twenty twenty one Milwaukee Bucks, I
Speaker 1: never want to go back and try to try to
Speaker 1: take away credit or anything like that. But who do
Speaker 1: I think was the best team that year? I think
Speaker 1: it was the Lakers because right before Solomon Hill dived
Speaker 1: dove into Lebron's leg, he was playing like one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the league when they were. When
Speaker 1: Lebron was injured, Ad was injured and the team was
Speaker 1: out of rhythm, they still took a two to one
Speaker 1: lead on the Phoenix Suns before Ad pulled his scroin muscle.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they probably would have repeated. But again,
Speaker 1: everyone that year that played in that playoff run broke down,
Speaker 1: like everyone broke down, and so at a certain point,
Speaker 1: like even if they beat the Suns team they could
Speaker 1: have broken down in a later series. It just would
Speaker 1: have been really difficult to turn around and win a
Speaker 1: championship after what happened in that bubble season? Are the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets still contenders? Based on the recent performances against
Speaker 1: good teams? Yoki seems to be playing well, but his
Speaker 1: counterparts are having a lot of issues, be it with
Speaker 1: injuries or finishing plays. Thank you, Jason for your awesome insight.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate it. So I'm having a really,
Speaker 1: really hard time making a read on this Denver Nuggets
Speaker 1: team because, on the one hand, it's abundantly clear as
Speaker 1: you're watching them that they're leaving a lot in reserve,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you
Speaker 1: that they're capable of beating the Washington Wizards or winning
Speaker 1: comfortably against an Austin Reeves led Lakers team that's missing
Speaker 1: four of their five starters. The tricky thing is they
Speaker 1: are practicing playing bad basketball. They are using these games
Speaker 1: in the regular season to play a brand of basketball
Speaker 1: that will get them beat. And so on one hand,
Speaker 1: I look at it like Nikole Jokic tons of continuity.
Speaker 1: We have seen these guys play better defense in the past.
Speaker 1: What if they get to April and it's like Jokic
Speaker 1: starts defending better in ball screens and being more active
Speaker 1: with his hands. Aaron Gordon's there, unhealthy and doing a
Speaker 1: really nice job as a lone man cleaning things up.
Speaker 1: Christian Brown, Peyton Watson are out there as wrecking balls.
Speaker 1: They're just doing their job, and suddenly it comes together.
Speaker 1: Yokics plays like the best player in the world. The
Speaker 1: offense continues to look super smooth as they have all
Speaker 1: that continuity. I'm not gonna sit here and say that's
Speaker 1: not a potential outcome, if, of course it is. But
Speaker 1: NBA history tells us that when you practice playing bad
Speaker 1: basketball in the regular season, like being a bottom ten
Speaker 1: defense the way that the Denver Nuggets are, NBA history
Speaker 1: tells us that team gets beat. So like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to make of it, and like I see
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets fans getting frustrated, I don't blame them like this,
Speaker 1: this roster already has its shortcomings. So if there was
Speaker 1: an opportunity for you, for you to win the title,
Speaker 1: it would be by practicing playing the sharpest and best
Speaker 1: possible basketball that you can play. So, like, everything in
Speaker 1: my brain is screaming, this Denver team can't do it
Speaker 1: because they're just missing these basic checkpoints on the way.
Speaker 1: But there's always a part of like my basketball heart
Speaker 1: that says, don't write off Jokic, Murray, Michael Porter Junior,
Speaker 1: and Aaron Gordon in a playoff series. So to do
Speaker 1: with that bit of information, which you will next question
Speaker 1: who is better? A lot of like little nitty gritty
Speaker 1: Lakers Warriors questions, like a head to head Lakers Warriors
Speaker 1: questions today, which I think are fascinating. Who is better
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves or Brandon Pajemski. They're very different types of players.
Speaker 1: So for instance, like Austin Reeves just averaged thirty one,
Speaker 1: seven and seven over his last three games, Brandon Pajemski
Speaker 1: is not capable of that. So, like, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: that Austin is a substantially better offensive player. But Brandon
Speaker 1: Pajemski has turned into a very reliable guard defender in
Speaker 1: this league who's been doing a really nice job pressuring
Speaker 1: the ball and playing a very important role in the
Speaker 1: Warriors defensive scheme. And he's also been a productive cog
Speaker 1: in the offensive system as kind of like a second
Speaker 1: side action guy and like a connective playmaker.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So to put that into a more concise statement, I
Speaker 1: would say that Austin is better than Pods in my opinion,
Speaker 1: But the gap smaller than the.
