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Speaker 1: slash ft ball. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here
Speaker 1: at the Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all you guys
Speaker 1: are having a great week. Well, the NBA GM Survey
Speaker 1: Annual GM Survey came out out earlier this week, and
Speaker 1: I have plenty of things that I'm kind of pissed
Speaker 1: off about. So We're gonna bring my friend Claire to
Speaker 1: Luna on the show. She also writes about the NBA
Speaker 1: at the Guardian, Laker fan someone that we can talk
Speaker 1: a little shit bit with as we try to sort
Speaker 1: through this GM survey. Claire, how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to talk a little shit about this
Speaker 3: GM survey with you. I also feel like, as a
Speaker 3: Hoops Night fan, this is like very I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm breaking the fourth wall. Like I watched Hoopsknit all
Speaker 3: the time, so it's very surreal to have like entered
Speaker 3: the Hoops Night universe.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited and we're gonna talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot of fun. So by far,
Speaker 1: the thing that pissed me off and you off the
Speaker 1: most was and this has been kind of a theme
Speaker 1: over the course of the last several years where I
Speaker 1: feel like part of it is the Anthony Davis injury stuff.
Speaker 1: Part of it is the Lakers don't have any good
Speaker 1: defensive players aside from Anthony Davis, but he's been kind
Speaker 1: of gen early is slipping to the bottom of a
Speaker 1: lot of these like top defender discussions. But like I
Speaker 1: understand that to a certain extent with it when it
Speaker 1: comes to the Lakers, because I understand why the NBA
Speaker 1: fan base at large kind of has some pushback with
Speaker 1: Laker stuff because the Lakers get outsized coverage, they get
Speaker 1: a ton of attention. They're always on the thumbnail, they're
Speaker 1: always on the title, they're always on ESPN. Not in
Speaker 1: a way that makes sense with how successful they are
Speaker 1: in the league. So I understand that. But with the
Speaker 1: GM survey in particular, I think that this would reflect
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. And we had the who is
Speaker 1: the best defensive player in the NBA category. The Jams
Speaker 1: voted for Victor, which is not surprising, but Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: received just two votes. Draymond Green receives zero votes. These
Speaker 1: players all received votes. Drew Holliday got three votes, Herb
Speaker 1: Jones two votes, Alex crusoe got to vote, Jada McDaniel's
Speaker 1: got to vote, Marcus Smart got to vote for who
Speaker 1: is the most versatile defender in the NBA. Ady and
Speaker 1: Draymond to receive zero votes. The players that receive votes
Speaker 1: O g n and Obe got four votes, and Ad
Speaker 1: and Draymond got zero. Drew Holliday too, Jonathan Isaac too,
Speaker 1: Herb Jones too, Jada McDaniels too, Alex crusoe, loudor Aaron Gordon,
Speaker 1: Evan Mobley, Marcus Martin, and Jalen Williams all received one vote,
Speaker 1: despite ad and Draymond receiving zero. Should Aid and Draymond
Speaker 1: feel disrespected by how few of these NBA front offices
Speaker 1: seem to actually value what they can do on a
Speaker 1: basketball court?
Speaker 2: Are you joking? I feel disrespected.
Speaker 3: I'm not even Anthony Davis or Draymond Green, and I
Speaker 3: feel like immensely disrespected by the Anthony Davis disrespect in particular,
Speaker 3: Like it is unfathomable to me, Like I understand, you know,
Speaker 3: we're both pretty clear I about this. As people who
Speaker 3: generally root for Lebron and by proxy the Lakers, and
Speaker 3: then you know, also are on the internet, we understand
Speaker 3: that there's a very strong contingent of people who can't
Speaker 3: stand the Lakers and Lakers fans. Sometimes they have a
Speaker 3: good reason for that. Lakers fans can be pretty and
Speaker 3: suffer boys and a lot of time with them, I'm familiar,
Speaker 3: and they do get an outsized amount of coverage because
Speaker 3: Lebron James is arguably the greatest player of all time
Speaker 3: and he's still playing, and he plays for the Lakers,
Speaker 3: and they have to sell commercial blocks on television, so
Speaker 3: they're going to be talking about the Lakers quite a bit.
Speaker 2: That being said, even keeping that.
Speaker 3: Stuff in mind, it is mind boggling to me the
Speaker 3: level of disrespect that Anthony Davis receives. He is, in
Speaker 3: my you know, estimation, easily a top ten player in
Speaker 3: the NBA on both ends of the ball, and of
Speaker 3: all the you know, like defensive player of the Year
Speaker 3: type candidates, he's got the biggest offensive load I think,
Speaker 3: and has on the Lakers for his entire tenure. And
Speaker 3: he's an incredibly versatile defender, and he is he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: he's basically the Lakers defense. He is the defense. He's
Speaker 3: a one man, you know, defensive machine. And all of
Speaker 3: the other guys mentioned on this list have at least one,
Speaker 3: if not several, really high level defenders around them, and
Speaker 3: Anthony Davis is surrounded by minus defenders. I would say
Speaker 3: Lebron has you know, a plus defensive upside. He wants
Speaker 3: to when he wants to and when he can. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's turning forty this year. He can't do that every night.
Speaker 3: So on any given night, in eighty two games, Anthony
Speaker 3: Davis has essentially no help and still manages to, you know,
Speaker 3: keep the Lakers. They should be a bottom if Anthony
Speaker 3: Davis is the level that they are assessing him in
Speaker 3: surveys like this, the Lakers should be like an absolutely
Speaker 3: bottom of the league defense based on their personnel. But
Speaker 3: they stay like around middle of the pack, a little
Speaker 3: below middle of the pack generally speaking, which is a
Speaker 3: goddamn miracle. And it's because Anthony Davis is their defense.
Speaker 3: So it's just it's it's yeah, there's it defies explanation.
Speaker 2: I would say, well, even with.
Speaker 1: The starting lineup, that's Austin Reeves, who I think an
Speaker 1: average to slightly above average defender, Dlo who's definitely below average,
Speaker 1: Rue who's definitely below average, below average, and Lebron on
Speaker 1: most nights it's like such an up and down thing
Speaker 1: with his effort that I would just call him average.
Speaker 1: And that team had a one to ten. That lineup
Speaker 1: had a one to ten defensive rating in almost four
Speaker 1: hundred minutes, which is a massive sample, and that's an
Speaker 1: excellent defensive rating. Obviously they have their limitations, but that's
Speaker 1: all Anthony Davis just anchoring all of that and putting
Speaker 1: it together. The two things about this the way these
Speaker 1: voting results came out that kind of irritate me. Is
Speaker 1: one this like obsession with like the lanky wing or
Speaker 1: like the three and d wing, and I like, I
Speaker 1: get the importance of that type of player, the ability
Speaker 1: to potentially guard multiple positions, just the length and how
Speaker 1: that's valuable in rotation and defensive rebounding situations and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But those defenders are so much more matchup dependent.
Speaker 1: Like Jaden McDaniels, for instance, I think he's probably the
Speaker 1: best perimeter defender in the league, and like Luca tossed
Speaker 1: him around like a rag doll in the Western Conference
Speaker 1: finals because he's two damn small. I like Herb Jones,
Speaker 1: he can't guard some of these bigger forwards in the
Speaker 1: league because they can just go right through them. I
Speaker 1: like Drew Holliday and Lou Dort, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the best pull up shooters in the league and just
Speaker 1: shoot right over the top of him because they're too small.
Speaker 1: I tend to think that like the big guys that
Speaker 1: can also do other stuff are the most versatile. And
Speaker 1: that's the part that blows my mind about the Draymond
Speaker 1: and ad not receiving any votes, Like do people not
Speaker 1: remember what Draymond did in the NBA Finals in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. He can be this drop coverage big that
Speaker 1: does all this stuff, but you can also plug him
Speaker 1: in and helpside. I'm watching him in pre season ex
Speaker 1: to tray Jackson Davis, and he's blowing everything up as
Speaker 1: a low man, and then he switched on to Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown for a good chunk of that series and guarded
Speaker 1: him extremely well on the ball, like on the perimeter
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis in the Lakers series, It's like, here's all
Speaker 1: these different coverages we're trying to slow down Steph. And
Speaker 1: then in Game four, the pivotal game of the series,
Speaker 1: he switches on to Steph and gets back to back
Speaker 1: stops on him, forces him into a one leg fade
Speaker 1: away on the first possession, and the second one Steph
Speaker 1: just chucked it up from like twenty seven feet because
Speaker 1: he wasn't even gonna try to do something off the dribble.
