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Speaker 1: You're at the volume. Have you Wednesday? Everybody? If all
Speaker 1: of you guys are having an incredible week, we got
Speaker 1: a double show day for you today. So we're going
Speaker 1: short this morning. We're just gonna hit one game from
Speaker 1: last night. The Denver Nuggets went into Minnesota and beat
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves, albeit very shorthanded. We had a weird slate
Speaker 1: last night. At the other four games that were played,
Speaker 1: five of those eight teams were below five hundred, So
Speaker 1: we're just focusing in on Nuggets Timberwolves as a game reaction.
Speaker 1: After that, Lebron James and JJ Reddick had their first
Speaker 1: episode of their Mind of the Game podcast, and there
Speaker 1: were several basketball concepts that were hit in that show
Speaker 1: that I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into,
Speaker 1: so we'll do that in our middle segment. And then
Speaker 1: at the end, I've got four mail bag questions for us,
Speaker 1: some follow ups from yesterday's stuff about the goat debate,
Speaker 1: as well as some stuff about the Warriors and bam
Speaker 1: Adepayo who's made five of his last five threes in
Speaker 1: the last four games. You guys know the joe for
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Speaker 1: so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the sea. And then before we get started, this is
Speaker 1: the best time of year to go out to a
Speaker 1: basketball game. Yes, we enjoy watching basketball on our couches
Speaker 1: as much as we can in our busy lives. But
Speaker 1: this is the best time of year to get out
Speaker 1: to an arena. And I don't think there's a better
Speaker 1: version of the in person basketball fan experience than going
Speaker 1: to an NCAA tournament game. I've been fortunate to go
Speaker 1: to an Elite eight game before in my life. And
Speaker 1: when you go to these NCAA tournament games, they have
Speaker 1: these like crazy crowd dynamics where both teams have incredible
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Speaker 1: Don't forget about our playoff basketball for the NBA as well.
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Speaker 1: Timberwolves was kind of a funky game. The Timberwolves had
Speaker 1: just played the previous night in Utah, had one of
Speaker 1: those crazy like back to back things where they got
Speaker 1: back into town at like three am. Rudy Gobert is
Speaker 1: already out with an injury. Now Nas Reed as a
Speaker 1: result of the back to back is out, and obviously
Speaker 1: Carl Townds is out with the miniscus tear. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you have an incredibly small Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 1: team that typically obviously brings a very massive front line
Speaker 1: to the table, and so they started without a center
Speaker 1: in this game. They brought Ni Alexander Walker into the
Speaker 1: starting lineup and slid Kyle Anderson down to center, brought
Speaker 1: Luca Garza off the bench, who obviously has his own
Speaker 1: limitations physically against some of the bigger centers in the league,
Speaker 1: and he can shoot the ball, which kind of brings
Speaker 1: a similar dynamic to guys like Carl Towns and Naz Reid,
Speaker 1: but just not enough size on the front line. And
Speaker 1: Timberwolves they fought admirably they went down big early then
Speaker 1: went not a big run, but really it felt like
Speaker 1: whenever Denver was, you know, able to kind of engage
Speaker 1: themselves for a couple of minutes, they were able to
Speaker 1: pull away. I thought the key stretch of the game
Speaker 1: was in the middle of the fourth quarter. I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about like the that the Denver rotation, and
Speaker 1: one of the ways that it kind of swings is
Speaker 1: to start the second and fourth quarters, they'll go with
Speaker 1: like Jamal Murray and a bench group and they'll switch
Speaker 1: everything and they'll flow a lot through Jamal on the
Speaker 1: ball and kind of just let him pick his spots
Speaker 1: and really lean on one on one basketball, just kind
Speaker 1: of matchup hunting. But then they go into like a
Speaker 1: phase in the middle of the second quarter, middle of
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter where they take Jamal off and they
Speaker 1: bring the center the starters on basically, and it's it's
Speaker 1: usually the starters, but with Reggie Jackson in for Jamal Murray.
Speaker 1: Was a little funky in this middle of the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter stretch because I'm not sure exactly why, but they
Speaker 1: left Aaron Gordon out longer, so Justin Holliday was in
Speaker 1: in the group. It was a little bit of a
Speaker 1: smaller lineup. I think that might have been an attempt
Speaker 1: to try to generate some more spacing, because obviously when
Speaker 1: the Wolves went smaller, they's smaller with a ton of
Speaker 1: really good perimeter defenders, and so obviously to beat really
Speaker 1: good perimeter defenders off the dribble and to try to
Speaker 1: get into the lane and get good shots sometimes it
Speaker 1: helps to have a little bit more spacing. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that's what they were going with, but who knows. But
Speaker 1: Eric Gordon was out, so it was basically the starters
Speaker 1: with Justin Holliday and Reggie Jackson in for Gordon and Murray,
Speaker 1: and they went really heavy into the Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: and Nicole Yokics two man game, and the Wolves had
Speaker 1: got up four. They were up four in that kind
Speaker 1: of middle portion of the fourth quarter off of a
Speaker 1: Luke Garza Friezo Luca Garza free throw, and they go
Speaker 1: down and they run MPJ Yokics two man game. A
Speaker 1: couple possessions in a row is a textbook example of
Speaker 1: the setup in the fake. So they start with the
Speaker 1: dribble handoff, Jokic pitches it to MPJ. MPJ comes off
Speaker 1: going to his left hand side hard step back dribble
Speaker 1: knocks down at three on the left wing, and then
Speaker 1: on the very next possession they go to run the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. MPJ positions himself, the defenders getting physical
Speaker 1: with him and trying to bump him off of that line,
Speaker 1: and MPJ just stunts like he's gonna come off the
Speaker 1: dribble handoff and cuts back door. Yokic hits him on
Speaker 1: the slip. He dunks on a bunch of people underneath
Speaker 1: the basket. So now we've run the same drible handoff sequence,
Speaker 1: just with the fake on the back end. We get
Speaker 1: five easy points. They go down, they get a stop,
Speaker 1: and MPG in transition hits a step back jump shot
Speaker 1: over Jade McDaniels, beating him with kind of like a
Speaker 1: pump fake and then a little off the dribble move
Speaker 1: going towards his left, and you know, it is a
Speaker 1: great example of what we talked about a lot, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, MIKEL. Porter Junior, in my opinion, has a
Speaker 1: lot more dribble pop, a lot more you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like ability to scale up offensively than he even
Speaker 1: shows for large portions of the season. And you know,
Speaker 1: when he has an opportunity to kind of get more
Speaker 1: of the offense run directly through him. He can show
Speaker 1: you that he can be a guy that can kind
Speaker 1: of anchor an offense for a stretch, and that bigs.
Speaker 1: I thought that swung the game. You know, like Minnesota
Speaker 1: a ton of momentum. Anthony Everards was playing out of
Speaker 1: his mind making all these crazy shots without a half
Speaker 1: dozen highlights from Anthony Edwards in this game, and it
Speaker 1: just kind of felt like the momentum was heading Minnesota's way.
Speaker 1: And when I tell you that sequence, those three possessions
Speaker 1: completely flipped the game. And then Jokic hit three threes
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter and just like that, the game
Speaker 1: was basically over. I wanted to talk about Jokic working
Speaker 1: on his jumper for a little bit because I thought
Speaker 1: this was a clear kind of tone that he was
Speaker 1: setting early. So he was being guarded by Kyle Anderson
Speaker 1: and he had plenty of opportunities to just kind of
Speaker 1: physically bully his way to the basket. And the dead
Speaker 1: giveaway was early in the game. Jokicic was just bombing
Speaker 1: fadeaways out of the post and he made I think
Speaker 1: he made one or two of them. But he was
Speaker 1: missing a lot of them, but he was just bombing fadeaways.
