Speaker 1: Welcome to the Jason timp Podcast. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your Wednesday to come
Speaker 1: hang out with Tommy and I. And this is the
Speaker 1: last time we're gonna call it the Jason Tip Podcast because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned in the Friday show with Raj, I,
Speaker 1: now that I have Tommy and Rog coming on as
Speaker 1: consistent guests, I would like to rebrand these as something
Speaker 1: that would cover both of us. And Uh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about here in just a second, how we want
Speaker 1: some suggestions. Uh, Tommy, do you have any suggestions? I'll
Speaker 1: top of your head. I can only think of one. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's kind of ridiculous, but my thought was gunned to
Speaker 1: my head. We'll see what the people think about that,
Speaker 1: but that was the only thing that popped in my head.
Speaker 1: At least. There's kind of like a playoff words. I
Speaker 1: say a lot of stupid things. You bringing me on
Speaker 1: this podcast is like kind of putting a gun to
Speaker 1: your own head because you know what I'm you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say, So we'll see. Maybe it has
Speaker 1: mois well, So for all of you who are listening,
Speaker 1: and I'll tweet out something like this later and Tommy
Speaker 1: can share it if you guys can think of anything
Speaker 1: I would like to to rebrand this specific podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm really excited to have Tommy on. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: excited for this podcast because I think there are a
Speaker 1: couple of things that are really interesting that are going
Speaker 1: on around the league, and I think we're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to bounce around to a bunch of teams as
Speaker 1: a result. Um. I wanted to start with this, uh,
Speaker 1: this thing with the All Star snubs because it kind
Speaker 1: of gets brought up every year, and there's there's kind
Speaker 1: of like an overarching opinion that I have that I
Speaker 1: think explains how I feel about about all sorts of
Speaker 1: snubs and a bunch of other topics around the NBA,
Speaker 1: which is basically just that you know, everyone wants to
Speaker 1: uh pretend like they're slighted when there's a lot of
Speaker 1: really good basketball being played, and I think you have
Speaker 1: to remember that it's not. We're not judging these types
Speaker 1: of decision is based on are you playing good basketball?
Speaker 1: We're judging these types of decisions based on are you
Speaker 1: one of the best players in this league? And so,
Speaker 1: for instance, it's something that always gets brought brought up
Speaker 1: in the MJ Lebron debate. It's this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: and I used to feel this way when I was younger,
Speaker 1: before I really thought it through all the way, this
Speaker 1: idea that like, oh, m J didn't play very good
Speaker 1: competition or the players, you know, m J didn't have
Speaker 1: to go against Steph and Katie or or all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And what I what I think is
Speaker 1: important to remember is, you know, MJ's job wasn't to
Speaker 1: be better than every player that would ever come in
Speaker 1: the future. It was his job to be the best
Speaker 1: player out of his peers, out of out of what
Speaker 1: basketball resembled in his era. Um And as basketball progresses,
Speaker 1: I think there will always be better players around, and
Speaker 1: it's your job, in order to be remembered, to vault
Speaker 1: yourself over those players, you know. Like that's the thing,
Speaker 1: Like Lebron is playing in an era where a lot
Speaker 1: of people are good at basketball, so he needs to
Speaker 1: separate himself. And the same thing goes with these all
Speaker 1: are as. You know, you and I before the show
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about Demarta Rozen, but the
Speaker 1: same goes for for a lot of these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: like Devin Booker was complaining like Colin Sexton was complaining.
Speaker 1: It's like, you guys are great, You're great players. Are
Speaker 1: you one of the top twenty four players in the league.
Speaker 1: Are you one of the top twelve players in your conference?
Speaker 1: Is more accurate because if you're not, then you're not
Speaker 1: an All Star because the All Star is not are
Speaker 1: you really good at basketball? The All Stars? Are you
Speaker 1: one of the top twelve players in your conference? And
Speaker 1: if you're not, then you don't deserve to be an
Speaker 1: All Star. This is in a participation type of award.
Speaker 1: This is strictly a ranking. You have to make the
Speaker 1: top twelve. And so I have a problem with, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, over sympathizing, over sympathizing for that type of thing,
Speaker 1: because the the extensive amount of talent in the league
Speaker 1: just means you have to be better, uh, And so
Speaker 1: that that's kind of where I land on it. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts. I can understand why Devin Booker feels
Speaker 1: cited for not making it in front of like Julius Randall, right,
Speaker 1: because Devin Booker is by any measure of better player
Speaker 1: than Julius Randall. And I mean, that's an entirely different
Speaker 1: conversation on the conference, on conference lines, and should we
Speaker 1: even have conferences, especially with as easy as travels nowadays,
Speaker 1: all these teams have private planes. There's probably a better
Speaker 1: way to do it than strict conferences, especially when we're
Speaker 1: talking all star teams. But I I don't really see
Speaker 1: really any complaints or anybody besides maybe Devin Booker. I mean,
Speaker 1: we had Julius Randall making an All Star team. And look,
Speaker 1: I've been a Julius Randol fan. He's had a really
Speaker 1: up and down career, and I'm glad that he's figuring
Speaker 1: things out. I've always been a guy who really liked
Speaker 1: who really liked his potential as a player. But Julius
Speaker 1: Randall isn't one of the twenty four best players in
Speaker 1: the league. And when we look back fifteen years from now,
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna be like, whoa Julius Randall made an
Speaker 1: All Star team? Like he's He's not. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: he's probably not gonna matter in the history of basketball, right.
Speaker 1: So the fact that people some people feel snubbed, like
Speaker 1: a DeRozan or a book or it just it rings
Speaker 1: a little bit hollow to me. When you're not like
Speaker 1: making this huge night to night impact on the league. Like,
Speaker 1: none of these guys who are complaining really have. Like
Speaker 1: hall In Sexton, he's had a really nice year. He's
Speaker 1: improved a ton since he's coming to the league. But dude,
Speaker 1: you're not really impacting anything on a night to night basis,
Speaker 1: especially because Cleveland hasn't been good for like a month now.
Speaker 1: They were really good to start the year, and if
Speaker 1: they kept up their level of play, maybe it does
Speaker 1: make sense for calling Sexton to make an All Star team,
Speaker 1: but he just hasn't been good enough lately to warrant
Speaker 1: any type of complaining about not making it. Then the
Speaker 1: winning is the most important part because and that's what's
Speaker 1: kind of cool about this whole All Star snub. You know,
Speaker 1: topic is like, you know, like Christian would, for instance,
Speaker 1: tweeted out, you know what do you say, something like
Speaker 1: casuals or something like that talking about the people who
Speaker 1: voted for the All Star uh selections, And it's like Christian,
Speaker 1: welcome to the modern NBA where you averaging ten doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't matter what you're doing with your numbers anymore.
Speaker 1: It's are you doing? Are you putting up numbers in
Speaker 1: an impactful way that's leading to team success. That's what's
Speaker 1: gonna get you selected in all of these things. And
Speaker 1: and and that's what's what I like about the selection
Speaker 1: process now is for the most part with you know,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be occasional, uh, you know, people who get missed,
Speaker 1: But you know, the reality is, is the way you
Speaker 1: can differentiate yourself from the pack when all these guys
Speaker 1: are putting on the numbers. You know, Demarda Rosen's averaging
Speaker 1: twenty points a game. You know, Colin Sexton's averaging twenty
Speaker 1: points a game, Christian Wood's averaging twenty points a game.
Speaker 1: The way you separate yourself is by doing it in
Speaker 1: an impactful way that leads to your team winning basketball games.
Speaker 1: And I'm okay with that as far as the selection
Speaker 1: process goes. And and my thing is like, if you're
Speaker 1: on that fringe, you put yourself at the risk of
Speaker 1: a selection process going the other direction. That's just part
Speaker 1: of the risk. And and so for in this case,
Speaker 1: like you know, I think it's great for the league
Speaker 1: that you have so many good players, but this is
Speaker 1: you know, it's what pushes everybody to get better. And
Speaker 1: I think I think that's the that's the way you
Speaker 1: gotta approach it if you want to walk into next
Speaker 1: season and be like, this is the year I make
Speaker 1: the All Star team. Okay, it doesn't mean you have
Speaker 1: to go put up twenty five points. You have to
Speaker 1: be better than you know, all but eleven other guys
Speaker 1: in the conference at a minimum in order to be
Speaker 1: be able to make that list. And I'm okay with
Speaker 1: a selection process. Yeah, And I mean Christian would specifically
Speaker 1: complaining doesn't make any sense. He's played seventeen of twenty
Speaker 1: nine games this year. But dude, you've missed half your
Speaker 1: team's games. You're not an All Star, Like part of
Speaker 1: part of being an All Star is being available almost
Speaker 1: every single night. Like something about getting not selected as
Speaker 1: like the hot thing to do every year. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more and more guys every year who think that they're
Speaker 1: deserving because they're putting up Like you're referencing twenty points
Speaker 1: a game. More guys than ever scoring twenty points a game.
Speaker 1: It's just the nature of how the games played, because
Speaker 1: of pace and because of how space out offenses are,
Speaker 1: it's just easy to score twenty points relative to past eras, like,
Speaker 1: probably easier than any time since the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies when the skillet level just wasn't as high, so
Speaker 1: it was harder for guys individually to go get that
Speaker 1: many points. Um. Yeah, it's just I don't really feel
Speaker 1: for guys who think they've been snubbed, like it just
Speaker 1: will never really resonate with me, like like you're referencing.
Speaker 1: If you want to make a team, go win games.
Speaker 1: Draymond Green made like three or fourth straight All Star
Speaker 1: Games when he was averaging most years single digit points.
Speaker 1: That's because he was impacting when at such a high
Speaker 1: level that his team was winning sixty plus games every year.
Speaker 1: If you want to if you want to make an
Speaker 1: All Star Game, go have your team on a on
Speaker 1: a sixty win pace by the All Star break and
Speaker 1: you've got a good chance. The Atlanta Hawks in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen are a great example. That was a team
Speaker 1: who won sixty games, and because they were on that pace,
Speaker 1: they had four guys make the All Star team. And
Speaker 1: they really have four who was it was fatigue? Yep,
Speaker 1: those three and then got planking. That was it was
Speaker 1: not Joe Johnson. This is all right, this is terrible podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna figure this out Atlanta Hawks, UM fifteen and
Speaker 1: Tig Millsap. It was Millsap one of the one of
Speaker 1: the more forgotten, like really good players of the past
Speaker 1: ten years. If you would have been in the right situation,
Speaker 1: I really think he could have helped the team win
Speaker 1: a title, similar to Draymond. Different players, but similar type
Speaker 1: of impact on a night to night basis. But they
Speaker 1: went six d N twenty two that year. They had
Speaker 1: probably thirty five plus wins at the All Star break,
Speaker 1: and they had four guys make the All Star team,
Speaker 1: Like if it really is that simple, and so many
Speaker 1: of these teams are neck and neck this year in
Speaker 1: both conferences, basically Utah, the Lakers and the Clippers have
Speaker 1: separated themselves in the West, and then in the East.