Speaker 1: And like, I think, like we've reached a point here
Speaker 1: where it's almost like wishful thinking. It's like people are
Speaker 1: hoping that Ad and Draymond will fall off, and yet
Speaker 1: they're still here. They keep messing everybody's offense up. I
Speaker 1: do think a big part of it is just that
Speaker 1: like kind of anti California, anti warrior like er bias,
Speaker 1: which I totally understand. But again, this is extending into
Speaker 1: the front offices. So do you think that we're starting
Speaker 1: to overvalue these like kind of versatile perimeter defenders when
Speaker 1: we're having these discussions.
Speaker 2: I think absolutely.
Speaker 3: And I think you know, other things are coming into
Speaker 3: play when people are making evaluations about A D and Draymond,
Speaker 3: and Draymond's case, it's the off the court stuffer in
Speaker 3: some cases, the on the court off the court stuff,
Speaker 3: and with Ad it's this weird obsession people have with
Speaker 3: his health and his tenacity and how much you can
Speaker 3: stay on the court, which I mean, you know, several
Speaker 3: years of his career, including last year, we're not an issue.
Speaker 3: And so I think that is kind of of also
Speaker 3: informing this bias, like people have preconceived notions about who
Speaker 3: these players are and that impacts their estimation of them.
Speaker 3: In Draymond's case, I find it a little bit more
Speaker 3: understandable because it's it almost feels like people have kind
Speaker 3: of just had it with him.
Speaker 2: They've just like had it with.
Speaker 3: The Shenanigans, and we're like, we're not going to give
Speaker 3: you credit for what you're good at, while you're like
Speaker 3: making it so hard to root for you. I don't
Speaker 3: agree with that line of thinking, but I do understand it. However, Yeah,
Speaker 3: with Ad, I think it's like, oh, he can't you know,
Speaker 3: street close, Like he can't stay on the floor. He's
Speaker 3: pretty much debunked bad at this point. You know, obviously
Speaker 3: he hasn't put back to back seventy something plus game
Speaker 3: seasons together in a while. But I think the hyperbole
Speaker 3: is so outsized when you look at even this other
Speaker 3: defensive Player of the Year or like best defender class,
Speaker 3: you look at how many games those guys have played,
Speaker 3: Like I was looking at this. He played the same
Speaker 3: number of games as Rudy Gobert last year, seventy six games.
Speaker 3: He played three more games than Yannis, five more games
Speaker 3: than Bam and Victor, and seven more games than Drew Holliday.
Speaker 3: So he played more games than everybody except for Rudy
Speaker 3: Gobert in those that caliber of player last year. And
Speaker 3: we're not sitting here being like, I don't know, can
Speaker 3: Victor stay healthy for eighty two games? Like I'm that's
Speaker 3: a concern of mine. He's like seven to six, Kenny,
Speaker 3: stay healthy. We have almost no proof of that. We
Speaker 3: have one year's worth of proof. So I just think
Speaker 3: a lot of it is sort of self determined narratives
Speaker 3: about who these guys are versus on the court production,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of people just genuinely don't
Speaker 3: watch the Lakers. I think that's something that I've learned
Speaker 3: from talking to a lot of people around the league
Speaker 3: and trying to understand what this anti Anthony Davis bias
Speaker 3: is about. I think a lot of people watch segments
Speaker 3: on First Take about the Lakers, but they don't actually
Speaker 3: watch the games, the regular season games, so they're not
Speaker 3: seeing what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Lakers had that bad stretch and it put
Speaker 1: them below I think they got down below the eight seed.
Speaker 1: I think at one point they dropped down to like
Speaker 1: nine or ten in the standings, and then it was
Speaker 1: like everyone just automatically wrote them off and it just
Speaker 1: didn't matter what they did the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: We weren't even halfway through the season when that.
Speaker 3: Happened, and they're like, oh, there was a plan team,
Speaker 3: They're a play in team, and what I've you know,
Speaker 3: the conversation that I appreciate that you have on this
Speaker 3: podcast as well, is like what constitutes a play in
Speaker 3: team in the Western Conference and in the Eastern Conference
Speaker 3: are just worlds apart, and I feel like that never
Speaker 3: factors into the conversation. I believe they won forty seven
Speaker 3: games last year. That's a lot of games, you know,
Speaker 3: that's comfortably over five hundred, not to mention the fact
Speaker 3: that they ended the year as a seventh seed, which
Speaker 3: pre play in tournament. Is just in the playoffs, they're
Speaker 3: just a playoff team. They're one through eight, best eight
Speaker 3: teams in the conference. And that's with the margin for
Speaker 3: air being I think it was like maybe three games
Speaker 3: between the four seed and the ten seed, so it
Speaker 3: was just a ridiculous margin for air.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that sort of well, they're in
Speaker 2: the playing tournament every year.
Speaker 3: That's the That's the sort of start and end of
Speaker 3: the conversation. When really there's as many things on the
Speaker 3: internet a lot more nuanced to.
Speaker 2: It than that.
Speaker 3: But why include nuance when you could just truncate a conversation.
Speaker 1: Would you could talk shit? Yeah, The easiest way I
Speaker 1: can explain it is there will be three play in
Speaker 1: teams this year in the Eastern Conference that are bad teams.
Speaker 1: There will be three teams in the Western Conference that
Speaker 1: completely miss the play in that are good teams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that that's the difference between that there are thirteen
Speaker 1: good teams in the West and there are seven in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. Like that is that is going to
Speaker 1: be like, like, I like, who's going to be a
Speaker 1: more It'll be really interesting to see. But who will
Speaker 1: be like a more scary team to play night and
Speaker 1: night out this year? The Atlanta Hawks, who are got
Speaker 1: like kind of like the eight team in the East,
Speaker 1: or the San Antonio Spurs, who most teams view as
Speaker 1: like most people view as like the thirteenth team out west.
Speaker 1: Like the Spurs are honestly with Wenmby a little scarier
Speaker 1: to me for sure to play on a night in
Speaker 1: and it's Wenby Harrison Barnes, Chris Paul Like that's a
Speaker 1: lot to deal with compared to Trey Young and Jalen Johnson.
Speaker 1: Like it's just yah, I like the Hawks, but like that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just that's the difference in talent level that we're
Speaker 1: working at with here. So yeah, the next I had
Speaker 1: five total that I took out of the survey that
Speaker 1: I thought were fascinating among NBA gms or whoever it
Speaker 1: is that works in their front office that they allow
Speaker 1: to fill out these surveys. SGA received forty percent of
Speaker 1: the votes for who will win MVP, with Luca right
Speaker 1: behind him at thirty percent. I actually was looking at
Speaker 1: this and I was like, is SGA just the obvious
Speaker 1: MVP front runner this season? With how things are shaken
Speaker 1: out for Oklahoma City?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he's an obvious MVP front runner.
Speaker 3: I would I will caution that Luca was the MVP
Speaker 3: front runner going into I think the last five seasons
Speaker 3: in a row. So there's just so much that can
Speaker 3: happen and change. And I do think obviously they love
Speaker 3: to reward a team Oklahoma City where like they did
Speaker 3: it the right way, they built the right way, they
Speaker 3: worked to the top conference. But they're also a very
Speaker 3: even balanced, you know, well staffed team at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, Like they have a lot of talent,
Speaker 3: and they have a lot of the right talent, and
Speaker 3: when there can be like a single solitary savior of
Speaker 3: a team, I think that that ends up helping players more,
Speaker 3: I don't see a candidate for that role as far
Speaker 3: as like that MVP narrative emerging, but you never know.
Speaker 3: I'm more of the opinion that it's going to be
Speaker 3: Luca this year as long as Dallas is like top four,
Speaker 3: top three in the West, because I think they like
Speaker 3: to course correct, the voters do a little bit, and
Speaker 3: I think, you know, shy of the defensive performance in
Speaker 3: the conference finals, which I think everyone is still has
Speaker 3: a bad taste in their mouth from that, Lucas showed
Speaker 3: that he's like right there in the conversation for the
Speaker 3: best player in the league right now, and I think
Speaker 3: that you know, he's been up or in the top
Speaker 3: three in voting several years, so it might just he
Speaker 3: might just be kind of due by the voters estimation,
Speaker 3: whereas Shae last year was his first year as an
Speaker 3: MVP candidate, and it usually takes like a couple of
Speaker 3: years of being a finalist before people actually break through
Speaker 3: and win the award. I mean, I don't even know
Speaker 3: how many years Joel Embiid was a finalist before he
Speaker 3: won it. So if I had, if I was like betting,
Speaker 3: I would choose Luca this year probably, But I think
Speaker 3: Shaye is right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you on Luca to where if they
Speaker 1: finish high up in the standings, he will get it
Speaker 1: because it's like you said, it's like that solo savior
Speaker 1: kind of concept. I think I had Dallas outside of
Speaker 1: my top tier of contenders going into the season because
Speaker 1: I just don't think they have as much talent as
Speaker 1: a team like Oklahoma City or like the New York
Speaker 1: Micks or some of the teams that I have above them.
