Speaker 1: Welcome to the Jason timp Podcast. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your day to come
Speaker 1: hang out and talk some hoops with Tommy and I. Tommy,
Speaker 1: how you doing, man? Uh? Fantastic, man. Coming off a
Speaker 1: nice little weekend. We're add some hiking, gets some working out,
Speaker 1: really positive stuff all around. I think I mentioned, uh
Speaker 1: a while back that I'm doing like a little sober month,
Speaker 1: So I'm feeling really good. My my brain feels all
Speaker 1: refreshed on Mondays instead of hungover. So just just coming
Speaker 1: through a like a life altering experience at the beginning
Speaker 1: of each year where you're just connected to nature and
Speaker 1: just in just all wrapped up in health. I like that, dude.
Speaker 1: I can't. It's impossible for me because in inevitably every
Speaker 1: spring my family ends up going on a couple of
Speaker 1: ski trips and uh and you know, uh, my family
Speaker 1: in particular, I don't like to do this too much,
Speaker 1: but they like to drink on the slopes, which I
Speaker 1: think is absolutely crazy because like it stresses me out
Speaker 1: enough the risk of getting hurt on skis and adding
Speaker 1: alcohol to that mix is just like deeply unsettling. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I am excited to announce that I don't
Speaker 1: plan on going out of town for a while, which
Speaker 1: means it will be a little bit easier for you
Speaker 1: and I to get into somewhat of a rhythm, um
Speaker 1: and to get a little bit better about consistently talking
Speaker 1: in the same stretch of the week so that we
Speaker 1: can get in a in a habit. Tonight we're gonna
Speaker 1: do our or today we're going to do our m
Speaker 1: v P rakings through one fourth of the season. Tommy
Speaker 1: and I were talking and we really wanted to touch
Speaker 1: on some specific teams. We wanted to touch on Utah,
Speaker 1: we wanted to touch on Denver, and we wanted to
Speaker 1: touch on Brooklyn after after the James Harden trade. And
Speaker 1: I thought this would be a cool way to do that, because,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's a fourth of the way through
Speaker 1: the season, and when you really are looking at m
Speaker 1: VP rankings, you got to remember all these chunks of
Speaker 1: the season because they all kind of add up to
Speaker 1: that that case at the end of the year that
Speaker 1: ends up being you know, who ends up winning the award,
Speaker 1: and then also gives us a great chance to kind
Speaker 1: of branch off and talk about those teams, Um, what
Speaker 1: we will uh not be doing today is talking about
Speaker 1: some crazy chicks sitting courtside at a at an Atlanta
Speaker 1: Hawks game, because I feel like there's plenty of that
Speaker 1: talk to be had out there, and honestly, man like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say. If I can
Speaker 1: say one thing about that. It has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the fan herself or Lebron fan interaction at games
Speaker 1: as normal. I think it's expected, But my thing would be,
Speaker 1: why are there fans sitting courtside we are I thought
Speaker 1: it was really weird too. We are less than ten
Speaker 1: days out from Saku Smith, one of the NBA's biggest broadcasters,
Speaker 1: passing away from COVID complications. But we're having fans of
Speaker 1: games just the way that that silver in the NBA
Speaker 1: are treating this after going the whole woke route and
Speaker 1: you know, saying that black lives matter, and then they're
Speaker 1: turning around and doing the total opposite their true in
Speaker 1: the NBA, how Trump treated COVID. They're saying, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a States rights thing. If you want to
Speaker 1: have fans in your arena, we can't stop you. It
Speaker 1: just feels very, very hypocritical from the position that they've
Speaker 1: taken over the summer to where they are now, where
Speaker 1: they've claimed to be. Oh, were this big moral upstanding
Speaker 1: lead compared to the NFL and MLB, and yet they
Speaker 1: look exactly like those leagues. Now, I'm not blaming the
Speaker 1: NBA for being a business at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: that's their job. What I am blaming is the hypocritical
Speaker 1: nature of the stances they have taken and now what
Speaker 1: they're doing, because what they're doing, they are not saying
Speaker 1: that black lives matter, because they're putting black lives at
Speaker 1: risk every single day. So I just wanted to hit
Speaker 1: that real quick and get that out there. I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to the lebron thing with
Speaker 1: the fan at all. I just want to get it
Speaker 1: out there that the NBA looks incredibly hypocritical right now,
Speaker 1: especially from the stances they took over the summer with
Speaker 1: a lot of their their social positions, and specifically Silver,
Speaker 1: he just he gets on my nerves a lot because
Speaker 1: he tries to be the moral standard of commissioners in sports,
Speaker 1: and he really isn't that guy. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day. He's worried about the bottom line, as he
Speaker 1: should be, but he shouldn't act like he's gonna and
Speaker 1: about other things when he's really not well. For starters, Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily care about them, uh having fans way
Speaker 1: up in the nosebleeds because they can space them out,
Speaker 1: you know, ten chairs from each other, and they can
Speaker 1: do and they're so far away from the court that
Speaker 1: it's not even conceivable that they could cause a problem.
Speaker 1: But I remember thinking the exact same thing, Like, as
Speaker 1: the altercation was happening, I'm like, whoa, they look really
Speaker 1: close to the players, you know, and like, and my
Speaker 1: my thing was is, like, like I where I would
Speaker 1: be upset is if if I was the Lakers, I
Speaker 1: would be upset that this lady was pulling off her
Speaker 1: mask and arguing, you know, fifteen feet or so away
Speaker 1: from Lebron, even though it's technically outside of six ft.
Speaker 1: Because it's like, it's all fun and games for the lady.
Speaker 1: She gets kicked out, she gets to go be a star.
Speaker 1: But Lebron like, if he gets it, he's out for
Speaker 1: two weeks and it could literally turn around the fortunes
Speaker 1: of the team for that season. So yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that I thought was really weird. As for like the
Speaker 1: what you brought up about the the whole you know,
Speaker 1: moral posturing. You know, I think that I think that
Speaker 1: one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in my
Speaker 1: adult life is that there's a huge I mean, it's cliche,
Speaker 1: but there's a huge difference between actions and words. It's
Speaker 1: it's the it's the reality of the situation. Like you
Speaker 1: will always meet people in the business world, you'll meet people,
Speaker 1: and when you're trying to build relationships, you'll meet people
Speaker 1: when you're watching movies or when you're watching sports, they're
Speaker 1: always gonna tell you something about who they are. And
Speaker 1: and this is a huge deal in politics, and it
Speaker 1: drives me insane. But that just doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't It doesn't matter to me that you pat
Speaker 1: someone's back on Twitter. It doesn't matter that you take
Speaker 1: some big, you know, moral stand on Twitter. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter to me that you say something in an interview
Speaker 1: on the news or anything along those lines. That's all
Speaker 1: posturing to me. The only thing that that defines you
Speaker 1: as a human being is what you do. Uh. And
Speaker 1: quite frankly, like I just I'm I'm over that and
Speaker 1: I don't care. And the other side of that is, Like,
Speaker 1: I also don't care that the NBA is hypocritical and
Speaker 1: that there are a big business who only has their
Speaker 1: own best interests at heart because they're the n b A,
Speaker 1: They're they're a professional sports organization. I don't wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and think about like you know, oh man,
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm really hoping the NBA does nice things today,
Speaker 1: Like I don't care. That's not what they are to me.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like caring what what type of human
Speaker 1: being Connor McGregor is. It's like the dude is literally
Speaker 1: like trained to beat other human beings to a pulp.
Speaker 1: He's probably not going to be the most upstanding citizen
Speaker 1: you've met. So I think I think people need to
Speaker 1: delineate between those two things and pay closer attention to
Speaker 1: the people that are actually in your life and the
Speaker 1: things they do rather than the things they say. And
Speaker 1: who cares about any of that other stuff? Honestly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the opposite or the contrast between the actions
Speaker 1: and the words that bother me, right, Like what kind
Speaker 1: of like you're pointing to the NBA says says one
Speaker 1: thing that they do another. If they just want to
Speaker 1: act like a business. Fine, that's why people love the
Speaker 1: NFL at the end of the day, because the NFL
Speaker 1: doesn't try to right around and say something that they're not.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they are a business
Speaker 1: and they operate as a business. They're always concerned about
Speaker 1: the bottom line, as they should be. And I think
Speaker 1: the NBA, the people would look at the n b
Speaker 1: A in a better light if they just acted like that,
Speaker 1: if they just said, look, we have to do what's
Speaker 1: best for the NBA and we're always going to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear you. And and like, as the latest incident
Speaker 1: has been this this All Star Game thing, and people
Speaker 1: are upset about that, And what I would respond to
Speaker 1: that is like, are you surprised? Like this whole point
Speaker 1: of doing this season was to try to find the
Speaker 1: safest way possible within uh, within the the goal, the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal, which was to fulfill as much of the
Speaker 1: TV contract as possible. It was very important to the
Speaker 1: players that they got the chance to play in the
Speaker 1: Olympics because of all the the international guys that feel
Speaker 1: very loyal to their country. It was very important to
Speaker 1: the players that they salvage the c b A and
Speaker 1: make as much money as possible. It was very important
Speaker 1: for the owners in the exact same respect. So it
Speaker 1: was they made a decision to start playing basketball from
Speaker 1: December to July, and as part of that goal, they
Speaker 1: wanted to fulfill to the best of their ability their
Speaker 1: TV obligations, which included seventy two regular season games, and
Speaker 1: as part of their T and T contract, they probably
Speaker 1: found out that they could make a great deal of
Speaker 1: cash if they played the All Star Game. And so
Speaker 1: what I would say is like, at least they're testing
Speaker 1: three times a day, and they're doing these PCR tests
Speaker 1: before the game, and they're doing at least as much
Speaker 1: as they can. But like I'm what I'm saying is like,
Speaker 1: if you're going to complain about what the NBA is
Speaker 1: doing in terms of going through the season and playing
Speaker 1: the All Star Game, you're kind of like crying into
Speaker 1: the wilderness because they don't care. The owners don't care,
Speaker 1: and the players don't care, and and and you're not
Speaker 1: you're not viewing them. They're not the you know, the
Speaker 1: moral arbiters of society. They're literally just a professional sports organization,
Speaker 1: and so we need to stop holding them to the
Speaker 1: standard of like, you know, someone who's in a real
Speaker 1: position of moral authority and society, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I when with that, I think they should be
Speaker 1: doing all the things that they're currently doing to have
Speaker 1: this season go on. I just don't want them to
Speaker 1: act like they're not going to and then go and
Speaker 1: do it. That's the only part that bothers me right now.
