Speaker 1: Welcome to the Jason Tip Podcast. Make you guys so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your Thursday to come
Speaker 1: hang out with Tommy and I. We still do not
Speaker 1: have a name for the show, and you guys are
Speaker 1: doing a bad job of sending us suggestions. We need more,
Speaker 1: we need better. Tommy's suggestion was gunned to my head.
Speaker 1: I'm a little iffy on that one. Have you come
Speaker 1: up with anything better since then? Andy? I got nothing. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with gun to my head, as terrible as
Speaker 1: it is, out of a punishment to this podcast. If
Speaker 1: we can't think of something better, we might have to
Speaker 1: to go go with that one. Um Anyway, I'm super stoked.
Speaker 1: We have just about an hour today before we gotta
Speaker 1: lose Tommy. We're going to start with just a little
Speaker 1: bit of a breakdown of last night's Warriors game and
Speaker 1: just a little a thing that's been on my mind
Speaker 1: having to do with the way we evaluate players. Then
Speaker 1: Tommy and I are gonna give our takes on the
Speaker 1: kind of state of analytics and basketball. I know we're
Speaker 1: a couple of days behind on that one, but I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of thoughts on that that I wanted
Speaker 1: to share and then we're gonna end by talking about
Speaker 1: what I think has been an interesting topic as of late,
Speaker 1: which is just like the idea of the way that
Speaker 1: the league uh portrays certain stars and the way that
Speaker 1: the league uh portrays itself in general and in the media,
Speaker 1: and just kind of some ideas about that. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna bounce around to a bunch of teams in the process,
Speaker 1: But I wanted to start with something interesting from last
Speaker 1: night's game because we kind of get on this merrygo
Speaker 1: round where every single time Steph loses or every single
Speaker 1: time Lebron loses, you get the same kind of loud
Speaker 1: criticism from one side of the equation. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about what you were saying, Tommy, because I know
Speaker 1: you had a very specific, pointed criticism about something having
Speaker 1: to do with what's happening on the court. But it's
Speaker 1: more I'm more just talking about the real toxic stuff
Speaker 1: on either side. And I think this season is super
Speaker 1: are fascinating. It's like a case study, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: of the way that of the way that we evaluate players,
Speaker 1: because you know, we like to think that basketball is
Speaker 1: this sport that is very you know, uh that the
Speaker 1: individual has a great impact on which it does compared
Speaker 1: to other team sports, but at its core, it is
Speaker 1: still profoundly a team sport. And I think the Steph
Speaker 1: Lebron thing is the best example of that, because if
Speaker 1: you took a random poll of people in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen and said who's like, who's better stuff for Lebron,
Speaker 1: you have a group of them say Steph, And you
Speaker 1: have a group of them say Lebron, And and Steph
Speaker 1: was on a contender at that point, and Lebron was
Speaker 1: on a middling playoff team, you know, and then this
Speaker 1: year I would vote. I would wager if you asked
Speaker 1: those same people, they would still say step and they
Speaker 1: would still say Lebron, despite the fact that the roles
Speaker 1: have been reversed and Lebron's on the Contender and Steph
Speaker 1: is on the middling playoff team. And I think that
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that it's very subjective
Speaker 1: the way that we evaluate these guys, and quite frankly, like,
Speaker 1: I'm over the idea of saying, like so and so
Speaker 1: is better than this guy because they wont head to
Speaker 1: head matchup or they won this specific series, Like I
Speaker 1: don't care, Like there's a better case for Steff over
Speaker 1: Dame than having beat Dame in the playoffs a few times.
Speaker 1: To me, the cases he's better off the ball, which
Speaker 1: makes him more versatile, he's a better playmaker, he's got
Speaker 1: better control of the game, you know, those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: He's better defensively, or if you're making the case for Dame,
Speaker 1: it's he gets uh, he gets he's better isolations for
Speaker 1: he's better at the end of games as a as
Speaker 1: a shock creator. Like, those sorts of things are more
Speaker 1: interesting than me to me than the team results because
Speaker 1: the team results are just so convoluted. So my question
Speaker 1: for you is does what I'm saying make any sense
Speaker 1: to you? And then also I'm I think this is
Speaker 1: a good segue into what your legitimate basketball criticism of
Speaker 1: Steff was last night. It does make sense, But I mean,
Speaker 1: the way that we operate is all just kind of
Speaker 1: an echo chamber of Twitter, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that you're saying, it's just two nuance of a
Speaker 1: conversation for Twitter, and you can't do it in two
Speaker 1: characters or two and eighty whatever the limit is. Now. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that's what a lot of it boils down to, right,
Speaker 1: you you simplify, you get reductive um. Just by nature
Speaker 1: of the platform, you can't expound on things unless you
Speaker 1: go on these long threads. And if you're going on
Speaker 1: a long thread, nobody's gonna read it right like you,
Speaker 1: you really have to get lucky to have people read
Speaker 1: each and every thought that you put out in the thread.
Speaker 1: It's all gonna get kind of lost in the mix.
Speaker 1: People are gonna respond to the first tweet and they're
Speaker 1: not going to see the context of what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a better way to evaluate players, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but you're never gonna get that if you're just basing
Speaker 1: your entire conversation off Twitter. And to go on top
Speaker 1: of that, I do think winning matters, Like I don't
Speaker 1: think Steph is better than Dames solely because he's beat
Speaker 1: him in the playoffs, But I don't think it's insignificant
Speaker 1: that he is ten and oh in games played against
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard in the playoffs, Like if Dame was if
Speaker 1: the conversation was a little bit closer, I don't think
Speaker 1: it would be ten zero. I really don't, because every
Speaker 1: time it comes down to it and playoff game, step
Speaker 1: has been better than Dame. It's just a wat evidence.