Speaker 1: And so that's where it gets tricky, is like if
Speaker 1: Luca doesn't play like an absolute MVP, like just to
Speaker 1: just kicks ass every single night, I don't think they're
Speaker 1: going to get in the top two or three seeds
Speaker 1: because the West is so stacked. Like you got you
Speaker 1: gotta think like Oklahoma City, I think is gonna run
Speaker 1: away with the one seed. And we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: them here in just a second a little more detail.
Speaker 1: But like Memphis is younger and bigger, and like they're
Speaker 1: gonna play harder on a night and night out basis,
Speaker 1: like they're a team that could end up very close
Speaker 1: to the top of the conference. Obviously, Minnesota with Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards is like this young ball of energy kind of
Speaker 1: carrying things. So like if Dallas drops to four or five,
Speaker 1: that's where I just I think it could get tricky
Speaker 1: with Luca getting enough MVP consideration because that's the thing,
Speaker 1: Like what holds Luke out of the MVP voting every
Speaker 1: year is he hasn't had a dominant regular season in
Speaker 1: the standings. Yeah, that's the reason why, Like it inevitably
Speaker 1: kind of skews that way when I look at like
Speaker 1: I look at Shae as like I like at Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City is like Boston West, meaning like they have a
Speaker 1: talent advantage, and I think that that could work against Shae.
Speaker 1: But it's a little different because I think Boston has
Speaker 1: a little bit more of like an equal opportunity, we're
Speaker 1: all playing together, drive and kick kind of thing, whereas
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City kind of weirdly takes on a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a heliocentric shay Ball kind of style. So
Speaker 1: like I could see a universe where the Thunder wins
Speaker 1: sixty games and Shay averages his you know, typical thirty
Speaker 1: eight and five or whatever it is that he gets
Speaker 1: to on efficiency, and like I just like I don't
Speaker 1: think Tatum's going to get to thirty points per game
Speaker 1: because of how much of an equal opportunity system it
Speaker 1: is in Boston. I don't think that Dallas is going
Speaker 1: to win enough games potentially, like so Giannis and the Bucks.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to be a team that kind
Speaker 1: of drops down the standings a little bit in the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference potentially. And so that just kind of it
Speaker 1: just kind of feels to me, like that makes sense
Speaker 1: to me that forty percent to thirty percent, because there's
Speaker 1: always that chance that Dallas just has a really good
Speaker 1: regular season, in which case Luca gets it like you,
Speaker 1: I'm blinking on the phrase you use. But it's almost
Speaker 1: like a continuation of what happened in the postseason. Like
Speaker 1: it's like you carry a team to the finals and
Speaker 1: then you have this dominant regular season. People add legitimacy
Speaker 1: to it based on what they've seen you do at
Speaker 1: the higher stages. That ends up getting you more leeway
Speaker 1: with the voters. So it definitely feels like between those
Speaker 1: two I would get I would say like, let's just
Speaker 1: do let's do this. This is a last little question
Speaker 1: in this topic. If you had to choose between Shay
Speaker 1: and Luca or the field for MVP, who would you take?
Speaker 2: I would I would choose either Shay or Luca or
Speaker 2: you mean, like if I had to pick one, or
Speaker 2: pick the field.
Speaker 1: Those two or the field.
Speaker 2: That's really tough.
Speaker 3: Because I was going to say, there's a there's a
Speaker 3: good Anthony Edwards argument as well, because I think that,
Speaker 3: again from a narrative perspective, like that would be really
Speaker 3: beneficial for the league if he has like a break,
Speaker 3: like an ascendant like I'm the best player in the
Speaker 3: league type of season. And I would say if the
Speaker 3: Timberwolves by some miracle, I don't think this is going
Speaker 3: to happen, but if they end up as the one
Speaker 3: seed in the West, I think that the Anthony Edwards
Speaker 3: noise will be very loud for MVP, especially because I
Speaker 3: think everyone pretty much agrees they got worse. So I
Speaker 3: think his case would be even stronger this year. But
Speaker 3: I think i'd probably take Shay over the Field just
Speaker 3: because I think, barring some really unforeseen plot twist, I
Speaker 3: don't see anyone else being the number one seed in
Speaker 3: the West.
Speaker 2: I really I just don't see it happening.
Speaker 3: I would say I would give Memphis a better chance
Speaker 3: than Minnesota just because I think they're hungry or for
Speaker 3: that distinct honor versus I think Minnesota has now had
Speaker 3: a really healthy taste of the postseason, and that's more
Speaker 3: they're ready and they have some bets. So I think
Speaker 3: they're going to be focused on like staying healthy, staying
Speaker 3: ready for staying in that one through four seed if possible,
Speaker 3: that home court advantage, seating, But like, I don't think
Speaker 3: they're going to be prioritizing having people take them seriously
Speaker 3: and thus getting the one seed. I think Memphis is
Speaker 3: really on like a revenge tour, like you forgot about us,
Speaker 3: but we're back kind of season. So I think I
Speaker 3: would take Shay just from that seating perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I agree that. The simplest way that
Speaker 1: I could put it is like that he's going to
Speaker 1: have a very good MVP case under any circumstances, barring
Speaker 1: it an injury, so like it's really somebody else has
Speaker 1: to come up with a better case than best player
Speaker 1: on the best team in the Western Conference. Like that,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of the way I think it's naturally
Speaker 1: going to shake out this one. I'm I think you're
Speaker 1: going to be surprised at the stance that I take,
Speaker 1: But Jason Tatum was the runaway best small forward in
Speaker 1: the NBA, receiving forty seven percent of the votes, well
Speaker 1: ahead of Lebron James and Kevin Durant. Do you think
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum is the best small forward in the NBA?
Speaker 3: I like, really, I hemmed in hod over this one
Speaker 3: because it really defined, like it calls into question like
Speaker 3: what is best and what do you prioritize and best?
Speaker 2: And is best?
Speaker 3: Like you need a guy who's going to play eighty
Speaker 3: two games and who has a really really high floor
Speaker 3: and who at worst is probably going to get you
Speaker 3: like fifteen and fat, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 3: on his worst, like disaster of a night, he's still
Speaker 3: going to be very productive. Like yeah, I don't think
Speaker 3: there's anyone in the league I would take over him
Speaker 3: in that respect. My personal definition of best is like
Speaker 3: the highest ceiling, and I don't think he has that,
Speaker 3: So that's what's tough for me. I would say my
Speaker 3: cop out answer is I would pick Luca because I
Speaker 3: don't consider Luca a point guard. I consider him a
Speaker 3: small forward. So that would be my cop out version
Speaker 3: of the answer. The second caveat would be in a
Speaker 3: series or in a single game. I still think Lebron
Speaker 3: is the best in the league, and I don't think
Speaker 3: it's particularly close in a vacuum like we saw in
Speaker 3: one Olympic game or in one postseason series. Taking into
Speaker 3: consideration four playoff rounds and eighty two games, you'd probably
Speaker 3: want Jason Tatum over anyone else if you don't consider
Speaker 3: Luca down to is a small forward. So that's my
Speaker 3: long rambling very a lot of qualifications.
Speaker 1: Answer to that question, Well, most basketball coaches would tell
Speaker 1: you your position is who you can guard, and Luca
Speaker 1: can't guard point guards, so that would mean he's more
Speaker 1: of a forward. So on that front, most coaches would
Speaker 1: agree with you. I you know, it's funny. I'm with you,
Speaker 1: like one game tomorrow, one series tomorrow. The only guys
Speaker 1: I'm taking over Lebron are Luca and Jokic right now,
Speaker 1: and I think he's pretty close to those guys if
Speaker 1: he's healthy and he's ready to go for that two weeks.
Speaker 1: Like that two week battle, I want Lebron, Katie and Tatum.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more of a toss up for me,
Speaker 1: but I might lean slightly towards Katie that said, like
Speaker 1: to start a season. I just think it's clearly Tatum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I think that his motor at this
Speaker 1: point in his career as a twenty six year old
Speaker 1: six foot ten just beast of an athlete that can
Speaker 1: guard all these different positions. And like the Celtics, there
Speaker 1: are all these looks that teams will use as like
Speaker 1: trump cards in specific like tight spots where it's like
Speaker 1: even when he was younger, remember it'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put Lebron in the point guard, or we're
Speaker 1: gonna put Lebron on the center. We're gonna do this
Speaker 1: or whatever we're gonna do. But like Jason Tatum guards
Speaker 1: centers for the Celtics regularly throughout the regular season. That's
Speaker 1: such an insane value add in terms of like just
Speaker 1: a card that you can go to. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling too, similar to what we talked about with Draymond
Speaker 1: and ad where like a lot of people are using
Speaker 1: some surrounding circumstances to kind of diminish who they are.
