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Speaker 2: Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoosadi here at the
Speaker 2: volume heavy wins there everybody. Hope all of you guys
Speaker 2: are having a great week, well as expected. The Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City thunder delivered the death blow to the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight,
Speaker 2: immediately out the gates, just kicking their ass.
Speaker 3: And it started with their defense.
Speaker 2: We can talk about Shay and j Dubb, and those
Speaker 2: two guys have had incredible offensive moments in this postseason run.
Speaker 2: I think Game four is a great example of a
Speaker 2: game that those two guys won with their offense. But
Speaker 2: the best attribute of the Oklahoma City Thunder is their
Speaker 2: defense and holding the Minnesota Timberwolves to just thirty two
Speaker 2: points in the first half as they make their way
Speaker 2: to the NBA Finals. We're going to be very briefly
Speaker 2: talking about that game. We're going to be mostly looking
Speaker 2: forward for Oklahoma City and Minnesota after that. For our
Speaker 2: Microsoft Course Correction segment this week, I want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about Alex.
Speaker 3: Caruso the tail end of the show.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of debate over the course of
Speaker 2: the last couple of days about the current state of
Speaker 2: the NBA. Specifically, we've talked about refereeing and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: I want to focus in more on the concept of
Speaker 2: the face of the lead and some of the complaining
Speaker 2: about Oklahoma City and Indiana being in the finals as
Speaker 2: small markets, and some of the stuff about whether or
Speaker 2: not the league needs to market some of these teams better.
Speaker 2: I want to kind of dive into that concept, the
Speaker 2: transition from the Steph lebron kd era into this new era,
Speaker 2: and just some of the realities that face down stars
Speaker 2: like Shay Gils, Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards and
Speaker 2: other guys who want to make an imprint on this league.
Speaker 2: And so that'll be our third segment tonight, and then
Speaker 2: when we are at when we are done with all
Speaker 2: of that, we'll take five to ten minutes of questions
Speaker 2: from the mail bag, So make sure you guys get
Speaker 2: your questions into the chat. You guys are the joke
Speaker 2: before we get started. To subscribe to hoops Cent. Subscribe
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Speaker 2: to them. At the tail end of the show. Also,
Speaker 2: when we finish here tonight, right it over to playback again.
Speaker 2: That's playback dot TV slash shops tonight, We're gonna, you know,
Speaker 2: take callers, We'll watch some film, we'll have some fun.
Speaker 2: It'll just be a it'll just be like a more
Speaker 2: informal kind of environment where we can all talk hoops together.
Speaker 2: So make sure you guys follow us over to playback
Speaker 2: when we finish up tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So what an ass.
Speaker 3: Kicking that was?
Speaker 2: I thought Oklahoma City came right out the gates with
Speaker 2: an absurd defensive effort and the Wolves kind of just crumbled. Specifically,
Speaker 2: the role player talent couldn't really handle the physicality. I
Speaker 2: thought Ant looked a little shook early. Julius was a
Speaker 2: little strong early, like it kind of looked a little
Speaker 2: bit more engaged early, but then Aunt woke up. But
Speaker 2: it didn't really matter. There was just a huge amount
Speaker 2: of pressure and intensity. Ants pull up three point shot
Speaker 2: kind of abandoned him in this series, similar to what
Speaker 2: happened in the Western Conference Finals last year. And honestly,
Speaker 2: the wheels came off quickly and there one really a
Speaker 2: whole lot of chance there for Minnesota to try to
Speaker 2: close the gap again. Like we can talk about all
Speaker 2: the different offensive talent on this team, and this Thunder
Speaker 2: offense has been impressive, as we've talked about them needing
Speaker 2: to conquer their demons in terms of spot up shooting
Speaker 2: and decision making for shake yieldes Alexander and some of
Speaker 2: the youthful inconsistency from j dub which has gone completely
Speaker 2: by the wayside since Game seven of the Denver Nuggets series.
Speaker 2: And we can talk about all that, but the best
Speaker 2: attribute that this team has is their defense, and that's
Speaker 2: the thing that I think is going to win them
Speaker 2: the title. I said this after Game four. I thought
Speaker 2: Minnesota's chance at home to tie that series at two
Speaker 2: was the last chance, the last barrier. There's obviously games
Speaker 2: to win, but the last substantial barrier that stood in
Speaker 2: the way between them and winning the title, and they
Speaker 2: conquered that. And I at this point, I would be
Speaker 2: absolutely stunned if Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3: Didn't win the title.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've talked a lot about the uh
Speaker 2: what makes an all time great team, and I've been
Speaker 2: talking about this over the years, Like as we talked
Speaker 2: about Boston last year as everyone wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: their net rating and different things like that, or Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City this year and talk about their net rating in
Speaker 2: the regular season. You don't become all time great in
Speaker 2: the regular season. You just don't. You don't unless you
Speaker 2: win seventy games. Like that's just the reality. When we
Speaker 2: talk about the all time great teams, we talk about
Speaker 2: the seventy three win Warriors losing, and we talk about
Speaker 2: the seventy two win Bulls, right, But like, when you
Speaker 2: get to the postseason, that is where you can make
Speaker 2: a name for yourself. That is where you can become
Speaker 2: a legend. That's going to be a theme when we
Speaker 2: get into that face of the league conversation. This defense
Speaker 2: has been reputed as being an all time great defense
Speaker 2: third during the regular season based on the statistical performance
Speaker 2: of the defense. I'd argue what puts them into that
Speaker 2: conversation is the job that they did in this postseason.
Speaker 2: I have never seen Nikole Jokic in his prime play
Speaker 2: three consecutive bad playoff games. Oksee did that to him.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City made Julius Randall when he had for two rounds,
Speaker 2: revitalized his playoff reputation. They completely exposed him like a
Speaker 2: completely and utterly exposed him in the series to the
Speaker 2: point where I thought he kind of let go of
Speaker 2: the rope in terms of his effort and competitiveness in
Speaker 2: Game four, Anthony Edwards in the wonderful postseason he had
Speaker 2: been having shut him down in this series relative to
Speaker 2: what his previous production was. This is where you can
Speaker 2: make a name for yourself and the next step if
Speaker 2: you shut down that Tyrese Haliburton led high octane Indiana
Speaker 2: Pacers offense, that is the last piece of the puzzle
Speaker 2: that can cement you as one of the defenses that
Speaker 2: we will remember in NBA history. It almost feels like
Speaker 2: there are steps to solving the Thunder puzzle. I was
Speaker 2: thinking about this during the first half tonight. It felt
Speaker 2: like we couldn't even really get to the kind of
Speaker 2: the normal chain of playmaking with Aunt and Julius and
Speaker 2: them having disparate to the corners and attacking closeouts and
Speaker 2: breaking down Oklahoma City's defense incrementally because they couldn't handle
Speaker 2: the ball pressure at the beginning of the possessions. It
Speaker 2: feels like the first step to solving the Thunder puzzle
Speaker 2: is you got to get the ball to the spots
Speaker 2: that you need the ball to begin, whether it's a
Speaker 2: specific action that you're looking to run, a specific post mismatch,
Speaker 2: something along those lines. And if you fail that test,
Speaker 2: like if you can't even get the ball to your spots,
Speaker 2: then you're just dead on arrival. Lou dorton Alex Caruso
Speaker 2: with seven steals tonight. We'll talk more about Caruso in
Speaker 2: particular here in a few minutes. But like absolute wrecking balls,
Speaker 2: you're watching them try to throw the ball to Julius
Speaker 2: Randa on the post case on Wallace knocks the ball
Speaker 2: off of his chest. Oh, he finally gets a deep
Speaker 2: post catch on a transition seal. Oh, he tries to
Speaker 2: go up against a triple team and just gets swatted
Speaker 2: off the glass. They completely disrupted Minnesota before they could
Speaker 2: even get to the actions that they wanted to get to.