Speaker 2: Statistical performance would lead you to believe.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed any difference in Luca's ability to beat
Speaker 1: people off the ball? Is it just me or has
Speaker 1: he struggled a bit more in that department? And are
Speaker 1: you concerned about it? I'm not concerned about that at
Speaker 1: all whatsoever. Uh, Luca had a move against KD in
Speaker 1: the early first quarter yesterday. It was the one that
Speaker 1: put them up twenty to nine, where he chained together
Speaker 1: like a aggressive move to the left, a counter moved
Speaker 1: to the right, and then a pullback dribble and like
Speaker 1: stopped on a dime on the pullback dribble. Like it
Speaker 1: literally looked like someone hit like pause and rewind instantaneously,
Speaker 1: like he was moving forward and suddenly he was moving backwards.
Speaker 1: It was very similar to the movie hit Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: with in the Western Conference Finals game winner in Game two,
Speaker 1: And on that move, I was like, oh, like, Luca's
Speaker 1: really starting to get his legs back underneath him.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: He did have a pretty bad ankle sprain yesterday and
Speaker 1: who knows what that means for his mobility and the
Speaker 1: big picture. But honestly, to take to go even deeper
Speaker 1: to the root of your question, do I have concern
Speaker 1: about Luca's ability to beat people off the ball even
Speaker 1: when he was in terrible shape in the early Lakers games.
Speaker 1: He's just so big and strong, and he's just so
Speaker 1: good at getting defenders to lean the wrong way. With
Speaker 1: his fakes that even when he was out of shape,
Speaker 1: he was rumbling his way downhill towards the rim. Like
Speaker 1: Luca's ability to get the ball into the paint is
Speaker 1: such an incredible asset in one of the most underrated
Speaker 1: parts of his game because it's super resilient. It's a
Speaker 1: trait that works against just about everybody in just about
Speaker 1: every scheme except for a blitz, which now you're playing
Speaker 1: four on three out of anyway. Thanks question, how do
Speaker 1: you perceive Steph Curry's two finals that he won with
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant on the roster. Seems to me the larger
Speaker 1: NBA fan base and analysts write them off because Steph
Speaker 1: didn't win Finals MVP, although he played at an extremely
Speaker 1: high level. How did they factor into his legacy? In
Speaker 1: your view? This is a super complex and loaded question.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody cares necessarily that he didn't win
Speaker 1: Finals MVP. I've seen like some lowbrow stuff, like just
Speaker 1: like trolls kind of focusing on that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I do think that there's some reality to the basic
Speaker 1: fact that every NBA championship has a different level of
Speaker 1: resonence with people. This goes like, let's just go back
Speaker 1: through through recent NBA history, Like, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are profoundly moved by the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Celtics, who have five players who catch over thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars a year on the open market, beating the
Speaker 1: Pacers and the injury ravaged Pacers and the injury ravaged
Speaker 1: Calves along the way to winning a title against a
Speaker 1: good Western Conference team, but a team, a Western Conference
Speaker 1: team that nobody thought was the best Western Conference team
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: Like that title still a title.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna get a lot of casual fans that
Speaker 1: are like, oh, my goodness, this is the most impressive
Speaker 1: thing anyone's ever done. Same sort of thing goes with
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets if you look through like they were
Speaker 1: considered one of the better teams in the league, but
Speaker 1: they faced a lot of like semi limited teams along
Speaker 1: the way, and then they didn't have to face the
Speaker 1: team out of the Eastern Conference that everybody feared, which
Speaker 1: was the Boston Celtics or the Milwaukee Bucks. And so
Speaker 1: it has a certain amount of like do just a
Speaker 1: little bit of a weird kind of like public perception
Speaker 1: of that title. Twenty twenty two when Steph Curry beat
Speaker 1: that Celtics team and that team didn't have a secondary star. Like,
Speaker 1: of all of the championships Steph won, that is by
Speaker 1: far the most resident. That is the championship that when
Speaker 1: you look back, like that's the one that's unassailable. That's
Speaker 1: the one that even the people that don't like Steph
Speaker 1: that much are like, holy shit, that was crazy, Like