Speaker 1: And then you go into the end of the game
Speaker 1: and he's bombing these long threes and some of them
Speaker 1: are contested and earlier in the shot clock, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is interesting, and I really think Jokic is just
Speaker 1: trying to polish up his jump shot to get ready
Speaker 1: for the postseason. This is something I've talked about a
Speaker 1: good amount this year. But like the one thing I
Speaker 1: still even in spite of this, I think Jokic is
Speaker 1: the best player in the world by a comfortable margin.
Speaker 1: But if you had to nitpick Jokic for something this year,
Speaker 1: he just hasn't been as accurate as a jump shooter
Speaker 1: as he was last year. To give you an idea,
Speaker 1: last year, in the regular season, a Jokis jump shot
Speaker 1: was worth one point one seven points per shot, and
Speaker 1: in the postseason it went up from one point one
Speaker 1: seven to one point two to one points per jump shot.
Speaker 1: So from basically training camp through to when they hoisted
Speaker 1: the trophy, Jokic was making his jumper at just a
Speaker 1: preposterous rate. You know, before the last couple of games
Speaker 1: this season, he had been down to zero point ninety
Speaker 1: nine points per jump shot, and in the last couple
Speaker 1: of games he shot well enough to tick it up,
Speaker 1: but still at this point for the entire season, he's
Speaker 1: at one point zero one points per jump shot. So basically,
Speaker 1: like to put it simply, he is about what fifteen
Speaker 1: somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent worse as a jump
Speaker 1: shooter this year as he was last year. Now, the
Speaker 1: big question what I've been saying is like, it's not
Speaker 1: so much whether or not he it's not so much
Speaker 1: whether or not he's bombing the exact same types of
Speaker 1: really difficult shots that he was last year in the postseason,
Speaker 1: because I really do think that Jokicic just kind of
Speaker 1: was in his zone in a lot of ways, and
Speaker 1: he was hitting some really like you'd a bunch of
Speaker 1: the somber shuffle shots and just a bunch of really
Speaker 1: absurdly difficult shots. I'm more concerned about it in the
Speaker 1: perspective of the pick and pop, like I don't really
Speaker 1: look at those individual like crazy shots as massive swing
Speaker 1: factors over the course of a playoff runt, Like those
Speaker 1: are big plays and they obviously served their purpose, but
Speaker 1: those get categorized for me under rescue possession, which is
Speaker 1: like this is like there's a few seconds on the
Speaker 1: shot clock and we're just throwing something up. I'm more
Speaker 1: concerned about, like, a big part of Jokic's offense last
Speaker 1: year was the pick and pop and you know, hitting
Speaker 1: not just the pick and pop three, but getting a
Speaker 1: lot of close out opportunities off that where he pumped
Speaker 1: fake and then kind of rumbled down the lane towards
Speaker 1: his left hand side and get all the way to
Speaker 1: the rim for a layup or be able to make
Speaker 1: really good kickout reads for high quality shots from there.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it hasn't been a problem in the
Speaker 1: regular season for the most part, because obviously Jokic is
Speaker 1: still the best player in the world, and over the
Speaker 1: course of the eighty two it's it's just not something
Speaker 1: that's gonna manifest. But I do think that it's an
Speaker 1: important element to him being able to counter some of
Speaker 1: the very best teams at the top of the league
Speaker 1: when we get to the later rounds of the postseason.
Speaker 1: And so I think what was really encouraging about last
Speaker 1: night is I think Jokic knows that. Because Jokic is
Speaker 1: very much not the kind of guy this year that
Speaker 1: would be bombing fadeaways when he has a significant size
Speaker 1: advantage or taking somewhat early clock contested threes. I think
Speaker 1: Jokic senses the urgency. I think he knows he's gonna
Speaker 1: need that shot to a certain extent when he gets
Speaker 1: into the postseason. And I think he's ramping up now.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's middle March, today's March twentieth. We got
Speaker 1: what like three weeks or so until we get into
Speaker 1: the into the three and a half weeks, four weeks
Speaker 1: or whatever until we get into the postseason, and I
Speaker 1: think he's just trying to build it out, trying to
Speaker 1: build that rhythm, regain that confidence. We'll be keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on his jump shot over the course of the
Speaker 1: last few weeks of the regular season here, because I
Speaker 1: think that's going to be a strong endict because here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If he shoots the ball like he did
Speaker 1: last year, they're just gonna win again. That to me
Speaker 1: is like what makes Jokic, being just a complete and
Speaker 1: total dead eye jump shooter pretty much makes Denver unbeatable.
Speaker 1: And I think Jokic has identified that and is really
Speaker 1: trying to build it out on the Wolves front. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Ant for a minute. I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun watching him this year. He won
Speaker 1: me over in a lot of ways. Last year I
Speaker 1: became a huge fan of the Timberwolves towards the tail
Speaker 1: end of the season as just a team that brought
Speaker 1: an insane level of physicality on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. And I just am a huge believer in Ant.
Speaker 1: I think he's the one American player that has like
Speaker 1: the real potential to rival these European bigs that are
Speaker 1: killing everybody, right, And you know, watching him lately as
Speaker 1: reminded me a lot of young Lebron James. And they're
Speaker 1: not very similar as players, but they are similar as
Speaker 1: transcendent athletes. And it kind of reminds me of young
Speaker 1: Lebron in the sense like when you watched young Lebron,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking like two thousand and three to twenty ten,
Speaker 1: like that first Cleveland stint, it was like every single
Speaker 1: night you watched him, he was making a half dozen
Speaker 1: highlight plays like I like, and they're all different, right,
Speaker 1: It'd be like a crazy tip dunk, classic transition runout,
Speaker 1: some sort of half court driving dunk in traffic that
Speaker 1: just defies any sort of logic. One of the similarities
Speaker 1: that I see between ant and Lebron and their younger
Speaker 1: phase is the ability to take and make extremely difficult
Speaker 1: jump shots. When we talk about movement jump shots, so
Speaker 1: like that's anything that's flying off a screen and rising
Speaker 1: up and shooting some sort of dribble combination into a shot,
Speaker 1: host fadeaways, all that kind of stuff. The difficulty in
Speaker 1: those shots is not actually in the release. It's in
Speaker 1: the legs. It's in the base. If you I have
Speaker 1: found personally when I'm taking post fades, step back threes,
Speaker 1: things along those lines. As long as I get my lift,
Speaker 1: meaning like I get enough separation to get to my
Speaker 1: spot and I get great lift on the shot, the
Speaker 1: actual shot itself is just a jump shot, that's all
Speaker 1: it is, and as long as you have the appropriate
Speaker 1: amount of lyft, it feels more or less like a
Speaker 1: normal you know, a patch and shoot jump shot does
Speaker 1: there occasionally can get to another level of difficulty when
Speaker 1: you're drifting, because obviously the aiming element is a little
Speaker 1: bit different, But it's all about legs. Those shots are
Speaker 1: all about legs. And Lebron when he was young and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards in this phase of his career. They have
Speaker 1: just this preposterous level of athleticism to where they can
Speaker 1: elevate out of really any spot or footwork ordriple combination
Speaker 1: and get great lift, and so they get to these
Speaker 1: like so the highlights for and it's not just the dunks,
Speaker 1: it's not just the the there's some footwork stuff we're
Speaker 1: going to get to in a second that he does too,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it is like really high level,
Speaker 1: difficult jump shot making off of the virtue or off
Speaker 1: of the strength and power of his incredible athleticism in
Speaker 1: his leg strength. We're seeing all this Like another big
Speaker 1: element of the ant highlight reel has been footwork as
Speaker 1: of late, and I think a lot of times we
Speaker 1: don't associate footwork as a skill when it really is
Speaker 1: like you work on ball handling, you work on shooting,
Speaker 1: But footwork is what connects all of those things. The
Speaker 1: only thing that will ever make it so that you
Speaker 1: can use your ball handling to get to a spot
Speaker 1: and then actually make a shot in that spot. The
Speaker 1: bridge that connects those two things is footwork. And so
Speaker 1: the two main pieces of footwork that I wanted to
Speaker 1: dive into for Ant are his slow down steps. So
Speaker 1: this is one of the things he does in the
Speaker 1: lane where like he's this freaky athlete, but he'll slow
Speaker 1: down and take long, powerful steps. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that that does is when Ant beats a guy
Speaker 1: off the dribble, everyone's trying to recover back into space.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times by slowing down he can
Speaker 1: find openings because the dudes who are recovering into the
Speaker 1: player coming in too fast, and so when he slows
Speaker 1: himself down, he can kind of wait for an opening
Speaker 1: to generate and then kind of slide into that opening
Speaker 1: and go He'll hit euro steps. Out of that, he'll
Speaker 1: hit like side step like kind of hooks and floaters
Speaker 1: and things like that. And then the second big one
Speaker 1: is step throughs. And this is a fundamental part of
Speaker 1: a fundamental counter to the post fade, and this kind
Speaker 1: of originally, you know, we talk a lot about Kobe
Speaker 1: and MJ with this stuff, and Ant has definitely taken
Speaker 1: a big part of this. But like, we don't really
Speaker 1: see a lot of guys in the NBA that utilize
Speaker 1: the step through these days. We see post fades. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of guys that take post fades, But
Speaker 1: the step through is kind of something that is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lost art in the NBA, and
Speaker 1: it's been a big thing in the in the women's game.
