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Speaker 1: welcome to tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great weekend. I am coming to you from
Speaker 1: the studio today, finally, not from a cruise ship, not
Speaker 1: from a lake in Washington, from the studio. I slept
Speaker 1: in my own bed last night for the first time
Speaker 1: since July, which I really appreciated as much as I
Speaker 1: had fun on this vacation and it was great, and
Speaker 1: I have a lot of stories from it. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just a long time to be away, to get out
Speaker 1: of my routines, so I'm very excited to be back.
Speaker 1: I work out with a bunch of college athletes and
Speaker 1: professional athletes that come back in town over the summer,
Speaker 1: and I was training with some of them this morning
Speaker 1: and it was rough. I'm very, very out of shape,
Speaker 1: but that said, it's good to get act, to get
Speaker 1: back in the routine. It feels good to be back
Speaker 1: in this room and to be talking about basketball. Um.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about Draymond's extension today, why I think
Speaker 1: he deserves a MAX and why I disagree with a
Speaker 1: lot of the discourse that's floating around him, particularly for
Speaker 1: Warriors fans. We're gonna talk about Lebron James extension. Why
Speaker 1: I don't think he wants to leave, but I do
Speaker 1: believe he would if things went a certain way. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Zion's contract clause having to do with
Speaker 1: his weight in his body fat percentage, why I think
Speaker 1: that's actually important, even though it's a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: In the last but not least, I'm gonna tell you, guys,
Speaker 1: which guy I think will be traded first, Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: or Donovan Mitchell. At the very end, I'm going to
Speaker 1: share some of my stories from vacation, just my thoughts
Speaker 1: about the Pacific Northwest and about Alaska and some of
Speaker 1: the geology stuff. I get nerdy about some of that
Speaker 1: geology stuff, but I'm gonna say that for the very
Speaker 1: very end of the show before we get started today, though,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about Bill Russell for just a
Speaker 1: quick second. Um. He obviously passed away today at eighty
Speaker 1: eight years old. You know there he had such a
Speaker 1: monumental impact on the world that goes so far beyond
Speaker 1: the game of basketball. And to be quite frank, there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of people that are far more qualified
Speaker 1: to talk about that stuff than I am. I don't
Speaker 1: have anything to offer their Bill's story tells itself, and
Speaker 1: there will be people that can tell that story better
Speaker 1: than I can. You guys know me, I'm all about
Speaker 1: the basketball. But even if we just focus down in
Speaker 1: on the basketball, he's one of the founding fathers of
Speaker 1: this game. You know, I love this game so much,
Speaker 1: and this game has given so much to me and
Speaker 1: to my family, and I don't I look at it
Speaker 1: in the sense that we wouldn't have these opportunities surrounding
Speaker 1: the game of basketball without people like Bill and the
Speaker 1: things they did to grow the game, the things they
Speaker 1: did to help the game survive during its infant stages,
Speaker 1: to allow it to get to the point where the
Speaker 1: next person could grab the baton and carry it further
Speaker 1: and further. All of you kids who are playing in
Speaker 1: high school, all of you kids who are playing in
Speaker 1: college and getting your school paid for, all of you
Speaker 1: kids that are playing overseas, whatever it is that you're
Speaker 1: doing with the game, if you're coaching, if you're covering,
Speaker 1: even if you're just a fan, this game is where
Speaker 1: it is today in large part because of people like Bill.
Speaker 1: And he was around during a time when it wasn't
Speaker 1: easy to be an NBA basketball player. There wasn't immense wealth,
Speaker 1: there wasn't you know, this immense fame that came with it.
Speaker 1: And obviously I don't need to get into it, but
Speaker 1: for him, on the race side of things, it was
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult and so from that standpoint, I'm just incredibly
Speaker 1: thankful for everything that Bill Russell did for the game
Speaker 1: of basketball, is so that all of us who are
Speaker 1: taking part in the game in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: are able to do so the way that we do so.
Speaker 1: Rest in peace to Bill Russell. UM condolences to his family,
Speaker 1: and I hope we spend a good amount of time
Speaker 1: this week just kind of reminiscing and telling his story
Speaker 1: in more detail, because it's a story that is worth telling. UM,
Speaker 1: don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel, so
Speaker 1: you guys don't miss any more of our videos going forward.
Speaker 1: And if for whatever reason, if you guys miss one
Speaker 1: of these videos and you can't get back to YouTube
Speaker 1: to finish it, we do release them in audio form
Speaker 1: on our podcast feed under Hoops Tonight, which you can
Speaker 1: find anywhere that you find your podcasts. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get into this Draymond Green extension. So, you know, there
Speaker 1: was very interesting kind of shift in ideals as we
Speaker 1: went from this championship season to the following season. Right
Speaker 1: we went from you know, Joe Lake of kind of
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, all right, the biggest luxury tax bill ever.
Speaker 1: I'll pay whatever I need to pay. We're gonna go,
Speaker 1: We're gonna make this work. We make more revenue than everybody.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this. And then they let OUTO Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: Go and they like Gary paid in the second go,
Speaker 1: and I thought they would let one of those guys go,
Speaker 1: but they ended up letting both of those guys go.
