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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday, everybody hop ball. If you guys are having
Speaker 1: an incredible week. Well, we were gonna go live tonight
Speaker 1: after Lakers Celtics, but then Lebron James and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: decided they're not going to play. We're definitely not gonna
Speaker 1: go live after that game. What we're gonna do instead?
Speaker 1: I tweeted out asking for mail bag questions, and we
Speaker 1: got like fifty of them in an hour. I can't
Speaker 1: get to all fifty, but we're gonna hit a few
Speaker 1: dozen mail bag questions and then off the top. I
Speaker 1: actually watched Bucks Blazers last night. In Dame's return to
Speaker 1: Portland ended up being a super interesting game, kind of
Speaker 1: a defensive slug fest down the stretch, and then the
Speaker 1: Bucks maker run late and they end up taking the
Speaker 1: lead briefly before Anferny Simons makes a ridiculous shot, and
Speaker 1: then we had a little bit of a confusing sequence
Speaker 1: on the Doc Rivers front at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: So I want to kind of dive into that game
Speaker 1: for a few minutes, and then we'll get into the mailbag.
Speaker 1: You guys are the jopport we get started. Subscribe to
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Speaker 1: down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our
Speaker 1: podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight.
Speaker 1: And remember it's really helpful for us. If you do
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Speaker 1: out Underscore Jason lt where we put film breakdowns as
Speaker 1: well as show announcements and then last not leaves keep
Speaker 1: dropping mail bag questions YouTube comments so we can keep
Speaker 1: hitting them throughout the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So one of the interesting things down the stretch of Bucks.
Speaker 1: Blazers was leaning into switching both teams down the stretch,
Speaker 1: leaning a lot into switching the Bucks readily switching their
Speaker 1: smaller guards onto Jeremy Grant into screens. And then on
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor, one of the things
Speaker 1: that the Blazers were doing, they played this young wing
Speaker 1: named Timani Kamara on Damian Lillard. He was doing a
Speaker 1: really good job just with his length and athleticism kind
Speaker 1: of containing there. And then what they would do is
Speaker 1: anytime they'd set a screen with Brook Lopez or Janna
Speaker 1: Santana Kumpo, you'd just see Deandreon or Jeremy Grant just
Speaker 1: switch on to Dame and a lot of those sequences
Speaker 1: and so turned into a lot of one on one
Speaker 1: basketball down the stretch, and it was like Jeremy Grant making,
Speaker 1: you know, tough shots over the top Anthroonty Simon's the
Speaker 1: game winner that he had that left right Euro into
Speaker 1: the floater was ridiculous. And then on the other end
Speaker 1: of the floor, Dame kind of picking on those switches,
Speaker 1: had a really explosive dunk driving by Deane and that
Speaker 1: was kind of encouraging. Like, again, I really do think
Speaker 1: a lot of dames struggles, some of them come down
Speaker 1: to him and just his ability to make shots and
Speaker 1: how he's been struggling on that front. But a good
Speaker 1: chunk of it is, I think rhythm and just kind
Speaker 1: of figuring out where his opportunities are to attack with
Speaker 1: that particular group. But it was kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: Portland team because Portland kind of gets written off as
Speaker 1: one of the bad teams around the league, but they
Speaker 1: have a lot of talent, Like deandreton can go into
Speaker 1: the post and he can get over to that left
Speaker 1: shoulder and he can make that hook shot over the top.
Speaker 2: You play off in.
Speaker 1: Malcolm Brogden when he's doing is between the legs dribbles,
Speaker 1: he can rise up and he can knock down that
Speaker 1: pull up three. Anthony Simons was like basically Dame's protege
Speaker 1: for a while and has added a lot of that
Speaker 1: high level shot making that Dame had. And he's a bigger,
Speaker 1: better athlete than Dame was. Like they have a lot
Speaker 1: of firepower and they can cause problems for teams. Jeremy
Speaker 1: Grant is a good basketball player and like his shot
Speaker 1: making and especially from three, has been kind of a
Speaker 1: revelation over the course of this last segment of his career.
Speaker 1: These are all really good basket and they are a
Speaker 1: tough matchup, especially in Portland. And you know, Milwaukee had
Speaker 1: a really ugly stretch there in the middle of the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. Damian Lillard was just throwing the ball away
Speaker 1: all over the place. Again, I want to give some
Speaker 1: credit to Mony Kamara for just a job he did
Speaker 1: applying ball pressure and forcing me into a lot of
Speaker 1: those turnovers. Giannis ran somebody over and had a turnover.
Speaker 1: It was missing free throws. It was just ugly as
Speaker 1: the Bucks went down by double digits, but they made
Speaker 1: some plays late. Portland was deliberately ignoring Brook Lopez and
Speaker 1: helped defense situations which ended up becoming a theme at
Speaker 1: the very end of the game, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: in a few minutes. But Brooke hit a couple of
Speaker 1: big threes. Dame had that driving dunk against DeAndre Eighton
Speaker 1: to make it in a one point game, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it was a close basketball game. Then
Speaker 1: we get our final sequence, so it was one fifteen
Speaker 1: to one twelve. Dame comes off the ball screen, gets
Speaker 1: DeAndre Ayton on the switch, beats him off the dribble,
Speaker 1: rises up, throws it down again, very encouraging play just
Speaker 1: for where Dame is at physically. Then they get a stop.
Speaker 1: They run a ball screen with Jeremy Grant on aim
Speaker 1: Ferny Simons a switch and Anthony Simons sets a ball,
Speaker 1: gets a ball screen from Jeremy Grant, Malik Beasley switches
Speaker 1: on to Jeremy Grant. They go to make the post
Speaker 1: entry into Jeremy Grant and Malik Beasley does a really
Speaker 1: nice like kind of three quarter front, gets around and
Speaker 1: knocks the ball away and forces a steal. So then
Speaker 1: on the ensuing play on the sideline out of bounds,
Speaker 1: the Bucks run a wide pin down into a dribble handoff,
Speaker 1: which is also known as a zoom zoom action. Right,
Speaker 1: So imagine a Dame starting in the corner right, and
Speaker 1: imagine Chris Middleton inbounding the ball to Giannis and as
Speaker 1: right after eanbounds, he runs down and sets a pin
Speaker 1: down four Dame so that his defender is already navigating
Speaker 1: a screen before he gets into the dribble handoff. Dame
Speaker 1: comes off the dribble handoff, gets a little bit of airspace,
Speaker 1: rises up for three and misses after the miss. Portland
Speaker 1: gets the defensive rebound, but Jannison Malik Beasley applies some
Speaker 1: backcourt ball pressure onto Anfonty Simons and they force a steal.
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, Dame is throwing the ball up
Speaker 1: to Yannis at the basket for a dunk. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, Portland's up by one. So from there, Portland
Speaker 1: goes down the floor and they run a cleared iso
Speaker 1: just basically a one to four flat for Anferny Simons
Speaker 1: against Malik Beasley. He makes a nice dribble move going
Speaker 1: to his left, a nasty left right euro step into
Speaker 1: that floater or Anferonty Simons is one of the best
Speaker 1: floaters in the game. Really athletic play too, really impressive footwork,
Speaker 1: makes a tough shot. So it's one sixteen, one fifteen.
Speaker 1: So the Bucks go down the floor and they run
Speaker 1: the exact same zoom action. But Doc Rivers makes a
Speaker 1: little bit of a tweak instead of having Chris Middleton
Speaker 1: as the guy who sets the pin down and Yannis
Speaker 1: with the dribble handoff, instead he has Yannis set the
Speaker 1: pin down and he has Brook Lopez run the dribble handoff.
Speaker 1: Here's where that's interesting knowing before that what we saw
Speaker 1: from that middle to late portion of the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: Portland was completely unconcerned with Brooke Lopez taking threes. Now
Speaker 1: he did burn them, he made a couple, but in
Speaker 1: that fourth quarter stretch, but we knew that Portland's game
Speaker 1: plan was to ignore brook Lopez, right. So what's interesting
Speaker 1: about that is the first time they ran the zoom action,
Speaker 1: it was Chris and Giannis and Brooke was on the
Speaker 1: weak side, and so as a result, Dame when he
Speaker 1: came off of the ball screen, had a little bit
Speaker 1: of space, didn't have a double team coming right. When
Speaker 1: you run a ball screen, which a dribble handoff is
Speaker 1: effectively a ball screen, When you run a screen for
Speaker 1: the ball handler where the screener is a guy, the
Speaker 1: defense is not worried about shooting, you are inviting a
Speaker 1: double team. And so basically what ended up happening is
Speaker 1: Doc Rivers made a double team far easier for Portland
Speaker 1: to execute. Dame comes off the dribble handoff and Brooke,
Speaker 1: basically Malcolm Brogden just completely ignores brook Lopez in double
Speaker 1: team's Dame, they throw the ball back to brook Lopez,
Speaker 1: he pump fakes actually gets a pretty solid look, but
Speaker 1: he misses it. They have to foul. Portland goes down,
Speaker 1: they make two free throws. Then it was the second
Speaker 1: confusing decision from Doc Rivers. He has Damian Lillard inbound
Speaker 1: down three two Janis, and I think there was like
Speaker 1: what five seconds left or so, and of course Portland
Speaker 1: immediately fouls Giannis. Now again, one of the things I
Speaker 1: saw going around on Twitter last night that is a
Speaker 1: pet action for Milwaukee at the end of a game.
