Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at
Speaker 1: the Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys have had a great week so far. It feels
Speaker 1: good to be back from vacation. I got out of
Speaker 1: town for a couple of weeks, went to San Francisco
Speaker 1: for about five days, and then to Japan for the
Speaker 1: very first time in my life for a little over
Speaker 1: a week. And the Portland Trailblazers held up there into
Speaker 1: the bargain and did not trade Damian Lillard, which allowed
Speaker 1: me to like really disconnect from work for a little bit,
Speaker 1: which is the first time I've done that since I
Speaker 1: started at the Volume a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: and it just it felt really nice to be honest.
Speaker 1: That said, I'm excited to get back to talking basketball.
Speaker 1: We have a jam packed show today. We have Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown's contract extension, a lot of pushback on that. I
Speaker 1: think he absolutely deserves it and that the Celtics made
Speaker 1: the right decision and giving him that contract. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit. Austin Rivers had some
Speaker 1: interesting and very critical comments about Damian Lillard's trade request
Speaker 1: and about all the stars requesting trades with multiple years
Speaker 1: left on their deal. I have some thoughts there. And
Speaker 1: then our guy Carson from nerd Sesh had a just
Speaker 1: an absolute flamethrower take on Carmelo Anthony calling him the
Speaker 1: most overrated player in the history of the NBA. So
Speaker 1: I have a little bit of pushback. I'm going to
Speaker 1: offer there as well, and then I'll share some notes
Speaker 1: on my vacation at the end of the day. I
Speaker 1: am a little jet lagged today. I've had very little
Speaker 1: sleep over the last couple of days, so bear with me.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna make it work. You guys know the
Speaker 1: drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels.
Speaker 1: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't
Speaker 1: miss any show announcements. And for whatever reason, you guys
Speaker 1: miss one of these videos and you can't get back
Speaker 1: over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find
Speaker 1: them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. Last
Speaker 1: but not least, you guys have heard me talk about
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Speaker 1: time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. One last
Speaker 1: note before we get started, I wanted to quickly tell
Speaker 1: you guys are planning for the next nine weeks because
Speaker 1: nine weeks from Monday is the start of NBA Training Camp,
Speaker 1: and so then we're gonna be talking actual basketball games
Speaker 1: and how the lineups look and how new players on
Speaker 1: new rosters look, and it's gonna be all actual basketball
Speaker 1: that were breaking down. So we have nine weeks to
Speaker 1: fill until then, and we're gonna be doing three different
Speaker 1: three week serieses during that stretch. First, starting on Monday,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do our annual top twenty five players in
Speaker 1: the League list. A lot of people really enjoyed that
Speaker 1: last year. It's one of my favorite ones to do.
Speaker 1: We're even spacing it out further in doing a ton
Speaker 1: of deep dives into the top twenty five players in
Speaker 1: the league. That's the next three weeks after that, top
Speaker 1: twenty five players in the last twenty five years, so
Speaker 1: similar format, just looking at the accomplishments in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, and for players in their entire careers,
Speaker 1: how they stack up against each other. With more of
Speaker 1: a look at modern NBA history. And then last, for
Speaker 1: the final three weeks heading into training camp, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing our annual top fifteen power rankings, so again
Speaker 1: it doubles as power rankings and a seasons. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go from fifteen to one, and then we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a deep dive into every team, who they added this offseason,
Speaker 1: who they lost, what they're gonna look like offensively, what
Speaker 1: they're gonna look like defensively, projections for the regular season,
Speaker 1: and projections for the playoffs. So those are the three
Speaker 1: series we're doing, and then after that it's all real
Speaker 1: basketball as we head into one more gigantic marathon NBA season.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk some Jalen Brown. So he
Speaker 1: signs five year, three hundred and four million dollar contract.
Speaker 1: This is the richest contract in NBA history, which inevitably
Speaker 1: led to a lot of pushback from people who thought
Speaker 1: he either didn't deserve it, that it was a poor
Speaker 1: management decision from the Celtics, or that just you know,
Speaker 1: freaking out about the large numbers. Right, So I want
Speaker 1: to look at that specific question, did he deserve it
Speaker 1: and did the Celtics make the right decision? By signing
Speaker 1: him to that deal, and to me, the answer is
Speaker 1: obviously yes to both questions. This is a textbook case
Speaker 1: of recency bias. Jalen Brown had an awful series against
Speaker 1: the Miami Heat. I'm not saying anything dramatic there. I
Speaker 1: bet you Jylen Brown will be the first person to
Speaker 1: tell you that he did not play well in that series.
Speaker 1: He averaged nineteen points per game, shot forty two percent
Speaker 1: from the field, sixteen percent from three, had more turnovers
Speaker 1: than assists, really struggled handling the basketball, and kind of
Speaker 1: looked like he lost his mojo, lost some confidence in
Speaker 1: the process. But again, this is something that people forget,
Speaker 1: like whenever we see a situation like this, we pretend
Speaker 1: like this is the only player this has ever happened to.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of NBA stars are prone to the
Speaker 1: occasional bad playoff series. With lower level stars, it happens
Speaker 1: all the time. Guys in that like fifteen to forty
Speaker 1: range in the league, they constantly have bad playoff series.
Speaker 1: It's like every other series. This is not the first
Speaker 1: guy this happens to. Even when we look at the
Speaker 1: very best guys, the top tier stars in the league,
Speaker 1: they are prone to bad series. Two years ago, Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: one of the top fifteen players of all time, shot
Speaker 1: thirty nine percent and had twenty one turnovers in a
Speaker 1: four game sweep. Do you think everybody would have freaked
Speaker 1: out if he signed a max contract after that series?