Speaker 1: And then Joe like It basically came out and said
Speaker 1: and like, hey, like, I can't realistically pay all of
Speaker 1: this money. So and that's to be expected. With the
Speaker 1: way that the luxury tax compounds on itself, with the
Speaker 1: way that the penalties work, it's just really difficult to
Speaker 1: consistently field the roster as expensive as the Warriors is.
Speaker 1: So we knew that somebody was gonna get squeezed, you know,
Speaker 1: And and it was always possible that Draymond might be
Speaker 1: that guy. But as always is the case in these situations,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think this is a byproduct of
Speaker 1: stand culture. We have, like these fan bases that aren't
Speaker 1: only fans of the teams, they're fans of the players.
Speaker 1: And then it turns into this like let him go.
Speaker 1: He's not worth the max anymore, and now we're just
Speaker 1: going to rewrite history and pretend like he wasn't massively
Speaker 1: influential in this era of Warriors basketball. And I have
Speaker 1: a problem with that. And it's not specifically with the Warriors.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've seen Lebron fans do this. I've
Speaker 1: seen Katie fans do this, I've seen Steph fans do this.
Speaker 1: They kind of drive down the value of their role
Speaker 1: players to try to elevate the success of their favorite player.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a it's kind of a downside to
Speaker 1: the way that we cover the game of basketball. I
Speaker 1: think it's I don't think we do a good enough job.
Speaker 1: Draymond Green has done a great job of kind of
Speaker 1: conveying this point. But we as basketball media do a
Speaker 1: good enough job of expressing the way that basketball games
Speaker 1: are one. Because basketball games are one in a very
Speaker 1: complicated manner, and often with things that are not celebrated enough,
Speaker 1: we just focus, because of the entertainment value on what
Speaker 1: the star does. And don't get me wrong, a star
Speaker 1: impacts winning in basketball more than most sports. So there's
Speaker 1: a good reason why we do put so much credit
Speaker 1: on the stars. But I think we've gone too far
Speaker 1: in that direction and now we've begin to undervalue this.
Speaker 1: The reality is that Draymond Green contributes to winning more
Speaker 1: than a lot of players that are currently on max contracts.
Speaker 1: DeAndre Ayton just signed a max contract to stay with
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns. Right, did you think DeAndre Ayton was
Speaker 1: a better playoff player this year than Draymond Green was? Now,
Speaker 1: I know that Deandreyton is a more polished offensive player,
Speaker 1: but if you actually look at impact on winning, Draymond
Speaker 1: Green did more who helped the Warriors win basketball games
Speaker 1: in this playoff run. Then DeAndre Ayton did to help
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns win playoff games. And there was no
Speaker 1: question that DeAndre Ayton deserved Max. But because of the
Speaker 1: way that we look at the game, and because we
Speaker 1: don't properly, you know, distribute credit for the way that
Speaker 1: basketball games are one, a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: Draymond Green does goes un celebrated. You know. I always
Speaker 1: talk about how there's a list of responsibilities that have
Speaker 1: to get accomplished on a basketball court. It's not as
Speaker 1: simple as STEPH coming up, coming off of a ball
Speaker 1: screen and knocking down a three point shot. There are
Speaker 1: all these different things that are happening on the court
Speaker 1: on both ends of the floor, between rebounding, defensive assignments.
Speaker 1: You know, even within just rebounding, there's boxing out, there's
Speaker 1: crashing from the perimeter right, there's there's there in general
Speaker 1: just floor distribution and rebounding so that you don't give
Speaker 1: up transition opportunities. That's just looking at rebounding. When we
Speaker 1: look at the way that plays operate and the screening
Speaker 1: actions that are required, that the things that are done
Speaker 1: as decoys so that other people have opportunities. I mean
Speaker 1: Steph Curry himself operates as a decoy a good percentage
Speaker 1: of the game. Then we go to the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor and you look at guys who are
Speaker 1: lock and trail defenders that chase shooters off of screens.
Speaker 1: We look at wing defenders that guard the bigger physical
Speaker 1: wings in the league and try to prevent them from
Speaker 1: getting to their spots. We have really, really intense you know,
Speaker 1: we have so many good guards in the league that
Speaker 1: can get dribble penetration. There are defenders that their sole
Speaker 1: responsibilities to try to contain dribble penetration, and then we
Speaker 1: have back line defenders, rim protectors, you know. There there's
Speaker 1: just you know, guys who defend and screen and roll
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different ways. There are just so
Speaker 1: many things that need to be done on a basketball court,
Speaker 1: and when you have a guy like Draymond who checks
Speaker 1: so many of those boxes for you, it makes it
Speaker 1: so that Steph Curry, who has some limitations in those areas,
Speaker 1: can just be unbelievably great at the things he's unbelievably
Speaker 1: great at, which is putting the ball in the basket,
Speaker 1: moving without the basketball, and being a leader that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have to worry about so many of those other things.
Speaker 1: This is why we always called Draymond Green a star
Speaker 1: role player. Just because he doesn't do the superstar, high
Speaker 1: end House of highlights types of things doesn't mean he's
Speaker 1: not a star. His impact on the game, the way
Speaker 1: he impacts winning, is the same as that of a star,
Speaker 1: and so because of that, he very easily deserves him
Speaker 1: MAX Golden State in this playoff run was plus one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen and seven hundred and three minutes with
Speaker 1: Draymond Green on the floor, they were minus six and
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty three minutes with him off during
Speaker 1: the regular season, they were two point three points better
Speaker 1: per one Hunter possessions with him on the floor versus
Speaker 1: with him off. The only stat that has ever appropriately
Speaker 1: measured Draymond's impact on winning is the scoreboard. It has
Speaker 1: never been a thing that you could make a highlight
Speaker 1: reel of it. You know, I was, I was talking
Speaker 1: with Sam as Fondiari, who covers the Warriors with the
Speaker 1: guys uh from Light Years, and they a great job.