Speaker 1: It's you know, or I should say it's convoluted evidence,
Speaker 1: it's convolution. It's convoluted evidence and doesn't tell the whole story.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to argue that it does, but
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a it's a mirror into what
Speaker 1: the conversation should be like. He is he tennan no
Speaker 1: better than Dame? No, he's not tenan no better? But
Speaker 1: is he a good amount better? I still think so. Um.
Speaker 1: But to go on top of that, I mean, last night,
Speaker 1: one guy was better for forty five minutes and then
Speaker 1: he wasn't better in the last three minutes. And I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what that point to. Yesterday he was
Speaker 1: four for fifteen in the second half, something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Four for fifteen and the second half, a horrendous third quarter.
Speaker 1: I don't think you made a shot in the third quarter.
Speaker 1: Might have made one late, um, but just a really
Speaker 1: really bad second three at the end when they were
Speaker 1: up three with one minute left that would ice the game.
Speaker 1: That was get out to me. Just a shot that
Speaker 1: he never misses, never misses, never ever says, and then
Speaker 1: a couple of floaters. I don't know how the last
Speaker 1: floater stayed out. That was really like he put that
Speaker 1: basically right where it should have been. Maybe it should
Speaker 1: have been a little bit softer off the back. Um,
Speaker 1: so we got a couple of unlucky rolls. Ramon missed
Speaker 1: put back? Is it that one if I remember correctly? Um? No,
Speaker 1: the Draymond missed put back was on the three, and
Speaker 1: then he took a floater with like he took a
Speaker 1: floater with like thirty seconds left right before dame at
Speaker 1: the step back to go up to he took a
Speaker 1: floater off the board and um, it like rolled around
Speaker 1: the rim and then sat on top of the side
Speaker 1: of the rim for a second and rolled out. So
Speaker 1: he got he got on lucky on a couple of them,
Speaker 1: and then he got fouled on a drive where he
Speaker 1: actually made a lay up. Can't like h him right
Speaker 1: across the face and they didn't call it. Um, But
Speaker 1: point being, he just there were too many times later
Speaker 1: where he like looked to get off ball or look
Speaker 1: for more screening action where it's like, dude, you just
Speaker 1: gotta go get a bucket man like you have you're
Speaker 1: being guarded by Rodney Hood or Robert Covington's or Carmelo Anthony,
Speaker 1: like guys who can take one on one and you
Speaker 1: just didn't go get a bucket, And sometimes Portland doubled
Speaker 1: him and forced the ball out of his hands, and
Speaker 1: that matters, Like that's not insignificant in but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you've got to find a way
Speaker 1: to win that game. Your team had the lead, and
Speaker 1: if you're the player that everybody says you are, still
Speaker 1: you need to go win that game. And it's not
Speaker 1: an isolated incident. This has happened multiple times as you're
Speaker 1: happen against the Facers, against the Knicks, against the Magic,
Speaker 1: Like it isn't a small thing. And look, he's carrying
Speaker 1: a huge burden. Nobody's saying he isn't um It's it's
Speaker 1: different than Portland's situation in that Golden State has put
Speaker 1: this really good defense around Steph and they've kind of
Speaker 1: forfeited offense, and Portland has kind of forfeited defense and
Speaker 1: put this really good offense around Dame. Even with c
Speaker 1: J and Nerk being out, like they still have very
Speaker 1: capable offensive players. So it comes back to team building
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways to like it's tougher for step,
Speaker 1: because he really is manufacturing everything for them. But it's
Speaker 1: not an excuse for not making shots at the end
Speaker 1: of the game. It isn't I'm sorry, Like the game
Speaker 1: was close, You've got to find a way to win
Speaker 1: that one, and they could have three or four more
Speaker 1: wins this year. You're if he had done Like it's
Speaker 1: very similar situations the last night. So everybody got mad
Speaker 1: at me once again, and I understand it because I've
Speaker 1: become the the kind of blinchmen for this argument or
Speaker 1: this talking point. But it Yeah, I was just very
Speaker 1: disappointed and how he performed on the stretch, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I should be I don't know, castigated for that.
Speaker 1: So I think, uh, this is an interesting like I
Speaker 1: we're gonna kind of uh do a little ven diagram
Speaker 1: here over some other topics that we're gonna touch on today.
Speaker 1: But to me, this is like a problem that I have,
Speaker 1: one of many problems that I have with a purely
Speaker 1: analytical approach to basketball, because I tend to have a
Speaker 1: very middle ground approach to this kind of stuff. Like
Speaker 1: I was listening to a great podcast what you guys
Speaker 1: have to check Out if you haven't checked out yet,
Speaker 1: which is the one that Jason Maples did the other day. Um,
Speaker 1: he brought on I'm blanking on the gentleman's name right now,
Speaker 1: Joseph gil Joseph Gillyah. He brought on a guy who
Speaker 1: works in analytics, and they had a really smart conversation
Speaker 1: surrounding a lot of this stuff. Um, and you've got
Speaker 1: to check that out if you haven't done yet. That's
Speaker 1: on on Jason Maple's podcast. But that said, uh, there's
Speaker 1: the name of that podcast, by the way, it's Temple
Speaker 1: of Hoo Yes, Temple of Hoop Podcasts. So the there's
Speaker 1: this idea of what we quantify to be an open shot,
Speaker 1: and we and we use that as kind of like
Speaker 1: the the only measure of the shots quality or its
Speaker 1: probability of going in, which is an issue that I
Speaker 1: have because like so, for instance, like the example that
Speaker 1: I've used with you several times has to do with
Speaker 1: the two thousand nineteen finals and the shots that Steph
Speaker 1: was getting at the end of the game against the Raptors.