Speaker 2: It was an incredibly impressive performance from the Thunder. Now,
Speaker 2: looking forward to the finals, there's a lot of different
Speaker 2: dynamics that we're gonna be looking at, and this is
Speaker 2: just gonna be a little brief teaser. Again, we're gonna
Speaker 2: have a full series preview. Most I think that the
Speaker 2: Pacers have a good chance to win tomorrow night, because
Speaker 2: I think the Knicks probably know they blew their chance.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I think the Knicks have like roughly one out of
Speaker 2: three chance of winning that game tomorrow night. But then
Speaker 2: the pay I think are almost certainly going to win
Speaker 2: in Game six. So we will have a series preview
Speaker 2: when the time comes. We're gonna wait until we get
Speaker 2: a final result out of the Eastern Conference Finals. But
Speaker 2: my initial impression is going to have a lot to
Speaker 2: do with the game plan. I think that for Mark Dagnall,
Speaker 2: this team's identity is what you saw tonight and forward aggression,
Speaker 2: battling at the point of attack with ball pressure, denying
Speaker 2: high post entries, doing everything you can to disrupt offense
Speaker 2: early in the sequence. And it's gonna be tricky because
Speaker 2: Indiana doesn't really turn the basketball over. Tyris Saliburton in particular,
Speaker 2: is one of the best guards in the league at
Speaker 2: taking care of the basketball. He's under averaging less than
Speaker 2: two turnovers per game in this postseason run. He's also
Speaker 2: particularly gifted over the top passer, which is going to
Speaker 2: be the kind of opening that Okac is going to
Speaker 2: have to concede in their defensive scheme, but I do
Speaker 2: think it's worthwhile, considering that this is their identity. I
Speaker 2: think it's worthwhile to at least throw that punch at
Speaker 2: the beginning of game one, meaning picking up full court,
Speaker 2: pressuring the ball, trying to stop the Pacers from getting
Speaker 2: into their half court flow, and trying to see if
Speaker 2: you can turn them over. My big key there would
Speaker 2: be Mark Dagnault being willing to pivot if it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: So if it's clear right in the first you know
Speaker 2: quarter and a half of Game one, that the ball
Speaker 2: pressure isn't bothering them and that they're getting the ball
Speaker 2: over the top to the weak side and they're starting
Speaker 2: to get you into rotation consistently, I think Dagnalton needs
Speaker 2: to pivot quickly. The Pacers have been a very difficult
Speaker 2: team to beat in Indiana especially and must win games. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they've dropped a couple of games when they're up two
Speaker 2: to oh in the series, but when you have two
Speaker 2: to oh on the road, it's like the biggest that's
Speaker 2: the most dominant start to a series you can possibly
Speaker 2: have is to go up two to oh on the road,
Speaker 2: And so those games were a little bit weird in
Speaker 2: terms of a lack of intensity from Indiana, and in
Speaker 2: both games it kind of lost their identity. You don't
Speaker 2: want to trick off an early game in the series
Speaker 2: to the Pacers because of a bad game plan and
Speaker 2: then go into a situation where they smell blood and
Speaker 2: they see the trophy and they get a couple of
Speaker 2: wins in Indiana, all of a sudden you're staring down
Speaker 2: the barrel of a three to one deficit. So early
Speaker 2: in the series, if Halliburton needs Smith nemhard, these guys TJ. McConnell,
Speaker 2: if they handle pressure well and they get the ball
Speaker 2: over the top, over the top of your aggressive defense,
Speaker 2: and they get you into rotation and they start scoring easily.
Speaker 2: I think Dagnal needs to pivot quickly, not away from
Speaker 2: ball pressure necessarily, but away from some of the aggressive
Speaker 2: help in passing lanes. This is a team that if
Speaker 2: you force Tyrese Haliburton in Pascal Siakam to score one
Speaker 2: on one, they can. It is certainly something they can do,
Speaker 2: but it is not the thing they do at a
Speaker 2: superstar level. And the thing that the Tyrese Haliburton is
Speaker 2: a superstar level playmaker every single night. This offense has
Speaker 2: a wonderful rhythm in terms of attacking when that advantage
Speaker 2: is already kind of baked into the equation. So like
Speaker 2: those sorts of things that accentuates the Pacers' strengths, if
Speaker 2: you force Haliburton in Seakam to play a bunch of
Speaker 2: one on one, that accentuates one of the weaker parts
Speaker 2: of their formula. So with that being the case, the
Speaker 2: attentiveness in action to prevent easy openings, the communication through
Speaker 2: switches and then staying home off the ball and forcing
Speaker 2: those guys to play one on one and not conceding
Speaker 2: the easy openings that will get them into rotation because
Speaker 2: again they're good at it. If they're not gonna you
Speaker 2: can pass the ball better faster, then you can move
Speaker 2: with the ball as a ball handler, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter how much they're rotating around. If they can pass
Speaker 2: the ball around and beat Oklahoma City's speed with just
Speaker 2: ball movement and quick processing and play finishing, there could
Speaker 2: be some issues there. So I'm just really curious to
Speaker 2: see the initial game plan, which I think will be
Speaker 2: standard for Oklahoma City. But if it works, like here's
Speaker 2: the thing, it might just work. You might just force
Speaker 2: Indiana to pee down their leg and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden things look really rough for them, and you never
Speaker 2: have to bail on that game plan. But there's also
Speaker 2: a version of this where they handle it, and if
Speaker 2: they do, it just needs to be a quick pivot
Speaker 2: from Mark dagnall on the other end of the floor.
Speaker 2: We have seen in this series that the Timberwolves in
Speaker 2: particular had a little bit more success with some of
Speaker 2: their quicker on ball guards than Jaden McDaniels Nikkeil Alexander
Speaker 2: Walker in particular, I thought did the best job at
Speaker 2: kind of like beating shade of spots and at least
Speaker 2: forcing him to make jump shots over the top. So
Speaker 2: in theory we could see a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: Aaron E. Smith weak guys. Aaron Ne Smith, over the
Speaker 2: course of the tail end of the series has done
Speaker 2: some serious damage to Jalen Brunson to the point where
Speaker 2: he's not even looking to shoot. We went, we watched
Speaker 2: through the entire crunch time sequence of last game in
Speaker 2: the playback session last night, and he just didn't want
Speaker 2: to even look to score down the stretch of that game,
Speaker 2: in large part because of the work that Aaron Neismith did,
Speaker 2: and again, guys like Jalen Brunson was having an unbelievable
Speaker 2: playoff run before this kind of like trend that has
Speaker 2: taken hold here at the tail end of the series.