Speaker 1: If you're a Warriors fan looking for dedicated Warriors coverage,
Speaker 1: that's another great place to go. You know, we were
Speaker 1: we were talking about the difference between Wiseman and Draymond,
Speaker 1: and Sam said something to me that really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: He's like, he goes. Draymond gets off on bullying other
Speaker 1: teams centers and other teams big guys, like mentally bullying them,
Speaker 1: physically bullying them. He just loves that process and result.
Speaker 1: That simple thing has such a massive impact on basketball games.
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember how bad Kevin Love was in
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals every time they played the Warriors. Do
Speaker 1: you remember how bad he was in two thousand sixteen
Speaker 1: in particular. A huge part of that was Draymond Green
Speaker 1: from the opening minutes of that series just took the
Speaker 1: life out of him, just physically bullied him, talked a
Speaker 1: bunch of shit, sucked away his confidence and it was
Speaker 1: over for Kevin Love. And for the rest of the series,
Speaker 1: he basically became a guy that occasionally would take a
Speaker 1: spot up three and worked a lot on the glass
Speaker 1: and played hard on defense. That was he did. The
Speaker 1: the multifaceted post up offensive player that you remember was
Speaker 1: erased from those series because of what Draymond Green does
Speaker 1: as a bully on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: It's it's so funny to me because over the years,
Speaker 1: with the Steph Curry thing, and again this is about
Speaker 1: the stand culture, Draymond Green's impact has constantly been undervalued.
Speaker 1: And you know, again, like it someone might have to
Speaker 1: get squeezed, and because of the way the contracts work out,
Speaker 1: it might be Draymond, But you don't have to burn
Speaker 1: him down on the way out and pretend like he
Speaker 1: wasn't one of your very best players and pretend like
Speaker 1: he wasn't a max impact player on your team. And
Speaker 1: when he gets a max elsewhere, if he doesn't sign
Speaker 1: one with the Warriors, you don't need to be like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe they're playing him paying him a max
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. He doesn't deserve that. Yes he does. He
Speaker 1: is a MAX player in the NBA with his impact
Speaker 1: on winning. He just might not fit into your cap sheet,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. I personally think it would be weird
Speaker 1: to see Draymond Green and anything now of Warriors uniform.
Speaker 1: So I hope he sticks around. But again, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to share my two cents on on that whole
Speaker 1: situation because it's it's it's it's a conversation that comes
Speaker 1: about every couple of years. Came about again in the
Speaker 1: finals when he had a couple of rough games, he
Speaker 1: was down to one in the series, playing like shit,
Speaker 1: and he promised they would come back to win and
Speaker 1: played great doing it, and he was magnificent in Game
Speaker 1: six in Boston. That was that was some a very
Speaker 1: brave thing to do. And like we're we're obviously lucky,
Speaker 1: lucky to have him here at the volume. You guys
Speaker 1: know that when he plays poorly, I'm someone who's gonna
Speaker 1: criticize him, and but I'm also going to defend him
Speaker 1: when I feel like he deserves defending. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, basketball comes first here, Um and I
Speaker 1: think we're lying to ourselves if we pretend like Draymond
Speaker 1: Green is not worth a max hit a homer. With
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Speaker 1: I'll be going with Aaron Judge. The dudes on pace
Speaker 1: for like sixty six home runs. He's got an outside
Speaker 1: chance of passing Barry Bond's single season record. He's the
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Speaker 1: all Right. Let's move on to Zion's contract clause, which
Speaker 1: apparently has some d escalators in it related to his
Speaker 1: weight and his body fat percentage. Now, first of all,
Speaker 1: you gotta remember that this is in the contract because
Speaker 1: both sides agreed to it. I would imagine that Zion's
Speaker 1: agent would not allow something like that to get into
Speaker 1: the contract unless it was a real point of contention
Speaker 1: in an issue with leverage to where he kind of
Speaker 1: felt like they had to. Now, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, Zion was acted in June twenty of
Speaker 1: two thousand and nineteen. There's more than three years ago,
Speaker 1: and he has played a grand total of eight five
Speaker 1: NBA games. And it's a problem when you really look
Speaker 1: at the modern NBA and how difficult it is to
Speaker 1: get players to stick around. And you're already three years
Speaker 1: into that typical seven years of control or whatever that
Speaker 1: a team has over a player that they draft, and
Speaker 1: you've only got an eight five games out of him,
Speaker 1: and you're a very good basketball team. You took the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Suns to six games without Zion, So this is
Speaker 1: probably something that's legitimately frustrating for the Pelicans. And then
Speaker 1: you look at the stuff there were some reports that
Speaker 1: Zion wasn't being super wasn't communicating very well with the franchise.