Speaker 1: It's like Philly and and Brooklyn kind of now, but
Speaker 1: it's it's such a jumbled mess. Unless you're putting up
Speaker 1: like Kevin Durant level numbers, Nazan Tatacumbo level numbers, Joe
Speaker 1: l m b level numbers, Yo, catch all these guys
Speaker 1: are the superstars of the league. You don't have any
Speaker 1: case because there's so many guys averaging like twenty four
Speaker 1: points a game. It's just Zack Lavine is averaging twenty
Speaker 1: eight and people are still arguing whether he's impactful or not.
Speaker 1: And he's doing it on shooting. That's how crazy the
Speaker 1: league is right now. Yeah, no, I'm with you. And
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, it's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: there's it's like a basic societal concept. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like when you know, as as the as the United
Speaker 1: States of America, we choose to operate under the you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that you're innocent until proven guilty instead of
Speaker 1: guilty until proven innocent. When you choose one of those pasts,
Speaker 1: you recognize something might slip through, Like if you if
Speaker 1: you're innocent until proven guilty, there's a chance that you might,
Speaker 1: uh let a guilty man go free, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and or vice versa. And that's the that's the
Speaker 1: way this goes. Like when you're you know, running your
Speaker 1: All Star selection based on on winning mattering the most,
Speaker 1: there's a chance that there's gonna be a really good
Speaker 1: player that slips through the cracks because his team isn't winning.
Speaker 1: But I would rather have it that way than the alternative,
Speaker 1: which is some dude putting up numbers on a garbage
Speaker 1: team getting in over a guy who's more impactful, like
Speaker 1: a Rudy Gobert for instance. Yeah, so I think I
Speaker 1: think that's just the it's the we have made a
Speaker 1: decision with the way that we picked these awards that
Speaker 1: we would rather have that happened than the alternative. And
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that longs go ahead. Bambata Bio is
Speaker 1: like clearly a better player than Julius Randall, but because
Speaker 1: the Heat weren't winning games when Jimmy was out and
Speaker 1: when a lot of guys were out, Julius Randall made
Speaker 1: it over him. Like, I don't think any team in
Speaker 1: the league right now would take Randall over Bam if
Speaker 1: they're starting a playoff series tomorrow. But Randall might have
Speaker 1: had a bigger impact on winning, you could. They're in
Speaker 1: the playoff hunt. I think they're like a six seed
Speaker 1: or something. So it's not like exactly garbage team. No, no,
Speaker 1: not on a garbage team. But my point is, like
Speaker 1: people thought that Randall made a bigger impact on winning
Speaker 1: through games or whatever it is, and eat them in
Speaker 1: the standings, aren't they that they are? Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: a lot of that was Miami having a bunch of
Speaker 1: COVID issues. They had half of their rosters only played
Speaker 1: like less than twenty games, so that's part of it.
Speaker 1: But you can make the argument that the Nicks don't
Speaker 1: have a great roster either, and they're they're at five
Speaker 1: D right now, so you can see the argument through
Speaker 1: thirty games that Randall's had a higher impact on winning.
Speaker 1: I do think that there's like a conversation to be
Speaker 1: had about changing the NBA awards because I don't like
Speaker 1: how so many awards are are regular season focused, and
Speaker 1: there's basically one award that's playoff focused, and that's the
Speaker 1: Finals MVP, which is a super flawed award because it
Speaker 1: takes into account just a handful of games when a
Speaker 1: playoff run is so much more complicated than that. And
Speaker 1: in many cases the playoffs are one in the in
Speaker 1: the conference playoffs, you know, especially in the past with
Speaker 1: how weak the East has been, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: what would be interesting to me is to kind of
Speaker 1: cater a certain award to the regular season and then
Speaker 1: to kind of flip it around for something else. What
Speaker 1: I was thinking is, what if you did, like, you know,
Speaker 1: All Star to represent who was the best in the
Speaker 1: first half of the season. And then you did you know,
Speaker 1: m v P for who was the most valuable during
Speaker 1: the regular season, but then you did something like did
Speaker 1: to all NBA selections after the playoffs so that you
Speaker 1: at least have like a snapshot of the league for
Speaker 1: the totality of the experience, counting the playoffs and the
Speaker 1: regular season. Because I don't like the idea of a
Speaker 1: playoffs m v P UM because I feel like the
Speaker 1: playoffs m VP like it doesn't it should never go
Speaker 1: to a loser so that it ends up being a
Speaker 1: finals MVP anyway in my opinion, So like the idea
Speaker 1: of like some sort of all NBA selection that kind
Speaker 1: of takes place after the season would make sense to me,
Speaker 1: because I do think that they need to recognize playoffs success.
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure that there's a good answer. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't think they'd ever actually change anything. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you could do both. I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: could keep the all NBA teams as they are to
Speaker 1: take a snapshot of the regular season, and then you
Speaker 1: pare it down for the playoffs. You just do ten guys,
Speaker 1: or you do eight guys. You figure out some sort
Speaker 1: of paired down version of the all m b A
Speaker 1: just like you're saying, take a snapshot of what the
Speaker 1: league look like look like in the playoffs. Um, I
Speaker 1: think I would be in favor of a playoff MVP
Speaker 1: just because it can like delineate who the best player
Speaker 1: was through the playoffs and sometimes who the best player
Speaker 1: was through the finals like two thousand four Pistons are
Speaker 1: a great example to me. I don't know if Chauncey
Speaker 1: Billips was like actually their best player, but he won
Speaker 1: the finals MVP, you could probably make an argument that
Speaker 1: Ben Wallace's overall impact was higher. Rip Hamilton's had a
Speaker 1: really good playoffs if I'm remembering correctly, Like there are
Speaker 1: years where it would be different, a lot of the
Speaker 1: years it would be the same, and that would be
Speaker 1: like I think, another notch on some of the greatest
Speaker 1: players of all times belts right like Lebron would have
Speaker 1: four finals MVP and four playoff m vps. You know,
Speaker 1: like Jordan would probably have six and six like whereas
Speaker 1: you know guys are maybe a little bit lesser of players,
Speaker 1: they would only have one finals MVP and one playoff MVP.
Speaker 1: I think it it would just be another way because
Speaker 1: we the nature of basketball debates is like, we love
Speaker 1: to argue this stuff. That's that's like most of the
Speaker 1: conversation on Twitter, always arguing about who's better at a
Speaker 1: specific time, or who's better overall, who's the greatest player
Speaker 1: of all time? I think just adding more things like
Speaker 1: that it makes it debate more fun. If we're going
Speaker 1: to continuously have these debates, let's have more ways to
Speaker 1: delineate them for sure. And yeah, whether it's the playoffs, MVP,
Speaker 1: or changing the way you do all NBA, Like, I
Speaker 1: do think that there needs to be some sort of
Speaker 1: recognition for playoff performance, maybe maybe for more than one guy,
Speaker 1: like and that's that. That's why, like a first Team
Speaker 1: All Playoffs or something like that, because it's just like
Speaker 1: there's too often in these debates the go to talking
Speaker 1: point is like, well, it's a regular season awards, so
Speaker 1: I don't care what his playoff pedigree is. And it's
Speaker 1: like that can't be the answer to everything, and it
Speaker 1: literally is, because all of these accolades are regular season related.
Speaker 1: And then we would all agree that NBA playoff basketball
Speaker 1: is by far the most entertaining aspect of the sport.
Speaker 1: You know, the regular season could be you know, such
Speaker 1: you know, monotonous, you know bullshit, that it makes more
Speaker 1: sense to to kind of find some way to reward
Speaker 1: people for performing on that stage to begin with. You can,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could do a conference m VP for
Speaker 1: each conference in the playoffs, like at the end of
Speaker 1: the conference finals, and then you do you vote at
Speaker 1: one to three like kai Is two thousand seventeen. Playoffs
Speaker 1: are incredible, but they get kind of forgotten because Zazo
Speaker 1: went under his ankle, he rolls his ankle, they get
Speaker 1: swept in the conference finals. That dude had an unbelievable
Speaker 1: series against Memphis, like legitimately was playing like one on five.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it felt like with what he was doing defensively,
Speaker 1: kind of shutting down Memphisis offense and then going back
Speaker 1: on the other end and scoring. But that it's like
Speaker 1: a lost playoff run because there's nothing to really note it.
Speaker 1: He probably gets second in the m v P voting
Speaker 1: if they do a Western Conference playoff MVP before the
Speaker 1: final starts, and it would just be a nice way
Speaker 1: to remember specific years and specific instances where guys were awesome,
Speaker 1: But it kind of falls by the wayside because we
Speaker 1: only focus on the champion. UM. So this is actually
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting topic that relates to our next
Speaker 1: topic having to do with the m v P another award. Um.
Speaker 1: I think this has been really interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but think, you know, you know, I
Speaker 1: I think Lebron has been better this year than he
Speaker 1: has last year. Like and that's something that you can
Speaker 1: see in the measurables, in the in the you know,
Speaker 1: the immeasurables. He's to me, he looks more athletic than
Speaker 1: he has in the last couple of years, which who
Speaker 1: knows what. That's the product of probably just being in
Speaker 1: a consistent routine. Since July. His percentages are up from
Speaker 1: every spot on the floor, you know, the his in
Speaker 1: the paint percentage, his midrange percentages, three point percentage. He's
Speaker 1: just been better. And I had him as the slight
Speaker 1: favorite in the m v P, but he's had a
Speaker 1: couple of rough games in a row. His last game
Speaker 1: was one of the worst games I've seen him play,
Speaker 1: and then even though he had monster numbers and then
Speaker 1: the previous few games he wasn't bad, but he wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, mvy pe Lebron, And I remember thinking, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Lebron might have slipped a little
Speaker 1: bit in the MVP race, and then I went and
Speaker 1: looked back at all of the other guys, and everybody's
Speaker 1: slipping in the m v P race, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to quick read some of these things off. So
Speaker 1: Lebron's lost three straight. Uh Damian Lillard's lost three straight,
Speaker 1: and he had a case that was gaining steam when
Speaker 1: the Portland and when Portland got up to eighteen and ten.
Speaker 1: Yokich has lost three out of his last five and
Speaker 1: continues to kind of hover around the middle of the conference.
Speaker 1: Joel Embiad Philly is five and five in their last ten.
Speaker 1: He just sat another game, and his last two games
Speaker 1: he was six for twenty and three for thirteen. So
Speaker 1: that's Joel Embiad, the guy who was hot on Lebron's heels,
Speaker 1: has been just as bad, if not worse. Kauai Uh
Speaker 1: Kauai probably is the best case to be kind of
Speaker 1: moving up into that stratosphere. He's played four games in
Speaker 1: the last two weeks. Yeah, he missed three games last
Speaker 1: week and then the UH having uh Brooklyn was missing
Speaker 1: and then Steph looks great, but he hasn't won three
Speaker 1: games in a row all season, so it's hard to
Speaker 1: to give it to him, and then Lucas on a
Speaker 1: hot street but his team just got back to so
Speaker 1: at this point, like everybody's slipping and it's anybody's to
Speaker 1: grab and you know, everyone seems to notice that Lebron
Speaker 1: is slipping, you know, because he's such a polarizing player.