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid has had back to back awful playoff runs.
Speaker 1: Went from averaging thirty and thirty three points per game
Speaker 1: in the regular season to twenty three points per game
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, with a dramatic drop and efficiency and
Speaker 1: overall impact on the game. Bad playoff series happens. The
Speaker 1: playoffs are extremely difficult, and we're talking about a Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference final series against the best coach in the NBA
Speaker 1: and an excellent defensive roster that played him into his
Speaker 1: weaknesses and he struggled. But Jalen was awesome for a
Speaker 1: really long time before that. And that's the reality of
Speaker 1: the Jalen Brown experience. Two weeks does not define a
Speaker 1: basketball player, said the same thing after Kevin Durant in
Speaker 1: this sweek two years ago. In the first two rounds
Speaker 1: this year against Atlanta and Philly, Jalen Brown twenty five
Speaker 1: points per game, fifty four percent from the field and
Speaker 1: forty seven percent from three in the playoffs for two rounds.
Speaker 1: Those are outstanding numbers. This year in the regular season,
Speaker 1: a career high twenty seven points per game, fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent true shooting, and yeah, he did most of his
Speaker 1: damage and transition and in spot up situations, but he
Speaker 1: also was a slightly above average shot creator fifty third
Speaker 1: percent tile and pick and roll including passes, fifty first
Speaker 1: percentile in ISO including passes, all on decent value. So
Speaker 1: he was really good this entire year up until he
Speaker 1: was bad for two weeks. That should not color what
Speaker 1: you do with him for the next five years when
Speaker 1: he's twenty six years old. And last year in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: he was awesome throughout twenty three seven and four fifty
Speaker 1: eight percent true shooting for the entire playoff run. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he's fallen off defensively since then, but he had a
Speaker 1: really good defensive season last year, and he was the
Speaker 1: second best player on a team that was two wins
Speaker 1: away from the Larry O'Brien Trophy. He is a flawed player.
Speaker 1: It can be a little predictable. Sometimes, he doesn't handle
Speaker 1: a ball well enough, struggles to read defense. Is not
Speaker 1: a great playmaker and obviously regressed defensively this year, but
Speaker 1: he's still easily one of the twenty best basketball players
Speaker 1: in the world. And I wanted to give you guys
Speaker 1: a couple of stats to demonstrate that. This year, Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown was one of only nine players in the playoffs
Speaker 1: to average at at least twenty points on at least
Speaker 1: forty five percent from the field and at least thirty
Speaker 1: five percent from three. That's a really low baseline. Twenty points,
Speaker 1: forty five from the field, thirty five from three. Nine
Speaker 1: guys did that this year in the playoffs. Nine this
Speaker 1: regular season, he was one of only twelve players in
Speaker 1: the entire league to average at least twenty five points,
Speaker 1: three rebounds, and three point five assists. That's not a low,
Speaker 1: that's not some ridiculous standard. Twenty five points, five rebounds,
Speaker 1: three and a half assists. Twelve dudes did that. This
Speaker 1: is not common. It's not like Jalen Brown just signed
Speaker 1: this maximum contract that's absurdly large, and there's like thirty
Speaker 1: dudes in the league better than it. I had him
Speaker 1: twelve last year. He's gonna drop a little bit from there,
Speaker 1: but he's still assuredly a top twenty player in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And again, like you guys gotta remember, in order to
Speaker 1: win basketball games, you need good basketball players. You need
Speaker 1: great basketball players. Great basketball players cost money like it's
Speaker 1: it's inflation. Sure, the league is contracts are inflating as
Speaker 1: a result of all the factors with the salary cap
Speaker 1: and the way that supermax contract works. But that's just
Speaker 1: what it costs. Let's just say, for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: Jayleen Brown's the sixteenth best player in the league. The
Speaker 1: nineteenth best player in the league's gonna cost the same
Speaker 1: amount of money. I mean, he made second team All
Speaker 1: NBA this year. This is just the running rate. This
Speaker 1: is this is market value, so intimation. Does he need
Speaker 1: to polish polish up some things offensively, yeah. Does he
Speaker 1: need to recommit to the defensive end of the four, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so does the rest of his team. But he's clearly
Speaker 1: one of the twenty best players in the world, and
Speaker 1: he's just entering his prime. He's twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: and he absolutely can be the second best player on
Speaker 1: a championship team. Had Jason Tatum played better in the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals last year, they would have won the trophy.
Speaker 1: So again, When you pass on him, you pass on
Speaker 1: a championship ceiling. You need him. He's a fundamental piece there.
Speaker 1: So the Celtics had to do it, and that's what
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown was worth. He absolutely deserves it. It was
Speaker 1: the smart move and then again really quickly at the
Speaker 1: end here As for the contract number, don't forget about
Speaker 1: that new TV deal. Sixty nine million in the fifty
Speaker 1: year of Jalen Brown's deal. That's a really big number.
Speaker 1: I get why that's scary, but the salary cap is
Speaker 1: gonna be like two hundred billion in change at that point.
Speaker 1: He's just gonna be another Max player making a third
Speaker 1: of the cap. Pretty standard stuff there. Again, like I think,
Speaker 1: I think, we see the big numbers and we freak out,
Speaker 1: but if you really take a closer look at it,
Speaker 1: it makes a ton of saeny. It's for both sides.
Speaker 1: You are in this race, get out the fight. What
Speaker 1: we're gonna do, what we're gonna do. Shut up, I'm
Speaker 1: not missing my race. Yes, we're not going to jail.