Speaker 1: And you know, uh, if it just by strictly looking
Speaker 1: at clips, you see separation and you see Steph getting
Speaker 1: a quality look. But what I see personally just and
Speaker 1: you you can relate to this too because you've played
Speaker 1: basketball as well. Is like, there's this unwritten there's this
Speaker 1: untold part of the story, which is how much energy
Speaker 1: it took to get you open. And and this is
Speaker 1: something that I think is lost in a lot of
Speaker 1: defensive metrics that it bothers me when you see like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of these heavily analytics orient and to
Speaker 1: guys be like, oh, well, this defense is actually not
Speaker 1: as good as it looks because teams are missing threes
Speaker 1: against them, which automatically is being quantified as luck and
Speaker 1: not the fact that that defense wears you down so
Speaker 1: much that even when you do get open, you're exhausted
Speaker 1: and you can't make the shot. And that's really no
Speaker 1: go I would I'll let you finish. But that's a
Speaker 1: really good point. Tom Thibode's defenses always have that happen.
Speaker 1: The teams always shoot terribly from three against them, even
Speaker 1: on open threes. And it's exactly what you're pointing to.
Speaker 1: Their teams are always tired against them. And it's one
Speaker 1: thing if we're looking at a four game sample size
Speaker 1: and we're like, okay, teams are shooting fifteen percent from three.
Speaker 1: They're getting lucky. That's one thing. But when I've got
Speaker 1: a season's worth, you know, a half a season's worth
Speaker 1: of data, that tells me that even when they get
Speaker 1: a defenses or offenses get open shots against them, they're
Speaker 1: just not converting them at a high rate. That tells
Speaker 1: me that you're getting your ass kicked everywhere else on
Speaker 1: the floor, and then all of a sudden you find
Speaker 1: yourself open and you're almost like stunned to be open,
Speaker 1: and you're exhausted, and you're not getting the right lift
Speaker 1: and you're leaving stuff short and you're just missing shots.
Speaker 1: And so my point is is, like, you know, Steph
Speaker 1: Curry going forward for fifteen, this kind of reminds me
Speaker 1: a lot of what would happen in UH in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen with lebron Is and even before that, or
Speaker 1: would be like people would be like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the in the fourth quarter he was
Speaker 1: two for six, and it's like, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: when you are carrying the load that you're carrying, and
Speaker 1: when you are you know, under the that intense physical
Speaker 1: stress for forty eight minutes, it's normal to get less
Speaker 1: lift and to be less effective at the end of games.
Speaker 1: And and all I'm saying is like, as far as
Speaker 1: Steph goes, you know, if you put him in a
Speaker 1: situation where his workload is less, I believe this version
Speaker 1: of Steph two thousand twenty one, Steph would appear to
Speaker 1: be more in control of games, kind of to to
Speaker 1: what you were talking about earlier. And the last example
Speaker 1: I'll give, And then all your respond again is, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: wide open shot is quantified as a shot that has
Speaker 1: at least six ft is space between the closest defender
Speaker 1: and the shot, according to what you see on NBA
Speaker 1: dot com. So in my opinion, though, a contested shot
Speaker 1: for me, when I'm in a smaller role or not
Speaker 1: even necessarily smaller role, but going against an inferior defense
Speaker 1: or whatever, it takes, a pull up three that's technically
Speaker 1: with the defender in front of me, when I have
Speaker 1: good legs and good rhythm, is actually a better shot
Speaker 1: for me than if I'm wide open but exhausted for
Speaker 1: whatever the reason. Maybe, And so from that standpoint, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's ever a true, you know, assertion
Speaker 1: of a player's shooting ability to look at open versus
Speaker 1: wide open and things along those lines. I would look
Speaker 1: at it more, and you know, in relation to what
Speaker 1: his workload is, I think I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: coincidence that Lebron's three point shot has fallen apart as
Speaker 1: he's been in an operating and less spacing and in
Speaker 1: the bigger workload, if that makes sense. No, you're not
Speaker 1: wrong on any of it, And a lot of it
Speaker 1: just poils down to we have all these numbers of
Speaker 1: available to us, but a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: how to contextualize them, right, Like, no context has applied
Speaker 1: to any of these numbers. And you're right, sometimes a
Speaker 1: pull up three with kind of a semi contested hand
Speaker 1: in your face is actually easier than the wide open one.
Speaker 1: But specifically pointing to Steph, he's always shot incredible sentage
Speaker 1: percentages on wide open threes. He's just for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: this year, he's just missing those ones at a higher
Speaker 1: rate than he ever has. And maybe it does point
Speaker 1: to the workloade because the contested ones are going in
Speaker 1: at basically the same rate, which is the weird part, right,
Speaker 1: because if he's making the contested ones at the same
Speaker 1: rate and he's missing the wide open ones, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to attribute that to. Maybe it is defenses
Speaker 1: being more physical and when he gets the wide open ones,
Speaker 1: there's such like a sigh of relief and oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm open that he's more likely to
Speaker 1: miss it because he feels more pressure in a way, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's all human stuff that we can't we can't put
Speaker 1: into numbers, and we probably never will be able to.
Speaker 1: That's why as good as analytics are, and as good
Speaker 1: as they will get in the future, like we're probably
Speaker 1: kind of just that, you know, the tip of the
Speaker 1: iceberg here, they're gonna get a lot better and we're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to to quantify even more um parts
Speaker 1: of basketball, but there's always gonna be a human element
Speaker 1: that we cannot quantify, and the rush to do that,
Speaker 1: to just paint everything by numbers will ruin basketball to
Speaker 1: a certain extent if we don't get control over it.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just the reality of the situation. If
Speaker 1: we continue to go down this path where numbers are God,
Speaker 1: they can't be they never will be. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: basic there's a basic like, uh, you know, conundrum that
Speaker 1: takes place when we start to paint any section of
Speaker 1: the public with the wide brush. And this is more
Speaker 1: of like a worldview kind of thing. And when you
Speaker 1: factor in the reality that no two situations are like
Speaker 1: um and you know, that's why you know, any sort
Speaker 1: of of sweeping directive that just the responds to a
Speaker 1: specific you know, whether it's an income like income brackets.