Speaker 1: What they'll do is they'll have Dame inbound Giannis. Janis
Speaker 1: will just basically hand it right back off to Dame
Speaker 1: so that he can get ahead of Steam and a
Speaker 1: little bit of a ball screen type of thing in
Speaker 1: the backcourt to get going. They ran that exact same
Speaker 1: action against the Sacramento Kings when Dame hit his game winner,
Speaker 1: but there was a big difference. They were only down
Speaker 1: by two in that game against Sacramento. So the idea
Speaker 1: of fouling gets more convoluted, right, because, yeah, you might
Speaker 1: like Jiannis is a poor free throw shooter, but you're
Speaker 1: not just gonna gift wrap him a chance to go
Speaker 1: to the line and tie the game. Right but down
Speaker 1: by three. Where most teams are making a decision over
Speaker 1: whether or not they want to play defense or they
Speaker 1: want to foul, you are now making that decision for them,
Speaker 1: and so Portland immediately fouls. Be honest, he goes down
Speaker 1: and misses both free throws, and the game is over
Speaker 1: now for the record, because there's gonna be there. I
Speaker 1: saw it on Twitter last night, a lot of people
Speaker 1: going after Doc. That's not why they lost the game.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose the game because of those decisions at
Speaker 1: the end. But even with that weird kind of layout
Speaker 1: for the zoom action, brook Lopez still got a pretty
Speaker 1: damn good look and he missed it and he had
Speaker 1: just made two, So I feel like that's kind of
Speaker 1: playing the results, so to speak. If brook Lopez makes that,
Speaker 1: you call him a genius. Right again, I would say,
Speaker 1: whenever you got a guy that's going to be double
Speaker 1: teamed off of I don't want him in a ball screen.
Speaker 1: I'd rather have him off the ball. So it's just
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to manage. But they still got
Speaker 1: a decent look. That's how it turned out right on
Speaker 1: the base on that of bounds. Again, don't like the configuration,
Speaker 1: but it was a one point game after the infony
Speaker 1: Simons floater, I look back to, like, how about Dame
Speaker 1: throwing the ball all over the court in the middle
Speaker 1: of the fourth quarter when he just was struggling with
Speaker 1: Portland's ball pressure. Just in general, some of the ways
Speaker 1: that Milwaukee's offense bogged down in the middle of that
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. So to me, in a forty eight minute game,
Speaker 1: it's really silly to pretend like that's the reason why
Speaker 1: they've lost.
Speaker 2: It's not the case.
Speaker 1: However, there just have been some questionable decisions from Doc
Speaker 1: in these first couple of games with him as the
Speaker 1: head coach. And mainly what I point to there, because
Speaker 1: what I talked about is when they hired Doc, I
Speaker 1: liked it because Adrian Griffin wasn't exactly some sort of
Speaker 1: tactical genius, but he was really struggling to motivate the group.
Speaker 1: The group did not believe in him, and so I
Speaker 1: thought Doc would be able to come in, pull out
Speaker 1: some belief from that group and clean up the margins,
Speaker 1: get them better at the point of attack, defensively, get
Speaker 1: them better and help and recover situations defensively, and specifically
Speaker 1: get them better in transition defense. Sprinting back, getting matched up,
Speaker 1: and communicating things along the lines.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I didn't think Doc was gonna come in and just
Speaker 1: be some sort of schematic genius. That's not what he's
Speaker 1: known for.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Margin for Aaron the postseason is
Speaker 1: very small. This is something I talk about all the time. Like,
Speaker 1: if you really look back at these specific series in
Speaker 1: the way some of these games have gone over the
Speaker 1: course of over the course of the playoffs in recent years,
Speaker 1: you can point to singular points where things swin, right,
Speaker 1: Like you look at like the Phoenix series, Phoenix tied
Speaker 1: that series, the Phoenix Denver series, Phoenix tied that series
Speaker 1: at two, and in game two they kind of had
Speaker 1: a lead there for a while and it kind of
Speaker 1: slipped away late. Denver earned that win. But like you
Speaker 1: could see, it's like, Okay, if game two goes differently,
Speaker 1: what if Phoenix takes a bigger lead, maybe they have
Speaker 1: a better chance.
Speaker 2: Right. The Lakers Warriors.
Speaker 1: Series, in Game four, it's like Lonnie Walker hits a
Speaker 1: bunch of tough pull up jump shots over Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: and Steph gets a couple of looks against Anthony Davis Laate.
Speaker 1: Now well, defended looks, but maybe those go in and
Speaker 1: the series looks different. Like the seven game series is
Speaker 1: going to more often than not put the best team forward.
Speaker 1: That's the design of a seven game series. But the
Speaker 1: margins are tight in a seven game series as well,
Speaker 1: and so in tight margins you can't afford to make
Speaker 1: significant mistakes. And so between that end of gameplay, between
Speaker 1: some of the offensive layout stuff that I've pointed out,
Speaker 1: between that weird switch against Denver we talked about, they
Speaker 1: were switching and then scram switching against Denver down the stretch,
Speaker 1: and they had it configured nicely so that Giannis would
Speaker 1: end up on Jamal Murray and Brook Lopez would end
Speaker 1: up on Nikola Jokic, but down the stretch randomly, when
Speaker 1: they got it to a one possession game, Doc switched
Speaker 1: it up and put Brooke on Jamal in the switch
Speaker 1: and he got cooked, and you're like, why why why
Speaker 1: did you switch that up? Right, So, like again, it's
Speaker 1: not a major concern, it's just something to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on because like the margin, Milwaukee's not gonna sweep Boston.
Speaker 1: Milwaukee's not gonna sweep some of the you know, Miami
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's going to be tight contested series,
Speaker 1: and you like those kinds of mistakes can swing games
Speaker 1: and can swing series. So it's just something worth keeping
Speaker 1: an eye on in the short term. One last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to get to on the Bucks as well.
Speaker 1: It was not a good defensive game overall for Milwaukee
Speaker 1: and Portland, but in the fourth quarter they were really good.
Speaker 1: They held them to an offensive rating below ninety a
Speaker 1: bunch of key stops specifically, once again, I thought Malik
Speaker 1: Beasley and Damian Lillard really turned up their defensive engagement
Speaker 1: down the stretch of that game. And for the record,
Speaker 1: it's been a theme this season, as you can see
Speaker 1: in the numbers for Milwaukee in their clutch defense. But
Speaker 1: there are some encouraging notes coming out of the early
Speaker 1: doc rivers situation in Milwaukee where you're seeing just better
Speaker 1: defensive engagement at least in specific spots, and that could
Speaker 1: go a long way for this team and what their
Speaker 1: playoff potential is. So again, in a loss, still some
Speaker 1: encouraging stuff coming out of Milwaukee. All right, guys, let's
Speaker 1: get into our mailbag. First question, do you think being
Speaker 1: a seven slash eight seed is the best case scenario
Speaker 1: for a team like Golden State matching up with Minnesota
Speaker 1: or Oklahoma City with little playoff experience seems better than
Speaker 1: playing Denver or LA. So specifically in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: I don't think playoff seating matters as much. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that you want to have home court because that
Speaker 1: really can make a difference in a playoff series. But
Speaker 1: there's some truth to the fact that like a play
Speaker 1: in team, like let's say that once again the seven
Speaker 1: eight ends up being Golden State LA. Okay, the Lakers
Speaker 1: and Warriors again, and let's say it ends up being
Speaker 1: a Golden State against Oklahoma City and it ends up
Speaker 1: being a Lakers against Minnesota. If you're in Golden State
Speaker 1: or LA's position there, you'd prefer to go against a younger,
Speaker 1: less experienced team. So there's no doubt that, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd like your chances against a Minnesota or in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City more than you'd like your chances against the Clippers
Speaker 1: or Nuggets. Right, So there's some truth to the fact
Speaker 1: that the seven or eight seed kind of has worked
Speaker 1: out there, But the reality is is that can all
Speaker 1: move around before the end of the season. It could
Speaker 1: be Denver in LA at one two and then could
Speaker 1: be Oklahoma City, Minnesota by the time we get to
Speaker 1: the end of this thing, so a lot of that's
Speaker 1: still up in the air. However, I do tend to
Speaker 1: think different from the Eastern Conference. In the Eastern Conference,
Speaker 1: all of those top four seeds are gonna be favored
Speaker 1: over those bottom four at least at least the one,
Speaker 1: two three are gonna be significant favorites, and so like
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, getting up there is a big
Speaker 1: deal because you don't get a first round by but
Speaker 1: you get a heavily favored type of first round series
Speaker 1: that can be significant. In the Western Conference, they're just
Speaker 1: are eight really good teams. So in probably more than that,
Speaker 1: there's probably like ten really good teams. So the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is in the Western Conference, I think
Speaker 1: it's far more realistic for a team to be able
Speaker 1: to like kind of not care about seeding and just
Speaker 1: kind of take it when they get to the postseason,
Speaker 1: just because your chances of beating on Oklahoma City if
Speaker 1: you're a Lakers is about the same as it is
Speaker 1: if you're gonna beat a Pelicans, or if you're gonna
Speaker 1: beat a Clippers or any of these other teams like
Speaker 1: all of these teams in the Western Conference are good.
Speaker 1: There is no like, oh, if I get to this seed,
Speaker 1: I have an easy matchup, Like that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: Same goes for the top seeds. Like if you're the
Speaker 1: one or the two, you're probably gonna be facing a
Speaker 1: Lakers in the first round. You're probably gonna be facing
Speaker 1: a Suns or a Warriors in the first round. So like,
Speaker 1: I don't really necessarily think seeding matters all that much
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference. Next question, thoughts on the Celtics
Speaker 1: trading for Sidik Bay before the trade deadline. Not a
Speaker 1: terrible idea that this is a team that probably could
Speaker 1: use an additional wing. Also, that backup center position, I'm
Speaker 1: not as concerned about there. Like, but between you know,
Speaker 1: like between Luke Cornett and the nimas, Quita has been
Speaker 1: kind of providing pretty solid play in basically as a
Speaker 1: one shift guy, like playing one shift a half for
Speaker 1: them in the last week and a half or so.
