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Speaker 1: welcome to Lakers Tonight, presented by Famdual. Here at the
Speaker 1: ball you Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope you all had
Speaker 1: a great weekend. I got out and played some golf
Speaker 1: yesterday for the first time in about a half year.
Speaker 1: That went about as you could have expected. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a sport like golf before, where like you grow
Speaker 1: up and you're playing sports, and like, if you're playing
Speaker 1: poorly or you're struggling, the answer is to play harder.
Speaker 1: And golf could not be a war sport for you
Speaker 1: to try to play harder, and that's just when things
Speaker 1: start to get disastrous. But I had fun getting out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually looking forward to summer. I'm getting all
Speaker 1: of the cold weather. I'm very excited to talk some
Speaker 1: NBA basketball today. The Lakers are done. It's over, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a little bit of a miniature eulogy
Speaker 1: for them today, but we're not gonna dwell on them
Speaker 1: for too long. We had an incredible showdown between Luca
Speaker 1: don Chich and Janis Antenna Kopo in Milwaukee between the
Speaker 1: MAVs and the Bucks. We're gonna break that game down
Speaker 1: in its entirely, in its entirety, and for those of
Speaker 1: you guys who stick around for the end, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the Brooklyn Nets, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring my guy Carson on to get into some
Speaker 1: other stories around the NBA, But let's start with the Lakers.
Speaker 1: That game today was frustrating for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 1: That came out with this incredible intense effort, right and
Speaker 1: all you Laker fans you see right through that, because
Speaker 1: we've seen it all season, this incredible catastrophic loss for
Speaker 1: whatever reason leading to all of this due in gloom negativity,
Speaker 1: and then they almost always come out with like a
Speaker 1: weird intense energy in the next game, like a denial
Speaker 1: type of energy, but it's it's so fake because it's
Speaker 1: not there when it actually has an opportunity to to
Speaker 1: actually facilitate some sort of change in outcomes. That same
Speaker 1: effort is not there when the when the Lakers desperately
Speaker 1: need it. Instead, it comes when it's too late, Too little,
Speaker 1: too late. Is kind of a theme for the season.
Speaker 1: Like I said in the show the other day, it's
Speaker 1: a theme that I I've seen consistently with the with
Speaker 1: this Laker team, they have tried all season long to
Speaker 1: tell us exactly who they are and what they're made of,
Speaker 1: what their championship character is. And the outlier examples have
Speaker 1: been the bits where the effort is sharp. The outlier
Speaker 1: examples have been when they've gone down kicking and screaming
Speaker 1: rather than laying down. Those are the outliers. The far
Speaker 1: more common scenario has been a lack of attention to detail,
Speaker 1: a lack of intensity to go with all of the
Speaker 1: self sabotage that we laid out in detail in Friday show.
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, you've got a little bit of a
Speaker 1: second half lead. I think they were up by seven
Speaker 1: at one point in that third quarter, but you knew
Speaker 1: what was gonna happen. I was talking with my producers
Speaker 1: during the halftime show and we were like, what's the
Speaker 1: over under for points allowed by the Lakers in the
Speaker 1: second half, and we put it at sixty three and
Speaker 1: a half, just kind of having fun with the guys talking,
Speaker 1: and they gave up sixty seven, and they gave up
Speaker 1: sixty four in the second half the other day against
Speaker 1: the Pelicans. When the chips are down and this team
Speaker 1: actually needs to get stops, they can't. Why Because it's
Speaker 1: hard to get stops in the NBA, regardless of your personnel.
Speaker 1: There's a level of of effort and focus, but there's
Speaker 1: also a level of like habits and instincts, and you
Speaker 1: have to build those. We talked about this with the
Speaker 1: Memphis Grizzlies the other day. The reason why the Grizzlies
Speaker 1: are defending so well is because from the top down, culturally,
Speaker 1: within the franchise, there is an expectation to do your
Speaker 1: job within the defensive responsibilities of the team. So regardless
Speaker 1: of whether one guy's in or one guy's out, Jaren
Speaker 1: Jackson out doesn't matter. Jaren Jackson's been like Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: for that team doesn't matter. They without him, they're still
Speaker 1: getting stops. It's because culturally they have built that out
Speaker 1: as part of the team, and that's that culture did
Speaker 1: used to exist with the Lakers and the first two
Speaker 1: years of the Lebron and a D era. That's why
Speaker 1: when Anthony Davis went out, they did get a ton
Speaker 1: of stops. But this season it's been utterly gone, and
Speaker 1: that's been a huge part of why when the chips
Speaker 1: are down and they actually need to get stops, they
Speaker 1: haven't been able to. And then the Russ A d
Speaker 1: pairing is an interesting pairing for a couple of different reasons.
Speaker 1: We saw this a lot early in the season when
Speaker 1: they lost those two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1: You saw them immediately put um Lou Dort on Russell
Speaker 1: Westbrook and you saw them put uh. I can't remember
Speaker 1: who it was that they put a big, strong forward
Speaker 1: on Anthony Davis and uh, they just switched the screens
Speaker 1: every time. And because those guys were quicker than because
Speaker 1: lu Dort Russell Westber could not bully him physically, and
Speaker 1: because Anthony Davis doesn't have a quick first step, turned
Speaker 1: him both into jump shooters and they just couldn't create
Speaker 1: shots at the end of the game. And so that
Speaker 1: was the reason why I wasn't optimistic even when the
Speaker 1: score looked good today is because you knew at any
Speaker 1: given moment, Denver was gonna lock it, and as soon
Speaker 1: as they did, what was inevitably going to happen is
Speaker 1: they weren't going to be able to get stops because
Speaker 1: they're not a disciplined defensive team, and they wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to score because Russ puts up numbers. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Russ here in a minute.
Speaker 1: Russ is gonna put up his numbers, but on key
Speaker 1: possessions and important moments of games. He's a guard that's
Speaker 1: very limited, and so if you can take away his
Speaker 1: ability to just get straight line drives to the basket,
Speaker 1: you can he doesn't really have a counter and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: you can turn him into a guy who has to
Speaker 1: shoot over the top. So I didn't believe, even when
Speaker 1: this game was competitive, that they had much of a
Speaker 1: chance to win. And that's just the reality of their situation.
Speaker 1: It kind of felt like a waste to have Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis out there. He's in the first quarter looking amazing,
Speaker 1: because Anthony Davis isn't a amazing basketball player. He's out
Speaker 1: there in the first quarter, subs out of the game,
Speaker 1: and he's got his shoe off on the sideline. Throughout
Speaker 1: the entire second half, he's limping around on the floor,
Speaker 1: and I and and I again. I admire Anthony Davis's
Speaker 1: competitiveness for wanting to be out there with this guys,
Speaker 1: for wanting to try. I admire that. But it's time.
Speaker 1: It's time to acknowledge the writing on the wall. I
Speaker 1: understand Lebron James has to play in two more games
Speaker 1: to qualify for the scoring title. I've talked about this
Speaker 1: in detail on the show. I have no issue with
Speaker 1: Lebron playing in those two games. This guy is a
Speaker 1: proven winner in this league. If he wants to establish statistical,
Speaker 1: you know, markers for his career, I don't have any
Speaker 1: problem with that. Get Lebron Is two games in, get
Speaker 1: him out, get Anthony Davis out. There's absolutely no point
Speaker 1: in having them out there with these injuries to the
Speaker 1: extent that it could risk something further, Because what's your
Speaker 1: worst case scenario now. Worst case scenario now is you
Speaker 1: lose the rest of of games this season, you missed
Speaker 1: the playing tournament, tournament entirely, entire in its entirety, and
Speaker 1: you go into the off season. Then what happens Leron
Speaker 1: and A D get healthy, so May and June they
Speaker 1: get to rest up. Then all summer long they get
Speaker 1: to work on their games. Meanwhile, the Lakers have an
Speaker 1: opportunity with their front office in ownership group to try
Speaker 1: to turn over the roster, get rid of as much
Speaker 1: of that negativity that's been plaguing this team, and try
Speaker 1: to reset for next year. And then you go into
Speaker 1: training camp in October and it's a fresh start and
Speaker 1: maybe you can undo the damage that you did this
Speaker 1: year to the reputation of franchise and all of the
Speaker 1: bad taste that you put in the in the in
Speaker 1: the mouth of the fans this year. That's what you
Speaker 1: can do. That's the worst case scenario if if you
Speaker 1: get these guys out of the lineup, but making Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis play with a bad wheel, having Lebron play more
Speaker 1: than the two games he wants to play to get
Speaker 1: his scoring title on a bad wheel, that is it's
Speaker 1: a dangerous risk. And we talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: on the show, like like you know, it's with Derrick
Speaker 1: Rose in two thousand twelve, the underlying story to the
Speaker 1: A C. L Terror was he was dealing with a
Speaker 1: bunch of foot and ankle stuff all season. You have
Speaker 1: a power line in your body when you explode and
Speaker 1: when you land on the ground, you have to absorb
Speaker 1: impact and you do that with your whole body. And
Speaker 1: so when one part of your body is hurting for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, you start to compensate by putting pressure on
Speaker 1: other parts of your body. And that's where other more
Speaker 1: serious injuries can happen. So again, if you if if
Speaker 1: this team, like if this team had a realistic path
Speaker 1: to try to make something happen, then by all means,
Speaker 1: I get it. That's that's where that's where it's about
Speaker 1: pushing your chips in the middle and going for it.
Speaker 1: But ever since that Pelicans game, when we saw Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel just throw in the trash everything that he learned
Speaker 1: about what this team was good at and what this
Speaker 1: team was bad at, I'm not gonna get into that
Speaker 1: again because I went into it at length on Friday night.
Speaker 1: But Frank Vogel killed my belief in this team on
Speaker 1: Friday night, and I believe the same thing happened to Lebron.
Speaker 1: That's why he decided not to play. But at this point,
Speaker 1: acknowledge that that light of the tunnel no longer exists,
Speaker 1: and understand that there's more risk than there is reward
Speaker 1: having those guys out there. I admire Anthony Davis for
Speaker 1: what he did today. I just don't see the point
Speaker 1: anymore here. It's time to get him out of the lineup.
Speaker 1: It's time to get Lebron his two games that he needs.
Speaker 1: Those are great, great if you're looking for great betting opportunities.