Speaker 1: And we talked about this a while back, having to
Speaker 1: do with like stimulus. It's like an income bracket in Arizona,
Speaker 1: where I live doesn't remotely resemble you know, something in
Speaker 1: CALIFORNI on you, and so everything is relative to your circumstance.
Speaker 1: And the same goes for for basketball analytics. And this
Speaker 1: is something that I think, UH is tough, and that's
Speaker 1: why I have. What I really enjoy with analytics is
Speaker 1: you know, more scoreboard related UH measures. So for instance,
Speaker 1: like you know, UH points per possession that is waited
Speaker 1: to throw out garbage time or to throw out you know,
Speaker 1: UH end of quarter heaves and stuff like that. Like
Speaker 1: I like that sort of thing because it's the scoreboard
Speaker 1: uh and and and it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: you can actually uh draw a direct line between that
Speaker 1: and winning. And I thought Joseph Gila on that podcast.
Speaker 1: It's such a good job of explaining how that's the
Speaker 1: number one thing that gets players paid, and it's the
Speaker 1: it's one of the number one things that he focuses
Speaker 1: on when he's coming up with strategy for players and
Speaker 1: their scouting reports and things like that, because like you know,
Speaker 1: for instance, yeah, if you you used to talk to
Speaker 1: UH analytics guy about the mid range shot, and they
Speaker 1: would tell you at first it was like no mid
Speaker 1: range shot, and then there was a bunch of push
Speaker 1: back and they responded with like okay, end of games
Speaker 1: and the shot clock. And what I was always pushed
Speaker 1: back on is like, you can never quantify how comfortable
Speaker 1: an offensive player is when he's going into a shot. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, like a slightly uncomfortable three. You know, if
Speaker 1: you may, you may attach a points possession points per
Speaker 1: possession to that based on it being a three point
Speaker 1: shot with a defender at a certain distance, but in reality,
Speaker 1: it's an uncomfortable three, and there's no way of quantifying
Speaker 1: that versus a comfortable, wonderable pull up, you know, in
Speaker 1: a point by per a point per possession stance. If
Speaker 1: factors in all these other fifteen footers and twenty footers
Speaker 1: that kind of get convoluted in there. But if you're
Speaker 1: really comfortable and in rhythm in that shot, it's not
Speaker 1: a you know, one point per possession shot for you,
Speaker 1: it's like an eight percent shot. Like when you're comfortable
Speaker 1: and you're in rhythm. It's hard to quantify how like
Speaker 1: you that shots just gonna go in and you almost
Speaker 1: get a feel for that. And I'm sure you feel
Speaker 1: this way too, and you watch games like you almost
Speaker 1: can tell when a guy's going up into a shot
Speaker 1: with his form and how confident he raises up if
Speaker 1: it's going to go in or not, and not to effects,
Speaker 1: but too close to that, And I think, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think you can ever quantify that if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. No, I mean, I'll keep going back to step.
Speaker 1: His game last night was the perfect example of this.
Speaker 1: He looks super in rhythm and super comfortable in that
Speaker 1: first half and the third quarter. It was like he
Speaker 1: was getting open looks and he was like messing up
Speaker 1: his footwork. Um, he was kind of stutter stepping and
Speaker 1: pump taking into shots instead of just shooting the ball.
Speaker 1: And those shots would be you know, higher value shots,
Speaker 1: They have a higher points per possession. You know, if
Speaker 1: you were just measuring it by how wide open they were,
Speaker 1: they were higher quality shots the ones that he was
Speaker 1: getting in the in the first half and even the
Speaker 1: ones he made in the fourth quarter. He made his
Speaker 1: two toughest looks in the fourth quarter, but it was
Speaker 1: all because he felt more in rhythm stepping into those shots.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's this weird thing well where the
Speaker 1: numbers will never be able to quantify it, no matter
Speaker 1: how granular would get and how good the tracking data
Speaker 1: gets and how good, um, you know, the formula has become.
Speaker 1: It's something where we can never actually nail it down
Speaker 1: to a science because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: these are humans. These aren't robots, and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: humans playing basketball unless there's a robot basketball league. Like,
Speaker 1: it's just it is what it is. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: such a weird conversation because people in the Twitter sphere
Speaker 1: you get painned as either like an analytics guy or
Speaker 1: an eye test guy. And I don't think it's so
Speaker 1: cut and dry, Like if I say one thing bad
Speaker 1: about analytics, all of my analytics friendly followers will be like, hey,
Speaker 1: but like, what are you talking about? Look, dude, then
Speaker 1: they'll throw a bunch of analytics in my face. And
Speaker 1: then if I quote something that's analytics, really a lot
Speaker 1: of the eye test people a question where I'm coming from,
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I'm just I'm operating on this occasion
Speaker 1: by one of the two things, because sometimes the eye
Speaker 1: test is more important to me, and sometimes the numbers
Speaker 1: actually are more important. And that's why it has to
Speaker 1: be on a case by case basis. You can't measure
Speaker 1: any two things alike. Yeah, So that was something that
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting in that podcast as well
Speaker 1: as he was talking about they were talking about how like, uh,
Speaker 1: measuring Rudy Gobert's individual defense versus in a switch on
Speaker 1: a particular player, and he was talking about how, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if Rudy Gobert gets involved in a pick
Speaker 1: and roll with Kyrie Irving, they just won't switch it,
Speaker 1: but if he gets involved in a pick and roll
Speaker 1: with Alex Caruso, he will switch it. So a bunch
Speaker 1: of their individual defensive metrics are measured based on him
Speaker 1: switching only onto these weaker offensive players. It's selection bias,
Speaker 1: it's total selection bias. And the same goes for like
Speaker 1: like one of the things that and that's why, like
Speaker 1: for me, it's I lean slightly more eye test and
Speaker 1: I and I and I evaluate metrics that makes sense
Speaker 1: to what I'm seeing. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: When Anthony Davis to me, has been having a bad
Speaker 1: year as a post score. Uh, he seems indecisive. He's not. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's doing a better job attacking double teams than he
Speaker 1: did last year, but he's feelm like great at it.