Speaker 1: But the reality is is like the award is as
Speaker 1: up for grabs as it's ever been. Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: Lebron and Steph are really the only ones in the
Speaker 1: league right now, at least in my opinion, that experience
Speaker 1: like a night to night referendum on their greatness and
Speaker 1: who they are as players. Um and and we'll get
Speaker 1: into the m v P thing, because I think it
Speaker 1: is interesting, but they're the only ones in the league
Speaker 1: who where it's like, oh my god, they just played
Speaker 1: a bad game against the Washington Wizards. Are we sure
Speaker 1: they're that great? You know what, Like every loss becomes
Speaker 1: a huge referendum on who they've been for the past,
Speaker 1: for Lebron, the past you know, fifteen years, for step
Speaker 1: the past seven years, where I don't see any other
Speaker 1: superstar in the league where they're like they're big game,
Speaker 1: they're they're bad games. Excuse me? Goes so noticed, like
Speaker 1: name has ad games all the time, but the one
Speaker 1: time he scores forty. We get Bill Simmons and Chris
Speaker 1: Haines talking about, well is Dame on Steph seals again,
Speaker 1: like are they gone to the same well Dame has?
Speaker 1: Dame has more responsibility as a playmaker, so you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's probably better than Staff, which is just such
Speaker 1: a ridiculous conversation, by the way, like step step is
Speaker 1: a better playmaker than Dame. Anybody who doesn't know that
Speaker 1: doesn't watch basketball correctly. I'm sorry. I just got to
Speaker 1: that Mark Spire the Chris the Chris hains podcast with
Speaker 1: Bill Simmons, and it was I'm trying to be nice
Speaker 1: because I do believe that Steph fans are a little
Speaker 1: un irrational to the gap between the two. I think
Speaker 1: there is a clearly discernible gap between the two, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's very big. And that podcast did
Speaker 1: a poor job of explaining the two, like in almost
Speaker 1: a way that seemed, you know, like they didn't really
Speaker 1: understand what Steph does. But anyway, like I agree with you,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, it's it's funny with the Lebron thing, Like, Uh,
Speaker 1: I've been watching this guy his whole career. I've seen
Speaker 1: him have games like that before, even in his very
Speaker 1: best years, even in two thousand thirteen, even in two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, even in two thousand eighteen, even last year,
Speaker 1: with how good he was, Like every once in a
Speaker 1: while in the regular season, he just has a stinker man,
Speaker 1: Like I don't I don't know what to tell you,
Speaker 1: Like he did it in the playoffs last year against
Speaker 1: the Nuggets. In Game four, he was horrible. Uh, had
Speaker 1: a couple of good defensive plays at the end on
Speaker 1: Jemal Murray, but was really bad in the second half,
Speaker 1: a lot of ugly turnovers, a lot of mistakes, and
Speaker 1: then and then came back in Game five and looked
Speaker 1: like the best version of himself. Like this is just
Speaker 1: a thing that happens, and we have bad games every
Speaker 1: but no one's immune to them. Like Steph had a
Speaker 1: bad shooting that a few a few nights ago. Uh.
Speaker 1: Joel Embid goes three for thirteen. Now, I've been very
Speaker 1: busy in my personal life, so I haven't I haven't
Speaker 1: been as paying attention, but I haven't seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people talking about Joel Embid. You know, it's really
Speaker 1: getting locked up by the Raptors. I know they won
Speaker 1: one of the games, but they lost the other. The
Speaker 1: Raptors always do a nice job. The Raptors always do
Speaker 1: nice job on him. That's they didn't surprise me that
Speaker 1: they did. Uh yeah, and the yeah. The point is
Speaker 1: is like like no one's immune to these these off games,
Speaker 1: and you know, but that's just the nature of Twitter,
Speaker 1: especially with Stephen with Lebron, It's like we every single dribble,
Speaker 1: every single shot, every single mistake is like just a
Speaker 1: complete referendum on everything that they've accomplished in their life.
Speaker 1: And it's it's super annoying. But I think it's just
Speaker 1: it's amplified by the fact that we hold them to
Speaker 1: their past performances. Right, Like Steph isn't in the m
Speaker 1: VP conversation, probably because he's had his two MVP seasons
Speaker 1: where when his team won sixty seven and seventy three games,
Speaker 1: like Lebron, when he won most of his m vps,
Speaker 1: or well what he did win his m vps, his
Speaker 1: teams were winning sixty plus games and he was like
Speaker 1: very very clearly the best player in the league. So
Speaker 1: when there isn't that same gap, it's like the same
Speaker 1: kind of fatigue that Michael Jordan went through with MVP
Speaker 1: voters why Barkley gets in the ninety three and why
Speaker 1: Malone gets in ninety seven, Like you just you have
Speaker 1: to almost outperform your past self if you've been so
Speaker 1: great before, whereas like Yokichen Embeat, it's they really haven't
Speaker 1: been at this level before. So we're like, Wow, these
Speaker 1: guys are incredible. It's something new, it's something fresh. It's
Speaker 1: just human nature to not like really be as hard
Speaker 1: on those two guys because we haven't seen this level
Speaker 1: of play from them before. But I am interested to
Speaker 1: see where you kind of have things stacked up right now,
Speaker 1: because I think we're probably gonna differ a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I mean I still I still am right kind
Speaker 1: of where I was, like, I have I have Lebron
Speaker 1: with a very slight lead even though he's been playing
Speaker 1: less well. Um, just strictly because Embad hasn't taken advantage
Speaker 1: of that, Like Lebron left the door open four Embat
Speaker 1: to pass him and Embad hasn't been good enough. Um,
Speaker 1: I do think that Luca is very much gonna get
Speaker 1: into the conversation here, because if you're going to factor
Speaker 1: in Steph in Yogis, which I do, I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: I think I'd probably have. I'd probably have you know,
Speaker 1: Steph and Dame fighting for that five spot and then
Speaker 1: Luca kind of right behind the two of them, And
Speaker 1: I I do think that those guys have kind of
Speaker 1: inched into the conversation as as Uh and Beat and
Speaker 1: Lebron have slipped. But I don't think I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody has made who like who's playing well enough right
Speaker 1: now and their team succeeding well enough to to like
Speaker 1: confidently step up and say they've changed the conversation. You know.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm at. Nobody totally overall, but I'm almost
Speaker 1: leaning Yokis right now. He really that roster is like
Speaker 1: entirely depleted. They have like nobody healthy. Um they're there
Speaker 1: subs last night where Zeke Nanji, who's a rookie Facundo
Speaker 1: Composo who's like a really nice player. I think he's
Speaker 1: a really good player. I think he could help some
Speaker 1: teams as a backup point guard. But that's just a
Speaker 1: weird fit in Denver because they already have a good
Speaker 1: backup point guard, and Monty Morris, he's just another tiny
Speaker 1: guy who like makes really good decisions, but it's just
Speaker 1: a weird fit on that roster. And then the other
Speaker 1: guy playing was like Isaiah Hartenstein, who's bounced around probably
Speaker 1: four or five different teams. He can't stick anywhere he
Speaker 1: gets the last three or the last two weeks. So
Speaker 1: I broke down who my top three are right now,
Speaker 1: it's still Yokich and beating Lebron. Not that's necessarily ordered,
Speaker 1: but that is my top three. Yokich the last two
Speaker 1: weeks nine and eight on fifty ninety seven, his team
Speaker 1: is five and three, and beat is thirty one, thirteen
Speaker 1: and four on forty seven eighty seven and his team
Speaker 1: is four and three. Lebron is twenty six, eight and
Speaker 1: nine on fifty one nineteen sixty six and his team
Speaker 1: is three and four. So for just narrowing down the
Speaker 1: last two weeks, I think those other two guys have
Speaker 1: been better than Lebron. That doesn't necessarily voult them to
Speaker 1: the top of the race above him, because I think
Speaker 1: it's it still is all two jumbled right, especially because
Speaker 1: Denver hasn't really want enough games, even though they're only
Speaker 1: a game backup fifth and two games back of forth.
Speaker 1: So if they if they roll off a couple in
Speaker 1: a row, I think can beat or excuse me, Yokich
Speaker 1: probably takes the lead in this thing because he has
Speaker 1: been incredible. Forty four last night, he had I think
Speaker 1: close to fifty against Boston last week, He's I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been ridiculous. I call them the best offensive player
Speaker 1: in the league last night, and I don't think that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Um but it's if you honestly gut into my head
Speaker 1: right now, I would say it's I would have Yokich
Speaker 1: as my m v P at this moment, but that
Speaker 1: could easily change in the next week if Denver loses
Speaker 1: a couple and you know, Philly starts playing well again,
Speaker 1: or the Lakers start playing well again, especially if they
Speaker 1: don't have a D. Yeah, I think I think I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. Um Uh, I'm okay with the case
Speaker 1: for any player. I think the biggest opinion that I
Speaker 1: would push back on right now is this idea that
Speaker 1: anybody is falling out of the race or giving up
Speaker 1: their chance to win. When you factor in the fact
Speaker 1: that everybody's case is getting weaker over the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks as opposed to you know, if we you know,
Speaker 1: back up a little bit, and everybody's case looks so good,
Speaker 1: especially Kauai and Beat in Lebron, they just had these
Speaker 1: like iron clad classic m v P cases, and it
Speaker 1: was being referred to as like this, you know, up
Speaker 1: for grabs m v P. But now it's like even
Speaker 1: more up for grabs because the guys at the top
Speaker 1: have kind of receded down, uh, into that other group.
Speaker 1: And so I'm more willing to hear a case for
Speaker 1: Yokis now than I was a few weeks ago, just
Speaker 1: by virtue of the fact that the guys on the
Speaker 1: top of the are are getting worse. But we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have I wouldn't have made the cakes for Yokich last
Speaker 1: time we talked about. I think I had him third,
Speaker 1: but I had Lebron and em Beat in their own tier.