Speaker 1: Like I tend to think too, when you go out
Speaker 1: looking for backup centers, they're all kind of flawed in
Speaker 1: their own ways, and so I don't really view them
Speaker 1: as really transformative types of players. The thing that would
Speaker 1: make a guy like Sidik Bay tough to trade for.
Speaker 1: Is he's coming up on a new deal this summer,
Speaker 1: so like he's gonna have to negotiate a new deal.
Speaker 1: And my guess is a player like him is going
Speaker 1: to be looking for something around the mid level exception,
Speaker 1: so like in that you know, ten to fifteen million
Speaker 1: dollars a year range. And I'm just not sure that's
Speaker 1: necessarily something the Celtics can afford with everything else that
Speaker 1: they have to pay for. So it's not that Sadikbe
Speaker 1: wouldn't be good for the Celtics. I actually think that's
Speaker 1: a good a good fit as a backup wing. It's
Speaker 1: just it's not necessarily the best move for them in
Speaker 1: terms of their salary cap situation moving forward. Next question,
Speaker 1: what separates a good defensive team from a bad defensive
Speaker 1: team other than on court effort? In other words, can
Speaker 1: a bad defensive team be a mid or good defensive
Speaker 1: team just by playing harder? So this has been one
Speaker 1: of my like long standing basketball beliefs, and I actually
Speaker 1: thought Denver last year was a really good example of this.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the defensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: personnel is a good chunk of it, having the athleticism,
Speaker 1: having all those archetypes that I talked about, like a
Speaker 1: center that has the flexibility to defend in multiple coverages,
Speaker 1: a big foward that can help as like a low man,
Speaker 1: a defensive rebounder, rotation guy, like that perimeter oriented three
Speaker 1: that can guard like bigger perimeter players, but navigate screens well.
Speaker 1: Like the shorter, stockier wing that plays the two that
Speaker 1: can really defend at the point of attack. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: those are all important elements of a defense, but above
Speaker 1: and beyond that to you when it comes to actually
Speaker 1: getting stops, just being in the right spot. And so
Speaker 1: that comes back to like, are you sprinting back and
Speaker 1: transition defense, getting matched up and forcing them to play
Speaker 1: in the half court? Are your guys at the point
Speaker 1: of attack doing their job chasing over the top and
Speaker 1: applying back pressure. Is your screen defender doing his job
Speaker 1: in the coverage of splitting the difference between the role
Speaker 1: man and the ball handler. Are your off ball players
Speaker 1: doing a nice job splitting the difference between digging down
Speaker 1: and disrupting those driving lanes while also being in a
Speaker 1: position to rotate. When you're rotating, are you funneling in
Speaker 1: the right direction, Like most defensive schemes, with exception of
Speaker 1: specific players that have a strong hand, are going to
Speaker 1: ask you to funnel towards the baseline, fine link towards
Speaker 1: the baseline. After you've done your job, are you rotating?
Speaker 1: Are you getting to the next open guy in the chain?
Speaker 1: Are people communicating? Is everyone rotating like Winshield wipers or
Speaker 1: is one guy rotating? And is their delay that's leading
Speaker 1: to an opening? Right, Like, there's all these elements to
Speaker 1: it that if those don't take place, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter what your personnel is. And you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about a team like the the Nuggets last year. Those
Speaker 1: guys did their jobs, they fulfilled their element in the
Speaker 1: game plan. And so again I will always take a
Speaker 1: really good offensive team that defends in that like five
Speaker 1: to ten range in defensive rating, meaning like they're just
Speaker 1: really sharp on the details, but obviously they can't get stops,
Speaker 1: like the best defensive teams in the league, Like those
Speaker 1: are the teams that I think translate best to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Of great example. Another great example of that would be
Speaker 1: like the Golden State Warriors teams from like twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, they defended extremely well while having some
Speaker 1: limited defensive personnel on the floor. The twenty sixteen calves
Speaker 1: like they were not a team that had incredible defensive
Speaker 1: personnel with Kevin Love at center and with j R.
Speaker 1: Smith on the floor in Kyrie Irving, but they just
Speaker 1: defended well within their roles and did their jobs and
Speaker 1: they were I think they finished that regular season as
Speaker 1: number ten in defensive rating. It was the one time
Speaker 1: in that four year span that they were top ten
Speaker 1: in defensive rating, And it just goes to show you
Speaker 1: that it was the same group of personnel that they
Speaker 1: had most of those years, but they were just more
Speaker 1: locked in on the details and so they were able
Speaker 1: to defend well enough to get to the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Speaker 1: So again, I think that a bad defensive team is
Speaker 1: usually a combination of both. It's usually a weak personnel
Speaker 1: and weak execution. But I think you can have average
Speaker 1: personnel an excellent execution and be a good defense and
Speaker 1: have your offensive skill pull you over the top to
Speaker 1: win the title. Next question, do you see Lebron asking
Speaker 1: out if they don't fire Darvin ham and or make
Speaker 1: a run this season? A couple of things I think
Speaker 1: that it's on the table that if this season ends
Speaker 1: in extremely ugly fashion, that Lebron opts out and looks
Speaker 1: to sign somewhere else this summer to try to have
Speaker 1: a better chance to contend for a title. The biggest
Speaker 1: thing working against that happening would be the simple fact
Speaker 1: that he's gonna be in his twenty second season and
Speaker 1: his kids are in LA, and so there's going to
Speaker 1: be moments where he's gonna sit down and he's gonna
Speaker 1: be like, man, this organization is a shit show. I
Speaker 1: could get out and I could go play for them
Speaker 1: and have a chance to win the title.
Speaker 2: But I'm old.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for a long time. I have
Speaker 1: four titles, I've been to the finals ten times. I've
Speaker 1: already kind of solidified myself as at worst the second
Speaker 1: best basketball player to ever touch the floor, Like, do
Speaker 1: I really want to leave my family and go do this?
Speaker 1: And I just think when he gets to that point,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think he's gonna have a really
Speaker 1: hard time saying yes, So more likely than not, I
Speaker 1: think he just stays in LA. But I do think
Speaker 1: it's on the table, especially if things get really bad
Speaker 1: for the Lakers this year.
Speaker 2: Next question, what do.
Speaker 1: You think about the different ways the Warriors and Lakers
Speaker 1: are handling the trade deadline. The Dubs are trying to
Speaker 1: go on a run and the Lakers are tanking like
Speaker 1: tonight against the Celtics to make a point, different strategies,
Speaker 1: and both stuck fighting for the plan. So I think
Speaker 1: both teams are really trying to make a run. I
Speaker 1: think the Warriors are dealing with real talent issues, and
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers are dealing with real connectivity and
Speaker 1: belief issues. That said, like, their deadline strategies are different
Speaker 1: as well, because the Lakers are willing to give up
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell, They're willing to give up a first round
Speaker 1: pick to improve, they're willing to put guys in. For
Speaker 1: the Warriors, it's tough because their best trade asset is
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga, and he is on a star trajectory and
Speaker 1: so they probably won't move him, and so for the Warriors,
Speaker 1: it's looking more like a move on the margins, and
Speaker 1: so like it's one of those things where I think
Speaker 1: both of them are kind of destined for that play
Speaker 1: in tournament. I think that's like almost a certainty at
Speaker 1: this point. All you have to do is take a
Speaker 1: peek at the standings. But I think they both want
Speaker 1: to do it. I just think they're different. Like the
Speaker 1: Warriors to me, have good basketball character. They play hard
Speaker 1: all the time. They just have some limitations. The Lakers
Speaker 1: to me, have lots of talent, but they have really
Speaker 1: bad basketball character. And that's what makes them very different
Speaker 1: from each other. That's why I say the Warriors actually
Speaker 1: run me a lot of last year's Lakers. Last year's
Speaker 1: Lakers in December and January, they were fighting, they were
Speaker 1: trying to get back into a position where they could
Speaker 1: do something. Then the trade deadline gave them the talent
Speaker 1: they needed to make a move. That's why I look
Speaker 1: at that as kind of a corollary for Golden State.
Speaker 1: Bring in some more talent at the deadline. These guys
Speaker 1: really do believe. These guys really do play hard. That's
Speaker 1: where you could have a run post deadline. Next question,
Speaker 1: is Jalen Green worth moving on from if you can
Speaker 1: get an all Star caliber player like Levigne.
Speaker 2: Or him for him? I should say so.
Speaker 1: I think trading a guy like Jalen Green for Zack
Speaker 1: Lvine would be a huge problem, a huge mistake. First
Speaker 1: of all, Zach Lavine is not some sort of franchise
Speaker 1: altering talent. To me, the changes that Houston made are
Speaker 1: really smart in the sense that, like Ime Udoka is
Speaker 1: a good coach that's great at like getting the toughness
Speaker 1: out of his young players, they brought in veteran players
Speaker 1: to kind of like increase the competence in the room. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say that like it is a mediocre basketball team,
Speaker 1: which is what we predicted before the season, But there's
Speaker 1: one giant exciting part in all of that, and that's
Speaker 1: that Jabari Smith Junior and Alpern Shangun are just really
Speaker 1: freaking good. So like Jabari Smith and Alpern Shangun are
Speaker 1: really freaking good. So like you can have like you've
Speaker 1: already got like a decent foundation there. Now the question
Speaker 1: is do you bail on Jalen Green to go bring
Speaker 1: back another player? And yeah, if you can get a
Speaker 1: really good player, like if you can get a legitimate star, sure,
Speaker 1: but I don't think you trade Jabari Smith or excuse me,
Speaker 1: Jalen Green for a flawed star someone like Zach Lavine.