Speaker 1: Lebron's next two games, bet his over on the points
Speaker 1: because he's gonna go out there and he's going to
Speaker 1: gun to score. It'll be really interesting to see which
Speaker 1: games he plays in. I don't see the point in
Speaker 1: playing him against Phoenix. Maybe Oklahoma City, maybe Denver. It'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see which games he plays in. But
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna get his last two in and
Speaker 1: then he's gonna be done. So as far as like
Speaker 1: a eulogy goes for the Lakers, I want to get
Speaker 1: into this in a lot of detail at some point,
Speaker 1: probably this off season, or maybe if we run into
Speaker 1: a little break at some point, but I want to
Speaker 1: you know, I've got to meet a lot of Lakers
Speaker 1: fans during my time covering this team. And uh one
Speaker 1: of him in particular, Deminrangula, good friend of mine. He
Speaker 1: used to blog for Silver Screen and Roll. Now he's
Speaker 1: more of just like a figurehead within the Laker fan base,
Speaker 1: and I've appreciated his honesty this season with the way
Speaker 1: that he's covered the team. There's a lot of like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like apology, a lot of apologists
Speaker 1: out there that are Lakers fans. And I don't have
Speaker 1: any issue with people who are apologists. It's just to me,
Speaker 1: it's it's not authentic, and I'm always drawn to people
Speaker 1: who are more authentic, people that are more willing to
Speaker 1: call things the way they see him. He wrote an
Speaker 1: article this morning. He broke out of writing retirement and
Speaker 1: wrote an article this morning talking about how this was
Speaker 1: basically his least favorite Lakers team that he's ever rooted for,
Speaker 1: and in it, he talked about how the Laker franchise
Speaker 1: in general is obsessed with star power and when they're
Speaker 1: making their decisions, and it extends all the way from
Speaker 1: the top down. It's very frequently not about what uh
Speaker 1: what qualifications a person has or what the specific job needs,
Speaker 1: but it's rather more of like a parochial like we're
Speaker 1: we're friends, or we're family, or we have a loyalty
Speaker 1: to you for one reason or another. It's a really
Speaker 1: strange dynamic that surrounds the franchise, and in a weird way,
Speaker 1: it has poisoned everything that they've tried to accomplish in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. Look down the roster, like
Speaker 1: your look down the the organization. You've got Genie Buss,
Speaker 1: who's literally an owner who inherited the franchise, right. And
Speaker 1: then you go to Rob Polinka, your president of basketball Operations.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who literally was given the job
Speaker 1: because he was Kobe's agent. He's far and away one
Speaker 1: of the bottom probably a bottom third GM in the
Speaker 1: league in terms of his willingness to put in the work,
Speaker 1: is willing to willingness to dive into the weeds of
Speaker 1: scouting talent around the NBA, watching tons of NBA basketball
Speaker 1: so that you understand what's working and what's not working
Speaker 1: that's not his strength of his. And then going down
Speaker 1: to the coaching staff, you've got Frank Vogel, who's literally
Speaker 1: in the job because they weren't willing to pay the
Speaker 1: better coach, which was Tylu And he's still in the
Speaker 1: job right now. The only reason they didn't fire him,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is because they're not wanting to pay
Speaker 1: him and he's under contract, which will be a whole
Speaker 1: other thing that they're gonna have to deal with this offseason.
Speaker 1: But it extends down the roster instead of looking at
Speaker 1: how you won the title in which was Lebron James
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis playing at the peak of their powers with
Speaker 1: really high quality role players around, and these role players
Speaker 1: were filling very specific responsibilities that needed to be filled
Speaker 1: around Lebron James and Anthony Davis. But instead of acknowledging that,
Speaker 1: which they basically fell backwards into. They wanted Kawhi Leonard.
Speaker 1: Now Kawhi Leonards so good that it might have worked
Speaker 1: out anyway, but they felt they kind of fell asked
Speaker 1: backwards into the right role players in two thousand twenty.
Speaker 1: But ever since then, all they've done is undo that
Speaker 1: because of their obsession with that star power, with that familiarity.
Speaker 1: It's not find a good three and D guy to
Speaker 1: come into play role. It's former Laker Trevor is Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not find a a player that allows
Speaker 1: you to facilitate more Lebron and a D at the
Speaker 1: four five lineups. Instead, it's here comes to White Howard again,
Speaker 1: because we remember he was on a team that we
Speaker 1: used to have when we won the title. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of here's Avery Bradley, here's familiarity, here's older veteran players,
Speaker 1: guys that we have this, this, this you know, sentimental
Speaker 1: attachment to Carmelo Anthony. I talked a lot about him
Speaker 1: on Twitter today because he hasn't shot the ball well
Speaker 1: basically for the last two thirds of the season, and
Speaker 1: with all of the issues that you have with him defensively,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't make sense for him to be on
Speaker 1: the court. But if you really trim all the fat
Speaker 1: and you look back and you see that they have
Speaker 1: these two core pieces and Lebron James and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: that are still very much the right core pieces that
Speaker 1: you want if you're gonna try to win a championship.
Speaker 1: But everything around that, those decisions are being made with
Speaker 1: the wrong priorities. They're being made with the prior pies
Speaker 1: of star power and familiarity, in nepotism and all of
Speaker 1: those things that I just talked about that has to
Speaker 1: be killed. You guys have to go check out Demand's article.
Speaker 1: I tweeted it out earlier. You can find it if
Speaker 1: you scroll down. I loved his authenticity there. I love
Speaker 1: the way that he painted a very accurate picture in
Speaker 1: my opinion of the way that this this is a
Speaker 1: top down poisoning of this franchise. And it's really discouraging
Speaker 1: to me because as we look into the into the future,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a half dozen gms in the
Speaker 1: NBA that if I gave them the Lakers this offseason,
Speaker 1: I would feel utterly and supremely confident that they could
Speaker 1: restore what happened in That's Hot Yugerie for example. That's
Speaker 1: Hot Eugeria had the keys to the Lakers this summer.
Speaker 1: I believe they would win the championship next season if
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis stayed healthy. That's how doable
Speaker 1: this is. But Laker fans, do you feel like it
Speaker 1: can be done with Rob Polinka? Do you feel like
Speaker 1: it can be done with Genie Buss? Do you? I don't.
Speaker 1: I know it can be done, but chances are if
Speaker 1: I told you one of two scenarios was gonna go on,
Speaker 1: that they were gonna learn from their mistakes and do
Speaker 1: everything that they needed to do to restore the type
Speaker 1: of vibe and culture around the Lakers, or if they
Speaker 1: were going to continue to make the same types of
Speaker 1: mistakes of nepotism and familiarity and cheapness and all of
Speaker 1: those things. Which of those two scenarios do you think
Speaker 1: is more likely? It's probably the latter. And so that's discouraging.
Speaker 1: And I feel really bad for Laker fans for that
Speaker 1: in that respect, And and and this entire season has
Speaker 1: just been a just unending line of self sabotage and
Speaker 1: and I don't blame Lakers fans for being frustrated. Before
Speaker 1: we move on to the Lakers, I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about Russell Westbrook for a second, because he's actually playing
Speaker 1: okay as of over the last month or so. And
Speaker 1: you know, Carson had surprised me with the postgame quote
Speaker 1: in the Friday Show, and I talked about how, like,
Speaker 1: I don't blame the Laker fans for being upset because
Speaker 1: Russ has sucked this year. And it's a really strong word.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, like Russ doesn't suck at basketball
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. When I say that, I'm just authentically
Speaker 1: reacting to a quote that frustrates me in the moment,
Speaker 1: like it's annoying to me, Russ that you continue to
Speaker 1: point the finger at Laker fans. It's not their fault,
Speaker 1: it's yours that things are the way that they are.
Speaker 1: But in terms of where Russ does actually suck quote unquote,
Speaker 1: and forget about the strong word in terms of Russ
Speaker 1: not living up to potential, it all has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that when you put into context what
Speaker 1: he makes in his salary, what the goal of the
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook trade was, and what they brought in Russ
Speaker 1: to do, and how the results have looked, you have
Speaker 1: not lived up to that. It has been a catastrophic failure.
Speaker 1: And more often than not, I have in Russ fans
Speaker 1: are are arguably the most national fan base that I've
Speaker 1: ever come into contact with. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: many reasons why I'm so excited for this experiment to
Speaker 1: be over. The Russ fans will always show you here's
Speaker 1: an amazing donkey had, Here's an amazing box score that
Speaker 1: he had. Here's the game where he went thirteen from
Speaker 1: from nineteen from the field and he made three out
Speaker 1: of five threes, and he had thirty points, eleven rebounds,
Speaker 1: and nine assists, And they always point to those sorts
Speaker 1: of things as these like gotcha moments, as recovering Russ
Speaker 1: and and it bothers me because I would hope that
Speaker 1: at this point we would be above that level of
Speaker 1: analysis when we're when we're when we're taking a closer
Speaker 1: look at basketball players in the way that they impact
Speaker 1: winning guys. If you want box score watching and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you gotta go somewhere else. I'm not
Speaker 1: that type of basketball now analyst. I get into the weeds.
Speaker 1: I like to. You know, I've been around the game
Speaker 1: my entire life. I live and breathe the game every day.
Speaker 1: I have a different view of it. There are thirty
Speaker 1: nine guys in the NBA right now that average over
Speaker 1: twenty points per game? Are they all superstars? Are they
Speaker 1: all amazing scorers? Or are there guys that put up
Speaker 1: stats that are less impactful than others? We'd all agree
Speaker 1: on that, right, Like do you think Zach Levine is
Speaker 1: as good as Kevin Durant because their counting stats are different,
Speaker 1: But they're not that much different, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like there's there is a whole other level to the
Speaker 1: way that we in that that a player that can
Speaker 1: that that a player can impact basketball. When I was
Speaker 1: playing at a CU my last year playing in college,
Speaker 1: uh an ai A has really weird eligibility rules. So
Speaker 1: we had a thirty one year old point guard and
Speaker 1: a twenty nine year old shooting guard. I was twenty
Speaker 1: two and I was one of the younger players on
Speaker 1: the team. The thirty one year old point guard was
Speaker 1: an incredible human being that I met. His name was
Speaker 1: Taliboo Dot you want All America. He was an All
Speaker 1: American the year that I played with him at a
Speaker 1: c U, and I'll never forget the way that he
Speaker 1: went out of his way to try to teach me
Speaker 1: while I was there about the intricacies of winning basketball games.