Speaker 1: I've noticed, like the step through is is is very
Speaker 1: prominent when you watch women's college troops in WNBA basketball,
Speaker 1: where like the footwork is really sharp at that lot.
Speaker 1: Skill development in general in the women's game is super
Speaker 1: super sharp. But like essentially what a step through is
Speaker 1: when you think of a right shoulder fade in the
Speaker 1: left shoulder fade, the footwork, the way it works is
Speaker 1: like if I have my back to the basket and
Speaker 1: I kind of pivot back and then I pivot over
Speaker 1: my right shoulder to take a right shoulder fade, I'm
Speaker 1: planting my left foot right as I elevate into the shot.
Speaker 1: And if I take a left shoulder fade over this shoulder,
Speaker 1: I'm planting my right foot as I'm coming around to
Speaker 1: elevate and I'm trying to square up in mid air.
Speaker 1: So basically all you're doing on a step through is
Speaker 1: let's start with the right shoulder fade. As I'm coming
Speaker 1: around to plant for that right shoulder fade, I pump
Speaker 1: fake and then I just continue to pivot around. So
Speaker 1: it's like it is basically a double pivot. It's the
Speaker 1: exact same footwork that you would to plant to elevate,
Speaker 1: but I'm planting again and pushing off and propelling myself
Speaker 1: forward towards the rim. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I never saw it until it became
Speaker 1: super popular in the women's game, but you can actually
Speaker 1: take another step on your step through. And that's something
Speaker 1: you did not see in the NBA when you go
Speaker 1: back to the Kobe's, in the in the in the
Speaker 1: MJ's that it was in the rule book, but it
Speaker 1: just wasn't something that players practiced and did. When you
Speaker 1: take that extra step, you don't have to jump off
Speaker 1: two feet. You can actually step through with that extra
Speaker 1: foot and they consider it part of like your gather
Speaker 1: and right and as part of your gather steps, so
Speaker 1: it's not a travel and so you can step through
Speaker 1: and actually get way closer to the rim and get
Speaker 1: easy shots. And so it hit two of those last night,
Speaker 1: one on I want to say, he hit one on
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon and then one on Michael Porter Junior. And
Speaker 1: so against bigger players used footwork to get around them
Speaker 1: in the post, and like, you know, it kind of
Speaker 1: the way it kind of reminds me of the young
Speaker 1: Lebron piece is it almost feels like he knows he's
Speaker 1: so supremely gifted that he's just kind of trying shit
Speaker 1: sometimes like duh, Like let me try this move, let
Speaker 1: me try that move. This shot is really difficult, but
Speaker 1: screw it, Let's just try it, you know, like that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, And like, you know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: when I think about the future of ant that's where
Speaker 1: I also think about the Lebron trajectory in the sense that,
Speaker 1: like when Lebron got out of there into Miami, he
Speaker 1: became more obsessed with efficiency and then it was less
Speaker 1: about trying stuff and like hyper focusing on the things
Speaker 1: that he's already great at. And what's like I talk
Speaker 1: about low hanging fruit and basketball. I talk about how
Speaker 1: young players, when they grow up, what happens is they
Speaker 1: get really good at identifying what works in repeating that,
Speaker 1: and really good at identifying what doesn't work and stopping
Speaker 1: doing that, and that really is the pathway to efficiency.
Speaker 1: And so Aunt is kind of in that young phase
Speaker 1: of his career where like the efficiency like, I think
Speaker 1: he had thirty last night, but he took like twenty
Speaker 1: six shots or something like that, or it was like
Speaker 1: twenty eight points on twenty six shots or something like
Speaker 1: That was the most efficient game that Anthony Edwards has
Speaker 1: ever had, And that obviously is something that's gonna be
Speaker 1: kind of part of his story at this phase of
Speaker 1: his career. But he will reach a point where he's
Speaker 1: passed the young, exciting, just trying stuff phase and he's
Speaker 1: going to enter into like a what am I grade at?
Speaker 1: What do I need to work on? How do I
Speaker 1: up my efficiency? And then that's when he's going to
Speaker 1: leap to an entirely different level. I saw a clip
Speaker 1: on Twitter this morning of him doing an interview with
Speaker 1: Taylor Rooks and she asked him, on a scale of
Speaker 1: one to ten, where he was in his potential and
Speaker 1: he said five out of ten, and then he started
Speaker 1: talking about Kevin Durant, how he's his favorite player, how
Speaker 1: he really wants to get to the point where KD is,
Speaker 1: where every single shot looks the same. And I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot on this this concept on the show, but
Speaker 1: like a jump shot is like muscle memory, even in
Speaker 1: off the drib dribble combination types of stuff. You really
Speaker 1: want to just tweak the things that come before the shot.
Speaker 1: But when you elevate, you want it to look more
Speaker 1: or less like you're catching shoot jump shot. That's where
Speaker 1: you can reach real consistency as a jump shooter. And
Speaker 1: when essentially it's about triggering a muscle memory that you've
Speaker 1: done so many thousands of times that you get more
Speaker 1: consistency out of it, right, And that to me is
Speaker 1: where I get really excited about and it's potential in
Speaker 1: the long run, is like he's got all of this
Speaker 1: ability now, but he hasn't even really figured out how
Speaker 1: to make it into something that's consistent and efficient yet.
Speaker 1: And when he figures that out, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: it's it just watch out, man. And that's that's why
Speaker 1: I look at him as the one guy, the one
Speaker 1: American player who can enter into that conversation with Giannis
Speaker 1: and Embiid and yokicch And and Luca and those guys.
Speaker 1: Last last hit on the Timberwolves, Jade McDaniels, he had
Speaker 1: twenty six points on fifteen shots. Was trying to dunk
Speaker 1: everything in this game kind of reminds me of what
Speaker 1: happens when an athlete discovers his athletic advantage and and
Speaker 1: how like that kind of unlocks a level of aggressiveness.