Speaker 1: Basically right now, I think I'd have those three kind
Speaker 1: of in the same tire. And Kauai actually would be
Speaker 1: there too if he hadn't missed four of the last
Speaker 1: eight games, right he keeps missing games like you can't
Speaker 1: be in the conversation, especially for m v P if
Speaker 1: you keep missing games, I agree, and and it's gonna
Speaker 1: end up being nit picked. All these cases are gonna
Speaker 1: get nit picked like that at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Like at the end of the year, you're gonna see,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're gonna be talking about Yoki's record,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be talking about, oh, how did Lebron do
Speaker 1: when a D was out there, gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: you know, uh Embiid and you know, uh him missing
Speaker 1: games and Kauai missing games, and it's all just gonna
Speaker 1: be kind of a jumble at the top, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna be nitpicking between all these guys. Is like this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing that has been annoying to me about like
Speaker 1: framing Lebron's MVP conversation is like, well, Schroeder and a
Speaker 1: D are out. It's like, great man. Everybody every team
Speaker 1: this year has injuries and COVID issues, Like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You still have to win games. The Warriors have been
Speaker 1: playing without centers for like two and a half weeks,
Speaker 1: and they found a way to like maintain and stay
Speaker 1: around five hundred. I don't think that makes Steph an
Speaker 1: m v P, but there's certainly worse roster situations right
Speaker 1: now than the l A Lakers. They still have a
Speaker 1: lot of really good players who are healthy. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you can argue that like Vogel should be playing Montres
Speaker 1: a little bit more, especially in eighties absence, and he
Speaker 1: probably should have against Washington a couple of nights ago.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, if Lebron really
Speaker 1: really wants to be the m v P and make
Speaker 1: his case strong, way you don't lose to the Washington Wizards.
Speaker 1: When Russell Westbrook is literally trying to throw the game
Speaker 1: like six separate occasions in the last two minutes, That's
Speaker 1: it's hilarious watching him playing now because russ Brook, I mean,
Speaker 1: because he's like doing he's trying to do the same
Speaker 1: things that he's doing five years ago, and he has
Speaker 1: like seventy of the same athleticism. It's it's like kind
Speaker 1: of sad, but you gotta get the guy credit, I
Speaker 1: guess for just being mentally strong enough to try to
Speaker 1: be the same guy just the whole game or did
Speaker 1: you just see the end of it. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: the Warriors were playing that night too, so I caught
Speaker 1: like the end of the third and then all of
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter and over time so quickly. In defense
Speaker 1: of Russ. Uh, he was the reason they came back
Speaker 1: and took the lead in that game. He did like
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of what happened with him
Speaker 1: with Houston last year. Uh huh yeah, Uh really m
Speaker 1: h m hm hm m. Defensive personnel, but they do
Speaker 1: have a lot of guys who can shoot, and that's
Speaker 1: how you can kind of keep things open. And and Uh,
Speaker 1: I really liked the job RUI had to marryed it
Speaker 1: on Lebron. Uh, mainly just with ball pressure and the
Speaker 1: big thing with ball pressures, it's fatiguing, and I feel
Speaker 1: like over the course of the game it started to
Speaker 1: get to Lebron and make it so that he was less.
Speaker 1: He was more hesitant to drive because he was tired.
Speaker 1: The I couldn't understand why they put Westbrook on um
Speaker 1: Lebron on the last possession of regulation. I thought Murrah
Speaker 1: switched the screen super easily on the NBA yeah him
Speaker 1: down like they did a pin down and really just
Speaker 1: grabbed the screener and Russ went with him because he
Speaker 1: probably knew Russ was just gonna do that because that's
Speaker 1: it's Russ, like you just know he's going to try
Speaker 1: to take the assignment there. But I've argued this for
Speaker 1: a little while now, I think because Murra is like
Speaker 1: a guy that came into the NBA with defensive warts
Speaker 1: um Like, the big selling point was his offense and
Speaker 1: then but he had a ton of defensive deficiencies, so
Speaker 1: draft people didn't love him that much. But he is big,
Speaker 1: he has athletic and he is kind of long. I
Speaker 1: think the key is slowing down Lebron at this point
Speaker 1: is more guys like that, bigger bodies because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have that same quickness advantage he used to have. Right
Speaker 1: when you used to put a big guy on me,
Speaker 1: just go right around him. It's not the same anymore.
Speaker 1: If I was if I was trying to beat Lebron,
Speaker 1: I would tend to put bigger bodies on him and
Speaker 1: more worry more about him bullying in the post than
Speaker 1: him beating me off the dribble times because of his quickness.
Speaker 1: And I think it is a regular season game against
Speaker 1: the Washington Wizards. I'm not drawing any grand conclusion from it,
Speaker 1: but I think really kind of underscores an interesting um
Speaker 1: way to kind of frame stopping Lebron because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, that's what the playoffs come down
Speaker 1: to a lot of the time. Can you stop Lebron
Speaker 1: James enough to win an NBA Championship? A lot of
Speaker 1: teams can't. I think, Uh, there was a play at
Speaker 1: the end of regulation where Lebron just did a basic
Speaker 1: dribble drive move on Ruby Hodmerron got all the way
Speaker 1: to the basket for a layup. It was with like,
Speaker 1: I think a minute left. It was before the shot
Speaker 1: that he had on Russ, and I think like it
Speaker 1: just so, this is a good time to segue to
Speaker 1: the Lakers because just in the way that they've been playing,
Speaker 1: because I think, like, you know, there's a tendant that there.
Speaker 1: I I talked about this on Twitter the other day.
Speaker 1: They have all of these players that are excellent in
Speaker 1: the role that they're being asked to fill. And the
Speaker 1: example I used on Twitter was the Morris Twins. So
Speaker 1: Markief Morris is a much better player for the Lakers
Speaker 1: than he would be for another team because the Lakers
Speaker 1: literally only need Markis Morris to shoot spot up threes,
Speaker 1: to be a ball mover, not a ball stopper. And
Speaker 1: then on the other end to play his ass off. However,
Speaker 1: like Marcus Morris is a better basketball player, He's more skilled,
Speaker 1: he's more athletic, he does everything better than Markis Morris.
Speaker 1: But Marky Marcus Morris would be a bad fit on
Speaker 1: the Lakers because he's a ball stopper, because he would
Speaker 1: be he would he would struggle to fit into what
Speaker 1: the Lakers are explicitly asking him to do. Ironically, though,
Speaker 1: with Dennis Shrewder out and with Anthony Davis out, and
Speaker 1: Zach Low talked about this on his podcast the other day,
Speaker 1: like they basically have one guy who can coherently dribble,
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, these Golden State war
Speaker 1: I I told about it, and for the record, I
Speaker 1: agree with you in your point about like not complaining
Speaker 1: because everybody has been screwed. But all I'm saying is, like,
Speaker 1: when you're evaluating the long term, uh, you know, prospects
Speaker 1: of this Laker team, this is pointless because literally all
Speaker 1: of these guys are being asked Caruso is now being
Speaker 1: asked to run the offense, you know, like Montrose Harold
Speaker 1: is now being asked to use a be be a
Speaker 1: high usage guy, like literally a guy who's gonna be
Speaker 1: average twenty plus points a game during this stretch? Like there,
Speaker 1: this evaluating this Laker team now is pointless because guess
Speaker 1: what if they don't have Dennis or a d they
Speaker 1: might lose in the first round. Because they were never
Speaker 1: constructed to have Lebron James literally run the entire offense
Speaker 1: by himself and then have all these defensive minded role players.
Speaker 1: They were constructed to have all of these guys that
Speaker 1: would excel in tiny roles and to have Dennis Shrewder
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis carry the with Lebron carry the complicated
Speaker 1: parts of the offense. And and so I just I
Speaker 1: I agree Lebron has to find a way to win
Speaker 1: some of these games for his MVP case. However, in
Speaker 1: all these games matter for the standings. However, about the Lakers,
Speaker 1: because Dennis Shooter is gonna play, Okay, Denis Shooter is
Speaker 1: gonna play. Yeah, I'm not. No, I'm not drawing any
Speaker 1: long term conclusions from that. That That would be stupid. My
Speaker 1: My point is, just like a lot of guys are
Speaker 1: doing a lot with a little right now, just in
Speaker 1: terms of offensive output and and winning enough games. And
Speaker 1: the Lakers the last week have not looked great. That's
Speaker 1: my that's my only point in Lebron's m v P
Speaker 1: case is that you know, there's a lot of guys
Speaker 1: who have really bad situations right now and are doing
Speaker 1: a lot with those situations, like Dame is, Dame is down,
Speaker 1: c J and and Dirk right now, right and they've
Speaker 1: they've slid recently, but they were playing really well before
Speaker 1: that without those guys. So asking Lebron to do the
Speaker 1: same to bolster his m v P case is not
Speaker 1: ridiculous at all in my opinion. I'm not making any
Speaker 1: long term conclusions at all, like if this if this team,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, doesn't have Shorter, and it either screwed
Speaker 1: the whole reason Shorter was brought in a lesson Lebron's
Speaker 1: load in the regular season and to be insurance for
Speaker 1: like an Anthony Davis injury in terms of just carrying
Speaker 1: offensive load. The fact that both those guys are hurt
Speaker 1: as definitely throwing a wrench in the Lakers season. But
Speaker 1: it's no reason to like freak out. There's there's too
Speaker 1: many fan bases doing that this year, like Miami's fan
Speaker 1: base freaking out when Jimmy and Avery Bradley and half
Speaker 1: their rotation was hurt, Like, oh my god, light everything
Speaker 1: on fire. Trade everyone. It's like, guys, half your rotation
Speaker 1: isn't playing right now. It's also a good right now.
Speaker 1: Celtics fans are like kind of doing the same thing
Speaker 1: there without like maybe their second or third most important
Speaker 1: player Marcus Smart and Kemba hasn't been great, which I
Speaker 1: think some people could have predicted. Um I was staying
Speaker 1: that last year, Like, man, that contract looks kind of bad.
Speaker 1: He's tiny. He if he lose his quickness, it's gonna
Speaker 1: look really ugly. But they don't have like their second
Speaker 1: most important player, Like, quit drawing conclusions about the team
Speaker 1: on a hole when some of your most important guys
Speaker 1: are missing. That's it was the same thing people were
Speaker 1: doing about the Warriors four games into the season. Five
Speaker 1: games into this season, Draymond Green wasn't playing and people
Speaker 1: are saying, oh, man, this Warriors team might be the
Speaker 1: worst team in the league. It's like, no, their second
Speaker 1: best player isn't playing in the basketball games. One of
Speaker 1: those people, I know you were, I know you were.
Speaker 1: My Like, most teams do not have the depth to
Speaker 1: withstand their second best player not playing. It's just the facts,
Speaker 1: like and unless you're the Lakers, unless you're the Clippers,
Speaker 1: unless you're Yeah, but they suck, Yeah, exactly Without both
Speaker 1: those guys, if it was just a d I think
Speaker 1: they look a lot better. I agree, and they did.
Speaker 1: They beat the Brooklyn has enough. Brooklyn has enough with
Speaker 1: with Kevin Durrant out, because they have two other incredible
Speaker 1: offensive players and they can still score a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty points a game. I do. I yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: Like because Ramona Shelburn went on was Zach Low. It
Speaker 1: basically was like this, this three game losing streak matters,
Speaker 1: and a Laker Laker Twitter for the record, burned her
Speaker 1: to the ground when she did that, and she kind
Speaker 1: of deserved it because like that, like, evaluating this team
Speaker 1: at this phase is pointless. Evaluating the heat outside of
Speaker 1: the context of all their guys is pointless because chances
Speaker 1: are by the time we get to late May um,
Speaker 1: things will look a little different and everyone will be
Speaker 1: healthy and put together for the most parted with the
Speaker 1: exception of maybe a handful of really unfortunate injuries. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I all I'm saying is like, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, I think the Lakers are gonna get killed
Speaker 1: tonight by the Jazz. The line in Vegas is absurd.