Speaker 1: Not only that, Jalen Green's playing a little bit better
Speaker 1: and to Jalen Green's credit. When you go and you
Speaker 1: bring in a Dylan Brooks and you go and bring
Speaker 1: in a Fred van Vliet, you make the situation in
Speaker 1: Houston more complicated with ball handling, and for a young guard,
Speaker 1: that changes his role fundamentally. Now, I would argue it's
Speaker 1: better than what he was doing before, where you're Houstin's
Speaker 1: just deliberately being bad. And in that sequence, you know,
Speaker 1: Jalen Green has the ball a lot, but he's just
Speaker 1: learning how to be bad. Like that's not good either,
Speaker 1: but like it is a little bit different for me.
Speaker 1: He's learning how to share the basketball more in a
Speaker 1: team with a lot more ball handling. And my thing is,
Speaker 1: like it kind of like what I've said in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, Jalen Green's potential upside in the long
Speaker 1: run with him just kind of figuring things out and
Speaker 1: getting better is probably higher than what you can get
Speaker 1: back for a trade. So be happy with the fact
Speaker 1: that Jabari Smith and Alprin Shangun are so damn good.
Speaker 1: Give Jalen Green some time to find out what he
Speaker 1: can be as an NBA player.
Speaker 2: Next question.
Speaker 1: In baseball, they say a good versus bad manager is
Speaker 1: worth plus or minus three wins ish Where do you
Speaker 1: think that number is in basketball? Where do you think
Speaker 1: the current Laker team would be with Spolstra or lou
Speaker 1: coaching as compared to Ham, who who most would agree
Speaker 1: has done a poor job this season. So I think
Speaker 1: that coaching has a huge impact in the regular season,
Speaker 1: and I think it has some impact in the postseason.
Speaker 1: But I do still think that the coach doesn't have
Speaker 1: nearly as much impact as the star. Best example is
Speaker 1: the Lakers like Darvin Ham. Like I've said this Pore
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about it more in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but to me, like Darvin Ham's main role on this
Speaker 1: team is just getting the rotation right, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: like Lebron will figure out the offensive adjustments. Lebron and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis together will figure out the defensive adjustments. In
Speaker 1: terms of the way they need to organize themselves on
Speaker 1: the floor. And even when they first hired Darvin Haam,
Speaker 1: I didn't view him as like a tactician. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is the classic former player coach type, archetype that
Speaker 1: can look eye to eye with these guys and get
Speaker 1: them to play hard, just like Ema Udoka did for
Speaker 1: the Celtics. The problem is is Darvinham is not motivating
Speaker 1: these guys, and so when you combine that with his
Speaker 1: rotation decisions which have been so confusing, it has been
Speaker 1: downright damaging. Belief plays a huge role over the course
Speaker 1: of the regular season, which is why I've said the
Speaker 1: regular season has a bigger coaching impact than the postseason.
Speaker 1: If Eric spolschra was the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: you can bet your ass that there's going to be
Speaker 1: more down the roster belief in the day to day product,
Speaker 1: which will get them to play harder, more consistently. The
Speaker 1: rotation will be right, and schematically they will be assisted
Speaker 1: from the sideline. That would absolutely make them a better team.
Speaker 1: I think this Laker roster would probably win between forty
Speaker 1: five and fifty games if Eric Spolser was the coach.
Speaker 1: I still think they'd have some issues with Lebron kind
Speaker 1: of coasting from time to time. I still think they'd
Speaker 1: have some issues with some of the roster organization. Before
Speaker 1: the deadline, like we all knew the Lakers were going
Speaker 1: to be a deadline a team that was active at
Speaker 1: the deadline, but like, because all of that, because all
Speaker 1: that hasn't happened. You've gotten really poor effort, you've had
Speaker 1: misalignment of the rotation, you haven't had schematic support from
Speaker 1: the sideline. As a result, they've underachieved. And you know,
Speaker 1: Tyler's kind of an interesting example because let's not forget
Speaker 1: Tyleru agreed to terms to become the Lakers coach before
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel got hired. But what happened was is Genie
Speaker 1: Buss disrespected him. Tyleru was a championship coach, wanted to
Speaker 1: be paid like a championship coach, and Genie Bus said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pay you like a championship coach,
Speaker 1: which was downright disrespectful. And there's a real case to
Speaker 1: be made that it was one of the bigger turning
Speaker 1: points of the lebron ad era that instead of Tylu
Speaker 1: getting what he deserved and where he'd still be the
Speaker 1: coach the Lakers and they would they would have just
Speaker 1: better support from the sideline over the course of the
Speaker 1: eighty two and said they don't have that. And so
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing to kind of look back at.
Speaker 1: Next question, what's your biggest pet peeves sports narrative for me?
Speaker 1: And this is from the questioner. For me, it's when
Speaker 1: teams have constant success get disregarded with quote they haven't
Speaker 1: won anything, end quote, simply because they don't win a title.
Speaker 1: Think these recent Celtics teams, Michigan Football for the Natty
Speaker 1: or Harden's Rockets. So with your specific pet peeve, I
Speaker 1: do think there's some truth to that, where like it
Speaker 1: can be kind of like no fun to act like
Speaker 1: winning the title is all that matters. But that's exactly
Speaker 1: what makes champions so special. And that's why you know,
Speaker 1: Logan are head of content here at the volume calls
Speaker 1: me a loyalist to the banner. That's why I look
Speaker 1: so much at the championship. That's why I told Jokic
Speaker 1: fans like, once he gets it done, I'll defend him
Speaker 1: to the bitter end. Like to me, it is so
Speaker 1: incredibly hard to do. That goes to show you with
Speaker 1: these Celtics teams, for instance, how they've consistently come up short,
Speaker 1: like it is difficult to do, and so when it
Speaker 1: is done, we need to apply the appropriate respect to it.
Speaker 1: My pet peeves, I've got two of them that I'll
Speaker 1: throw you, or three of them that I'll throw you
Speaker 1: guys one old heads thinking the game used to be better.
Speaker 1: That always blows my mind, like basketball players are just
Speaker 1: better now than they used to be, big shock. That's
Speaker 1: why I say, when it comes to ranking guys all
Speaker 1: the time, you have to rank them relative to their
Speaker 1: era and not against each other, because basketball players are
Speaker 1: just better now. Second One, catch all metrics. I just
Speaker 1: think it is a fundamental misunderstanding in the way the
Speaker 1: game of basketball works, and so trying to quantify a
Speaker 1: player's impact into one number, I think is just a
Speaker 1: fool's errand. And I always think it's funny when I
Speaker 1: see people kind of put a catch all metrics in
Speaker 1: player comparisons as like the end all be all, when
Speaker 1: that just simply is not the case.
Speaker 2: And then lastly.
Speaker 1: Referring to shooting luck as gospel rather than one of
Speaker 1: the many small factors in a basketball game. Again, to
Speaker 1: be clear, I think shooting luck is a thing that
Speaker 1: does impact basketball games. But we've reached a point now
Speaker 1: where we basically it's like the first and only thing
Speaker 1: we talk about, and that I think becomes a problem.
Speaker 1: I think that were when we start to view the
Speaker 1: game of basketball as a slot machine. I think we've
Speaker 1: all lost the plot and so those are just three
Speaker 1: of my bigger pet peeves as of right now covering
Speaker 1: the game. Next question, can you do a deep dive
Speaker 1: on the Celtics. What should they do at the trade
Speaker 1: deadline to shore up their bench? Why doesn't Tatum go
Speaker 1: to the rim Layton games, Why do they sit Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown in the corner lade, What would they look like
Speaker 1: with Smart instead of Drew, etc. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to do a full deep dive obviously, just because we've
Speaker 1: got so many mail back questions to get to. But
Speaker 1: a couple of things, like we talked about the trade
Speaker 1: deadline earlier, like I'm sure they will be looking for
Speaker 1: a bench wing. I'm sure they will be looking for
Speaker 1: a backup big But I think with the Celtics in general,
Speaker 1: I just don't think they'll put any sort of real
Speaker 1: asset on the table for something like that. Not to mention,
Speaker 1: they don't really have a ton to offer, and at
Speaker 1: this point they have their core five down, which is key.
Speaker 1: This is something I talk about all the time on
Speaker 1: the show. If you have your core five, if you
Speaker 1: know who your five guys are, that you're going down
Speaker 1: with any sort of upgrade below that point probably should
Speaker 1: not involve significant assets spending, just simply because there's a
Speaker 1: diminishing return with those guys as everyone's rotation minutes go
Speaker 1: up when you get to the postseason. Why doesn't Tatum
Speaker 1: go to the rim Layton games. I think he's just
Speaker 1: a young basketball players still learning how to impact winning
Speaker 1: at the highest level. I think that he's made a decision,
Speaker 1: a conscious decision to lean on his pull up jump
Speaker 1: shot to kind of carry him in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: And I think it'll just take more losing for him
Speaker 1: to learn that lesson properly, but hopefully he learns it
Speaker 1: sooner than later. Why do they sit Jalen Brown in
Speaker 1: the corner late? It's really simple. It's a decision making
Speaker 1: kind of a configuration. They viewed Derek White and Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum as their best decision makers, and so when they
Speaker 1: run two man game at the end of games, Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum and Derek White are usually involved. From there, you know,
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown has to space the floor somewhere, and so
Speaker 1: whether it's in the corner on the wing, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter. He's out of the action, if that makes sense. Lastly,
Speaker 1: what would they look like and smart with Smart instead
Speaker 1: of Drew, etc. I think with Marcus Smart there obviously
Speaker 1: was a lot of continuity there that goes without saying right,
Speaker 1: but you needed Marcus Smart to get Chris hops perzingis.