Speaker 1: And the dead giveaway to me was in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter there was a play where I can't remember if
Speaker 1: it was on a cut or on a closeout, but
Speaker 1: he was driving along I think it was on a
Speaker 1: pocket pass. But when he caught the ball, he was
Speaker 1: rolling and Jokic was waiting for him at the rim,
Speaker 1: and he caught the ball kind of in the like
Speaker 1: right block, kind of extended out a little bit, and
Speaker 1: if you freeze frame it right when he catches it,
Speaker 1: Jokic is kind of in his way. And I remember,
Speaker 1: as I was watching it live, I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'd never even conceived that he might dunk it, and
Speaker 1: he just literally rose up over Yokic, and Jokic even
Speaker 1: was surprised. Bat he was like, oh shit, like he
Speaker 1: kind of pulled back at the last second, and Jaden
Speaker 1: just threw down this like jackhammer right right handed dunk,
Speaker 1: and like, to me, it's like that's where Jaden has
Speaker 1: started to realize, like like no one can actually kind
Speaker 1: of contend with him above the rim. Or not many
Speaker 1: people can contend with him above the rim, and that
Speaker 1: to me is like cause he's shown he's shown high
Speaker 1: level shot making, right, he's got that little drifting jumper
Speaker 1: that he hits. He can knock down a three point
Speaker 1: shot at a big and one late in this game.
Speaker 1: But like, really where he has his supreme advantage is
Speaker 1: in his length and athleticism and like that that was
Speaker 1: what was crazy about that twenty six points on fifteen shots,
Speaker 1: getting to the foul line a lot just by going
Speaker 1: aggressively to the rim and just getting hit right across
Speaker 1: the arms and stuff like that, people are gonna hit
Speaker 1: hit the arm instead of the ball just because of
Speaker 1: his athleticism. So again, not too much to take away
Speaker 1: from this game for the Timberwolves, just simply because of
Speaker 1: the fact that so many guys were out. But they
Speaker 1: had won three in a row before that, so they're
Speaker 1: playing some good basketball. Then the Nuggets are just gonna
Speaker 1: tough to beat in that situation when you're giving up
Speaker 1: those kinds of advantages. For our next topic, Lebron James
Speaker 1: and JJ Reddick did a podcast yesterday something they recorded
Speaker 1: it seemed about a month ago when the Lakers beat
Speaker 1: the Clippers in that game where Lebron single handedly outscored them.
Speaker 1: At least that's kind of the way it was framed
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the show. My initial takeaway on
Speaker 1: the show in general was just it was something that
Speaker 1: I think is important for the overall scale and scope
Speaker 1: of basketball coverage because JJ Reddick, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: the very best in the world at what I do
Speaker 1: for a living, meaning like covering the NBA on a
Speaker 1: national level. I think JJ's the best at it. He
Speaker 1: obviously does more than what I do as well, because
Speaker 1: he does color commentary and additional stuff like that and
Speaker 1: debate shows and things like that. But specifically within the
Speaker 1: realm of basketball analysis, I don't think anybody does it
Speaker 1: better than JJ. And then Lebron James is arguably the
Speaker 1: most famous basketball player in the world, at least active
Speaker 1: basketball player, and he brings an incredible amount of IQ
Speaker 1: to the table, an incredible amount of CACHE to the table. Specifically,
Speaker 1: what stands out to me is they put up a
Speaker 1: ridiculous number on YouTube in that in that show, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't about anything urgent, Like it wasn't like we're
Speaker 1: gonna break down what happened in last night's game. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like we're gonna break down this team or that team.
Speaker 1: It was just generic, in a vacuum basketball conversation. And
Speaker 1: I think like getting that kind of viewership for that
Speaker 1: sort of of like non urgent topic is just a
Speaker 1: testament to the power, the star power that those two
Speaker 1: guys bring to the table. And obviously namely Lebron, but JJ,
Speaker 1: JJ has reached a certain level of notoriety in his
Speaker 1: field as well, and so I really enjoyed it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of really good conversation. I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I'm I A part of me wishes that this was
Speaker 1: something that was more consistent and more focused on the
Speaker 1: actual day to day NBA because I think it could
Speaker 1: be incredible. But it's early, so we'll see. We'll see
Speaker 1: what ends up happening over time. I wanted to hit
Speaker 1: on a couple of specific things that they talked about
Speaker 1: talked about those so at the beginning there were is
Speaker 1: a conversation about the three things that make a good
Speaker 1: basketball player, and there was a specific point that JJ
Speaker 1: made about something called that he calls competitive stamina. And
Speaker 1: I think this was really interesting to me because this
Speaker 1: is a very specific reason why I harp on something
Speaker 1: called habits, right, there's a reason why I've talked about
Speaker 1: it with the Sons and the Kings a lot souns
Speaker 1: Kings and MAVs a lot as of late. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by habits is like a habit is something
Speaker 1: you do unconsciously. A habit is something that is so
Speaker 1: baked into your routine that you just it's it's almost
Speaker 1: easy to do because you're just accustomed to doing it.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I think habits matter so much
Speaker 1: is when you get into any sort of situation with adversity,
Speaker 1: whether it's like a game that's slipping away from you
Speaker 1: or some sort of emotional adversity or whatever it is
Speaker 1: that's going on, your habits will carry you through those
Speaker 1: moments because, like like anything that you're not consistent in,
Speaker 1: when adversity hits, those will be the first things that
Speaker 1: you stop doing right and then like your true core
Speaker 1: nature will reveal itself in those situations, And so you
Speaker 1: need to take your day to day routine and make
Speaker 1: it into a habit so that that is what you
Speaker 1: lean back on when the shit hits the fan. For
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, right, and so that like
Speaker 1: when when JJ talks about competitive stamina, that's literally that's
Speaker 1: literally what I think of think of when I talk
Speaker 1: about habits, so specifically, for instance, like for me, I
Speaker 1: remember shooting workouts. I used to do them relatively casually
Speaker 1: when I was in my early twenties, and then I
Speaker 1: heard a lot from younger KD talking about doing your
Speaker 1: practice reps at game speed, and that was something that
Speaker 1: like when I first started doing was hard because like
Speaker 1: you're in an empty gym, and like, I have this
Speaker 1: shooting workout that I do that's like a combination of
Speaker 1: like four or five drills, and like I'll like I'll
Speaker 1: be I'll give you an example, like a rip through
Speaker 1: one dribble pull up drill that I that I do
Speaker 1: every single day. And like, so I pitched the ball
Speaker 1: out to myself at the top of the key, facing
Speaker 1: away from the basket, and then I reverse pivot and
Speaker 1: I rip through as hard as I can, and then
Speaker 1: I do a left right take off into a pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot, and then I do the same thing
Speaker 1: going left until I make five going both ways. Then
Speaker 1: I move it back with a counter move, so I
Speaker 1: rip through and then do a counter move and then
Speaker 1: take off going left and vice versa right and that drill.
Speaker 1: Like when I was doing it casually, it was easy
Speaker 1: because you know, I have just reverse pivot and push
Speaker 1: the ball out in front and I elevate and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of almost like treated it almost like a
Speaker 1: warm up, And like all of a sudden, you realize
Speaker 1: you're practicing a shot that you'll never take in a game,
Speaker 1: because guess what, Never in a basketball game do you
Speaker 1: get to casually rise up into a jump shot, Like
Speaker 1: if you're gonna take a wonderable pull up, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot any sort off the dribble jump shot against
Speaker 1: real basketball players, you gotta be moving. You gotta be
Speaker 1: moving with real pace and speed. And like even for
Speaker 1: a guy who's as big and athletic as I am,
Speaker 1: like you still have to have a certain amount of
Speaker 1: pace that you bring to those shots to get him
Speaker 1: off against good defensive players. Because again, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like six six and six ' ten wingspan, like like
Speaker 1: I have that's tall compared to like the average pickup game. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but like if you go play against you know, go
Speaker 1: play at an open gym at a at a college somewhere,
Speaker 1: go play against real college athletes when they come back
Speaker 1: to town, or overseas athletes when they come back to town,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, there's a lot of wings
Speaker 1: that are six six and six seven and sixty eight,
Speaker 1: and suddenly you need to have a certain level of
Speaker 1: verve that you bring to the table to be able
Speaker 1: to get your shot off right. So when you try
Speaker 1: the drill with like real game speed and I'm reverse
Speaker 1: pivoting and I'm ripping through as hard as I can,
Speaker 1: I'm covering a ton of ground and I'm elevating, it's hard.