Speaker 1: Tatum had a bad couple of months there, Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the playoffs into Team USA, and I think it caused
Speaker 1: a lot of people to kind of get off his
Speaker 1: scent a little bit. Yeah, And I do think that
Speaker 1: he's a much better a shooter than he's let on.
Speaker 1: I do think that he's gonna continue to get better
Speaker 1: as he gets into his late twenties. So, like, to me,
Speaker 1: that made sense, Like if I was a GM and
Speaker 1: I was starting a franchise today for this entire season,
Speaker 1: I do think that Jason Tatum gives me a better shot,
Speaker 1: just because he's got a little bit better chance of
Speaker 1: making it through all of that basketball traffic between here
Speaker 1: and June. But yeah, there's no doubt that if it's
Speaker 1: a big game tomorrow, I want Lebron, a big series tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I want Lebron. And like, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I thought was fascinating too, I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: noticed this, but did you see how they had like
Speaker 1: the like the regardless of position votes.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't notice those.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the positions, they just took
Speaker 1: everyone's votes regardless of position and just stacked them. Okay,
Speaker 1: And there were two things that were fascinating to that
Speaker 1: to me about that Jokis was number one. The top
Speaker 1: four matched my top fours Jokic, Yannis Luca and Shay.
Speaker 1: They did have Janis over Luca, though, which I thought
Speaker 1: was fascinating, and then they had Tatum at five. So
Speaker 1: I interpreted that as like, these front offices view Tatum
Speaker 1: as the fifth best player in the league, which I
Speaker 1: think is a defensible place to put them. I think
Speaker 1: there's the top four and I think there's a little gap.
Speaker 1: And if you wanted to tell me Tatum was the
Speaker 1: top of the next tier of players, I could totally
Speaker 1: get behind that. Where do you have where do you
Speaker 1: have Jannis and Luca? Do you have Janis over Luca
Speaker 1: or vice versa?
Speaker 2: I have Luca over Jannis right now.
Speaker 3: I think Jannis, you know, is he is an incredible
Speaker 3: athlete and he's a psycho competitor, and those are two
Speaker 3: things that are like truly invaluable.
Speaker 2: In the NBA.
Speaker 3: I do think it's interesting that, like, if you actually
Speaker 3: look at the totality of their careers, Yiannis has had
Speaker 3: more injury issues than Luca has. That's shocking if you
Speaker 3: just look at a what they look like objectively and
Speaker 3: be like, who you would imagine takes better care of
Speaker 3: their bodies. It's kind of crazy. But Jannis is an
Speaker 3: injury risk at this point of his career, it's it's
Speaker 3: not objectable, like when you've gotten too the playoffs. Even
Speaker 3: the year that they won the championship, he had to
Speaker 3: have a herculean effort to overcome an injury that I
Speaker 3: thought was for sure a series ending injury. I mean,
Speaker 3: he looked like an piece of origami that bent the
Speaker 3: wrong way. I was like, that was to me, the
Speaker 3: most impressive thing of his career was the way that
Speaker 3: he came back for that injury. To you know, come
Speaker 3: back and win four games in a row in the finals.
Speaker 3: It's just like unfathomable. But I just feel like a Luca,
Speaker 3: you know, as shocking as it may be, based on
Speaker 3: the empirical evidence, you can count on him for longer
Speaker 3: to be there through four playoffs series, which again makes
Speaker 3: no sense, but that's just the truth of it. And
Speaker 3: b like ball in his hands, game on the line.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's not a metric that like matters to everyone,
Speaker 3: but it is a metric that matters to me.
Speaker 2: And I can't really think.
Speaker 3: Of anyone in the league right now that would be
Speaker 3: scarier for the other team in that scenario than Luca,
Speaker 3: you know, So that matters a.
Speaker 2: Lot to me.
Speaker 3: Like, however, whatever internet cliche you want to use to
Speaker 3: describe it, he's got that dog in him, He's got
Speaker 3: that mom of mentality, whatever you want to use to
Speaker 3: describe that phenomenon. Like Luca has it in spades, and
Speaker 3: not that Yannis doesn't have it, but he's just not
Speaker 3: someone who's going to like create his own shot in
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, the I always look at it from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of team building, like, yeah, Jannis obviously brings
Speaker 1: all of these motor things and this transition scoring and
Speaker 1: this defensive kind of like help responsibility that he does
Speaker 1: so well. And it's just that I can replicate most
Speaker 1: of that through good roster building and attention to detail
Speaker 1: with my coaching staff. Whereas whereas with Luca and his superpower,
Speaker 1: which is the ability to create shots against elite defenses
Speaker 1: in a half court, that is the thing that cannot
Speaker 1: be replicated. I can't you can't. I can't drop a
Speaker 1: set to get up an easy shot against an elite
Speaker 1: defense in a five minute stretch at the end of
Speaker 1: a game, Like, it's going to be really, really difficult.
Speaker 1: That superpower is so valuable. One thing that I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting, did you notice that Janis was getting
Speaker 1: a lot of votes in these defense categories, and like
Speaker 1: Giannis is a very good help defender. When he's the
Speaker 1: low man, he's very good. But in ball screens he's okay,
Speaker 1: not great, And on the ball on the primitive he's okay,
Speaker 1: not great. Like johannest to me, has the reputation around
Speaker 1: the league. Yes, guys like Draymond and Anthony Davis should
Speaker 1: have thought that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think here's what here's my hot, hottest take
Speaker 3: on the GM survey and on a lot of these
Speaker 3: kind of polling people don't watch games like that's such
Speaker 3: a simple thing to say, but like so much of
Speaker 3: this is so clearly based on narratives and hearsay, and
Speaker 3: like a playoff series here and there, or like a
Speaker 3: high profile Saturday night game here and there, as far
Speaker 3: as like the eighty two games, these gms are watching
Speaker 3: what's directly relevant to what's directly in front of them
Speaker 3: for their own team.
Speaker 2: Makes sense. They're pretty busy. They have a lot going on.
Speaker 3: They're planning for the future, they're scouting for talent right now,
Speaker 3: they're thinking about trades, they're trying to keep their superstars happy.
Speaker 2: Like they have a lot going on.
Speaker 3: So not to say that their opinions don't matter, but
Speaker 3: I think that like people like us whose job it
Speaker 3: is to actually watch the games, consume them, process them,
Speaker 3: analyze them, have a lot clearer vision of what these
Speaker 3: guys actually do and what they look like than somebody
Speaker 3: in a you know, like front office position for a
Speaker 3: specific team that doesn't maybe have the bandwidth or interest
Speaker 3: in like consuming that many regular season games. So I
Speaker 3: think that was a theme I saw throughout this GM
Speaker 3: survey and that I see throughout a lot of these
Speaker 3: types of surveys is like you guys aren't watching quite frankly,
Speaker 3: because a lot of it is like a lot of
Speaker 3: it feels like an echo chamber for like preconceived determinations
Speaker 3: about these players that have existed for years, seasons on end. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, like we've been hearing that Herb Jones is
Speaker 3: like such an impressive cool defender for.
Speaker 2: Years and it's not wrong. Did I he's good? He's good?
Speaker 3: Did I feel like his season in New Orleans last
Speaker 3: year made me feel like he deserves to be in
Speaker 3: the same conversation even as like a bamm outa Bio
Speaker 3: or Anthony Davis absolutely not but three years ago when
Speaker 3: he actually blew people away as this role player who
Speaker 3: ended up having a super high defensive ceiling, he cultivated
Speaker 3: a reputation as a really good defender, and that reputation
Speaker 3: carried through GM survey after GM survey when they're like,
Speaker 3: oh shit, my GM surveys do again, Well, I need
Speaker 3: to fill this thing out. So I just I take
Speaker 3: all this stuff with a grain of salt, and I
Speaker 3: think at the end of the day, you know, as
Speaker 3: painful as it must be for guys who do get
Speaker 3: kind of the short end of the stick in these surveys, like.
Speaker 2: The Valario O'Brien is the best.
Speaker 3: Way to shut people up at the end of the day, Like,
Speaker 3: that's that's what they're everyone's after, and that's worth more
Speaker 3: than any survey answer.