Speaker 1: We would play in open gyms before the season started,
Speaker 1: and I would score a lot, and I would talked
Speaker 1: ship because I was a little punk at age twenty two,
Speaker 1: and and to leave would always be like, you'd get
Speaker 1: out my case about how I wasn't seeing the bigger
Speaker 1: picture of what was happening on the court. And so
Speaker 1: what he did is he started inviting me to these
Speaker 1: private three on three runs that we would do at
Speaker 1: the school and in these three on three runs, you know,
Speaker 1: like he'd put me on his team, and then he
Speaker 1: would try to teach me about the little things that
Speaker 1: won basketball games. For instance, like if if there was
Speaker 1: a play where I I helped on a drive, but
Speaker 1: then I closed out to the three point line and
Speaker 1: chase the guy and funneled into the next help and
Speaker 1: then came up like if I did it right, he would,
Speaker 1: you know, tell me I did it right. But then
Speaker 1: like if the next possession I didn't close out or
Speaker 1: I missed the box out, he would start screaming and
Speaker 1: yelling at me, just literally ripping me a new one
Speaker 1: for blowing a responsibility. And the lesson he was trying
Speaker 1: to teach me was that winning basketball games is about
Speaker 1: so much more than making a shot, getting a dunk,
Speaker 1: blocking a shot, locking one guy up in ile ation,
Speaker 1: or all of the things that Russell Westbrook is obsessed
Speaker 1: with on the basketball court. To leave was teaching me
Speaker 1: that you won basketball games on the margins. You won
Speaker 1: basketball games by never missing a box out, by approaching
Speaker 1: every close out like it was the one that could
Speaker 1: win you or lose you the game. He and we
Speaker 1: would run a pick and roll and he would get
Speaker 1: a lay up out of it, and then on the
Speaker 1: next possession, I take a step back three and he'd
Speaker 1: starts screaming at me again, why did you go away
Speaker 1: from something that just worked? Don't make the game more
Speaker 1: complicated than it needs to be. This is how you win.
Speaker 1: You win by understanding what's working and replicating it, understanding
Speaker 1: what's not working and not replicating it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget those lessons that to leave taught me.
Speaker 1: It changed who I was as a basketball player. Those
Speaker 1: are little details that go so far beyond box scores.
Speaker 1: And what frustrates me about the Russell Westbrook experience is
Speaker 1: there's always so much focus on this is this amazing
Speaker 1: donkey had, Here's this incredible box score that he had,
Speaker 1: Here's this incredible assist that he had, or things along
Speaker 1: those lines. Russ is utterly devoid of the attention of detail,
Speaker 1: attention to detail that defines winning basketball players. And one
Speaker 1: of the most frustrating things for me this season has
Speaker 1: been me watching these games, watching them twice most of
Speaker 1: the time, and then having people try to convince me
Speaker 1: that he's actually been great when he hasn't been. And
Speaker 1: and I stand by that, and like I I'm happy
Speaker 1: that over the course of the last month he's being
Speaker 1: able to have a little bit more positive impact, so
Speaker 1: at least it's not as much of a disaster it
Speaker 1: was in the middle of the season. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of negativity surrounding that, and that got really frustrating. But
Speaker 1: that's why I'm done with the Russell Westbrook experience. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm ready for him to be somewhere else. It's
Speaker 1: simply because that disconnect between productivity that actually impacts winning
Speaker 1: basketball games and box score watching and highlight watching, that
Speaker 1: disconnect is something I'm sick of, and it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's bad for discourse and the game, and I'm just
Speaker 1: ready for it to be gone. I'm ready for him
Speaker 1: to be on a bad team somewhere where he can
Speaker 1: put up all these crazy numbers and I don't have
Speaker 1: to argue with people about whether or not it impacts winning.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm at with it. And again, like it's
Speaker 1: Russ doesn't suck at basketball. He's a very good basketball player.
Speaker 1: He's one of the foy best basketball players in the world.
Speaker 1: But he's he's vastly underachieved compared to what his contract
Speaker 1: would dictate and what the trade and what the trade
Speaker 1: needed to produce in order for this team to succeed.
Speaker 1: And I have absolutely no issue at all whatsoever with
Speaker 1: Lakers fans expressing their frustration about that. For those of
Speaker 1: you who are just joining us, this is Lakers Tonight,
Speaker 1: presented by Fandel here at the volume. We're gonna move
Speaker 1: on to the MAVs and the Bucks. This was an
Speaker 1: unbelievable basketball game and it was a case study and
Speaker 1: what makes Luca don Chich in my opinion, a top
Speaker 1: tier superstar and a player that very well, at one
Speaker 1: point in the next couple of years, could be considered
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. Talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: and after the Nets Bucks games the other game the
Speaker 1: other day. There's a difference between a overpowering, brute force
Speaker 1: basketball player and a surgical basketball player, and everybody's kind
Speaker 1: of in different spots on that spectrum, right Like Lebron
Speaker 1: is kind of in the middle. He's surgical in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, but he also has that brute force
Speaker 1: element to it. Kevin Durant is very surgical, but there's
Speaker 1: this physical tools element to him because of how tall
Speaker 1: he is and how how he could shoot over the
Speaker 1: top of people. And then you have Janice, who's very
Speaker 1: much more on the brute force side of things. He's
Speaker 1: just a complete physical freak of nature. He's not unskilled,
Speaker 1: but that's not the way that he impacts winning. He
Speaker 1: impacts the winning by use of brute force. And Luca
Speaker 1: just was an absolute savant on the court today. He
Speaker 1: was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get into some of the ways that that
Speaker 1: he dissected the Bucks offense to start that game. So
Speaker 1: there's an old there's an old saying. I can't remember
Speaker 1: if it was John would In or someone else, but
Speaker 1: there's there's a saying that coaches use all the time
Speaker 1: around the game that the ball always moves faster than
Speaker 1: a player. So no matter how athletic a team is,
Speaker 1: no matter how much of a freak Janice is, he
Speaker 1: can't move as fast as any of you guys listening
Speaker 1: could throw a basketball. The basketball moves around faster than
Speaker 1: any player can, and so that's what makes extremely gifted
Speaker 1: passers like Luka done so dangerous. I love the way
Speaker 1: he worked through the coverage progressions of the Bucks early
Speaker 1: in that game to get easy shots. So it's like
Speaker 1: first possession of the game, they're using a drop coverage.
Speaker 1: You've got Brooke Lopez under the basket. Drew Holiday chases
Speaker 1: Luca don chit over the top of the pick and roll,
Speaker 1: and Janice has helps it out at the strong side
Speaker 1: corner and kind of reaches in and and grabs Luca's arm.
Speaker 1: He just feels the arm there. It goes right up
Speaker 1: through it, draws the foul and actually makes a floater
Speaker 1: to get an hand one. Then on the next possession
Speaker 1: they actually send uh Lopez higher on the drop and
Speaker 1: Luca just easily hits a pocket pass to Dwight Powell
Speaker 1: who makes it easy swing to Dorian Phineas Smith in
Speaker 1: the corner who tacks the close out and they get
Speaker 1: it done then on the Then on the next possession
Speaker 1: they go to did Jalen Brunson and Lucas kind of
Speaker 1: sitting off the ball. Lucas just patiently waiting on the wing.
Speaker 1: He catches the ball, uses a pump fake to get
Speaker 1: Drew Holiday to chase him, gets him on his hip,
Speaker 1: works into the lane just patient enough until Brook Lopez
Speaker 1: steps up and as soon as brook Lopez steps up,
Speaker 1: there's the drop pass for Dwight Pale, there's another dunk.
Speaker 1: Then on the next pick and roll, Drew Holiday and
Speaker 1: Drew Drew Lopez or Drew Holliday gets stuck on the screen,
Speaker 1: and now Brook Lopez is on Luca on a switch
Speaker 1: and Luca just beats him off the dribble and gets
Speaker 1: a lay. So we had three completely different type of
Speaker 1: coverage scenarios where he gets a basket out of it.
Speaker 1: Then on the next time, you know, all NBA teams
Speaker 1: want to try to keep picking rolls to two on
Speaker 1: two coverage, that's the whole point of that, so you
Speaker 1: don't have to send help. But lucas killing him in
Speaker 1: two on two coverage, so they send help as soon
Speaker 1: as he sends help. I believe it is Chris middle
Speaker 1: Tune steps in boom easy swing pass, Jalen Brunson makes
Speaker 1: a three, So in the next possession they don't ring help,
Speaker 1: and so Luca just kind of methodically works his way
Speaker 1: into the lane and as soon as Drew's on his
Speaker 1: hip and as soon as Brook Lopez commits, it's a
Speaker 1: wraparound pass that hits Dwight Powell right under the basket
Speaker 1: for a dunk time out for for the Bucks, and
Speaker 1: it's fifteen and thirteen and I'm literally sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this Bucks team just got destroyed the other night.
Speaker 1: They're coming out there playing extremely hard defense. They have
Speaker 1: Jannie on the floor, they have all this athleticism, and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't matter because lucas just one step ahead
Speaker 1: of all of their coverages. He has a counter to
Speaker 1: everything that they do. It was truly amazing. And then
Speaker 1: Luca comes out of the game and they bring in
Speaker 1: Spencer Dinwoy And I've talked a lot about him on
Speaker 1: the show recently, but Spencer Dinwood, he I know, he
Speaker 1: hasn't shot the ball particularly well at all the time
Speaker 1: over the last couple of years. I cut him some
Speaker 1: slack there because anytime you're coming back from an a
Speaker 1: c L injury and it was just partial terror, but
Speaker 1: he was out for a long time, it's hard to
Speaker 1: get back into that groove. He's really playing good basketball.
Speaker 1: Blade He had three massive threes there in that third
Speaker 1: quarter that kind or second quarter that kind of restored
Speaker 1: because the Bucks actually ended up going up by I
Speaker 1: believe ten at one point, and he just made a
Speaker 1: couple of big shots that got them in the game.
Speaker 1: That Jalen Brunson, Spencer Dinwood, the ability to spell Luca
Speaker 1: Donches so that he doesn't run out of gas is
Speaker 1: what allows Luca to control those games. And then we
Speaker 1: get to crunch time and this was amazing. It's the
Speaker 1: end of the game and Lucas literally calling for Joannice
Speaker 1: on a switch. And he's been doing this a lot lately. J. J.
Speaker 1: Reddick actually talked to him about it on his podcast,
Speaker 1: this desire to call out stars on switches. He did
Speaker 1: it to Lebron, he did it this step. Even did
Speaker 1: it to KD a little bit in Brooklyn a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. But I thought I was sitting there.
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember in the in the game the
Speaker 1: Bucks Nets game the other night, how I was talking
Speaker 1: about how Janice was doing these unbelievable vicious closeouts on
Speaker 1: on Seth Curry to take away his easy opportunities, and
Speaker 1: literally like there was one where Seth Curry caught the
Speaker 1: ball in the winging and Janice was double teaming Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant and Kevin Durant through a pass to Seth Curry
Speaker 1: and Janice still chased him off the line and then
Speaker 1: Seth relocates all the way to the other wing and
Speaker 1: Janice chases him off the line. There it's these frightening
Speaker 1: clothes outs that scare shooters. Lucas saw this. He was
Speaker 1: making these passes to the week side corner and Janice
Speaker 1: was chasing guys off the line. He was able to
Speaker 1: be in two places as once at once because he's
Speaker 1: a freak talent. And so Luca starts calling on Joannice
Speaker 1: on the switches and it was so smart because he
Speaker 1: knows he can't score easily on Janice, but what he
Speaker 1: could do with the honest was get him on his hit.