Speaker 1: That's the nature of it. That's the hypocrisy, and like
Speaker 1: and that's the thing, Like I know, that's that's been
Speaker 1: the big joke the last couple of days with the UH,
Speaker 1: with this stuff, with the stimulus checks and the Democrats
Speaker 1: and all that crap. It's like it's like, well, dude,
Speaker 1: like this has literally been the way this entire business
Speaker 1: has been the right and the left for my entire
Speaker 1: lifetime and for centuries before that. So like stop trying
Speaker 1: to like everyone does this. Every single business that I've
Speaker 1: ever known goes about a pr campaign in an attempt
Speaker 1: to try to portray some sort of humanity. But you
Speaker 1: gotta forget about that. Those guys are about dollars and cents.
Speaker 1: They don't care about anything else. And that even goes
Speaker 1: down to smaller businesses. That's just the nature of the
Speaker 1: the same goes me and my family and every other family.
Speaker 1: Like when push comes to shove, I'm gonna look out
Speaker 1: for my wife and I. Now, if we come into
Speaker 1: some great deal of wealth and we have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to to donate and to do kind things for the
Speaker 1: great for the rest of society, sure, but I sure
Speaker 1: sure as hell not wealthy yet and where I am
Speaker 1: right now, like, I'm looking out for our interests, and
Speaker 1: I would much rather to your to your point, I'm
Speaker 1: much rather people just be honest and say that, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're looking out for our interests right now. You know,
Speaker 1: you know that's that's literally all I'm asking. Just be
Speaker 1: honest about what you're doing because we can all see it.
Speaker 1: We're not dumb. People are dumb. They can see right
Speaker 1: through b s for the most part. So that's let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: go through the m v P rankings. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: with number one, where I think you and I are
Speaker 1: gonna probably disagree. So to be clear, I I said
Speaker 1: in a pod last week that I thought Joel Embiid
Speaker 1: was the m v P. But as I was digging
Speaker 1: into the numbers, and as Joel sat out yet another
Speaker 1: game the other night, I've actually age did to Lebron. Now,
Speaker 1: for starters, I am a Lebron fan, I should disclose
Speaker 1: my bias here. However, I also think I'm right. I
Speaker 1: think Lebron is the m v P and the reason
Speaker 1: is is very simple. So for starters, for each of
Speaker 1: these players, I'm gonna read out their per thirty six stats.
Speaker 1: They're shooting percentages, and I'm gonna read their their net
Speaker 1: rating on and off. I'm gonna do that for all
Speaker 1: the players, just to kind of to put some context
Speaker 1: on what we're talking about. So Lebron is twenty seven
Speaker 1: eight and eight per thirty six minutes. He's shooting from
Speaker 1: the field fort from three seventy from the line. The
Speaker 1: Lakers are plus eleven point three when he's on the
Speaker 1: court in minus one point four when he's off the court.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are a half game out of the best
Speaker 1: record in the league, and they currently are tied for
Speaker 1: the second best net rating in the league. The reason
Speaker 1: why I would pick Lebron number one, and I'm interested
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on this, because I would imagine
Speaker 1: you disagree, is for starters. He's been excellent on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor, even better than he was
Speaker 1: last year, and it has led the Lakers to having
Speaker 1: the best defense in the NBA. Availability. He has played
Speaker 1: every single minute or not a minute, every single game
Speaker 1: this season. He's been available in a way that we
Speaker 1: didn't expect him too considering the backstory coming into the season.
Speaker 1: So that's what I put is my third item on
Speaker 1: my list. With circumstances, this was a team that came
Speaker 1: off a seventy two game or seventy seventy two day
Speaker 1: post off season and had just won a title. There
Speaker 1: was every reason in the world for them to slip
Speaker 1: and to come into the season not trying, and he
Speaker 1: didn't let them. He is the reason. His effort and
Speaker 1: focus to start this season is the reason the Lakers
Speaker 1: are off to a hot start. And last but not least,
Speaker 1: he's got that playoff pedigree. He's got the background that
Speaker 1: legitimizes his regular season success in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: that you know, say Janice doesn't have, or a James
Speaker 1: Harden doesn't have. So am I crazy? Where where do
Speaker 1: you win on having Lebron number one at m v P?
Speaker 1: So I don't think you're crazy. Labron has been better
Speaker 1: than I expected this season everything considered. I thought he
Speaker 1: would probably struggle offensively relative to his standards to begin
Speaker 1: the season, specifically with his shooting, and it's actually been
Speaker 1: the opposite. Um He is probably having, all things considered,
Speaker 1: the best shooting season of his career, even better than
Speaker 1: that season in Miami when he shot around from three
Speaker 1: because of the volume and his willingness to take threes um.
Speaker 1: He has never looked as confident in his three ball,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I think maybe some of that is
Speaker 1: kind of that post championship glow where he's coming off
Speaker 1: that championship. He feels as confident as ever, and he
Speaker 1: looks as confident as ever. His control and mastery of
Speaker 1: the game at this point is something that very few players,
Speaker 1: I think, in the history of basketball ever have touched.
Speaker 1: He has been phenomenal this year, and I can't sit
Speaker 1: here and say you're crazy for picking him m v P.
Speaker 1: I don't agree. I have him be one at this
Speaker 1: point just because the Sixers literally just won their first
Speaker 1: basketball game of the season without him yesterday, or I
Speaker 1: might have been two days ago against the Pacers, but
Speaker 1: either way, I think it comes down to how you
Speaker 1: define m p P. Right, Lebron is having a magnificent season,
Speaker 1: but that Lakers team is really good and really deep,
Speaker 1: and he's playing with another top six seven player and
Speaker 1: A d hasn't been that guy so far this year.
Speaker 1: But the talent is still there and the reputation is
Speaker 1: still there, which means other teams have to account for that,
Speaker 1: and Beat on the other hand, doesn't have as much
Speaker 1: help even though they have improved that Rosster. He's been
Speaker 1: probably a top three defensive Player of the Year candidate,
Speaker 1: and they don't win games without him. So if we're
Speaker 1: going by the definition of who is the most valuable
Speaker 1: to their team, I think it's imbeat Um. The bronze
Speaker 1: case would be built on Obviously he's looked amazing and
Speaker 1: then like you're saying availability, so no, I don't think
Speaker 1: you're crazy. I would just go and Beat at this point,
Speaker 1: But if he does continue to miss games, I think
Speaker 1: the conversation will continue to shift towards Lebron. And it
Speaker 1: is real quick. Let's let's read off and beads numbers.
Speaker 1: So he's he's thirty two, thirteen and three per thirty six.
Speaker 1: That's incredible from the old from three from the line,
Speaker 1: the Sixers are plus thirteen point to purb one possessions
Speaker 1: when he's on the floor and minus four point one
Speaker 1: when he's off the floor. Um, but he's missed four
Speaker 1: of their last twelve games. Um, he's only played in
Speaker 1: sixteen games this season compared to twenty two for Lebron.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, to me, that is a factor
Speaker 1: in the m v P race. I mean, he's missed
Speaker 1: a third of their last twelve games. That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: And to your point, he's so good that they they
Speaker 1: have really they have a lot of trouble winning when
Speaker 1: he's not playing. And my my question would just be,
Speaker 1: how do you factor that into an m v P race,
Speaker 1: you know, considering you know, availability is the best ability.
Speaker 1: As you know that cliche goes right, So his net
Speaker 1: rating swing is ridiculous. I think that the probably the
Speaker 1: number one thing I point you, beside the per thirty
Speaker 1: six numbers, which are just outrageous. Um, I'm not concerned
Speaker 1: about the availability stuff yet. If you know, if we
Speaker 1: get sixties games into the season and he's only played forty,
Speaker 1: then yeah, it's absolutely gonna factor in. But as the
Speaker 1: season goes. If he stays healthy, he's only gonna have
Speaker 1: missed six, seven, eight games, So I don't think that
Speaker 1: will be enough miss time to really factor it into
Speaker 1: the m v P race. I think you would have
Speaker 1: to play less than sixty games for me to truly
Speaker 1: factor that and say, Okay, now, he might have been
Speaker 1: amazing for those fifty eight or so games, but Lebron
Speaker 1: played seventy one of seventy two games, so he would
Speaker 1: deserve it over em beat Um. So at this point
Speaker 1: I still have em beat. If he doesn't continue to
Speaker 1: miss more games, I think Lebron will probably overtake him.
Speaker 1: Even though your kitchen is coming harder. I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: touch on very soon here. Yeah, And like the it's
Speaker 1: all part, like we talked about at the beginning, there's
Speaker 1: these chunks of the season, and so there's a story
Speaker 1: of each chunk. Like if you look last year, you know,
Speaker 1: the first chunk of the season, Lebron was right there,
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the hunt with the honest
Speaker 1: and then there was this like chunk in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season, like where the Lakers went in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a slump. They lost like four games
Speaker 1: in a row, Janice was putting up crazy numbers and
Speaker 1: the Bucks were winning every game, and he was like
Speaker 1: very very available. He's playing almost every night. But then
Speaker 1: there was like this fourth chunk of their third chunk
Speaker 1: of the season before the season got suspended, where all
Speaker 1: of a sudden Lebron looked better and you kind of
Speaker 1: build this this picture. And all I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: in this first chunk of the season and Beads, availability
Speaker 1: has been a problem. So obviously, if that projects to
Speaker 1: continue that way and he misses, you know, five games
Speaker 1: each chunk of the season, then he's gonna miss twenty games,
Speaker 1: and then we're and then we're talking about a serious
Speaker 1: problem for his m v P case. And and I
Speaker 1: I've you know, one of two things is gonna happen
Speaker 1: with Lebron. Either he's gonna go full two thousand and
Speaker 1: eighteen where he just plays every single night, or he's
Speaker 1: gonna go through a stretch where he's having a nagging
Speaker 1: injury and he ends up, you know, taking his foot
Speaker 1: off the gas, and that'll all end up being part
Speaker 1: of the part of the story down the line. Um.
Speaker 1: The other thing I didn't go ahead. I think the
Speaker 1: thing with the different chunks of your of the season.
Speaker 1: As you're laying out, is we always act like these
Speaker 1: things are decided so early, right, everybody on Twitter saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a done deal, Lebron is already gonna win. The
Speaker 1: narratives behind him, this and that. But we saw last
Speaker 1: year that it literally changed three times, right. I think
Speaker 1: we jumped at conclusions and everybody wants to get mad
Speaker 1: about of about the swirling narrative, but we just gotta
Speaker 1: let these things play out. I would like I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I would Stileana because that net rating swing is absolutely
Speaker 1: nuts and they can't really win games without him, right,
Speaker 1: Whereas I think, and this is obviously just a theory
Speaker 1: because Lebron has a misstime, I think the Lakers would
Speaker 1: be okay without Lebron. They wouldn't be amazing without him,
Speaker 1: but I think they'd still be a solid team. Whereas
Speaker 1: Philly looks almost lost when it isn't on the floor. Well,
Speaker 1: I I do disagree with you in the sense that
Speaker 1: I do. I think Philly's roster is extremely talented. I
Speaker 1: think Tobias Harris, as the third best player on the Sixers,
Speaker 1: is a much better player than the third best player
Speaker 1: on the Lakers, which is Dennis Shrewder. Tobias is having
Speaker 1: an amazing season. By the way, He's basically been a
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton. So imagine if Chris Middleton was the third
Speaker 1: best player on his team. Uh. In addition to that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, guys like guys like Seth Curry are are
Speaker 1: are playing extremely well this season, you know, uh uh
Speaker 1: Tyrese Max, He's having a really good see season. The
Speaker 1: Shake Milton has actually been playing really well. He killed
Speaker 1: the Lakers the other night. The team has a lot
Speaker 1: of talent. I think I think that the differences is
Speaker 1: Lebron has been so available that we haven't had a
Speaker 1: chance to see how the Lakers look when he doesn't play.