Speaker 1: Is anybody gonna actually, with a straight face sit there
Speaker 1: and say like, yeah, Herb Jones did more to anchor
Speaker 1: the Pelicans defense last year than Anthony Davis did for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. Like, I just I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: I clear too. Like with Giannis in particular, I think
Speaker 1: Yiannis is an awesome defender. I think he's in the
Speaker 1: top tier of most versatile defenders in the league. My
Speaker 1: thing is that, like, it doesn't make any sense to
Speaker 1: me that he gets that respect, but guys like Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis and Draymond who are just in that tier, but
Speaker 1: I think both of them are better than Yannis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that those two guys don't get that reputation and that's
Speaker 1: their job. Like Giannis, that's like something he does in
Speaker 1: addition to everything he brings to the table. It's like
Speaker 1: there is very much like a there's very much like
Speaker 1: a culture that surrounds especially in NBA Twitter, where it's
Speaker 1: like everyone's almost like trying to be out there with
Speaker 1: their pick, like, oh, you know who I think is
Speaker 1: the most versatile defender in the league, Jalen Williams in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh god, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is what it is, But I just
Speaker 1: get annoyed. All right, we got two more for you, okay,
Speaker 1: for who is the best international player in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I was really fascinated by this one because I noticed
Speaker 1: a bunch of kind of like Luka momentum surrounding last year,
Speaker 1: a lot of people wishing on Yokic's downfall two and
Speaker 1: kind of celebrating his loss in that second round series,
Speaker 1: but eighty seven percent of the front offices voted Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokic as the best international player in the NBA. So
Speaker 1: kind of a dominant, you know, or I should say,
Speaker 1: a clear sign that they view them as better than him,
Speaker 1: as better than Luca. So do you agree that jokicch
Speaker 1: is clearly the best player in the league over Luca?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: I think what happened in the playoffs though, that's really
Speaker 3: interesting is Luca showed flashes of his ceiling, and Jokic
Speaker 3: showed flashes of a floor that we haven't really seen before.
Speaker 2: So he showed that.
Speaker 3: He's he's beatable, which we haven't really seen from him
Speaker 3: in a couple of years, because he's been operating his ceiling,
Speaker 3: I think, and he's been making. The thing about Jokic
Speaker 3: that I think made people so taken with him, and
Speaker 3: myself included, is he would hit these shots Like I
Speaker 3: had a tweet once that was like, Jokic looks like
Speaker 3: a kid in a Disney movie.
Speaker 2: Made a wish to.
Speaker 3: Get the powers to play basketball because like, nothing he
Speaker 3: does looks right and then it just goes in every time,
Speaker 3: like he'll like the behind the head.
Speaker 2: Like there was one there.
Speaker 3: There's one really famous, you know shot of Anthony Davis
Speaker 3: just like walking back in transition and shaking his head
Speaker 3: after he hit that crazy shot over him and the
Speaker 3: Conference finals a couple of years ago. But so, I
Speaker 3: think Jokic has been operating at this like incredible ceiling,
Speaker 3: and we saw flashes of what it could look like
Speaker 3: when he's a little bit more vulnerable. Whereas Luca, we
Speaker 3: knew that he had this theoretical ceiling, we hadn't really
Speaker 3: seen it, and we really saw it, I feel like,
Speaker 3: especially in like the Conference finals, he just dominated a
Speaker 3: team that we had all pretty much been like, could.
Speaker 2: They win it all? They could win it all, like
Speaker 2: they could be.
Speaker 3: Boston, and then he went in there and he said
Speaker 3: absolutely not, not on my watch. And I think that's
Speaker 3: what we were all waiting for from him. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so I think there was definitely it was called into question. However,
Speaker 3: we have a very large sample size at this point
Speaker 3: that Jokic is the best player in the NBA, and
Speaker 3: it's going to take a lot more than like one
Speaker 3: kind of crappy playoff series, you know, or one and
Speaker 3: a half kind of crappy playoff series for me to
Speaker 3: hand that crown over to somebody else.
Speaker 1: The way you put it, I think is super fascinating. Like,
Speaker 1: we saw a glimpse of Yokic's floor in a way
Speaker 1: that we haven't seen in a while, which was one
Speaker 1: he wasn't as good defensively as he was in the
Speaker 1: previous season. I think some of it was fatigue, but
Speaker 1: like he looked pretty bad towards the end of that
Speaker 1: well both series. I mean, the Lakers cut him up
Speaker 1: to pieces too, didn't have a very good defensive postseason,
Speaker 1: and then he can't shoot threes. That was the That
Speaker 1: was the thing after he shot like forty six percent
Speaker 1: on threes previous year, and it was a huge part
Speaker 1: of his game, was like picking and popping, hitting those
Speaker 1: threes and driving closeouts. And then against Minnesota, like they're
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, go ahead, shoot it, We're not worried
Speaker 1: about you. So there definitely was like a little bit
Speaker 1: of like Yokic's floor that we saw, and that is
Speaker 1: completely worth acknowledging. But we also like his Game five
Speaker 1: against the Timberwolves was one of the best games I've
Speaker 1: ever seen any player ever play. Yeah, like that, like
Speaker 1: that when he was just barbecuing Gobart on an island
Speaker 1: one on one time and time again. We know that
Speaker 1: he's capable of being at a higher level defensively, And
Speaker 1: in spite of everything that went wrong, they were up
Speaker 1: twenty in Game seven and a couple of things go differently,
Speaker 1: they go on to Dallas, and I would have picked
Speaker 1: them against Dallas. Yeah, And to your point, we got
Speaker 1: to see a glimpse of Luca's ceiling. And what's interesting
Speaker 1: with Luca too, is like his efficiency wasn't as good
Speaker 1: as it typically isn't that postseason run. He was really
Speaker 1: bad defensively. There were specific defensive matchups where he really struggled,
Speaker 1: like lou Dort was causing him all sorts of issues
Speaker 1: over the course of that Thunder series. So I agree
Speaker 1: with you there's even like another level that he can
Speaker 1: get to there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But for me, the main thing with Jokic that I
Speaker 1: think makes him better than Luca right now is I
Speaker 1: think he can be deployed on a basketball team in
Speaker 1: more ways. It can change the way he plays in
Speaker 1: more ways. So for instance, on offense, like you can
Speaker 1: force feed him in the post and he can go
Speaker 1: to work on Gobert all night long. But he can
Speaker 1: also be this like devastating five out folkrum where you're
Speaker 1: running all these like screening options around him, and he
Speaker 1: can make Michael Porter Junior a useful offensive player and
Speaker 1: Contavious Cabo Pope a useful offensive player, and Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: even a useful offensive player. Like you couldn't play Aaron
Speaker 1: Gordon in Dallas next to Derek Lively. It wouldn't work
Speaker 1: in their system to have those two non shooters on
Speaker 1: the floor at the same time with the way that
Speaker 1: they play right and then on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor, like with Jokic, I feel like I can
Speaker 1: construct a pick and roll defense with him with four
Speaker 1: players around him and reach the status of elite defense.
Speaker 1: I mean, hell Denver was a top ten defense last year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with Luca, like I can't hedge and recover with him
Speaker 1: because he's too slow, I pretty much have to switch
Speaker 1: him onto any ball screen, and in those situations he
Speaker 1: gets beat off the dribble consistently, like any team that
Speaker 1: can really space him out can look to attack him
Speaker 1: in space. And so even though I think Luca has
Speaker 1: like maybe even a tiny bit higher upside on offense
Speaker 1: because he brings the ball up the floor, so he's
Speaker 1: less prone to some of the stuff that big guys
Speaker 1: can run into, like fronting the post or double teaming
Speaker 1: post ups and things like that. Like even with that,
Speaker 1: there's just so much more versatility that comes to the
Speaker 1: table with Jokic, And like, I do think that's the
Speaker 1: right decision. And of all the things that I disagreed
Speaker 1: with these NBA front offices, that was one that we
Speaker 1: were on the same page for.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 3: And I think the other thing with Jokic that makes
Speaker 3: him so incredibly special that to me is one of
Speaker 3: the other things that makes Lebron so special is like
Speaker 3: you know, this postseason is or I guess this year
Speaker 3: his three point percentage is kind of bad like all
Speaker 3: this last past season, but historically, like you said, he
Speaker 3: has this crazy of forty percent from three.
Speaker 2: That's his absolutely last resort.
Speaker 3: That's if he can't facilitate a single other guy on
Speaker 3: the floor first, you know what I mean, or get
Speaker 3: to or get to the to the post or whatever
Speaker 3: it is, Like he doesn't want to take that shot
Speaker 3: that's like three seconds left on the shot clock, Like
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna shoot it, and I know I can
Speaker 3: make it. That's devastating, Like how do you guard that,
Speaker 3: you know, like you you try and turn him off.
Speaker 3: He's one of the best passers, if not currently the
Speaker 3: best passer in the league, So you're trying to turn
Speaker 3: off the rest of the offense and make him take
Speaker 3: his own shot. And he says, fine, I shoot forty
Speaker 3: something percent from three. I can get to the post,
Speaker 3: like nobody can guard me. So that's what makes them
Speaker 3: so devastating. And I totally agree with you there that
Speaker 3: Luca he doesn't have that entire tool set. He has
Speaker 3: a lot of tools and he's they're very good. So
Speaker 3: I think their neck and neck, and I think this
Speaker 3: season will be like really telling as far as who
Speaker 3: gets to like hold that distinction as the best player
Speaker 3: in the league, because I don't think Yoka has.
