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Speaker 2: welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody.
Speaker 2: Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week.
Speaker 2: The guys from Nerd Sech, Mister Logan Camden, and Carson
Speaker 2: Breber are joining the show today. We're gonna break down five,
Speaker 2: I've toss up questions around the NBA. We're gonna have
Speaker 2: some fun today. You guys are the joke for we
Speaker 2: get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I
Speaker 2: mean a lot to me if you guys auld scroll
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Speaker 2: Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you
Speaker 2: guys don't miss show announcements or the film threads that
Speaker 2: we do, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments.
Speaker 2: And last but not least, do me a favorite guys
Speaker 2: take a second to go over to the nerd Sess
Speaker 2: channel and give those guys a subscribe as well. They
Speaker 2: are just doing excellent content, not just covering the NBA,
Speaker 2: but covering the NFL and just basically the entire world
Speaker 2: of sports as well. These are two guys that have
Speaker 2: a great deal of respect for and I think they
Speaker 2: do an amazing job, and I think that you guys
Speaker 2: should get over there and support them. So on that note,
Speaker 2: let's go to question number one. What is more likely
Speaker 2: to happen Logan the Sun's winning a playoff series or
Speaker 2: the Suns missing the playoffs altogether.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Jason, and if you had asked
Speaker 1: me this a month ago, I would have taken a
Speaker 1: fat swing and a miss at the answer for this.
Speaker 1: I would have told you that I was all in
Speaker 1: on the Suns. I was penciling them in as my
Speaker 1: second to third favorite team out West. Not that long ago,
Speaker 1: I was very optimistic about Bradley Beal coming back. I
Speaker 1: was optimistic about these role players really buying in and
Speaker 1: reaching the new collective defensive ceiling for this team, and
Speaker 1: since then it has all fallen apart. When Bradley Beal
Speaker 1: went down again, it really deflated the Suns. It felt
Speaker 1: like it took a lot of the energy out of
Speaker 1: the building. I mean the other night, you see when
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen and Chimezi Metu were playing their tails off
Speaker 1: and Devin Booker and Kde can't pull their weight. Right now,
Speaker 1: I'd say that I think it's more likely they completely
Speaker 1: miss out on the playoffs. They're fifteen and fifteen right now,
Speaker 1: they're currently the ten seed overall on the season. They're
Speaker 1: thirteenth in offensive rating at one fifteen point seven, and
Speaker 1: they're nineteen the defensive rating at one fifteen point three,
Speaker 1: and they're just right below the league average in net rating.
Speaker 1: And I just think it's because how deep the West is, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at the teams that are below
Speaker 1: the right now, the Warriors I still think have a
Speaker 1: chance and I think will leap frog them. I think
Speaker 1: it's to be hard for them to take over teams
Speaker 1: like the Lakers, even the Rockets or Pelicans, just they're
Speaker 1: abysmal defensively, Like this is a completely unseerious team defense,
Speaker 1: and Nurkic is not the block that I thought he
Speaker 1: was on the backside. I don't think they have any
Speaker 1: positive point of attack. Guys. This is a stagnant offense
Speaker 1: that can really lull themselves into bad tendencies, settling for
Speaker 1: mid range jump shots, you know, committing a lot of turnovers,
Speaker 1: and you see the seeds are being planted now with
Speaker 1: this major drama that Kevin Durant's becoming really frustrated and ironically, guys,
Speaker 1: if you want to be optimistic about the Sun situation,
Speaker 1: we find ourselves in the same situation. The last time
Speaker 1: we talked, we were hoping that the big threes, overwhelming
Speaker 1: offensive skill talent can lead them through and that Bradley
Speaker 1: Beal coming back from an injury is going to be
Speaker 1: the answer for the Suns. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take them to win a playoff series right now,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I would probably take them to be a
Speaker 1: play in team or to comp miss out on the playoffs.
Speaker 1: I have lost all optimism about the Phoenix Suns and
Speaker 1: their title chances at this point in the season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bars pretty similarly to what you said, Logan. I
Speaker 3: think that I know that we're doing this either or situation.
Speaker 3: The most likely scenario is probably between the two. I
Speaker 3: think that they're a first round exit, But between these two,
Speaker 3: I think it is probably more likely that they missed
Speaker 3: the playoffs entirely. And you hit on a key point logan.
Speaker 3: They are just destined to be a poor team defense
Speaker 3: as a matter of roster construction. That is the reality,
Speaker 3: with or without Bradley Beal. That was the thing that
Speaker 3: we would have highlighted as their achilles heel before the season,
Speaker 3: but seeing it in practice, they are very much locked
Speaker 3: into that below average range on that side of the ball.
Speaker 3: And their problem is that they had to scrap together
Speaker 3: whatever supporting cast they could after really investing all their
Speaker 3: resources in this Big three, and so it was all
Speaker 3: about value ads who could they get with the very
Speaker 3: limited resources they had, And now they have a bunch
Speaker 3: of one way role players. They have guys like Eric
Speaker 3: Gordon and Grayson Allen who will give you positive offensive
Speaker 3: value who are shooting the whites out this season, but
Speaker 3: when that is your starting backcourt, you just don't have
Speaker 3: enough plus defenders. Nearly when those guys play together, the
Speaker 3: team has a defensive rating of one to eighteen. You
Speaker 3: cannot contend in any serious way with a line of
Speaker 3: configuration like that. And then you have the guys who
Speaker 3: theoretically should be the plus point of attack, defenders who
Speaker 3: maybe you could play alongside the starters Josh Okogi Jordan Goodwin,
Speaker 3: who are just inept offensive players. They can't knock down
Speaker 3: open shots, they're under thirty percent from three, and so
Speaker 3: you can't put those sort of incompetent offensive guys in
Speaker 3: a serious lineup if you want to contend either. And
Speaker 3: then NRK at the five is just not good enough.
Speaker 3: He's exploitable defensively, we will see him cooked out of
Speaker 3: pick and roll in big time situations. And then offensively, yes,
Speaker 3: he brings some value with rebounding and with his passing IQ,
Speaker 3: but I don't think that he's a good enough athlete
Speaker 3: to give you this sort of hyper efficient rim finishing
Speaker 3: that would be a nice dimension for this offense have.
Speaker 3: So that is the biggest problem to me, the defensive ceiling,
Speaker 3: the overall limitations of these role players, and that has
Speaker 3: led to them not being a good clutch offense. You
Speaker 3: think that with the level of difficult shot making you
Speaker 3: get from booking KD, they should always be able to
Speaker 3: guide you down the stretch in these games, but teams
Speaker 3: are able to load up on those two aggressively and
Speaker 3: force them into basically either tough jumpers or turnovers. The
Speaker 3: Suns have been twenty sixth in clutch offensive rating this year.
Speaker 3: They're twenty fourth in clutch turnover percentage. And that's where
Speaker 3: getting Bradley belback does help. When you have three legit,
Speaker 3: high level threats with the ball in their hands, three
Speaker 3: big time shot makers on and off ball, that raises
Speaker 3: their offensive ceiling a bit. Maybe that makes them a
Speaker 3: top ten offense, but it's not a cure all because,
Speaker 3: as we said before the season, there's still skill set
Speaker 3: redundancies there. You don't have a high level rim pressure.
Speaker 3: All these guys sure are capable off the ball, but
Speaker 3: they are primarily on ball creators. They've just constructed a
Speaker 3: basketball team that is overly reliant on the star players
Speaker 3: who don't fit each other well enough to offset the
Speaker 3: real limitations of the supporting cast. And of course, I
Speaker 3: don't know why we would expect Bradley Beal, or at
Speaker 3: least this entire Big three to be healthy. Biel has
Speaker 3: played fewer than fifty percent of all possible games in
Speaker 3: the last two plus seasons. And I hate to say it,
Speaker 3: but Katie's track record ever since coming back from the
Speaker 3: Achilles tear says it is quite unlikely that he stays
Speaker 3: as healthy as he has been for this entire year.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been available almost every game, and he's
Speaker 3: been playing closer to fifty percent of games over the
Speaker 3: last three regular seasons. So I'm just not encouraged by
Speaker 3: any of that. And you can ask Book to float
Speaker 3: the ship for a bit, and he's actually been a
Speaker 3: little bit better at that without KDI than Katie has
Speaker 3: been vice versa. But either way, I mean, you're not
Speaker 3: a serious threat if that's your situation. And then if
Speaker 3: they do make the playoffs, you look at who they're
Speaker 3: gonna draw in the first round. They can't beat Denver.
Speaker 3: I mean that is a team that has more consistent
Speaker 3: automatic offense as a higher defensive ceiling, has significant physical
Speaker 3: advantages in the front cocor the best player in that series,
Speaker 3: I mean, just up and down, way better supporting cast
Speaker 3: just in a totally different tiers of basketball. Team Minnesota,
Speaker 3: I think that elite defensive foundation, their physical advantages. Okse
Speaker 3: just has way more high quality basketball players. They're an
Speaker 3: elite two way team, so it's like maybe if they
Speaker 3: draw that one matchup the Clippers the Kings, then they
Speaker 3: would have a shot. But I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 3: optimistic whatsoever about this team winning a playoff series.
Speaker 2: So I don't necessarily push back on the specific basketball
Speaker 2: things that you guys have brought up. I do take
Speaker 2: a far less gloom and doom position than you guys,
Speaker 2: mainly just from the standpoint of like, I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of things that they can do a lot
Speaker 2: better with the players in house. So as you guys
Speaker 2: have talked about, offense has been a big issue for
Speaker 2: this team on that end of the floor. A couple
Speaker 2: of specific things that stand out to me. Their spot
Speaker 2: up shooting percentage has been bottom ten in the NBA,
Speaker 2: at least going into last night. Last night, they shot
Speaker 2: really well down in Houston, but that is a specific
Speaker 2: problem for them with the amount of attention that's getting
Speaker 2: thrown at Kevin Durant and Devin Booker and ball screens.
Speaker 2: I look at that as something that not just Bradley
Speaker 2: Beal could help with, but also just leaning into the
Speaker 2: right guys in their rotation two. Devin Booker just has
Speaker 2: not been playing very well as of late by his standard.
Speaker 1: Like, this is a.
Speaker 2: Guy that finished last season in the regular season hooping
Speaker 2: his ass off, went into the playoffs, was killing everybody,
Speaker 2: started this season killing everybody, and then when he came
Speaker 2: back from that last injury, he's just been a lower
Speaker 2: level player. He's gone from being the superstar Devin Booker
Speaker 2: that we expect to being kind of what he was
Speaker 2: in a few years ago, where it was just kind
Speaker 2: of like knocking on the door of that level of player.