Speaker 1: He was handling his rehab in private. And when you
Speaker 1: hear that kind of stuff, that adds to the level
Speaker 1: of concern with the franchise that would allow them the
Speaker 1: leverage to add something like that into their contract. Now,
Speaker 1: I get that it's uncomfortable, but you know, I I
Speaker 1: joke with my wife. My wife works in a small
Speaker 1: business here in Tucson that's retail, and so she's got employees, right,
Speaker 1: And one of the things is like, you have to
Speaker 1: have difficult conversations with people. But the problem is if
Speaker 1: you avoid difficult conversations, then problems go unchecked, problems go unsolved.
Speaker 1: And so you have to be willing to sit down
Speaker 1: with somebody even though it's awkward, even though it's uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and have a tough conversation to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of an issue so that you can fix it and
Speaker 1: make it. Believe it or not, this issue with Zion
Speaker 1: with his weight could literally make or break his career.
Speaker 1: The difference between whether or not Zion is a perennial
Speaker 1: All NBA player or someone who drifts out of the
Speaker 1: league quickly with an injury riddled career. Is this issue
Speaker 1: the issue of him taking care of his body? And
Speaker 1: so I don't have a problem with the Pelicans advocating
Speaker 1: for something like this. They do have Zion's best interests
Speaker 1: at heart. They want him to meet these markers so
Speaker 1: that he can be the best basketball player that he
Speaker 1: can be, which is mutually beneficial. It will help the
Speaker 1: Pelicans to win basketball games. It will help Zion to
Speaker 1: earn a ton of money and give him a ton
Speaker 1: of leveraging leeway moving forward in contract negotiations so that
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to have something like this in his
Speaker 1: contract in the future. You know, Zion is a very
Speaker 1: interesting basketball player because we don't see a lot of
Speaker 1: players like him around the league. You see Blake Griffin
Speaker 1: comparisons because he's dunking all over people. You see Zach
Speaker 1: Randolph comparisons because he's just this ridiculously strong power post
Speaker 1: player who goes to his left. But the truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is it can be even greater than any
Speaker 1: of that. There is a version of Zion because of
Speaker 1: his ability to handle a basketball already and because of
Speaker 1: his unique body type with his low center of gravity
Speaker 1: that could be significantly better than either of those players
Speaker 1: ever were. You know, obviously, we've seen the post ups
Speaker 1: and the power moves with his left hand, and the
Speaker 1: ability to finish around the rim better than just about
Speaker 1: anybody in the league. We've seen some of the slashing,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't even really been realized as a player
Speaker 1: that can run high, pick and roll and pass and
Speaker 1: make reads and get downhill and slash to the rim.
Speaker 1: He hasn't really flashed his ability to shoot the basketball yet,
Speaker 1: which right now he's not a good shooter, but that's
Speaker 1: something that he could build towards. And right now he's
Speaker 1: a bad defensive player. And this is where it gets
Speaker 1: interesting because his him being able to take care of
Speaker 1: his body and him being able to have elite conditioning
Speaker 1: is something that he needs to be able to defend
Speaker 1: at an extremely high level. And the ability to defend
Speaker 1: an extremely high level is the difference between him being
Speaker 1: a top fifteen player in the NBA or a top
Speaker 1: five player in the NBA. Now he'll never be Draymond Green.
Speaker 1: Draymond Green is a unique Every time we see an
Speaker 1: undersized post player, that's the first name that we throw out,
Speaker 1: right like oh, he could be Draymond Green, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't properly give credit to the things that Draymond Green does.
Speaker 1: Like we talked about earlier in the show, he's kind
Speaker 1: of a crazy person when it comes to bullying and
Speaker 1: shutting down opposing post players. He thrives in the physicality.
Speaker 1: He loves it, and he pours his heart and soul
Speaker 1: into that side of the floor. You know, Zion is
Speaker 1: a much better offensive players, so he may never devote
Speaker 1: resources like that, but there's no reason in the world
Speaker 1: why he shouldn't be able to be a much better
Speaker 1: defensive player than he is, And in order to unlock that,
Speaker 1: he will need to take care of his body in
Speaker 1: a way that he hasn't the idealized version of his.
Speaker 1: Ion is a pantheon type of player, but he may
Speaker 1: not be able to stay on the floor if he
Speaker 1: doesn't take care of these things. And if he doesn't
Speaker 1: take care of these things, he'll never become the shooter
Speaker 1: that he needs to be. He'll never become the defender
Speaker 1: that he needs to be to reach his ceilings. So again,
Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable, it's awkward to get all of that, but
Speaker 1: this is just an important step in Zion's development. Understanding
Speaker 1: the importance of taking care of your body. You don't
Speaker 1: get to do this forever. When you're young, you think so,
Speaker 1: but you don't get to do this forever. Like I
Speaker 1: I stepped away from the game for fourteen days at
Speaker 1: thirty years old to go on a vacation with my wife,
Speaker 1: and I put on twelve pounds like like that, just
Speaker 1: quickly put on twelve pounds. So hopefully I can drop
Speaker 1: it all I get back into shape. But it's it
Speaker 1: gets even harder as you get older to maintain your
Speaker 1: conditioning and to maintain your level of athleticism. Now is
Speaker 1: a great time for him to figure some of these
Speaker 1: lessons out, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's awkward.