Speaker 1: Drew Holiday impacts winning, especially in the postseason, in his
Speaker 1: own way with his physicality. I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday is going to have a lot of big
Speaker 1: moments when we get to the postseason this year. We
Speaker 1: have more Celtics questions coming later on in the show.
Speaker 1: Do you think Sga is better than Tatum? Even though
Speaker 1: Sga doesn't have the playoff resume, he has won truly
Speaker 1: elite skill set with his mid range and has been
Speaker 1: a consistent thirty plus point per game score. Wele Tatum's
Speaker 1: issues always have always been inconsistency in his pull up
Speaker 1: jump shot being unreliable. So I tend to think that
Speaker 1: the playoffs are an adjustment for every player, and Shay
Speaker 1: has not yet played a playoff series where he was
Speaker 1: the number one option. The reason why I say that
Speaker 1: is like, there's extensive film study not just on your history,
Speaker 1: but also within the series to find out which matchups
Speaker 1: you struggle against, which struggle coverages, you struggle against, which
Speaker 1: off ball configurations you struggle against, and with that, teams
Speaker 1: are going to find a way to make you feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable one way or another. That's why most stars are
Speaker 1: inconsistent in the postseason. It's just really difficult to be
Speaker 1: a good playoff player, and so even though Tatum has
Speaker 1: his limitations, he's just a lot more experienced there. So
Speaker 1: whether or not SGA can become a better playoff player
Speaker 1: than Tatum remains to be seen. But I would take
Speaker 1: Tatum in the short term because I do think SGA
Speaker 1: has some lumps that he's gonna have to get through
Speaker 1: before he can really break through. That said, I do
Speaker 1: think SGA projects to be an outstanding playoff player simply
Speaker 1: because of that diversity of his shot creation. The one
Speaker 1: thing that kind of that worries me a little bit
Speaker 1: with him is he's very thin, and so I do
Speaker 1: wonder in just really really physical playoff environments of his
Speaker 1: efficiency will tank, but we can't find out until we
Speaker 1: actually watch him play. Next question, there seems to be
Speaker 1: a role in the NBA since the end of the
Speaker 1: n season tournament and waiting for the All Star break.
Speaker 1: Do you think the NBA should add something else to
Speaker 1: keep fans engaged, or is reducing the number of games
Speaker 1: the only way to increase the value of games. So
Speaker 1: I've noticed this loll as well. It's actually funny. So
Speaker 1: today is my two year anniversary since I started with
Speaker 1: the volume, and we were looking through my wife and
Speaker 1: I actually were looking through some numbers, just zooming out
Speaker 1: for the entire two years, and it's just been really
Speaker 1: cool to see the growth. And so I just want
Speaker 1: to take a second to thank you guys for supporting
Speaker 1: the show, because it just is mind blowing to me
Speaker 1: to see the support that we've had over the course
Speaker 1: of the two years. But as we've looked at the
Speaker 1: two years, it's interesting that there's been a consistent dip
Speaker 1: in our numbers each year in that like end of
Speaker 1: December January stretch, and then once we get to February,
Speaker 1: we get the trade the deadline, things kind of pick
Speaker 1: up right where they left off. It's happening a little
Speaker 1: bit this year, and it's happened it happened last year
Speaker 1: at this time, and so there is some truth to
Speaker 1: the fact that, like you've played, every team's played over
Speaker 1: forty games, right, every team has over forty games left. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you factor in the postseason, we are like firmly
Speaker 1: in the middle of this grind. We're seeing young teams
Speaker 1: like the Utah Jazz and the Cleveland Cavaliers have a
Speaker 1: lot of success, which is something that happens when you
Speaker 1: get into January when some of the veteran teams start
Speaker 1: to lose steam. We're seeing a lot of teams, like
Speaker 1: a lot of the veteran teams have little drop offs
Speaker 1: in their play as they struggle a little bit with
Speaker 1: just kind of malaise in the middle of the season.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens when you play eighty two games.
Speaker 1: I've put myself out there and said this several times.
Speaker 1: I think they should shorten the season to sixty six games.
Speaker 1: Keep the same length of the season, but do sixty
Speaker 1: six games instead of eighty two, because that twenty percent
Speaker 1: reduction would get rid of back to backs, make it
Speaker 1: so that no team plays more than three times a week,
Speaker 1: which means you have a guaranteed two days off in
Speaker 1: a row at some point every single week. It would
Speaker 1: just make it so much easier for your stars to
Speaker 1: be available. And so even though there'd be a twenty
Speaker 1: percent decrease in the total volume of games. I think
Speaker 1: in the long run, there would be a twenty percent
Speaker 1: increase in revenue driven from each game, simply because the
Speaker 1: product would be better, more urgency, better star participation. Like,
Speaker 1: once again, we have a nationally televised game today where
Speaker 1: stars are sitting out. It's a consistent problem in the NBA. So, like,
Speaker 1: you mean to tell me that if the stars didn't
Speaker 1: play in all these games or there wouldn't just be
Speaker 1: more TV revenue. Of course there would be. And so
Speaker 1: I look, that's what my personal belief system is. But
Speaker 1: we both know that we all know that that's never
Speaker 1: going to change, all right, Next question, do you think
Speaker 1: the rest have an attitude problem in the NBA? I
Speaker 1: don't mean like they're bad people, but they have a
Speaker 1: short fuse. I think there's a consistency problem. Each ref
Speaker 1: has a different standard, and that to me is a
Speaker 1: problem because players can't adjust. So a couple of things.
Speaker 1: I think there are two significant problems with the NBA officiating. One,
Speaker 1: not enough refs that actually have a basketball background, who
Speaker 1: actually understand what basketball games are like. I think that's
Speaker 1: the primary driving force behind the fact that we have
Speaker 1: so many non basketball plays that get rewarded with free throws.
Speaker 1: The rest don't know any better. They're so by the
Speaker 1: book that they can't realize when something that's not really
Speaker 1: a basketball play is taking places in front of them.
Speaker 2: All you have to do is.
Speaker 1: Look out there on the floor, and you can tell
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of officials that probably haven't touched
Speaker 1: a basketball in any sort of meaningful way in their
Speaker 1: life beyond the officiating circuit, right, So, like that would
Speaker 1: be my thing.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 1: I think if they just were like, hey, let's target
Speaker 1: former college basketball players and maybe some former pros that
Speaker 1: played overseas and stuff and try to find like real
Speaker 1: basketball player to officiate games, they'll just have a better
Speaker 1: understanding of how basketball games are supposed to flow. They'll
Speaker 1: have a better understanding of what is minimal contact versus
Speaker 1: what is meaningful contact. I think that would go a
Speaker 1: long way. And then ego is definitely a part of it.
Speaker 1: It's just I think anytime you give authority to people,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have issues with certain personality types that struggle
Speaker 1: to handle authority. And yeah, there's no doubt that there
Speaker 1: are officials out there that think the show is about them,
Speaker 1: But I don't know how you really deal with that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's something you can coach out
Speaker 1: of them. I don't know if that's something that you
Speaker 1: can evaluate out of them. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: something you can find out during the hiring process. But
Speaker 1: that would be the other piece of it is trying
Speaker 1: to find out a way to just have referees understand
Speaker 1: their role in NBA games, which is not anything to
Speaker 1: do with them. It's everything to do with the basketball game.
Speaker 1: Next question, if you were the Lakers coach from the
Speaker 1: start of the season, what would you do for them
Speaker 1: to win more games in the regular season. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, we talked a lot about Darvinham. I want
Speaker 1: to be clear some of this is on the players,
Speaker 1: especially after the nca Tournament. This was a big fear
Speaker 1: of mine that I was actually text logan or head
Speaker 1: of content. Here's a huge Lakers fan, and him and
Speaker 1: I were talking about this the night they won the
Speaker 1: Ncason Tournament. We were like, like, this team has some
Speaker 1: potential to really let go of the rope here because
Speaker 1: it's a sense of accomplishment for a group that struggled
Speaker 1: with regular season motivation. And they promptly turned around and
Speaker 1: like lost to the MAVs, a game they had no
Speaker 1: business losing. They went and lost to that that Spurs
Speaker 1: team that hadn't won in like a month or whatever before,
Speaker 1: like like it. They just immediately tanked after that. So
Speaker 1: I want to I want to make sure that the
Speaker 1: players get some of the blame here, because they certainly
Speaker 1: have not played to their own capability on the floor.
Speaker 1: But Darvin Ham has made two critical mistakes this year,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, One his over belief in Torrian prints
Speaker 1: Regardless of what the configurations of the starting lineup have
Speaker 1: looked like. When Torrian Prince has been healthy, he has started,
Speaker 1: and like he's the one guy that hasn't been held
Speaker 1: to the standard of like Anthony Davis and Lebron obviously
Speaker 1: have that leeway, but outside of that, Torrian Prince is
Speaker 1: the only other guy in the roster where it's like,
Speaker 1: no matter how you play, you just you're gonna get
Speaker 1: your thirty minutes. You're gonna start. And it's confusing to
Speaker 1: me because Toryan Prince has already started more games this
Speaker 1: year than he did in the previous three years combined.