Speaker 2: And so I expect Devin Booker to play better. One
Speaker 2: thing they did last night in Houston that I thought
Speaker 2: was really interesting is they put Kevin Durant on the
Speaker 2: ball a lot more, ran a lot more ball screens
Speaker 2: with him. They ran more ball screens with him last
Speaker 2: night in Houston than they have at any point in
Speaker 2: any game this season. They scored twenty six points on
Speaker 2: fifteen Kevin Durant pick and rolls, which is one point
Speaker 2: seven three points per possession. Kevin Durant really leaned into
Speaker 2: passing out of pick and roll That was what made
Speaker 2: them so good when he was in Brooklyn. The good
Speaker 2: stretches in Brooklyn were a heavy dose of Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: in high pick and roll, and I think that that's
Speaker 2: been an interesting direction that they haven't gone as far
Speaker 2: into this year that I think that this last night
Speaker 2: down in Houston, because here's the thing. Dylan Brooks didn't
Speaker 2: play last night, but Houston is the second best defense
Speaker 2: at home in the NBA, and it has a one
Speaker 2: to zero three defensive rating there and generally speaking has
Speaker 2: been a very good defense, and Kevin Durant has lit
Speaker 2: him on fire last night, and so I do think
Speaker 2: they can play better on offense. The other thing too,
Speaker 2: just shot diet stuff like they lean a lot into ISO.
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant's just been down as an ISO player this year,
Speaker 2: which has been part of it. They're not getting as
Speaker 2: many of the easy shots that a lot of the
Speaker 2: other teams around the league get off the strength of
Speaker 2: their defense. And then on defense, they're actually a very
Speaker 2: good rebounding team, and I think they can play better
Speaker 2: defense than they have. Kevin Durant has demonstrated in his
Speaker 2: career that he can be a deeply impactful lowman and
Speaker 2: he's straight up just hasn't been as good this year
Speaker 2: as he's capable of being. Devin Booker and Grayson Allen
Speaker 2: in particular have been really sloppy in their rotations on
Speaker 2: the weak side. I think those guys can get better.
Speaker 2: And then again, like all of this was designed to
Speaker 2: be built around the idea of the three stars playing together.
Speaker 2: Now here's the deal, Carson, Your point is completely fair,
Speaker 2: Like they are betting on Bradley Beal's health, which has
Speaker 2: been a risky bet. But if we're talking about this
Speaker 2: team and what their potential is, we need to look
Speaker 2: at it through the lens of what it could look
Speaker 2: like if they get to April and Bradley Beal is healthy,
Speaker 2: and if he is, that should help with their weak
Speaker 2: side shooting. It should help alleviate workloads so Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: can be a better lowman. It should help alleviate workloads
Speaker 2: so Devin Booker can compete more at the point of
Speaker 2: attack and in rotation. It should help with their late
Speaker 2: game issues, which a lot of that I think comes
Speaker 2: down to fatigue, because so much of their offense comes
Speaker 2: down to the same two guys doing the same thing
Speaker 2: every single time, and they just get tired and predictable
Speaker 2: by the time they get to the end of the games,
Speaker 2: so I do think they can play better. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to go with I think it's more likely that
Speaker 2: they win a series than miss the playoffs, simply because
Speaker 2: I just don't think they're going to miss the playoffs. Now,
Speaker 2: before we move on, obviously, the First Takes and all
Speaker 2: the other taking shows out there have been talking heavily
Speaker 2: about this idea of Kevin Durant and him needing to
Speaker 2: go somewhere else, or whether or not he made his
Speaker 2: own bed, and all these other things. And my question
Speaker 2: for you guys is, and we'll start with you, Carson,
Speaker 2: what is your take on Kevin Durant post Golden State
Speaker 2: in terms of just what he's prioritized as a basketball player,
Speaker 2: in the types of situations that he's put himself in.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think that he's done a very good
Speaker 3: job of selecting situations and of emphasizing the sort of
Speaker 3: big time talents who he wants to join forces with.
Speaker 3: And I think the biggest reason for that is that
Speaker 3: he has not yet joined a team that is going
Speaker 3: to be an above average defense, which is just a
Speaker 3: mandatory requirement if you want to contend the twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: Nets were twenty third in defensive rating. The next year
Speaker 3: they were nineteenth, then they were thirteenth. When he got traded,
Speaker 3: they were an okay defenses Classon had come into his
Speaker 3: own and whatnot. And then this year the Suns are
Speaker 3: eighteenth and defensive rating. And the reason for that, to me,
Speaker 3: is that he has prioritized playing with these highly skilled
Speaker 3: but small and also, by the way, extremely injury prone guards.
Speaker 3: Like we saw two and a half years of him
Speaker 3: and Kyrie, they played seventy four games together. Now we've
Speaker 3: seen him play five games with Bradley Beal. You can't
Speaker 3: really say that he would be surprised by either one
Speaker 3: of those totals, given those guys track records. And he's
Speaker 3: basically put together these big threes where you have no
Speaker 3: plus defenders and you have these very skilled perimeter shot makers.
Speaker 3: Right Like Kyrie is a basketball artist, Devin Booker has
Speaker 3: this incredible all around skill. I mean, the post game,
Speaker 3: is a guard right, the mid range, all these things
Speaker 3: that has a basketball purist I think Katie personally really
Speaker 3: values because like that's the kind of basketball that he plays.
Speaker 3: He plays beautiful basketball as a pure scorer. But then
Speaker 3: you have these gaping deficiencies where there's no consistent rim pressure.
Speaker 3: Out of those guys, you are going to be basically
Speaker 3: guaranteed to be a poor defense because of who you've prioritized,
Speaker 3: and then there's just some skill set redundancies there. So
Speaker 3: he's basically left these rosters with almost no room for
Speaker 3: real plus two way role players like Phoenix doesn't have
Speaker 3: any where. I would say, like, that guy's legitimately good
Speaker 3: on both sides of the ball. He's just gonna play
Speaker 3: his role at a really high level. Brooklyn, they had
Speaker 3: Bruce Brown, ultimately they let go. They had Nick Claxton,
Speaker 3: who again had grown into a really high level defender,
Speaker 3: and then Katie left that situation. So it just feels
Speaker 3: to me like he is sort of prioritizing hoopers just
Speaker 3: like guys whose games he admires, and not thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 3: how is this actually going to lead to championship basketball
Speaker 3: repeatedly cost him.
Speaker 1: I mean, Carson hit it on the head. It's like
Speaker 1: if you were playing a pickup game and say, you
Speaker 1: know new Set and you've never seen any of these
Speaker 1: guys before. You're it's like a one game scenario where
Speaker 1: you're gonna run full court fives with some guys in
Speaker 1: the pickup set, and then you see these guys making
Speaker 1: all these tough moves and these tough buckets, and they're
Speaker 1: crafty and they're nasty, they're hoopers. Those are the guys
Speaker 1: you're gonna pick because you're like, oh, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a game of fives. We're just getting buckets. NBA basketball
Speaker 1: is different, and I think to hand your keys over
Speaker 1: to a player and to let him construct your entire roster,
Speaker 1: and obviously he's not doing that. Top to bottom. Your
Speaker 1: GM and your guys are finding the role players, but
Speaker 1: you're letting him allocate the majority of the cap and
Speaker 1: all of the money that you would be able to
Speaker 1: put really good two way role players behind him, and
Speaker 1: you're giving it to, like you said, Carson, guys with
Speaker 1: skill set redundancies. Nobody's gonna you know, nobody's gonna doubt
Speaker 1: that the Brooklyn Nets weren't tough. Yeah, they had three
Speaker 1: of the toughest buckets ever. Nobody's gonna doubt that the
Speaker 1: Suns aren't tough. They've got three of the toughest buckets ever.
Speaker 1: But winning an NBA title and winning a pickup game
Speaker 1: or two very different things, and you need an entire
Speaker 1: roster to go and do that. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that players are the best general managers.
Speaker 1: I think it's just kind of wrong to let a
Speaker 1: guy walk into your organization and say I want this guy,
Speaker 1: this guy, and this guy. As an organization, I think
Speaker 1: you have to put your foot down at some point
Speaker 1: and say this is not the best use of our resources.
Speaker 1: We need to go and get more depth. It's not
Speaker 1: worth us putting all of these resources into just stars.
Speaker 1: That's just not how you win a title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, as is always the case with these
Speaker 2: taky topics, it's just complicated. Like, for instance, there were
Speaker 2: stretches there with the nets where they looked really good,
Speaker 2: yeah something, and it is worth mentioning. If anything. I
Speaker 2: think Kevin Durant's a victim of some bad luck here
Speaker 2: in the sense that like, but you have to factor
Speaker 2: in some of it being a risk that he took.
Speaker 2: There's a version of this story in Brooklyn where guys
Speaker 2: stay healthy and he wins a title like they were.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty one was one of the most wide open
Speaker 2: seasons that I can remember in modern NBA history. And like,
Speaker 2: I know, Kevin Durant was all like, oh yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: if my foot was behind that line. You know, I
Speaker 2: was fatigued. You know, guys were hurt. Blah blah blah. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's nice, and all you beat the fucking Hawks. You
Speaker 2: beat the Hawks. Okay, you beat the Hawks, and then
Speaker 2: you go to the finals and by then Kyrie's probably
Speaker 2: healthy again on his ankle, and you probably beat Phoenix,
Speaker 2: like I really do think they were close. And a
Speaker 2: lot of this is like a lot of this is
Speaker 2: like the winner tells the story. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: funny because like I've had I've had people NonStop all
Speaker 2: year talking to me like like, oh, I can't believe
Speaker 2: you think the Lakers are a contender. They're not a
Speaker 2: real basketball team. They have no chance of winning. And
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, what's not a brave take that
Speaker 2: that the one team that gets to hoist the trophy
Speaker 2: you get to take a victory lap because there's a
Speaker 2: twenty nine out of thirty chance that you're correct with
Speaker 2: these other with these other teams, right, Like that's is
Speaker 2: like it's really easy to go back and be like
Speaker 2: abject failure. And it's like they were this close to
Speaker 2: achieving the most difficult thing to achieve in the game
Speaker 2: of basketball, which is hoisting the Larry O'Brian Trophy. And
Speaker 2: so some of it is is a little bit like
Speaker 2: revisionist history. That said, there are some issues with that
Speaker 2: availability with Kyrie that were documented beforehand. There are some
Speaker 2: issues with availability with Bradley Beal that were documented beforehand.