Speaker 1: Luca does this move where he gets the ball in
Speaker 1: his left hand and he and he just does a
Speaker 1: hard dribble step back right. You've seen it a hundred times,
Speaker 1: but he does it out of a hesitation, so he
Speaker 1: can always default out of it. He can kind of
Speaker 1: just do that in and out holding the heavy and
Speaker 1: if you're off of him, he'll go into the shot,
Speaker 1: and if you're not off of him, he can just
Speaker 1: keep dribbling. Well, he was using that move on Jannie
Speaker 1: to get him to step up and then quick pound
Speaker 1: through the legs now honest is on his hip and
Speaker 1: Luca weighs two fifty pounds. So Luca, even though he's
Speaker 1: smaller than your honest, he is physically stout enough to
Speaker 1: kind of keep him on his hip and he would
Speaker 1: like slowly work with Joannice on his hip into the
Speaker 1: lane and then as soon as the help came, then
Speaker 1: he make the week side corner pass. Except for now
Speaker 1: Janice isn't the one closing out and bam, they got
Speaker 1: back to back massive threes in the fourth quarter, one
Speaker 1: for Reggie Bullock and one for Dorry and Phinnie Smith
Speaker 1: on that exact same type of play. And I'm literally
Speaker 1: sitting there watching this. I'm like, this guy is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's there's he's so far ahead of everything that's happening defensively,
Speaker 1: and he's so different from James Harden. Too frequently he
Speaker 1: gets compared to James Harden. I he's so different in
Speaker 1: my opinion because he's a scoring threat from every single
Speaker 1: spot on the floor rather than just a handful of
Speaker 1: specific spots that are James Harden's comfort zones. And as
Speaker 1: much as James Harden is a good pastor, James Harden
Speaker 1: is a very good passer, But Luca is that top
Speaker 1: tier type of playmaker up there with the Lebrons and
Speaker 1: the yokich Is and the CP three's of the world.
Speaker 1: There's another level to it, and his ability to make
Speaker 1: those types of reads and those types of decisions put
Speaker 1: him on an entirely different level. In my opinion, I
Speaker 1: was blown away by looking too that. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say whether or not he'll ever be the best player
Speaker 1: in the league because the league is so staffed. That's
Speaker 1: a complicated conversation. You've got Janice doing what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Who knows what's gonna happen with Yo kitchen Bead over
Speaker 1: the next couple of years. I'm not as high on
Speaker 1: them as other people, but Luca on any given night
Speaker 1: is capable about playing the best players in the world.
Speaker 1: Look at the role Janice has been on. Joannice literally
Speaker 1: just outplayed Joel Embiid for a win and outplayed Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant for a win in the last week. Unbelievable stuff
Speaker 1: from Jannice. He's at the best level he's ever been
Speaker 1: playing at and Luca was better than him today on
Speaker 1: his home floor. At the end of that game, Yannice
Speaker 1: got a bunch of points in garbage time, when the
Speaker 1: game was over, when the game was at that last
Speaker 1: time out, when the when the I think the uh,
Speaker 1: the Mavericks were by nine with about three minutes left,
Speaker 1: the only at twenty two points. And I'm not under
Speaker 1: cutting jannat by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that Luca is that type of dude. He's the
Speaker 1: type of dude that can stare cowhile ard in the
Speaker 1: face and be like, I'm better than you. And he
Speaker 1: did that in the playoffs twice. And he can do
Speaker 1: the same thing to Honest, you can do the same
Speaker 1: thing to Lebron. He can do the same thing to everybody.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean he's better. It just means that he's on
Speaker 1: that level, which gives them a puncher's chance to beat
Speaker 1: any of the guys that are at that level. Moving
Speaker 1: on to the Bucks A little bit. Part of the
Speaker 1: reason why Joanna struggled so much as something that I've
Speaker 1: been talking about a lot on the show recently. The
Speaker 1: MAVs are very good, scramble and recover type of team.
Speaker 1: They don't have great defensive personnelit We talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot on the show but they're extremely good at
Speaker 1: thriving in the chaos that comes from doubling and recovering. Right,
Speaker 1: so they whenever they find themselves in a matchup that
Speaker 1: they don't like, they just send multiple bodies at a guy.
Speaker 1: And what they did such an amazing job of with
Speaker 1: the Honest today is take away his super easy opportunities.
Speaker 1: I talked about this against the Nets and the other day.
Speaker 1: When you honest would catch the ball in single coverage
Speaker 1: and have a thin, wiry defender on him that doesn't
Speaker 1: really have any chance to to guard him, he would
Speaker 1: just quick rip through, go to the rim, get a
Speaker 1: dunk or get out and he and it was like
Speaker 1: all night long, he was getting one of those every
Speaker 1: five or six possessions. And those are more defensive breakdowns
Speaker 1: than anything else. I know that he's being guarded, but
Speaker 1: you can't guard Yanice one on one, not in space
Speaker 1: at least. And so what the the MAVs did an
Speaker 1: extremely good job of tonight is they consistently got back
Speaker 1: in transition and set their wall. But every time that
Speaker 1: Janice caught the ball, he was playing in a crowd.
Speaker 1: If he would have wanted to do his rip through
Speaker 1: to the right or to the left on Dorian Phinnias Smith.
Speaker 1: There's another defender just staying their way all game long,
Speaker 1: and as a result, you were able to take away
Speaker 1: his easy stuff. And when you take away jannice Is
Speaker 1: easy stuff, the game does get a little bit harder
Speaker 1: for him. It's not that it doesn't mean he's not
Speaker 1: a superstar. It's just the difference between him being forty
Speaker 1: plus point of game absolute superman and him looking more
Speaker 1: human is take the way zizy stuff get back in transition,
Speaker 1: build the wall, make him play in a crowd. You
Speaker 1: will make him a beatable opponent. How does Luca outplay Janice?
Speaker 1: It's not just Luca and everything that he can do
Speaker 1: with the basketball in his hands on offense, it's also
Speaker 1: Dallas in their discipline on defense and their willingness. It's
Speaker 1: hard to spread back in transition in Milwaukee, when that
Speaker 1: athletic team is flying up and down the floor, it
Speaker 1: is hard on every single possession to set dig defenders
Speaker 1: on both sides, to take away easy driving lanes, and
Speaker 1: to rotate out on the backside. It's difficult to do
Speaker 1: what they do, but they're so bought into it and
Speaker 1: they do it so well. And it was really really impressive.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what this means for Dallas. I can
Speaker 1: I go up and down with them because they have
Speaker 1: you know, their defense is a little gimmicky, and I
Speaker 1: think it's easier in these one game settings in the
Speaker 1: regular season to make up for a lack of defensive
Speaker 1: personnel with scheming, but I think it becomes infinitely harder
Speaker 1: in a postseason series when it's more of a chess match.
Speaker 1: All I know is, don't count out this Luca guy,
Speaker 1: because a lot of those same defensive problems existed against
Speaker 1: the Clippers in the last two years, and he had
Speaker 1: no problem putting that series on the break both times.
Speaker 1: So gun to my head, I look at this situation
Speaker 1: and I see Luca playing better than he's ever played,
Speaker 1: having a better defensive concept behind him than he's ever had,
Speaker 1: and another backup playmaker and spencer Dinwodie that's probably better
Speaker 1: than Jalen Bronson, but also having Jalen Brunson there as well.
Speaker 1: There's it's just a much better version of the team
Speaker 1: last year that damn near beat the l A Clippers
Speaker 1: with Khi Leonard, the same l A Clippers that without
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard made it to the conference finals. That's a
Speaker 1: significant that's a significant indicator of what this team may
Speaker 1: or may not be capable of. One last note on
Speaker 1: that game in particular, and this is on the Bucks.
Speaker 1: They have so many physical advantages, they have to find
Speaker 1: a better way to try to make them pay for that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's being a little less concerned
Speaker 1: with your transition defense and maybe crashing the glass more.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's kind of getting out of
Speaker 1: your offense to run more actions directly targeting Luca to
Speaker 1: maybe try to fatigue him a little bit. They did
Speaker 1: that a little bit in the first half with isolations
Speaker 1: with Drew Holiday, and they actually got some good stuff
Speaker 1: out of it. Maybe that's what you need to do.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit more of that and try to
Speaker 1: get Luca out of his rhythm by making him play
Speaker 1: more defense than he wants to. There, you just gotta
Speaker 1: have to find that. Those are the counters that I
Speaker 1: would go to if I was the Buck. Super interesting game, though,
Speaker 1: and I I'm really thankful that, you know, with Lebron
Speaker 1: kind of exiting this arena here in the next few years,
Speaker 1: I'm really thankful that we have an awesome new crop
Speaker 1: of stars coming up and Luca, Luca and Jannas are
Speaker 1: gonna be really fun to watch over the next few years.
Speaker 1: And I'm very thankful that Johanna didn't end up in Dallas.
Speaker 1: That was a big potential outcome there when things were
Speaker 1: getting dicey with the Bucks and signing that Supermax extension.
Speaker 1: It would have been like two seventeen Warriors, ask with
Speaker 1: the level of certainties surrounding outcomes in the NBA, if
Speaker 1: you got those two on the same team, just just
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Speaker 1: I'm doing good, buddy. That's your weekend. It was very good.
Speaker 1: I am just peachy. So, as you said, we've got
Speaker 1: a game, we're gonna talk about sort of what some
Speaker 1: reasonable playoff expectations for a few teams around the league.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, obviously you just broke
Speaker 1: down MAVs Bucks. How the MAVs were able to give
Speaker 1: you hon some trouble And we sent out a pull
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Who would you rather have over the next
Speaker 1: five years? Nice or Luca? That poll was but I'm interested,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that? Who would you take? So?
Speaker 1: I think I'd take Janice. I do think it's closer
Speaker 1: than people would think. I you know, we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about this when we were evaluating stars, uh, and
Speaker 1: it was a couple shows ago. I think, But how
Speaker 1: much circumstances matter? So, for instance, if I have a
Speaker 1: great amount of defensive athleticism and size on the interior
Speaker 1: already like and shooting, I'd prefer Luca because I feel
Speaker 1: like I can manufacture a really good defense with that group.