Speaker 1: Um let's move on to Lebron's extension. So there was
Speaker 1: some debate eight early on as to whether or not
Speaker 1: Lebron would weaponize the threat of his lack of extension
Speaker 1: to try to put pressure on the Lakers front office
Speaker 1: to make a deal for Kyrie Irving or to do
Speaker 1: things that will make massive improvements to the roster. But
Speaker 1: then we heard from Jake Fisher that he's extremely happy
Speaker 1: in l a and that sounds right to me. I
Speaker 1: remember when all this was going down last year. Last season,
Speaker 1: right about the time that I started with the volume,
Speaker 1: there was some concern around the All Star break as
Speaker 1: to whether or not Lebron would ever leave the Lakers.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would unless he had a really
Speaker 1: good reason. The the idea, I think Jake Fisher phrased
Speaker 1: it as his family is becoming increasingly entrenched in the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles area. That's just a really fancy way of
Speaker 1: saying they love it here there, they love it in
Speaker 1: l A. And so they would not leave unless they
Speaker 1: had a damn good reason. But here's the problem. Lebron
Speaker 1: is still very very good at basketball, and this could
Speaker 1: be his last great chance. This next couple of years
Speaker 1: could be his last chance to try to add to
Speaker 1: his resume. And when he sees those two things and
Speaker 1: he sees a front office that is botching that, it's
Speaker 1: going to add concern. Now. I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason why Lebron still has a little bit of leeway
Speaker 1: is he shares some blame here. You know, Lebron was
Speaker 1: the one, him and Anthony Davis, who pushed hard for
Speaker 1: the Russell Westbrook trade, and so he can't blame Robin
Speaker 1: Genie for that, even though I personally think that it's
Speaker 1: Rob's job to look Lebron in the face and say,
Speaker 1: I've watched a ton of film on Russell in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. He's not a good fit. This
Speaker 1: isn't a bad idea. Where this is a bad idea,
Speaker 1: We're not going to do that. That's Rob's job. That's
Speaker 1: the way I see it. Lebron shares some blame, so
Speaker 1: does Rob. But Lebron understands his culpability in this situation.
Speaker 1: So Lebron understanding his culpability in this situation is what's
Speaker 1: going to give him the patience to give Rob and
Speaker 1: Genie one more chance. But make no mistake, if they
Speaker 1: get to the season and they haven't made monumental changes
Speaker 1: to add talent to this roster, and Lebron's looking around
Speaker 1: and he doesn't see it feel like he has the
Speaker 1: horses to even compete in the NBA at this point,
Speaker 1: I do believe he would leave because I think he
Speaker 1: would see it as a waste of his last good
Speaker 1: years as a basketball player to spend it with a
Speaker 1: front office and ownership group that's not capable of surrounding
Speaker 1: him with enough chance, with enough talent. So I do
Speaker 1: think that there is some threat there but making a mistake.
Speaker 1: If they do execute a trade, if they get you know,
Speaker 1: Miles Turner and Buddy Healed, if they get Kyrie Irving,
Speaker 1: Lebron is gonna feel, especially with how much his family
Speaker 1: loves it in l A, He's gonna feel like he
Speaker 1: has enough in l A to not justify him leaving.
Speaker 1: You know, there comes a point in every season, and
Speaker 1: it happened again last year as the Lakers missed the
Speaker 1: playoffs where you want to say, you know, Lebron's done,
Speaker 1: Lebron's washed, Lebron's on the tail end, the end is
Speaker 1: near whatever. But every time I feel like people have
Speaker 1: become so you know, like jaded on how good Lebron
Speaker 1: is that they don't acknowledge how good he still is.
Speaker 1: You know, I send out a tweet earlier I asked everybody,
Speaker 1: I said, how many people? If I asked you, how
Speaker 1: many people do you think in the NBA this season
Speaker 1: averaged at least twenty five points, five rebounds, five assists
Speaker 1: on at least from the field and from three Those
Speaker 1: are pretty base level markers. Five rebounds, five assists, points
Speaker 1: from the field from three doesn't seem like that crazy
Speaker 1: of a list of parameters. I asked people, how many
Speaker 1: players do you think met those those hallmarks? And I
Speaker 1: had a lot of huge numbers, throwing out thirteen, six, four,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah. The answers three. There were three
Speaker 1: players who did that last year, Kevin Durant, Luca don
Speaker 1: Cheich and Lebron James and five at least forty percent
Speaker 1: from the field and from three. That's how rare it
Speaker 1: is to be as consistently productive and efficient as an offense,
Speaker 1: as an offensive engine as Lebron is. That's how rare
Speaker 1: it is. And we've taken that for granted for way
Speaker 1: too long. That player is playing for the Lakers next year.
Speaker 1: So is Anthony Davis. There's a reason why Lebron feels urgency,
Speaker 1: and it's time for Rob and Genie to feel that
Speaker 1: same urgency. Last note, I wanted on this to hit
Speaker 1: on this. Lebron will age well in this league as well.
Speaker 1: Let's say he tries to play twenty three years okay,
Speaker 1: which who knows it will probably end up being whether
Speaker 1: or not he suffers a major injury that makes that decision.
Speaker 1: If he tears an a c L or t tears
Speaker 1: an achilles like Kobe did, then I think he'll be done.
Speaker 1: But if he stays healthy, I could see him playing
Speaker 1: twenty four seasons. So what does the aging Lebron look like?