Speaker 1: It hurts your body when you're in your mid thirties,
Speaker 1: like it. It takes a certain amount of like of
Speaker 1: like of exertion that's hard to do at the beginning
Speaker 1: of a workout. And when I first started doing it,
Speaker 1: it was really challenging, but over the course of the
Speaker 1: weeks it became a habit for me, and now, like,
Speaker 1: I literally don't know how to do it any other way.
Speaker 1: And now when I go up to the gym and
Speaker 1: I go to do those those drills, like I ring
Speaker 1: a certain level of intensity to it just because that's
Speaker 1: the only way I know how to do it. It
Speaker 1: has become a habit for me. And so as a
Speaker 1: result of that, like I have this like routine that
Speaker 1: I stick to every single day, and like even when
Speaker 1: I don't do it, it feels weird. Like if I
Speaker 1: happen to skip a shooting work out on one day
Speaker 1: because of whatever, I'm busy with work, or my wife
Speaker 1: and I are are have some sort of function, or
Speaker 1: we're out of town or whatever, it is, like it
Speaker 1: just feels weird, right, And like to me, like that,
Speaker 1: when JJ talks about competitive stamina, that's what I think about.
Speaker 1: I think about establishing habits and making it so that
Speaker 1: specific behaviors of yours become habitual, even something simply like breakfast.
Speaker 1: I used to never have breakfast, and it was such
Speaker 1: a stupid thing because I'd deal with these crazy energy
Speaker 1: swings throughout the day. And now I have a five
Speaker 1: part breakfast every single morning, three over medium eggs. I
Speaker 1: take oatmeal, a banana, a yogurt, and an athletic greens
Speaker 1: every single day in the morning, first thing in the
Speaker 1: morning when I wake up really hard at first. Now
Speaker 1: it's a habit. So now like every morning I wake up,
Speaker 1: that's just what I do, and that's helped me so
Speaker 1: much with energy levels throughout the day because I just
Speaker 1: get this really big, you know, kind of versatile breakfast
Speaker 1: every morning that kind of checks all of those boxes, right.
Speaker 1: And so the second part of it is what fuels
Speaker 1: a person to build those kinds of habits, Like what
Speaker 1: is it that allows a person to get to that point?
Speaker 1: And a couple of things. Love of the game. Both
Speaker 1: Lebron James and JJ Reddick talked about love of the game.
Speaker 1: I think that is a key element because obviously, like
Speaker 1: it's easy to work on shooting drills, it's easy to
Speaker 1: get in the gym and work on your game when
Speaker 1: you love basketball, because like even something still like the
Speaker 1: only example the counter that I give is like when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I when I was in
Speaker 1: high school, when I was playing high school football my
Speaker 1: freshman and sophomore year, I hated practice. So every day
Speaker 1: when you went to practice, you're just in survival mode. Now,
Speaker 1: my gew I was in Arizona, so it's hotter than
Speaker 1: well and uh and you're outside at the sun and
Speaker 1: it's and you know, every everybody who's played football knows
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm talking about. But like practice sucked, so
Speaker 1: it was hard to kind of get up to do
Speaker 1: it right. And like, but basketball, It's like when I
Speaker 1: today today, because I'm covering Celtics Bucks, I am not
Speaker 1: gonna go to the normal pickup run that I go.
Speaker 1: So this afternoon, I'm gonna go do a shooting workout
Speaker 1: and like, that's gonna be fun for me. You're gonna
Speaker 1: put my headphones in, I'll listen to a podcast or
Speaker 1: listen to some music, and like for thirty to forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, it's gonna be enjoyable for me to do
Speaker 1: a workout because I love basketball, and so like that's
Speaker 1: that is a that is a foundational concept. Secondly, competitiveness.
Speaker 1: To me, this is I talk about this on the
Speaker 1: show a lot, but separating love of the game from
Speaker 1: a hatred of losing, because I do think those are
Speaker 1: two very different things. I think there are people in
Speaker 1: the NBA who love basketball but don't hate losing enough
Speaker 1: to kind of push themselves to that next level, and
Speaker 1: so I think that that is an important element of it.
Speaker 1: I think the greatest basketball players of all time are
Speaker 1: all people who both love the game but also hate losing.
Speaker 1: And then finally, a general lifestyle of excellence. And so
Speaker 1: what I mean by this, I wanted to use this
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to shout out a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Sam Beskin. He came out a Tucson playing at Catelena
Speaker 1: Foot Hills at the school that I coached. He was coaching,
Speaker 1: or he played there before I started coaching there, though,
Speaker 1: but I met him through the program and he went
Speaker 1: on to play at Stanford, and then he transferred from
Speaker 1: Stamford to play at Colorado School of Mines and he's
Speaker 1: been there this year and this year is his final
Speaker 1: season there. But I worked out with him over the
Speaker 1: course of the last three summers and got to know
Speaker 1: him personally. And I've never met a human being that
Speaker 1: approaches every single task in his life with the same
Speaker 1: level of intensity and discipline and focus and competitiveness. And
Speaker 1: because I'm the exact opposite, I'm like anything involving my
Speaker 1: job which has to do with basketball, I'm locked in.
Speaker 1: I'm giving it everything I got. Anything having to do
Speaker 1: with basketball as a player or as coach, I'm handling
Speaker 1: it with like one hundred percent of everything that I have.
Speaker 1: But like, if I wanted to go, if my wife
Speaker 1: was like, you want to go, run a couple of
Speaker 1: miles with me today, I'd have a really hard time
Speaker 1: pushing myself through that run. If I went on a hike,
Speaker 1: I'd have a hard time like pushing myself through that
Speaker 1: hike because like I'd be I'd get through it. But
Speaker 1: I just I have a hard time personally, like being
Speaker 1: really engaged in things that I'm not passionate about. And
Speaker 1: like the sam My buddy Sam, like he just no
Speaker 1: matter what it is, whether it's his diet, whether it's school.
Speaker 1: He was a scholar athlete selection in the Pac twelve
Speaker 1: when he was at Stanford. Uh, I like even like
Speaker 1: he told me a story about how he was in
Speaker 1: a run on campus with a with a guy who
Speaker 1: was a marathon or at Stanford, and like and like
Speaker 1: he got his butt kicked in the first lap and
Speaker 1: so he like pushed himself on the second lap and
Speaker 1: like actually managed to keep up with the guy and like,
Speaker 1: and I'm just I'm so impressed by just his overall
Speaker 1: like ability to get his mind and body to peak
Speaker 1: efficiency and output regardless of what he's doing. And I
Speaker 1: think I think all of the best basketball players and
Speaker 1: best whatever it is that they do and whatever their
Speaker 1: profession in the world. Those people, it's not just that
Speaker 1: they love their profession, it's not just that they're competitive.