Speaker 1: And I think Luca. Luca is a better offensive player
Speaker 1: and he's more surgical, which is better and more reliable
Speaker 1: in the postseason. But like building from scratch, if I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm gonna get, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: easier to build around your Honest because he can do
Speaker 1: so much, and it gives me a little bit more,
Speaker 1: you know, margin for error as I'm filling around the side.
Speaker 1: So again it depends that you could you could build
Speaker 1: a team of role players around Luca. That would be
Speaker 1: a team of role players in Janice, if the role
Speaker 1: players favored and kind of catered to Lucas skill set more.
Speaker 1: But I would say, in a vacuum, I take you
Speaker 1: Honest by a certain amount, not a ton, but sixty
Speaker 1: kind of seems fair and fresh to me. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's always been sort of an interesting dynamic with Luca,
Speaker 1: is that I feel like, based on pure ability in
Speaker 1: terms of the scoring, playmaking combo, just getting into Layne,
Speaker 1: scoring from everywhere, facilitating at this age, it seems like
Speaker 1: you would have one of the highest offensive ceilings ever.
Speaker 1: But you do have a bit of that bald dominance
Speaker 1: helio centrism, and you mentioned with Janice a bit more
Speaker 1: of the versatility, but like, how great all time do
Speaker 1: you think Luca can be? There's probably some two way
Speaker 1: limitations there, but offensively, like, are we talking about a
Speaker 1: guy who could potentially be like top ten ever in
Speaker 1: that respect? Absolutely? I mean we talked about this a
Speaker 1: while back, but you can kind of see it with
Speaker 1: his shot, in the inconsistencies in his shot, especially the
Speaker 1: free throw line. Like, I think Luca is Lucas like
Speaker 1: that kid that you know that never tries at anything,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, he's better than everybody at anything.
Speaker 1: Like he's one of the most naturally gifted human beings
Speaker 1: to ever set foot on this earth. And like, I
Speaker 1: do believe there's gonna be a phase of his career
Speaker 1: where he starts to embrace the work ethic, particularly when
Speaker 1: it comes to his physique, in a way that will
Speaker 1: lead to to him having a really dominant stretch. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is, like so much of
Speaker 1: this depends on on like management, But I trust Mark,
Speaker 1: Cuban and Dallas to give him enough to be the
Speaker 1: kind of guy that's relevant long enough that he can
Speaker 1: have that type of career. Now, last last little note
Speaker 1: on that this is why it's so important for him
Speaker 1: to take care of his body. So many of these
Speaker 1: kinds of things come down to health. So many of
Speaker 1: these kinds of things has come down to little breaks
Speaker 1: along the way. And so that's part of why I
Speaker 1: hope that Luca finally soon starts taking care of his
Speaker 1: body to a greater extent because I want him to
Speaker 1: have a long career because if he does, I absolutely
Speaker 1: think I would say top five player ever is absolutely
Speaker 1: doable for him. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a
Speaker 1: fascinating question, honestly, and just a testament to obviously the
Speaker 1: kind of all time talent that does exist in the
Speaker 1: league right now. Is the game continues to evolve, all right,
Speaker 1: So it's really kind of unfathomable. All right. So the
Speaker 1: game that we have now is called expectations management. And
Speaker 1: like I said, pretty much, I'm gonna name a team,
Speaker 1: You're gonna tell me what you think would equal playoffs
Speaker 1: success for them? What's an expectation that they should be
Speaker 1: happy with in terms of what they can do this postseason.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start with the Utah Jazz. What would playoff
Speaker 1: success look like? For them? Um, that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1: I would say you know, these small markets, they operate
Speaker 1: on different wavelengths in terms of the expectations in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, Like if they made the conference finals,
Speaker 1: there's a case to be made that if you're the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz, with the type of stars that you have
Speaker 1: access to in free agency, with the way you have
Speaker 1: to build your team, that that would be a success.
Speaker 1: But in the context of everything that's happened in the
Speaker 1: last few seasons, it will be deemed a failure. So
Speaker 1: they're in the really unfortunate position where if they don't
Speaker 1: win a championship they have to blow things up, but
Speaker 1: they're also just not going to win a championship. What
Speaker 1: happened against the Warriors the other night was absolutely insane.
Speaker 1: My uh So, the Warriors switch every screen, which of
Speaker 1: course completely shut down the Jazz offense at the end
Speaker 1: of the game, especially because we talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: but they rely on small guards to create all of
Speaker 1: their isolation possessions on the perimeter for the most part,
Speaker 1: outside of Backdanovitch, and he's just not that good. And
Speaker 1: when you have a team like the Warriors that's just
Speaker 1: completely fielding lineups full of range e wings all the time.
Speaker 1: There are just gonna have a lot of success stopping
Speaker 1: them in those isolation possessions. There's this crazy clip out
Speaker 1: there that's making the rounds on Twitter today of of
Speaker 1: the Warriors making like six straight threes to turn that
Speaker 1: game around at the end yesterday. But what was interesting
Speaker 1: is there's a very easy way to beat that coverage
Speaker 1: if you have a guy like Rudy Gobert, and it's
Speaker 1: to punish the switches inside. You know, just instead of
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell being like, I'm gonna attack your big man
Speaker 1: on this switch, it's get the ball into Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: dealing with the little guy under the basket. But Cranches, uh,
Speaker 1: the Cranches is a guy that covers the Lakers, does
Speaker 1: a bunch of analytics stuff. He released some stats today
Speaker 1: that we're unbelievable. This entire season, Rudy Gobert has ten
Speaker 1: made baskets attacking switches underneath the rim, ten in seventy
Speaker 1: plus games. He just he's not any good at it.
Speaker 1: His teammates don't trust him in those scenarios. The whole
Speaker 1: situation is kind of poisoned on that front. So the
Speaker 1: inevitable thing that's gonna happen with this team, is they're
Speaker 1: gonna face some team that switches every screen. Donovan sold
Speaker 1: Mike Conley are gonna be able to create enough shots,
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert is not gonna punish teams for him switching
Speaker 1: onto a smaller player, and they're gonna lose and then
Speaker 1: they're gonna finally blow things up. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a realistic expectation is if they win a series in
Speaker 1: the first round, I would be impressed. But I think, really,
Speaker 1: I think as a team internally they're probably talking title
Speaker 1: or bust. That blow up have to be splitting up
Speaker 1: Donnie and Gobert to you, like, is there a way
Speaker 1: wherewith those two still in terms of cap they could
Speaker 1: add the kind of shooting and defense on the wings
Speaker 1: in perimeter that they need. Or does it have to
Speaker 1: be we're splitting up these two. You have to split
Speaker 1: them up, and I think it has to be Rudy
Speaker 1: if they trade Donovan to be a huge mistake. Now,
Speaker 1: there's some intel out there that says that Donovan doesn't
Speaker 1: want to stay in Utah, So like, if there's this
Speaker 1: has to be done with some sort of real serious,
Speaker 1: honest conversations with Donovan, Like, hey, dude, we're gonna blow
Speaker 1: this up. We're gonna ditch. Rudy will build this how
Speaker 1: you want to. I just need some sort of commitment
Speaker 1: that you're gonna stay and then maybe if he commits,
Speaker 1: then you can go that route. But it gets really
Speaker 1: complicated if Donovan's like, not, dude, I'm out of here
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. The reason why Rudy should be in
Speaker 1: a vacuum the guy they move is because as as
Speaker 1: much as I've defended his defense and I will defend
Speaker 1: his defense in the sense that he's not responsible for
Speaker 1: the Jazz defensive problems, he's he can guard in any
Speaker 1: type of coverage that The problem is is that for
Speaker 1: a player like that who cannot punish switches, it's not
Speaker 1: worth the max and it's tough to have that much
Speaker 1: money tied up on your payroll for a player who
Speaker 1: can't do that kind of thing. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can take screen assists to the bank for a MAX
Speaker 1: contract or dunking finishes under the basket for a MAX contract.
Speaker 1: You're better off, Like if you could get a Clint
Speaker 1: Capella type of player in there in that role you
Speaker 1: experience a drop, they're only gonna get like maybe sevent
Speaker 1: of what Rudy brings to the table, But you're gonna
Speaker 1: get if you can find a player who can do
Speaker 1: that type of thing for significantly less money, you're better
Speaker 1: off redirecting those resources just to a bigger wing or
Speaker 1: players that can defend on the perimeter and some sort
Speaker 1: of isolation player that's not a small guy, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, and I mean you mentioned the capit.
Speaker 1: Gobert is gonna be making almost forty seven million dollars
Speaker 1: in twenty six, so like there's just no flexibility there whatsoever.
Speaker 1: All right, Jason, expectations management. What does playoffs success look
Speaker 1: like for the Chicago Bulls this year? Oh, that's a
Speaker 1: really good question. In their defense, Lawns of all being
Speaker 1: out is a wrinkle. The way this team was constructed
Speaker 1: depended on this kind of force of perimeter defense from
Speaker 1: Lonzo and Alex Cruzo um simply because their stars are
Speaker 1: not defensive minded. In terms of big threes in NBA history,
Speaker 1: Levine de Rosen and uh now I'm blinking in his
Speaker 1: name usual the center. Yeah, thank you. Uh, those three
Speaker 1: guys are probably three of the three worst defenders to
Speaker 1: make up a big three in NBA. History if you had,
Speaker 1: if you had to guess, so from that standpoint, like
Speaker 1: they depend so much on guys doing the dirty work.
Speaker 1: There's a ridiculous block from Patrick Williams Yestrady. You have
Speaker 1: young talent, defensive talent around them that do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that that's exciting. But in the playoffs, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling that they're a team that's gonna be
Speaker 1: very vulnerable to scheming uh and they're gonna find ways
Speaker 1: to attack Booster which they're gonna find ways to attack
Speaker 1: De Rosen into into attack Leavin. Now, I would say
Speaker 1: if they won a playoff series at all, that would
Speaker 1: be a massive success, especially if you look at the
Speaker 1: recency or the recent years in what they've accomplished as
Speaker 1: a franchise. The Chicago Bulls that said, I would you
Speaker 1: pick them over any of those top four seeds? I wouldn't. No,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't either. Do you think there's value in what
Speaker 1: they've put together this year? And like keep together this
Speaker 1: core because there was so much skepticism initially and then
Speaker 1: there was so much excitement. But now if you just
Speaker 1: settle in to this, you know, five seed range, Like,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts? Did they make the right move
Speaker 1: going and putting together this core I think so I
Speaker 1: I'm always going to be a defender of teams that
Speaker 1: go for it, you know, just because I hate loser attitudes,
Speaker 1: you know. But like the reason, the case for why
Speaker 1: this was smart is the development of younger players. You
Speaker 1: you have to look at this like like Levine and
Speaker 1: DeRozan aren't going to be declining anytime soon. Vossovic is
Speaker 1: what he is, but if Patrick Williams can make a leap,
Speaker 1: especially on offense, Alex Caruso makes significant offensive improvement each
Speaker 1: year because he's already a great defensive player, but he's
Speaker 1: each year he gets a little bit better and pick
Speaker 1: and roll a little bit better. Shooting the basketball. He
Speaker 1: had a year with the Lakers last year where he
Speaker 1: shot from three. He's obviously he's had an injury derailed
Speaker 1: season this year, but like Alonso, kind of is what
Speaker 1: he is at this point. But Alonzo has some weakness,
Speaker 1: especially finishing around the basket. If the the cases, Kobe
Speaker 1: White obviously as well as a bench guard the cases,
Speaker 1: those guys all getting better. And what that means for
Speaker 1: around those three, you know, and what you don't want
Speaker 1: to have is like a situation where you're only dealing
Speaker 1: with young town. That's what's been killing the Pelicans for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's what makes the c. J. McCollum
Speaker 1: trade so smart. You get in a veteran, proven good
Speaker 1: player alongside the young players, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: have a more feasible product. That's the way I look
Speaker 1: at it is you you brought in de ros and
Speaker 1: Levine has turned into a legitimate star. You get those
Speaker 1: guys in with young talent that has a lot of upside.