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince has always been a off the bench kind
Speaker 1: of mid minutes type of guy, going against bench players,
Speaker 1: and Darvin Hamm has just miscast him, and that misreid
Speaker 1: on the roster has led to the Lakers playing a
Speaker 1: starting lineup with Torriyan Prince at the three, Austin Dilo,
Speaker 1: Torrian Lebron ad It's one of only twenty two lineups
Speaker 1: this year that have play at least two hundred minutes.
Speaker 1: It's the second worst in the group. Not easy to
Speaker 1: do with how well Lebron, James and Anthony Davis have played, huge, huge,
Speaker 1: huge indictment on Darvin ham and his rotation decisions, and
Speaker 1: then secondly over tinkering with the rotation mixed in with
Speaker 1: all of this, he's been trying all kinds of shit
Speaker 1: and as a result, there's been no consistency for young
Speaker 1: players in their minutes, and young players really really struggle
Speaker 1: to play well consistently when they don't know when their
Speaker 1: minutes are coming from, when they don't like they have
Speaker 1: a spot locked down in the rotation, and so over
Speaker 1: tinkering and an over belief in Torrian prints I think
Speaker 1: are the major things that disrupted this season and for
Speaker 1: the records.
Speaker 2: Schematics.
Speaker 1: We're never gonna be Darbnhams strength. That's not what they
Speaker 1: hired him for. Next question, in your opinion, what should
Speaker 1: the Hawks do? They're currently twenty and twenty seven and
Speaker 1: have looked bad for the majority of the year, yet
Speaker 1: still have one of the best offensive engines in the
Speaker 1: game and Trey Jung. Should they completely reset the roster
Speaker 1: or continue to try and build around Trey? So a
Speaker 1: couple things. Really big silver lining out of this year
Speaker 1: has been the rise of Jalen Johnson. You don't know
Speaker 1: how good he's gonna be yet, but you know he's
Speaker 1: going to be really good. Specifically, the exciting stuff has
Speaker 1: been the on ball creation. He's at one point one
Speaker 1: points per possession in pick and roll including passes, He's
Speaker 1: had thirteen points on thirteen ISOs. He's getting one point
Speaker 1: twenty five points per post up this season. He's been
Speaker 1: good in spot up situations, knocking down threes in attacking
Speaker 1: closeouts one point one points for spot up possession. So
Speaker 1: he's got real potential there. That's a big silver lining.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a redundancy with DeAndre Hunt
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be something they'll have to figure out.
Speaker 1: So the question is when you zoom out, if we
Speaker 1: agree that this core is broken and this particular structure
Speaker 1: of the team is not working, and you want to
Speaker 1: keep Tray and you want to keep Jalen Johnson, you
Speaker 1: kind of have to go down the roster because.
Speaker 2: You're already so bad that like there's no.
Speaker 1: Point in you having quality role players on your roster
Speaker 1: that are worth more to other people than they are
Speaker 1: to you. And so it's like, we know they're trying
Speaker 1: to trade to Jonte Murray, but it's like, are you
Speaker 1: gonna trade Clinck Capella? Are you planning on resigning Cidik Bay?
Speaker 1: Because if you're not planning on resigning Cidik Bay, you
Speaker 1: probably trade him so you don't lose him for nothing
Speaker 1: this summer. What about DeAndre Hunter? He plays the same
Speaker 1: position as Jalen Johnson. What are you gonna do with that?
Speaker 1: Are you going to are you gonna consider moving DeAndre Hunter?
Speaker 1: Like how does he fit into your to your plans?
Speaker 1: He's twenty six years old, He kind of more or
Speaker 1: less is what he is in the NBA at this point,
Speaker 1: but he plays that big forward position, right who can
Speaker 1: kind of help on as a Lowman. I don't really
Speaker 1: look at him as a three very much.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's good enough as like a screen
Speaker 1: navigator and with perimeters speed to really be a three.
Speaker 1: So that's the question, what are you gonna do with
Speaker 1: the rest of these guys in the long run?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: As I've said, the Utah Jazz, to me, are are
Speaker 1: a good example of like what you want to be
Speaker 1: while you're rebuilding. You want to be young and you
Speaker 1: want to be fun. Go get trade them for other
Speaker 1: young players that are in their early twenties that have
Speaker 1: some big picture potential, potential and draft compensation. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna be bad, at least be young and fun. Don't
Speaker 1: be bad while having a bunch of veterans on the roster.
Speaker 1: That to me is super counterproductive to a rebuild. And
Speaker 1: so we'll see what they end up deciding to do
Speaker 1: at this deadline, but I wouldn't be surprised if they
Speaker 1: moved several of their role players between this deadline and
Speaker 1: this offseason. Next question, how do you think the KD
Speaker 1: Warriors would be doing up to now if they stayed
Speaker 1: together post twenty nineteen finals loss. Is there a world
Speaker 1: where you could see them losing down the line to
Speaker 1: a Denver or another team that rows up, or do
Speaker 1: you think they would be on the verge of winning
Speaker 1: five straight. So it's tough because the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Lakers were really good.
Speaker 1: They were out, they were like an outstanding defensive team,
Speaker 1: and Lebron and Anthony Davis were playing really well on offense,
Speaker 1: So that would have been a fun battle to see.
Speaker 1: I probably still would pick the KD Warriors to win
Speaker 1: that series just because that was the most talented lineup
Speaker 1: that I've seen in my time watching the NBA. But
Speaker 1: that would have been a fun one. The twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one and twenty twenty two seasons were wide open. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Warriors actually won one of those titles, So like,
Speaker 1: I think the Warriors win both of those relatively easily
Speaker 1: if KD stays so like certainly two additional ones, maybe three,
Speaker 1: although that twenty twenty season would have been tough. Twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, when Denver comes up, that's where like Denver,
Speaker 1: I think is a truly special team of Golden Stak's
Speaker 1: ilk and Golden State has experienced some decline since then,
Speaker 1: So starting twenty twenty three is I think where it
Speaker 1: would have faded out, but I would have been let's
Speaker 1: just put it this way, like they got one more
Speaker 1: without KD. If KD stays, they get at least one
Speaker 1: additional one and then maybe one more after that. Next question,
Speaker 1: given the strength and ten across the league, should the
Speaker 1: Lakers realistically have a discussion about trading Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: to fully start a rebuild? So I don't think they
Speaker 1: should trade Ad. I think that that's a guy that
Speaker 1: they should look to build around. But like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: they're not interested in contending anymore, trading Lebron is an option.
Speaker 1: I just think there's a negative connotation that comes with
Speaker 1: being the team that traded Lebron James, and I think
Speaker 1: Lebron personally would like to retire in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: so that's gonna be the delicate balance as like, how
Speaker 1: do you weigh, you know, Lebron's desire to stay in
Speaker 1: LA with your long term goals of a rebuild. That said,
Speaker 1: there is some encouraging stuff. Everybody on the roster beyond
Speaker 1: Lebron and Ad is in their twenties, so they have
Speaker 1: a lot of young players. There are guys that are
Speaker 1: still on the rise, like Austin Reeze is going to
Speaker 1: get better, you know, ruy hat Chimura is going to
Speaker 1: get better. Like, they have some potential there. I think
Speaker 1: that always the Lakers are going to be a potential
Speaker 1: free agent destination. And so my thing is like, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't trade Lebron because I don't think you're going to
Speaker 1: get anything back that makes you a contender, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of negative connotations there unless Lebron specifically asks
Speaker 1: you to trade him. And it's very possible that he
Speaker 1: turns around and leaves this offseason anyway. But I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about Lebron getting traded and the Lakers,
Speaker 1: you know, looking to fully start a rebuild. But I
Speaker 1: think it's more likely than not that the Lakers look
Speaker 1: to go all in, either at this deadline or over
Speaker 1: the summer, using all three draft picks. Next question, in
Speaker 1: your opinion, what is Cam Whitmore's ceiling. First of all,
Speaker 1: he's shooting the ball insanely well, especially off the catch,
Speaker 1: and I think he's one of those, like truly transcendently
Speaker 1: great athletes. He's also an excellent defensive rebounder for his position,
Speaker 1: so he's got all of the potential in the world,
Speaker 1: but his on ball stuff has been really inconsistent. He
Speaker 1: struggles to see the floor, has more turnovers than assists
Speaker 1: this season. So like, if you can take steps on
Speaker 1: the defensive end and then with his on ball reps,
Speaker 1: I think that's where his real potential is. But like,
Speaker 1: man like, can't be upset about getting a player like
Speaker 1: that later in the first round the way that they did.