Speaker 1: And for the record, there was this really weird stat
Speaker 1: that I kept, you know, beating the drum with when
Speaker 1: when when I was talking about having Schroeder in the
Speaker 1: starting lineup, the Lakers are killing teams when Lebron, a D,
Speaker 1: and Schroeder on the floor. They're killing teams when Lebron
Speaker 1: and a D are on the floor. They're killing teams.
Speaker 1: When Lebron and Schroeder are on the floor. They're barely
Speaker 1: positive when it's just Lebron and when it's a D
Speaker 1: and Schroeder, they're still negative in just the minutes that
Speaker 1: a D and Schroeder are on the floor. So there's
Speaker 1: some weird stuff going on there where. And it was
Speaker 1: like this last year too, And honestly, I think it
Speaker 1: just goes to the stuff you and I talked about
Speaker 1: all the time about like primary initiators. I just think
Speaker 1: that Anthony Davis is a very very very very very
Speaker 1: good basketball player, but he's like a Lamborghini without a
Speaker 1: key fob, Like somebody's got to bring the key fob
Speaker 1: to get him going, you know what I mean. Yep,
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with any of that. I have Philly
Speaker 1: winning the East. I still have Philly winning the East.
Speaker 1: So I do agree with the overall talent, but it just,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it hasn't worked without and be there's
Speaker 1: a reason they only have one win without it. Right,
Speaker 1: as good as Tobias has been, if he all of
Speaker 1: a sudden has to be your second best guy, and
Speaker 1: that second best guys to Ben Simmons, who has a
Speaker 1: an absurd aversion to scoring. At this point, I think
Speaker 1: it looks he hasn't been on offense. He's been bad. Sure,
Speaker 1: he's regrets there. It's one of those things where the
Speaker 1: skill hasn't improved, and now he kind of feels the
Speaker 1: pressure of that skill not improving because he hears the
Speaker 1: chatter and he's so afraid to try and even score
Speaker 1: around the rim sometimes at this point that it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense because he should be. He should still be
Speaker 1: regardless of what the shooting looks like. He should still
Speaker 1: be one of the best room attackers in the game.
Speaker 1: And that's like a night to night thing. At this point,
Speaker 1: you don't know what Ben Simmons you're gonna get in
Speaker 1: terms of attacking him. So I haven't beat especially if
Speaker 1: he continues to play games. He's been absolutely incredible. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like an absolute idiot for not having him
Speaker 1: in my top ten before the season started, because he's
Speaker 1: easily he's a lot better now than he was. Like
Speaker 1: he is. He he put up monster numbers in the
Speaker 1: first round playoff series, but he was bad for the
Speaker 1: most part. He didn't play anywhere near as well on
Speaker 1: defense as he usually does, and he was about his
Speaker 1: like he was facing double teams almost time down the floor,
Speaker 1: almost every time down the floor, and I think he
Speaker 1: only averaged one assist per game in that series. So
Speaker 1: like he just he wasn't very very good. And now
Speaker 1: as far as m beat as a player, you know,
Speaker 1: I was really I've watched him quite a few times
Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks. He's still the one
Speaker 1: downside with him and the one thing that makes me
Speaker 1: nervous not for him, not for a Brooklyn series, but
Speaker 1: more like if he ends up in some dog fight
Speaker 1: with Boston or Miami, or if he ends up in
Speaker 1: the finals against the Lakers. He still struggles with the
Speaker 1: double team in terms of making complicated reads. He can
Speaker 1: make simple reads against defenses that make catastrophic mistakes. So
Speaker 1: for instance, you know, uh, a poorly spaced on defense
Speaker 1: not in a good shell drill leading into a double
Speaker 1: team where a guy is just completely wide open under
Speaker 1: the basket or completely wide open on the wing. He
Speaker 1: can make that kind of read. But he's struggling with
Speaker 1: the same reads that Anthony Davis had been struggling with,
Speaker 1: although he's been getting a little better this year, where
Speaker 1: it's like embracing the double team, taking it a little
Speaker 1: bit further into the double team deliberately to really get
Speaker 1: the defense off balance, to make the more complicated reads
Speaker 1: that the only like that you can only find against
Speaker 1: the really good defenses. Like when you're playing a really
Speaker 1: good defense, you're not gonna get the butt naked guy
Speaker 1: under the basket or in the corner. You're you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to make the difficult, complicated read to get a
Speaker 1: slightly contested shot. But that in a playoff series is
Speaker 1: a high quality shot, if that makes sense. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think handling double teams is an experienced thing. The
Speaker 1: more you do it, the better you're gonna get at it.
Speaker 1: As long as you can process the game quickly enough. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the best things that coach ever told me
Speaker 1: was to play slow in a crowd. Right. The tendency
Speaker 1: for a lot of guys is when they get double team,
Speaker 1: they speed up and they hurry and they instantly try
Speaker 1: to find something because they're nervous about getting double team.
Speaker 1: What Embide needs to learn how to do is when
Speaker 1: that double comes, like you're saying, invite it, embrace it.
Speaker 1: He's taller than almost anybody who's coming to double him.
Speaker 1: Embrace that double team, play patient, play strong, and then
Speaker 1: find your kickouts. What I think they can do is
Speaker 1: they have done is they put some more shooting around him.
Speaker 1: Obviously with Curry and Danny Green hasn't been good this year,
Speaker 1: but at least he's a theoretical shooter and so Bias
Speaker 1: is shooting the eyes out of it. He's shooting incredible
Speaker 1: this year. I think what they need to do is
Speaker 1: is have more guys who can make that secondary read.
Speaker 1: Right like Simmons can make the secondary read if MPD
Speaker 1: hits him out of a double team. They need to
Speaker 1: find another guy kind of in that Simmons mold than
Speaker 1: like a Draymond Green roll mold or an Andrea Gudala
Speaker 1: mold where they can make that second and third read.
Speaker 1: If embides only gonna make the simple one, you've gotta
Speaker 1: have the guy that can make that second or third
Speaker 1: read to find the open shooter, find a layup. So
Speaker 1: that would be the type of guy if I'm them
Speaker 1: that I'm looking for near a trade denline at a
Speaker 1: buy out, some of you can make those secondary passing
Speaker 1: reads that will amplify their offense, because right now I
Speaker 1: want to say they're eleventh or twelfth and offensive rating,
Speaker 1: which is good, but that might be a problem come
Speaker 1: playoff time. Um So I'd be looking for somebody like
Speaker 1: that over the trade deadline. Yeah, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: And for the record, a lot of those offensive metrics
Speaker 1: are thrown off by the fact that in bid has
Speaker 1: been out so much. Um. But yeah, it's funny you
Speaker 1: brought up that thing when you were calling. When you
Speaker 1: were coaching. I remember my coach at Arizona Christian University
Speaker 1: did what was called the tight space passing drill. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you've ever seen this, but basically,
Speaker 1: you go stand on the h in the corner and
Speaker 1: you you could kind of make a theoretical box that
Speaker 1: stretches from the from the block over to the out
Speaker 1: of bounds line, so it's it's roughly like ten ft
Speaker 1: wide by like fifteen feet long, so it's a little
Speaker 1: it's a small box. And then you play. You put
Speaker 1: three three offense of players and two defensive players. But
Speaker 1: then you encourage the defensive players to be physical and
Speaker 1: to foul, and basically the ideas you can't dribble, but
Speaker 1: you have two complete passes within the circle, but there's
Speaker 1: always an open man. But you're getting absolutely hounded because
Speaker 1: you can't dribble, and the defensive players just up in
Speaker 1: your grill and being extremely physical, and it forces you
Speaker 1: to be really strong, clear space with your elbows to
Speaker 1: get to get to uh bounce pass and you almost
Speaker 1: always have to throw a pass fake to get the
Speaker 1: one guy to jolt to the other guys that the
Speaker 1: third player is open. And UH, it was funny because
Speaker 1: like if you actually embraced the physicality and embraced the
Speaker 1: past baking and embraced the the guy who's all over you,
Speaker 1: it was it was an easy drill to succeed in.
Speaker 1: But if you got sloppy, it was turnover city, even
Speaker 1: though you have only had two defenders involved. And I
Speaker 1: think that's that that's kind of the way I look
Speaker 1: at it with Emdeed and uh with Anthony Davis as well.
Speaker 1: It's just really just kind of embracing the fact that
Speaker 1: the defense is into your hands and and being patient
Speaker 1: with it. But yeah, I was kind of disappointed late
Speaker 1: fourth quarter of that Lakers Philly game when uh, when
Speaker 1: the Lakers actually kind of shifted their defense to have
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis straight up on Embiid and then they had
Speaker 1: Dennis Schroeder kind of get into like a uh in
Speaker 1: a dig position where he's kind of lunging in at
Speaker 1: the ball on him beat and then they had KCP
Speaker 1: uh kind of split the difference between the two shooters.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those plays where if embiad was
Speaker 1: strong with the ball and took one dribble into the paint,
Speaker 1: he would force Dennis to commit, which would force KCP
Speaker 1: to make a decision. But instead, like he was hesitant
Speaker 1: and he and he and he was just immediately would
Speaker 1: kind of like dribble away from where the dig was
Speaker 1: coming from so he could get to his jump shot.
Speaker 1: And that to me is like looking solely for your
Speaker 1: shot in that situation instead of understanding that the defense
Speaker 1: is compromising itself to try to stop you and that
Speaker 1: there's some sort of opening there. And he's probably not
Speaker 1: taking that dribble into the paint because he doesn't feel
Speaker 1: confident in as a to really read the double team
Speaker 1: and makes me play quickly out of it and strongly.
Speaker 1: But it's funny you mentioned the tight space passing droll.