Speaker 1: The the angle is is over the course of the
Speaker 1: next few years, you might become more relevant. And then,
Speaker 1: as we know in the NBA, all it takes is
Speaker 1: a key injury here or key matchup there, and suddenly
Speaker 1: you're in the conference finals and now it's all about like,
Speaker 1: who knows what can happen? You can win the series.
Speaker 1: So I I I'm I'm very I'm very pro what
Speaker 1: Chicago did you just have change your expectations. They're not
Speaker 1: the Lakers. They are not gonna be able to sign
Speaker 1: these huge, big name guys, so they have to go
Speaker 1: about it in a different way. And I'm totally fine
Speaker 1: with the way they went about it. Right all right. Well,
Speaker 1: we talked a bit about this team on Friday and
Speaker 1: dove a little bit into what their playoff expectation might be.
Speaker 1: But Jason, what does playoff success look like this year
Speaker 1: for the Memphis Grizzlies. They're good enough to win the title.
Speaker 1: In the locker room, I'm sure they're talking about how
Speaker 1: their goal is to win the title. But I mean,
Speaker 1: if we look at NBA history at young teams like
Speaker 1: this that go on runs, young cores that go on runs,
Speaker 1: Think like the Golden State Warriors in two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: against the Spurs, Think like Katie Russ and James Harden
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve. Um even the Chicago Bulls in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven to a certain extent, although they were
Speaker 1: derailed by Derrick Rose's knee injury. Like having when we
Speaker 1: sing a couple of playoffs series and being in the
Speaker 1: Conference finals, getting that type of experience and that type
Speaker 1: of thing is a massive success in my opinion, especially
Speaker 1: when you look with that particular team, like Jaren Jackson Jr.
Speaker 1: Is going right now. He's all brute force and young exuberants.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a point where Jaren Jackson Jr. Kind
Speaker 1: of picks up some of that better and savvy and
Speaker 1: plays the game at a slower pace and it's better
Speaker 1: at making reads. That's gonna be a really good player.
Speaker 1: John Morant, I think right now he's a streaky three
Speaker 1: point shooter. And that's one of the things that could
Speaker 1: end up derailing them in a postseason series is if
Speaker 1: he gets cold and a team goes full San Antonio
Speaker 1: spurs and goes underneath every screen at the blow the
Speaker 1: free throw line, and it's like, dude, you gotta make threes,
Speaker 1: and he goes cold, that could end up beating him.
Speaker 1: But his shot profile, his mechanics, the way he shoots
Speaker 1: at the free throw line, Like I see John Morant
Speaker 1: as a guy that in the long run, is gonna
Speaker 1: be a very good perimeter shooter. And then Desmond Band
Speaker 1: kind of is what he is at this point. But
Speaker 1: like they've got other exciting young players on their team
Speaker 1: as well. So like the way I look at it,
Speaker 1: like play understand the long game and understand that this
Speaker 1: season isn't what it's all worth. But I understand that
Speaker 1: in the locker room they have championship expectations and they
Speaker 1: should because they're capable. But if they win. If they
Speaker 1: win a playoff series and take and take like a
Speaker 1: Phoenix to six games in the conference finals and lose,
Speaker 1: I would view that as a resounding success. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: seems reasonable to me. I mean, obviously, so young the window,
Speaker 1: you would think it's still pretty long from here, and
Speaker 1: the sun's tough to expect for really anybody out west
Speaker 1: to beat them at this point. I would say, all right, Jason,
Speaker 1: what does playoff success look like for the Philadelphia seventies
Speaker 1: sixers this year? Title or bus man with with Joel
Speaker 1: Embiide and his ego, how much should he talks? The
Speaker 1: way he's been a dominant player throughout the regular season,
Speaker 1: James Harden and everything that surrounds him, the way he
Speaker 1: knuked his way out of Brooklyn, everything Daryl Morrity gave
Speaker 1: up to get him. They have a rem arkable set
Speaker 1: of role players around them. Tobias Harris. Yes, he's overpaid,
Speaker 1: but that's a great wing to have out there, that's
Speaker 1: guarding and attacking mismatches and attacking close outs, knocking down
Speaker 1: spot of three is Tyres Maxie is like a very
Speaker 1: one of the better young guards that we have in
Speaker 1: the league. Um, you know, Andre Drummond is an awesome
Speaker 1: backup center and all that they actually lost him, I
Speaker 1: should take that back. DeAndre Jordan is I actually don't
Speaker 1: understand why they played DeAndre Jordan at all. Like that's
Speaker 1: been the one little uh a little you know, endorphin
Speaker 1: rush for Lakers fans is getting to see somebody else
Speaker 1: have to deal with the DeAndre Jordan problem. But if
Speaker 1: you look at Tyres Maxie and Danny Green and Tobias Harris,
Speaker 1: and you know they they have George's Niang shooting from
Speaker 1: three this year is like a six nine kind of
Speaker 1: range e type of forward. They have a really good
Speaker 1: set of role players and two really good stars. There's
Speaker 1: no reason in the world why they shouldn't be in
Speaker 1: the finals this year, if not winning the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But I don't think they will because of all the
Speaker 1: reasons we've broken down on the show this year, and
Speaker 1: most of them having to do with James Harden's decline.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like this team had, this team absolutely should
Speaker 1: be held to a championship or bus expectation. That's how
Speaker 1: much talent they have. How far do they have to
Speaker 1: go for Doc to keep his job? Oh man, it
Speaker 1: depends on who they lose to and how like if
Speaker 1: they get to the conference finals and they lose to
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and it's a six or seven games series, that's
Speaker 1: one thing people will talk themselves into that not being
Speaker 1: the issue. I find Doc to be more of a
Speaker 1: figurehead than anything else at this point. I think there
Speaker 1: are younger, more forward thinking coaches in the league right now.
Speaker 1: He's kind of reminds me of Frank Vogel in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Like if you put him around the
Speaker 1: perfect roster that caters to his philosophy and the way
Speaker 1: that he likes to coach, he can be a great coach.
Speaker 1: But if things kind of get out of that, then
Speaker 1: he's not very He's not malleable enough, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So if anything, if you're if you're six or s
Speaker 1: and if there's one silver lining in them having an
Speaker 1: early flame out, it might get you to lose Doc
Speaker 1: and then maybe maybe they won't sign James hard into
Speaker 1: that super Max and get off some of that money,
Speaker 1: or do some sort of sign and trade or something
Speaker 1: to try to recoup some assets. But yeah, it'll it'll
Speaker 1: be really interesting to see. I I I would say
Speaker 1: that if they had an admirable showing even if they
Speaker 1: won the title, they'd keep him. But I would say
Speaker 1: that he's not the right coach for this team. All right,
Speaker 1: last team here and maybe the toughest one on this list,
Speaker 1: just because we haven't seen them in what in the
Speaker 1: form that we expected before the year, and we still
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what their roster is gonna look like
Speaker 1: in terms of healthcome playoffs. But Jason, what does playoff
Speaker 1: success look like for the Denver Nuggets this year? Denver Nuggets,
Speaker 1: They're gonna They're gonna lose in the first round. I
Speaker 1: think they're almost guaranteed to end up as the sixth seed,
Speaker 1: which would likely have them playing Dallas. Dallas, they're gimmicky
Speaker 1: defensive coverages with doubling and rotating are actually kind of
Speaker 1: something that is an interesting challenge for Nicola yokich Um.
Speaker 1: If there's one player on the planet who could solve them,
Speaker 1: it be him. But for all the reasons that I
Speaker 1: broke down earlier, I think Dallas will win. My thing
Speaker 1: is like I don't think they can win, and their
Speaker 1: expectations should be that this is not the standards. You
Speaker 1: should hold him too, because you don't have Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: you don't have Michael Porter Jr. Things along those lines.
Speaker 1: My thing though, is like, at what point do we
Speaker 1: start to factor in this stuff with Yokich in the
Speaker 1: way we evaluate him compared to the rest of the league.
Speaker 1: There's so much like Yoki is the best player in
Speaker 1: the world talk around, but the team has been kinda
Speaker 1: like if he over the course of the last couple
Speaker 1: of months and like they lost in the second round
Speaker 1: of Phoenix last year. I suppose it's impressive that he
Speaker 1: beat that garbage Portland team team, but like, if there
Speaker 1: was Lebron James and his prime, would you pick him
Speaker 1: with that Denver roster over the over that Dallas team.
Speaker 1: I would if there was like Kevin Durant and his
Speaker 1: prime or Janice at his peak with that Denver Nuggets team,
Speaker 1: you probably give them a puncher's chance to maybe get
Speaker 1: out of the conference. Like that's how you view those
Speaker 1: guys at the peak of their powers. But I don't
Speaker 1: feel like Yoki has a even like even a chance
Speaker 1: to get out of the West this year, And that
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of is like if if I
Speaker 1: don't feel like Yoka has a chance to do that,
Speaker 1: then why is he in the conversation for the best
Speaker 1: players in the world, if that makes sense, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So I think that. I mean, it's been a pretty
Speaker 1: remarkable floor raising job by him this year, and just
Speaker 1: to maintain that level of scoring and playmaking, production and efficiency.