Speaker 1: He's not making anything from the mid range, and he's
Speaker 1: not making anything from three. He's just it's just a
Speaker 1: really like a inconsistent season on that end. But according
Speaker 1: to metrics on a point by a point per possession basis,
Speaker 1: he's actually having a career year as a post up player.
Speaker 1: And what I think is convoluting that. And I you know,
Speaker 1: I can't prove this unless I literally rewatch every Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis post up from the season, And maybe if I
Speaker 1: lose my job or something, I'll go do that one
Speaker 1: of these days. But the point is is, like you know,
Speaker 1: from my test eye test watching, which I've watched every
Speaker 1: game and I've watched most of them twice. Uh, and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis post up against an inferior UH defender where
Speaker 1: they UH like a really small guy where he has
Speaker 1: like an easy little, you know, drop step and put
Speaker 1: in those are he's converting at an extremely high rate,
Speaker 1: but then he's being almost completely unaggressive in other matchups.
Speaker 1: If you have a reasonable post up defender and you
Speaker 1: throw it into him and there's bad facing, he'll just
Speaker 1: kick it back out. And so that's not even measured
Speaker 1: as a possession in there, especially if it if they
Speaker 1: end up running another action. They'll only count it as
Speaker 1: a possession if it's like swing swing three or swing
Speaker 1: three or whatever it is. And so from that standpoint,
Speaker 1: like I just think, you know, I if I had,
Speaker 1: you know, whereas like if I'm watching, as another specific
Speaker 1: eye test thing like oh, Lebron is leading the league
Speaker 1: and points per possession and pull up threes off the dribble,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh wait, well, literally for two months before
Speaker 1: he got cold here in the last few weeks, he
Speaker 1: was making that shot almost every time he took it.
Speaker 1: So it's like, those are the kinds of things where
Speaker 1: you know, if it makes sense to what you're seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're you don't. You never want to
Speaker 1: lie in the face of overwhelming evidence. A great example
Speaker 1: that is the Rondo stuff last year, Like if if
Speaker 1: there's just overwhelming evidence that when Rondo's on the court,
Speaker 1: you're losing, and when Caruso's on the floor, you're winning,
Speaker 1: Like that's a different story because there's just so much
Speaker 1: data pointing in one direction. But I think I think
Speaker 1: it's always important to either throw out I stuff if
Speaker 1: the data overwhelmingly disproves it, or throw out the data
Speaker 1: if the what you're seeing overwhelmingly disproves it. If that
Speaker 1: makes sense, Yeah, And that's where I hate when people
Speaker 1: use points per possession and isolation or anything like that
Speaker 1: to your actual isolation scoring. A lot of that is
Speaker 1: just a player being smart enough to ISO against the
Speaker 1: right guys exactly, right, And like Montrese, Montrese isn' getting
Speaker 1: buckets against other big power forwards. He's doing it against
Speaker 1: miss patches exactly And not to like come down too
Speaker 1: hard on step today, but a lot of times he's
Speaker 1: selecting the ISO, it's against bad defenders, right, So he
Speaker 1: always grades out well in isometrics, whereas some nights he
Speaker 1: really does struggle against really good defenders in those situations.
Speaker 1: And like we saw him panic a little bit last
Speaker 1: night at the end of the game. I thought Ker
Speaker 1: ran a bad set honestly, like they try to do
Speaker 1: like a bunch of screening in trible handoffs instead of
Speaker 1: just like giving him the ball and letting him go.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, this is the charge play um. But
Speaker 1: but like instead of just he got one on one
Speaker 1: with Rodney Hood, who he's like he killed off the
Speaker 1: in the twenty nineteen Western Conference Finals. He got him
Speaker 1: a couple of times last night, and he like panicked.
Speaker 1: He was out top by himself, and he tried to
Speaker 1: turn the quarter too quickly instead of just backing out
Speaker 1: and like truly ice isoing him, and he panicked a
Speaker 1: little bit. In an isolation situation, He's like, he's a
Speaker 1: great is a player, not what I'm saying. What I'm
Speaker 1: saying is measuring him by the pure numbers is kind
Speaker 1: of dumb because he's really smart about who he ISOs
Speaker 1: and who he doesn't. M m hm h m hm,
Speaker 1: m hm mhm. Now yep, all right, we're back on.
Speaker 1: I apologize to everyone. I've been recently moving and dealing
Speaker 1: with a boatload of WiFi issues, and I will eventually
Speaker 1: get them figured out. You have my word anyway. So
Speaker 1: one other thing I wanted to say on the analytics
Speaker 1: front having to do with overarching metrics, and this is
Speaker 1: another thing that Joseph talked about in in the pod
Speaker 1: the other day that I thought was interesting. This idea
Speaker 1: that like, you know, uh, if you're looking at baseball,
Speaker 1: every single player has the same goal, which is to
Speaker 1: get on base in some way, shape or form, whether
Speaker 1: it's through getting hit, getting a walk, getting home run,
Speaker 1: whether you're a big hitter or a contact hitter, your
Speaker 1: your goal is essentially the same. And with basketball, it's not,
Speaker 1: you know, like you would never uh measure it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense to measure Kareem abdul Jabbar's contribution in the
Speaker 1: same way you would measure Alan Iverson's contribution. Baseball. There's
Speaker 1: like a three true they call it three true outcomes, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what That's what it is in baseball. And
Speaker 1: you can boil it down to that because everything is
Speaker 1: a one on one matchup. It's ess actually like if
Speaker 1: every basketball game was just one on one and you're
Speaker 1: just playing isolation all game. That's basically what baseball is.