Speaker 1: We actually did that same drill at Fresno City. Um,
Speaker 1: same the coach that told me, you know, play slow
Speaker 1: in a crowd, play low and slow in a crowd. That, yeah,
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of days in the tight space
Speaker 1: passing drill. My uh what my college roommate at Fresno City,
Speaker 1: his dad was actually the creator of that drill. Mike
Speaker 1: Dunlap coach at Metro State. Yeah, yep, coach Metro State
Speaker 1: coach Charlotte bobcats Um coach A l M you for
Speaker 1: a little bit. He's been all over. He was then
Speaker 1: interim coach at at You have A Arizona when who
Speaker 1: was it that guy, Mike Dunlap. Mike Dunlap was an
Speaker 1: interim coach at the UV. I'm trying to remember because
Speaker 1: there were two interim coaches between between lud Olsen and
Speaker 1: Sean Miller, and it was Dunlap and then there was
Speaker 1: one other guy and I can't remember who it was.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, that's funny though. But yeah, it's the drill.
Speaker 1: The drill was was genius and it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: an example of just uh, the like when you're a
Speaker 1: college when you're a player, you don't really understand. You're like,
Speaker 1: can we just play some five on five? Like what
Speaker 1: are we doing here? But stupid stuff like that forces
Speaker 1: you to simplify what you're working on down to a
Speaker 1: specific skill, which in this case was like being strong
Speaker 1: with the ball, and you could tell like the The
Speaker 1: big part of it too, is like it's okay to
Speaker 1: risk a turnover to potentially develop an assist. You know, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, if you just if you get double teams
Speaker 1: and you just kick it out one passive way to
Speaker 1: the entry pass guy and then he lunges back out,
Speaker 1: you didn't risk a turnover, but you also didn't make
Speaker 1: the defense pay. You basically just forced the play to reset. Now,
Speaker 1: if you take an aggressive dribble into the double team
Speaker 1: and then drop it off under the basket, there's a
Speaker 1: chance that might get tipped out of bounds. There's a
Speaker 1: chance you might miss the guy. There's a chance you
Speaker 1: might mishandle the ball. If you make a more aggressive
Speaker 1: play to a kick out three, same thing, but if
Speaker 1: you complete the pass, it's a wide open layup or
Speaker 1: a wide open three. So you're it's a risk reward
Speaker 1: factor there, And just and Anthony Davis just starting to
Speaker 1: embrace that a little bit. He had two turnovers in
Speaker 1: the first half last night against Atlanta where he was
Speaker 1: aggressively trying to make a play. I just would like
Speaker 1: to see em bead make that type of play. That's
Speaker 1: the next step for him. That's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that's going to turn him into a player that can
Speaker 1: really become a guy who goes toe to toe with
Speaker 1: you know, a Lebron or a kauai and or Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant a playoff series and come out on top. Is
Speaker 1: when they when they do start to figure out how
Speaker 1: to double team in game five or six of a
Speaker 1: playoff series. How is he going to to make teams
Speaker 1: pay for that and for what it's worth. I think
Speaker 1: he's close. He's he's twenty six. Most guys really don't
Speaker 1: hit their Prome eight. I think he has not only
Speaker 1: the ability, but the kind of the mental processing of
Speaker 1: the game capacity to actually become that guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been showing passing flashes since his time at Kansas
Speaker 1: when he would barely even knew how to play the game.
Speaker 1: He has pretty tremendous feel for a guy in his eyes.
Speaker 1: If I had to bet on it, I would bet
Speaker 1: on him figuring that stuff out, probably sooner rather than later. Hm.
Speaker 1: I agree with you and uh And I think it
Speaker 1: was important to go over that because, like and Bead
Speaker 1: is making leap, He's going from guy in that six
Speaker 1: to fifteen range of you know, superstars that's constantly fluctuating
Speaker 1: up and down based on how they're playing week to week.
Speaker 1: You know, like Damian Lillard, Like one week you think
Speaker 1: he's the seventh best player in the world, and the
Speaker 1: next week you think he's the thirteenth. And the same
Speaker 1: thing goes for you know, Yokich, Sometimes the same thing
Speaker 1: goes for embiid and and uh, both Yokich and Embid
Speaker 1: this season appear to be making that leap into that
Speaker 1: like consistent top five level performer and uh, this is
Speaker 1: where you get a nipicky with them, because you know,
Speaker 1: those little things, little details like we talked about about
Speaker 1: how he handles the double team and and uh what
Speaker 1: he does with the double team rather than just making
Speaker 1: the safe play. Those are the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: separate you from being the fourth best player in the
Speaker 1: world and the eighth best player in the world. Like,
Speaker 1: those little details make a huge difference. Who did you
Speaker 1: who'd you have at number three on your list? I
Speaker 1: would have Yokich um and I could even see the
Speaker 1: case for Yoki top two. He has been he to me,
Speaker 1: the only guys offensively if I'm running an entire offense
Speaker 1: and I'm taking over him or Lebron and staff, right,
Speaker 1: and that is not People are gonna get mad at
Speaker 1: me because they're gonna think it's Kevin Durrance slander. It's not.
Speaker 1: Duran is clearly better at him than him at the
Speaker 1: skill of scoring. But Yokich is probably already the best
Speaker 1: over six ten, six eleven passer and the history of basketball.
Speaker 1: He's a point guard, but he's just six eleven anyways pounds.
Speaker 1: He's banana is good. Like every time I watched the guy.
Speaker 1: It's despite the fact that they can't guard anybody, they
Speaker 1: are one of the most fun basketball teams I've ever watched,
Speaker 1: simply because of he makes everything go for them. They
Speaker 1: really don't have like another even top thirty or top
Speaker 1: forty player on that roster, and then they sacrifice defensive
Speaker 1: summer for whatever reason. They got rid of their two
Speaker 1: best wing defenders, and somehow they're still figuring it out
Speaker 1: because he's that special. Offensively, he is read his staff
Speaker 1: because I want to hear me, the dude is absolutely nuts. Well.
Speaker 1: First of all, Jeremy Grant has been so so good
Speaker 1: this year. That's got to be frustrating if you're done
Speaker 1: very especially if the intel that they offered him the
Speaker 1: same contract is true, then that's really frustrating. So I
Speaker 1: had yokis fourth for the record, but I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: his stats before we go back and forth. So Yoki
Speaker 1: was twenty seven twelve and nine per thirty six fifty
Speaker 1: seven percent from the field, thirty eight percent from three
Speaker 1: percent from the line. The Nuggets are plus seven point
Speaker 1: one when he's on the floor and plus zero point
Speaker 1: five when he's off the floor. They they have had
Speaker 1: a rough season. I think they're twelve and eight, um,
Speaker 1: but they're quietly up to the sixth best record in
Speaker 1: the league right now. Um uh. And they are eleven
Speaker 1: and four in their last fifteen games because they started
Speaker 1: one in four and uh, they're in that fifteen game
Speaker 1: stretch their ninth and defense, which is pretty good, especially
Speaker 1: considering Yokich has been better. I think he's leading all
Speaker 1: centers and steals, which is awesome. Um uh. And then
Speaker 1: he's fourth and for the Nuggets at the fourth best
Speaker 1: offensive rating over the last fifteen games. So the Nuggets
Speaker 1: are playing significantly better their top ten in both offense
Speaker 1: and defense. Uh. Yoki's numbers have been amazing. I agree
Speaker 1: with you that he's the candidate on this list that
Speaker 1: is your bona fide number one, without a without a
Speaker 1: number two, that's near his level. If you go through
Speaker 1: every other guy that we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 1: they're playing alongside someone who's considered that type of elite.
Speaker 1: But a big part of that has to do with
Speaker 1: how poorly uh Jamal Murray has been playing. Um And
Speaker 1: he he's had his moments, He's hit a couple of
Speaker 1: big shots this year. He just hasn't been bubble Jamal.
Speaker 1: But I am maintaining that I want to wait, you
Speaker 1: know till right around this point in the season to
Speaker 1: start closely judging some of these teams that made it
Speaker 1: into the late rounds of the playoffs. I'm with you there,
Speaker 1: um I. It was a pretty harsh Jamal critic even
Speaker 1: during the bubble, or not I shouldn't say critic. I
Speaker 1: was just skeptical of how real those performances were in
Speaker 1: the bubble. And I think we're at least seeing that
Speaker 1: that's probably not the guy he's gonna be, because, like
Speaker 1: I've said before, if he actually was that guy, he'd
Speaker 1: be the greatest point guard in NBA history because he
Speaker 1: was scoring thirty points a game on splits. So the
Speaker 1: potential is there with Murray, he just it's it's always
Speaker 1: been the consistency with him. I think the consistency of
Speaker 1: routine in the bubble really helped him. Right, he was
Speaker 1: able to do the same thing every day. He's in
Speaker 1: the same gym, a guy like him who was a
Speaker 1: super rhythm player, I think that really helped him. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't have enough superlatives to describe Yoki.
Speaker 1: I think he's been but I have him third for
Speaker 1: a reason. He's been better than everybody not named Lebron
Speaker 1: or Embiid, and I if his defense wasn't what it
Speaker 1: was or what it is relative to Lebron and Embid,
Speaker 1: who are to have probably the best defensive players in
Speaker 1: the league when they want to be, and they both
Speaker 1: have wanted to be this year, I would have him
Speaker 1: probably number one. But I think that there's a big
Speaker 1: enough gap in the defense, especially if you're comparing Embi
Speaker 1: and Yokich. Were embiads know a defensive Player of the
Speaker 1: Year candidate that I think you have to put both
Speaker 1: of those guys over him for now. But if if
Speaker 1: they keep playing better, and if you said they've been
Speaker 1: like tenth and defensive rating over the past through the
Speaker 1: last fifteen games, yeah, there you go. So if if
Speaker 1: they can maintain that and then the offense is what
Speaker 1: it is, which is top three offense basically, then I
Speaker 1: think he's going to continue to build a really strong case,
Speaker 1: especially if they volt up to third or fourth of
Speaker 1: the West, which I think is distinctly possible. The West
Speaker 1: is an absolute dog fight this year. I was looking
Speaker 1: at the standings last night and I still think like
Speaker 1: thirteen of the fifteen teams have a chance to make
Speaker 1: the playoffs. The only ones that I say don't are
Speaker 1: Minnesota and probably New Orleans. Those are the only two
Speaker 1: that I would totally count out at this point. There's
Speaker 1: obviously some teams that are probably on the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: but those two are the only ones that I would
Speaker 1: eliminate right now and say they probably have no chance
Speaker 1: of making the playoffs. The fourth best team in the
Speaker 1: league or the fifth best team in the league right
Speaker 1: now is Denver and Milwaukee tied for fifth at twelve
Speaker 1: and eight. So there's only four teams that have fewer
Speaker 1: than eight losses right now. So I and even all
Speaker 1: four of those are all bump like jumbled up right
Speaker 1: around that sixteen and five fifteen and five sixteen and
Speaker 1: six right around that line. Um, but I agree with
Speaker 1: you that. So the reason why I had Kauai third
Speaker 1: instead of of Yokich is flat out because of the
Speaker 1: the team's success. So Kauai uh for starters. Kauai has
Speaker 1: been averaging twenty seven six and six per thirty six.