Speaker 2: I really liked the focus on redundancy from Carson and
Speaker 2: I talk about this concept all the time in basketball,
Speaker 2: like everything is has nothing to do with your two
Speaker 2: k ratings, so to speak, and the individual talent of
Speaker 2: each player. Every basketball team is this is a product
Speaker 2: of the sum of its parts. And every time you
Speaker 2: add different basketball players together, there are certain things they
Speaker 2: do that compliment each other well, and there a certain
Speaker 2: things that they do that don't compliment each other well.
Speaker 2: And if we look back through NBA history, I would
Speaker 2: argue the Denver Nuggets last year are the least redundant
Speaker 2: basketball team I've ever like literally I've ever seen. You
Speaker 2: could not construct five more completely different basketball players in
Speaker 2: that starting lineup that fit together so perfectly. The Golden
Speaker 2: State Warriors, there's no redundancy there. They are all so
Speaker 2: different that twenty twenty two team, even the Milwaukee Bucks,
Speaker 2: every single one of those guys had a unique skill
Speaker 2: set that they brought to the table. The Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Lakers like it was just It is a consistent theme
Speaker 2: throughout NBA history that the teams that win at the
Speaker 2: end of the day have an assortment of different kinds
Speaker 2: of basketball players. I do think it's interesting that Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant and his desire to partner with Kyrie and James Harden,
Speaker 2: and his desire to partner with Devin Booker and Bradley
Speaker 2: Beal signifies to him that Kevin's view of the best
Speaker 2: way to win basketball games is to have this incredible
Speaker 2: amount of basketball skill on the floor and to be
Speaker 2: able to outskal people. Now, it's really easy for us
Speaker 2: to be like that doesn't work, because he came this close.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 2: That said, I would argue that my personal opinion is
Speaker 2: very how to win basketball game. It's different than that.
Speaker 2: I would like what Kevin Durant brings to the table,
Speaker 2: and then I'd like a superstar next to him that
Speaker 2: brings an entirely different skill set to the table that's
Speaker 2: great at different things, you know, and and from that standpoint,
Speaker 2: we like, even if we look back at like Lebron
Speaker 2: and Kyrie, why did that work? Because they were so different, right,
Speaker 2: they bring different things to the table, even Lebron and
Speaker 2: Anthony Davis on so many different levels, and so it
Speaker 2: just it's just to me, it's I think it's okay
Speaker 2: to point out that Kevin Durant tried to take a
Speaker 2: very alternative approach and that there are more proven methods
Speaker 2: that Kevin Durant neglected. That said, I think it's revisionist
Speaker 2: history to just say he made the wrong decisions because
Speaker 2: he came close. And we don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 2: in Phoenix yet, and I do believe that there's some
Speaker 2: potential for them to gain some steam and to make
Speaker 2: a run. So my thing is like, and Logan, you
Speaker 2: brought this up to like, you're right, players don't make
Speaker 2: a GMS. Lebron James is, in my opinion, the second
Speaker 2: best basketball player to ever touch a basketball court and
Speaker 2: arguably the smartest basketball player to ever touch a basketball court.
Speaker 2: I thought the decision to blow up all of the
Speaker 2: wing talent and athleticism they had to bring in an
Speaker 2: incredibly flawed star that everybody in the world knew is
Speaker 2: going to make the Lakers a worst team overnight, and
Speaker 2: you find out that Lebron was actively pushing for it
Speaker 2: behind the scenes. That's the same type of mistake, right.
Speaker 2: It's just we give Lebron so much more leeway because
Speaker 2: he has four freaking championships, right But and he made
Speaker 2: it to the Western Conference finals again last year. But
Speaker 2: like I think, I think Kevin Durant is getting targeted
Speaker 2: a little bit here just because it's an easy NBA
Speaker 2: storyline in the middle of the season. All right, moving on,
Speaker 2: who is a more serious title contender? The Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: Thunder or the Minnesota Timberwolves. Will start with Logan.
Speaker 1: I am amidst the YouTube video in which I'm actually
Speaker 1: working on a take similar to this. For me, it's Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and as it stands, Minnesota is my number two team
Speaker 1: out West right now. And the reason for that. Again,
Speaker 1: this is subject to change, because I think the Warriors
Speaker 1: and Lakers both need to make major trade deadline moves
Speaker 1: depending on how they reconfigure their roster. Again, they could
Speaker 1: still jump up in there. I'm skeptical about the Clippers, Sons,
Speaker 1: and Kings for two way value stuff like that, And
Speaker 1: I really believe in this defense and their ability to
Speaker 1: slow down any Western Conference foe that they run into.
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at Minnesota, the majority
Speaker 1: of the losses that they have suffered this year, it's
Speaker 1: been down to really three reasons. And again you can
Speaker 1: blanket statement these keys for a lot of NBA games,
Speaker 1: but it's been evident with Minnesota. It's Lackaday's wal turnovers,
Speaker 1: it's poor effort defensively, and it's been red hot shooting
Speaker 1: nights from their opponents. Five of the seven losses that
Speaker 1: Minnesota has suffered has been when a team has had
Speaker 1: a true shooting percentage of six sixty percent or better. Again,
Speaker 1: you can make that mostly again a blanket statement for
Speaker 1: a lot of loss of the team suffer, but it's
Speaker 1: been evident with Minnesota. The one advantage I will give
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City concretely over Minnesota at this point is their
Speaker 1: half court offense creation and their just depth of weapons offensively.
Speaker 1: I think that really could be the marginal difference in
Speaker 1: a series that you know Karl Anthony town is gonna
Speaker 1: have to pull his weight, Anthony Edwards is going to
Speaker 1: after consistently reach that superstar level, which he has done
Speaker 1: on big stages, but that's still the biggest variable here.
Speaker 1: When Oklahoma City Sgake and Evan off night and Check
Speaker 1: can take over knocking down shots getting to the rack,
Speaker 1: he's so good. Jalen Williams dropped you know, thirty six
Speaker 1: the other night. He's a ninetieth percentile isolation player this season.
Speaker 1: An isolation procession from Jalen Williams is worth one point
Speaker 1: two to four points. That's absurd. He's a seventy second
Speaker 1: percentile pick and roll ball handler like point blank. Minnesota
Speaker 1: just does not have the depth of offensive weapons that
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City does. And Oklahoma City is a damn good
Speaker 1: defense too. So I guess I'm gonna say I want
Speaker 1: to hit the pause button here because I want one
Speaker 1: more month. I think Oklahoma City and Minnesota, like Golden
Speaker 1: State in LA, need to do something at the deadline.
Speaker 1: I think the majority of teams across the league need
Speaker 1: to make a move to get marginally better at the deadline.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City finding a secondary or tertiary offensive weapon another
Speaker 1: one to put them over the top. I know both
Speaker 1: of you guys have discussed Laurie Markinen would be awesome
Speaker 1: if they could make a swing for him with their picks,
Speaker 1: and I think Minnesota needs to make another swing too
Speaker 1: to put themselves over the top to keep pace, because
Speaker 1: again I think they have the defensive personnel and the
Speaker 1: physical advantages to stifle La, to limit Denver just a
Speaker 1: little bit to open the door. But they are just
Speaker 1: in a different class offensively than Denver. Denver is in
Speaker 1: a different tier, So for me, I think Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: like Minnesota more because their defensive ceiling, but they have
Speaker 1: to make a move at the deadline. I'm shopping Kyle
Speaker 1: Anderson in aw I'm shopping Shake Milton Troy Brown junior
Speaker 1: and picks Like whatever I can whatever move I can
Speaker 1: make to get another bench piece or another option offensively
Speaker 1: to give me easy offense come playoff time is what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. But I think I'm just marginally like Minnesota
Speaker 1: more because of their defensive consistency. But Oklahoma City is
Speaker 1: a damn good contender too. I legit by into both
Speaker 1: of these teams potentially making a playoff run.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love both of these teams. I am so
Speaker 3: so high on the Thunder. I think this is as
Speaker 3: bright a future from a young team as we have
Speaker 3: seen since shocker, the thunder just over a decade heard
Speaker 3: in RUSS and KD Sam Presti man, I hope that
Speaker 3: he gets his ring because he is as brilliant a
Speaker 3: player evaluator as we have seen in this league. He
Speaker 3: just nails draft pick after draft pick after draft pick,
Speaker 3: and he makes very good value trades. But at some
Speaker 3: point you gotta put it all together and get that
Speaker 3: ring and reach the actual apex of the sport. I mean, Jason,
Speaker 3: you remember I was crazy high on chet as a prospect.
Speaker 3: I said he was the best guy who I had
Speaker 3: ever been able to really evaluate. I love I think
Speaker 3: Jalen is even underrated. Like I think he's a perennial
Speaker 3: third star. He is rarely good for a second year guy.
Speaker 3: They're awesome, but right now it's Minnesota. I think there's
Speaker 3: a few concrete reasons for that. Number one is how
Speaker 3: well they match up physically against the big elite teams
Speaker 3: in the West. I think that is going to be
Speaker 3: a very important component. Just with the way that the
Speaker 3: best teams in the league have gone. You are looking
Speaker 3: at big, athletic, strong front courts, and Minnesota is the
Speaker 3: epitome of that with their two big looks, and they're
Speaker 3: just really athletic all around, with Jade McDaniels and Anthy
Speaker 3: Edwards and Okay, see, he is very athletic, but in
Speaker 3: the front court they're slight. They're twenty ninth in rebound
Speaker 3: rate this year, and I think teams like the Nuggets
Speaker 3: the Lakers can expose that. Chid is an unbelievable pure
Speaker 3: rim protector. His timing, his length and all that, but
Speaker 3: he's not an elite rebounding five, and I just think
Speaker 3: that level of strength really presents problems for OKC on
Speaker 3: the interior, Whereas Minnesota, they have as good a formula
Speaker 3: for guarding Aniko Jolkic as anybody does in the league.
Speaker 3: Put tat on him, that's a really big body. You
Speaker 3: have Gobar there and help. They're gonna match up on
Speaker 3: the glass against anybody. I think that that matters in
Speaker 3: playoff scenarios, especially looking at the competition out west. I
Speaker 3: also think they have a depth advantage. It's good for
Speaker 3: both these teams, but they are seven deep with damn
Speaker 3: good players, and we talk about the lack of redundancies.