Speaker 1: Next question, who should start at the three for the Grizzlies,
Speaker 1: Vince or Smart? So I was looking at Vinceilliams this morning,
Speaker 1: and like, really, it's this simple to me. The digging
Speaker 1: that I've done behind the scenes says that the Grizzlies
Speaker 1: really would like to run it back with Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: next season. And you know, Vince is an interesting young player,
Speaker 1: but I don't view him as some sort of transcendently
Speaker 1: great option. So I think you keep starting Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: at the three because next year you're probably gonna go
Speaker 1: job Bane Smart to start the year, and so it's
Speaker 1: more just a matter of continuity at that point. Next question,
Speaker 1: do you think the Kauhi comp Do you like the
Speaker 1: Kauhi comp for what Kuminga's ceiling can be? Not particularly
Speaker 1: First of all, Kamina is a much higher center of
Speaker 1: gravity and is much much faster. Kawhi is more of
Speaker 1: like a methodical power player, and so I don't really
Speaker 1: see much similarity between them. Kawhi is also just a
Speaker 1: lot sharper in terms of some of his skill set stuff.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: Like Jonathan, Kaminga just has unbelievable like like downhill speed
Speaker 1: and quickness and ability to change direction. Like, I think
Speaker 1: he has the potential to be that level of star.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it would look like Kawhi. I
Speaker 1: think though. I think like top twenty player in the
Speaker 1: NBA is now officially like the basement for Kaminga. I
Speaker 1: just would be I would be shocked if he wasn't
Speaker 1: like as good as like a Jalen Brown is in
Speaker 1: this NBA, who's pretty resoundingly, you know, kind of revered
Speaker 1: as around you know, eighteen nineteen twentieth best player in
Speaker 1: the NBA. So yeah, I think I don't think Kaminga
Speaker 1: is Kawhi, but I do think that he can be
Speaker 1: that level of player. Next question a little bit of
Speaker 1: a Celtics mail bag to make up for the show.
Speaker 1: What's your impression on Jalen Brown? What has your impression
Speaker 1: of Jalen Brown been this season his ranking slash performance
Speaker 1: improved slash diminished from the offseason to your to this
Speaker 1: point in your opinion, what's his potential with the team
Speaker 1: and how close is he to it. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: the self creation numbers are way up, which is typical
Speaker 1: for a young player as he continues to learn how
Speaker 1: to play at the highest level, particularly in pick and
Speaker 1: roll in ISO, his efficiency is way way way up
Speaker 1: from last year. But it's concerning when you look at
Speaker 1: some of these bigger games We've talked about the Celtics recently.
Speaker 1: They've won all these, but their last three losses have
Speaker 1: all been against teams that are my top four contenders.
Speaker 1: When they lost to the Clippers, Jalen Brown three for
Speaker 1: thirteen eight points. When they lost to Denver Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: six for nineteen thirteen points, lost to Milwaukee five for
Speaker 1: fourteen ten points. For those counting, that's what thirty three
Speaker 1: forty six, so forty six shots leading to thirty one
Speaker 1: points in their three biggest games in the last month.
Speaker 1: So I think it's hard not to be at least
Speaker 1: a little bit discouraged by that. Like it's not about
Speaker 1: what Jalen Brown can do against Billy or against anybody else.
Speaker 1: It's about what he can do against the biggest names
Speaker 1: in the sport on the biggest stages. Next question, I
Speaker 1: hear you talk about you believe once Tatum matures that
Speaker 1: he will be able to be a reliable shot maker
Speaker 1: and a go to player in the clutch. But as
Speaker 1: a Celtics fan, I've seen no signs pointing to that.
Speaker 1: Tatum has also been a rhythm player, and he did
Speaker 1: just almost and he just almost never seems to rise
Speaker 1: in the clutch. So here's the thing. I still tend
Speaker 1: to think Tatum's on the younger side of this, and
Speaker 1: there's just enough encouraging stuff over the years to not
Speaker 1: be done. Between some of his big playoff games and
Speaker 1: that twenty twenty two playoff run before he got to
Speaker 1: the finals, between like even last year at the end
Speaker 1: of that Heat series, like he was really good up
Speaker 1: until when he turned his ankle in Game seven. In
Speaker 1: games like five and six, he was really starting to
Speaker 1: figure out some of the methodical playoff half court kind
Speaker 1: of surgery stuff. And so again I understand that it
Speaker 1: can be discouraging, but I think most of that comes
Speaker 1: from the fact that he's already been in the league
Speaker 1: for a long time, but he is relatively young, so
Speaker 1: I just think it's way too soon to be off
Speaker 1: of the Tatum train. Next question, if the Suns won
Speaker 1: fifteen in a row, would you mention them in a
Speaker 1: show or wait until they lose a game to talk
Speaker 1: about how terrible they are? This one was actually funny
Speaker 1: to me because I literally just ignored a couple of
Speaker 1: their losses in a row, and then we reacted to
Speaker 1: their death lineup like what literally the week before last.
Speaker 1: So it's actually just not true. But this is a
Speaker 1: consistent theme I get from a bunch, especially Celtics fans.
Speaker 1: They are on this all the time. Like, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: I don't specifically target games, teams, wins or losses. I
Speaker 1: just don't. I don't know what else to tell you.
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning and I, uh, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we play the schedule in advance, but
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning and I cover the
Speaker 1: games we scheduled to record or to cover, and I
Speaker 1: will schedule specific games that are marquee matchups, and so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like with Celtics fans, you didn't think I was
Speaker 1: gonna cover the Clippers game. You didn't think I was
Speaker 1: gonna cover the Nuggets game. You didn't think I was
Speaker 1: gonna cover the Bucks game. Like those are games we
Speaker 1: marked like a month in advance.
Speaker 2: That we were gonna cover.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm gonna cover those games, right, you know,
Speaker 1: like and like as a matter of fact, I want
Speaker 1: Then what I'll do is when I see a significant
Speaker 1: outcome kind of like Blazer's Bucks, and when I see
Speaker 1: something interesting after the fact, then we'll choose to cover it.
Speaker 1: So like, for instance, when the Suns had that wild
Speaker 1: comeback with Kevin Duran at center, which is something they
Speaker 1: hadn't done all season, we changed our schedule to get
Speaker 1: the Suns on the show because it was time to
Speaker 1: talk about something new and interesting that took place with
Speaker 1: that team. So like, for the record, I get this
Speaker 1: from every single team. I have Laker fans that don't
Speaker 1: like the way I cover the team. I have Warriors
Speaker 1: fans I don't like the way I cover the team.
Speaker 1: Like this is part of just kind of the job.
Speaker 1: Like there's just people that don't like the way I
Speaker 1: cover the game, and it is what it is. But
Speaker 1: like I promise you guys, that I'm not targeting any
Speaker 1: specific thing. Like it's so funny with the Celtics, they've
Speaker 1: been They've been on the top of my power rankings
Speaker 1: most of the season. They've been my second best championship
Speaker 1: contender all season. I moved them up this year. They
Speaker 1: started at three behind Milwaukee, and I moved them up
Speaker 1: to number two over Milwaukee. Like I'm not anti Celtics,
Speaker 1: anti Suns, anti any of that stuff. Like I'm a
Speaker 1: big Lakers fan, and I do not think they're a
Speaker 1: contender unless they can rip off a stretch where they
Speaker 1: look great, Like my belief in them as a contender
Speaker 1: is solely based on Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: and their capability of making a trade. Like I don't
Speaker 1: really overreact to any sort of like regular season outcomings,
Speaker 1: just kind of the way that the show lays is
Speaker 1: laid out. But I have a lot of fans that
Speaker 1: get discouraged about how and when I talk about their teams.
Speaker 1: But I promise it's not anything that's happening on purpose.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of the way things shake out. Next question,
Speaker 1: what is Donovan Mitchell ceiling if he continues to improve
Speaker 1: as a good point of attack, close out and playmaking defender.
Speaker 1: Love your show always, thanks for the sport. I thought
Speaker 1: this has been Donovan's best defensive season as a pro.
Speaker 1: He's at the point of attack, he can get a
Speaker 1: little over aggressive and have some issues there, but especially
Speaker 1: in help and recover situations, he's been amazing because it's
Speaker 1: just so fast that he can really dig down and
Speaker 1: then get out to shooters and chase them off the
Speaker 1: line and make defensive plays as a help defender. But
Speaker 1: even above and beyond that, his defensive playmaking has been
Speaker 1: huge as you mentioned, like his ability to jump passing
Speaker 1: lanes and read things before they happen using his basketball
Speaker 1: i Q to his advantage has been super helpful. That end,
Speaker 1: his playmaking on offense I think are the two biggest
Speaker 1: swing factors for his potential. But I view him as
Speaker 1: like in that like I think he's in that like
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty range pretty like consistently. As like his upside, like,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think he can ever crack into like
Speaker 1: the superstar tier, but I think he can be in
Speaker 1: that tier right below those guys if he stays committed
Speaker 1: to the defensive end and he continues to make strides
Speaker 1: as a playmaker. Next question, Kamina is getting real minutes
Speaker 1: and already looks like a top twenty five to thirty
Speaker 1: player in the league. What's to say he can't be
Speaker 1: a top fifteen player by next year? And then do
Speaker 1: you think he can improve enough by the time the
Speaker 1: playoffs roll around to make the Warriors or championship contender.
Speaker 1: So I think he has top fifteen potential. I do
Speaker 1: think we're a couple of years away from that. I
Speaker 1: think that this kind of thing does take time, and
Speaker 1: you got to remember how good the top of the
Speaker 1: league is. Like if you looked at I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly who I had in my fifteen to eleven last year,
Speaker 1: but it was like Jamal Murray, Anthony Edwards, I want
Speaker 1: to say, it was like Damian Lillard.
Speaker 2: I want to.
Speaker 1: Say, Shake Gilds as Alexander was in that group. I
Speaker 1: can't remember all the guys off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but like, those are all really good players. Fifteen players
Speaker 1: in the league are really good. So for Kaminga to
Speaker 1: pass those guys, it's it's gonna take a long time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I think a big
Speaker 1: part of it will be Steph kd and and Lebron
Speaker 1: kind of like phasing out of that list right like
Speaker 1: in even Anthony Davis if he continues to have injury issues.