Speaker 2: It locked up by any means.
Speaker 1: I agree that the three point shooting to me is
Speaker 1: just a ceiling razor to your point, Like he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to do that. He wants to roll because he's
Speaker 1: so good with that floater in the role, Like, and
Speaker 1: he shoots damn near seventy percent on it, right, and
Speaker 1: that's actually worth you know, damn near one point four
Speaker 1: points per shot, which you'd have to shoot an insane
Speaker 1: percentage from three to hit that efficiency. He always likes
Speaker 1: to do it as like a kind of like a
Speaker 1: way to save energy. Yeah, and that's what I thought
Speaker 1: was fascinating about that Game seven against Minnesota. In the
Speaker 1: second half, he started popping because he was fucking tired.
Speaker 1: He was tired, he was worn out, and so instead
Speaker 1: of rolling, he was popping up out there and he
Speaker 1: just couldn't knock the shot down. And so I said
Speaker 1: this last year, but like, when he's hitting forty five
Speaker 1: percent of his threes, he's far and away the best
Speaker 1: player in the league and it's not close. And like
Speaker 1: that's where it's like, what do you do with this
Speaker 1: guy eighties walking down the floor shaking his head. There's
Speaker 1: nothing you can do with this guy. It's with the
Speaker 1: lack of the shot and the slight decline on defense,
Speaker 1: he's come down to the pack. And I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think that that Jokic is surpassable now in a
Speaker 1: way that he didn't used to be unless he somehow
Speaker 1: regains a shot, and we'll see what goes on. I
Speaker 1: know he's been dealing with some wrist stuff. There might
Speaker 1: be an injury involved there as well. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: agree this year is going to be very telling Dallas fans,
Speaker 1: in particular, judging by my YouTube comments, I think that
Speaker 1: Dallas is a better team than Denver, and so if
Speaker 1: that's the case, let's see it manifest, and if it does,
Speaker 1: maybe that will will come to fruition.
Speaker 3: I think I'm someone who's pretty who's lower than the
Speaker 3: pack on Denver this year. I don't think they're going
Speaker 3: to be bad by any means. I think they're solidly
Speaker 3: a playoff team. I don't think they're going to be dominant, though.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of internal discord and turmoil
Speaker 3: happening there. I think how long it took to get
Speaker 3: Jamal Murray that extension was very telling, and I don't
Speaker 3: think it was a coincidence. I think they desperately needed
Speaker 3: a backup big, they drafted a great one, and he
Speaker 3: got a season ending injury in NBA Summer League. I
Speaker 3: think they've one by one lost some like really fundamental
Speaker 3: players to that championship run and are counting on replacing
Speaker 3: them with young guys who have definitely like shown flashes
Speaker 3: of really high ceilings and like they can be really good.
Speaker 3: But you saw the Warriors try and take that approach
Speaker 3: of like that's cool, we'll just develop our young guys
Speaker 3: internally and become you know, back to back champions that way,
Speaker 3: and it's it is a riskier approach. And then I've
Speaker 3: heard also rumblings that like Mike Malone in the front office,
Speaker 3: the rest of the front office, there's been some headbutting there.
Speaker 3: So I don't know that's maybe that's my hot take,
Speaker 3: but my hot take for the season is that I
Speaker 3: think Denvers might not have a great year.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to be dominant, just simply
Speaker 1: because the young teams at the top of the West
Speaker 1: are going to play so much harder than them on
Speaker 1: a night in, a night out basis. I think people
Speaker 1: are underrating how exhausted they were just by the long
Speaker 1: playoff round the year before. And they've got like some
Speaker 1: guys too that like Cacp's a little older now, gets
Speaker 1: a little banged up. Jamal Murray had that calf injury
Speaker 1: against the Lakers, and it's like everything seemed to go
Speaker 1: wrong and then they were up twenty in Game seven.
Speaker 1: You know, it could have gone it could have gone
Speaker 1: a different way. I do agree with you that I
Speaker 1: don't expect them to be dominant. I do think they're
Speaker 1: a better team than Dallas, though, and I think that
Speaker 1: that will show throughout the season. Also, Christian Brown getting
Speaker 1: plugged into the starting lineup in a weird way. He's
Speaker 1: a bigger, better athlete than KCP, than a higher motor guy.
Speaker 1: And the discord you're talking about the front office or
Speaker 1: within the organization, one of the big things that I've
Speaker 1: been hearing is just in general, the front office is
Speaker 1: desperate for Mike Malone to play more the younger guys,
Speaker 1: and Mike Malone is is very much like a veteran guy.
Speaker 1: He wants to play his vets. All you have to
Speaker 1: do is go look at how much Peyton Watson was
Speaker 1: playing in the regular season in the playoffs. It is
Speaker 1: it was super, super confusing, and it's like that that
Speaker 1: could be a big swing for Denver and the standings
Speaker 1: this year. Is like, if they play their young guys more,
Speaker 1: I think they might actually win more regular season games
Speaker 1: because guys like Peyton Watson, they're like immensely valuable in
Speaker 1: regular season NBA basketball, because like, nothing's worse for a
Speaker 1: thirty two year old NBA VET in February on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Then the six foot nine freaky athlete that's playing super
Speaker 1: hard and like that could be such a pain in
Speaker 1: the ass to deal with, and so like I I think,
Speaker 1: I think, I think I'm a little higher on him
Speaker 1: than you. I'm really high on him as a playoff team.
Speaker 1: Like I think, let me just let's actually just put
Speaker 1: you on the spot real quick. Okay, I think Denver's
Speaker 1: might pick to come out of the West. Who's your
Speaker 1: pick to come out of the worst?
Speaker 2: Woo, that's it.
Speaker 3: I mean I like that take cause I think Jokic
Speaker 3: I don't think he as much as people are, like,
Speaker 3: he doesn't care about basketball, Like dude cares about basketball.
Speaker 3: It's like it's a little bit of a bit at
Speaker 3: this point that he like is like I don't care
Speaker 3: whatever he Nobody nobody gets that good if they don't live.
Speaker 2: And breathe it, period.
Speaker 3: Like exactly, you can get maybe make the NBA if
Speaker 3: you're over seven feet, like by not really being that
Speaker 3: passionate about it, just based on the fact that there
Speaker 3: just aren't that many people over seven feet in the world.
Speaker 3: You can't become a multi time MVP if you're not
Speaker 3: obsessed with basketball, It's just not possible.
Speaker 2: So did I that right now? Like Yokiic cares about basketball,
Speaker 2: I think I'd still pick Okay. See.
Speaker 3: I just think there it's like such a confluence of
Speaker 3: great things. They got the perfect off season acquisitions.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I think Shay is like right at the right age
Speaker 3: to kind of crest at that peak. I think they
Speaker 3: have a really good coach, and they seem to have
Speaker 3: a really great locker room that really gets along. I
Speaker 3: think that the guys they added are guys that are
Speaker 3: very additive to a locker room environment. Like I think
Speaker 3: Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein are two guys who are
Speaker 3: going to come in, put their egos aside, get to work,
Speaker 3: do it needs to be done. I think that's super
Speaker 3: just pros, just pros who've never been the guy and
Speaker 3: have no interest in being the guy, but can play
Speaker 3: their role extremely well. And I think that that's something
Speaker 3: that's maybe the most underrated thing to have on a
Speaker 3: championship team. It's just guys who are like, I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to like work my way up the corporate ladder
Speaker 3: of this basketball company, Like I am really happy with
Speaker 3: the job that I have and I just want to
Speaker 3: do a really good job at it. I've gotten paid
Speaker 3: well enough for it, and I think Shae is a superstar.
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about he's probably an MVP front runner,
Speaker 3: and at the end of the day, when it's not
Speaker 3: cringing time in the playoffs, it's like, do you have
Speaker 3: the guy?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And if we both kind of agree that Dallas is
Speaker 3: likely not going to get far enough to even have
Speaker 3: Luca be that in that conversation as far as like
Speaker 3: who's the guy coming out of the West.
Speaker 2: I think Shaye is going to be the guy.
Speaker 3: I know Jokic is the best player in the league,
Speaker 3: but I just think with all the other factors at play,
Speaker 3: I would still pick okay See.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's to be clear. I have okay See very
Speaker 1: very close behind them. I think it's kind of a
Speaker 1: tricky matchup. It's different now than it was last year.
Speaker 1: I would have picked Denver to run through Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure too.