Speaker 2: And so with that being the case, just keep in
Speaker 2: mind that this is going to be a different type
Speaker 2: of defensive matchup in terms of the level of bed
Speaker 2: foot speed on the perimeter that Indiana presents to the table.
Speaker 2: That being said, I still think that Oklahoma City should
Speaker 2: be able to score against this team. I just think
Speaker 2: it's going to be a little bit different. It's going
Speaker 2: to be a little bit less of the dribble penetration,
Speaker 2: a little bit more of the kind of over the
Speaker 2: top matchup hunting against some of the smaller guards that
Speaker 2: the Pacers had. They do every im protection as well
Speaker 2: with Miles Turner. So it's going to be kind of
Speaker 2: similar to some previous series, like this Minnesota series towards
Speaker 2: the end, as they've game planned more towards helping at
Speaker 2: the rim, or the Dallas series last year, where you
Speaker 2: can't just have Jadubb trying to test Miles Turner at
Speaker 2: the rim all series long. There has to be processing
Speaker 2: at the rim, quality rim decisions, moving the ball, hunting
Speaker 2: down the great shot. But it's going to be a
Speaker 2: very interesting series. I initially, when I first started thinking
Speaker 2: about the series, thought Oklahoma City would beat the shit
Speaker 2: out of them. I thought it would be like a
Speaker 2: four or five game series. We had a little debate
Speaker 2: last night Jackson and I. You guys can find that.
Speaker 2: We broke it out as a clip on our YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: You can find it under our list of uploads. But
Speaker 2: Jackson is me into being a little bit more bullish
Speaker 2: on the Pacers' chances to be more competitive in the
Speaker 2: series because of their processing, because of their smaller, quicker
Speaker 2: guards that can stay in front of the ball a
Speaker 2: little bit better, some of those things. But my initial
Speaker 2: impression at this point, before we get into our prediction phase,
Speaker 2: is that the Thunder will win that series in five
Speaker 2: or six games. Looking forward for Minnesota, and we'll have
Speaker 2: a little bit more Thunder talk here in a minute,
Speaker 2: because I want to talk about Alex Cruso in our
Speaker 2: Microsoft segment with Minnesota. The Julius Randall experiment I thought
Speaker 2: was rough. The big thing that I specifically was bothered
Speaker 2: by was just when they ran into some real adversity,
Speaker 2: I didn't like the way he handled it in terms
Speaker 2: of just his overall competitiveness, and it was like, in
Speaker 2: Game four, I thought he'd let go of the rope competitively.
Speaker 2: In Game five, I thought he tried to force the
Speaker 2: issue too much and was attacking two three bodies in
Speaker 2: traffic and getting blocked and stolen. And basically like his
Speaker 2: two different approaches to adversity in this series were to
Speaker 2: not fight and to without using his head. And that
Speaker 2: was the kind of frustrating thing for me watching the
Speaker 2: Timberwolves in this series. And so I think there's some
Speaker 2: reality to the fact that, like in retrospect, and by
Speaker 2: the way, guys, I am fully aware of how ridiculous
Speaker 2: this sounds after my series preview, But in retrospect, Minnesota
Speaker 2: matched up very favorably with the Lakers, and Julius Randall
Speaker 2: as a one on one ISO guy against big bodied forwards,
Speaker 2: was a great defensive option and did a lot of
Speaker 2: damage attacking certain types of mismatches in that series, and
Speaker 2: was great against a Golden State Warriors team that didn't
Speaker 2: have Steph Curry. But there are some realities to the
Speaker 2: fact that Julius Randall has a player option and if
Speaker 2: you up re up and pay him a massive amount
Speaker 2: of money. You're taking up a big chunk your payroll
Speaker 2: for a player that I didn't think handled this higher
Speaker 2: leverage matchup very well. I would look to surround Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards with high IQ players. There's a thing that happens
Speaker 2: when you look at this roster on paper. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of Minnesota buzz going into this series.
Speaker 2: You know, even I thought that Minnesota would be more
Speaker 2: competitive in this series than they were, even though I
Speaker 2: picked the Thunder to win. And it's because you look
Speaker 2: on paper and it's like, man, all these dudes can
Speaker 2: guard and all these dudes can shoot.
Speaker 3: But the truth is, if like you really started to.
Speaker 2: Talk about like high IQ basketball players, like really smart
Speaker 2: basketball players that don't make poor decisions, that are always
Speaker 2: in the right spot, that always seem to do the
Speaker 2: right thing, it's Mike Conley, end of list. And So
Speaker 2: with that being the case, especially with ant and his like,
Speaker 2: if you're breaking down Ant's game right now, We're going
Speaker 2: to talk more about Aunt in a minute. The reality
Speaker 2: is is that ant and is not necessarily the most
Speaker 2: high level processor that exists in the league. And I
Speaker 2: would argue that he could learn the most in that
Speaker 2: area and experience the most improvement in the coming years.
Speaker 2: And so you know, a simple example like if CP
Speaker 2: three is on the move away from San Antonio, I'd
Speaker 2: be looking to bring in Chris Paul as a backup guard,
Speaker 2: as a guy that can help ant literally just help
Speaker 2: him understand more of the processing and game flow elements
Speaker 2: of that. On ball roll, I would look too down
Speaker 2: the line in terms of role players, connective playmakers, off
Speaker 2: ball shooters, stuff like that. Look for higher IQ, smarter
Speaker 2: players that will help him process some of these situations,
Speaker 2: that know how to be in the right spots, that
Speaker 2: won't make mistakes. I think that would be a direction
Speaker 2: that I would look to go if I was this offseason.
Speaker 3: Now. I saw a lot.
Speaker 2: Of talk on Twitter, YouTube comments, all this kind of
Speaker 2: stuff over the last couple of days burying Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 2: And I know what this comes from. It comes from
Speaker 2: the fact that ant is more popular than Shay and
Speaker 2: then Jason Tatum, And even though Tatum and Shae are
Speaker 2: better basketball players than ant An, it's more popular. And
Speaker 2: that just eats at people and it makes them super
Speaker 2: irrational and upset, and then they take it out on
Speaker 2: Ant when the reality is is Ant's not doing anything
Speaker 2: but be an Ant, and he just happens to resonate
Speaker 2: with people in a certain way, which we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about that in a bigger picture context here when
Speaker 2: we talk about the face of the league. But for
Speaker 2: some reason, that just builds all this negativity towards Ant.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, back to back Western Conference Finals where
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards got pretty badly outplayed by his counterpart on
Speaker 2: the other side, Luka Dancis last year, Shake gills Is
Speaker 2: Alexander this year.
Speaker 3: There's no way around it.
Speaker 2: I thought that Ant faced an extremely difficult game plan
Speaker 2: from a very very very good defense that did damage
Speaker 2: to every single star that they ran into in this postseason.
Speaker 2: But even within that context, he didn't do very well.
Speaker 2: He didn't do as well as he needed to do.