Speaker 1: So I think he will make into crack his way
Speaker 1: into that list. I just think we're probably a few
Speaker 1: years away from that. And then as far as whether
Speaker 1: or not he can improve enough by the time the
Speaker 1: playoffs roll around to make the championship the Warriors a
Speaker 1: championship contender, that one hundred percent comes down to the
Speaker 1: deadline and what they can get back do I think
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kminga is gonna be a deeply impactful playoff player
Speaker 1: right away. No, because he has weaknesses and the playoffs
Speaker 1: expose weaknesses. They will double team him in the post.
Speaker 1: He's getting a ton of single coverage in the post.
Speaker 1: They will double team in the post and test his
Speaker 1: floor vision and his ability to handle ball pressure. And
Speaker 1: then in addition to that, he's been shooting the ball
Speaker 1: really well lately, but teams are going to dare him
Speaker 1: to shoot in the postseason, which will test his confidence
Speaker 1: and his trust in his shot, so he might play well.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say it's off the table, but
Speaker 1: like I would be really, really surprised if a player
Speaker 1: of his age just walked into the postseason and elevated
Speaker 1: the Warriors as a secondary star into championship contention. I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna come down to what they can get
Speaker 1: back at the deadline. All right, we have three more
Speaker 1: questions and then we're out of here for the night.
Speaker 1: If the Nuggets don't win the finals, excluding injury, what
Speaker 1: do you think would be the primary reason for it.
Speaker 1: I think it all comes down to Jamal Murray and
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic shot making. Nikola Jokic's jump shot has been
Speaker 1: down a level from where it was last year. I
Speaker 1: know Nuggets fans have been like, his field goal percentage
Speaker 1: is so good. No, no, no, a Nikola Jokic jump
Speaker 1: shot is worth like fifteen percent less than it was
Speaker 1: worth last year. That's just a fact. That's what the
Speaker 1: numbers say. That's just what has happened when he's taken
Speaker 1: jump shots. So like, I'm not I think Jokic is
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. I would be surprised
Speaker 1: if the Nuggets didn't win the championship. This is not
Speaker 1: a criticism of the Nuggets. This is just a statement
Speaker 1: of a fact. When Nikol Yokich has taken a jump
Speaker 1: shot this year, it has been worth fifteen percent less.
Speaker 1: That is what the results say been. Now, whether or
Speaker 1: not that becomes an issue, we will see. I think
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of other upside with the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: I think they've defended better as a regular season team.
Speaker 1: I think in general, everybody, all the other four role
Speaker 1: players on the team are a little bit better, a
Speaker 1: little bit sharper. I think the Nuggets are a better
Speaker 1: version of last year's team. But if they were to lose,
Speaker 1: I think it would be Jamal Murray, Nicole Yoak. It's
Speaker 1: missing a bunch of jump shots. I think that would
Speaker 1: be how they would lose. And you said excluding injury
Speaker 1: for the record. Last two questions, Hey, Jason, where do
Speaker 1: you get some of these advanced, really helpful and cool
Speaker 1: statistics you use in your takes? Is there a website?
Speaker 1: Some of them are very specific, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: if there's a place online where you can input a
Speaker 1: certain stat that you use and it just gives it.
Speaker 1: So I think that for free stuff, NBA dot COM's
Speaker 1: website is really useful. You can actually get some play
Speaker 1: type data in there. Two shot dashboard is really useful. Like,
Speaker 1: go to the NBA dot com website and just kind
Speaker 1: of go through all the drop down menus and just
Speaker 1: look at all the stats and just see what is there.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that you can get to for free. Now,
Speaker 1: my higher end stuff, I use a website called Synergy,
Speaker 1: and they're an analytics platform in a film sorting platform,
Speaker 1: actually the same platform I used to use when I
Speaker 1: played basketball in college. For scouting. I would like they'd
Speaker 1: be like, hey, Jason, you're guarding this player tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: I'd go on Synergy and I'd watch every single one
Speaker 1: of his clips and I'd see a breakdown. Okay, he
Speaker 1: drives left seventy seven percent of the time, he drives
Speaker 1: right twenty three percent of the time. When he goes left,
Speaker 1: he spins back to his right, you know, fifty six
Speaker 1: percent of the time or whatever. And it like would
Speaker 1: help me build a scouting report for my defensive assignment
Speaker 1: and like, so I have some familiarity with the platform,
Speaker 1: but it's a very very expensive platform, and I'm very
Speaker 1: very lucky to have access to it. And so again,
Speaker 1: like for a basketball fan, I think the most useful
Speaker 1: website actually is the NBA dot com website. They have
Speaker 1: a ton of data on there that you can get
Speaker 1: for free. You just have to familiarize yourself with it
Speaker 1: and learn how to use it. Last question, I'm a
Speaker 1: guitarist and I can't help but notice your prs and
Speaker 1: strap behind you in your videos. Your favorite player band
Speaker 1: and what kind of music do you play? And are
Speaker 1: you in one? So I am not in a band.
Speaker 1: Guitar is just a hobby of mine. My favorite guitar
Speaker 1: player is John Mayer. My favorite band is Dead in Company.
Speaker 1: Also shout out Dead in Company. I went to their
Speaker 1: final show in San Francisco last year, and now they're
Speaker 1: doing a like a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: They're gonna do like fourteen shows there, which I'm super
Speaker 1: excited about because, like, first of all, Vegas is relatively
Speaker 1: close to me, so I'll be able to get up
Speaker 1: and see one, but I'll get fourteen more shows where
Speaker 1: Dead in Company is really interesting because they are a
Speaker 1: they're a jam band, so every version of their song
Speaker 1: is different. So like if you like Scarlett Bigonia's, every
Speaker 1: time you hear Scarlett Pigonia's, it's like a different version
Speaker 1: of Scarlet Pigoonia's because the all of the instrumental over
Speaker 1: it is different than the last time you've heard. And
Speaker 1: so when I get fourteen more shows and there are
Speaker 1: all three hour sets, like, I'm just getting a ton
Speaker 1: more grateful Dead music in my life, which I'm very,
Speaker 1: very excited about. We'll definitely try to get up there
Speaker 1: for one of those shows at this sphere. I did
Speaker 1: just buy a new guitar. This is my third PRS.
Speaker 1: This is a This is a PRS silver sky maple neck.
Speaker 1: This is one that I've really wanted for a really
Speaker 1: long time. I have a Mexican Strata Caster. It's the
Speaker 1: one hanging right behind me, and it's a nice guitar,
Speaker 1: but it's got kind of like this like nitrosalulose coating
Speaker 1: on the fretboard that I don't particularly like. And then
Speaker 1: any of the non American made guitars kind of have
Speaker 1: some like some quality stuff that's not quite up to par,
Speaker 1: like this one. In particular, the frets are not really
Speaker 1: sanded down very well on the fretboard, so like when
Speaker 1: I play for a while, that one actually really hurts
Speaker 1: my hand. I've had this one for about a month now,
Speaker 1: and I absolutely love it. This is my favorite guitar
Speaker 1: that I've ever had. It's super versatile because it's got
Speaker 1: a three pickup setup, so you can actually get to
Speaker 1: five different pickup combinations. Any of you guys who've played
Speaker 1: a triple single coil will know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The Mabel fretboard is a little treble heavy, so I'm
Speaker 1: always rolling the tone knobs down on this one, But
Speaker 1: of like that as an upside because it's it's a
Speaker 1: flexibility thing because then when I want the trouble, I
Speaker 1: can just roll the tone knobs up. The fretboard on
Speaker 1: this one is a seven inch radius, so it's more
Speaker 1: curved than others. You can kind of see it if
Speaker 1: I like point it towards the camera. But this is
Speaker 1: this one has been really fun. I've really enjoyed this one,
Speaker 1: and it's one I've wanted for a really long time
Speaker 1: because it's actually the John Mayer signature guitar from Paul
Speaker 1: Reids Smith and it's their one triple single coil that
Speaker 1: they make. But that's my third PRS guitar that I have.
Speaker 1: They're my favorite brand. They have like to me, the
Speaker 1: best combination of like looks and like playability, and you know,
Speaker 1: they don't have some of the history that Gibson and
Speaker 1: Fender have, but I just I just think they're really
Speaker 1: great guitars, So that's why I play them. I have
Speaker 1: plans when I'm older. I want to be one of
Speaker 1: those weirdos who like plays when I'm in my fifties
Speaker 1: with some cover band. I have plans to do that
Speaker 1: in the long run, but I am not good enough yet,
Speaker 1: and so I have to My plan is is basically,
Speaker 1: like I lean into basketball pretty heavy. I still practice
Speaker 1: guitar when I have time, and I'll play like I'll
Speaker 1: play like an hour and a sit down and I'll
Speaker 1: do that like three or four times a week. And
Speaker 1: that's obviously just not enough to get really good at it.
Speaker 1: But I've been doing it for like ten fifteen years,
Speaker 1: so like I have become a decent player for fun,
Speaker 1: but like I'm not good enough to play on a stage.
Speaker 1: But my game plan is is like when my body
Speaker 1: fails me and I can no longer pour my heart
Speaker 1: and soul into the game of basketball as a player,
Speaker 1: That's when I'll shift all my energy in terms of practicing,
Speaker 1: into the guitar side of things. Just because I love it.
Speaker 1: It's like skiing, guitar and basketball. Those are like my
Speaker 1: three favorite things to do in terms of hobbies. And
Speaker 1: when basketball's gone, there will just be more time for
Speaker 1: the other stuff. All right, guys, that is all I
Speaker 1: have for today. We're gonna be back with the nerd
Speaker 1: SESSH guys tomorrow. As always, I appreciate you, guys, and
Speaker 1: I'll see you that The volume