Speaker 1: Because you're nineteen Lebron was one of three players in
Speaker 1: the NBA to average at least twenty five and five
Speaker 1: from the field and from three, So you're not a
Speaker 1: Team Lebron top five player in the NBA. Your twenty
Speaker 1: Lebron probably top ten, right, but you three? What does
Speaker 1: Lebron look like? His game is set up and built
Speaker 1: in a way that will age well. He passes the
Speaker 1: ball extremely well. He reli is on size and strength
Speaker 1: at this point, almost as much as his athleticism, which
Speaker 1: is what allows him to play bullyball and to be
Speaker 1: so successful in the post. He's incredibly smart, and he
Speaker 1: knows how to play different types of roles on a
Speaker 1: basketball court, especially as he gives responsibilities and seeds responsibilities
Speaker 1: to better players. So I think that even year twenty two,
Speaker 1: Lebron is going to be a top fifteen player, a
Speaker 1: top twenty player in this league, worthy of a MAX
Speaker 1: contract and capable of contributing massively to winning, especially if
Speaker 1: he's around other players that can handle some of those
Speaker 1: top tier responsibilities. So I don't think there's a ton
Speaker 1: of risk in the Lakers extending Lebron two years, which
Speaker 1: I believe is the limit with the way the CBA
Speaker 1: works when you're extending players who are at least thirty
Speaker 1: eight years old at the beginning of the extension. So
Speaker 1: it would be only two years. But I think there's
Speaker 1: a really good chance that Lebron would more than perform
Speaker 1: up to the expectations of that contract value. So I
Speaker 1: think the Lakers shouldn't have any reservations about it, and
Speaker 1: Lebron is smart to apply some some pressure on the
Speaker 1: Lakers just because he feels urgency about his situation. Alright, So,
Speaker 1: last basketball topic of the day. Who will get traded first?
Speaker 1: Kevin Durand or Donovan Mitchell. Now, the reason in particular
Speaker 1: why this Kevin Durant trade is is dragging on, and
Speaker 1: really the Mittell trade as well, is the Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: trade completely screwed up the market. I said all last
Speaker 1: year that I thought Rudy Gobert might be considered a
Speaker 1: negative asset because he's gonna make like forty seven million
Speaker 1: dollars in six as a player who cannot score the
Speaker 1: basketball against switches down low in the post and really
Speaker 1: is just Capella on the offensive end of the floor. Now,
Speaker 1: I think Rudy Gobert is one of the best defensive
Speaker 1: players in the league, and I think that he is
Speaker 1: wrongfully maligned on that end of the floor, But he
Speaker 1: doesn't do enough on offense to justify his contract value.
Speaker 1: Like he's even worse on offense, even more useless on
Speaker 1: offense than Draymond Green gets accused of being from time
Speaker 1: to time. Right, So, the way I look at it,
Speaker 1: Minnesota with a new owner and a new GM throwing
Speaker 1: four first round picks in a swap and three quality
Speaker 1: NBA starters from a playoff team for a guy like
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert completely screwed up everyone's belief about what value
Speaker 1: should be with with stars in the league. So a
Speaker 1: lot of these offers that are getting thrown out by teams,
Speaker 1: like I bet you the offer that the Miami Heat
Speaker 1: made or the offer that the Phoenix Suns made for
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant was worse than the Rudy Gobert offer, and
Speaker 1: so that's completely screwed up Brooklyn's whole view of all
Speaker 1: of this. The only offer that I've seen thrown out
Speaker 1: that's a legitimately better offer than that is the Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown one with the Phoenix Suns or maybe some of
Speaker 1: the offers that Toronto is thrown together with like a
Speaker 1: surrounding O g And and and Nobi. Right, Like, I just
Speaker 1: that that that just completely screwed up the market. So
Speaker 1: I believe Donovan Mitchell. Now, these these are just guesses.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what's gonna happen. I don't have
Speaker 1: any specific reporting on this, but I believe Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: will get traded first. I think that Utah is a
Speaker 1: little bit more blow it up then Brooklyn has accepted
Speaker 1: at this point, so I think that he'll end up
Speaker 1: get getting traded first, and it will be for a
Speaker 1: package significantly less than what the Utah Jazz. Excuse me
Speaker 1: that then what the Utah Jazz got for Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: when that happens, because they happened to catch the Minnesota
Speaker 1: Timberwolves desperate under new leadership, right, the rest of the
Speaker 1: fields not in that situation, So they will get less
Speaker 1: for Donovan. When they do, that will reset the market,
Speaker 1: re establish the norms, which will then allow some of
Speaker 1: these Kevin Durant offers to make more sense for Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: And then so I think the Katie trade will follow
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter. That's just a guess. I have no earthly idea,
Speaker 1: but I think the market got screwed up by Gobert.
Speaker 1: I think a Mitchell trade will kind of reset the
Speaker 1: market a little bit, and then Katie will follow. I
Speaker 1: do believe that both players will get traded before training camp,
Speaker 1: because I do think that the whole will bring him.