Speaker 2: There was a gap in his performance relative to what
Speaker 2: Shae gals As Alexander did for the Thunder. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not about to rank Ant over Gildas Alexander or
Speaker 2: anything like that. I think he's somewhere around the fifth
Speaker 2: to seventh best player in the NBA kind of just
Speaker 2: off of that kind of like reliable top tier superstar tier,
Speaker 2: and you know, depending on the matchup, when the matchup
Speaker 2: is right, he can kind of reach that level, but
Speaker 2: it's clear when he reaches tougher matchups he kind of
Speaker 2: feels more like a second tier star at this point.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. He's twenty three years old and he
Speaker 2: just went to back to back conference finals. And yes,
Speaker 2: he got out played by Shay and he got out
Speaker 2: played by Luca last year. But he went to Totoe
Speaker 2: with Nikola Jokich in a series where he beat him.
Speaker 2: He went to Totoe with Lebron James and Luka Doncic
Speaker 2: in a series where he beat them, and in that series,
Speaker 2: repeatedly down the stretch looked like the better player as he.
Speaker 3: Won the game.
Speaker 2: It's been uneven, it's been inconsistent, but there is literally
Speaker 2: if we could remove the irrational emotion that Shae fans
Speaker 2: and Tatum fans and all these people feel about Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards just out of jealousy for the amount of attention
Speaker 2: that he gets, we could just take that and remove
Speaker 2: it out of the equation and set it on the side.
Speaker 2: And we all looked at Ant's career just with like
Speaker 2: clear eyes and just a basic evaluation. We'd all say
Speaker 2: the same thing, like flawed player, crazy upside, all sorts
Speaker 2: of room to improve. There's no way to describe his
Speaker 2: career up to age twenty three other than a resounding success.
Speaker 2: There's literally no way to describe. There's all of the
Speaker 2: other greats that went on to win titles, did it
Speaker 2: when they were twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight years old.
Speaker 3: Nobody does it.
Speaker 2: Nobody conquers the demons and wins the title at age
Speaker 2: twenty three, unless they're on a supremely talented roster like
Speaker 2: Kobe was in two thousand or Dwayne Wade was on
Speaker 2: the Miami Heat in two thousand and six. There are
Speaker 2: rare examples of dudes who have success at the championship
Speaker 2: level in kind of a supporting type of role, but.
Speaker 3: Very rarely do you see, very rarely.
Speaker 2: In NBA history do you see a player actually achieve
Speaker 2: like I'm the best player in the world status at
Speaker 2: twenty three years old. He didn't do enough this series,
Speaker 2: he got out played. He's doing just fine. He's doing
Speaker 2: just fine. He made Let's just put it this way, guys,
Speaker 2: do you think Aunt got substantially better from last year
Speaker 2: to this year. Yes, absolutely, twenty two year old Aunt
Speaker 2: failed got in the gym, became one of the best time,
Speaker 2: the best tie volume three point shooter in the league.
Speaker 2: Showed a lot of higher level processing in this postseason run.
Speaker 2: Not enough, but showed a lot of higher level processing
Speaker 2: and took a leap. He's one step closer to his
Speaker 2: ultimate goals. He's not there yet, give him time. He's
Speaker 2: twenty three years old. Ant's development will be the key
Speaker 2: though for this team going over the top. There are
Speaker 2: some realities to being in a roster this build with
Speaker 2: some of these older veteran guys that make a lot
Speaker 2: of money. There's not a lot of like, let's go
Speaker 2: bring in more talent type of situation going on here
Speaker 2: with Minnesota. Now, they can find better types of talent.
Speaker 2: They can find talent that is better fitting. We talked
Speaker 2: earlier about basketball IQ. But ultimately it will be Ant's
Speaker 2: individual improvement that will get him to where he needs
Speaker 2: to go. Shake Yodess Alexander to me, I think has
Speaker 2: in this playoff run very clearly snatched the title of
Speaker 2: being the second best player in the world behind Nikole Jokich.
Speaker 2: I think he's got a better case than Yannis. I
Speaker 2: think he's got a better case than Luca. At this point.
Speaker 2: He is clearly to me in that second spot. The
Speaker 2: reason why he has that spot is he has flashed
Speaker 2: in this postseason run defense that is above average, the
Speaker 2: ability to score regardless of circumstance. Like Minnesota switched up
Speaker 2: their game plan, packed the paint and put him through
Speaker 2: a lot of the same stuff that Ant has saw
Speaker 2: in this series. And in the pivotal game he hung
Speaker 2: forty points in ten assist, the incredible dribble penetration, the processing,
Speaker 2: the playmaking has gone up a massive level for him
Speaker 2: compared to last year. And like there was a it's
Speaker 2: very similar to Ant in the sense that Sga kind
Speaker 2: of had a little bit of a rough playmaking series
Speaker 2: last year in the postseason. It has been a thing
Speaker 2: that he has substantially improved upon in this postseason. Because again,
Speaker 2: failure is what breeds the motivation that gets these guys
Speaker 2: to figure things out and take that next step. That's
Speaker 2: where Shay's at. Shay is what three years ahead of
Speaker 2: schedule on Shay. On Ant, he's three years older than him.
Speaker 2: He is currently, in my opinion, firmly holding onto that
Speaker 2: number two.
Speaker 3: Spot.
Speaker 2: I think he's anchored himself there. I think he's got
Speaker 2: a very very very very good chance to win a
Speaker 2: time title this year and put that first feather in
Speaker 2: his cap. But the processing that Shay has gone through
Speaker 2: in the last few years, if you look at the
Speaker 2: player Shay was in twenty twenty three and you look
Speaker 2: at the player that he is now, there has been
Speaker 2: these improvements that have taken place as an over the
Speaker 2: top shot maker, as a half court processor, as a
Speaker 2: defensive player that have vaulted him into a situation where
Speaker 2: he is the second best player in the NBA. That
Speaker 2: is the track that Ant has to follow. Minuscule improvements
Speaker 2: year over year in key areas understanding the game and processing,
Speaker 2: handling the ball against ball pressure and making those kickout
Speaker 2: raads in traffic, building out a back to back to
Speaker 2: the basket game, the ability to score over both shoulders
Speaker 2: at the high posts and in the mid post and
Speaker 2: on the low post. All of those different things are
Speaker 2: things that He's going to have to build out in
Speaker 2: order to reach the level that Shay is at right now.
Speaker 2: But again, as I said, Shay's been doing this three
Speaker 2: years longer. Shay is at the age when typically the
Speaker 2: all time great players in our league start to figure
Speaker 2: it out and take their stake their claim at the
Speaker 2: top of the league. Ant is a head of schedule, guys.
Speaker 2: He's ahead of schedule, and like the burying of him
Speaker 2: that I've seen over the course of the last couple
Speaker 2: of days just reeks of insecurity, and honestly, it's it's
Speaker 2: reprehensible to me, but it is what it is. He's
Speaker 2: doing just fine at twenty three years old. Back to
Speaker 2: back Western Conference Finals appearances, and literally the sky is
Speaker 2: the limit for what he can accomplish in the future.