Speaker 1: They have a general lifestyle of excellence and like that
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, to me is is something that
Speaker 1: kind of goes under the table or that gets kind
Speaker 1: of like not given the appropriate level of regard when
Speaker 1: we talk about these guys. Next, can basketball i Q
Speaker 1: be learned? This was the third thing that that JJ
Speaker 1: Redick put on his list of things that make a
Speaker 1: good basketball player. And Lebron and JJ had kind of
Speaker 1: a back and forth about it, and Lebron talked about
Speaker 1: some of it being kind of like you're born with
Speaker 1: and and and JJ talked about some of it that
Speaker 1: you can be that can learn. I tend to agree
Speaker 1: that it can be learned. Separate basketball IQ from the
Speaker 1: natural gift, which is the ability to process information quickly
Speaker 1: in the heat of the moment. That to me is
Speaker 1: the the like the natural part of it. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like when I talk about guys like Lebron, nikolea Jokic, Luka, Doncicic,
Speaker 1: you know, Chris Paul h you know Trey Young, like
Speaker 1: all of the really really high level passers in the league,
Speaker 1: it's a couple of different things. It's not just basketball
Speaker 1: IQ having to do with understanding reads. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a minute. A lot of it is a
Speaker 1: human superpower in that in the heat of action, when
Speaker 1: lots of shit is going on around them, they can
Speaker 1: quickly interpret information and make decisions on the fly. That
Speaker 1: is the that to me is the natural gift that
Speaker 1: pushes them over the top. That is not learnable. That
Speaker 1: is something that you're born with, right But the basketball
Speaker 1: i Q piece is learned in my opinion, meaning like
Speaker 1: the actual nature of the reads. So for instance, let's
Speaker 1: just talk about pick and roll. So like if I'm
Speaker 1: running a ball screen on the left side of the floor,
Speaker 1: I have and we'll talk about this not in the
Speaker 1: concept of five out, but rather in four. So I've
Speaker 1: got a guy standing in the left corner as a shooter,
Speaker 1: standing in the right corner as a shooter, standing on
Speaker 1: the right wing as the shooter, and I've got the
Speaker 1: guy coming up to set an all screen so i
Speaker 1: can get to my right hand downhill. In that situation,
Speaker 1: you can learn what the reads are. So for instance,
Speaker 1: defender's icing the screen, meaning he is denying me access
Speaker 1: to the screen and forcing me towards the baseline side.
Speaker 1: I can do a couple of different things there as
Speaker 1: a read. I can either just take that baked in
Speaker 1: driving lane, draw the help defender and make a read
Speaker 1: from there. Or I can use it as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to set him up for the screen. So hard dribble
Speaker 1: to the left, then a counter dribble, and then try
Speaker 1: to use the screen, basically trying to get him onto
Speaker 1: the opposite side of you so that you can use
Speaker 1: the screen. If he's in a trail position by come
Speaker 1: off of the screen and the guy is not digging
Speaker 1: down off the shooter on the right wing, and the
Speaker 1: big man is far back, and I can get some
Speaker 1: separation from the guy off the screen, I'm taking the three.
Speaker 1: If the big is back and they're not digging down
Speaker 1: off the wing and the guard is chasing over the
Speaker 1: top and he's doing a good job staying attack, I
Speaker 1: need to continue to work downhill and if nobody else comes,
Speaker 1: I need to get a floater off before I get
Speaker 1: to the big man. If the big Man steps up,
Speaker 1: that's where the pocket pass is there. If the big
Speaker 1: Man stays back but there's nail help meaning the guy
Speaker 1: coming from the wing all I need to do is
Speaker 1: make the swing pass to the wing. If the big
Speaker 1: man comes up and the pocket pass is not open
Speaker 1: because they're tagging from the weak side off of the
Speaker 1: guy in the corner, it's the skip pass to the
Speaker 1: corner and to hit that shooter or if he cuts
Speaker 1: along the baseline. You can learn those reads through a
Speaker 1: film study and just understanding the game, and literally anybody,
Speaker 1: even someone who's never played basketball in their life, can
Speaker 1: learn basketball reads. But in the game, what applies those
Speaker 1: things is a combination of skill, meaning like the ability
Speaker 1: to dribble and pass and like actually handle a basketball right.
Speaker 1: But the second part of it is to be able
Speaker 1: to quickly process those things. There are lots of guys
Speaker 1: in the league who understand the reads but can't pick
Speaker 1: them up quickly. When you see one of your favorite
Speaker 1: players in the league go go into a ball screen
Speaker 1: and miss a skip pass or miss an easy read,
Speaker 1: it's not because he doesn't know that read exists. He
Speaker 1: knows it's there, he just hasn't processed it in the
Speaker 1: heat of the moment. He struggled to see it all right.
Speaker 1: And there's no shame in that, because literally, it's like
Speaker 1: only a handful of guys at the top of the
Speaker 1: league that are that gifted at processing those things on
Speaker 1: the ball that quickly. Right now, there's a middle tier
Speaker 1: there in terms of processing speed in IQ, and this
Speaker 1: is where we get all the high IQ role players
Speaker 1: and things along those lines. Those guys they can make
Speaker 1: reads relatively quickly in their specific role, and there's a
Speaker 1: ton of value there as well. But when I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the stars at the top of the league, it
Speaker 1: is kind of rare to have a guy that can
Speaker 1: quickly process those things super quickly every single time, get
Speaker 1: the ball in the right spots every single time. Two
Speaker 1: other quick ones before we move on Lebron's point about
Speaker 1: centers naturally wanting to drop towards the rim on help
Speaker 1: on drives even if they're guarding shooters. This is fine.
Speaker 1: I just thought this was funny because this is something
Speaker 1: we talked about the show over the last few weeks. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I think it was when we were talking about the
Speaker 1: Cavs game when Cave Celtics, when Porzingis kept leaving Dean
Speaker 1: Wade open on the perimeter. I talked about the natural
Speaker 1: inclinations of centers and their tendency to want to drop
Speaker 1: back towards the rim and to be in a position
Speaker 1: to help. And like how sometimes a player's natural tendencies
Speaker 1: will go against whatever the game plan discipline is. And
Speaker 1: so Lebron made a point about how like when he
Speaker 1: sees when he sees in a switch situation, a center
Speaker 1: guarding the shooter in the strong side corner and he's
Speaker 1: on the strong side wing, Lebron will just drive really
Speaker 1: hard towards that right hand side because he knows, even
Speaker 1: though the center is not supposed to help out the
Speaker 1: strong side wing or strong side corner, he knows he
Speaker 1: wants to because it's his natural inclination. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was really really fascinating because like again, like there
Speaker 1: are these like little tendencies that you can capitalize on,
Speaker 1: and that's a great example of one. It's just like
Speaker 1: centers have a tendency to want to help, so if
Speaker 1: you drive in their general direction, you might be able
Speaker 1: to get an open three, just simply baked based on
Speaker 1: that center's specific tendencies. And then finally, Lebron and JJ
Speaker 1: had a long conversation about the Warriors beating the Celtics
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty two finals because of IQ and
Speaker 1: not talent. I just thought that was interesting because it's
Speaker 1: Lebron James saying it, and that's something that me and
Speaker 1: Colin talked about a ton heading into that series and
Speaker 1: after that series. We both said before that series we
Speaker 1: thought the Celtics were the more talented team, but that
Speaker 1: we expected the Warriors to win on the strength of
Speaker 1: their experience and on Steph Curry being the best player
Speaker 1: in the series. And I one hundred percent agree. Lebron
Speaker 1: went on this rant about how the top four teams
Speaker 1: in the league when you get to the conference finals,
Speaker 1: those teams are all generally very good and all have
Speaker 1: lots of talent, and what separates from those four is IQ.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was really fascinating because again, like
Speaker 1: margins get really tight at that point, and what swings
Speaker 1: margins are little tiny details, and teams that have high
Speaker 1: IQ don't make as many mistakes in the details. All right,
Speaker 1: quick mail bag, and then we're out of here. I
Speaker 1: heard you speak on why Kelly Ubre has been a
Speaker 1: very smart has been very smart with his reads on
Speaker 1: screen and rolls and getting open dunks on his tags
Speaker 1: and his tags. I'm sorry, guys, I'm gonna just start
Speaker 1: that one over. I heard you speak on why Kelly
Speaker 1: Ubre has been very smart with his reads on screen
Speaker 1: and rolls and getting open dunks when it says in
Speaker 1: his tags the roller, but I'm assuming he means when
Speaker 1: the roller is tagged. If this is the case, why
Speaker 1: was he just not a good fit in Golden State?