Speaker 1: The camp thing is just an aimless threat to try
Speaker 1: to change leverage, and I think that most well meaning
Speaker 1: basketball organizations understand that you want to fresh start when
Speaker 1: you start training camp. When you gotta coach sitting down
Speaker 1: with the players, going over team princip polls and rules
Speaker 1: and and things, and trying to get buy in from
Speaker 1: a group to an ultimate goal. You don't need a
Speaker 1: guy who's half in half out the door. You don't
Speaker 1: need a player who's publicly, you know, requested a trade,
Speaker 1: and you know there's I I don't even know if
Speaker 1: there's any legitimacy to this, but I wouldn't be completely
Speaker 1: shocked if Kevin Durant refused to show up, which is
Speaker 1: a whole other type of drama. So I do think
Speaker 1: they both get traded. My guess is as Mitchell's first,
Speaker 1: and my guess that the delay is caused by the
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert trade and how it's screwed up the market.
Speaker 1: All Right, Before we get out of here for today,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to tell a couple of stories from
Speaker 1: my vacation. Um, Like I told you guys earlier, I
Speaker 1: get kind of nerdy about some of this geology stuff.
Speaker 1: And the Pacific Northwest is so incredibly different than where
Speaker 1: I grew up. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. The
Speaker 1: only other places I've lived are Utah, which is completely
Speaker 1: different vibe than Arizona, and Charlotte, which is in the
Speaker 1: south and once again completely different vibe from Arizona. But
Speaker 1: I've never even been to the Pacific Northwest. When I
Speaker 1: was in college, we played at North Idaho College UH
Speaker 1: three times while I was there. So I drove up
Speaker 1: to court a Lane, which is in northern Northern Idaho,
Speaker 1: which is close to Spokane, therefore close to the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 1: but it's once you get on the other side of
Speaker 1: the Cascade Range, it's a completely different climate out there.
Speaker 1: It's more like high desert at that point. But we
Speaker 1: went up and we spent like, I think five or
Speaker 1: six days on Lake Shellan in Washington, and then we
Speaker 1: went to Seattle, boardered a cruise ship and spent a
Speaker 1: week up in Alaska. And you know, I I learned
Speaker 1: a little bit about glaciers growing up in school and stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's just not something you talk about a lot
Speaker 1: in the desert of Arizona. I mean, it's been like
Speaker 1: a hundred and five degrees every single day for the
Speaker 1: last like two months. It's just not a topic of
Speaker 1: conversation down here. And I was so incredibly fascinated by
Speaker 1: all of the geology up in that area. I guess
Speaker 1: during the last ice Age, all of these glaciers were
Speaker 1: basically down over the entire state of Washington, and as
Speaker 1: they were seated, they just dug out all of these
Speaker 1: you know, fiords or lakes or passages or sounds or
Speaker 1: things along all the waterways in the area. And it's
Speaker 1: super fascinating to me because I had never really understood
Speaker 1: what the glacier was. I just thought it was like
Speaker 1: a big piece of ice that shedded other small pieces
Speaker 1: of ice and one of them sunk the Titanic. That
Speaker 1: that that's just about it all. I knew about glaciers
Speaker 1: before I went up there, and so obviously, like I
Speaker 1: usually do, I just dove headlong into researching it. And
Speaker 1: it's crazy. They're actually like flowing rivers of ice. They
Speaker 1: actually move under their own weight, which is super really interesting,
Speaker 1: super interesting, and that's what actually causes them to dig
Speaker 1: out the surrounding terrain. When I was on the cruise
Speaker 1: one of the mornings, they're like, we have the scenic
Speaker 1: drive that we're gonna go on. It starts at six
Speaker 1: am and it's gonna go to ten am. And so
Speaker 1: I wake up and I look out my window and
Speaker 1: I see like little icebergs floating alongside the ship. The
Speaker 1: water is this like beautiful like green aqua color. There's
Speaker 1: like this mist hanging over the mountains. It's almost like
Speaker 1: you're on another planet. And I got up, and I
Speaker 1: got my wife up, and we walked up to the
Speaker 1: top of the ship and we pulled up on the
Speaker 1: DAWs Glacier, which is on the Endicott arm which is
Speaker 1: one of the fjords in Alaska, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the most incredibly beautiful things I've ever seen. I
Speaker 1: put some pictures of it on my Twitter feed so
Speaker 1: you guys can see it there. Um. But just in general,
Speaker 1: like this whole other element of geology that I had
Speaker 1: never experienced before was so interesting to me. I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with glaciers now. I was watching YouTube videos about them, uh,
Speaker 1: two nights ago, and I really really enjoyed seeing Alaska,
Speaker 1: seeing the Pacific Northwest. My last note on the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: You know, we have mountains in Arizona, but they're like
Speaker 1: chains of mountains, right, and they kind of dominate the skyline,
Speaker 1: particularly in Tucson. Phoenix has really short mountains. Uh. Tucson
Speaker 1: is surrounded by three particularly large mountains, Mount Lemon, mount Rightston,
Speaker 1: and then there's a range of mountains to the east
Speaker 1: of us. And so we kind of are just used
Speaker 1: to seeing mountains on our skyline all the time. But
Speaker 1: when we were in Seattle, we came over this kind
Speaker 1: of ridge and I knew Mount Rainier was near Seattle,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't aware of the dynamic and we came
Speaker 1: around this corner. Look over to my left, and I
Speaker 1: see this beheamoth of a mountain that's like almost perfectly symmetrical,
Speaker 1: that's just staring down at the city in this super
Speaker 1: ominous way. And I've always had a thing for high mountains.