Speaker 1: M m uh uh yeah, I can hear you a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's still kind of like breaking up.
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, all right, Uh, give it a second, I'm
Speaker 1: good now, okay. Um. Anyway, my point is is like
Speaker 1: a lot of these when you when I see some
Speaker 1: of these metrics like Raptor and Lebron and and things
Speaker 1: along those lines, he's like overarching metrics. The problem I
Speaker 1: have with that is it makes no accounting for that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. No players job is the same. So
Speaker 1: in for instance, I'll give you Lebron and Steph. Lebron
Speaker 1: and Steph are in our opinion, the number one and
Speaker 1: number two players in the entire world. And uh in
Speaker 1: this case, even though they both are primary offensive players,
Speaker 1: but both of their roles don't even remotely resemble each other.
Speaker 1: You know, Steph brings this whole extra element with his
Speaker 1: off ball play that Lebron really doesn't. And then Lebron
Speaker 1: brings this whole extra element with his defense that that's
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't even even within the top echelons of the league.
Speaker 1: In two of the two very very unique archetypes of stars,
Speaker 1: their roles are still incredibly different. And so the idea
Speaker 1: that you would attach one single metric to try to
Speaker 1: paint a picture of the totality of a book. Basketball
Speaker 1: players impact to me doesn't really make a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: And you can even look at players who are to
Speaker 1: me at least somewhat similar, like a Yo Kichen his
Speaker 1: staff right, like incredible offensive players, like maybe the two
Speaker 1: best offensive players in the league, but not great on defense.
Speaker 1: Even they play offense so differently that it's really really
Speaker 1: tough to measure them against each other. Because step is
Speaker 1: obviously the best shooter we've ever seen, and that's how
Speaker 1: he operates. Yokich is a big man who plays out
Speaker 1: of the post. He can shoot the three a little bit,
Speaker 1: but he plays out of the post primarily out of
Speaker 1: dribble handoffs, and he's maybe the best passing big men
Speaker 1: we've ever seen. But measuring them by one metric are
Speaker 1: thinking that they played the game even remotely the same
Speaker 1: as ridiculous, right, Like, I was actually having a conversation
Speaker 1: about this the other day with somebody. They I said,
Speaker 1: you know, Yoki might be the best offensive player in
Speaker 1: the league, and but of course a bunch of Warriors
Speaker 1: pan jumps and my mentions, you're crazy, it's STEP's Step,
Speaker 1: It's Steph. And they pointed out all these things that
Speaker 1: Yokich can't do that Steph can. I'm like, guys, you
Speaker 1: have to realize there's things that Yokich a bunch of
Speaker 1: things that Yokich can do that Steph can't do. It's
Speaker 1: not this one side of conversation, Well, this guy doesn't
Speaker 1: bring these things at the table and this guy does. Okay,
Speaker 1: that might be true, but the inverse is also true.
Speaker 1: And now it comes down to what is more valuable?
Speaker 1: And I think that's the type of stuff that these
Speaker 1: metrics should try to quantify. Is okay, what is the
Speaker 1: most optimal way way to play? What is the most
Speaker 1: valuable thing? Is? Are Yoki post ups more valuable than
Speaker 1: steps shooting? Is his passing more valuable than steps off
Speaker 1: ball movement? I don't know how you quantify that. I'm
Speaker 1: not smart enough to figure that out, but I think
Speaker 1: when analytics get really good, that's the type of stuff
Speaker 1: they'll be able to quantify. And there is like a
Speaker 1: certain amount of that you have points per possession, But
Speaker 1: like we talked about, there there's a lot of selection
Speaker 1: bias where it depends what the matchup is, who's on
Speaker 1: the floor, who isn't on the floor, who they're playing
Speaker 1: with and it's just all stuff that we aren't going
Speaker 1: to be able to quanify for probably a long time
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Yeah, exactly. And and and this kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to what we originally started this conversation with,
Speaker 1: which is the way we evaluate players. And you know,
Speaker 1: I I have said this many times and I I
Speaker 1: really really truly believe it is on a subjective process,
Speaker 1: because you know, this isn't This isn't like you know,
Speaker 1: racing where you get a bunch of guys that have
Speaker 1: the identical vehicle and one of them ends up coming
Speaker 1: in first and there's this very clear cut hierarchy in
Speaker 1: the way that they perform. Instead, it's it's it's almost
Speaker 1: entirely different, like everybody's got a different race car, you know,
Speaker 1: Like there's and and it's been interesting to me to see,
Speaker 1: you know, uh know, and this is where the dishonesty
Speaker 1: on both ends i'd like to call out because there
Speaker 1: were so you know, there there were people last night,
Speaker 1: including Draymond himself. You know, there was this quote that
Speaker 1: went crazy last night. Who was It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: our offense is kind of designed around getting shots for staff,
Speaker 1: and we all just kind of have to find our
Speaker 1: our space there. And it's like that, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: a bunch of crazy people and the Warriors side of
Speaker 1: things used to say about Lebron. And you know, Jordan
Speaker 1: Clarkson and Rodney Hood are struggling because they're trying to
Speaker 1: find out where they can be successful next to Lebron.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, actually, they're both just way better at
Speaker 1: basketball now than they were back in two thousand eighteen. Okay,
Speaker 1: Jordan Clarkson is a better basketball player now. That's why
Speaker 1: he's doing better, and and and and the players that
Speaker 1: are alongside Staff right now are not the same caliber
Speaker 1: of players that we were seeing, you know, alongside him
Speaker 1: in the past. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: like you know, with exception of like really crazy extremes
Speaker 1: like the James Harden situation in two thousand nineteen, where
Speaker 1: it's like they're really lean into one player, most of
Speaker 1: these guys are existing within a system that is more
Speaker 1: or less distributed the way every other star is dealing
Speaker 1: with it, where it's like they're they're mainly responsible for
Speaker 1: generating offense. But if you're good, if you can play,
Speaker 1: you're getting your minutes, you're getting your shots, you're getting
Speaker 1: your attempts, like look at Dennis Shrewder. You know, no one.