Speaker 1: He's shooting from the field from three and nine two
Speaker 1: percent from the line, so like well above like a
Speaker 1: healthy season. The Clippers are plus sixteen point two when
Speaker 1: he's on the floor and minus two point nine when
Speaker 1: he's off the floor. The only two reasons I have
Speaker 1: him below Lebron and Embiid are first of all, defensively,
Speaker 1: he's taken a slip. The Clippers have been outside of
Speaker 1: the top ten all season. I believe they're twelveth right now. Um,
Speaker 1: they haven't defended nearly as well as you would expect
Speaker 1: them to for the amount of talent that they have.
Speaker 1: The two guys in front of him on this list,
Speaker 1: for both of us and beating Lebron, have both taken
Speaker 1: the defensive end way more personally this year and have
Speaker 1: attacked the season more on that end. Uh. The other
Speaker 1: thing to me was the offensive workload. So, you know,
Speaker 1: Lebron's offensive workload is less than it was last year,
Speaker 1: for sure, but his offensive workload is still super high,
Speaker 1: especially when you factor in the fact that Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: has basically like like put his car in neutral to
Speaker 1: start this season. So but but seriously though, like he
Speaker 1: you know, look, this should be a year where Lebron's
Speaker 1: coasting more offensively, but he but he's had to take
Speaker 1: on that crazy, you know, uh, intensive offensive role. And
Speaker 1: then the same goes for Joe LMB. Like his usage
Speaker 1: rate is up over thirty two. He's one of the Uh.
Speaker 1: Almost every possession runs through him in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form, even when he ends up giving the ball
Speaker 1: up out of double teams. A lot of guys are
Speaker 1: creating offense off of the attention he gets. Kauai may
Speaker 1: or may not be the best player on his team
Speaker 1: right now because of how good Paul George has been.
Speaker 1: And uh, we're all splitting hairs between these guys. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to say that there's some massive gap between
Speaker 1: Kauai and the top guys, but he has a case
Speaker 1: to be up there, and the reason why I have
Speaker 1: him third is because his defensive slippage and because of
Speaker 1: his much smaller offensive workload playing alongside Paul George. What's
Speaker 1: the case for him over your kitch? Then team success?
Speaker 1: They have the best record purely sex Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: the Clippers literally have the best record in the league
Speaker 1: right now, and and Denver's twelve and eight, So to me,
Speaker 1: that would be the bona fide m v p k's
Speaker 1: best player on the best team. Fair enough from there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I just from that standpoint, I can't argue
Speaker 1: with it, obviously. I just think Kauai was pretty rough
Speaker 1: to start the season. Offensively, He's obviously been tremendous since
Speaker 1: he's shooting like fifty from the floor since the first
Speaker 1: five or so games. Um, So it's that's obviously a
Speaker 1: lesser portion portion of the season than what he's done since.
Speaker 1: But he also hasn't been as available at yokish or
Speaker 1: um Lebron. So yeah, I mean, like you said, we're
Speaker 1: splitting hairs here. Um I would personally go yokich then Kauai,
Speaker 1: then Kauai and then but I see the argument from
Speaker 1: the other side too. Yeah, and like the there's a
Speaker 1: lot to be said about how the Clippers just look
Speaker 1: more calm this year. Um. They they are making better decisions.
Speaker 1: The Nicholas Patum and Sergebaka signings have undeniably raised their
Speaker 1: offensive i Q. I don't think enough. So they've raised
Speaker 1: their their offensive i Q in terms of making plays
Speaker 1: in close out situations. So for instance, like you know
Speaker 1: Betumb catching the ball in the corner, knocking down open shots,
Speaker 1: are attacking that close out and then a Baka on
Speaker 1: the short roll and in in post up situations higher
Speaker 1: i Q. But those are not primary initiations. All of
Speaker 1: their primary initiations are still centered around Kawai and Paul George.
Speaker 1: They've done good this year, with exception of a handful
Speaker 1: of bad games, which no team is of witted. However
Speaker 1: that I don't see the core playoff problem which is
Speaker 1: inferior primary initiations. Uh. I don't see that problem as
Speaker 1: having been fixed. Uh. They're definitely better than last year. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I didn't say anything about the Tomb signing,
Speaker 1: but I had. I am a big believer in in
Speaker 1: like relatively young veterans, so guys who are in their
Speaker 1: early thirties who have been stuck on bad teams suddenly
Speaker 1: being good. Like think of Trevor Reason when he went
Speaker 1: to Houston as an example. Uh, Like, these these guys
Speaker 1: they're just they're they're playing alongside crap perimeter initiators and
Speaker 1: they're on and they're not motivated. And now they get
Speaker 1: put in a situation where they're making plays and closeout
Speaker 1: situations alongside some of the best players in the league,
Speaker 1: and there they have something to play for. It was
Speaker 1: to me it was predictable that a guy like the
Speaker 1: Tune would break out. Kent Baysmore was terrible in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: This year, he looks great with Golden State. I mean
Speaker 1: that that the argument. Yeah, now he's next to Steph
Speaker 1: and to a lesser extent, Draymond, but mostly Steph, and
Speaker 1: he's shooting over from three. He looks really good and
Speaker 1: basically all of his minutes. He gets a little bit
Speaker 1: out of control sometimes, but at the end of the
Speaker 1: day he's a role player. But but Tombs the same thing.
Speaker 1: The Tombs looked really good, and I mean people thought
Speaker 1: his career might have been over that last year in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: but he just wasn't motivated funny enough, he probably would
Speaker 1: have had really a lot of fun playing with that
Speaker 1: team this year because the Hornets are super, super fun team.
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed watching them almost more than anybody this year.
Speaker 1: LaMelo is an absolute basketball savant. I can't say it enough.
Speaker 1: I I don't want to go too deep into it
Speaker 1: because Warriors fans are gonna get mad at me for
Speaker 1: keep talking about LaMelo instead of wise Man. But that
Speaker 1: dude is he has a chance to be an m
Speaker 1: VP candidate if the scoring ever comes around just at
Speaker 1: like twenty points per game. Well, and I have a
Speaker 1: problem with the comments from the head coach with his
Speaker 1: name Barrego when he was like saying like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can't have a guy in my starting lineup that's having
Speaker 1: all these turnovers. And where I would disagree with that
Speaker 1: is like like people are thinking too much about what
Speaker 1: the assist stat means as opposed to the difference between
Speaker 1: the specific types of assists. So like, like we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier out of the post, when you make
Speaker 1: an aggressive play, an aggressive play has a has a
Speaker 1: much different risk to reward than a simple swing around
Speaker 1: the perimeter or or different types of assists plays, like
Speaker 1: you know, like uh, James Harden, just like throwing swing
Speaker 1: passes around the court that are leading to a guy
Speaker 1: taking a twenty six ft three, and he's doing that
Speaker 1: forty times a game and the guy makes seven of them.
Speaker 1: So there's seven assists on his total in in plays
Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily like you know, super high quality shot attempts.
Speaker 1: That's not the same to me as LaMelo ball making
Speaker 1: a super aggressive pass that, if completed, leads to a dunk,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like that to me is
Speaker 1: a huge difference. And to Brego's point, it's like you've
Speaker 1: got to think of you know, his assist to turnover
Speaker 1: ratio is different than an assist to turnover ratio for
Speaker 1: a James Harden type of guy, because uh LaMelo is
Speaker 1: a super aggressive passer and most of his assists are
Speaker 1: literally for dunks. So like, if you have six assists
Speaker 1: and four turnovers, that that it's as good as getting
Speaker 1: six offense, and in his particular role, because he's just
Speaker 1: getting dunks. Like there, he's literally creating like offensive plays
Speaker 1: with his assists. He's averaging six point one assist in
Speaker 1: two and a half turnovers the game. Right now, his
Speaker 1: sister turnover his assist ratio is fine, especially for a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old rookie who really isn't physically developed yet.
Speaker 1: He's getting by on guile and skill like he's not
Speaker 1: overpowering anybody. Everything he's doing is a means of his
Speaker 1: basketball i Q. And then obviously his skill level, which
Speaker 1: is super super high. I'm not sure if I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: at least in my lifetime, a nineteen year old who's
Speaker 1: more just gifted with the basketball in his hands right,
Speaker 1: every pass, every dribble. He he can shoot from a
Speaker 1: bunch of different platforms, even though the shots kind of funky. Um,
Speaker 1: he's got a chance to be super super special. Man,
Speaker 1: that that kid is unbelievable. Well, and Tommy and before
Speaker 1: the show, we were talking about like coaching and like
Speaker 1: in the culture that surrounds coaching, particularly with the older guys.
Speaker 1: So Tommy went to go coach at what school was
Speaker 1: it again, Metro State in Denver Division two school. So
Speaker 1: he went to go coach to the division school to
Speaker 1: school in Denver, and he was in the business for
Speaker 1: a little while and then he gave up on it.
Speaker 1: And I have friends of mine that I played with
Speaker 1: in college that have gone to try to coach. I
Speaker 1: have a coach, a friend of mine that was an
Speaker 1: assistant when I was in Utah who frequently reaches out
Speaker 1: to me and just kind of vents about the industry.
Speaker 1: And it's hard. It's really really hard because these these guys,
Speaker 1: these guys that the head coach position is naturally such
Speaker 1: a stubborn position because guys are so like stuck in
Speaker 1: their ways. And you know, I, I can just imagine
Speaker 1: that that Brego, he's looking at the situation and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, he doesn't particularly like playing LaMelo, probably because
Speaker 1: he prefers playing a more traditional guard and uh, he's
Speaker 1: probably under some pressure from the GM and the owner
Speaker 1: to play LaMelo. And it's kind of how he's hoping
Speaker 1: with it, because I cannot, for the life of me,
Speaker 1: think of a good reason for him to say what
Speaker 1: he did about LaMelo. That just seemed like so foolish
Speaker 1: to me and aggressive and weird. It was a strange comment,
Speaker 1: especially for a rookie who's been pretty spectacular so far
Speaker 1: this year. But to Barrego's credit, I think Davante Graham
Speaker 1: has shown tremendous development under him. Even though Graham has
Speaker 1: struggled a little bit this year. Malik last year though, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's awesome last year in Barrego's first year, Malik Monk,
Speaker 1: it looks like a different player this year. Um, I've
Speaker 1: been waiting on that forever. I've always been a Leiku
Speaker 1: Monk fan. And then I mean, he was critical of LaMelo,
Speaker 1: but LaMelo is look great. I think he's doing a
Speaker 1: great job of putting LaMelo in spots where you can succeed.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it might have been a contact
Speaker 1: or at a comment that got taken a little bit
Speaker 1: out of context, But yeah, it was weird either way.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see what the point of it was,
Speaker 1: especially when he's been as good as he has. And
Speaker 1: one of my biggest pet peeves and I was talking
Speaker 1: to you about this is like commit to commit to
Speaker 1: an era, you know, commit to a timeline, and like,
Speaker 1: if your goal is to have Melo Ball be your
Speaker 1: point of the future, having him come off the bench
Speaker 1: and play in like a secondary or tertiary role doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense to me. Like, unless you think you
Speaker 1: can win the championship this year, which I don't think
Speaker 1: they can, you've got to You've got to at least
Speaker 1: develop him like you you can. He's he's such a
Speaker 1: willing passer. He moves, he's he's a there's he's like
Speaker 1: an initiating passer instead of like a reactionary passer, meaning
Speaker 1: like he's not He's not that guy that's going to
Speaker 1: bring the ball to the floor, dribble seventeen times and
Speaker 1: when the defense collapses on him, he's gonna throw a pass.