Speaker 1: My impression was that he was is that he just
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough at the free flowing read and react
Speaker 1: type of offense and couldn't figure out how to get
Speaker 1: how to gel well enough with Steph Curry. So I agree,
Speaker 1: But this this is a classic example of the difference
Speaker 1: between a four out offense and a five out offense. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if you are in a situation where you
Speaker 1: are spotting up in the corner and they're running two
Speaker 1: man game and you are watching your lowman, right, so
Speaker 1: the guy who's guarding you is now the lowman. So
Speaker 1: if I'm in the corner ball screens on the opposite wing,
Speaker 1: the guy who's guarding me, his job is if there's
Speaker 1: anything that happens to where the pick and roll gets compromised,
Speaker 1: meaning like the roman gets behind the screen defender, maybe
Speaker 1: the guard starts to get downhill or maybe it's a
Speaker 1: blitz and the ball gets to the short roll guy,
Speaker 1: he has to step up and basically be the guy
Speaker 1: who defends whoever it is that's coming down the lane.
Speaker 1: And so you are now making a very simple read
Speaker 1: as the guy in the corner. Right, If he doesn't
Speaker 1: go very far, you want to stay in the corner
Speaker 1: to space. But if he steps up and leaves a
Speaker 1: vacancy like kind of a runway for you, that's when
Speaker 1: you want to cut along the baseline. That's a simple
Speaker 1: read that is not as complicated as some of the
Speaker 1: more complicated reads that Kelly Yubrad had to make in
Speaker 1: Golden State's five out offense, and specifically for Golden State,
Speaker 1: they were a big believer in like even when you're open,
Speaker 1: you don't shoot, you turn and run a DHO for
Speaker 1: one of their shooters, right, Like Gary Payton's a great
Speaker 1: example of this. Like the dude will take if he's
Speaker 1: just standing wide open, he'll take a shot. But if
Speaker 1: he catches and he's not in a great position to shoot,
Speaker 1: and I mean a great position to shoot, he's turning
Speaker 1: and flowing into a DHO, right, And like so much
Speaker 1: of that, there's more high level cutting in the Golden
Speaker 1: State offense from different spots on the floor and so
Speaker 1: againt like those are examples of him improving making reads
Speaker 1: within that specific role operating out of the corner as
Speaker 1: a spacer. But it's not the same as some of
Speaker 1: the more like because no team in the league runs
Speaker 1: more action and I mean literally run sets out of
Speaker 1: five out than Golden State does. They are as structured
Speaker 1: an offense as you'll find in the league. Next question,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on BAM's recent three point attempt streak?
Speaker 1: Is it sustainable? Why has it taken so long? So
Speaker 1: in the last four games, Bam and Toebayo's five for
Speaker 1: five from three, including a game winner against the Detroit
Speaker 1: Pistons a bomb from about twenty five feet at the
Speaker 1: top the key. Here's the thing. I don't think Bam
Speaker 1: needs a three point shot, and obviously if you can
Speaker 1: make it at a high percentage, you want to take
Speaker 1: it just from the same point of shot value. But
Speaker 1: for me, Bam is in a very similar situation to Yannis.
Speaker 1: He primarily functions with his athleticism as a cog in
Speaker 1: their offense. It's different than yanis because down Jannis operates more,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of on an island, trying to attack
Speaker 1: and score. But what I mean by that is, like
Speaker 1: I don't think Yannis needs a three point shot. I
Speaker 1: think he needs to be able to make shots over
Speaker 1: contests around the rim, and I mean like before the rim,
Speaker 1: so like little push shots, floaters, half hooks, short jump shots,
Speaker 1: things like that matter more to Yannis. That's how I
Speaker 1: feel about Bam. Great that he made five threes, but
Speaker 1: he misses like half of his shot attempts that aren't
Speaker 1: dunks within eight feet of the rim. So like that's
Speaker 1: the real problem. Like it's more can you make the floater,
Speaker 1: can you make the pop shot in the lane? Can
Speaker 1: you make the short jump shot or the little hook
Speaker 1: shot over the defense? Obviously the three point shot going
Speaker 1: in over the last four games is it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a bad thing. But like, that's not the difference
Speaker 1: between Bam reaching where he is now and reaching his
Speaker 1: ultimate potential. To me, he's got to become a guy
Speaker 1: who can hit sixty sixty five percent of his non
Speaker 1: dunks around the rim, and he's just not there right now,
Speaker 1: and that's where he's holding himself back. Offensively. I've never
Speaker 1: heard of a tense seed, a tense seeded team getting exposed.
Speaker 1: We knew they sucked. This was after the Warriors lost
Speaker 1: to the Knicks. Just going to take another example opportunity
Speaker 1: to talk really quickly about how the Warriors and Lakers
Speaker 1: are better than their record. Warriors are twenty three and
Speaker 1: sixteen when both Draymond Green and Steph Curry play. That's
Speaker 1: a win percentage that if for the whole year they
Speaker 1: stayed at that level, they would pass the Lakers in
Speaker 1: the standings, they passed the Suns in the standings, they
Speaker 1: passed the Mavericks, and the standings, they passed the Kings
Speaker 1: in the standings, they'd be out of the play and
Speaker 1: they'd be at the sixth seed right now. That's even
Speaker 1: with everything that's gone wrong this year, if they just
Speaker 1: had the winning percentage when Steph and Draymond are on
Speaker 1: the floor together and the Warriors are not on the
Speaker 1: upper tier, they are not as good as Denver, They're
Speaker 1: not as good as Boston. I don't even think they're
Speaker 1: as good as a healthy Minnesota team. Necessarily, it's I
Speaker 1: would be tempted to pick teams like the Bucks and
Speaker 1: the Clippers over them, but everyone else, every other team
Speaker 1: in that group, whether it's the Knicks, whether it's the
Speaker 1: Sixers when they're healthy, whether it's the Suns or the Kings,
Speaker 1: or the Pelicans or the thunder like all those teams.
Speaker 1: I think the Warriors and the Lakers are just as
Speaker 1: good as them. It's all those teams. It's about matchups, right,
Speaker 1: Like the Kings just did a number on the Bucks
Speaker 1: and Lakers and and then lost at home the other night.
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on who they actually lost to in that game.
Speaker 1: But everybody can lose to anybody on any given night.
Speaker 1: That's not a I think it was it was it
Speaker 1: the Knicks. I think it was the Knicks, But that
Speaker 1: that that group is very notchup oriented. Anybody can beat anybody.
Speaker 1: It's just a depend Like if your weakness aligns with
Speaker 1: another team's strength, you'll lose in that matchup. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're necessarily a worst team, because that team's
Speaker 1: strength might match up differently with another team strength and
Speaker 1: weakness and they might lose that matchup. Right, The Lakers
Speaker 1: and the Warriors are way down in the standings. The
Speaker 1: Warriors because Draymond Green missed a significant chunk of the
Speaker 1: season and the Lakers because they went three to ten
Speaker 1: after winning the N Season Tournament, which dug them a
Speaker 1: massive hole in the standings. Outside of the times that
Speaker 1: Draymond missed, the Warriors have been really good outside of
Speaker 1: that three and ten stretch after the N Season Tournament.