Speaker 3: I think Minnesota's put together a really nice, complimentary basketball team.
Speaker 3: I had offensive concerns about playing cat alongside a true five,
Speaker 3: But I think that you are looking at a lot
Speaker 3: of guys.
Speaker 4: Who fill specific roles.
Speaker 3: Go Bear as this defensive anchor, Pat as a guy
Speaker 3: who can help defend on the interior and then can
Speaker 3: do various things offensively, attacking mismatches, killing you with his shooting.
Speaker 3: Jayden is just this awesome three and D wing and
Speaker 3: is your go out there number one sort of offensive
Speaker 3: option from the perimeter. Awesome athlete. And then Conley is
Speaker 3: just this high level facilitator, smart veteran guy, gonna shoot
Speaker 3: the ball really well.
Speaker 4: So on top of.
Speaker 3: The big three they have of star level guys, they've
Speaker 3: got two really good, almost perfect role players in the
Speaker 3: starting five. And then Kyle Anderson and nas Reed are
Speaker 3: super valuable bench pieces. You just have a versatile two
Speaker 3: way guy and Anderson, and then as explosive a scoring
Speaker 3: bench big as there is in the league in nas Reed.
Speaker 3: Whereas I look at Okasee and I'm like, boy, I
Speaker 3: love case On off the bench. I love Isaiah Joe
Speaker 3: off the bench. Those guys are really good. Are they
Speaker 3: as multifaceted maybe as some of these more veteran guys
Speaker 3: who were talking about that's a question, But honestly, my
Speaker 3: concerns are maybe more with a couple of the guys
Speaker 3: in the starting five, Like as long as Josh Giddy
Speaker 3: is closing games and playing twenty five minutes a game,
Speaker 3: I think that's a problem. I just think he is
Speaker 3: not very good. And this was always my problem with
Speaker 3: him being the number six pick in the draft. He's
Speaker 3: in a player archetype that we haven't seen successful in
Speaker 3: the league ever. Like his passing is awesome, but to
Speaker 3: be a really good offensive player in the NBA today,
Speaker 3: you have to be a high level threat both as
Speaker 3: a score and a passer. And this is a guy
Speaker 3: who is a below average athlete, who has bad touch,
Speaker 3: who has a broken jump shot, who is going to
Speaker 3: be a negative defensively. I mean we're seeing it this year, right,
Speaker 3: He's given you eleven a night on fifty percent true shooting.
Speaker 3: I think he takes the offense out of rhythm. I
Speaker 3: don't think he holds defensive accountable as a spot up shooter.
Speaker 3: I think he is going to be an addition by
Speaker 3: subtraction situation if they can move off of him. And
Speaker 3: then even a guy like Lou Dort who has been
Speaker 3: awesome this year. He is shooting the hell out of
Speaker 3: the ball. I've just seen too many times from him
Speaker 3: in the past where he gets in these stretches where
Speaker 3: it's brick after brick after brick, and that can be
Speaker 3: a question of shot selection. So I don't have the
Speaker 3: same level of faith with those fourth and fifth guys
Speaker 3: that I do with the Minnesota dudes who just excel
Speaker 3: in their roles and then they are much more experienced.
Speaker 3: Mike Conley has been in multiple deep playoff runs, as
Speaker 3: has Kyle Anderson. Go Beart has been to the second
Speaker 3: round a few times, had an ant have at least
Speaker 3: been to the playoffs multiple times. Teams don't win titles
Speaker 3: when nobody on their team has real playoff experience, and
Speaker 3: that is the case for Oka. See Shay has been there, sure,
Speaker 3: but he's never been there as the guy. Lou has
Speaker 3: been in one playoff series and that's it. That's the
Speaker 3: entirety of the playoff experience on this roster in this rotation,
Speaker 3: outside of Isaiah Joe being a garbage time guy in
Speaker 3: Philly that doesn't count. There's maybe one exception historically to
Speaker 3: that rule, that being the nineteen seventy seven Blazers. Very
Speaker 3: young team, but overwhelmingly it certainly helps to have been
Speaker 3: there before, to have been in those battles, And there's
Speaker 3: a physical maturity with Minnesota along with that mental maturity.
Speaker 3: I just think they scale better to a playoff setting
Speaker 3: right now. But long term, boy, I am high on
Speaker 3: what OKAC can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that last part is literally the take that I
Speaker 2: came into this with when I was prepping this morning, Like,
Speaker 2: I think Oklahoma City is going to be awesome for
Speaker 2: a really long time. Yeah, I think they aren't going
Speaker 2: to make the mistakes they made early on with James Harden.
Speaker 4: They are.
Speaker 2: They have a lot of very specific pieces that I
Speaker 2: look at with championship contention, like diversity of shot creation,
Speaker 2: diversity of defensive scheme that they can run. They like
Speaker 2: Chet Holmgren. I think legitimately has the potential to be
Speaker 2: the best player in the world one day, like they have.
Speaker 2: They have so much upside it's not even funny. But
Speaker 2: there's just two big red flags for me, Like the
Speaker 2: Western Conference is huge on the front line and they
Speaker 2: are tiny, And everything we know about NBA history tells
Speaker 2: us that the longer you get into a playoff series,
Speaker 2: that's where physical matchups matter more and more. I know
Speaker 2: I'm in some trouble with thunderfans because I did my
Speaker 2: power rankings before the Minnesota win and I said, I
Speaker 2: don't think Oklahoma City is capable of beating Minnesota, LA
Speaker 2: or Denver four times out of seven because of the
Speaker 2: frontline seize mismatches. And then they beat the shit out
Speaker 2: of Minnesota. And of course I look silly, but genuinely speaking,
Speaker 2: when you get to the to the to the playoffs
Speaker 2: and you get into a seven game setting, the whistle
Speaker 2: gets a little tighter, it becomes a more physical game.
Speaker 2: I just am worried about them on the front line.
Speaker 2: And then that second piece of it is like, I mean,
Speaker 2: shout out to the nineteen seventy seven Blazers, but like,
Speaker 2: kids don't win in the NBA, they just don't. Sometimes
Speaker 2: kids make some noise, but kids don't win in the NBA.
Speaker 2: And when they do, it's like twenty six, twenty seven
Speaker 2: years old and they're surrounded by vets. Usually at that point,
Speaker 2: this team has not just a lack of championship experience,
Speaker 2: they have a or lack of playoff experience. I should
Speaker 2: say they have ala like a basketball experience. These are
Speaker 2: all kids, These are young, young basketball players, and so
Speaker 2: I when I look at that, those are just giant
Speaker 2: red flags for me that say, like, hey, listen to
Speaker 2: what NBA history tells you. Doesn't mean they can't win.
Speaker 2: It just means they would be beating the odds. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like and for the record, the counterpoint there
Speaker 2: is what happened with Denver last year. We have never
Speaker 2: not in recent NBA history, It had been since we
Speaker 2: saw a non defending champion, non top ten defense be
Speaker 2: able to you know, win the NBA Championship. And they
Speaker 2: won comfortably and often on the strength of their defense.
Speaker 2: So like literally it was it's it can be done.
Speaker 2: It's just I think Denver is more of the exception
Speaker 2: to the rule. And we also have to account for
Speaker 2: the fact that Jokic's best player in the world right now,
Speaker 2: and I as good as Shay is, I don't believe
Speaker 2: he is. Uh the Looking at Minnesota, they have a
Speaker 2: big red flag two that I always look at, which
Speaker 2: is they're really bad at half court offense in general,
Speaker 2: like when things get super physical, like having a bunch
Speaker 2: of guys that are capable of of of really high
Speaker 2: level close out attacking and having two really high end
Speaker 2: shot creators are really important. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: Ant's not capable of that, but that certainly is a
Speaker 2: concern for me. But to your point, Carson, they have
Speaker 2: two massive green flags, which is they have a lot
Speaker 2: of experience and they're huge. Those are just two very
Speaker 2: very important pieces to a playoff run. I don't view
Speaker 2: either of them as top tier contenders I look at
Speaker 2: I still only think Boston and Denver are capable of
Speaker 2: saying like, hey, we have like a really good chance
Speaker 2: of winning this year. I think everybody else is like,
Speaker 2: is like long shot chance pending a good trade like
Speaker 2: and where good trade could potentially vault them into that
Speaker 2: next level. But yeah, I again, it's not an anti
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City take. I have a ton of fun watching
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City. Dude. Jalen Williams was cooking the New York
Speaker 2: Knicks last night, just cooking them like he was pulling
Speaker 2: Todds Gibson out into switches and barbecuing him. He was
Speaker 2: utilizing the picking pop which at home, we're gonna getting
Speaker 2: open looks. He started picking on Julius Randolin switches like
Speaker 2: the kid is insanely good, and he's on a stretch here.
Speaker 2: Just in the last couple of weeks he's really turned
Speaker 2: up the scoring volume and efficiency last nine games Jalen
Speaker 2: Williams twenty points per game, fifty seven percent from the field,
Speaker 2: fifty three percent from three, eighty six percent from the line,
Speaker 2: and logan you mentioned is isolation numbers, which have been
Speaker 2: off the charts, Like they are freaking awesome. It's just
Speaker 2: this is not their year. I just I like, I
Speaker 2: think they'll I think they'll give somebody a really tough fight,
Speaker 2: and they'll have some moments where they win a game
Speaker 2: in Oka See and you're like, man, these guys are
Speaker 2: gonna be a problem for a long time. But just
Speaker 2: game five, Game six, Game seven, it's just gonna be
Speaker 2: the bigger, stronger teams that kind of wear them down.
Speaker 2: I know they've had some success against the bigger teams
Speaker 2: in a regular season sample, but I do think that
Speaker 2: they've probably been one of the best effort and consistency
Speaker 2: teams this year, which is obviously good.
Speaker 4: Which is like, they're like.
Speaker 2: To me, a much better version of the Memphis Grizzlies
Speaker 2: team from the last couple of years that was really
Speaker 2: good in the regular season, but I didn't. I wasn't
Speaker 2: as optimistic about their high end, long term potential. Who
Speaker 2: is more likely to win MVP this year? Luka, Doncicz
Speaker 2: or Joel andmb Carson, You're up first.
Speaker 4: I think that it's pretty clearly Joe l Embiid. Right now.