Speaker 1: Oh listen, So you think you're gonna play a stupid
Speaker 1: video game by cars and you're gonna become a race
Speaker 1: car driver? All I ever wanted to do is be
Speaker 1: a racer. I'm doing it. The ten of you are
Speaker 1: the best Ranturismo players in the world. Now it's your
Speaker 1: jobs race real cars. It's not gonna work. The guys
Speaker 1: who race are elite athletes. Your kids are scrawny little
Speaker 1: gamer kids. That's where you're coming. So you think you
Speaker 1: can do the impossible. I'm here to prove that you can't.
Speaker 1: You get tired, get sloppy, sloppy and get hurt. You
Speaker 1: get hooked on my lawn. I know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: not a face. I've raised this track a thousand times
Speaker 1: in the game. Let me drop it by way. That
Speaker 1: was actually pretty great. We have a newcoming this year.
Speaker 1: His presence is shaking the foundation of the sports system,
Speaker 1: major leagues, the other drivers, your pit crew are going
Speaker 1: to hate you. But Jesus with a joystick? Is it?
Speaker 1: I can't see anything. I'm not sure if I can
Speaker 1: do this. Most people can't. I got a feeling you're
Speaker 1: not most people. If I lose, I lose more than
Speaker 1: just stop. So I'm not gonna quit. You couldna proved
Speaker 1: to everyone. He raced it what like a thousand times.
Speaker 1: Now I just got to do it in real life
Speaker 1: grant to Resa based on a true story. I won't
Speaker 1: stop now. That Grand Reso trailer was actually really cool.
Speaker 1: I had seen some promos for it, but I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen the trailer yet, and that was the first time
Speaker 1: I found out that it was actually based on a
Speaker 1: true story. And it kind of makes sense to me
Speaker 1: because I've played video games growing up like everyone else did,
Speaker 1: and I played Grand Turismo, but I also played the
Speaker 1: other games I played, like Meat for Speed and the
Speaker 1: arcade style racing games, and you would just like hold
Speaker 1: down the accelerator the entire time and then just make
Speaker 1: the turns and it was completely unrealistic. And then you'd
Speaker 1: play Grand Turismo and you'd really have to watch how
Speaker 1: you break into turns, like your position in the lane
Speaker 1: as you try to wide and out the turn in
Speaker 1: feathering the accelerator in certain situations. It actually makes sense
Speaker 1: to me that if as a video gamer you had
Speaker 1: nailed down that concept, that some of it, if not
Speaker 1: most of it would translate to the operation of the
Speaker 1: actual vehicle, at least with the level of effort that
Speaker 1: Grand Tarisma always made trying to make it super realistic.
Speaker 1: So I'm super excited to see that movie. The new
Speaker 1: movie Grand Tarismo is based on the true story of
Speaker 1: one teenager's journey from video game player to real life racer.
Speaker 1: The movie follows Jan Martin Borough, a construction worker from
Speaker 1: Wales who, through his skill at the Grand Tarisma video game,
Speaker 1: broke into the elite world of professional motorsports. Jan receives
Speaker 1: the chance of a lifetime when Nissan and Sony host
Speaker 1: a competition to identify the best Grandarisma players and give
Speaker 1: them a shot at racing in real life. Doubted by
Speaker 1: his family, his fellow race car drivers, and even his coach,
Speaker 1: Jan is an unlikely outsider trying to change the game
Speaker 1: and break into an exclusive and incredibly dangerous sport. If
Speaker 1: you can find a way to win, it'll change the
Speaker 1: game forever. This state of the art movie you recreate
Speaker 1: some of the most famous and dynamic racing competitions in
Speaker 1: the world in breathtaking sequences that need to be seen
Speaker 1: on the big screen. Directed by Neil Blumcamp, the visceral action,
Speaker 1: sounds and thrills of the racetrack were brought to life
Speaker 1: using actual Nissan GTS drones and practical effects. Those little
Speaker 1: camera angles directly behind the car were really cool, all
Speaker 1: shot through the most sophisticated technology and advanced cameras Grant Turismo.
Speaker 1: It's exclusively in movie theaters on August eleventh. Get your
Speaker 1: tickets today, rated PG thirteen. All Right, Austin Rivers and
Speaker 1: his comments about Dame's trade request. I was reading this
Speaker 1: one while I was in Japan. I thought it was
Speaker 1: super interesting. So Rivers said, quote, if you were a
Speaker 1: free agent, then you could choose where you want to go.
Speaker 1: That's the business. But when you're not and you sign
Speaker 1: a deal, man, that's part of the business. Bro. If
Speaker 1: you get traded somewhere, you've got to go play man,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like this just started with
Speaker 1: James and Ben and all these guys doing this shit.
Speaker 1: It's bad for the league. End quote. So that's that.
Speaker 1: The whole Basketball NBA Twitter world on fire the other day,
Speaker 1: and again, I simply do not understand why the onus
Speaker 1: is on the players to behave a certain way under
Speaker 1: a contract when that same onus is not on the owners.