Speaker 1: down two to one on the road in Boston, hitting
Speaker 1: all those crazy, insane shots he did to drop a
Speaker 1: forty piece to win the title, like that was crazy, right,
Speaker 1: Like even I could say the same thing in reverse
Speaker 1: about Lebron, Like Lebron's twenty twenty title when he won
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis, that title is the least resonant of
Speaker 1: the four that Lebron won. If you go back to
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, that was Lebron's title. That was similar to
Speaker 1: the Steph one in twenty twenty three, where it's like,
Speaker 1: that's unassailable, you can't shit on that. That is the accomplishment,
Speaker 1: that is the defining moment of Lebron's career. That twenty
Speaker 1: twenty titles still championship, it still counts in the leisure
Speaker 1: but it's not the one that's going to resonate for
Speaker 1: the length of time that we talk about Lebron James
Speaker 1: the way that that twenty sixteen title does, or the
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen when they're down three to two in the
Speaker 1: finals and they have to go to seven games in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals and the NBA Finals, those resonate
Speaker 1: differently with Steph as you look back to the twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen finals. Here's the simplest way that I could put
Speaker 1: it to you, guys. In twenty seventeen, before the season
Speaker 1: and in twenty eighteen, before the season, the Warriors were
Speaker 1: so favored over the field that before the season started,
Speaker 1: so in early October, the sports books had them as
Speaker 1: a negative odds favorite to win the title, meaning if
Speaker 1: you bet a dollar in October for the Warriors to
Speaker 1: win the title, you were gonna win less than a dollar.
Speaker 1: That is how clearly more talented that team was than
Speaker 1: anyone else in the league. Doesn't mean they're not champions,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean those titles don't count, but yeah, like think
Speaker 1: about what think about a bet you've placed recently on
Speaker 1: DraftKings where you received negative odds, and like, think about
Speaker 1: how you expected that team to win, or you expected
Speaker 1: that player to hit those points, rebounds, assists, score a touchdown,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, you expected it with the negative odds.
Speaker 1: That's how everyone felt about those Warriors teams before we
Speaker 1: even started playing basketball. So at a certain point, I
Speaker 1: do think it's worth at least acknowledging that those titles
Speaker 1: carry a different level of weight in the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion. But it doesn't change the fact that at
Speaker 1: the time I still believed Steph was one of the
Speaker 1: greatest players in NBA history, who was more than good
Speaker 1: enough to be the best player in a champmpionship team,
Speaker 1: thus a champion and should be respected as such. So
Speaker 1: on and so forth for KD, Like to me, I
Speaker 1: didn't need to see KD go to the Warriors in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen to know that he could be a champion.
Speaker 1: He was playing with Russell Westbrook, who was like, you know,
Speaker 1: like a kind of a hectic basketball player that made
Speaker 1: a lot of big mistakes in big spots, and his
Speaker 1: team didn't have a lot of offensive talent around him. Was
Speaker 1: a very big, bruising type of team. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, KD doesn't share some blame
Speaker 1: for the failures of the thunder beforehand. But I knew
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen that KD was good enough to be
Speaker 1: a champion and thus a championship level player. He just
Speaker 1: hadn't done it yet. And so like, like that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't take us seeing Steph in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: or twenty twenty two winning a title against long odds
Speaker 1: for us to acknowledge that he's a champion. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: take Lebron winning a title in twenty sixteen against long
Speaker 1: odds for us to acknowledge that he's a champion type
Speaker 1: that type of all time great. But it's just kind
Speaker 1: of of unfortunately the way that it works in the
Speaker 1: court of public opinion. To put it simply, just like
Speaker 1: anytime you watch anybody do everything or anything, the degree
Speaker 1: of difficulty matters and how impressed you are. I watched
Speaker 1: John Mayer once at the Sphere play an entire two
Speaker 1: shows missing his index finger on his fretting hand, and
Speaker 1: that was far more impressive than anything I've ever seen
Speaker 1: him do because of the degree of difficulty it is.