Speaker 3: He is having a historically great regular season. It goes
Speaker 3: without saying that we've never seen thirty five twelve and
Speaker 3: six on sixty five percent true shooting, unfathomable, and he
Speaker 3: has been a better player in effectively every way than
Speaker 3: the man who won MVP last year. He's shooting fifty
Speaker 3: one percent for mid range, thirty five percent from deep,
Speaker 3: so he's improved as a jump shooter. His playmaking has
Speaker 3: been much better, not just the production, but I think
Speaker 3: he's been more comfortable taking on those responsibilities, running more
Speaker 3: diverse actions as a playmaker, more handoffs at times, even
Speaker 3: handling the ball in transition and whatnot. And then I
Speaker 3: do think that he has been better dissecting double teams
Speaker 3: and whatnot. And he's the driving factor behind a top
Speaker 3: three offense and a top three defense that has just
Speaker 3: been utterly dominant when he plays of twenty five guys
Speaker 3: who protect the most shots at the rim. He has
Speaker 3: the second best opponent field goal percentage. Differentially, he holds
Speaker 3: people like thirteen percent below their typical percentage at the
Speaker 3: rim while he is putting forth these unprecedented numbers offensively.
Speaker 3: And again, the team success, which is always a major
Speaker 3: component in MVP conversations. We went almost thirty years without
Speaker 3: a guy who wasn't a top two seed winning MVP,
Speaker 3: and I understand that precedent has been broken a bit
Speaker 3: in recent years, with Russ winning as a sixth seed
Speaker 3: Yokich winning as a four seed, but it certainly still
Speaker 3: matters a lot. And Philly is twenty to five when
Speaker 3: he plays, they are one and four when he doesn't.
Speaker 3: They are a plus thirteen points for an unpossession team
Speaker 3: when he is on the floor just blowing people out.
Speaker 3: And yeah, they've had an easy schedule, but I mean again,
Speaker 3: versus last year when he was MVP, he's scoring more,
Speaker 3: shooting better, playmaking better, rebounding better, and defending better on
Speaker 3: a better team after losing James Harden and a lot
Speaker 3: of those differences are marginal, but they amount to something
Speaker 3: that's pretty significant and crazy impressive coming from the place
Speaker 3: that he was as a regular season player last year. Now,
Speaker 3: how does this all scale the postseason? That is going
Speaker 3: to be a different question. But I do feel better
Speaker 3: about him in a playoff setting as this version of himself.
Speaker 3: If he can maintain this jump shooting, if he can
Speaker 3: maintain this playmaking, Those along with health have been the
Speaker 3: biggest things that have let him down in the playoffs,
Speaker 3: and I think he's the best that we've ever seen
Speaker 3: him in at least actually all three of those categories.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been very healthy this year. I don't
Speaker 3: know if I'm ever going to expect him to totally
Speaker 3: hold up throughout a multiple series playoff run, but he's
Speaker 3: playing unbelievable basketball. Luca is unreal, And the one thing
Speaker 3: that I do want to shout out for him is
Speaker 3: that if he sustains being a thirty eight percent plus
Speaker 3: three point shooter, he is effectively an unstoppable basketball player.
Speaker 3: Because the one frustration I've ever had with Luca is man,
Speaker 3: he is basically unstoppable getting into the lane right. His
Speaker 3: change in pace is so phenomenal. He is so big
Speaker 3: and strong in such an unbelievable touch shot maker, and
Speaker 3: then just a generational passer. This skit passes the lobs.
Speaker 3: When he hits that painted area, you're basically guaranteed a
Speaker 3: good shot.
Speaker 4: But we've seen these stretches where he's settling.
Speaker 3: For step back three after step back three, and you
Speaker 3: can just be like, man, you could be creating higher
Speaker 3: quality shots. If he's gonna make thirty eight percent of
Speaker 3: his threes, you can't even have that complain anymore. Like,
Speaker 3: the guy's unbelievable, and I think people are a little
Speaker 3: bit quick to forget or to just sort of not
Speaker 3: fully appreciate that he is having as great an offensive
Speaker 3: start to a career as we have literally ever seen.
Speaker 3: Like Jokic took the leap from all NBA guy to
Speaker 3: oh wow, this is the best offensive center ever at
Speaker 3: twenty five years old. Lebron didn't lead a top eight
Speaker 3: team offense until year six. Steph took the leap at
Speaker 3: twenty five twenty six. Right, Luca is twenty four and
Speaker 3: has been doing these things night in, night out for
Speaker 3: five years, just waltzing into efficient thirty point triple doubles,
Speaker 3: leading top five offenses with mess supporting pasts, and he's
Speaker 3: just taken little leaps year after year after year and
Speaker 3: I feel like sometimes people are just sort of numb
Speaker 3: to what he does because we've gotten used to this
Speaker 3: standard of him as a top five player.
Speaker 4: But it's not normal. In fact, it's almost impossib.
Speaker 3: To be a top five player as a second year guy.
Speaker 3: And again he has continued to improve. So I do
Speaker 3: want to shout him out because he's playing at an
Speaker 3: unbelievable level. But I think when you consider the elite
Speaker 3: two way impact, the elite team success with MBID, who
Speaker 3: is also playing at this unbelievable level offensively, he just
Speaker 3: makes the better all around case.
Speaker 1: To me, I completely concur And I think you make
Speaker 1: an interesting point with Luca too about how people will
Speaker 1: fully appreciate him. I think they can kind of pigeonhole
Speaker 1: him into that James Harden kind of Oh he just
Speaker 1: pounds the rock, and yeah, he just you know, he
Speaker 1: just pounds the ball. That's what he does. He's a dribbler.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have lucas my MVP. I would have EMBIID.
Speaker 1: You lay out pretty much all the key factors Carson,
Speaker 1: the two way impact, and I think a big difference.
Speaker 1: I know I said this at the start of the year,
Speaker 1: and I think it's been a mutually beneficial move for
Speaker 1: both teams. I really do think the seventy six ers
Speaker 1: have benefited from being without James Harden. They were twenty
Speaker 1: seventh in pace last year, their thirteenth in pace this year.
Speaker 1: I still do worry about the transition defense little bit,
Speaker 1: but I think playing faster and more up tempo and
Speaker 1: not having a as big a defensive liability as a
Speaker 1: guy like Harden out there has been big for Philly.
Speaker 1: But it has been a beat. And it's absurd. You
Speaker 1: mentioned the mid range shooting numbers cars and he's shooting
Speaker 1: fifty one percent among players that are attempting at least
Speaker 1: three field goals from the mid range area. He's second
Speaker 1: in field goal percentage, only behind Chris Middleton. That's absurd.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just unstoppable. And you have a guy
Speaker 1: that is this physically imposing, this strong. When he gets
Speaker 1: on the low block, he's sixty eight and a half
Speaker 1: percent in the restricted area. Okay, that's an awesome shot,
Speaker 1: no matter who's on him because he's so physically imposing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so well, I got to play off of him. Damn.
Speaker 3: Let's see how Logan holds up in a playoff setting
Speaker 3: things that always go right.
Speaker 4: Man, how are you off schedule?
Speaker 1: Short? He's so physically imposing. You have to play off
Speaker 1: of him and give him a cushion because you just
Speaker 1: can't give him the lane. Well, if you do that,
Speaker 1: he hits a little crossover bang pull up in your mouth.
Speaker 1: It's just unstoppable offensive basketball, and you make the best
Speaker 1: point guards. And somebody, I can't remember who said this,
Speaker 1: I saw in the comment section somewhere they said Embid's
Speaker 1: playing hard so he can win his second MVP and
Speaker 1: then rest in the playoffs. I hope that's not the case.
Speaker 1: I hope that Embiid can continue this because he is
Speaker 1: playing like the best player in the world on both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor. That's going to be the big test.
Speaker 1: But right now he is unequivocally my MVP.
Speaker 2: So I think Lucas doing more with less this season,
Speaker 2: for whatever that's worth. I think him basically converting a
Speaker 2: roster of one sign and trade and then a bunch
Speaker 2: of veteran minimum guys, and with Kyrie being largely unavailable,
Speaker 2: with Josh Green missing a lot of the season, Maxi
Speaker 2: Kleeber has been one of the best front court defenders
Speaker 2: for them has been out for a while. Although Dallas
Speaker 2: fans are sick and tired of Maxi, it seems like
Speaker 2: but the like when it comes to like turning that
Speaker 2: roster from what looked like an absolute dumpster a dumpster
Speaker 2: fire last year into a group of guys who's really
Speaker 2: bought in and competing there. Before last night, they were
Speaker 2: thirteenth in defense in their previous fifteen games, which with
Speaker 2: that group is super impressive. That like, like every given
Speaker 2: every night, it's different lineups and different rotations that he's
Speaker 2: making work. That said, everything we know about NBA history
Speaker 2: tells us like it's the better player on the better
Speaker 2: team that typically ends up getting an MVP. So I
Speaker 2: think I think it's far more likely that Joel Embiid
Speaker 2: wins the MVP. I just think Luca is a more
Speaker 2: deserving you know, just purely from the standpoint of doing
Speaker 2: more with less. That said, we're splitting hairs. I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to pick on any individual player. I want to
Speaker 2: dive into the individual topics a little bit deeper, or
Speaker 2: the individual players a little bit deeper though from the
Speaker 2: same point of ranking them in the league. So I think, obviously,
Speaker 2: when it comes to the older guys, the guys like Steph.
Speaker 2: I don't want to like write him off entirely, because
Speaker 2: obviously there is uh, there's potential for this the Warriors
Speaker 2: to make a train for him to be right back
Speaker 2: in that spot next year. So I want to remove
Speaker 2: him from this discussion for a second. I just want
Speaker 2: to look at four guys. I want to look at Jokic, Luca, Joel,
Speaker 2: Embiid Jannis. I want each of you guys to rank
Speaker 2: each of the four of them. If you had to
Speaker 2: start a playoff run tomorrow with a league average roster
Speaker 2: at every other position, how would you rank them?
Speaker 3: Start with Carson, oh Man, I was hoping that you'd
Speaker 3: buy me a little bit of time here. Okay, Jokic
Speaker 3: is pretty clearly one for me. I think that he
Speaker 3: just had one of, if not the greatest offensive playoff
Speaker 3: runs that we've ever seen. I think he is legitimately
Speaker 3: unstoppable there. I think he's the best half court offensive player,
Speaker 3: at the very least that we've ever seen. It's a
Speaker 3: combination of overwhelming strength, unbelievable touch, shot making with all
Speaker 3: time great passing, his versatility, everything that we've talked about.