Speaker 1: There are nine point underdogs because freaking machine man. The
Speaker 1: Dazz are a machine exactly in the in in Vegas knows, like,
Speaker 1: guess what, they don't have a big that can get
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert out of the paint. So like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a ship show. That game is going to be
Speaker 1: a ship show. Like like people who don't know what
Speaker 1: they're seeing are gonna begging Lebron to do more tonight
Speaker 1: and he's not gonna be able to do more. And
Speaker 1: uh but yeah, I just everything needs to be taken
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt for all of these teams
Speaker 1: in the chaos that is the the COVID regular season exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's what I don't think enough people are doing.
Speaker 1: They're not people aren't paying credence to that, like on
Speaker 1: one Himmer saying, oh, like COVID, it's the weirdest season ever.
Speaker 1: There's so many guys who are out and these fan
Speaker 1: bases turn around and flip out when half the rotation
Speaker 1: isn't playing, like and the regular season is so it
Speaker 1: is so tricky with this kind of stuff, Like I
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit on the short pod
Speaker 1: that I did on Monday, But like Brooklyn running a
Speaker 1: switching defense, like that's gonna that's gonna mess with a
Speaker 1: lot of teams in the regular season. Like it's just
Speaker 1: you know, because the Clippers, for instance, have actually been
Speaker 1: playing really well. They've been one of the more impressive
Speaker 1: teams for me personally this season. They're super deep. That's
Speaker 1: what I still I think have the same overall concerns,
Speaker 1: but they're really really deep. They have a lot of
Speaker 1: good players, like even Terrence Man, who doesn't get playing
Speaker 1: time a lot of the Knights when they're healthy, He's
Speaker 1: an awesome NBA player. That's the guy who's gonna be
Speaker 1: in the league for twelve years. They just have a
Speaker 1: ton of lately. Yep, as he's honestly as he should be.
Speaker 1: And that Luke and Art contract yikes. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we'll still hear from Luca at some point eventually the
Speaker 1: I But like with the Clippers, what's fascinating is is like,
Speaker 1: like they've been playing really good basketball lately. I don't
Speaker 1: think that the Brooklyn Nets without Katie are that good
Speaker 1: of a team. However, they're just you're popping into a
Speaker 1: random regular season game against a team that switches everything,
Speaker 1: which as of to my knowledge, there's not another team
Speaker 1: in the league that switches as much as them right now. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't watch all thirty teams, but I don't know
Speaker 1: of any team that you'll you'll see a little bit
Speaker 1: of switching. Some teams switch tow through three, two or four.
Speaker 1: Some teams will you know as will switch specific actions.
Speaker 1: But the Brooklyn Nets literally switch everything, so every single
Speaker 1: action you run, and they literally do that because Kyrie
Speaker 1: and James Harden famously die on every screen that's ever
Speaker 1: said on them. They have to. If they didn't run,
Speaker 1: if they ran a traditional defense, they would get lit
Speaker 1: on fire. But the point is is like a team
Speaker 1: like a team like the Clippers in particular, a team
Speaker 1: like the Lakers, those kinds of teams. Uh. Philly is
Speaker 1: actually a good example of this too, got with the
Speaker 1: huge size advantage of Ben Simmons on those guards, Like
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to um do that for several games
Speaker 1: in a row. And it kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: playing Houston in the past, where it was like in
Speaker 1: the regular season if you kind of played into their gimmick,
Speaker 1: you get beat. But if you if the teams that
Speaker 1: really focused up and and and had a detailed attack
Speaker 1: to their defense had success. And I really do think
Speaker 1: like Brooklyn's kind of Uh. I believe in Brooklyn, but
Speaker 1: I think some of this is smoking mirrors with their
Speaker 1: with their regular season kind of catching teams off guard
Speaker 1: with their skime. I'm pretty sure when the trade first happened,
Speaker 1: I predicted something like they were going to go on
Speaker 1: a huge run. You know, they were just gonna be
Speaker 1: blowing teams out and scoring a bunch of points and
Speaker 1: there everybody's gonna be like, oh my god, who can
Speaker 1: stop this Brooklyn team. The Wards still remain like they
Speaker 1: very well might win the NBA Championship. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: sit here and say they're not going to, especially with
Speaker 1: injuries obviously finding a factor as they always do, and
Speaker 1: if things keep looking how they're looking, where every team
Speaker 1: in the league seemingly at some point is going through
Speaker 1: these major injury issues, then yeah, I think Brooklyn has
Speaker 1: a chance to win the title. But if everybody's healthy,
Speaker 1: they still wouldn't be my pick. I like, if Harden
Speaker 1: is a very good post offender, so I think putting
Speaker 1: him on on like a Janice or an Embiede eight
Speaker 1: ten times a game isn't the worst option in the world.
Speaker 1: He's very sturdy. Um, he's really strong, Like he plays
Speaker 1: angles well. He actually is good one on one in
Speaker 1: the post. But if like you're doing that with Kyrie
Speaker 1: as well, he's gonna get eaten alive. Like he has
Speaker 1: quick hands and I think he'll battle a little bit
Speaker 1: when push comes to shove. But the switching defense that
Speaker 1: like he succeeded in twenty sixteen, the Warriors didn't have
Speaker 1: a real post threat to like actually go at him,
Speaker 1: so they were able to switch those actions and it
Speaker 1: was more perimeter perimeter oriented, whereas like Embiede and you
Speaker 1: honest will destroy him in the post, like honest. Besides,
Speaker 1: like like four or five guys in the league, you
Speaker 1: honest destroys everybody in the post. Same with him beat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what I think it's interesting is, you know, the
Speaker 1: Golden State Warriors with Kevin Dury and Steph Curry, managed
Speaker 1: to solve the two thousand eighteen Rockets switching defense, and
Speaker 1: they really lit him on fire in Game six and seven,
Speaker 1: especially in the second half, and that was when the
Speaker 1: switching defense included Trevor resa In, p J. Tucker and
Speaker 1: literally just like a bunch of Chris Paul was on
Speaker 1: that team, Like they were much much much better with
Speaker 1: their defensive personnel. You're running a switching scheme with Kyrie
Speaker 1: who is going to be an absolute liability in specific matchups,
Speaker 1: James Harden who is a good post offender but cannot
Speaker 1: defend in space. Uh. Joe Harris is fine, He's fine,
Speaker 1: but he's not as good as any of those guys
Speaker 1: on the two thousand eighteen Rockets. Jeff Green is fine,
Speaker 1: He's not as good as Trevor Reason was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight Kevin Durant, and to be determined whether
Speaker 1: or not he takes that on personally. But my point
Speaker 1: is is, like you know, there's you might you might
Speaker 1: see a team drop game one to them because they're
Speaker 1: just caught completely off guard, and that might that might
Speaker 1: very well end up being something that could swing a series.
Speaker 1: But the point is is like they're gonna sit down
Speaker 1: and watch the tape and they're gonna play him a
Speaker 1: second time, and they're gonna play him a third time,
Speaker 1: and then they're suddenly going to realize like wait, if
Speaker 1: we if we said this specific action, we can get
Speaker 1: Kyrie onto Ben Simmons, and Ben Simmons can literally just
Speaker 1: ripped through and go to the rim and it's a
Speaker 1: foul or layup every time and its wide open three
Speaker 1: for Seth Curry or or Tobias Harris, Like they're gonna
Speaker 1: get really good shots every single time. Because those Rockets
Speaker 1: teams were really good when things broke down, uh in
Speaker 1: their back end rotations and stuff that this team, it's
Speaker 1: like one or two extra passes and they're just gonna quit,
Speaker 1: and so I I do. The Rockets. The Rockets were
Speaker 1: put together to be a switching team, like that's how
Speaker 1: they were constructed. Daryl Morey and his brain trust looked
Speaker 1: at the roster and they got as coach Jeff Bisdelic,
Speaker 1: who like really knew how to implement a switching scheme.
Speaker 1: They said, this is what we're going to do. That's
Speaker 1: not how this booklyn Nets roster was put together exactly.
Speaker 1: They they're they're switching out of necessity, having to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that their personnel literally cannot run a
Speaker 1: traditional defensive scheme like DeAndre Jordan's would be on the
Speaker 1: NBA let's see, we touched on UM Lebron the Portland
Speaker 1: we can't really talk about because they're without c J.
Speaker 1: C J. I think it is supposed to come back
Speaker 1: after the All Star break. Um, Philly has been hot
Speaker 1: and cold. The thing with Philly is for me is
Speaker 1: like similar to the Utah thing. They haven't They don't
Speaker 1: really have that signature win outside of the Laker game,
Speaker 1: which they very well could have lost. Um, but the uh,
Speaker 1: the same same thing with Utah. Just id I'd like
Speaker 1: to see them put together some quality wins. They're five
Speaker 1: and five in their last ten and they haven't really
Speaker 1: been playing that great competition, so I'm not really uh,
Speaker 1: super impressed by them as of late. Um, did you
Speaker 1: see that Warrior schedule that came out, Yeah, Jazz, Clippers,
Speaker 1: Lakers to uh to start right after the All Star break.
Speaker 1: Well you saw the games before that too, right, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, it's it's a pretty tough schedule coming
Speaker 1: up to like this is a very crucial stretch for
Speaker 1: whether they're actually gonna even maybe make the play in
Speaker 1: or not. So uh yeah, they're what they're two games
Speaker 1: over of right now. They would if they go three
Speaker 1: and five over this next eight game stretch, which includes
Speaker 1: the Pacers, Hornets, Lakers, Blazers, Sons, Clippers, Jazz Lakers. Then
Speaker 1: you're looking at being a five hundred team through over
Speaker 1: half the season. It's h they were talking about this morning.
Speaker 1: There's like a decent chance that you're going to see
Speaker 1: some crazy playing game that has like Luca don Che
Speaker 1: versus Steph Curry or something like that, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: or shoot Luca versus Yoki Yoki versus Steph like these
Speaker 1: are all possibilities that could happen, which is just I
Speaker 1: think it goes to something that we wanted to touch
Speaker 1: on the day, like the level of play in the league,
Speaker 1: you know it, the amount of offensive talent, like individual
Speaker 1: offensive talent, and we've touched on this a little bit before,
Speaker 1: is probably higher than any point in league history. But
Speaker 1: I am interested to see what this eventually leads to,
Speaker 1: and I think we are seeing more of it with
Speaker 1: guys like Steph and guys with like Yokich. Can these
Speaker 1: humongous offensive talents, like these absurdly dominant offensive talents learn
Speaker 1: how to integrate into like a more team oriented system
Speaker 1: because a lot of the younger guys coming in they
Speaker 1: don't really know how to do that. I should lose
Speaker 1: connection shoot there? Yeah, how much where did you lose
Speaker 1: me at? Uh? Didn't lose anything? You can Okay? Perfect? Perfect? No.