Speaker 1: For starters, just again framing the whole topic. I get it,
Speaker 1: star trade suck for the local fan base. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: to lose their guy. I'm not debating that, but it's
Speaker 1: never going away, asking out and having one team as
Speaker 1: your destination and then doing all this stuff behind the
Speaker 1: scenes to manipulate things. Yeah, it's not a good look,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of a fake problem because no one's
Speaker 1: ever been traded to a team and then at least
Speaker 1: not in recent NBA history. There hasn't been a guy,
Speaker 1: a star who got traded to a team and then
Speaker 1: just didn't play. Why Leonard said all the same shit
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, not going there, not even gonna report
Speaker 1: to training camp. You know what, He reported to training
Speaker 1: camp and he won a damn NBA championship at a
Speaker 1: finals MVP. So like, until that actually starts happening, I
Speaker 1: don't really see that as anything more than just Adrian
Speaker 1: Morgenowski tweets, right, and then again James Harden showing up
Speaker 1: to camp way out of shape and deliberately bullshitting through games. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big problem. There can be criticism that we
Speaker 1: offer here on a case by case basis when it
Speaker 1: comes to the way some of this is executed, But
Speaker 1: fundamentally I have no problem with players signing a long
Speaker 1: term deal and then asking out with multiple years left
Speaker 1: Austin Rivers said, quote, if you were a free agent,
Speaker 1: you could choose where you want to go end quote.
Speaker 1: In theory, that sounds great, but you have to do
Speaker 1: what's best for your family because the team is going
Speaker 1: to do what's best for the team. And I want
Speaker 1: to give you guys an example of this that I
Speaker 1: think kind of demonstrates that demonstrates the conundrum that this presents.
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember when Dangel Russell became a free agent.
Speaker 1: So Dilo gets traded to Brooklyn. I believe he is
Speaker 1: in the brook Lopez deal, and he has a really
Speaker 1: good season his final year there, averages twenty one points
Speaker 1: and seven assists a game. Looks pretty solid enters free agency,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of one of those guys that's worth
Speaker 1: either close to the max or like either the like
Speaker 1: a rookie max extension or close to it. Right, But
Speaker 1: the Warriors are losing KD to the Nets, and so
Speaker 1: Golden states he's an opportunity to salvage the KD asset
Speaker 1: because if it Kdi goes to the Nets and they
Speaker 1: don't work something like this out, they lose him for nothing. Right,
Speaker 1: So they see an opportunity they work out a deal.
Speaker 1: They do a sign in trade, right, D'Angelo Russell comes
Speaker 1: over to Golden State on a four year deal in
Speaker 1: that trade. Do you guys think Golden State had any
Speaker 1: intention of keeping D'anngela Russell for all four years of
Speaker 1: that deal? Do you think he was the player they
Speaker 1: actually wanted, Like, if they had cap space, do you
Speaker 1: think they signed d' angela Russell. No, they Katie was
Speaker 1: going to the nets. They functionally saw an opportunity to
Speaker 1: bring back a young player on a reasonable contract number
Speaker 1: that they knew they would be able to trade in
Speaker 1: the future. So guess what, D'Angelo Russell gets to be
Speaker 1: a Warrior now, super high pressure situation. Not only does
Speaker 1: it not go well, they burned him to the ground
Speaker 1: on the way out. They basically call him unprofessional or
Speaker 1: not a good fit in the unprofessionals the wrong word.
Speaker 1: They say he's not a great fit there, and they
Speaker 1: offer a lot of subliminal criticism or you know, reported
Speaker 1: criticism of what is time there was like And in
Speaker 1: the process they bring back Andrew Wiggins and two draft picks.
Speaker 1: So it was a really smart move from Golden State.
Speaker 1: They should have done that. Great asset management they did
Speaker 1: what was best for the team and it worked out. Now,
Speaker 1: dangel Russell ended up going to a good situation for him, right,
Speaker 1: he went to go play with his buddy in Minnesota
Speaker 1: in Karl Anthony Towns. But that was just coincidence. Had
Speaker 1: Wiggins been playing for the Pistons, they would have shipped
Speaker 1: his ass to Detroit. Now let's reverse that situation. Let's
Speaker 1: pretend the Warriors actually wanted to keep D'Angelo Russell and
Speaker 1: instead D'Angelo Russell after thirty three games goes, I want
Speaker 1: to trade, get me out of here. Would everyone have
Speaker 1: freaked out? Then? Is that a violation of the contract
Speaker 1: that he signed. Would we look at D'Angelo Russell as
Speaker 1: disloyal and say that what he's doing is bad for
Speaker 1: the league, because that's literally just the reverse situation of
Speaker 1: what the Warriors did to him. It's a problematic double
Speaker 1: standard in my opinion. The contract goes both ways. Technically, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a commitment from that player to play for that
Speaker 1: team for a set number of years, but it's also
Speaker 1: a commitment from that team to pay that player for
Speaker 1: a certain number of years on that roster. Ideally, they'd
Speaker 1: be like, hey, I can buy a house here, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be here four years. But that's just not how
Speaker 1: it works. For some reason, the players are morally obligated
Speaker 1: to fulfill that contract, but the owners are not in return. So,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, of you're a free agent and you're
Speaker 1: in the running for some sort of lucrative deal, you
Speaker 1: gotta take as many years and as much money as possible,
Speaker 1: because again, there is absolutely no guarantee that the team
Speaker 1: is going to fulfill their end of whatever you know
Speaker 1: agreement you think there is. Okay, let's say I'm a
Speaker 1: free agent and I'm like, I know I want to
Speaker 1: play here another year or two, but I'm not certain
Speaker 1: if it's four or five. If I sign for one
Speaker 1: or two, I'm only just putting my money at risk.