Speaker 3: He's pretty clearly number one for me, Now it gets
Speaker 3: really tough. I think that Jannis has a limitation as
Speaker 3: a half court shot creator that we have seen bite
Speaker 3: him before. But I do think when you pair him
Speaker 3: with a guy like Dame who can cover up for
Speaker 3: that a bit, then you get lots of overwhelmingly all
Speaker 3: time great value.
Speaker 2: Hold on, hold on, we are imagining. We're imagining league
Speaker 2: average players in free position. You do not have Dame.
Speaker 4: At the point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have league average players. So if you think
Speaker 2: of it per position. So if like, if I've got Luca,
Speaker 2: i got league average other four. If I've got Embid,
Speaker 2: it's league average non centers, right, So that's the way
Speaker 2: we're putting this together. Same goes for Jokic.
Speaker 3: By the way, Yeah, man, that makes it really tough.
Speaker 3: I think that I would still have Yannis two if
Speaker 3: Embiid were able to play at this level over a
Speaker 3: postseason run. I think he is a more complete offensive
Speaker 3: player because of the level of maker that he is.
Speaker 3: But we have seen Yannis find more success in playoff
Speaker 3: settings on the back of just overwhelming physical force than
Speaker 3: we have win. Embiid's jump shot does fail him when
Speaker 3: he is relying a bit on foul drifting and those
Speaker 3: calls that are free throws in the regular season turned
Speaker 3: into wasted possessions in the playoffs because we haven't seen
Speaker 3: it from him. I'm gonna give the edge to Yannis
Speaker 3: at two, and I actually think I'm going Luca at three.
Speaker 3: And there's an argument for Luca two as well, because
Speaker 3: he is one of the greatest playoff performers offensively that
Speaker 3: we have ever seen. I mean, he just waltzes into
Speaker 3: I think it's like thirty three, eight and nine on
Speaker 3: damn good efficiency again. You just can't take it away.
Speaker 3: And I do have some questions about if you're scaling
Speaker 3: to a title team, right, does he need to be
Speaker 3: willing to do more away from the ball, if it's
Speaker 3: curling off of screens and whatnot. We've just seen the
Speaker 3: President that these crazy ball dominant offenses where you're super
Speaker 3: reliant on one player overly helio centric, you tend not
Speaker 3: to win a title that game. But if you're giving
Speaker 3: me average everywhere else, I kind of think that's when
Speaker 3: Luca's value is at its greatest, because he can't carry
Speaker 3: you every single possession, and he can do so so
Speaker 3: much that almost makes me want to put him too,
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna give respect to Giannis what we have
Speaker 3: seen from him in the twenty one and twenty two
Speaker 3: playoff runs, that two way value, that level of physical force, and.
Speaker 4: Then embid his four. For me, he's very close.
Speaker 3: I think that I have more respect for his game
Speaker 3: now than ever before, even though he hasn't done it
Speaker 3: in a playoffs setting yet, just because I do think
Speaker 3: we've seen improvement. But I've always been comparatively an embiid
Speaker 3: skeptic in the playoffs, and we're kind of gonna have
Speaker 3: to see him answer the bell there for me to
Speaker 3: move him above these other all time talents.
Speaker 1: This is a phenomenal question. In the Carson you say
Speaker 1: exactly why I might consider Luca for number one? Shit?
Speaker 4: Oh shit, settle down, settle down.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's the wrong Balkan boy.
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess I would give. I would go
Speaker 1: Jokic one. He's the best player on planet Earth. I
Speaker 1: would spot guys, I don't. I'm no, No, it's Luca
Speaker 1: and Luka and Jokic are one and two for me.
Speaker 1: The only reason I'll go Jokic is because rebounding matters.
Speaker 1: I think Jokic can dominate the interior and the glass.
Speaker 1: He just has more, more versatility and more impact, where
Speaker 1: Luca I think can carry me offensively. But those are
Speaker 1: my top two for sure. I'm going Jokic one, Luca two,
Speaker 1: and then dude, I really wonder if I want to
Speaker 1: go Gianis three. With his offensive limitations, I mean, a
Speaker 1: league average roster, He's such a weapon defensively, He's so
Speaker 1: physically imposing. But I'm scarred and considering how like by
Speaker 1: that that Heat series last year, how much he crumbled,
Speaker 1: how much he needed Middleton and Holiday in those late
Speaker 1: moments against Miami, and I know that he missed two
Speaker 1: games in that series. Damn. But I also hate watching
Speaker 1: Gianni's play too. I guess watching Oh.
Speaker 2: We have a straight up No, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't know zero.
Speaker 1: I don't like watching. I don't like watching Giannis er
Speaker 1: and bid play sometimes. No, they are frustrating. That's why
Speaker 1: they're three and four for me. Luca's frustrating too. At
Speaker 1: some points, I'll go I'll go and B three Yannis
Speaker 1: four because of the difference in offense. And again, we
Speaker 1: haven't seen him be doing the playoffs. Like you said, Carson,
Speaker 1: we have seen Yiannis do it, but I'm not letting
Speaker 1: Yannis be the guy that has the ball in his
Speaker 1: hands at the end of a game. For me, Man,
Speaker 1: I can't do that to my own team.
Speaker 2: So, you know what's interesting, I feel very similar to Logan.
Speaker 2: I'm jokingly calling you a hater, but like I don't Luca, Jannis,
Speaker 2: and m bead are all three of those guys are
Speaker 2: on the lower end of like the Jason enjoys watching
Speaker 2: them scale, you know. Like, by the way, it's actually
Speaker 2: an interesting follow up to our conversation about Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: because like he's all in on the guys that are
Speaker 2: fun to watch, And this is kind of a good
Speaker 2: example of the fact that like sometimes ugly wins, the
Speaker 2: league average other four players on the court to me
Speaker 2: is a huge, you know variable here because of the
Speaker 2: fact that, like with Giannis, the half court shot creation
Speaker 2: piece has been the issue in most of their playoff eliminations,
Speaker 2: and the one time they cracked through was that wide
Speaker 2: open twenty twenty one year where it's like you get
Speaker 2: through KD but injury decimated, you get through like you
Speaker 2: get through Trey Young and then you get through a
Speaker 2: lesser version of Devin Booker and Chris Paul again not
Speaker 2: diminishing the accomplishment. Bona fide champion. And I still have
Speaker 2: Giannis as the second best player in the league overall
Speaker 2: because he does play with good shot creators and that
Speaker 2: allows him to focus his energy on these other things,
Speaker 2: and he's so profoundly impactful there. He's the second best
Speaker 2: basketball player in the world in my opinion. And by
Speaker 2: the way, the vast majority of great teams in the
Speaker 2: league will put your superstar next to another really good
Speaker 2: shot creator who's not just a league average guy. So
Speaker 2: that's that's the important context. But if I had to
Speaker 2: rank him, I think it's clearly Yokis one and embiid four,
Speaker 2: and it's just either Giannis or Luca at the two
Speaker 2: and the three, I think the league average player. I
Speaker 2: want Luca at number two just because I think in
Speaker 2: that half court battle, he's just going to be able
Speaker 2: to generate higher quality shots than Jannis can. I've seen
Speaker 2: Luca to understand, like little things like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: pull Yannis into the action so that he can't be
Speaker 2: in helpside wrecking everything he like, Just little things like
Speaker 2: that that are you can diminish the impact of an
Speaker 2: athlete easier than you can diminish the impact of a
Speaker 2: shot creator, in my opinion, and so I would lean
Speaker 2: Luca in terms of the league average supporting cast aver.
Speaker 2: That was a fun little exercise, a little random thing
Speaker 2: for us to do, all right, two quick ones before
Speaker 2: we get out of here.
Speaker 4: Who is more likely.
Speaker 2: To make a title run this year? The Golden State
Speaker 2: Warriors or the Los Angeles Lakers. Let's start with you, Logan.
Speaker 1: I'm still leaning on the side of the Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: despite these teams kind of going in inverse directions recently,
Speaker 1: the Warriors trending upwards, Lakers trending downwards, with I don't
Speaker 1: know whatever lineup concoction Darvin Ham whips up for the
Speaker 1: night Man. It's probably better to answer this post trade
Speaker 1: deadline not to plead the fifth on you guys. I
Speaker 1: do think both of these teams are power to make
Speaker 1: a move, and I think and I think that is
Speaker 1: going to termine it. But I do believe in the
Speaker 1: Lakers more. A lot of this has to do with
Speaker 1: their top two stars. I just believe in Lebron and
Speaker 1: Ad a little more than the Warriors top two guys.
Speaker 1: Lebron twenty five, eight and seven still is probably one
Speaker 1: of the handful of guys five to ten. You know,
Speaker 1: we exclude Steph Curry and Lebron James from this conversation
Speaker 1: for our last thought exercise. Lebron and Steph are definitely
Speaker 1: on my short list of guys in that conversation. But
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers title hopes are gonna come down
Speaker 1: to a few things again, the move they make at
Speaker 1: the deadline, the performance of their top two guys, the consistent,
Speaker 1: reliable night to night effort, and how Darvin Ham utilizes
Speaker 1: this lineup. I think Darvin Ham and how he utilizes
Speaker 1: this lineup is going to be one of the.
Speaker 2: Bigger swing factors.