Speaker 1: He's the guy who, like actively the minute he catches
Speaker 1: the ball is looking for openings and looking to push
Speaker 1: the ball at the floor. That that guy naturally will
Speaker 1: fit with Gordon Hayward. That guy naturally will fit with
Speaker 1: Miles Bridges and these other offensive players on the team.
Speaker 1: So I I would start him, but I we've gotten
Speaker 1: off the beating path a little bit. But anyway, at
Speaker 1: the bottom line, though, so you I had I had
Speaker 1: Lebron over em beat you had and beat over Lebron.
Speaker 1: I had Kauai over Yokich, you had Yokis. Did you
Speaker 1: have Kauai fourth? Yeah, I would have Kauai four. Just
Speaker 1: like all the stuff you pointed to. He's been absolutely
Speaker 1: tremendous his last twelve or so games. I want to
Speaker 1: say it was those first five that were really bad,
Speaker 1: and he's played seventeen totals of the last twelve games.
Speaker 1: He's been incredibly good. Um, yeah, he's just he's just
Speaker 1: a tremendous player. He is awesome. Man. I complained about
Speaker 1: him time to time because the foel hunting does get
Speaker 1: a little bit annoying. But he's incredible. If he keeps
Speaker 1: up these percentages, he's gonna have one of the better
Speaker 1: plus point per games offensive season offensive seasons ever. So
Speaker 1: he's been incredible and and uh I actually joked about
Speaker 1: this with with uh Samus Fandar a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: But like him, him and Paul George having great seasons
Speaker 1: was the most predictable thing ever. I really really do
Speaker 1: believe that when guys are embarrassed, it brings the best
Speaker 1: out of him. I frequently talked about how I think
Speaker 1: how I think Lebron that two thousand and eleven meltdown
Speaker 1: was like the best thing that ever happened to him
Speaker 1: because it made him embrace elements of his game that
Speaker 1: he never embraced before, because he leaned so heavily on
Speaker 1: his athleticism, and it made him get to the point
Speaker 1: where he was talented enough to dominate the next the
Speaker 1: next decade. He doesn't dominate the next decade if he
Speaker 1: wins in two thousand eleven, in my opinion, And so
Speaker 1: from that standpoint, like I I, it was, it was
Speaker 1: predictable to me that, you know, Kauai and Paul George
Speaker 1: had a really really embarrassing, like nightmare of an exit,
Speaker 1: and you don't just go home and sit on your
Speaker 1: couch after that. It eats at you and it brings
Speaker 1: something special out of you. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a I don't think it's a shock to me that
Speaker 1: they're playing well. That said, like I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think you and I both agree that there they
Speaker 1: still lack just a little bit of a high i
Speaker 1: Q ball handler to help them manage like tight moments
Speaker 1: in a playoff series when isolation shots aren't going. I'd
Speaker 1: still try to kind of swing for the fences with
Speaker 1: a Lowry move, and they have the contracts to make
Speaker 1: it work. It would be a little bit complicated, or
Speaker 1: they can make it a three team deal. I would
Speaker 1: try to get lowery, especially because we know the Lowry
Speaker 1: and Kauai thing works, like they literally want a championship together.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be a very easy move. Lowry's on
Speaker 1: the last year of his contract. Toronto might be looking
Speaker 1: to tank in one way or another. They don't seem
Speaker 1: like they're ready to win in any shape or fashion.
Speaker 1: Loberry doesn't fit their timeline at all, especially with a
Speaker 1: lot of the young guys they have. I would try
Speaker 1: to if I'm the Clippers, I'm doing almost everything I
Speaker 1: can to get Lowry at the deadline because I think
Speaker 1: if they get him now, I would actually be a
Speaker 1: lot more I'm sure of who's coming out of the
Speaker 1: Western Conference because right now I still have the Lakers
Speaker 1: by a healthy margin. I don't see any team in
Speaker 1: the West taking them no more than six games, and
Speaker 1: I think even that might be being a little bit generous.
Speaker 1: But if the Clippers get Lowry, I think that would
Speaker 1: be an absolute dog fight of a series. I'm worried
Speaker 1: about them having the assets to give them up. Like
Speaker 1: I and in Toronto, fans are extremely attached to Kyle Lowry.
Speaker 1: Um I I tweeted out like a fake trade the
Speaker 1: other day with like Kyrie for for Lowry and o
Speaker 1: g and and Obi, which I thought would make both
Speaker 1: teams better. And there were a lot of there were
Speaker 1: a lot of Toronto fans that were like, hell no, man, like,
Speaker 1: we're not giving up Lowry. We'd rather have Lowry than Kyrie,
Speaker 1: which is sanity obviously. I mean Kyrie, uh google, Lowry
Speaker 1: maybe a better overall basketball player manufactor in his leadership
Speaker 1: and availability and all those things, but there's a ceiling
Speaker 1: to what you could do with Lowry, and and Kyrie
Speaker 1: had an ability to raise that ceiling and uh I,
Speaker 1: but like Toronto fans wouldn't have it. So for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: they don't seem to be open to that idea. Lowry
Speaker 1: is their guy. Man. He went through all the playoff
Speaker 1: failures with him, he stuck with him, and then he
Speaker 1: brought him a championship, you know, and he was tremendous
Speaker 1: in those finals. His game six um to win those
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen finals, I think is probably one of the
Speaker 1: more underrated finals performances really ever by like a second star.
Speaker 1: He was just absurdly good in that game. He he
Speaker 1: came out and he absolutely set the Tony, scored like
Speaker 1: twelve in that first quarter and was just so steady
Speaker 1: that entire series. Really, and that's a guy who really
Speaker 1: had some massive playoff failures like at some point in
Speaker 1: his playoff career was like walking off the floor because
Speaker 1: he couldn't handle the pressure of the situation. And it
Speaker 1: was I'll never forget that. That was one of the
Speaker 1: craziest things I've ever seen in an NBA game. And
Speaker 1: then he totally people love an underdog story man. Nobody
Speaker 1: expected that from Kyle Lowry. And then he turned in
Speaker 1: he was the second best player on the title team.
Speaker 1: So I I totally get the attachment. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give my number five because it's something that I think
Speaker 1: is I feel pretty passionately about after digging into the numbers,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure you probably disagree with me, but
Speaker 1: we'll see what you end up thinking. So, uh, I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in rewarding team success success And when
Speaker 1: you look at the teams at the top of the league.
Speaker 1: The Utah Jazz right now are a half game out
Speaker 1: of first place. UM, And when you really dig into
Speaker 1: the numbers of that team, you're you know, your your
Speaker 1: initial instinct, you're like, casual perspective may tell you, oh,
Speaker 1: like it's Donovan Mitchell, he's the best player on the team. UM,
Speaker 1: But I think Mike Connolly is the is my pick
Speaker 1: for number five on the m v P ballot right now,
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons for starters. When I read
Speaker 1: you some of these numbers, you're literally going to be
Speaker 1: blown away. So first of all, he's averaging twenty five
Speaker 1: and seven per thirty six minutes. That's pretty good. It
Speaker 1: it's not quite like what a steph in two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen type of low statistical output m v P type
Speaker 1: of season was, but it's pretty damn good. Uh. From
Speaker 1: the field, from three from the line, the h he
Speaker 1: has the second highest usage right in their starting lineup,
Speaker 1: so for all of their heavy minutes guys, he's second
Speaker 1: in their usage, right behind Donovan Mitchell. The Jazz are
Speaker 1: plus eighteen point two per one hundred possessions when he's
Speaker 1: on the floor. They are minus ten point four when
Speaker 1: he is off the floor, So there's literally a twenty
Speaker 1: eight point swing between when he's on the floor and
Speaker 1: when he's off the floor. He's got the best defensive
Speaker 1: rating of all of their rotation players at nine point six.
Speaker 1: He's probably not the best defender on the team, but
Speaker 1: he's doing really well in his minutes um and if
Speaker 1: when you and this kind of goes with what when
Speaker 1: you talk to Jazz fans, If you talk to Jazz
Speaker 1: fans about what they've liked from Utah this year, they
Speaker 1: will tell you that Mike Conley has been the steadying
Speaker 1: presence for them, the most consistent player on the team.
Speaker 1: So my my, my question for you is does being
Speaker 1: a twenty point guy per thirty six minutes who has
Speaker 1: these dramatically amazing uh net rating effect and is the
Speaker 1: second best usage on the team for a team that's
Speaker 1: a half game out of best record in the league,
Speaker 1: is that enough to put you in the m v
Speaker 1: P conversation in your opinion? And if that's what you,
Speaker 1: put some other somebody else on the Jazz in there
Speaker 1: because I feel like somebody on the Jazz needs to
Speaker 1: be in there. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, Um,
Speaker 1: somebody should be in there. They have been tremendous this year.
Speaker 1: It feels like more of a team thing where they're
Speaker 1: just like I know, as of a couple of games
Speaker 1: ago when they absolutely walloped Warriors by like forty points
Speaker 1: and it was like twenty in the first quarter. They
Speaker 1: are they are shooting threes at a clip and making
Speaker 1: threes at a clip that has literally never been seen,
Speaker 1: so it feels like a team thing. But what I
Speaker 1: would say is there probably is kind of a dearth
Speaker 1: of a fifth candidate there, unless you want to say
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant. Just based on pure statistical output, um, there
Speaker 1: obviously are some team issues there that I well, while
Speaker 1: you can blame him for some of the defensive struggles,
Speaker 1: a lot of that is in him. It's roster construction
Speaker 1: and how broken has decided to go about their business,
Speaker 1: which isn't entirely on him, So maybe some of it is.
Speaker 1: But he has been the worst defense, you know. I
Speaker 1: I know that. I know that, But he's also averaging
Speaker 1: thirty points a game on like fifty two eighty something
Speaker 1: shooting like he is having. If this maintains, it might
Speaker 1: be like the best dirty point per game season ever.
Speaker 1: Like at some point you have to award that just
Speaker 1: from a pure statistical output standpoint, And I get it.