Speaker 2: And honestly, as a basketball fan, I'm super fun or
Speaker 2: super pumped because I think the Shay versus Ant kind
Speaker 2: of rivalry could end up being a very very interesting
Speaker 2: rivalry in this coming era. It kind of reminds me
Speaker 2: of the Lebron's deph rivalry in the sense that, like,
Speaker 2: Lebron is three years older and was obviously further along
Speaker 2: in the deal, but the two of them just kind
Speaker 2: of like seem to have this rivalry that existed over
Speaker 2: the course of their careers. I would love to see
Speaker 2: Ant and Shae face off in the postseason five more
Speaker 2: times over the course of the next ten years, and
Speaker 2: hopefully that ends up being something that we get to see.
Speaker 2: It's a very fun rivalry. All right, Welcome to course correction,
Speaker 2: brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star players and
Speaker 2: teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today are under
Speaker 2: immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to
Speaker 2: the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries
Speaker 2: with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management and trustworthy,
Speaker 2: responsible AI. And when you're in the NBA, you have
Speaker 2: your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we will
Speaker 2: highlight the player every week that has risen to the
Speaker 2: occasion when his team needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Speaker 2: Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on.
Speaker 2: The player we're highlighting this week is Alex Caruso of
Speaker 2: the Oklahoma City Thunder. Looking back at last year's potseason
Speaker 2: run for Oklahoma City, if you guys remember they had.
Speaker 3: A fifth starter problem.
Speaker 2: Team started putting their center on Josh Giddey and sagging
Speaker 2: into the paint and things just really bogged down for
Speaker 2: them offensively. It was one of the few weak points
Speaker 2: that that team was dealing with They tried a bunch
Speaker 2: of different guys in his spot, a rookie version of
Speaker 2: Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, but none of them
Speaker 2: were able to bring the combination of size and versatile
Speaker 2: defense and offensive utility that Alex Crusoe has brought to
Speaker 2: this team. So Sam Pressy, Sam Presty, excuse me, pulls
Speaker 2: off two very savvy moves this summer, one signing Isaiah
Speaker 2: Hartenstein away from the New York Knicks. Obviously, Isaiah was
Speaker 2: hividly important during the second round win versus the Denver Nuggets,
Speaker 2: a little less so in this series, but he still
Speaker 2: had his moments. And then trading Josh Giddy straight up
Speaker 2: with no draft compensation for Alex Crusoe. A player that
Speaker 2: is universally recognized as one of the best role player
Speaker 2: wings in the NBA. A player that started an NBA
Speaker 2: Finals game for the twenty twenty Lakers. A player who
Speaker 2: has since then turned him turned himself into a much
Speaker 2: more reliable offensive player than he used to be. He
Speaker 2: was always a gifted cutter with the Lakers, but he's
Speaker 2: become a very good connective playmaker. He's become very good
Speaker 2: as a catch and shoot three point shooter. He hit
Speaker 2: forty four percent of his threes coming into in this
Speaker 2: postseason run. But I want to focus on his defense
Speaker 2: for a minute, because he's putting together one of the
Speaker 2: best defensive playoff runs.
Speaker 3: You'll see.
Speaker 2: He's averaging four stocks per thirty six minutes in his
Speaker 2: playoff run that steals plus blocks and this is a
Speaker 2: consistent thing. By the way, he averaged the same amount
Speaker 2: in the regular season. Basically, the only guy this year
Speaker 2: to exceed that output with at least forty six games
Speaker 2: played was Victor Wemenyama, and I chose forty six games
Speaker 2: played because that's how many games Victor women Yama played,
Speaker 2: But he was the only guy that averaged more stocks
Speaker 2: per thirty six minutes at that minimum number of games played.
Speaker 2: This year's Victor Wenmnyama Dyson Daniels matched Alex Crusoe's performance,
Speaker 2: but Victor was the only one who exceeded it. He
Speaker 2: was that level of disruptive, defensive wrecking ball in this postseason.
Speaker 2: There have been some high profile assignments, like he did
Speaker 2: a lot of quality work.
Speaker 3: On Ant in this series.
Speaker 2: He did an amazing job on Nikola Jokic in Game seven,
Speaker 2: in that second round series that arguably saved Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: from disaster, fronting the post and single handedly decomposing that
Speaker 2: Nuggets offense. But in the big picture, the funnest thing
Speaker 2: for me to watch as a fan has just been
Speaker 2: his defensive game playmaking literally anytime he sees someone try
Speaker 2: to dribble against him that has a questionable handle, like
Speaker 2: usually if it's a guy who's in rotation attacking a
Speaker 2: closeout or a guy in t Like there have been
Speaker 2: a half dozen plays in this postseason where some guy
Speaker 2: had like a one on one against Alex Crusoe in
Speaker 2: transition and was like, I'm going to try to score
Speaker 2: on it, and it's like his eyes just light up
Speaker 2: and he.
Speaker 3: Just sees a turnover.
Speaker 2: He just attacks the basketball with physicality, and whoever it
Speaker 2: is that's trying to dribble just immediately soils themselves and
Speaker 2: flubs the ball away. He's the type of defensive player
Speaker 2: that you basically have no choice but to run your
Speaker 2: action on the other side of the floor whenever you can.
Speaker 2: You want to keep him out of the play if
Speaker 2: at all possible. I truly believe that the Thunder lose
Speaker 2: in Round two this year if not for the work
Speaker 2: that Alex Crusoe did in that series, the workie he
Speaker 2: did on Nicole Jokicchen Game seven, but also the on
Speaker 2: ball defensive work throughout the series. He also hit fifteen
Speaker 2: threes in that series. He had nineteen assists with just
Speaker 2: six turnovers in that series. As I said on the
Speaker 2: show Monday night, and as I said earlier tonight, I
Speaker 2: think it's a near certainty that the Thunder win the
Speaker 2: title at this point, and so you got an immediate
Speaker 2: championship level return for the Thunder given by Alex Caruso.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI
Speaker 2: solutions power empower you to take bold steps and make
Speaker 2: informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward.
Speaker 2: If Microsoft is your trusted partner, you can navigate your
Speaker 2: journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities.
Speaker 2: Visit Microsoft dot com slash challengers to learn more. All right,
Speaker 2: our last segment before we get into our mailbag, the
Speaker 2: face of the League talk. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: talk about the current.
Speaker 3: State of the NBA.
Speaker 2: Who's going to be the face of the league now
Speaker 2: that Lebron and Steph are gone, are going out aging
Speaker 2: out in the process. At least is the NBA screwed
Speaker 2: because two small markets are facing off in the NBA Finals?
Speaker 2: Does the league need to do a better job of
Speaker 2: marketing its young stars? The main thing I want to
Speaker 2: focus on tonight is that last question, because I think
Speaker 2: the answer is relevant for all of those questions, and
Speaker 2: I think the perfect way to frame this conversation is
Speaker 2: to look at our two previous faces of the league,
Speaker 2: Lebron and Steph, which, by the way, this isn't a
Speaker 2: real thing. There's not an assignment for face of the league.
Speaker 2: It's just Lebron and Steph are far and away the
Speaker 2: most famous players of their generation.
Speaker 3: They just are.