Speaker 1: It is just a natural part of the way that
Speaker 1: we process information. So yeah, like to me, they were
Speaker 1: champions at championships. To me, they you know, kind of
Speaker 1: add to the story of Steph Curry's career. But like
Speaker 1: when someone asks me to explain to them, tell me
Speaker 1: about Steph Curry twenty years from now. Tell me about
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, Tell me about why he was as good
Speaker 1: as he was, tell me about his greatest accomplishments. I'm
Speaker 1: probably not going to talk a ton about twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen because there was very little in the
Speaker 1: way of adversity in those seasons. Like I've said this
Speaker 1: before on the record, everyone says, oh, if Chris Paul
Speaker 1: didn't get hurt, they might have lost in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: I don't feel that way. I think that the Warriors.
Speaker 1: And must win games in Game six and Game seven
Speaker 1: would have got it done. I think that lineup that
Speaker 1: Steph kd Klay Thompson at the peak of his powers,
Speaker 1: Draymond Green, best defensive player in the league, Andre Gudala
Speaker 1: is still good and mobile at that point, that was
Speaker 1: the best five man lineup that has ever been constructed
Speaker 1: on a normal basketball team, not counting like All Star
Speaker 1: teams or Team USA. And so that certainly is going
Speaker 1: to play a role in their.
Speaker 2: Ability to win a championship.
Speaker 1: Who do you think would win in a playoff series
Speaker 1: with the Lakers versus Warriors? Like I said, I had
Speaker 1: a couple questions this year about specifically about Lakers versus Warriors,
Speaker 1: or this mailbag specifically about Lakers versus Warriors. Who do
Speaker 1: you think would win a playoff series Lakers with Warriors
Speaker 1: with a healthy Lebron and why I think the Lakers
Speaker 1: would win this series. There are two reasons why, in
Speaker 1: particular that I think the Lakers would do really well
Speaker 1: in this particular matchup. As we saw in the Boston game,
Speaker 1: and as I've talked about extensively, this is a Lakers
Speaker 1: defense that has been the number one defense in the
Speaker 1: NBA for a long time, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why has been JJ Redick's game planning. They have been very,
Speaker 1: very good at finding the guys on the floor that
Speaker 1: they can help off of, in using those guys as
Speaker 1: roamers and rotators, and targeting all their defensive attention against
Speaker 1: the skilled offensive players on the floor. Boston was uniquely
Speaker 1: equipped to truly space. The Lakers out enforce Austin and
Speaker 1: Luca at a guard in space and they had some issues.
Speaker 1: And I still am concerned about the Lakers in a
Speaker 1: Celtics particular matchup against the Warriors again. And there have
Speaker 1: been nights when we had a night the other day
Speaker 1: where against the Kings where Draymond Green and Gary Payton
Speaker 1: went you know, seven for eleven from three, and like
Speaker 1: they might have a game like that or two in
Speaker 1: a series against the Lakers where it ends up going
Speaker 1: the other way. But like the Lakers have the personnel
Speaker 1: to help the Warriors, excuse me, have the personnel that
Speaker 1: the Lakers can help off of. And in that context,
Speaker 1: the Lakers have literally been the best defense in basketball
Speaker 1: for a while. So like they have the ability to
Speaker 1: guard Golden State in a certain way that they can
Speaker 1: struggle against a team like Boston for instance. And then
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor, you're talking about
Speaker 1: two giant matchup attacking forwards and Lebron James and Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic that are consistently going to have two or three
Speaker 1: guys on the floor that they can attack. There's just
Speaker 1: a lot of perimeter, a lack of perimeter size with
Speaker 1: Golden State that Lebron and Luca will take advantage of
Speaker 1: and it's like, Okay, well what if we just put
Speaker 1: Draymond on Luca and we put Jimmy Butler on Lebron. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have zero size on the back line. Now, who's
Speaker 1: gonna guard Ruy? Hatchro Mura, Who's gonna guard Austin Reeves?
Speaker 1: Like it turn into a situation where the Lakers just
Speaker 1: have matchup advantages all over the floor in that particular matchup.
Speaker 1: And while yes, Steph is a problem and the Lakers
Speaker 1: don't have a good guard defender on the roster, they
Speaker 1: have the tools to because of Golden State's non shooters
Speaker 1: on the floor, to consistently keep Steph in a crowd,
Speaker 1: Whereas the Lakers can put together lineups with Austin Ruy,
Speaker 1: Dorian Finney Smith, Lebron, and Luca where you literally cannot
Speaker 1: help off of anybody. And Lebron and Luke are going
Speaker 1: to get to take their pick on which matchups they.