Speaker 1: The Lakers have been really good. They are better than
Speaker 1: their records. They are not top tier contenders, they're not
Speaker 1: even second tier contenders, but they're every bit as good
Speaker 1: as those other teams in those tiers. And if you
Speaker 1: think just because they're a nine seed or a ten seed,
Speaker 1: that's an accurate representation of how much talent they have
Speaker 1: on the roster, I think I would disagree with you
Speaker 1: at that point. Last question this was in response to
Speaker 1: the Lebron Jay topic we had at the end of
Speaker 1: the show yesterday. A hair over Lebron, I said MJ
Speaker 1: was a hair over Lebron. If you check the criteria
Speaker 1: for the goat of any sport, it's all about dominating
Speaker 1: the sport for a long enough period of time while
Speaker 1: winning championships in a dominating fashion. Any case for Lebron
Speaker 1: James has to do with his longevity in dominating a
Speaker 1: conference and not the league. His underwhelming finals record speaks
Speaker 1: to that playing longer does it make you better unless
Speaker 1: we are just speaking to the best athlete. A couple things.
Speaker 1: I technically lean more towards dominating over longevity personally as well.
Speaker 1: That's why I have MJ Hairover Lebron. But a couple
Speaker 1: of things. First of all, Lebron James dominating the Eastern Conference.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, it's an overrated kind of thing
Speaker 1: to talk about, right, Like he has ten conference championships,
Speaker 1: nine of which took place in the Eastern Conference. That's
Speaker 1: certainly impressive. But yeah, the Eastern Conference was weak more
Speaker 1: at the time, like it's The Eastern Conference is weak
Speaker 1: now in a different way than it is back in
Speaker 1: Lebron's era. Like now the East is weak at the bottom,
Speaker 1: but there are still really good teams at the top
Speaker 1: every single year, usually two or three, like really good
Speaker 1: teams in Lebron's East. There just never was a team
Speaker 1: remotely as good as them, and so they kicked everyone's
Speaker 1: ass in the postseason every single year because the best
Speaker 1: team they'd face would be a Pacers team with Paul
Speaker 1: George or a you know, a Raptors team with De
Speaker 1: Mardiros in Kyle Lowry. But every time we have this conversation,
Speaker 1: we gloss over a simple fact. Lebron James has won
Speaker 1: four NBA championships. So forget about the damn conference titles
Speaker 1: all you want. He has four damn championships since he
Speaker 1: came in the league. No player or franchise has won
Speaker 1: more championships than Lebron. That is a certain level of
Speaker 1: dominance in its own way. And so like again, like,
Speaker 1: you're right, the conference championship thing is a little bit overblown. Yes,
Speaker 1: Lebron played in the East, and then he still ill
Speaker 1: hoisted the Dan Larry O'Brien Trophy four times, despite a
Speaker 1: lot of things that worked against him over that span,
Speaker 1: like the Cavs originally never putting a championship level roster
Speaker 1: around him in his first stretch there in Cleveland, Like
Speaker 1: the Kyrie fiasco in twenty eighteen, Like Anthony Davis's injury
Speaker 1: history and immediate decline after the twenty twenty playoff run.
Speaker 1: Like if I told you after Lebron convinced Ad to
Speaker 1: come over in the summer of twenty nineteen, if I
Speaker 1: told you, hey, Lebron's going to be really good for
Speaker 1: all five of the next five years, you'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're winning multiple titles, but no ad had a significant
Speaker 1: injury stretch and declined as significantly as a player. Went
Speaker 1: from being a guy who's in contention for the best
Speaker 1: player in the world to a guy who's a fringe
Speaker 1: top ten guy now right, And like that is the
Speaker 1: Despite all of that, he still hoisted the trophy four times.
Speaker 1: And so again, when we're talking about Lebron's dominance, he's
Speaker 1: not as dominant as MJ, but he's still pretty damn dominant.
Speaker 1: I didn't even talk about in that stretch, Like literally,
Speaker 1: after Lebron won his third title, the two best players
Speaker 1: beneath him in the league teamed up. He's the best
Speaker 1: player in the league. He won his third title, just
Speaker 1: beat a seventy three win team, had back to back
Speaker 1: forty plus point games in the in the finals, had
Speaker 1: a stranglehold on the best player in the world title.
Speaker 1: And then Kevin Durant and Steph Curry teamed up on
Speaker 1: a team that already had one of the best coaches
Speaker 1: in the league, the best defender in the league in
Speaker 1: Draymond Green, the best wing defender in the league, and
Speaker 1: Andre Udala, the second best shooter in the league who's
Speaker 1: also an excellent perimeter defender in Klay Thompson. All of that,
Speaker 1: plus the two players in the league that were right
Speaker 1: behind Lebron like like any still hoisted the trophy four times.
Speaker 1: So like again, I think when we're I think when
Speaker 1: we're talking about Lebron James dominance, it's it's important to
Speaker 1: view it as different than MJ. But it's not a
Speaker 1: lack of accomplishment. Like think about the way Larry Bird
Speaker 1: is revered. He only has three of them, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's it's not I think that the Lebron's dominance has
Speaker 1: actually become a little underrated in that regard. Lastly, his
Speaker 1: a playing longer doesn't make you better unless we are
Speaker 1: just speaking to the best athlete. This I just fundamentally
Speaker 1: disagree with. Obviously, dominance is the larger factor as I
Speaker 1: talked about, but I do think longevity really matters, and
Speaker 1: the reason why is simple. If I was talking about
Speaker 1: who the best basketball player ever was, I look at
Speaker 1: it from the perspective of if I was a if
Speaker 1: I owned a franchise and I had to start from scratch,
Speaker 1: and I could only pick one player in NBA history
Speaker 1: to start with, and I could have their entire career,
Speaker 1: which player gives me the most opportunity to win the
Speaker 1: most championships in a vacuum. And if I get twenty
Speaker 1: years of Lebron James playing at a top ten level,
Speaker 1: during which a hefty I go like nine years from
Speaker 1: twenty twelve to twenty twenty, I thought he was clearly
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. So for a nine
Speaker 1: year stretch there he was literally number one. So I'm
Speaker 1: getting nine years of number one in an additional eleven
Speaker 1: years of top ten and then that first year, but
Speaker 1: Lebron is still top twenty. So like with that being
Speaker 1: my kind of foundation for bringing in a star player
Speaker 1: to start my franchise, I have a really good chance
Speaker 1: to win. And so that's why I look at longevity
Speaker 1: as also a significant part of the case, because you
Speaker 1: want to see what ceiling the guy can reach, but
Speaker 1: how long he stays there is a big indicator. Because
Speaker 1: again in the NBA, like a lot of shit can
Speaker 1: go down, matchups can be weird, injuries can happen. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you sometimes even though you are in a good position
Speaker 1: to win the title, just bad things happen and you
Speaker 1: don't twenty fifteen, but another title, Lebron probably wins if
Speaker 1: his team is healthy. I believe a healthy Kyrie and
Speaker 1: Kevin Love with Lebron James be the Warriors in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: That's trophy number five. Like that, Like again, anything can happen.
Speaker 1: And so that's why getting more cracks at the table,
Speaker 1: more you know, pulls at the slot machine, so to speak,
Speaker 1: give you more opportunities to win. And that's why longevity matters.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, that's all I have for today is
Speaker 1: always sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say that's all we have for today. That's all
Speaker 1: we have for this morning. We will be back tonight
Speaker 1: right around about let's see, the game starts at seven
Speaker 1: thirty eastern, so right around like what's that going to
Speaker 1: be a right around like ten o'clock eastern. We'll be
Speaker 1: recording live on YouTube. After the final buzzer of Buck Celtics,
Speaker 1: I will see you guys that the volume