Speaker 1: What if I tear my acl Hell, James Harden left
Speaker 1: money on the table to help Philly sign guys, and
Speaker 1: then he became a free agent, and then they didn't
Speaker 1: give him the number he wanted. You don't think he's like,
Speaker 1: why the hell did I give them that money back? Again, like,
Speaker 1: they will do it to you. So you have to
Speaker 1: look out for yourself, as much money, as much years
Speaker 1: as possible. Protect your family first, and then yeah, BA professionally,
Speaker 1: don't do the antics behind the scenes, don't show up
Speaker 1: to camp fat and not caring and not trying. There's
Speaker 1: ugly sides to this too. It's not perfect. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's perfect. I'm just saying I'm sick and tired
Speaker 1: of the players, for some reason, having the responsibility of
Speaker 1: behaving with honor in these contract situations. Chris Paul just
Speaker 1: got traded to a team of players and they all
Speaker 1: hate each other, like the Warriors hate Chris. Chris hates,
Speaker 1: the Warriors hate Steve kerr Hey Draymond Green. Draymond Green's
Speaker 1: openly said I'm not gonna sit here in line and
Speaker 1: say you know that Chris Paul and I don't have issues.
Speaker 1: They shipped him there because it was an achievable roster
Speaker 1: upgrade for the Warriors. Chris Paul had no voice in
Speaker 1: that situation. You think, if Jordan Poole was a free agent,
Speaker 1: he's signing with Washington, if he had the pick of
Speaker 1: the litter. They decided he's going to Washington, So he
Speaker 1: gets to go to Washington. Again. You have to look
Speaker 1: out for yourself as much as possible because the owners
Speaker 1: are gonna ship you wherever it's best for them. Dame
Speaker 1: wants to go to Miami, Portland's looking for the best
Speaker 1: deal for them. You've got to look out for yourself.
Speaker 1: So again, that's why I don't have any problem with
Speaker 1: Stars signing a long term deal and then after year one,
Speaker 1: or after year two, or with a couple of years
Speaker 1: left on the dealting a trade. You're not obligated to
Speaker 1: sign for exactly how many years you're loyal when the
Speaker 1: team won't do the same for you. And then one
Speaker 1: last note on the Dame to Miami stuff. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of Heat fans get annoyed with me because
Speaker 1: I've been talking about other destinations. I want Dame to
Speaker 1: go to Miami. I think it's great for the league.
Speaker 1: I love the Heat, I love Eric Spolshra, I love
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler, I love bam Anebayo. I want to see
Speaker 1: Dame there. I think that's a great fit. I think
Speaker 1: it adds a lot of parody in the Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: rooting for that deal. But it's just almost certainly going
Speaker 1: to happen. So we've already talked it to death. We'll
Speaker 1: do an even bigger breakdown when the trade goes down,
Speaker 1: but it's just more fun to talk about other options
Speaker 1: right now. And that's just more interesting, and it gives
Speaker 1: us something to do to kill the time until Portland
Speaker 1: inevitably sends him to Miami. That's why I was bringing
Speaker 1: up destinations like Oklahoma City and saying that other teams
Speaker 1: should get involved. It's just what is most interesting about
Speaker 1: that situation. Dame is there for the taking, but if
Speaker 1: he goes to Miami, I'm gonna be perfectly happy with that. Alright,
Speaker 1: one last topic before we get to vacation stuff. Carson.
Speaker 1: You guys know it is Carson Breber from Nerd sash As.
Speaker 1: A video that goes out the other day calls Carmelo
Speaker 1: Anthony the most overrated NBA player ever. Quote quote unquote,
Speaker 1: he said again quote people elevate mellow into conversations. He
Speaker 1: has no business being in end quote very spicy stuff
Speaker 1: from Carson. Twitter goes absolutely crazy. It got viewed one
Speaker 1: point three million times. All the hoop purists were losing
Speaker 1: their minds and attacking Carson. It was a whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I think this is a super fun offseason topic,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna hit The question was Carmelo Anthony overrated. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, I gotta defend Carson to start with,
Speaker 1: because everyone's just calling him a nerd who only reads
Speaker 1: spreadsheets and doesn't watch the game. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people in this business who don't watch a lot
Speaker 1: of basketball and then talk about it a lot. Carson's
Speaker 1: not one of those guys. Carson puts in a ton
Speaker 1: of work. He uses a lot of the same tools
Speaker 1: that I use in terms of film software, and that
Speaker 1: dude watches as much basketball as anybody I know. I
Speaker 1: respect his basketball opinion a great deal. You guys know
Speaker 1: that because I had him on my show a bunch
Speaker 1: long before him and Logan ended up getting their show
Speaker 1: picked up by the volume. I'm a huge fan of Carson.
Speaker 1: I think he's great at his job, and he certainly
Speaker 1: puts in the work. So if you disagree with his take,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. But let's not sit here and pretend
Speaker 1: like Carson hasn't earned the right to speak confidently with
Speaker 1: his basketball opinions. On that note, I very much disagree
Speaker 1: with Carson and his take on this one. Now, this
Speaker 1: was Carson's actual take, so he accurately pointed out that
Speaker 1: mellow has had some pretty rough field goal percentages over
Speaker 1: the years. He accurately pointed out that Mellow was not
Speaker 1: a good defensive player. He accurately pointed out that Mellow
Speaker 1: was not a very good playmaker, And he accurately pointed
Speaker 1: out that his teams were only slightly better with him
Speaker 1: on the floor or versus off the floor over the
Speaker 1: majority of his career. So that was kind of like
Speaker 1: his breakdown, his nuts and bolts, his bread, his actual
Speaker 1: substance to his argument. But there are two main points
Speaker 1: that I want to push back on. First of all,
Speaker 1: Mellow's efficiency was actually a lot better than it looks
Speaker 1: on the surface. Yes, he was below fifty percent an
Speaker 1: effective field goal percentage in the Denver and New York seasons.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I'm looking at, is like real
Speaker 1: Mellow before he kind of reinvented himself as a role player,
Speaker 1: but during those years he got to the foul line
Speaker 1: a ton. So he actually had a true shooting percentage
Speaker 1: in New York and Denver of fifty four point four percent.