Speaker 1: So I just think, yeah, like you have guys like
Speaker 1: Trey and Luca coming in the league who are like
Speaker 1: unreal offensive talents that they can do things with the
Speaker 1: basketball that like literally maybe no twenty year olds in
Speaker 1: the history of the game could have done in terms
Speaker 1: of just running an entire offense and making the correct
Speaker 1: read almost every single time, knowing when to pass, dribbles, shoot,
Speaker 1: like all those things. But they're they're gonna be easy
Speaker 1: to stop in in a playoff series against great defenses
Speaker 1: because they only basically do this one thing. They play
Speaker 1: this one style, and if you can stop that, if
Speaker 1: you're the right personnel to stop it, they're gonna falter.
Speaker 1: So I I think it's just interesting to see where
Speaker 1: this entire thing eventually goes, because individual play can only
Speaker 1: get you so far, it really can unless and Lebron
Speaker 1: doesn't play like those guys, but he has leaned that
Speaker 1: way in certain years. He can do it because he's
Speaker 1: like the greatest athlete of all time and he makes
Speaker 1: the right decision, he doesn't get tired, he doesn't get
Speaker 1: as tired, and and when he does get tired, he
Speaker 1: can go on the post, in the post and lean
Speaker 1: on you for eight seconds to honestly rest and then
Speaker 1: go get an easy shot anyway you can get a
Speaker 1: layup or kick out for a three. Like I've said
Speaker 1: this before, and I'm gonna say it's all on blue
Speaker 1: in the face. Basing your offensive system and like the
Speaker 1: way that you want to play basketball off of the
Speaker 1: way that Lebron James played basketball is maybe the most
Speaker 1: foolish thing of all time. We saw the same thing
Speaker 1: in the two thousand's though with the entire m J generation.
Speaker 1: You know, guys like Kobe was able to do it
Speaker 1: because Kobe was fremely talented, But like guys like Tracy McGrady,
Speaker 1: you're Vince Carter or like all these guys who just
Speaker 1: wanted to play out of the midpost and do a
Speaker 1: bunch of ISOs and score a bunch of points. That's
Speaker 1: not really gonna like lead to successful basketball if you're
Speaker 1: not the guy who's the most talented of all time
Speaker 1: at it. It just just seems to always happen when
Speaker 1: there's a super influential player, and it's the same things
Speaker 1: gonna happen with Steph. You're gonna have all these guys
Speaker 1: launching deep threes. So we've seen it already with Trey,
Speaker 1: and it's like you're you're not shooting from three, Like
Speaker 1: you're not just you're not gonna be the same level
Speaker 1: as if of effectiveness. That's actually a really interesting point
Speaker 1: about how like Lebron's impact on the league is leading
Speaker 1: to this like heliocentric style. Um I do think like
Speaker 1: this is something that I told you I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about today because it's something that's been a popular
Speaker 1: topic as of late. Um U in in the Twitter circles,
Speaker 1: and like there's a lot of people complaining about the
Speaker 1: quality of the NBA for various reasons, and I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily saying any of their specific opinions are wrong. Like
Speaker 1: you know what, I agree. I think the broadcasts are
Speaker 1: a little bit too much like podcasts and not enough
Speaker 1: like basketball analysis that I agree with. Um, I think
Speaker 1: NBA Twitter is a toxic place. I think the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all of the mainstream TV shows that cover
Speaker 1: the league are too caught up in narratives and and
Speaker 1: you know, kind of teenager type behavior. I I agree
Speaker 1: with that. I agree. I think that like you don't
Speaker 1: see that stuff with the NFL or even the MLB,
Speaker 1: Like they're actually most of those shows pregame, post game,
Speaker 1: daytime shows, they're trying to analyze the game. That's just
Speaker 1: not in the case with the NBA. No. I agree,
Speaker 1: And I think you know, the uh everything about refereeing
Speaker 1: is in is in a really dark place. There's too
Speaker 1: many three point shot attempts. I agree with all of that,
Speaker 1: that's all true. I think where I pushed back with
Speaker 1: people is like there are huge positives as well. There
Speaker 1: are more stars in the league than ever before. More
Speaker 1: and I'm not even just talking about like what we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, like skilled players. I'm saying like
Speaker 1: they're legitimately right now, three of the top twelve players
Speaker 1: ever are playing in or at the top of their game.
Speaker 1: You know, we have an absurd amount of talent shot
Speaker 1: making is it an all time high? And I think
Speaker 1: what we forget with this kind of stuff is like
Speaker 1: every era had huge glaring flaws, Like the late nineties
Speaker 1: were so bad in terms of how stuck in the
Speaker 1: mud they were that they literally had to change the rules,
Speaker 1: Like that's a thing that happened, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: if you if you go back and watch the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: if you like, there was that clip that used to
Speaker 1: fly around every once in a while about the seven Finals.
Speaker 1: Uh Celtics Lakers in that game seven or something and
Speaker 1: how trash. The first few minutes of the games were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like basketball was a little bit ugly back then, and
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways it was pretty in some ways,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the ball boom mid stuff, but
Speaker 1: the overall quality of the product wasn't great. And and
Speaker 1: so all I'm saying is, like I think part of
Speaker 1: this has to do with just kind of the complaining
Speaker 1: era we're in in us being so negative about what
Speaker 1: we're what we're seeing. And all I would say is,
Speaker 1: should we talk about the issues, yeah? Should we strive
Speaker 1: to be better? Yeah? Or the things we can change? Yeah.
Speaker 1: But like I'm loving watching the NBA this year, Like
Speaker 1: the Lakers have no chance of beating the Jazz, and
Speaker 1: I've stoked to watch it because you know, it's like
Speaker 1: I get to check out a team that I've been
Speaker 1: periolling in the Jazz, and I like watching Lebron James play.
Speaker 1: It's like I get Steph with a tough road game
Speaker 1: in India, the challenging game for him, Like there are
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons to really enjoy it out parts
Speaker 1: of the NBA, and we have fans coming back eventually.
Speaker 1: So I just maybe I'm just being you know, Mr. Positive,
Speaker 1: but I I do. I do get a little frustrated
Speaker 1: with people complaining a little too much about all of this.
Speaker 1: I think what's important to note is, like we're basketball nerds.
Speaker 1: We talked about it all day on Twitter, we do
Speaker 1: podcasts about it, like we live and breathe this stuff.
Speaker 1: The conversation is more about, Okay, how can we pull
Speaker 1: the more casual fan into the game, right, Like how
Speaker 1: can we bring them back to booster ratings again? And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it really stems down to
Speaker 1: getting better analysis on the TV shows like these Almost
Speaker 1: anybody who watches like knows these guys are jokes. Like
Speaker 1: they don't actually want to analyze the game. They just
Speaker 1: want to like get off a talking point, get off
Speaker 1: an agenda, and then hop off and get a bunch
Speaker 1: of Twitter mentions and like just kind of fuel the
Speaker 1: cycle and then go back and do it again the
Speaker 1: next day, and then the league also has to figure
Speaker 1: out how to like kind of buoy and market these
Speaker 1: other stars like besides like a Lebron or a Steph
Speaker 1: or Kevin Durant, Like they gotta figure out a way
Speaker 1: to to market these international guys. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm smart enough to be like the guy to
Speaker 1: figure that out, but like, you gotta figure out a
Speaker 1: way to market honest better. I was watching yokis postgame
Speaker 1: interview last night after he drops forty four points against
Speaker 1: UM the Blazers has like an incredible performance, and he's
Speaker 1: like this super personal, hilarious dude. He's joking around with Shack,
Speaker 1: He's joking around with d Wade, like he's given back
Speaker 1: and forth with all these guys, and you never hear
Speaker 1: anything about him on like a national scale, Like what
Speaker 1: are we doing here? The dude is unbelievable. He's a
Speaker 1: top three m VP candidate. He's got a really good personality.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the English is a little bit broken and
Speaker 1: that makes it a little bit tough sometimes, but if
Speaker 1: you get him just to talk for a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: you like, he has a really good personality. The league
Speaker 1: has to figure out like a better way to not
Speaker 1: just have like this lebron centric like media complex to
Speaker 1: where like almost everything plays off him in a way.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the Steph Curry conversation occurs because like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's not better than Lebron, or like he doesn't measure
Speaker 1: up to Lebron. It's like, yeah, but Steph is still amazing.
Speaker 1: So is Kevin Durant. Maybe they don't measure up to Lebron.
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't, but they're still amazing players in their
Speaker 1: own right. Not everything has to be framed in this
Speaker 1: like oh my god, like is he is he at
Speaker 1: the same level as this guy? It's like, no, these
Speaker 1: guys are just incredible players. Let's like break them down
Speaker 1: for what they are. And that's what the NFL does
Speaker 1: an amazing job of the guys who are playing well,
Speaker 1: they get credit, they analyze their games, and they tell
Speaker 1: you exactly what they're doing well in a very digestible way.
Speaker 1: The NBA does not do that unequivocally. They do not,
Speaker 1: and it hurts the product. And I will say that
Speaker 1: till I'm blue in the face, Like, yes, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of good things, but if you can't draw
Speaker 1: the casual fan in None of it matters really because
Speaker 1: the league will ever being a good spot, especially with
Speaker 1: all the COVID stuff. So I don't disagree with anything
Speaker 1: you said. I think the NBA media coverage is to
Speaker 1: Lebron centric, doesn't do a good job of developing its
Speaker 1: younger stars. I think analysis is at an all time low.
Speaker 1: I struggle with the broadcast and struggle with all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I personally have been so deeply bothered by the refereeing
Speaker 1: in the league right now. I agree, so bad, it's
Speaker 1: so so bad. There was there was a clip like,
Speaker 1: oh it was our guy Bobby on Twitter, Lakers fan,
Speaker 1: but also a huge Steph fan. Step got absolutely way
Speaker 1: laid on a three, like took a regular three, and
Speaker 1: one of the New York's guys closed out on him
Speaker 1: and like basically knocked him over. This late in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter, no foul call. Next possession, Steph comes down,
Speaker 1: He comes off a pick and roll and like kind
Speaker 1: of leans Intotaj Gibson as he gets to the free
Speaker 1: throw line and flails a little bit and throws up
Speaker 1: a floater and he makes it and he gets an
Speaker 1: end one. There's the issue right there, Like you're rewarding
Speaker 1: flopping over a guy like getting abso lutely crushed because
Speaker 1: he didn't accentuate or acted in the right way. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you fix that like that. That is
Speaker 1: a problem where it's like what do you do even
Speaker 1: due to address it if the rests can't tell the
Speaker 1: difference between like a clear guy getting run over and
Speaker 1: then a guy flopping. So I I don't know how
Speaker 1: you fix it either. If honestly, what I think the
Speaker 1: only the only path that would make any sense to
Speaker 1: me is to get some former player to become the
Speaker 1: new NBA head of referees, or to put a player
Speaker 1: panel together, a panel kind of like the NBA p A.