Speaker 1: So what do you think is the limitation there with
Speaker 1: Yokich that's you know, making you feel that way he's
Speaker 1: specifically targetable in playoff series is on a couple of
Speaker 1: different levels. Um, he's slow and plotting and operates around
Speaker 1: the basket, so you can beat him in transition. That's
Speaker 1: something that, like in a one game setting, is hard
Speaker 1: to account for because on one night a team might
Speaker 1: just be playing with high energy on their home floor
Speaker 1: and be flying up and down the floor. You know,
Speaker 1: one team might have a game plan specifically to attack it.
Speaker 1: In a playoff series, it will be deliberately and intentionally attacked.
Speaker 1: Teams will try to run on them. And then on
Speaker 1: the defensive end, we talked about this a lot. Kudos
Speaker 1: to Yoki to turning himself into a functional drop coverage center,
Speaker 1: but got one dimensional defensive centers like that are actually
Speaker 1: very easy to attack in a playoff series when you
Speaker 1: can scheme around it. So too like everything that we
Speaker 1: did say when we were slandering Rudy Gobert over the
Speaker 1: course of the last few years that was kind of inaccurate,
Speaker 1: actually is true. As it pertains to Nicola Yokits. When
Speaker 1: people see him under the basket, they're not really scared
Speaker 1: to try to finish around him. He doesn't guard on
Speaker 1: the perimeter well at all. He does guard too low
Speaker 1: on the screen, and his drop coverage in guards that
Speaker 1: are good at getting defenders pinned on screens, and guards
Speaker 1: that are comfortable in the mid range are very comfortable
Speaker 1: shooting over the top of your kitchen his drop coverage,
Speaker 1: so like there are a lot of very specific ways
Speaker 1: that he can be attacked, you know, whereas in even
Speaker 1: with him on the offensive end as well, there's kind
Speaker 1: of like a style that he plays that works. But
Speaker 1: it's not like he's an overly versatile type of offensive player.
Speaker 1: That's that's why you would give like a Lebron James
Speaker 1: and two thousand eighteen, Like if I could take two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen Lebron and drop him on this Nuggets team,
Speaker 1: with all the different ways that he can play as
Speaker 1: a post player, as a perimeter initiator, as a pick
Speaker 1: and roll guy attacking isolations and are attacking mismatches in isolation.
Speaker 1: He's immune to to transition issues. He can be a
Speaker 1: dominant perimeter defensive player and a dominant back line defensive
Speaker 1: player like he. There's just a bunch of different elements
Speaker 1: and versatilities to to those guys games that I think
Speaker 1: makes them more equipped for this kind of thing. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying like Yo kich is in a weird way,
Speaker 1: kind of like a the individual player version of the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz. Like, I don't want to to to ignore
Speaker 1: the results. The results are what they are, and they've
Speaker 1: had some success. They had a big win against the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets in the bubble, you know, coming from behind.
Speaker 1: But I mean that could arguably have been a choke
Speaker 1: job from the Clippers too, depending on how you look
Speaker 1: at it. So I don't want to undercut everything that
Speaker 1: he's done. I'm just saying that, Like, those are the
Speaker 1: reasons why I don't put him on the same level
Speaker 1: as those guys at the top. Right, I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in your kitch in terms of I think the
Speaker 1: all time offensive value. But I think you make very
Speaker 1: fair points with the rigidity defensively and like you talk
Speaker 1: about in a playoff context last year against the Suns,
Speaker 1: where he's dropping every time even if the screen is
Speaker 1: set like eighteen feet out and it just lay up
Speaker 1: mid range jumpers for CPN book like you, it's a
Speaker 1: very fair point. You don't have that kind of weaknesses
Speaker 1: with your lebrons or what have you. All Right, Well
Speaker 1: that's all I got for now, Jason. But we do
Speaker 1: have a couple of bonus takes, one of which I
Speaker 1: think is probably gonna get you a little fired up
Speaker 1: after you talk nets, so I will see you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're bringing you back after That's all right, It
Speaker 1: sounds like a plan. Yeah. And and one last thing
Speaker 1: on the Yokis thing like I'm not you guys know me,
Speaker 1: I'm not stubborn about this stuff. Like if if I
Speaker 1: see Yokich holding his own in perimeter switches in the
Speaker 1: playoffs and coming higher on ball screens to disrupt these
Speaker 1: guys and showing a ton of offensive versatility, and if
Speaker 1: he you know, beats that Dallas matter Like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna like keep slandering your kids or keep like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm always reacting to the new information as it
Speaker 1: comes just from what I've seen from Yoki to this
Speaker 1: point in his playoff career, in his regular season career,
Speaker 1: I would I just don't think he's quite as good
Speaker 1: as those other guys. Alright, guys, we're gonna see Carson
Speaker 1: in just a minute. We're gonna come back to the
Speaker 1: our topic of surrounding the Brooklyn Nets. So they lost
Speaker 1: to Atlanta yesterday. Katie was amazing a couple of pieces
Speaker 1: of context. Bruce Brown was out, Seth Curry were was out.
Speaker 1: Those are two very important starters on a couple of
Speaker 1: specific levels. But then next the plus five of their
Speaker 1: last nine games, and in that span their eighteenth in
Speaker 1: defense and their a leventh in offense, which is really
Speaker 1: disappointing because like I told you guys, in the stretch
Speaker 1: before that, they've shown this these flashes of like all
Speaker 1: world offensive potential, like best offense I've ever seen, type
Speaker 1: of potential in the early stretches there when Kyrie and
Speaker 1: Katie were both on the floor together, and like you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's there's some similarities to the Lakers, and
Speaker 1: then some clear dissimilarities from the Lakers because they're over
Speaker 1: five hundred and the Lakers are like fifteen sixteen games
Speaker 1: below five hundred. So I'm not trying to compare them
Speaker 1: in terms of like the Lakers are an absolute dumpster fire.
Speaker 1: That's a whole other issue, but some of the similarities
Speaker 1: there are, Like you'll see the Nets go into Philly
Speaker 1: and Kyrie will sit in a defensive stance all night
Speaker 1: and make James Harden's life a living hell. And then
Speaker 1: they'll go home and the Charlotte Hornets will come into
Speaker 1: town and they won't guard at all, and they'll give
Speaker 1: up like a hundred thirty something points and lose and
Speaker 1: get punked on their home floor when they're dealing with
Speaker 1: issues in the standings, And so that kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the Lakers with their inconsistent effort. I think.
Speaker 1: I think the Brooklyn Nets are a switch flipping team
Speaker 1: that actually has a switch to flip, whereas the Lakers
Speaker 1: were a switch flipping team who would flip the switch
Speaker 1: and then they still suck. That's like the huge difference
Speaker 1: between the two of them. But like there, I I
Speaker 1: still believe in them. My my, my faith is wavering
Speaker 1: a little bit. And the reason why I was I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this earlier today, even though the even
Speaker 1: though the Bucks lost, the reason why, like I'm leaning
Speaker 1: towards like the trend is telling me that maybe the
Speaker 1: Nets aren't the most likely team to come out of
Speaker 1: the East, and maybe it's the Bucks. And it's simply
Speaker 1: because the Bucks look very serious about their intentions to
Speaker 1: go on and run, and you can see that in
Speaker 1: a day in day out effort. They lost today again,
Speaker 1: like I said, but a lot of that had to
Speaker 1: do with Luca and execution and and they also didn't
Speaker 1: shoot the ball particularly well and from three. So like
Speaker 1: I know that they lost today, but overall, over the
Speaker 1: course of the last couple of weeks, you can see
Speaker 1: like the Bucks are getting serious about this. They're going
Speaker 1: for this every night. They there's a there's an intensity
Speaker 1: and a and a belief behind what they're doing. And
Speaker 1: you saw that behind those two incredibly impressive wins against
Speaker 1: Brooklyn and Philly last week. Brooklyn meanwhile, doesn't look serious
Speaker 1: on any given night. They're not bringing that same level
Speaker 1: the level of energy, just like I talked about. So
Speaker 1: that's the concern there. Now, what's really interesting is what's
Speaker 1: starting to happen in the standings there tied in the
Speaker 1: tent spot for Charlotte. But Charlotte is the tiebreaker and
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of games left, and who knows
Speaker 1: what could happen there. I mean, the Bucks are the
Speaker 1: Nets could very well end up getting that nine seed.
Speaker 1: But there's a very realistic chance, like firmly in the
Speaker 1: realm of possibility, that the Nets have to go on
Speaker 1: the road to win that game game and then have
Speaker 1: to go on the road to be Atlanta or Cleveland,
Speaker 1: And Atlanta is gonna be a really tough place to
Speaker 1: play in a one game elimination with an opportunity to
Speaker 1: eliminate Kevin Durant. Cleveland is gonna be a really tough
Speaker 1: place to play in a one game elimination situation with
Speaker 1: an opportunity to knock Kevin Durant. You know how much
Speaker 1: the Quicker Loans Arena has has been waiting for an
Speaker 1: opportunity to I don't even know if it's still called that,
Speaker 1: but the place where the Cleveland Cavaliers play. Who knows
Speaker 1: whether or not the that fan base has not had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to cheer for anything serious since two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: That place is gonna be a buzz saw and they're
Speaker 1: a big athletic team that plays great defense. That's something
Speaker 1: that is extremely dependable. The Nets don't have anything that's dependable.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about this. A lot jump shots
Speaker 1: go in or they don't. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: games recently whre Kevin Durant has taken and made big shots,
Speaker 1: but also examples where he's taken and made they're taken
Speaker 1: and missed big shots. Because even though Kevin Durant's the
Speaker 1: best score ever, potentially it's if he gets to his
Speaker 1: spot and gets a shot that he likes it. It
Speaker 1: might go in of the time, but that means fifty
Speaker 1: at the time, it doesn't, And they don't have those
Speaker 1: instincts and habits on defense to where that's reliable for them.
Speaker 1: That's what I was just talking about. It's kind of
Speaker 1: more of a day in, day out thing. When they
Speaker 1: have it, they have it. When they don't, they don't.