Speaker 1: Now again, today you want to be like fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent or better. But this is a different era, which
Speaker 1: brings me to my second piece of pushback. All scores
Speaker 1: were inefficient in that era because of the way the
Speaker 1: game was played, so it does not make sense to
Speaker 1: use efficiency as a barrama of how successful a scorer
Speaker 1: was during that era there in the late two thousands.
Speaker 1: First of all, every team had a slow footed center
Speaker 1: and a big power forward on the floor. Most of
Speaker 1: them couldn't shoot, like think about like Pau Gasol and
Speaker 1: Andrew Bynum. You know, with Carmelo Anthony was nine and
Speaker 1: Kenyon Martin or with the Cavs like Olgauskis and good
Speaker 1: and yeah, they could knock down the occasional jump shot,
Speaker 1: but the floor was absolutely packed around the paint. In general,
Speaker 1: teams had way less shooting on the floor. It was
Speaker 1: super clogged up. Guys were constantly facing multiple defenders, and
Speaker 1: everyone's percentage is suffered as a result. Go look at
Speaker 1: offensive offensive ratings from that era in the late two thousands.
Speaker 1: It was the same type of points per possession that
Speaker 1: you saw in the mid nineties. Nobody was scoring easily,
Speaker 1: so having a guy that could take and make tough
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots over the top of congested defenses
Speaker 1: was actually super valuable back then, even when even when
Speaker 1: guys were missing two thirds of them, it was still
Speaker 1: really valuable. That was how you ended a lot of possessions,
Speaker 1: rescue possessions and it became extremely valuable at the end
Speaker 1: of games. The example I want to use to make
Speaker 1: this that to make this point is Kobe. Kobe also
Speaker 1: shot over fifty percent in effective field goal percentage just
Speaker 1: four seasons. In his entire career, he missed a ton
Speaker 1: of shots. As we look at his primary stretch, like Melo,
Speaker 1: I look Denver, New York. For Kobe, it's basically with
Speaker 1: the Lakers until he tore his achilles. He had a
Speaker 1: fifty five point five percent true shooting percentage with the
Speaker 1: Lakers before he tore his achilles. That's one percent better
Speaker 1: than mellow one percent. So like same type of issues
Speaker 1: applied to Kobe. Now he faced the same type of
Speaker 1: issues terrible spacing, ugly offense, had to take a ton
Speaker 1: of bailout shots. His percentage is suffered as a result.
Speaker 1: We are spoiled on efficiency these days. You might have
Speaker 1: one non shooter on the floor. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you have no non shooters on the floor. We run
Speaker 1: super modern offensive concepts with spread pick and roll, with
Speaker 1: shooters perfectly spaced in the corner on the weak side wing.
Speaker 1: We know how to space the floor. Offenses were super
Speaker 1: chaotic or archaic. Back then, they just NonStop fed the post.
Speaker 1: There was no pick and roll. Give you this is
Speaker 1: a great example. Kobe in two thousand and nine ran
Speaker 1: eight pick and rolls a game with terrible spacing. Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: who's like the same type of archetype of player as Kobe,
Speaker 1: literally tries to copy Kobe. He ran more than eighteen
Speaker 1: pick and rolls a game this year with a perfectly
Speaker 1: spaced floor completely surrounded by shooting, and so of course
Speaker 1: the percentages are better now. Devin Booker sixty percent through
Speaker 1: shooting this year. Do you think he's five percent better
Speaker 1: than Kobe or do you think it's a different era.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't actually think it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to use efficiency across eras you can use
Speaker 1: it within the era. Like that was kind of the
Speaker 1: cool thing with Lebron is like his ability to pressure
Speaker 1: the rim allowed him to be really efficient relative to
Speaker 1: his peers in that era. As we look today, like
Speaker 1: comparing Steph Curry to all the guys that are around
Speaker 1: fifty eight percent through shooting, he's in the mid sixties. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that goes to show you in this era, how Steph
Speaker 1: is so much more efficient than most of his peers.
Speaker 1: But it just doesn't make sense to use that when
Speaker 1: we're evaluating across eras so, like Mellow really was nearly
Speaker 1: as efficient, only slightly less efficient and slightly less volume
Speaker 1: scoring than Kobe Bryant. He was unquestionably a top tier
Speaker 1: scorer in his era. Now, in fairness, I am a
Speaker 1: huge Mellow fan, a war his number in college, number fifteen,
Speaker 1: did a lot of stuff to kind of copy his game,
Speaker 1: especially in face up situations. But like so, I'm a
Speaker 1: little biased, not gonna lie, but I do think, especially
Speaker 1: when we're staring at scoring, I think that Mello is
Speaker 1: is every bit worth the reputation that he has in
Speaker 1: NBA history. Now here's where I agree with Carson. Yes,
Speaker 1: Mellow was close to Kobe's level as a scorer, but
Speaker 1: Kobe was a much much better and he much much
Speaker 1: more successful basketball player in the NBA. Why is that?