Speaker 1: So obvious they're going to go with the heart and
Speaker 1: sign on Jokich with Chet and help type of look
Speaker 1: with like lou Dort just being a pain in the
Speaker 1: ass on Jamal Murray, and it's going to be a
Speaker 1: tough matchup. And and I do think that that I
Speaker 1: think a Western Conference finals between Denver and Oksee would
Speaker 1: be an absolute like just a just a legendary series.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just I just keep coming down to
Speaker 1: I think I think people are a little bit wishful
Speaker 1: in there thinking about Denver's decline. And I think that
Speaker 1: people are, like we talked about earlier with the GM survey,
Speaker 1: just a little bit quick to want to jump on
Speaker 1: the next new thing. And so I leaned just ever
Speaker 1: so slightly towards Denver. This last question that I had
Speaker 1: for you, by the way, I loved to the point
Speaker 1: you made about Jokic. I was talking with Adam mar
Speaker 1: Is once and he told me that like Jokic like
Speaker 1: went home over the summer and took like a coaching
Speaker 1: clinic online. Yeah, And I was literally I was literally
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking of like, oh, yeah, he's running home
Speaker 1: to go see his horses so that he can go
Speaker 1: sit in a coaching clinic when he because he hates basketball,
Speaker 1: Like of course, the dude loves basketball, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's so ridiculous. Or like the video of him
Speaker 1: playing pick up with a bunch of random dudes on
Speaker 1: an outdoor court in survey, I'm like, this dude is
Speaker 1: clearly obsessed. There's no version of this that that that
Speaker 1: would be a me to think otherwise.
Speaker 3: Can I actually real quick off what you said about
Speaker 3: picking Denver, because like, hearing you talk about it, I'm like,
Speaker 3: you're kind of talking me into it. Something that you
Speaker 3: said that was like really kind of ring true. This
Speaker 3: is the formula where the Golden State Warriors won the
Speaker 3: championship a couple of years ago, which is like people
Speaker 3: were ready to move on from Staph. People were like,
Speaker 3: what's the next thing, Who's the next team coming out
Speaker 3: of the West, and stuff was like not so fast
Speaker 3: basically like Steff single handedly was like not so fast
Speaker 3: and kind of willed that into existence.
Speaker 2: And I could definitely see.
Speaker 3: Yokic having a run like that, like a not so
Speaker 3: fast I'm still a Nigali Jokic type run.
Speaker 1: So I love that and I felt for that too,
Speaker 1: Like I ended up picking Dallas and that wasn't Conference
Speaker 1: final series. That was wrong. I learned my lesson because
Speaker 1: I ended up picking them over Boston, but the same.
Speaker 3: They beat the breaks off the Phoenix Suns, who were
Speaker 3: like the best team in basketball with a bullet.
Speaker 2: All year long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a para call.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, yeah, Like that's the thing. It's like, actually,
Speaker 1: you just put really good role players around one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the league, and they're just still
Speaker 1: really difficult to beat four times out of seven. And
Speaker 1: so I think I think too, Like I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on that Yolks jump shot. I was
Speaker 1: screaming from the mountaintops all year. I'm like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: Jokic can't shoot. I don't know what's going on, but
Speaker 1: like this is different than last year. And every Nuggets
Speaker 1: fan was like, no, it's not a big deal, it's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. He's fine, he's fine, he's fine.
Speaker 1: Ended up being a big thing, and so like, we'll
Speaker 1: keep an eye on that and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: But I lean at this point in time, I leaned
Speaker 1: slightly towards Denver. So one last topic that I wanted
Speaker 1: to hit sure, and this one I think is fascinating
Speaker 1: in light of the Karl Anthony Towns trade.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: General managers voted that the rule that most needs to
Speaker 1: change was apron rules slash trade math too restrictive or
Speaker 1: should be indexed to a team's market. Do you agree
Speaker 1: that we've gotten too restrictive with team building?
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, absolutely, But it's their fault. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think I texted you about this earlier, but I
Speaker 3: was like, it's like the hot dog meme or it's
Speaker 3: like we're all looking for the guy who did this. Like,
Speaker 3: let's put it very plainly. NBA owners want to spend
Speaker 3: as little money as possible to get the best possible result.
Speaker 2: They are capitalists at their core.
Speaker 3: That's how they got to the position where they could
Speaker 3: own an NBA team, And they don't want to have.
Speaker 2: To compete with the Joe Lacobs of the world.
Speaker 3: They want to spend as little money as possible, so
Speaker 3: they've been looking for a way to put a hard
Speaker 3: cap on salaries and circumvent that for years. This is
Speaker 3: what they've been after, This is what they've wanted. They
Speaker 3: basically did it. They basically somehow convinced the players' association
Speaker 3: to agree to this, which like CJ. McCollum, you will
Speaker 3: pay for your sins, Like how did this ever happen?
Speaker 3: But like they got the NBA players association to agree
Speaker 3: to essentially a hard cap.
Speaker 2: That's what it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can call it aprons to confuse people
Speaker 3: and make it seem kind of obtuse, but it's just like,
Speaker 3: you're only allowed to spend so much money on your team,
Speaker 3: and there are really punitive outcomes if you go over
Speaker 3: that that make it basically impossible to get better. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think they're absolutely correct that it's really
Speaker 3: restrictive and it was a horrible idea, but it was
Speaker 3: their horrible idea, so they're gonna have to deal with
Speaker 3: the consequences of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's so funny to me because like
Speaker 1: the as as is the case with so many bad
Speaker 1: decisions that get made in society, Like a lot of
Speaker 1: times there's like a good kind of like motivator behind
Speaker 1: the decision, but then the actual tactic that they go
Speaker 1: about doesn't accomplish that purpose. Like, yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: make it so that these big market teams can't just
Speaker 1: buy their way to a title, right, that I totally understand.
Speaker 1: But like, we just saw a small market team in
Speaker 1: Minnesota trade away a player that was home drafted and
Speaker 1: homegrown simply even though it did not like here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Julius Randall and Dante Devencenzo might make the Minnesota Timberwolves better. Like,
Speaker 1: there is upside. I'm not I'm not keyed in on that,
Speaker 1: but there is upside there. But they took a massive risk.
Speaker 1: There's a chance that their team is worse, and I
Speaker 1: know that their front office is aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that there is a chance that their team is worse,
Speaker 1: and they traded away a homegrown, home drafted superstar because
Speaker 1: they can't afford it. Yeah, that's that a small market
Speaker 1: team just did that. Yeah, So that is the reality
Speaker 1: of how this whole process has come to fruition with
Speaker 1: the behaviors of these teams. Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics are like,
Speaker 1: we got all these super expensive players. Hell, we'll just
Speaker 1: sell the team and let some super rich dudes come
Speaker 1: in here and pay this payroll. So and who knows
Speaker 1: if it ends up being some you know, one of
Speaker 1: these crazy billionaires that ends up being able to foot
Speaker 1: the bill for it. But it's like it ended up
Speaker 1: not solving the problem. And here's the thing, Like this,
Speaker 1: all they need to do, in my opinion, is take
Speaker 1: the time to make sure through these rules that teams
Speaker 1: can afford to keep their own homegrown players exactly. It's
Speaker 1: really not any more complicated than that to me. So,
Speaker 1: like there are different things you'd have to account for, right, So,
Speaker 1: like let's say, for instance, a team makes an aggressive
Speaker 1: trade for a player that's on the last year of
Speaker 1: a deal that's discounted where they can match salaries easily,
Speaker 1: but then they get the players birds right bird rights
Speaker 1: and they can extend them or whatever. There are different
Speaker 1: You just need to add constraints to where any team
Speaker 1: can easily go over the cap anytime to sign that
Speaker 1: they drafted, like that, plain and simple, that that needs
Speaker 1: to be accounted for. Yeah, Like outside of that, totally
Speaker 1: understand the restrictions. Like, but like there's no version of
Speaker 1: this where Oklahoma City should have to just literally get
Speaker 1: rid of players simply because it's impossible to pay all
Speaker 1: these players that they drafted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or try and get convinced guys to sign for
Speaker 3: less than their worth to stay in a situation that
Speaker 3: they like and stay loyal to a team because you're
Speaker 3: all so disincentivizing players from staying on one team. Because
Speaker 3: you take in Isaiah Hartenstein, for example, who had a
Speaker 3: huge breakout season with the Knicks, wanted to stay with
Speaker 3: the Knicks.
Speaker 2: The Knicks quite frankly, could not afford to keep him.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City could pay.
Speaker 3: Him more than the Knicks could, even though the Knicks
Speaker 3: wanted to keep them and they would have matched if
Speaker 3: they could have, but they couldn't.
Speaker 2: Make that make sense.
Speaker 3: And then these are the same people who are complaining like, oh,
Speaker 3: players just hop around, they're not loyal to teams anymore.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, if there's a ten million dollar
Speaker 3: difference per year, it's pretty prudent to go move to
Speaker 3: Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: So I think there's multiple things wrong.