Speaker 1: I I even was a little skeptical coming into the season,
Speaker 1: like how's Dennis gonna fit in, you know with Lebron
Speaker 1: and a d having this give and take, And then
Speaker 1: you find out really quickly it's like, wait, Dennis is
Speaker 1: really good, and if you get him switched on to
Speaker 1: a big he's just go and buy him to the
Speaker 1: basket and and he can defend and you can do
Speaker 1: all these other m hm h m. Jason you there, yeah,
Speaker 1: m hmm a little bit. You come back now sostrating
Speaker 1: never Uh, well, I think there's something going on with
Speaker 1: my upload speed, but I'll get that. I'll get that
Speaker 1: figured out. It seems like the upload just cuts out
Speaker 1: every few minutes, but the download stay steady the whole time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll get that. I'll get that figured out. Anyway. Point
Speaker 1: being the if if Steph's offensive talent around him was better,
Speaker 1: they would have success around Steff. There's no systemic change
Speaker 1: that needs to take place in my opinion. Uh, As
Speaker 1: you know, Steph likes to play a certain style. Lebron
Speaker 1: likes to play certain style. Good players, good offensive players
Speaker 1: will find a way to succeed, and more often than not,
Speaker 1: just in the interest of being dishonest, we may blame
Speaker 1: the stars, but to me, that's not necessarily fair, and
Speaker 1: any sort of systemic change would end up hurting the
Speaker 1: stars more than it would help the role players in
Speaker 1: my opinion, No, totally. I mean, look, man, everybody thought
Speaker 1: Lebron was washed two years ago, and then Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: came along, and all of a sudden, he's the Finals
Speaker 1: MVP again twelve months later. So I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of it is just based on that. Like if the
Speaker 1: tough part is as a Warriors fan, it's like, we're
Speaker 1: all expecting Quai to be healthy this year, and then
Speaker 1: he goes down on Draft night, like literally on Draft night,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to get this number to pick, and Quaig
Speaker 1: tears his achilles, and now you're expecting a lot more
Speaker 1: out of this number to pick. Everything looks a lot different,
Speaker 1: and people are like, oh, you can't shift the future.
Speaker 1: You have to wait for quite to come back. Quays
Speaker 1: coming off in the A C and achilles. You might
Speaker 1: have to shift the future a little bit. You might
Speaker 1: have to go all in in a way that you
Speaker 1: didn't expect. I know you wanted to keep this number
Speaker 1: two pick. I know you did, but that might not
Speaker 1: be the reality anymore with a guy not playing basketball
Speaker 1: for thirty months and coming off to catastrophic lower extremity injuries.
Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of this just boils over.
Speaker 1: We all get frustrated every night because we thought we
Speaker 1: were going to have a chance to be a contender
Speaker 1: again and our second best player went down and now
Speaker 1: they can't score if he was out there. This year,
Speaker 1: I think the roster actually looks okay for the most part.
Speaker 1: It's not perfect, but it all makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's the frustration that boils over every night,
Speaker 1: and that's why I get piste basically. So that's actually
Speaker 1: a really interesting, uh segue into this this lamella ball thing,
Speaker 1: because I think it's been ridiculous that people, you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of goes to what I was just saying
Speaker 1: about this offensive talent, like there you know, I heard,
Speaker 1: you know, there's people everyone is just trying to defend
Speaker 1: this process. And the one thing I do agree with
Speaker 1: in terms of in defense of the Warriors and their
Speaker 1: decision to take Wiseman, is it wasn't as clear cut
Speaker 1: a gap during the draft process. Um, it was a
Speaker 1: lot closer. There was a clear roster need in the
Speaker 1: front court for the Warriors. LaMelo had all these question marks,
Speaker 1: fair or not. He had all these question marks, you know,
Speaker 1: coming out of New Zealand or whatever the heck he
Speaker 1: was doing, or wherever the heck he was, but Australia, Australia. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the point is is that, you know, the the
Speaker 1: we overthink these things a lot of the time. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times we've overthought that there's
Speaker 1: only one basketball thing, you know, for for multiple stars.
Speaker 1: We've been proven wrong. Every single time that's been the case,
Speaker 1: even the most horrific scenario like Chris Paul and James Harden,
Speaker 1: it worked. Brooklyn's giving it again right now. Brooklyn is
Speaker 1: giving it again right now, exactly. And so the bottom
Speaker 1: line is this idea that like LaMelo wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to fit with Steph or he wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: do the same things. And and and then there's people
Speaker 1: being dishonest and saying that you know, he's just doing
Speaker 1: it because he's in Charlotte and they're giving him the
Speaker 1: ball every time it's like, well, they're winning, okay, so
Speaker 1: they're giving him the ball every time, but they're winning,
Speaker 1: so you're you're it's this is not garbage time. This
Speaker 1: is legitimate basketball success that this kid is having. And
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to sit back and be like, man,
Speaker 1: it would have been nice to have that next to Steph,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider the fact that he does have
Speaker 1: such an amazing off ball game. And I saw this
Speaker 1: the other day. It this lasting. I'll say, I don't
Speaker 1: have to take over, but it's like, it's like, oh, Draymond,
Speaker 1: you know, why would they need LaMelo? They got Draymond
Speaker 1: to have the ball with Steff's got them. I'm like you,
Speaker 1: you think it's good to have one dude who can
Speaker 1: dribble with his head up. All staff is running around like,
Speaker 1: how how about two of them? Okay? Or what if
Speaker 1: you know what if LaMelo and Draymond are running action
Speaker 1: and Steph is running around off the ball, like it's
Speaker 1: there's no scenario where that doesn't make that team infinitely better.