Speaker 1: I I I love to ski, we spend we go
Speaker 1: to Colorado a couple of times a year, we hang
Speaker 1: out on the mountains and two son. It's always been
Speaker 1: something I've been fascinated by. But I had never seen
Speaker 1: a mountain like that before. So then once again I
Speaker 1: dove into it and did a bunch of research, and
Speaker 1: there's basically this connection of all these of volcanoes in
Speaker 1: that area that they call the Pacific Ring of Fire,
Speaker 1: and they're essentially they're the surrounding terrain is relatively flat,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of rise out of the terrain.
Speaker 1: And you know, on the flight out of Seattle, it
Speaker 1: was a perfectly clear day and I got to literally
Speaker 1: see one after the after the other, Mount St. Helens
Speaker 1: in Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. I'll share a picture
Speaker 1: of it on my Twitter feed later today because it
Speaker 1: was really cool. But they almost looked like pimples on
Speaker 1: the earth because the earth is like flat, and then
Speaker 1: there's just like this big mountain that comes to a
Speaker 1: point at the top, and it's such an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to see, so different than anything I had seen growing up. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I went to the Pacific Northwest during some good weather
Speaker 1: because it is July. But I've heard I've talked to
Speaker 1: some of the people that lived there and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: for nine months a year, it's just glue me every day,
Speaker 1: and you're probably gonna want to spend a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks during that stretch to get out and get into
Speaker 1: some sunlight, just so that you don't go crazy. And
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could ever live in a
Speaker 1: place like that. Who knows what will happen is the
Speaker 1: years go by, But it was really cool to get
Speaker 1: to see it for the first time. I loved getting
Speaker 1: to see the mountains. I loved getting to see Alaska.
Speaker 1: Last note, cruises are not for me. Uh. The swaying
Speaker 1: back and forth made it so that it was really
Speaker 1: difficult for me to get into my routine, particularly working out,
Speaker 1: like doing the ap ply metric workouts that I do,
Speaker 1: doing the basketball workouts that I do. With the ship
Speaker 1: moving beneath beneath your feet was really really tough for me.
Speaker 1: The small spaces, uh, you know, like just trying to
Speaker 1: take a shower and that tiny little coffin of a
Speaker 1: shower hour in your room is is kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed certain elements of it, like obviously they the
Speaker 1: operation is amazing to me. There were eleven hundred people
Speaker 1: on that ship that were in service that we're taking
Speaker 1: care of about two thousand passengers, so there's almost one
Speaker 1: service person for every two passengers, which is ridiculous. And
Speaker 1: they do they're so incredibly well run, they're like a machine.
Speaker 1: It was incredibly fascinating to me. But it's just not
Speaker 1: and I the other thing too is I don't I'm
Speaker 1: not really a huge drinker. I'll have the occasional drink
Speaker 1: with my wife and we're not opposed to it or
Speaker 1: you know, conscientious objectors or anything, but we're just not
Speaker 1: We just don't partake that often. If you are into
Speaker 1: that in particular, you'll love the cruise ship because you
Speaker 1: could get so many drinks so many different places that
Speaker 1: usually packages that make it affordable and you can just
Speaker 1: kind of drink your way around the ship. But I
Speaker 1: think if I did Alaska. Again, what I would do
Speaker 1: is I'd fly to Juno and from there I get
Speaker 1: an Airbnb crashed for like four nights, and then I
Speaker 1: book excursions, like I'd get a boat excursion that would
Speaker 1: go see at Glacier and then I would, you know,
Speaker 1: go hiking in the surrounding area. If I wanted to
Speaker 1: go see wildlife, I'd go on a wildlife tour or
Speaker 1: something like that. But like, you can kind of capture
Speaker 1: a lot of the elements of the cruise without the
Speaker 1: boat by doing something like that. And then obviously when
Speaker 1: you're sailing up to Alaska from Seattle, there are two
Speaker 1: stretches where you're just at c for two days. So
Speaker 1: for basically three and a half of the seven days
Speaker 1: we were just and on the ocean on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1: So it kind of gets a little claustrophobic and you
Speaker 1: kind of feel like you're trapped in in in a
Speaker 1: in one place. But again that's just my experience. I'm
Speaker 1: sure many of you guys have been on cruises and
Speaker 1: loved him. Again, with any of this stuff, it's either
Speaker 1: for you or it's not. I was blessed to get
Speaker 1: to do this particular cruise for free as a reward
Speaker 1: for the company that my wife works for. UM. So
Speaker 1: I obviously enjoyed it and was thankful for it, just
Speaker 1: not necessarily for me, and I would do it differently
Speaker 1: if I went back to Alaska, which I hope to
Speaker 1: go back one day. UM, but very good trip. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be home, Glad to be back in the routine.
Speaker 1: That is all I have for today. I sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: all of you guys and all of your support for
Speaker 1: the show. UM. This next week we're gonna get started
Speaker 1: on our player rankings and our all time rankings, so
Speaker 1: we have lots of fun stuff in August surrounding ranking
Speaker 1: players in the league currently and all time. We have
Speaker 1: some special stuff planning for you guys there. All right,
Speaker 1: that's all I have all. See you guys in a
Speaker 1: couple of days. The volume