Speaker 3: The main thing that's wrong is what you address, which
Speaker 3: is that there has to be some sort of exception
Speaker 3: for if a player was drafted by an organization or
Speaker 3: if they've spent a certain number of years with an
Speaker 3: organization like that needs to be incentivized.
Speaker 2: They need to be incentivized to keep homegrown players.
Speaker 3: And I also think there should be something in there
Speaker 3: where players have a reason or are.
Speaker 2: Incentivized to stay.
Speaker 3: You know. So, like I think something I've always thought
Speaker 3: would be cool was I know this would be complicated
Speaker 3: because you would have to safeguard players from teams like
Speaker 3: keeping them right up until the point where this would
Speaker 3: happen and then trading them away. So there would have
Speaker 3: to be some sort of safeguard there. But if they
Speaker 3: could get equity in a team if they spent a
Speaker 3: certain number of years of service with the team. So
Speaker 3: it's like, if you've played for a team for ten
Speaker 3: fifteen years, you should then get equity in the team
Speaker 3: in addition to your yearly salary.
Speaker 2: And that would.
Speaker 3: Incentivize guys to have careers like Steph Curry or like Dirk. Again,
Speaker 3: you'd have to safeguard against these owners having incentive to
Speaker 3: trade a guy away after fourteen.
Speaker 2: Years of service or after nine years of service.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like I've always thought the league would be
Speaker 3: better on both sides if players were incentivized and if
Speaker 3: teams were incentivized to just keep the same guys, because
Speaker 3: a lot of what we get compelled by and a
Speaker 3: lot of the storylines that we love in the postseason
Speaker 3: are battles that happened year after year, and like rivalries,
Speaker 3: and it's really like rivalries don't hit the same if
Speaker 3: the teams look different every year. So but you can't
Speaker 3: expect guys to just stay on teams if a you're
Speaker 3: making it impossible with a hard cap, or be if
Speaker 3: they can make way more money somewhere else, or if
Speaker 3: they're unhappy in their situation.
Speaker 2: So I think that's something that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 3: And I appreciate that Adam Silver has been something of
Speaker 3: a maverick and his tenure about trying new things, But
Speaker 3: I think sometimes the new things he's trying are more
Speaker 3: pie in the sky like flashy things versus like just
Speaker 3: really like nuts and bolts, things that need to be
Speaker 3: fixed to make the league better in ways that are
Speaker 3: maybe a little less glamorous than like an nd season tournament.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, when we when we talk about like TV
Speaker 1: ratings and like the long term health of the league,
Speaker 1: I think one of the most underdiscussed elements of it
Speaker 1: is regional fan bases. And you know, I sympathize with
Speaker 1: player empowerment. I totally get it. Like if in corporate America,
Speaker 1: if you like, if you have a talent in a
Speaker 1: specific field, generally speaking, you can find a company in
Speaker 1: a part of the country that you want to work
Speaker 1: and you can go there. Obviously, though there are certain
Speaker 1: companies that require you to go to certain places, but
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of flexibility, and it kind of
Speaker 1: sucks that like that a player that you could reach
Speaker 1: the peak of your profession and be stuck in you know, Memphis,
Speaker 1: you know, or something like that. Like I understand that,
Speaker 1: I sympathize with it. I just think that it's important
Speaker 1: to have the nuance in the conversation to say there
Speaker 1: is fallout, and that fallout is so much player and
Speaker 1: roster turnover that local fan bases aren't as invested as
Speaker 1: they typically are, and there isn't that like love that
Speaker 1: builds for the core right, Like the Warriors' fan base
Speaker 1: is big and ravenous, partially because they've won a lot,
Speaker 1: but also because they've kind of had the same core
Speaker 1: players forever until you know, until this year exactly. They
Speaker 1: build like a certain it builds like in like a
Speaker 1: resonance locally when you have that sort of thing, And
Speaker 1: like part of me wants to be like, hey, like, guys,
Speaker 1: if we put a little bit more restriction on player movement, yes,
Speaker 1: you guys will lose some of that freedom, But I
Speaker 1: believe in five to ten years the league will benefit
Speaker 1: with more revenue by virtue of better viewership, which will
Speaker 1: lead to you guys all making more money and at
Speaker 1: least kind of have that conversation, and to your point,
Speaker 1: just add incentives make it incentivize. So like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can leave if you want to, but you're gonna make
Speaker 1: less money. No different than if you choose to work
Speaker 1: for a specific company to live in a certain place,
Speaker 1: they may not be able to pay as much as
Speaker 1: Google does. Whoever, it is, right, And then as far
Speaker 1: as like the actual CBA rules go, it's complicated. I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, Like what you and I are
Speaker 1: talking about is not a thing that can be solved
Speaker 1: in a two minute conversation, right, Like for instance, like
Speaker 1: one of the things that I would bring up is like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you can pay your own draft picks. What about
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is hoarding damn draft picks? Cause like, at
Speaker 1: a certain point, a first round pick would become super
Speaker 1: valuable in a trade. If that first round pick also
Speaker 1: was a player, I could pay as much as I
Speaker 1: wanted without any repercussions in the on the salary cap sheet.
Speaker 1: So like, there's a lot of different loopholes that have
Speaker 1: to be closed, Like it probably would have to be
Speaker 1: literally only your draft picks, like your team's original draft
Speaker 1: picks that you can pay. Yeah, that like, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: want to like, how do you quantify something like Okay,
Speaker 1: I brought in this role player and he's been here
Speaker 1: five years, Like, I really prefer to not lose him.
Speaker 1: He's a fan favorite, you know that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Bottom line is, but you can't have is a small
Speaker 1: market team ditching a hometown superstar that they drafted and
Speaker 1: is literally like just an integral part of that franchise
Speaker 1: simply because they can't afford to pay him. Right after
Speaker 1: they made a Western Conference Finals run and every Wolves
Speaker 1: fan wanted to see them run it back.
Speaker 3: I mean to be clear, it's broken. It is, It's
Speaker 3: very broken. I would say the elephant in the room
Speaker 3: is that the Rudy Gobert trade is a huge reason
Speaker 3: why they had to make that choice. Then if they
Speaker 3: had I still think that's a bad trade, but it
Speaker 3: was really a question of they had on the books.
Speaker 3: Nasried is going to get paid a lot of money
Speaker 3: and he deserves it. Rudy Gobert is already earning an
Speaker 3: incredible amount of money and Karl Anthony Town's on a
Speaker 3: max contract as well, and they can't afford to keep
Speaker 3: all three, and they could get more for Carl on
Speaker 3: the trade market than they could for Rudy Gobert, and
Speaker 3: that was the bargain that they made. But like if
Speaker 3: they hadn't traded for Rudy Gobert, who knows where they
Speaker 3: would be. But they definitely could have kept Carl Town.
Speaker 3: So was that's part of it. But yeah, I would say,
Speaker 3: like to me, years of service. I think just rewarding
Speaker 3: that for the team and rewarding it for the player
Speaker 3: fixes a lot of things on both ends. You just
Speaker 3: want to reward teams for being the kind of place
Speaker 3: someone wants to stay, and you want to reward a
Speaker 3: player for being loyal and staying with a team. That
Speaker 3: would benefit everybody greatly. Everybody would make more money, every
Speaker 3: fan would have more fun.
Speaker 2: It's just so clear.
Speaker 3: And the only thing they've done in the past few
Speaker 3: years is make that harder to do. So it boggles
Speaker 3: the mind. That's the theme of this episode. Mind boddeling
Speaker 3: things exactly.
Speaker 1: To the point that you made earlier in the show.
Speaker 1: I would I would imagine the front offices that have
Speaker 1: lots of people that actually watch the games are going
Speaker 1: to make a certain amount of you know, high quality
Speaker 1: decisions that are going to lead to because good basketball
Speaker 1: players cost money. They just do yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: inevitable that like a front office that drafts well is
Speaker 1: going to have a fat payroll, and that's something that
Speaker 1: they need to be able to account for. But it
Speaker 1: is what it is. Claire, tell us about where we
Speaker 1: can find you and your work.
Speaker 2: You can find me.
Speaker 3: I write for The Guardian about the NBA and I
Speaker 3: also just yell into the void about it on Twitter
Speaker 3: slash x at Claire mpls.
Speaker 1: So either way, well, I sincerely appreciate you coming on
Speaker 1: the show today. That was fun, lots of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: to get to with the GM survey. Guys, that's all
Speaker 1: we have for today. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Speaker 1: We'll be back for one more week of preseason basketball
Speaker 1: before we get into the real thing. I will see
Speaker 1: you guys on Monday.
Speaker 2: The volume.
Speaker 3: What's Up?
Speaker 1: Guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and
Speaker 1: supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for
Speaker 1: us if you guys would take a second and leave
Speaker 1: a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute
Speaker 1: to do that, I'd really appreciate it.