Speaker 1: I don't know, the bigger Yeah, the bigger swing factors here.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right, like, I don't know if a playoff series,
Speaker 1: if Austin Reeves has a bad game and then he
Speaker 1: sits him on the bench, and I don't know, Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham really makes me question what he's thinking sometimes when
Speaker 1: he trots out these lineups. It really makes me scratch
Speaker 1: my head. And then you know, the Warriors, I think
Speaker 1: they could make a hypothetical title run too. Again, it's
Speaker 1: gonna come down to them making a move at the deadline,
Speaker 1: whatever that is. As Carson has harped on an our
Speaker 1: show throughout this season, this is the best bench of
Speaker 1: the Stephan career era. It is phenomenal, b pod TJ D. Moody,
Speaker 1: kaminga the performance of those guys. But Golden State is
Speaker 1: still undersized and they have physical disadvantages. And I think
Speaker 1: barring an offensive showcase from Golden State what I mean
Speaker 1: by that in the playoffs, Steph on fire, Clay not
Speaker 1: missing anything, Andrew Wiggins dominating, attacking closeouts, making every shot,
Speaker 1: the bench play in their ass off barring net, I
Speaker 1: just think that they fall to the Nuggets, to the Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: to the Lakers. I just don't think that they can
Speaker 1: overcome the physical disadvantages that they have with those teams.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have to wait and see with the
Speaker 1: trade deadline. But it's gonna take a lot for me
Speaker 1: to catapult the Warriors over the Lakers. Even though these
Speaker 1: teams have been trending in different directions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I view these teams honestly in different tiers. When
Speaker 3: we're talking about what can they be as contenders. I
Speaker 3: have had a ton of fun. Watching the Warriors as
Speaker 3: of late Hodds is awesome. I think he's such a
Speaker 3: good fit. I just think he makes so many impact plays,
Speaker 3: so good at the little things, just a nose for
Speaker 3: the ball, all around awesome rookie. I've been super happy
Speaker 3: to see tjd get in more minutes. I thought he
Speaker 3: was maybe the best value picking the drafts, and he
Speaker 3: has lived up to that hype, coaminga coming into his own,
Speaker 3: really making the most of his athletic advantages. Like that
Speaker 3: stuff is all really fun, but it is kind of
Speaker 3: what we were talking about with the thunder, Like you
Speaker 3: don't want to be leaning on a bunch of young
Speaker 3: guys if you're trying to contend. And sure Draymalond will
Speaker 3: get back and maybe Andrew Wiggins becomes twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: Andrew Wiggins again, I don't know. He's been trending upwards,
Speaker 3: but not from a very good place whatsoever. I just
Speaker 3: think the biggest key factor is exactly what you laid out, Logan.
Speaker 3: It is the two elite, superstar level basketball players. And
Speaker 3: that's the one thing when we had our son's conversation
Speaker 3: that I don't want to overly diminish, like I think
Speaker 3: that's a crazy flawed basketball team, really really flawed. But
Speaker 3: having Devin Booker and Kevin Durant is terrifying. That got
Speaker 3: them two wins against the Denver Nuggets when they had
Speaker 3: an inferior supporting cast, because there were two games where
Speaker 3: they're just like, hey, is it can cool if we
Speaker 3: combine for eighty points per game and I'll play making
Speaker 3: at a high level and making seventy jumpers. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: that can happen at any time.
Speaker 4: That is terrifying.
Speaker 3: And with Lebron and Ad it's a little bit different
Speaker 3: because Ady can just dominate defensively and Lebron can physically
Speaker 3: impose himself offensively in a way that I think is
Speaker 3: even a little bit more complimentary, Whereas Booking Katie are
Speaker 3: going to excel at a lot of similar things. And
Speaker 3: we've just seen how far those two can get you
Speaker 3: with solid role players.
Speaker 4: They got you to a title.
Speaker 3: We've seen what that looked like in a high stake setting.
Speaker 4: This year.
Speaker 3: They were amazing in the play in tournament. That to
Speaker 3: me just legitimizes them on a different level than the Warriors,
Speaker 3: even though they are playing much better as of late.
Speaker 3: The elite size thing is very real. That was a
Speaker 3: big difference maker in the matchup between these two teams
Speaker 3: last year. They have a big advantage there. They match
Speaker 3: up better against the other contenders. As we've talked about,
Speaker 3: that's important this year, and I think it's important that
Speaker 3: they have a side of the ball where they clearly excel,
Speaker 3: like this is the case for the Timberwolves as well.
Speaker 3: They're a dominant defense. And no, they're not a great
Speaker 3: half court offense. They don't have overwhelming offensive skill. They
Speaker 3: don't have like that Tier one offensive creator, and that
Speaker 3: does worry me when you're talking about winning a title.
Speaker 3: But they are really physical, they grind it out, they
Speaker 3: have a couple of really good shot creators, and then
Speaker 3: when you pair that with an elite, elite defense, that
Speaker 3: makes you hard to beat. I absolutely think that the
Speaker 3: engaged Lakers will dominate defensively, and then they can lean
Speaker 3: on their stars, especially one guy named Lebron James for
Speaker 3: clutch offense. And when Ad is aggressive there, when Austin
Speaker 3: Reeves is playing well, that's still a pretty good formula.
Speaker 3: So I love the Warriors' depth, but to me, until
Speaker 3: they make a move if it is getting lowry market
Speaker 3: and like to me, it has to be a guy
Speaker 3: who's gonna bring real size in the front court in
Speaker 3: real offensive pop. He's my favorite just because he's such
Speaker 3: an awesome fit in their system. I think he's a
Speaker 3: better basketball player than a guy like Siakam, and he's
Speaker 3: an awesome value contract like that could take them up
Speaker 3: a tier, But right now I view them more as
Speaker 3: like a really tough first round matchup who can maybe
Speaker 3: win a series. They've got a bunch of scrappy dudes
Speaker 3: who are playing hard, and then they have Steph Curry
Speaker 3: that is always going to make them a team that
Speaker 3: has some upside, but they're too limited right now. I
Speaker 3: see a clearer path for the Lakers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think the obvious answer to this
Speaker 2: question is the Lakers based on the current iterations of them.
Speaker 2: And it really is this simple to me, Like the
Speaker 2: Lakers have had the largest gap, in my opinion, between
Speaker 2: their actual playoff potential and their regular season production. I
Speaker 2: think they leave a lot of meat on the bone
Speaker 2: every single night, not just not just in terms of effort,
Speaker 2: not just in terms of effort, but also in terms
Speaker 2: of the rotation. As Logan was hinting at, like this
Speaker 2: starting lineup that they're running out there is legitimately one
Speaker 2: of the most bizarre lineup constructions they've ever seen, because
Speaker 2: it's like it literally you would think it was the
Speaker 2: Lakers from a year and a half ago when they
Speaker 2: had no good players and they were trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to put out there. But it's like, no,
Speaker 2: they're just straight up putting two or three of their
Speaker 2: top five players on the bench to start games just
Speaker 2: for coops and giggles, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 2: like the Lakers are actually this is one of the
Speaker 2: biggest reasons why I'm still pretty high on them, despite
Speaker 2: the lineup imbalances and the form use of resources and
Speaker 2: the inconsistent effort. They are twelfth and a half court
Speaker 2: offense this year in eighth and half court defense, and like,
Speaker 2: I still feel like they're slow down bully ball attack
Speaker 2: on both ends of the floor is a really, really
Speaker 2: scary prospect for a lot of teams in the league.
Speaker 2: Pretty much everybody but Denver in my opinion, in the West,
Speaker 2: and then everybody but Boston in the East. That said, like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot that they have to get to solve
Speaker 2: to get to that point. The Warriors are sixteenth and
Speaker 2: a half court offense and twentieth and half court defense.
Speaker 2: And then, to put it simply, the Lakers have two
Speaker 2: guys playing at a superstar level and the Warriors have won.
Speaker 2: And like last year, you could make the case that
Speaker 2: Lebron was playing at something other than a superstar level,
Speaker 2: especially in the postseason when he was injured. But this year,
Speaker 2: he's literally like he's having one of the most efficient
Speaker 2: scoring seasons of his career. His jump shot is is
Speaker 2: consistently being made at a higher level. He's basically one
Speaker 2: point one points per shot, which is like twenty percent
Speaker 2: higher than it was last year. Anthony Davis has started
Speaker 2: taking and making jumpshots more frequently now He's having by
Speaker 2: far the best post up season of his career, and
Speaker 2: I feel like he could even go up a level
Speaker 2: because he's still missing so many bunnies around the rim.
Speaker 2: Like I think the Lakers are clearly better positioned. That said,
Speaker 2: the both of these teams, in my opinion, have to
Speaker 2: hit their mid season trade. We won't do it today,
Speaker 2: but we could argue about which type of player the
Speaker 2: Warriors get. But if they make a move and they
Speaker 2: upgrade that four spot into some sort of star level player.
Speaker 2: You guys can, like referring to the fans of the league,
Speaker 2: feel free to write him off if you want. I
Speaker 2: feel like that's a really bad idea when you've got
Speaker 2: Steph Curry and Raymond Green and Klay Thompson and Andrew
Speaker 2: Wiggins on that team. One thing to keep an eye
Speaker 2: on with the Warriors that I think could work to
Speaker 2: their detriment in terms of contending this year is Kamingus
Speaker 2: hoop in his ass off. And there's a version of
Speaker 2: this where they're like, we don't want to trade Kminga
Speaker 2: because he's going to be too good, And I think
Speaker 2: that would be a gigantic mistake simply from the state
Speaker 2: point of like, if you think Kaminga is the guy,
Speaker 2: Garrett is Steph, because you're not winning the title this
Speaker 2: year with this roster, and so if your goal is
Speaker 2: to develop Kaminga for the future, Steph's thirty five, He's
Speaker 2: got two or three years left of being one of
Speaker 2: the top six or seven players in the league. So
Speaker 2: like you either, I would guarantee that Steph doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be a part of a team that's more interested
Speaker 2: in developing a young prospect for the future. Than to
Speaker 2: than to contend for a championship. And so one of
Speaker 2: the things that works for the Lakers benefit is like
Speaker 2: you bet you're asked, they're gonna make a trade and
Speaker 2: they're gonna do something to try to upgrade this roster
Speaker 2: because they sense the urgency. And I think there actually
Speaker 2: is some conflict within the Warriors organization about which direction
Speaker 2: to go, which could be something that kind of holds them,
Speaker 2: makes them a little bit more reticent to make a move.
Speaker 2: And for the record, like Johnathan Aminga is gonna be
Speaker 2: really good, Yea, My question would be, like you better
Speaker 2: be damn sure he's gonna be a superstar if you're
Speaker 2: going to to to to not go after it with
Speaker 2: this group, and like again, and when you one of
Speaker 2: the biggest issues for in my opinion, with the Warriors
Speaker 2: is that as Andrew Wiggins has declined, the slotting of
Speaker 2: the team has gotten all screwed up, and now everybody's
Speaker 2: trying to fill a role that's above their pay grade.
Speaker 2: And so literally, if Andrew Wiggins isn't going to get
Speaker 2: it together and become that guy again, if you can
Speaker 2: bring that guy in and then start to properly slot
Speaker 2: guys again, I think it could. I think they can
Speaker 2: still be a really dangerous team. Again, they have one
Speaker 2: of the best home court advantages in basketball, Steph Curry's.