Speaker 1: And so in those one game settings, the Nets are
Speaker 1: very vulnerable through a bad shooting night, They're very vulnerable
Speaker 1: to some things not going their way. Whereas Cleveland knows,
Speaker 1: if we don't play particularly well on offense, we're still
Speaker 1: going to have a chance to win because our defense
Speaker 1: is going to lock people up. We're gonna feed off
Speaker 1: of our home crowd, our effort gonna be there, and
Speaker 1: we have established defensive habits that we can lean back
Speaker 1: on in those environments. I know Cleveland's had bad stretches
Speaker 1: of defense, but a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with Jared Allen being out or Evan Mobley being out
Speaker 1: for various reasons over the course of the season. When
Speaker 1: they have their guys out there, when they go with
Speaker 1: mobile Allen and market him in that front line, they're
Speaker 1: a devastating defensive team and they cause a lot of
Speaker 1: serious problems with their length. And so again, would you
Speaker 1: pick Brooklyn and both of those matchups. Yes, I would
Speaker 1: pick Brooklyn to go into Charlotte and win that first
Speaker 1: playing game, and then I picked them. I think Cleveland
Speaker 1: obeied Atlanta, so I picked them to go into Cleveland
Speaker 1: and beat Cleveland. I would, But it's close, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a touch and go type of thing,
Speaker 1: and that's the danger of playing this game. The Lakers
Speaker 1: played this game all season and it's gonna end up
Speaker 1: costing them a playoff birth. The Nets have played this
Speaker 1: game all season and now they're gonna end up having
Speaker 1: to win two single elimination games on the road against
Speaker 1: young and hungry athletic teams. So I there's I'm leaning
Speaker 1: towards going with the Bucks as my favorite in the
Speaker 1: East because of this recent slump for the Nets, and
Speaker 1: they're absolutely at risk of not getting an opportunity to
Speaker 1: play in a playoff series this year. Al Right, guys,
Speaker 1: before we get out of here, we're gonna bring Carson
Speaker 1: back for just a minute, YO, glad to be back.
Speaker 1: All right. So we've got a couple of things from
Speaker 1: the Twitter sphere, and the first one comes from the
Speaker 1: Honorable Calling Cowherd, related to an NBA storyline that has
Speaker 1: grabbed his attention. He says, I'll never get used to
Speaker 1: how much the NBA has normalized star missing games. Sorry,
Speaker 1: don't buy it's all injuries just shorten the regular season already.
Speaker 1: Let's get to games that matter. Jason, what do you
Speaker 1: think about that? Colin Coward is a wise man? This
Speaker 1: is actually something that I've been very passionate about for
Speaker 1: a long time, and it's just difficult to find time
Speaker 1: to talk about it during the time during the regular seasons,
Speaker 1: more of like a offseason. Type of topic in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, but it's really this simple. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lack of urgency to regular season NBA games,
Speaker 1: and NBA teams have realized that the best team usually
Speaker 1: wins in a seven game series, even if you don't
Speaker 1: have home court advantage. Most of the best players in
Speaker 1: the league thrive on the road because the growing up,
Speaker 1: they've always thrived off of the negative energy of of
Speaker 1: of road crowds, and so they like their chances in
Speaker 1: those environments. It's a big part of why Brooklyn has
Speaker 1: messed around all season. It's a big part of why
Speaker 1: they are where they're at in the standings. Team NBA
Speaker 1: teams are not scared of seating. They just aren't. NBA
Speaker 1: teams are not scared of that sort of thing. So
Speaker 1: I've I've thought long and hard about this. They rest
Speaker 1: players because they want to make sure that they are
Speaker 1: healthy in the long run, and little things like two
Speaker 1: days off here, three days off there go a long
Speaker 1: way towards recovering from a you know, knee tendonitis or
Speaker 1: an ankle sprain or a sore risk or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. But what if those things were naturally baked
Speaker 1: into the season Now, I understand shortening the season is
Speaker 1: hard because of revenue, but you can make up for
Speaker 1: that in other ways. First of all, I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in that if you can restore that urgency and
Speaker 1: if the Stars play every day, that will trickle down
Speaker 1: in revenue in a in a different way. But let's
Speaker 1: say you need that revenue and in order to convince
Speaker 1: the players in the in the owners to adopt a
Speaker 1: shorter regular season schedule. That's where things like the mid
Speaker 1: season tournament that you've heard about that have been brought up,
Speaker 1: or expanding the play in tournament things. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't mean expanding it to more teams, I mean,
Speaker 1: but maybe taking it further up to where it's like
Speaker 1: you're doing a play in tournament that's you know that
Speaker 1: that's impacting higher seeds in some capacity. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what that looks like, but they need to find a
Speaker 1: way to get NBA teams only playing three games per week.
Speaker 1: To me, that's vital. It's these two it's back to backs,
Speaker 1: the four games in five nights, the five games and
Speaker 1: seven nights or whatever, I five games at eight nights.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing is what wears down these teams.
Speaker 1: If it had more of an NFL type of field,
Speaker 1: where there was always a ton of high leverage, high
Speaker 1: high important games on Sunday and then maybe games on
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday, but everybody had Friday Saturday off, or
Speaker 1: everybody had at least a two day off stretch in
Speaker 1: every single week, then you wouldn't have as many load
Speaker 1: management nights. Why because why would you load manage a
Speaker 1: star if you know he's gonna get two days off
Speaker 1: every single week where he can rest up and there
Speaker 1: is there are no back to backs in that scenario,
Speaker 1: I think you'd have to shorten the season down to
Speaker 1: about sixty six games to pull this off. But I'm
Speaker 1: a huge believer in shortening the season, and I don't
Speaker 1: buy the excuse that will cost them money. Even if
Speaker 1: if it costs them money in the short run, you
Speaker 1: have to think about the long term success of the
Speaker 1: league and restoring urgency and taking away some of the
Speaker 1: health concerns is the easiest path to getting stars back
Speaker 1: into the game, and Colin is right. There have been
Speaker 1: a ridiculous amount of nationally televised games and things along
Speaker 1: those lines that have been ruined this year by stars
Speaker 1: missing games. It is a huge problem. I don't care
Speaker 1: if there's eighty two games if this ours are playing
Speaker 1: at them. M hmm, yeah, big boss Man Colin right
Speaker 1: on the money there, and I think you're totally right
Speaker 1: in terms of improving the quality of the product. The
Speaker 1: one sticking point for me is always as a nerd
Speaker 1: of the history of the game, not having the a
Speaker 1: two game seasons, how that impacts totals. That that bothers
Speaker 1: me a little bit, but I think that it is
Speaker 1: outweighed by the night Tonight benefit. What do you think, Like,
Speaker 1: does that matter to you at all? I I understand
Speaker 1: the thought process there. The reason why it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to me is the game's always changing, Like how how
Speaker 1: has the three point shot effected scoring relative to early guys?
Speaker 1: Like if Kareem played today, he's definitely shooting threes because
Speaker 1: he's one of the best players ever. He's probably gonna
Speaker 1: work on threes, you know, like the were we we
Speaker 1: count Bill Russell is an eleven time champion, and the
Speaker 1: dude won all those championships and in a league that
Speaker 1: had eight teams, like even even Michael Jordan's with the
Speaker 1: six titles he won came during the era of expansion
Speaker 1: when the league was kind of watered down with talent,
Speaker 1: and it was just easy to put together a dominant
Speaker 1: basketball team in that era if you could get a
Speaker 1: handful of good players, just because the talent was all
Speaker 1: spread out. So, like, the league is just inherently different.
Speaker 1: And I I like Seth Curry. Steph Curry has the
Speaker 1: NBA three point record and he's gonna hold it for
Speaker 1: a long time. But it's a record that's almost guaranteed
Speaker 1: to break because in the early stretches of Steph's career,
Speaker 1: he didn't attempt as many threes as he's attempting. Now
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some guy that comes in the league
Speaker 1: it attempts like fourteen threes per game for like eighteen years,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna break that record. So, like, as much
Speaker 1: as I agree with you, I'm a huge buff, like
Speaker 1: historian buff when it comes to the NBA as well.
Speaker 1: I read books about that stuff. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to do in my free time. But like,
Speaker 1: I think you have to acknowledge that the league just
Speaker 1: changes as time goes on. Alright, well, Jason, we cannot
Speaker 1: wrap up today without sending you out the door with
Speaker 1: just an egregious Russ. Well, it's about Russ comes from
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel, all right. Here it is, He's doing everything
Speaker 1: he can. I'm proud of Russ. How does that make
Speaker 1: you feel, Jason? It's kid gloves man. The way that
Speaker 1: the whole thing that came down centering around the death
Speaker 1: threats and the tweets that the wife that Russ's wife
Speaker 1: put out that one day, kind of it all was
Speaker 1: part of this like larger mission to twist the narrative
Speaker 1: around what happened to Russ into making him a victim.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get into the weeds too
Speaker 1: much there because it's something that I disagree with. The
Speaker 1: stuff that Russ deals with as an NBA star is
Speaker 1: identical to the stuff that every other nbas NBA star
Speaker 1: deals with. The differences is that Russ actively makes it
Speaker 1: worse on himself with the things that he says. And
Speaker 1: here you go, like Frank Vogel, It's like he Frank
Speaker 1: Vogel is gonna handle him with kid gloves because Russ
Speaker 1: has made it clear that he thinks he's a victim
Speaker 1: and every but at this point too, it's like there's
Speaker 1: no point in continuing to burn that bridge when you
Speaker 1: know you're trading him this offseason anyway, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But I I just I just get frustrated
Speaker 1: because it's like there's not enough being real about what's
Speaker 1: going on with Russ, and the reality of what's going
Speaker 1: on with Russ is he's got a ton of apologists
Speaker 1: that always point to his box score numbers, but the
Speaker 1: reality is that he's had a bad season and the
Speaker 1: trade absolutely decimated the team of talent. It was an
Speaker 1: utter disaster. And while he has played poorly, all he's
Speaker 1: done is further play into the fact that he's a
Speaker 1: victim and that it's not his fault. There's been no
Speaker 1: accepting a personal responsibility, and and I think the whole
Speaker 1: situation just kind of bothers me. Like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: just ready for it to be over. What I would
Speaker 1: love to see is we know that Lebron is the
Speaker 1: master of some of the you know, understated slights and
Speaker 1: some of the manipulation with media and whatnot. I would
Speaker 1: love to hear him just once, maybe after the season,
Speaker 1: slip in a West brick. You know, it doesn't seem intentional,
Speaker 1: it slips one in there because the experiment is now over.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's all I got for you. Figured we
Speaker 1: would fuel the fire a little bit there. Alright, Carson,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you may we'll see you next time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I am really curious to see what happens
Speaker 1: over the course of then this summer, just some of
Speaker 1: the details that come out. You know, just you saw
Speaker 1: all the leaks that came out around the All Star break.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a disastrous version of that. And also,
Speaker 1: Lebron loves to stay the center of attention. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if a bunch of leaks come from him
Speaker 1: during the playoff run. It'll be like Janice has forty
Speaker 1: two and gained three of his conference finals. But here
Speaker 1: comes a report from you know, through the grape vine
Speaker 1: that Lebron's piste off about this or that. Like that's
Speaker 1: just kind of classic Lebron stuff too. Al Right, guys,
Speaker 1: that's all we have for tonight. We will be back
Speaker 1: Tuesday after the Lakers Sons game. As always, we appreciate
Speaker 1: your support and we will see you guys in a
Speaker 1: couple of days. The volume