Speaker 1: This is where Carson's legitimate criticisms of his defense and
Speaker 1: his playmaking come to the surface. Carmelo Anthony was a
Speaker 1: bad defensive player who consistently cut corners on that end
Speaker 1: of the floor. Kobe Bryant made the All Defense team
Speaker 1: twelve times, including nine times First Team All Defense, and
Speaker 1: he was consistently one of his team's best defenders. It
Speaker 1: trickled down the roster and he led some of the
Speaker 1: great defensive teams of that decade, which is why he
Speaker 1: won championships. Carmelo Anthony averaged two point seven assists per
Speaker 1: game in his career and really struggled to impact games
Speaker 1: when a shot wasn't falling. Kobe Bryant averaged double that
Speaker 1: with roughly the same amount of turnovers, and despite his
Speaker 1: reputation of being a ballhog, he actually was a really
Speaker 1: good playmaker when his team needed him to be, and
Speaker 1: he consistently impacted games even when his shot wasn't falling.
Speaker 1: Everyone talks about the six for twenty four game. In
Speaker 1: Game seven of the twenty ten NBA Finals, Kobe played
Speaker 1: his ass off that game and made a lot of plays.
Speaker 1: It's not all about the shooting percentages as long as
Speaker 1: you have stuff that supports your game around that. So
Speaker 1: as much as I love and respect Carmelo Anthony as
Speaker 1: a player, and I've view him as one of the
Speaker 1: best scorers of all time. His weaknesses are a big
Speaker 1: part of why he didn't achieve as much as you
Speaker 1: might have thought he should have given how good he
Speaker 1: was as a scorer, And those are fair criticisms to
Speaker 1: bring up when we talk about him. I just think
Speaker 1: his reputation as a score is well deserved, and using
Speaker 1: shooting percentages to undercut that is something I disagree with
Speaker 1: Carson about. As for the overrated piece, I think he's
Speaker 1: pretty properly rated. I mean, everybody that I talk to
Speaker 1: seems to think that there's kind of a gap between
Speaker 1: Lebron and Wade, and then from that draft class, and
Speaker 1: then kind of a gap between Wade and Mellow, like
Speaker 1: he's clearly on the third tier from that draft. I
Speaker 1: don't hear Mello's name being brought up in all time
Speaker 1: conversations anywhere near the top guys. So, yeah, there's that
Speaker 1: baldon stop type of crew that kind of romanticizes him
Speaker 1: because of his skill set. But like so, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say slightly overrated. But I do disagree with
Speaker 1: Carson's take that he's the most overrated NBA player ever.
Speaker 1: I think that that's overstating it more than a little
Speaker 1: bit so love Carson, but had to push back a
Speaker 1: little bit on that particular take and check out the
Speaker 1: nerds sests show. Those guys are awesome. They do really
Speaker 1: good work and they hit a lot more stuff in
Speaker 1: the weeds than I do. All Right, before we get
Speaker 1: out of here, some quick notes on my vacation, so again,
Speaker 1: we went to San Francisco for five days and then
Speaker 1: we went to Japan for like a week. I went
Speaker 1: to wine country, mainly in the Sonoma area. It was
Speaker 1: really cool. It's hot, but it was dry so it
Speaker 1: was more palatable, easy to handle. The wine was really good.
Speaker 1: It was super expensive. I can't, like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how people regularly drink wine from those areas. We did
Speaker 1: a tasting at one place that was like ninety two
Speaker 1: bucks a person, and I was like, Ah, this is
Speaker 1: this is this is ridiculous. I probably wouldn't pay that
Speaker 1: much for wine ever again. But it was. It was
Speaker 1: a cool experience. It was kind of a bucket listening right,
Speaker 1: especially for my wife. And that whole area is very
Speaker 1: pretty and I see why a lot of people lived there.
Speaker 1: San Francisco was a blast. The food was incredible. I
Speaker 1: went to Chinatown. I had a restaurant called House of Nanking,
Speaker 1: which was the best Chinese food I ever had, so
Speaker 1: highly recommend that while you're down there. I had a
Speaker 1: sushi place called a Swasabi, which was really really good
Speaker 1: sushi that was kind of in the northern part of
Speaker 1: the peninsula there. And then I got to see two
Speaker 1: great concerts on a whim. We had a Saturday night
Speaker 1: free and I happened to see an Instagram or Buddy
Speaker 1: Sean happened to see an Instagram post about about Charles
Speaker 1: Wesley Godwin playing there, and he's actually my favorite country
Speaker 1: singer right now. I'm actually going to see him next
Speaker 1: month with Zack Bryan, who's another one of my favorites
Speaker 1: up in Phoenix. But like we just saw, We're like,
Speaker 1: it's at this really cool theater in the city. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty late showtime, so it wasn't gonn affect
Speaker 1: o our plans the rest of the trip. So we
Speaker 1: went to see Charles Westy Godwin and there's a guy
Speaker 1: there opening for him named Whyitet Flores who's actually an
Speaker 1: up and coming guy who actually I really enjoyed as well.
Speaker 1: And then on Sunday night, I went to the final
Speaker 1: show of the final tour for Dead End Company at
Speaker 1: Oracle Park, sat up in the bleachers, was overlooking the bay.
Speaker 1: They did a drone show. They played most of my
Speaker 1: favorite songs. I heard althea is my favorite song, the
Speaker 1: Dead Play, I heard my favorite rendition of that. They've
Speaker 1: ever played. Franklin's Tower kind of stole the show. It was.
Speaker 1: It was just an incredible show. That was a great experience.
Speaker 1: That was kind of what the whole trip was built around.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I did that. And then lastly I
Speaker 1: drove down to Palo Alto and got a tour of
Speaker 1: the Stanford campus. A buddy of mine, Sam Beskin, who
Speaker 1: used to play there, hooked us up, gave us an
Speaker 1: incredible tour, got a good basketball workout in with him
Speaker 1: as well, got to see the facilities. That campus is beautiful.