Speaker 2: It's them two and then a giant gap before you
Speaker 2: get to Kevin Durant, James Harden the other guys in
Speaker 2: those tiers. Like, even as famous as those guys are,
Speaker 2: Lebron and Steph are just on another level. Did the
Speaker 2: league make Lebron and Steph into stars? Did they run
Speaker 2: sophisticated marketing campaigns? Did they make them get drafted by
Speaker 2: big market teams like the Knicks or the Lakers. No,
Speaker 2: we think of the Warriors now as one of the
Speaker 2: big markets in the league, as one of the most
Speaker 2: valuable franchises in the NBA. But they just sold in
Speaker 2: twenty ten for like what the four hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 3: Like they are.
Speaker 2: I think it was a little bit less than that,
Speaker 2: but they just sold for a little over four hundred million.
Speaker 3: Fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Nobody thought of the Warriors as a big market juggernaut
Speaker 2: before Steph made them into that. The Cleveland Cavaliers are
Speaker 2: now a four billion dollar franchise and they have a
Speaker 2: viable fan base that is ravenous. For this new Cleveland
Speaker 2: Cavaliers iteration, Lebron made them into that that it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter if it's the Pacers in Indiana or it's the
Speaker 2: Thunder in Oklahoma City. It doesn't matter where a guy
Speaker 2: gets drafted. Lebron and Steph have proved that you can
Speaker 2: supersede that and create legendary status for a smaller market
Speaker 2: for a player regardless of what the league does. Lebron
Speaker 2: and Steph made themselves in two faces of the league.
Speaker 2: How two ways. One they were must see television. Lebron
Speaker 2: James in his prime was arguably the best combination of
Speaker 2: size and athleticism ever to play sports. You couldn't watch
Speaker 2: a game in his prime without seeing a half dozen
Speaker 2: absurd highlights. Crazy dunks, crazy layups, crazy chase down blocks,
Speaker 2: absurd you know, jump passes that nobody other player in
Speaker 2: the league could make jumping a passing lane. We think
Speaker 2: of him as like a savvy, old veteran player now,
Speaker 2: but back in the day, he was a nuclear athlete.
Speaker 2: Every once in a while, some Lebron fan page on
Speaker 2: Twitter will tweet some video highlight of Lebron in like
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine or something, and it'll come across
Speaker 2: my feet and I'm always like, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: forgot this dude moved just different than anyone else in
Speaker 2: the league. And Steph Curry's far and away the greatest
Speaker 2: shot maker in the history of the NBA. His hot
Speaker 2: streaks were unlike anything we had ever seen before. I
Speaker 2: remember in twenty twenty one when he was routinely going
Speaker 2: off after the All Star break, it was like, whatever
Speaker 2: you were doing, you had to stop when Steph was
Speaker 2: on a hot streak and just get to a television
Speaker 2: because it was musty TV, even for non you know,
Speaker 2: like guys that aren't necessarily super successful in the championship stage,
Speaker 2: like Kyrie only has one championship, but he is a
Speaker 2: profoundly entertaining player with a huge fan base. Why because
Speaker 2: he's must see television. When you're watching Kyrie irving, chain together,
Speaker 2: dribble combinations and doing the things he does on the court,
Speaker 2: it resonates with people. It just does Anthony Edwards. Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards is not as good at basketball as Shay, but
Speaker 2: he is absolutely more aesthetically appealing and that is why
Speaker 2: he he has such a huge, ravenous fan base behind him.
Speaker 2: The second part of it is the success from twenty
Speaker 2: twelve to twenty twenty two. Lebron and Steph literally won
Speaker 2: eight championships in eleven years, and the three years they
Speaker 2: didn't win the championship, they were in the finals two
Speaker 2: of them. One of them was in the finals Lebron
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, Steph in twenty nineteen. You could not
Speaker 2: turn on your TV in June without seeing Lebron or
Speaker 2: Steph on the television. That's how they became legends. It's both,
Speaker 2: you gotta have both. We've seen players like Tim Duncan
Speaker 2: that won a lot, but that didn't resonate with people
Speaker 2: because there wasn't an esthetically appealing element to his game.
Speaker 2: I still feel like there's a huge chunk of casual
Speaker 2: fans that don't really get the Jokic thing because there's
Speaker 2: not a huge aesthetically appealing part of his game. But
Speaker 2: if you can do both, if you can be must
Speaker 2: see television and you can consistently play in June and
Speaker 2: succeed in June, that is the kind of thing that
Speaker 2: can influence the public. There is no marketing campaign that
Speaker 2: can influence the public like that. Every media entity covering
Speaker 2: the NBA, from myself to the people on ESPN or
Speaker 2: whoever it is, we could talk about Shay and Tyrese
Speaker 2: Halliburton every day for the next year and it would
Speaker 2: not influence the public the way that they could on
Speaker 2: ABC in June. That is where they win over the
Speaker 2: hearts and minds of the people. Anyone can become a legend.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you're in Oklahoma City or New
Speaker 2: York City. People don't even watch the same media anymore.
Speaker 2: All of us consume NBA content from one hundred different
Speaker 2: sources that perfectly fit what we like to hear. Some
Speaker 2: people want superficial stuff, some people want way in the weeds.
Speaker 2: Some people want team specific stuff. Some people want national media,
Speaker 2: some people want television. Some people want more of the
Speaker 2: podcast type of format. Some of you guys are big
Speaker 2: YouTube people. A lot of people do streaming services like
Speaker 2: playback where they can be more interactive. Like, there's a
Speaker 2: million ways to consume NBA media. There isn't even a
Speaker 2: way in which the NBA could like force a star
Speaker 2: on us. The Internet is a tool that makes the
Speaker 2: quality of your work matter. The algorithm it's about for
Speaker 2: all of us content creators, it's about maintaining eyeballs. That's
Speaker 2: literally all that matters when it comes to the Internet.
Speaker 2: You have to bring the aura and the success that
Speaker 2: captures the attention of the people. Lebron and Steph it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter where they've played in their careers. They have
Speaker 2: global fan bases. But it cannot be given to you
Speaker 2: or forced on you. It has to be earned. So
Speaker 2: here's the thing. This year's NBA Finals won't get good
Speaker 2: TV ratings, and that's fine. It's kind of inevitable under
Speaker 2: the circumstances. There's kind of a natural gap that exists
Speaker 2: between the eras that we're in right now, So it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter what Shape and Tyree have done there
Speaker 2: in their mid twenties, they haven't been around long enough
Speaker 2: to influence people the way they need to. This is
Speaker 2: this was inevitable. But the question is hand players like SGA,
Speaker 2: like Tyrese Halliburn, or teams like the Thunder or the Pacers,
Speaker 2: can they become faces of the NBA? Can they become
Speaker 2: the kinds of cultural forces that those old Warriors teams were,
Speaker 2: Cavs teams were that Lebron and Steph were. They certainly can.
Speaker 2: Like with SGA, you need both, right, You need success
Speaker 2: and you need to be musty television. So continually making
Speaker 2: it to this point, continually winning games, that'll go a
Speaker 2: long way for SGA. But there is a reality to
Speaker 2: the fact. And again I know Thunder fans are super
Speaker 2: sensitive about this and they always have a conniption fit
Speaker 2: every time it gets brought up. But there is a
Speaker 2: reality to the fact that Shay sometimes has a hard
Speaker 2: time resonating with casual fans because of some of the weird,
Speaker 2: non basketball, foul grifty stuff he does. He will become
Speaker 2: a legend and an icon by hitting contested mid range
Speaker 2: jump shots in the finals, not by lurching into defenders'
Speaker 2: bodies and grabbing their arms and throwing up fake shots
Speaker 2: like we can talk all we want about how the
Speaker 2: rule book is the rule book and you've got to
Speaker 2: find a way not to foul. And yess, he's a
Speaker 2: competitor that's just finding every advantage. Oh, that's true. The
Speaker 2: casual fan does not care. You guys that are watching me.