Speaker 2: Want to attack.
Speaker 1: Like, I am tempted to pick the Lakers to win
Speaker 1: the West if they're healthy. That's how high I view
Speaker 1: that team when they're actually put together when they're healthy.
Speaker 1: I'm not one hundred percent sure about that yet. I'm
Speaker 1: waiting until we get closer to the playoffs to make
Speaker 1: my final take on that front. But like, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: high on this Lakers team. I think they're going to
Speaker 1: be really, really good. Like Okasee and Boston are really
Speaker 1: the two teams that I'm particularly worried about there, So
Speaker 1: I would pick them against the Warriors in a playoff series.
Speaker 1: Next question, why can't the Mavericks just stop? It's embarrassing
Speaker 1: talking about the Patrick Dumont interview that was released the
Speaker 1: other day. So the Patrick Dumont interview, you guys saw
Speaker 1: that when he gave that long spiel. There's a bunch
Speaker 1: of really problematic stuff in that interview. There's one where
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, I have you running the MAVs
Speaker 1: as like a family operation. It's something I do with
Speaker 1: my wife and kids. Immediately I'm like, boom, you're setting
Speaker 1: yourself up for failure because it's like like that, I've
Speaker 1: seen this. This happens a lot more in the NBA
Speaker 1: than you think. This is why it's so ridiculous that
Speaker 1: everyone's hyper critical of Lebron forgetting his kid a end
Speaker 1: of the bench spot on the Los Angeles Lakers. Is like,
Speaker 1: there are many franchises around the league that are rampant
Speaker 1: with nepotism, like rampant with it. There are front offices
Speaker 1: that I won't get into it, but there are multiple
Speaker 1: front offices where it's like a known commodity around the
Speaker 1: league that they let incompetent people make decisions because they're
Speaker 1: related to the owners. Like it is, it is a
Speaker 1: problem around the entire league. But when I saw that
Speaker 1: from Patrick Demona, I was like, dude, like, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to say the quiet part out loud, Like I
Speaker 1: let my wife and kids and my mother in law
Speaker 1: make these big picture decisions about our basketball team. That's
Speaker 1: just foolishness. Let basketball experts who have dedicated their life
Speaker 1: to understanding the game of basketball make your basketball decisions.
Speaker 1: If you're not interested in doing that, you're not a
Speaker 1: serious team. The second piece of it was that long
Speaker 1: drawn out expression of why they traded Luca, And there
Speaker 1: wasn't a ton of substance offered in there, But one
Speaker 1: of the big things that he kept harping on was
Speaker 1: the idea that they weren't close. You know, we felt
Speaker 1: like we weren't close in the finals, and then we
Speaker 1: get into the regular season and all these other teams
Speaker 1: are better and blah blah, blah blah. And the part
Speaker 1: that bothered me about that is, you guys, remember how
Speaker 1: I was talking about the Mavericks in the early part
Speaker 1: of the season. I viewed them as the most talented
Speaker 1: roster in the Western Conference overall when Luca was healthy,
Speaker 1: Like when I looked at that roster as a roster
Speaker 1: that can cause some serious problems when Luca was healthy,
Speaker 1: they were competitive all year without Luca. And so it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where like any take he had,
Speaker 1: as it pertains to oh, the rest of the league
Speaker 1: got better. You added Klay Thompson, you added Naji Marshall,
Speaker 1: you brought in a bunch of ball handling. You addressed
Speaker 1: some specific problems that you had last year.
Speaker 2: PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington was shooting better on above the break threes after
Speaker 1: being terrible on him last year in the postseason, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of specific things were tilting towards this is
Speaker 1: gonna work when Luca comes back. And so like, here's
Speaker 1: the thing, there is no case for trading Luca the
Speaker 1: way they did. So what these people need to do
Speaker 1: is get the hell out of the media and just go.
Speaker 1: If you have some ulterior motive, whether it's moving the
Speaker 1: team to a different city, or maybe you just hate
Speaker 1: Lucas as a personal beef. Whatever the issue is, stop
Speaker 1: talking about it because when you talk about it, you
Speaker 1: guys just sound like imbeciles, every single one of you.
Speaker 2: There's no good take.