Speaker 1: That was kind of a bucket listening for me as well.
Speaker 1: So I got to see Stanford. That was fun. Then
Speaker 1: we literally flew home on Monday, got into about noon,
Speaker 1: had to turn all of our stuff over, and we
Speaker 1: left at six am the next morning to go to Japan.
Speaker 1: So it was a ridiculous turnaround. It just kind of
Speaker 1: was the way it worked. Out where the way the
Speaker 1: Japan trip was booked, and then having to go to
Speaker 1: that concert on that Sunday and building the trip backwards.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of the way it turned out.
Speaker 1: But Japan was cool. I really liked the food. I
Speaker 1: struggled with the traditional Japanese stuff, and I had more
Speaker 1: of that than I probably should have a lot of
Speaker 1: like really bizarre fish and like tofu and stuff that
Speaker 1: I really struggled with. But I had a Japanese barbecue
Speaker 1: place that was to die for. They put the grill
Speaker 1: right in the middle of the table and they just
Speaker 1: bring you raw meat and you like just straight up
Speaker 1: grill it on the table in front of you. So
Speaker 1: that was really cool. Was great food, great experience. And
Speaker 1: then I had a conveyor belt sushi place, which was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So they had like these two conveyor belts, you know,
Speaker 1: like a touch screen, and you like walk in and
Speaker 1: sit and like you pick your sushi rolls and you
Speaker 1: place your order, and like really quick, in a matter
Speaker 1: of two or three minutes, it just appears in front
Speaker 1: of you on the conveyor belt. Grab the fish off,
Speaker 1: hit the end button, and then the belt continues. So
Speaker 1: they can load the next meal on there. But I
Speaker 1: had like thirteen plates of sushimi or salmon and tuna
Speaker 1: nigiri there. Tuna was like the best I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Super inexpensive there too, Like having a two piece tuna
Speaker 1: nigiy was like a dollar after you converted it from yend,
Speaker 1: which in the States that's like six or seven bucks
Speaker 1: at a reasonable place, and like ten twelve bucks at
Speaker 1: an expensive sushi play. So that was a really cool experience.
Speaker 1: I got to see a Japanese baseball game is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's game eighty two of a one and forty three
Speaker 1: game season, and the stadium was completely packed. They had
Speaker 1: all these chants and stuff going out. I saw the
Speaker 1: Hanson Tigers play against Tokyo. I think they were called
Speaker 1: the Swallows, and I think the Tigers were actually the
Speaker 1: team to show hey, a ton of o Tani played for,
Speaker 1: so they had a huge fan base. They had these
Speaker 1: crazy chants that they did. I actually tweeted a video
Speaker 1: of it out on my feed. You can see that
Speaker 1: they're really good game too. It was just a shockingly
Speaker 1: awesome experience for what was, you know, kind of similar
Speaker 1: to the types of games you'd see in Major League
Speaker 1: Baseball and have two thirds of the stadium empty, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I got on the Tokyo Skytree,
Speaker 1: which is the third tallest building in the world, and
Speaker 1: I got to take some pictures and see the city
Speaker 1: from up there. I took the bullet train for the
Speaker 1: first time ever. That was a really cool experience. Just
Speaker 1: in general, I'm so impressed by how efficient Japan is.
Speaker 1: Like they have about a third of the population or
Speaker 1: a third of the population of the United States, but
Speaker 1: they're about one twenty fifth the size, and so in
Speaker 1: order to make all that work, you have to be
Speaker 1: remarkably efficient, and just the way that they get around
Speaker 1: is just incredibly impressive. And then they also keep the
Speaker 1: country super clean during the process. Super super impressed by that.
Speaker 1: Barhopping was really cool down there. It's all these like
Speaker 1: little tiny bars that are like the size of this studio,
Speaker 1: and it'll just be like one bartender and like four
Speaker 1: chairs and maybe one cocktail table, and there's just rows
Speaker 1: of them, just hundreds of them all over the place.
Speaker 1: That was a cool experience. I got to see the
Speaker 1: Fender flagship store. They just built it. It opened on
Speaker 1: like June thirtieth. That was a really cool experience because
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of guitars that they actually only
Speaker 1: make and sell in Tokyo. Came this close to buying one,
Speaker 1: but ended up passing on it at the last second.
Speaker 1: The only thing I'd say is that was the wrong
Speaker 1: time of year ago. It was hot as hell. It
Speaker 1: was like ninety seven degrees every single day, super superhumid.
Speaker 1: I definitely swept my ass off, so I probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: go back at this time of year again. And then
Speaker 1: also as a result of that like heat humidity, Mount
Speaker 1: Fuji was just constantly covered in clouds. And I'm a
Speaker 1: big volcano guy, so like I really wanted to see
Speaker 1: Mount Fuji, had like six opportunities to see it, and
Speaker 1: it was just constantly hidden. So that was kind of
Speaker 1: a bummer. But Japam was cool. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime type of experience. Recommend everybody tried
Speaker 1: at least once a really cool country to visit. But
Speaker 1: that was way too long to be out of town.
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted, I'm jet lagged. I missed my dogs, I
Speaker 1: missed my routine. I played basketball once in sixteen days.
Speaker 1: You know how that affects my mental health, so I
Speaker 1: gotta be better. This is back to back years where
Speaker 1: I did two week trips. I gotta be better about
Speaker 1: spacing my trips out a little bit. But I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be back, guys. I'm glad to be
Speaker 1: talking basketball again. Tomorrow, we're gonna be doing our top
Speaker 1: five offseasons, and then we'll get into our player rankings
Speaker 1: next week. The volume