Speaker 2: You don't watch this show because you're casual fans. You
Speaker 2: watch the show because you love basketball. We are the
Speaker 2: nut jobs. We're not the people that Shay has to
Speaker 2: win over. Shay has to win over the general public,
Speaker 2: and he's not going to win over the general public
Speaker 2: doing all that foul grifty shit. He absolutely has that potential, though,
Speaker 2: because he is legitimately a top tier shot maker. Coming
Speaker 2: into tonight, he was shooting fifty four percent on jump
Speaker 2: shots inside of seventeen feet. He won a pivotal playoff
Speaker 2: game with it in the second half of Game FI.
Speaker 2: If he has more moments like that, in fewer moments
Speaker 2: like Game two where he puts up a monster stat
Speaker 2: line but takes like seven or eight of the most
Speaker 2: ridiculous fake shot attempts I've ever seen, If he has
Speaker 2: more moments like that second half in Game four, he
Speaker 2: will become a legend. I absolutely think he could become
Speaker 2: a fan favorite. As for Halliburton, I think his pathway
Speaker 2: is shooting. As we've seen with Steph, that can be
Speaker 2: a musty television type of show. His shooting run in
Speaker 2: Game four was musky television. If he can improve as
Speaker 2: a three point shooter to the type of dynamic guy
Speaker 2: that can get super super hot and regularly hit five
Speaker 2: seven threes a game, I think he could resonate with fans.
Speaker 2: Combine that with the same success in June, he could
Speaker 2: become a legend. The point is the point I'm trying
Speaker 2: to make the younger generation guys like Halliburton, SGA, even
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards, they absolutely can become the faces of the NBA,
Speaker 2: victor Women, Yama, Cooper, Flagg, whoever it ends up being.
Speaker 2: But nobody is gonna give it to them. The NBA
Speaker 2: can't do.
Speaker 3: It for them.
Speaker 2: They have to take it, and they have to take
Speaker 2: it by becoming what Lebron and Steph were, by becoming legends,
Speaker 2: by being musty television, by winning basketball games on ABC
Speaker 2: and June. All right, I'm off my soapbox.
Speaker 3: All right, Jackson.
Speaker 2: Let's take a five ten minutes of questions and then
Speaker 2: we'll head over to playback.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of super Chat questions to start with.
Speaker 1: One from Dave.
Speaker 4: He said, thunderfan here, love your content. In what aspect
Speaker 4: do you think the thunder have grown most from last
Speaker 4: season that has resulted in them sort of getting over
Speaker 4: the at least this step of the hump.
Speaker 2: I think there's two obvious pieces, because like there's there's
Speaker 2: you know, the talent increase that inherently comes from young
Speaker 2: guys aging and uh bringing in key role players like
Speaker 2: Crusoe and Hartenstein. But overall, I thought they're playmaking in
Speaker 2: the middle of the floor, just the decisions they made
Speaker 2: in the middle of the floor in traffic in the series,
Speaker 2: and then the confidence with which they stepped into three
Speaker 2: point shots like they legitimately time time and time again
Speaker 2: in this postseason when we have seen them in this
Speaker 2: regular season, even in this postseason early in the Denver series,
Speaker 2: like we've seen them kind of lose their confidence in
Speaker 2: catch and shoot situations. They've just been a very dependable
Speaker 2: catch and shoot three point shooting team in this postseason run,
Speaker 2: and I think it's been. I think it's been especially
Speaker 2: in big spots when they've needed to be And so
Speaker 2: I think I think that like connective playmaking piece, the
Speaker 2: not forcing shit at the rim, making those kickout passes
Speaker 2: and guys stepping into threes has been their biggest area
Speaker 2: of growth.
Speaker 4: Another super Track question, this one from JM. He says
Speaker 4: SGA is a combination of the three greatest shooting guards
Speaker 4: of the early two thousands, Kobe's size and footwork, d
Speaker 4: Wade's sort of consistency and ability to drive to the
Speaker 4: room and finish, and Manud's craftiness.
Speaker 2: Thoughts the Kobe and Manu stuff I agree with. I
Speaker 2: don't really see Dean Dwayne Wade in in Uh Shay
Speaker 2: that much, just because Shaye is kind of more of
Speaker 2: like a spindly, wiry, kind of like funky moving athlete
Speaker 2: he is.
Speaker 3: I think Shay's first step is underrated.
Speaker 2: I think he's incredibly quick off the bounce, but I
Speaker 2: don't think it looks anything like with Dwayne Wade was
Speaker 2: like quite literally nuclear downhill athleticism with the ability to
Speaker 2: the thing that Wade could do that was crazy was
Speaker 2: he could change direction at full speed, So like if
Speaker 2: you watched if you watched Wade, he would like come
Speaker 2: at this angle at full speed and then split the
Speaker 2: pick and roll back at this angle, and it would
Speaker 2: literally look like he didn't even stop. He would just
Speaker 2: like knife through the lane. I don't think he quite
Speaker 2: has that athletic impact that Dwayne Wade had, but I
Speaker 2: think the man who Genobili and Kobe comparisons make a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4: It's like, when was the last time you shot you
Speaker 4: saw Shade dunk over someone in traffic? It hasn't happened,
Speaker 4: but that first step and the other aspects I like
Speaker 4: those comparisons.
Speaker 1: Actually one more super tech question.
Speaker 4: Then we got a couple others supertech question from Michael
Speaker 4: He said fan from Puerto Rico. After two Western Conference
Speaker 4: finals back to back, is it's still fair to use
Speaker 4: the he's just twenty.
Speaker 1: Three years old? With Anthony Edwards, I feel like you
Speaker 1: answered earlier, but.
Speaker 2: It guys, who's the example. Who's the example of a guy?
Speaker 2: Like if you have a counter example, if there are
Speaker 2: like five six other dudes who like clearly looked better
Speaker 2: than Ant at twenty three, then sure let's have that conversation.
Speaker 2: I just don't like this is this is literally like
Speaker 2: the the fact that ant is having this success so
Speaker 2: early in his career is causing everybody to lose their minds.
Speaker 2: It doesn't usually look like this, Like most of these
Speaker 2: dudes are not even getting close to this level by
Speaker 2: this point. Like how many players by the age of
Speaker 2: twenty three eliminated the best player in the world in
Speaker 2: a playoff series, eliminated a team that Luka Doncic, John
Speaker 2: Lebron James on it, Like how many teams have been
Speaker 2: able to do that? Like he swept Kevin Durant and
Speaker 2: Devin Booker and the Suns and was like it was
Speaker 2: like clowning on them that entire series. Like I think,
Speaker 2: I think there are some realities to the fact that
Speaker 2: he's shown some vulnerability to certain types of matchups, but
Speaker 2: I think overall, he's clearly improving year over year like that.