Speaker 1: Just get some group of highly influential players, like five
Speaker 1: or six of them that you know, get on a
Speaker 1: zoom call with the rest every week and talk about
Speaker 1: their concerns, you know, because that kind of thing would
Speaker 1: that kind of thing would make more sense to me,
Speaker 1: because I do think a lot of guards similar to
Speaker 1: Popovich a few years ago saying like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to shoot all these threes, but I'm doing it
Speaker 1: because that's the way you win games. Maybe maybe that's
Speaker 1: what it takes is getting you know, Chris Paul or
Speaker 1: that that's the name I was gonna bring up. Get Chris, Chris,
Speaker 1: Get Chris Paul in there. I think he'd be amazing
Speaker 1: at something like that. Yeah, and haven't be like, look, man,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this stuff because it works, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this stuff, you know, Like, dude, you
Speaker 1: know that would be the biggest way because like at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Um, I I always think
Speaker 1: about it, like the spirit of the rule. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the play that always gets debated
Speaker 1: having to do with the ball getting hit out of bounds,
Speaker 1: and like it very clearly the dude hits it out
Speaker 1: of bounds, but if you look at it frame by frame,
Speaker 1: it kind of grew, you know, grazes his finger on
Speaker 1: the way out. It's like the spirit of the rule
Speaker 1: is if the dude slaps the ball out of my hand,
Speaker 1: it's my ball, you know. Like that's more like two
Speaker 1: guys are going up for a rebound. The one guy
Speaker 1: comes over the top of the other guy's hand, only
Speaker 1: hits the guy's hand doesn't hit the ball, but he
Speaker 1: pushes the guy's hand and now the ball goes out
Speaker 1: on the one guy because his hand got pushed. It's
Speaker 1: like the same type of thing. It's like, dude, just
Speaker 1: use your brain. You know what the right call is.
Speaker 1: Just make the right call. Use discretion. Yeah, agree, and
Speaker 1: like it that that, to me, is fixable essentially by
Speaker 1: trying to reframe the uh, the entire referee focus from
Speaker 1: a really analytical, like uh, you know, rules based approach
Speaker 1: to more of like, hey, our job here is to
Speaker 1: is to keep a basketball game organized, not to not
Speaker 1: to strictly follow these these specific rules. Because I think
Speaker 1: as soon as that kind of thing, uh, it takes place. Uh,
Speaker 1: because that's what happens in a pickup game when we
Speaker 1: play a pickup you know, I was playing basketball this morning.
Speaker 1: Like there's just kind of a general understanding like if
Speaker 1: I you know, if if I drive to the basket
Speaker 1: and i'm uh and I'm initiating a ton of contact
Speaker 1: and some dude slaps me at the end, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know that I can call that because I'm the
Speaker 1: one who's initiating all the contact. And if I do,
Speaker 1: chances are everybody on the floor is gonna yell at
Speaker 1: me or look at me a certain way, and and
Speaker 1: and and and There's a million other examples like that
Speaker 1: that I don't want to get into. But the point
Speaker 1: is is, like in a pickup game, it's the general
Speaker 1: set of rules that we're going by, is we need
Speaker 1: to keep this a basketball game, you know, like we
Speaker 1: need to like we need to kind of stick within
Speaker 1: this framework of the basketball game, whereas like the refs
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, he was chasing him over the
Speaker 1: top of that pick and roll and technically he had
Speaker 1: his hand on his arm as he was going up
Speaker 1: or you know, uh, there's you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's just I think like it's it's an entire mind,
Speaker 1: Like it's an entire framework the way that the refs
Speaker 1: look at this, because if you watch refs, Ryan Rissilo
Speaker 1: had the lead ref guy on his podcast a couple
Speaker 1: like a couple of months ago, and uh, and he
Speaker 1: was talking to him and and they're they're indignant about this.
Speaker 1: Like the way they talk about it, it's like we're
Speaker 1: we're doing our job, you know, Like like at one
Speaker 1: point he literally looked at Ryan. He's like, well, Ryan,
Speaker 1: is is it a foul? And Ryan's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: but that's not what the that's not the way basketball
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. It's like you have to understand
Speaker 1: that that you're you're thinking about it too analytically and
Speaker 1: too much on like a uh, you know, very like
Speaker 1: identifying certain types of contact as opposed to just like
Speaker 1: is that a basketball a yes? Is that defender playing
Speaker 1: good clean you know, defensive basketball, or or is he
Speaker 1: being over zealous? Like if I'm chasing Dame around the
Speaker 1: screen and he and you don't let me chase him,
Speaker 1: then you're giving Dame too much of an advantage, and
Speaker 1: now all of the one on one elements of the
Speaker 1: game are gone. And that's where I have a problem
Speaker 1: with it. I think it's I mean, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things here. I think it's like anything in society
Speaker 1: where like we overcorrect, right, like referring there probably was
Speaker 1: some issues with like we didn't get enough calls right,
Speaker 1: and like teams lost playoff series and championships because of that.
Speaker 1: And now we've like leaned so far in the other
Speaker 1: direction where it's like everything has to be by the
Speaker 1: letter of the law that there's like no room for
Speaker 1: human interpretation. Um. And I think maybe the bigger issue,
Speaker 1: especially latent games and Bill Simmons and Ryan Risseilla talked
Speaker 1: about this, so I don't want to go on the
Speaker 1: same tangent that they did, but like the replace at
Speaker 1: the end of the games, it's like you're ruining all
Speaker 1: of the tension and like all the excitement that goes
Speaker 1: into like any type of high climax like sport event,
Speaker 1: where it's like we don't know who's gonna win, Like
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of tension here because the outcome is
Speaker 1: still in the balance, and then we do a replay
Speaker 1: for like four minutes and we try to figure out
Speaker 1: the correct fall. Easy. I think that specific play is
Speaker 1: a is an easy fix. I think all you have
Speaker 1: to do is similar to like tennis or the NFL
Speaker 1: have a replay center, and that's what they brought up.
Speaker 1: Have them immediately start reviewing the play, Like if there's
Speaker 1: an out of balance call, have them immediately start reviewing
Speaker 1: the play, because they should be reviewing every call in
Speaker 1: the last two minutes automatically, like they're just they're in
Speaker 1: a replay center, just like it's already happening. So when
Speaker 1: the refs walk over, they get an immediate answer, right
Speaker 1: instead of like this long drawn out process. It doesn't
Speaker 1: even seem that hard to pull off, for sure. Figure
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, in the twenty seconds with our all
Speaker 1: pointing at each other and doing this, the dudes are
Speaker 1: already reviewing the tape. Now, it's just a call that
Speaker 1: literally the ref just has to go over to a
Speaker 1: phone pick it up. It's like, all right, what is it? Guys?
Speaker 1: All right, blue ball? Okay, here we go, you know,
Speaker 1: make it quick and easy. But but I agree with
Speaker 1: you because it is like it's a Pandora's box thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can't put everything back in it. We already
Speaker 1: have replay, Like you can't be like, oh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: like wind back play a little bit. It's already here.
Speaker 1: So since it is, let's figure out a system where
Speaker 1: we can actually do it correctly and it doesn't affect,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, the spirit of the game. As as
Speaker 1: basketball fans and even the casual fan, like the casual
Speaker 1: fan hates that kind of stuff. They hate watching a
Speaker 1: basketball game and then five minute replay and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna turn this off. I really don't care
Speaker 1: about the outcome. You know, I'm not a if it's
Speaker 1: a Celtics late or you know, a Celtics. Let's say
Speaker 1: Wizard's game, and it's a really good game, but there's
Speaker 1: no like huge fan interest. They're just from kind of
Speaker 1: like a normal standpoint. Somebody's you're just gonna flip the
Speaker 1: channel if there's a five minute review, like they just
Speaker 1: don't care about the outcome. That's how you bolster your
Speaker 1: ratings as you clean up all that little stuff. But
Speaker 1: so to push back on what you originally said, though,
Speaker 1: like because I do agree with all of those flaws,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is like if we had
Speaker 1: picked up the identical quality basketball in all of the
Speaker 1: surrounding circumstances from the nineties and we dropped them today
Speaker 1: with today's public attitude to everything and social media and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, would we also be complaining? Because that's
Speaker 1: my question because like as far as like the viewership stuff,
Speaker 1: it's like the viewership stuff is down across across the board,
Speaker 1: and if you're striving to reach these crazy NBA Finals
Speaker 1: numbers from the Jordan era, I'm sorry, that's unrealistic. Act
Speaker 1: that's a product of TV. Like sein Field episodes used
Speaker 1: to get better ratings in the Super Bowl, you or
Speaker 1: the same ratings of the super Bowl and it was
Speaker 1: every week, So you gotta embrace like the And I
Speaker 1: do think like I do think that, uh you know,
Speaker 1: because I gotta do an argument with somebody about this
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but I really do think that, uh,
Speaker 1: there is something to be said about attention on the
Speaker 1: league and the ability to eventually monetize it. So for instance,
Speaker 1: like one of the things that the NBA does a
Speaker 1: great job with the social media impressions now right now,
Speaker 1: they they haven't quite figured out how to monetize or
Speaker 1: they they are monetizing it, but not as well as
Speaker 1: they could, uh as you know a typical TV viewer
Speaker 1: for instance. Well what I what I think is like,
Speaker 1: I do think that the there's a reason why salary
Speaker 1: cap keeps uh ticking up. And when the new next
Speaker 1: round of TV deals go, I don't know how they're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. If it's gonna be some sort of
Speaker 1: combination of streaming and TV or whatever it is they're
Speaker 1: gonna do, They're gonna be fine. They're finding a way
Speaker 1: to make money off this stuff. It's a different type
Speaker 1: of viewer. It's a different viewer of viewership experience. Part
Speaker 1: of it, too, is our generation prefers things in smaller doses.
Speaker 1: We don't have the same patients that we used to
Speaker 1: to sit down and watch eighty two regular season games,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine our kids are gonna be even
Speaker 1: worse in that regard. So a lot of this is
Speaker 1: adapting and and trying to compare apples to oranges, and
Speaker 1: so all I'm saying is like, I agree that all
Speaker 1: this stuff is a problem. I agree that all of
Speaker 1: it needs to be fixed. You and I just broke
Speaker 1: down potential ways to fix refereeing. All of it should
Speaker 1: be addressed, and I hope that they are going to
Speaker 1: eventually get to this stuff. However, I just this idea that,
Speaker 1: like the NBA is a dying sport and this is
Speaker 1: all the cancerous tumors that are on it. I would
Speaker 1: disagree with that personally. No, I mean, as long as
Speaker 1: I can make it through COVID here and get fans
Speaker 1: back in arenas and eventually have focal pacity. Again, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a dying sport, but I think they're
Speaker 1: like things that need to be addressed. Like NBA Finals
Speaker 1: was down I want to say sixty six percent year
Speaker 1: over year. That wasn't in line with the other sports.