Speaker 1: There's no rationale that holds up for shipping off a
Speaker 1: twenty five year old prospect who's already one of the
Speaker 1: greatest players in the history of the league in that
Speaker 1: span of his career and who continued to trend forward.
Speaker 1: It was completely acidine. There's no way around it. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I just feel really bad for MAVs fans, and I'm
Speaker 1: with you, guys. Why can't the Mavericks just stop? I agree,
Speaker 1: they need to just stop. What's done is done. Stop
Speaker 1: the media tour. You don't sound savvy explaining to everybody
Speaker 1: how you run your team and why you got rid
Speaker 1: of Luca. You look like an imbecile. Last question before
Speaker 1: we get out of here, when did you start experiencing
Speaker 1: growth spurts and how painful was it if it was.
Speaker 1: I grew a ton in high school. I was five
Speaker 1: foot ten as a freshman, and between my freshman year
Speaker 1: and my junior year, I skyrocketed up to six point
Speaker 1: four or excuse me, six foot four, and then I
Speaker 1: got up to sixty six as a senior, and it
Speaker 1: immediately manifested in like creaky joints. I like literally used
Speaker 1: to run around like Bambi when I was in high school.
Speaker 2: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Famously, when I was a senior, I had a breakaway
Speaker 1: dunk against the worst team and like I was terrible
Speaker 1: high school basketball player. I was a super late bloomer.
Speaker 1: And we played against this team in Tucson that was
Speaker 1: one of the lesser high schools in town. So I
Speaker 1: finally got an opportunity to play because it was one
Speaker 1: of the worst players on the team. And at six
Speaker 1: foot six, I had a breakaway and I went up
Speaker 1: to like go dunk it, and like my knee like buckled,
Speaker 1: and I just threw the ball into the bottom of
Speaker 1: the rim, and thank god I didn't fall over. But
Speaker 1: like it was about one of the most embarrassing things
Speaker 1: that I that I can remember in my time as
Speaker 1: a basketball player, and it was because I just grew
Speaker 1: way too fast in such a short period of time.
Speaker 1: There was a good amount of pain in that phase.
Speaker 1: And like I also had really bad acne when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, and I actually went on acutane.
Speaker 1: And if any of you guys have ever done any
Speaker 1: research on accutane, it like literally dries out your joints,
Speaker 1: so like in addition to the growth spurt stuff, I
Speaker 1: also like my joints weren't properly lubricated because of me
Speaker 1: using acutane, and so I was just in pain literally
Speaker 1: all the time. But it was funny because I ended
Speaker 1: up like growing into my body as soon as I
Speaker 1: got to like nineteen twenty years old, and at that
Speaker 1: point I became like freaky athletic, like I had like
Speaker 1: about a forty inth vertical and I remember it was
Speaker 1: so funny. I had a buddy of mine who came
Speaker 1: to one of my Juco games and he, you know,
Speaker 1: he just happened to stop by. He's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I want to come check out your game. He came
Speaker 1: to sat up in the bleachers in the corner by himself,
Speaker 1: and we rode to the game together because we lived
Speaker 1: in Tucson together at the time. And I had a
Speaker 1: breakaway dunk, like a steal and a breakaway and and
Speaker 1: I just like literally just did like a backscratcher, like
Speaker 1: touch the ball on my shoulder blades and like chucked
Speaker 1: it through the rim as hard as I could. And
Speaker 1: we were in the car on the way home, and
Speaker 1: my buddy's like looking at me, and he's like, were
Speaker 1: you thinking about the Desert View game when you had
Speaker 1: that fast break? And I was like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the Desert View game because it was like
Speaker 1: every time i'd get a breakaway, I would just think
Speaker 1: about this like horrible embarrassing moment that I had when
Speaker 1: I was in high schoo But yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: was a late bloomer in general, and I grew a
Speaker 1: ton in those couple of years, and so I just
Speaker 1: couldn't move. And then what ended up happening is I
Speaker 1: just kind of grew into my body and then suddenly
Speaker 1: I can move, and it ended up being like a
Speaker 1: strength attribute for me when I was playing basketball in college.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, It's all I have for today is
Speaker 1: always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and
Speaker 1: supporting the show, the volume.
Speaker 2: What's up guys?
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Speaker 1: OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us,
Speaker 1: if you guys would take a second and leave a
Speaker 1: rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
Speaker 1: do that, I'd really appreciate it.