Speaker 1: I know that the worst defense ever. I understand that
Speaker 1: that we talked, but we we knew that was going
Speaker 1: to be a thing. Anybody with a working brain knew
Speaker 1: that was going to be a thing. We knew they
Speaker 1: were going to be terrible on defense. But while he
Speaker 1: could be better, I don't think most of that is
Speaker 1: on him. I think it's Brokelyn not having any type
Speaker 1: of defensive personnel to stop NBA level offenses. So it's
Speaker 1: but so Kevin Durant's case would be like you're you're
Speaker 1: talking like Russ two thousand seventeen case, like just monster
Speaker 1: monster numbers. But the differences is he's with James Harden
Speaker 1: and Kyrie Irving. I think you have a really hard
Speaker 1: time convincing people that you know, having like moderate to
Speaker 1: below average because they they're they're like plus one or
Speaker 1: plus two points per one hundred possessions with this since
Speaker 1: the hard and Harden trade, they've been not bad because
Speaker 1: they've they've won games on the fact that they've played
Speaker 1: some bad teams. But like they've they've they've been underwhelming
Speaker 1: with a whole lot of talent, and at a certain point,
Speaker 1: like I think that might disqualify you from this conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think entirely fair? But Duran
Speaker 1: was doing the same thing before the Harden trade. He
Speaker 1: was putting up the same type of numbers, So I
Speaker 1: don't think there has been no tangible difference in his
Speaker 1: performance at all. I see what you're saying because the
Speaker 1: defense is so bad that you almost can't reward it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just think there's not really a fifth
Speaker 1: candidate right now. That would be my take. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. If I swapped Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: so it was Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: would the Brooklyn Nets be a better team? Yes, and
Speaker 1: simple and so and so my my concern is, like
Speaker 1: what I've said to you a half dozen times since
Speaker 1: you and I have started doing podcasts together. You know,
Speaker 1: there is an easy fix to the Brooklyn Nets problem.
Speaker 1: It's their mobile seven footer with arms that literally go
Speaker 1: forever embracing the defensive end of the ball. That that's
Speaker 1: literally the difference between them being this laughing stock of
Speaker 1: a team that's trying to outscore teams and then and
Speaker 1: then being the team that can win the NBA Championship.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. And like, and to me, like this
Speaker 1: is the exact same reason why before the season, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I had Kevin Durant lower on our lists,
Speaker 1: you know, even factoring in health. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, if if if we all predicted
Speaker 1: you know, definitively that this team would struggle to uh
Speaker 1: like a historical extent on the defensive end of the ball.
Speaker 1: That to me is because we know Katie wants no
Speaker 1: parts of that type of defensive workload. And to me,
Speaker 1: that that that says everything you need to know, because
Speaker 1: like I told you, we are and like you said,
Speaker 1: we would expect Anthony Davis to erase a whole lot
Speaker 1: of their mistakes and to make that team into something
Speaker 1: worth you know, something that could be potentially dangerous. And
Speaker 1: to me, that says that, To me, that defines you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the Kevin Durant experiences, like he is
Speaker 1: literally capable of fixing everything wrong with this team, and
Speaker 1: I just don't think he wants to fair. But in theory,
Speaker 1: I think we would want a d to do that.
Speaker 1: But we've seen in New Orleans that if the defensive
Speaker 1: personnel is bad, he hasn't really lifted the floor of
Speaker 1: a bad defensive team like a lot of those years
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. And maybe it was a motivation factor.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to play hard because his team sucked,
Speaker 1: but they would have like a defensive rating in the
Speaker 1: twenties even when he was on the floor. So the
Speaker 1: defensive problems in Brokelyn go much farther than Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: He is a problem, right, but I think they are
Speaker 1: so bad they don't have They have basically one guy
Speaker 1: who can guard the ball in the perimeter in Bruce Brown.
Speaker 1: Kyrie doesn't want to, James Harden doesn't want to. Joe
Speaker 1: Harris can't. What is Katie is supposed to do? He
Speaker 1: can't erase every single problem at the rim. Right, you
Speaker 1: can only do so much if you can't get stops
Speaker 1: a point of attack. We've seen that time and time again.
Speaker 1: Like I think point of attack defense is overrated to
Speaker 1: do a certain extent when people look at awards ballots
Speaker 1: and awarding guys like maybe in Avery Bradley. But at
Speaker 1: the at the same time, if you don't have that,
Speaker 1: you have no chance getting stops. Right, If you can't
Speaker 1: go to the point of attack, you will not get
Speaker 1: stops period. And the story it doesn't matter who's on
Speaker 1: the back side of the defense, right. We saw that
Speaker 1: last year. The Warriors were an awful team last year,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't get stopped to the point of attack,
Speaker 1: and it didn't matter that Draymond Dream was back there
Speaker 1: because he was covering so many mistakes that they were
Speaker 1: still bottom five and defensive rating. So I maybe if
Speaker 1: Katie was more motivated, they'd be twenty second in defense
Speaker 1: instead of all time bad. Might be enough to make
Speaker 1: them a contender. And that's my point, is like, and
Speaker 1: for the record, like Lebron got Kyrie to defend, that
Speaker 1: stuff goes from the top down, you know, Like there's
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind that if Kevin Durant truly
Speaker 1: embraced what that meant to be the anchor of their
Speaker 1: defense vocally and with what he does with his body,
Speaker 1: he could make James harden And and Kyrie Irving in
Speaker 1: them at least defend at that that number twenty in
Speaker 1: the league type of level. Literally, if they could get there,
Speaker 1: they could be dangerous. Right now, they're not dangerous, like
Speaker 1: I think the Clippers are going to have their way
Speaker 1: with them tonight. Lou Williams might have fifty because their
Speaker 1: their backcourt is so poorous defensively like that, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of trouble uh with any decent
Speaker 1: team right now because of how bad they are, And
Speaker 1: that to me could be fixed by Kevin Durrett all
Speaker 1: I'm saying, look, and I'm not saying it's all his fault.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. But we talked about earlier when
Speaker 1: we were talking about with embeed being nitpicky when you
Speaker 1: want to be considered one of the best players in
Speaker 1: the league, these are the kinds of things we're gonna
Speaker 1: be nitpicky about. You know, Lebron is considered the best
Speaker 1: player in the world by most people right now. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a coincidence that he started defending again
Speaker 1: last year when he wasn't defending as much, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there saying Lebron is not
Speaker 1: the best two way player in the league anymore. Kauai
Speaker 1: might be better than him. Now, this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: is the nitpicky stuff that differentiates between the top players
Speaker 1: in the league. And all I'm saying is, I've got
Speaker 1: people in my mentions every day telling me Katie's better
Speaker 1: than Lebron. I've got the usual suspects on Twitter preaching
Speaker 1: about it every day. But for some reason, he's not
Speaker 1: held to the same standard that Honest has held to,
Speaker 1: that Lebron has held to, that Joel Embiide has held
Speaker 1: to because he's so pretty when with what he's doing
Speaker 1: off the dribble, and dude, like, I love it too.
Speaker 1: As a basketball fan. When I go to the court,
Speaker 1: I'm practicing what Katie does, not what Lebron does. That's
Speaker 1: not the same as being a better basketball player. And
Speaker 1: and that's the that's the thing that I wish that
Speaker 1: we could delineate here because like, like it, literally it's
Speaker 1: not his fault. But if I dropped Lebron into that scenario,
Speaker 1: he's trying to fix the defensive culture on that team,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that Kevin Durant is. Are we
Speaker 1: sure Lebron is trying to do that? We've seen him,
Speaker 1: I think. I think the last two years in Cleveland
Speaker 1: tell you that he's trying to do that. Okay, so
Speaker 1: two out of the past fifteen years he had bad
Speaker 1: defensive seasons and you're gonna to define his career like that.
Speaker 1: I'm not defining his career like that. What I'm saying is,
Speaker 1: as he's gotten older and he has less energy for crap,
Speaker 1: and he has bad defensive personnel, he hasn't tried on
Speaker 1: that end. When he got l A tried again because
Speaker 1: they actually had good defensive personnel. That's what Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: is a smart enough guy to realize, we don't have
Speaker 1: anybody that can guard. We don't have anybody that can
Speaker 1: I think a lot of guys on that Laker team
Speaker 1: were considered bad defenders before Lebron got there with a
Speaker 1: d uh like Avery Bradley was considered completely washed. Rondo
Speaker 1: was considered washed. A lot of these guys were. Cukuzma
Speaker 1: was a god awful defensive player, you know, Dwight Howard
Speaker 1: was considered washed. JaVale McGee like is flawed. I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is is like, you know, also with Lebron,
Speaker 1: a couple of things. First of all, when he was
Speaker 1: in those those bad defensive seasons, one of the important
Speaker 1: details is I truly think Lebron thought he couldn't win.
Speaker 1: And I think that I think that he and this
Speaker 1: is a flaw in his game for the record, I
Speaker 1: think he embraced the fact that he couldn't win, and
Speaker 1: so he wanted to put unbelievably monster offensive numbers up
Speaker 1: and crazy highlights to try to like maintain some like
Speaker 1: mystique about how good he is. Because he knew he
Speaker 1: was gonna lose to the Warriors. I honestly think that's
Speaker 1: the way it was. I don't think it's a coincidence
Speaker 1: that his efficiency was like super high those two seasons
Speaker 1: that he didn't defend. It's like the Lakers are the
Speaker 1: number one defense in the league right now, but they're
Speaker 1: like seventh in offense. It's because defense is tiring and
Speaker 1: it wears you out. That it's extremely rare to see
Speaker 1: a team who's like the number one defense and the
Speaker 1: number one offense, because teams that are lacks daisical on
Speaker 1: that end inevitably score million points because they got legs
Speaker 1: on the other end. You know what I mean, I
Speaker 1: hear you. I just don't I think without a good
Speaker 1: fifth candidate, and and you know what I I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you give him calmly some props because he has
Speaker 1: been amazing this year, especially relative to last year when
Speaker 1: people were like, oh man, this dude might be washed.
Speaker 1: What a terrible trade for Utah, And now it looks like,
Speaker 1: you know what, they might have made the right decision.
Speaker 1: And I think Memphis is happy with the decision too.
Speaker 1: So I think both parties ended up winning. Um, so
Speaker 1: it I think it is nice to give calmly a
Speaker 1: not especially a guy who has never made an All
Speaker 1: Star Game, who has probably been deserving and would have
Speaker 1: made some of you was in the East at some
Speaker 1: point in his career. But I just Durant has been
Speaker 1: so good offensively, like indescribably good offensively, literally better than
Speaker 1: ever coming off in Achilles. So I can't not reward
Speaker 1: that he's been that good offensively. Like if he had
Speaker 1: just been even a little bit worse offensively, he was
Speaker 1: just having one of his normal offensive seasons like six
Speaker 1: five and five on shooting thirty five percent from three
Speaker 1: percent from the line, I wouldn't have him there. But
Speaker 1: he's been so good offensively that you can't deny it.