Speaker 1: So yes, everything, but all the other sports were compared
Speaker 1: to the same time frame, like the like the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl happened in February, but the Baseball happened in October.
Speaker 1: The World seriously happened, the World Series in the NBA
Speaker 1: Finals happened three weeks of each other. I know, but
Speaker 1: but the Major League Baseball does have a larger fan
Speaker 1: base in the NBA that remember that, the larger regional
Speaker 1: fan base. Yeah, they'll get they're they're there. When the
Speaker 1: Cubs made the World Series, they were having like fifty
Speaker 1: million people watching World Series games. That's the Cubs, though,
Speaker 1: that's different. I guess I'm just saying, like I I
Speaker 1: think that the NBA bubble. I would be more willing
Speaker 1: to hear that out next year, I think than I
Speaker 1: would this year. Is I guess my answer, I just
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm just being too much of a glass
Speaker 1: half full kind of guy here, But like I I
Speaker 1: believe that if an average fan turns on an NBA
Speaker 1: game right now, they there are downsides, but they're experiencing
Speaker 1: just as much positive as they would like. If you
Speaker 1: turn on the Pacers, literally, if you turned on a
Speaker 1: you know, like a Pacers Knicks game. You think that
Speaker 1: was a super entertaining experience in February. No, And and
Speaker 1: to defend the modern NBA, like that stuff was more
Speaker 1: of appointment television because we didn't have every game being broadcasted, right,
Speaker 1: So when you got in, when you're sitting on your
Speaker 1: couch and it's a Tuesday night, or it's a Saturday,
Speaker 1: or it's a Sunday, you're like, oh, shoot, we have
Speaker 1: NBA on today, and you only get to see the
Speaker 1: next twice a year. That's whereas now it's like super accessible.
Speaker 1: If I just want to pay like two U fifty
Speaker 1: bucks a year, I could watch every single New York
Speaker 1: Knicks game. And if I just want to watch the Knicks,
Speaker 1: I could be like, I think it's eighty bucks for
Speaker 1: the entire year or something for just one team. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors that play into this stuff.
Speaker 1: What I don't think we should just totally totally dismissed
Speaker 1: the ratings, especially when it's not absolutely in line with
Speaker 1: everything else that's happening, Like there is a I just
Speaker 1: think there's a middle ground here between like the ratings,
Speaker 1: like the ratings people who think it's the most dire
Speaker 1: situation in the world, and then people who think that
Speaker 1: there's no issues at all. M I agree with, And
Speaker 1: that's a good point about the appointment television stuff. And
Speaker 1: I guess that just kind of goes back to what
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier about it being kind of apples
Speaker 1: to oranges. It's just I think, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think this stuff is hard, and like, you know what
Speaker 1: else to like we all are, you know, we kind
Speaker 1: of surround us. We try. I try to surround myself
Speaker 1: with differing opinions. I followed fans from all these different
Speaker 1: fan bases, like I follow with with politics, I follow
Speaker 1: people from both sides. And that's how we started doing
Speaker 1: That's really how we started doing a podcast together because
Speaker 1: we had differing viewpoints and we were like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: there's maybe we can bring conflicting opinions to something and
Speaker 1: making it making it entertaining exactly. I agree, and and
Speaker 1: so I think, like, but even with us trying to
Speaker 1: do that, there's still a little of an echo chamber,
Speaker 1: at least I think generationally, because a lot of the
Speaker 1: people I follow are in this like twenty five to
Speaker 1: thirty five age group, guys who watch a lot of
Speaker 1: m B A, and I do think there's I would imagine,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm wrong about this. I would imagine in
Speaker 1: the NBA League office there's some person you know, who's
Speaker 1: been in business for a long time in some in
Speaker 1: some aspect, who knows a lot of social media or whatever,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, who's sitting down with Adam Silver and
Speaker 1: going like, listen, like you guys post a YouTube clip
Speaker 1: of a highlight from one of these players and it
Speaker 1: gets X number of views. This TikTok got seventy seven
Speaker 1: trillion views or whatever the heck it is. I'm just
Speaker 1: throwing numbers out, but you have to find a way
Speaker 1: to do this because this is where the next generation is.
Speaker 1: And for you and I, we're gonna be like that's bullshit,
Speaker 1: Like how that like the TikTok really? You know, we
Speaker 1: all made fun of them at the All Star break
Speaker 1: last year for doing that, and it's like no, no no, Like,
Speaker 1: the NBA literally has some super smart person who knows
Speaker 1: this stuff a lot better than us, who's sitting down
Speaker 1: with their the higher up saying like, this is what
Speaker 1: you gotta do. And I think, like, to your point,
Speaker 1: there's a middle ground, like you don't want to stray,
Speaker 1: you don't want to stray too far in any one direction.
Speaker 1: But I do think I do think we should give
Speaker 1: the NBA a little bit of the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt as they're trying to adapt to literally like the
Speaker 1: entire world getting turned over on its head in the
Speaker 1: way that we do everything on a day to day basis. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't disagree. I'm I'm actually really interested
Speaker 1: to see how the next TV deal shakes out, because
Speaker 1: I would think it starts to lean more towards streaming,
Speaker 1: especially with the way the NBA has begun to do stuff.
Speaker 1: They do want a social media presence, like they are
Speaker 1: really good on Twitter, they do a great job on YouTube,
Speaker 1: like they've basically taken over their own YouTube, like they
Speaker 1: won't let Praying the people post highlights anymore because they
Speaker 1: want all that for their piece of the pie. Right.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get on TikTok, which is still weird
Speaker 1: to me, but it's probably something they have to do,
Speaker 1: as you're kind of noting. So yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: honestly just see was it to see where all this
Speaker 1: ends up, because I think it is a really crucial
Speaker 1: time like they can. If they do all of this correctly,
Speaker 1: I think they could really maybe um on the market
Speaker 1: within the next ten years. I mean, they're never going
Speaker 1: to overtake the NFL, but they could become the clear,
Speaker 1: clear clear number two again to where they're easily the
Speaker 1: second most popular sport in the country, and then globally
Speaker 1: they're gonna keep growing, Like NBA is the second most
Speaker 1: or not NBA basketball is, it's like the most popular
Speaker 1: sport in the world behind soccer, so I think crickets
Speaker 1: up there too, but that's kind of more regionalized. There's
Speaker 1: just a lot of people who like it because it's
Speaker 1: very popular in one region. But point being like basketball
Speaker 1: isn't a good place overall. They just have to figure
Speaker 1: out the right way to go about this, and it
Speaker 1: it feels like they keep making mistakes would make the
Speaker 1: product worse, and if you do that enough times, then
Speaker 1: eventually it becomes a problem. And I think that's probably
Speaker 1: what more of kind of the alarmous stuff is about.
Speaker 1: We actually do the same thing on Warriors Twitter to
Speaker 1: kind of pull back the curtain a little bit. There's
Speaker 1: been some concerning moves by the front office. So every
Speaker 1: time there's another concerning move by the front office. You're like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: are these guys actually not who they who we thought
Speaker 1: they were? And there's kind of the same feeling with
Speaker 1: the NBA. I think that's why Warriors fans have honed
Speaker 1: in on it so much, because we do see some
Speaker 1: of the cracks in the army with the front office,
Speaker 1: and we see a parallel with the league office where
Speaker 1: it's like, these guys keep making weird decisions and they're
Speaker 1: not really correcting the problems that need to be corrected. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting, and like, I just I think, like
Speaker 1: I think things will shake out. Um, I feel the
Speaker 1: same way about just the on court product. Like it
Speaker 1: it's you know, at a certain point, the defenses will
Speaker 1: adapt and you won't see as many threes. You know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point, the refs are gonna get sick
Speaker 1: of getting slandered and they'll try to get better hopefully,
Speaker 1: Like all this stuff I think just kind of organically
Speaker 1: works itself out. And I just I love the league
Speaker 1: and you're right like that the casual fan it is
Speaker 1: an important part of their business strategy in heading into
Speaker 1: the future, and like the financial incentives are real, like
Speaker 1: the players know that for them to make more money,
Speaker 1: the league has to make more money. And so I
Speaker 1: think that I think that you and I touched on
Speaker 1: this earlier, but the idea of getting some sort of
Speaker 1: player panel from the NBA p A to work directly
Speaker 1: with refs to try to to try to figure out
Speaker 1: some common ground might be one of the easiest ways
Speaker 1: to improve that specific side of it. And maybe if
Speaker 1: you shouldn't just be like refereeing, it should just be
Speaker 1: like kind of spirit of the game type stuff, right,
Speaker 1: like it's just a more encompassing thing where yeah, refereeing
Speaker 1: is a part of it, but like what ways would
Speaker 1: make the game? And this would be tricky because players
Speaker 1: are always going to advocate for themselves in a way.
Speaker 1: But you know, what are some ways that you think
Speaker 1: the game could improve, And it might be better to
Speaker 1: do it with guys who were recently retired, like NFL
Speaker 1: Tony Rolmo has been a really good NFL analyst because
Speaker 1: he's recently retired, he still knows like all the lingo
Speaker 1: he saw, has a lot of connections in the league,
Speaker 1: so he can convey the game very very well. You
Speaker 1: should get guys like that in the NBA league office
Speaker 1: who are recently retired really know the game well. And
Speaker 1: there I think those guys would be more prone to
Speaker 1: advocate for the league on the whole instead of just
Speaker 1: advocating for the players, as active players would tend to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and that's the important balance is like you
Speaker 1: can't have the players making all the decisions because if
Speaker 1: it were up to the players, none of them would
Speaker 1: ever get criticized in the media, which is a completely
Speaker 1: like a completely impossible type of future for the league.
Speaker 1: And and you need but you need you. I think
Speaker 1: the idea there is like you get a bunch of
Speaker 1: the different sides in the room and you start bouncing
Speaker 1: ideas around and you find a way to make it work.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, like it's I
Speaker 1: would hope that they're already doing this stuff. Yeah they're not.
Speaker 1: They're definitely in trouble. Yeah exactly. Anyway, we are just
Speaker 1: over about an hour and ten minutes, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you guys go. Everybody, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Like I said, we need a new show name.
Speaker 1: So I'll tweet this out with the Tommy's put a
Speaker 1: gun to his head. I'll I'll send out a tweet
Speaker 1: that you can share here in a minute that just
Speaker 1: kind of asks for some ideas. But the podcast version
Speaker 1: of this will be out probably in about fifteen twenty minutes. Tommy,
Speaker 1: thank you as always, and I will see you next week.
Speaker 1: My friend sounds good man. Thank you