Speaker 2: If we're ranking just purely playoff players, Steph is firmly
Speaker 2: in that top five still. In my opinion, I thought
Speaker 2: I thought he was completely unguardable last year. It's like
Speaker 2: the Lakers won, but they never really figured out the
Speaker 2: Steph Curry problem, you know, so like it like they're again.
Speaker 2: Both of these teams I still think are within striking
Speaker 2: distance pending a trade. But I think as currently constructed,
Speaker 2: the Lakers are very clearly the better basketball team. All Right,
Speaker 2: one last question before we get out here today, Guys,
Speaker 2: what's more likely to happen first, the Detroit Pistons winning
Speaker 2: a basketball game or the Chicago Bulls blowing up their
Speaker 2: roster and trading all their stars. We'll start with you, Carson, all.
Speaker 3: Right, I went with some alternate right in options here,
Speaker 3: you guys.
Speaker 4: Tell me what you think happens first.
Speaker 3: OJ Simpson is elected US president, Alfonso McKinney comes back
Speaker 3: to the league and wins the scoring title, or Magic
Speaker 3: Johnson tweets something other than a box score with an
Speaker 3: exclamation point. I'm gonna say all of those are going
Speaker 3: to happen first, but between these two, I think Detroit
Speaker 3: winning a game happens first. And it's crazy to say
Speaker 3: because they're two and twenty eight, but I think at
Speaker 3: their fully healthy status, they might not be the worst
Speaker 3: team in the league this year. Like you know, the
Speaker 3: Wizards are that bad, the Spurs are that bad. We've
Speaker 3: only seen Cad, Boion and Duran for three games together,
Speaker 3: all of them, and they've been legit competitive in all
Speaker 3: of those games. And Cad is hooping right now. And
Speaker 3: I made a YouTube video a few weeks ago about
Speaker 3: how he is just not the problem in Detroit. He
Speaker 3: was playing with nightmarish spacing. I think he is still
Speaker 3: clearly a star level shot creator. I think he's gonna
Speaker 3: be awesome now. At times, he is reliant on tough
Speaker 3: shot making because he doesn't have like a crazy explosive
Speaker 3: first step. He's not a crazy vertical athlete around the
Speaker 3: rim who finishes super easily in traffic. But he's a
Speaker 3: big ball handler who's a really good shooter, who plays
Speaker 3: with good pace, has good feel. Last five games, he's
Speaker 3: thirty two and seven a night on sixty six percent
Speaker 3: through shooting. Eventually, he's going to just win you a
Speaker 3: game and the other guys won't be able to mess
Speaker 3: it up like he could have just done it the
Speaker 3: other night. He got them pretty close. And I think, actually,
Speaker 3: here's my Bowl take ready. Over the next four games,
Speaker 3: now that they are healthy, they will beat either the
Speaker 3: Raptors or the Jazz. I think that they can do it.
Speaker 3: I think that, of course they're still bad, but they're
Speaker 3: not the literally like on pace to be the worst
Speaker 3: team ever team that we have seen, because I think
Speaker 3: that they have unfortunately had a bad run with injuries.
Speaker 3: Now their morale is broken.
Speaker 4: That's not good.
Speaker 3: I think Monti Williams is doing a really bad job there.
Speaker 3: I don't like the roster configuration, like I think they
Speaker 3: have more talent on paper than they do complimentary basketball players.
Speaker 3: All those things are true. A lot of things have
Speaker 3: to go wrong for you to be two and twenty eight.
Speaker 3: But I think that they will win a game within
Speaker 3: the next four And I think the Bulls trade is
Speaker 3: going to happen much closer to the deadline because that's
Speaker 3: just generally how these things go, and there doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to be a red hot market. It's not like a
Speaker 3: lot of people are chopping at the bit to take
Speaker 3: on Lavin or de Rozan. At this very moment, I
Speaker 3: think that that's gonna go more down to the buzzer.
Speaker 3: So Detroit, I'm with you, You're gonna win a game before
Speaker 3: the Bulls trade one of their star guys.
Speaker 1: Call me crazy. I think the Detroit might win a
Speaker 1: game before the year is out, Fellows, they got two
Speaker 1: more opportunities. I've hear marked that December thirtieth game against
Speaker 1: the Raptors Carson. I think that's when they get it done.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you bring up the injuries. I think that
Speaker 1: has really flown under the radar as a big part
Speaker 1: of this. I mean everything, they get everybody back, and
Speaker 1: then Boyon goes down, Duram goes down. So there's some
Speaker 1: bad luck involved. I think for either of these things
Speaker 1: to happen, guys, Hell might have to freeze over. But
Speaker 1: there's some other things bad coaching decisions and rotations. For
Speaker 1: a while, they weren't playing Jade and Ivy. I also
Speaker 1: think that's a big fundamental misstep in terms of if
Speaker 1: Ivy isn't a complimentary two guard that you want alongside Cad.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of foolish to not play him
Speaker 1: and up his trade value. Monty also was force feeding
Speaker 1: Killian Hayes alongside Cad Cunningham the end of the game
Speaker 1: the other night. Like you mentioned Carson, he puts in
Speaker 1: Alec Burks and he kind of throws the game away
Speaker 1: for the Pistons. And also, there's just supremely bad and
Speaker 1: non NBA caliber players down this roster, James Wise and
Speaker 1: Marvin Bagley, Killian Hayes should be in China, And you know,
Speaker 1: you just have to feel bad for Kid and all
Speaker 1: this guys. I looked at these numbers like kind of
Speaker 1: couldn't believe them. They're eleven point four points per one
Speaker 1: hundred possessions better with Kid cunning him on the floor
Speaker 1: A team this man, they're eleven point four points per
Speaker 1: one hundred possessions better. They have an offensive rating of
Speaker 1: one oh eight point three with Kate and an offensive
Speaker 1: rating of one oh four point three without him. Defensively,
Speaker 1: they have a one to eighteen point seven defensive rating
Speaker 1: with Kate and one twenty six point one without him.
Speaker 1: I mean, good lord, please just give Kid spacing, give
Speaker 1: him some complimentary players, and they'll figure it out. Like
Speaker 1: I think Kate is a stud I think he's a star,
Speaker 1: Like U Carson, I think he's taking a lot of
Speaker 1: a brunt for these losses, and eventually Detroit will rise
Speaker 1: out of this. I'm hoping that it is at home
Speaker 1: two days from now against the Raptors. I'm hoping they
Speaker 1: can exercise these demons. Man.
Speaker 2: The one weird thing working against Detroit is like no
Speaker 2: one wants to be the team to lose against them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so they're like, I think even the Lakers would
Speaker 2: play hard against them if they played tomorrow like that,
Speaker 2: like it is turned into like the no One It's
Speaker 2: almost like a game of hot potato, and everyone just
Speaker 2: keeps passing the pistons along and it's like no one
Speaker 2: wants to be the team that finally loses. That said,
Speaker 2: like Carson, you hit the nail on the head, Like
Speaker 2: as much as a certainty as it feels that the
Speaker 2: Bulls will make deals, it's just the best way to
Speaker 2: do that is to get as many suitors involved as possible,
Speaker 2: which always is closer to the deadline. So that just
Speaker 2: feels like something that happens in February. And then as
Speaker 2: far as the Pistons go, like, they do have enough
Speaker 2: talent to win a handful of NBA games over the
Speaker 2: course of a couple of months. So like, I think
Speaker 2: they'll win a few times before the Bulls make some
Speaker 2: sort of trade. Kay Cunningham, I one hundred percent agree
Speaker 2: with you, guys. I think he's a legitimate star in
Speaker 2: the making. But when you combine that with boy and
Speaker 2: Magdanovich as just a secondary creator and a guy who
Speaker 2: can provide weak side spacing, the overall athleticism in the group,
Speaker 2: now that Jade and Ivy's playing more, you legitimately they
Speaker 2: they have enough to get one. It's just that it's
Speaker 2: that simple to me. And then lastly, I'll just add
Speaker 2: competitive pride in here. Like I see the demeanor from
Speaker 2: Caid after these games. He wants one. He's not a loser.
Speaker 2: These guys aren't losers. They're just losing. And so there
Speaker 2: that said, there are some guys down the roster, as
Speaker 2: you guys, as Logan so eloquently put earlier, there are
Speaker 2: some guys down the roster that have basketball character that
Speaker 2: I'm not particularly fond of. But I think they have
Speaker 2: enough to get it done. And I think they will
Speaker 2: get one before we get to February. All right, guys,
Speaker 2: that is all we have for today, Nerd Sash.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 2: That sincerely Carson Logan. I sincerely appreciate you guys given
Speaker 2: an hour of your time for the show today. Everybody listening,
Speaker 2: please take some time to head over there Carson really quick.
Speaker 2: Do you want to take some time to shout out
Speaker 2: some of the work you guys have been doing recently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we ourselves are doing three shows week and
Speaker 3: we talk a lot of NBA. We do talk NFL
Speaker 3: as well. That's all over at the nerd sessh YouTube page.
Speaker 3: And then we do a bunch of trivia stuff on
Speaker 3: our TikTok that you can check out, and on top
Speaker 3: of our shows on the YouTube page, we do some
Speaker 3: more intensive video breakdowns, like ten minute video essays where
Speaker 3: we key in on one player or a team. So
Speaker 3: I just did a video on lowry marketing. Logan mentioned
Speaker 3: he's doing one on the Timberwolves, so you can find
Speaker 3: some of that stuff as well at the nerd Sash
Speaker 3: YouTube page.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I saw a comment on one of my videos the
Speaker 2: other day referencing your Lori marketing video that you guys
Speaker 2: did and how it inspired them to want Lori for
Speaker 2: their team, and I was like, that's cool. I think
Speaker 2: there should be more crossover. You guys do great stuff.
Speaker 2: I sincerely appreciate the time everyone who's listening. Thank you
Speaker 2: guys so much we have I am gonna take a
Speaker 2: little bit of a break. We're gonna take Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Speaker 2: Monday off for the holiday, but I'm gonna record a
Speaker 2: mailbag episode today that they're gonna be releasing in chunks
Speaker 2: over the weekend, so there'll be plenty of content coming
Speaker 2: out over the course of the next few days. And
Speaker 2: then we're just gonna get right back into the grind
Speaker 2: starting in January. Lots and lots of game breakdowns, deep dives.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have the Nerd Sash guys on a couple
Speaker 2: times a month as always. I appreciate you guys. We
Speaker 2: will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The volume