Speaker 1: Brooklyn's problems don't start with the rent. They start with
Speaker 1: the roster construction, Like it's it's not his fault. They
Speaker 1: constructed the roster in that way. And maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe some of the Harden trade is his fault, but
Speaker 1: his on court play has been enough to at least
Speaker 1: I would vote for the guy, you know, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: if there's still five d at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't, But I think they're going to figure
Speaker 1: some things out. There's a history of of m v
Speaker 1: P voters punishing and guys who relax on the defensive
Speaker 1: end and put up monster numbers. The uh, the Calves
Speaker 1: in two thousand seventeen or fifty one and thirty one,
Speaker 1: so better than the the nets are on paceful right now.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'll have to look at the standings.
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but I think the Calves are a
Speaker 1: little bit better in the standings. And Lebron had just
Speaker 1: an unbelievable offensive season and he finished fourth in the
Speaker 1: m v P voting and so that season, and so
Speaker 1: I guess the idea is is, like you know, I
Speaker 1: would imagine over the course of the season, they'll win
Speaker 1: enough games that that he'll end up getting votes. And
Speaker 1: for the record, Mike Connolly is not going to get
Speaker 1: a top five MVP finish. I'm just saying like, there's
Speaker 1: there's a case for him to deserve it, and it's
Speaker 1: him being the arguably the best player on on arguably
Speaker 1: the best team in the league right now in terms
Speaker 1: of the standings, because they're only half came out, and
Speaker 1: my god, those those net rating numbers are just absolutely
Speaker 1: absurd that that I'm just that step furry two fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen levels where it's like US twenty net rating, which
Speaker 1: is like impossible almost, Yeah, it's it's insane and and
Speaker 1: and as far as the Katie stuff goes, I'm just
Speaker 1: venting because, like I just it's it's crazy because a
Speaker 1: lot of times I get portrayed as a Katie hater,
Speaker 1: and like I literally I love Katie's game. I I
Speaker 1: I'm terrified of him every time he goes up for
Speaker 1: a shot. When I'm rooting against him. I have the
Speaker 1: utmost confidence in his ability. I just if it bothers
Speaker 1: me that he is held to like a completely different
Speaker 1: standard than his peers, like in almost every way. That's why.
Speaker 1: That's why I have him fifth. He spit on, he
Speaker 1: spent on my list. He's not first. I wouldn't. He
Speaker 1: has no argument for any of the above, any of
Speaker 1: the top four guys. He doesn't. But I think after
Speaker 1: this pretty because A D has been pretty bad this season.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I'm just saying purely um m v P. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just purely m VP. I don't see a good fifth
Speaker 1: candidate right, like, be honest, hasn't been Does there anybody
Speaker 1: were missing other than calmly Durant? Uh No? Because the
Speaker 1: season has been weird and hardened. Who's almost always on
Speaker 1: these list is not Um. Let me uh really quickly
Speaker 1: before we call it a day. Let me pull up
Speaker 1: just a of rankings. We can see if there's anybody
Speaker 1: we missed. So this is just basketball reference, so these
Speaker 1: are based almost purely on stats. But Yogurts and be Kauai,
Speaker 1: Lebron Durant, Janice Uh. The weird thing with Joannice is
Speaker 1: the defense has fallen off of a cliff. Um. He's
Speaker 1: putting up incredibly monster numbers, as is always the case,
Speaker 1: but I think that I think public confidence with him
Speaker 1: is at an all time low, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what's destroying him. Anthony Davis, I don't think has any
Speaker 1: legitimate case. I think he's only averaging like twenty two
Speaker 1: points a game. His defense has fallen off a cliff,
Speaker 1: although he's had a couple of monster defensive games. Paul
Speaker 1: George we talked about earlier. Damian Lillard. The Blazers are
Speaker 1: only ten and nine, and then the other name on
Speaker 1: the list is Rudy Gobert. But I couldn't in my
Speaker 1: right mind vote for Rudy Gobert ever, in a million years.
Speaker 1: UM the one guy who I think might put his
Speaker 1: name in the in the race after a while. As
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, He's looked a lot. He struggled with consistency
Speaker 1: this year, and this is coming from a guy who's
Speaker 1: watched of Warriors games. So far, he has struggled to
Speaker 1: be consistent. But the last ten games his splits are
Speaker 1: back to where they normally are. He's back attent from
Speaker 1: the field for the year forty one from three after
Speaker 1: a horrendous start from the line average points a game.
Speaker 1: If the team's success come comes, he will be in
Speaker 1: the race absolutely because the numbers are already there. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of can they win enough games to
Speaker 1: get his name in the race, and I think I
Speaker 1: think they eventually will if they can never get healthy.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that team right now? Um?
Speaker 1: They are fourth in defensive ratings since Draymond Green has
Speaker 1: returned yep so in the fifth fourteen or fifteen games
Speaker 1: he's played. Their fourth in defensive rating. UM. I would
Speaker 1: feel a lot better if they had a couple more
Speaker 1: big men on the roster. UM. I would like for
Speaker 1: them to move Uber for Alonso. I think that would
Speaker 1: be a fantastic move for actually both parties, because it
Speaker 1: seems like New Orleans doesn't want to extend Lonzo at
Speaker 1: the number he's gonna command, and Uber is an expiring contract.
Speaker 1: And I think the Warriors would love one love Alonzo.
Speaker 1: He would fit in so many ways. He fits that
Speaker 1: John Livingston, Andre Goodala play connector Great Defenders, smart high
Speaker 1: i Q player um that they crave in their system.
Speaker 1: It's still all tv D just because, like I said,
Speaker 1: Steff hasn't been consistent enough yet. If he finds that
Speaker 1: normal level of consistency, I think they'll end up winning
Speaker 1: forty games probably, and then they'll be there'll be a
Speaker 1: team that people probably don't want to see in the
Speaker 1: playoffs unless your names starts with an l A, Right.
Speaker 1: I still feel the same about them in terms of
Speaker 1: eventual playoff ceiling. Nobody scares me besides the l A teams,
Speaker 1: just because of of whose step can be in a
Speaker 1: playoff series, which is better than of the league. Well,
Speaker 1: I said this before, and uh to you and and I,
Speaker 1: and it's been really interesting to see this how this
Speaker 1: has gone. I saw that I saw two potential scenarios
Speaker 1: for Steph Curry this year in the Warriors. I saw
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen Lakers or two thousand eighteen Gaves, and
Speaker 1: I thought it entirely dependent on health. UM. I thought
Speaker 1: that the difference between the two thousand nineteen Lakers making
Speaker 1: a deep playoff run and them not was health, not
Speaker 1: just for Lebron, but for the whole team. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, Lebron played every single game and it's
Speaker 1: and and it's been super impressive to see Steph Curry
Speaker 1: embrace that this year because I think in the past
Speaker 1: he's had the flexibility when he's a little banged up
Speaker 1: to sit out, and that's that hasn't been the case
Speaker 1: this year. And to his credit, he's embraced that. He's
Speaker 1: played every single uh minute that his team has needed
Speaker 1: him to play. And UH, for the record percent agree
Speaker 1: with you in terms of that playoff run. I I've
Speaker 1: said on many occasions that I thought that the two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen Calves would have beat that Rockets team. UM,
Speaker 1: just because I trust Lebron's ability to solve that defense
Speaker 1: and and for the same reason you trust Steph and
Speaker 1: a lot of these playoff matchups, I just felt like,
Speaker 1: if when push came to shove, that team would figure
Speaker 1: out a way to defend at at a high enough
Speaker 1: level to where Lebron could carry them over the top offensively.
Speaker 1: That's the way I feel about about Steph Curry. However,
Speaker 1: I do think there are so many good teams this
Speaker 1: year that a team like Philly I think would give
Speaker 1: Golden State problems, and a team like Brooklyn would give
Speaker 1: them problems. That you know, a team like Boston would
Speaker 1: give them problems. Teams that could really really defend at
Speaker 1: a super high level and and physically wear down um
Speaker 1: Golden State. But I in the Western Conference though, a
Speaker 1: lot of those teams are really finesse and and Steff
Speaker 1: is just gonna outfinesse you and to your point that
Speaker 1: they're defending at a high level. So yeah, I would,
Speaker 1: I would. I would pick them. Like that's the ironic
Speaker 1: part about about playing Steff every game to try to
Speaker 1: fight for the standings is you know, if they get
Speaker 1: up there where there's somehow and that's you know, like
Speaker 1: six seed and and they have a gap between six
Speaker 1: and seven, I would asked him a little bit because
Speaker 1: as long as you can avoid those l A teams
Speaker 1: in the first round, I really think that Steph's health
Speaker 1: needs to be become a priority at some point. Absolutely, No,
Speaker 1: I mean my feelings haven't changed that much. I thought
Speaker 1: they were really going to struggle through twenty games. They
Speaker 1: honestly have a better record than I thought they would.
Speaker 1: I thought they'd probably be under five hundred at this
Speaker 1: point of the season, but there are eleven and nine.
Speaker 1: They've stolen some wins. As I've said before, Now it's
Speaker 1: can they put together consistent performances, because some nights so
Speaker 1: look awesome. They beat the Spurs by like thirty. They
Speaker 1: just crushed Detroit, who for their record, They've been playing
Speaker 1: teams really tough. They gave the Lakers, but they beat
Speaker 1: the Lakers a couple of games ago, like they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they played teams really tough, and the Words absolutely walloped
Speaker 1: them on Saturday. So they have some really impressive wins,
Speaker 1: but they also have some terrible losses. They're just they're
Speaker 1: an inconsistent team with a lot of young guys, and
Speaker 1: I think if if they find they have so many
Speaker 1: bad center minutes at this point, their center rotation might
Speaker 1: be the worst in the entire league. And the Ubery
Speaker 1: minutes have just been absolutely killer. He's been he's having
Speaker 1: the worst season of his career by like a wide margin.
Speaker 1: He's been a little bit better lately, but if they
Speaker 1: can just find a way to shore up some of
Speaker 1: those minutes, I think they're they're still gonna be a
Speaker 1: dangerous playoff team just because Steph Curry is Steph Curry
Speaker 1: is still one of the three best offensive players in
Speaker 1: the league and one of the greatest offensive players of
Speaker 1: all time. I'd be more scared of them than I
Speaker 1: would be of Denver if I was a Laker fan.
Speaker 1: So agree with you all right? Man? Well, um, I
Speaker 1: feel like we hit on everything that we wanted to
Speaker 1: touch on. Um, we'll have to come up with a
Speaker 1: couple of more obscure teams that we can touch on
Speaker 1: next week to kind of keep with the theme of things. Um,
Speaker 1: But thank you to everybody who tuned in. This will
Speaker 1: be up in podcast format the entirety of it here,
Speaker 1: probably in about twenty minutes, but as usual, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys a support, and Tommy, I'll see you next week. Man.
Speaker 1: Sounds good, Man,