Speaker 2: That's the second piece I would say, is like I
Speaker 2: would be so much more in line with this, Like
Speaker 2: can we keep saying he's twenty three when this is
Speaker 2: his second Western Conference Finals if he didn't look obviously
Speaker 2: better than he did last year, So let me actually
Speaker 2: pitch that back to you, Jackson, Am I out of
Speaker 2: am I out of my mind for thinking it is
Speaker 2: clearly better this year than he was last year.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I don't think so. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think the development and from him as a shooter is
Speaker 4: really remarkable. He was a fine, okay shooter coming in
Speaker 4: for the first couple of seasons, and he was like
Speaker 4: a good shooter last year. But he is a great
Speaker 4: shooter this year.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 1: He led the league in or was it de leete
Speaker 1: the league or he won short of Leage Beasley? I
Speaker 1: forget in three point makes.
Speaker 4: But he led the league I think, and that is like,
Speaker 4: you're not doing that unless you are really putting in
Speaker 4: all of that work.
Speaker 1: So no, I don't. I don't think it's out of
Speaker 1: bounds at all.
Speaker 2: He was number one by one over Maleague Beasley at
Speaker 2: three nineteen right.
Speaker 4: Right exactly, and a lot of people in the chat
Speaker 4: and sort of, you know, as people would compare the
Speaker 4: two are talking about dwayn Wade and how he won
Speaker 4: the finals at twenty four years old or however he was,
Speaker 4: and it's like he won the finals of twenty four
Speaker 4: and no one else has really done that, and he
Speaker 4: did it one time, he didn't make it to the
Speaker 4: finals again.
Speaker 1: He made it to the final.
Speaker 4: He only made it to the finals the one time
Speaker 4: before he got Lebron James as his team, which is
Speaker 4: not a shot at Dayne Wade.
Speaker 3: Is just to say that it's very very rare.
Speaker 4: And you're like, well, he's not Dwayne Wade, then okay,
Speaker 4: he's not the fourth greatest shooting guard of all time
Speaker 4: or whatever, right, Like he's not in the you know,
Speaker 4: he's not in the.
Speaker 1: Pantheon yet, and I don't think anyone like that's fine.
Speaker 4: He can be amazing and not be Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 2: And also, like to your point, like Wade legitimately lost
Speaker 2: some of the talent after that year, and then he
Speaker 2: could not bring his teams to any sort of legitimate
Speaker 2: playoff success after that point until Lebron James came around,
Speaker 2: Like I to me, to me, the the Dwayne Wade
Speaker 2: performance in two thousand and six is very much like
Speaker 2: a flash in the play flash in the pain kind
Speaker 2: of like playoff performance that was like a kind of
Speaker 2: unique compared to anything else in NBA history. There's like
Speaker 2: it like doesn't really there's really nothing you can compare
Speaker 2: it too, right.
Speaker 4: And someone in the chat just said, people who are
Speaker 4: better at age twenty three Luca d Wave, Lebron Magic,
Speaker 4: MJ Bird, Will duncan check. Cool, pretty great, pretty shortly, amazing,
Speaker 4: amazing group for Anthony Edwards to be a part of. Right,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't argue with any of those names, and I
Speaker 4: don't think and that's fine. If Anthony Edwards is the
Speaker 4: tenth best twenty three year old ever, like he's on
Speaker 4: a pretty good trajectory.
Speaker 2: Well, and let me let me take this one step further,
Speaker 2: because let's let's let's follow this thought process through to fruition.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 2: So, okay, Lebron James is, in my opinion, the best
Speaker 2: best basketball player ever, in most people's opinion, the second
Speaker 2: best basketball player ever, one of the top two. Like
Speaker 2: that's like he's unassailable in terms of career trajectory. What
Speaker 2: if we were all on Twitter back in two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, and it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, he makes it to the finals and
Speaker 2: plays bad against the Spurs and gets eliminated. Then he
Speaker 2: has a big statistical performing series against Boston in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, but gets but loses and gets outplayed
Speaker 2: by Paul Pierce in Game seven. In two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight was the uh Two thousand and seven was the
Speaker 2: Finals run. Two thousand and eight was the one year
Speaker 2: that they lost to the Celtics. Two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: puts up massive numbers but loses to an Orlando Magic
Speaker 2: team in six games. Twenty ten like legitimately doesn't play
Speaker 2: well down the stretch of a series against Boston and loses,
Speaker 2: Like at that point he was already twenty six. Like
Speaker 2: guys like this could have been, Like this is the
Speaker 2: phase of careers where every star in NBA history has
Speaker 2: inconsistent and flawed results.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Let's do one more question, then
Speaker 1: we'll go over to playback.
Speaker 4: Okay, this is an interesting one as we're talking about
Speaker 4: summer plans for the Minnesota Timberwolves as a franchise.
Speaker 1: Does Kevin Durant make sense for Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I think it makes a ton of sense for Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is gonna get me thinking.
Speaker 3: I think he's a high IQ player.
Speaker 2: I think he's a incredible shooter and a very useful
Speaker 2: defensive player. I love the idea of surrounding Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: with tons of physicality, which has been the exact opposite
Speaker 2: of what's what he's been around since he left Golden State. Uh,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is we need to take this
Speaker 2: concept over to playback and think a little bit more
Speaker 2: about it, because that's something I need to think about.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I think, I think, shit, man, I
Speaker 2: almost like that better than any other option that I've
Speaker 2: seen thrown around. I don't know how they would be
Speaker 2: able to make it work because I think Julius's salary
Speaker 2: would be tough to match with Kd's, and then I
Speaker 2: think they're second apron, so they'd have a hard time
Speaker 2: aggregating salaries. They'd have to shed salary this summer somehow.
Speaker 2: Let me rephrase it like this, like, and we can
Speaker 2: talk about this on playback, but like, would you waive
Speaker 2: the rights to nas reed so that you can get
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant like that?
Speaker 3: That's that's where it gets kind of tricky.
Speaker 2: But because they might have to do something like that
Speaker 2: or offload a bunch of salary in order to make
Speaker 2: it work. But man, like, just thinking purely about the
Speaker 2: basketball and Kevin Durant being in the Julius Randall spot
Speaker 2: I think that all of a sudden becomes a much
Speaker 2: more interesting basketball team. All right, guys, it's all we
Speaker 2: have for tonight on YouTube. We're heading over to play
Speaker 2: back again. That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight.
Speaker 3: Come over there.
Speaker 2: If you're angry at me about my rants, bring your
Speaker 2: energy over there. Let's let's debate, let's have some fun.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna talk some hoops, watch some film, hang
Speaker 2: out for a little bit. I'll see you guys over
Speaker 2: there just in just a few minutes. But for our
Speaker 2: YouTube crowd things. As always, for the support, We'll be
Speaker 2: back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Eastern Conference
Speaker 2: Finals Game five.
Speaker 3: What's up guys.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Speaker 2: OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us
Speaker 2: if you guys would take a second and leave a
Speaker 2: rating and a review.
Speaker 3: As always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2: Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
Speaker 2: do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: The volume