Speaker 1: Every night, the fan blase every game, every single game,
Speaker 1: they complain about Brad Wannamaker every single game incessantly. It
Speaker 1: never stops and I get it. One maker has been
Speaker 1: terrible this year, like he deserves some type of flak
Speaker 1: because he was much better in Boston. A lot of
Speaker 1: that is the role that he's playing on this team.
Speaker 1: But that's besides the point he's complained about every night.
Speaker 1: The guy who solves that problem is LaMelo Ball. James
Speaker 1: Wiseman isn't solving anything for this team right now. God
Speaker 1: love him, He's I think he's gonna be a good player,
Speaker 1: and else I'll keep saying that because people are gonna
Speaker 1: yell me if I don't he is going to be
Speaker 1: a good player. But right now, LaMelo Ball already is
Speaker 1: a good player. And it doesn't matter that he's playing
Speaker 1: with you know, some good teammates and Rosier and Hayward.
Speaker 1: Yeah great, he'd be playing with better teammates in Golden
Speaker 1: State and Stephan Draymond. It would only make him look better.
Speaker 1: Maybe his numbers would be a little bit lower, but
Speaker 1: he would be He would be feeling a role for
Speaker 1: that is needed on this team. Every night we can play. Oh,
Speaker 1: Steve Curs said it last night. Need more scoring, need
Speaker 1: more playmaking. He would have provided it, right And everybody
Speaker 1: who does this for a job had him as best
Speaker 1: player available. Everybody. By the time the draft around, everybody
Speaker 1: had him. They might have not had him one number
Speaker 1: one in their mock draft or number one on their
Speaker 1: board or whatever, but they all had him as VP
Speaker 1: a best player available. I remember the draft Express guys
Speaker 1: had him number one. I don't think Kevin O'Connor did.
Speaker 1: But O'Connor had kill a catastrophically wrong. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he had. I think he had ball number two though,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure, but he had Wiseman six. Walserman had
Speaker 1: Wiseman six, um Schmid's had Wiseman at five. Like all
Speaker 1: of the weaknesses that Wiseman has right now weren't unknown,
Speaker 1: And so my frustration is not with James Wiseman, because
Speaker 1: these weaknesses were known. That the rebounding, the bad hands,
Speaker 1: that kind of average basketball feel, um, kind of bad
Speaker 1: latera mo ability, these things were all known. Like you
Speaker 1: could have watched a couple of college high school games
Speaker 1: and you would see it. And I am I blame
Speaker 1: the Warriors front office for putting a kid who's nineteen
Speaker 1: years old in this situation where they're heaping the expectations
Speaker 1: of a dynasty on on him. A team that won
Speaker 1: three titles in five years. They're saying, hey, man, come
Speaker 1: in and take this over from one of the twenty
Speaker 1: greatest players of all time. How is that fair to him?
Speaker 1: It isn't. It isn't. And the way it would have
Speaker 1: been more fair is if you bring in a guy
Speaker 1: like LaMelo or any other guard who functionally is steps
Speaker 1: back up so their role doesn't have to be that big.
Speaker 1: If you bring in a guy like Wiseman who's a
Speaker 1: five man, and you're saying, you basically got to be
Speaker 1: our starter from day one and be really good from
Speaker 1: day one, the expectations only grow If you bring it
Speaker 1: a guy that plays the same position as stephor Quay,
Speaker 1: It's like you can be the backup for a little
Speaker 1: bit and then you know, come in and figure it
Speaker 1: out on the tail end. That's what the Spurs didn't
Speaker 1: did with Kawai and Away. He wasn't man who's like
Speaker 1: exact backup, but they didn't have a you. There wasn't
Speaker 1: really a need at that position. It was anything that
Speaker 1: quite gave them was great. They knew he could defend,
Speaker 1: and they said, just go do that, don't worry about
Speaker 1: anything else. The Warriors are asking Wiseman to do like
Speaker 1: twelve different things that things that he's not ready to do.
Speaker 1: It's just not fair to him, and so they just
Speaker 1: I'll keep saying that they need to push all the
Speaker 1: chips in and then we can stop talking about the Warriors.
Speaker 1: But it's just the guy was there to draft LaMelo
Speaker 1: Ball was the guy, and we can argue about it,
Speaker 1: but it's very clear now he should have been the guy.
Speaker 1: He's last sixteen games, he's like twenty six and six
Speaker 1: one eighties something from the field. He's incredible. He's better
Speaker 1: than anybody thought he would be. I'm not gonna sit
Speaker 1: here and say I thought he would be this. I
Speaker 1: thought he'd be, you know, like a better version of
Speaker 1: Ricky Rubio to start and then eventually maybe progress into
Speaker 1: like a dont level guy. I was by the time
Speaker 1: the draft world around, I had him as that as
Speaker 1: an on ball creator. The off ball stuff has been
Speaker 1: super surprising offensively and the defense has been way better
Speaker 1: than anybody could have ever imagined. Even his most like
Speaker 1: optimistic supporters point being, they had the guy that could
Speaker 1: have draft it, and they didn't draft him, and now
Speaker 1: they're stuck with a guy who's not going to help
Speaker 1: them win and it's not his fault. It is not
Speaker 1: his fault at all. Yeah, And hindsight is always on
Speaker 1: this stuff. I mean, for whatever that's worth. Like I
Speaker 1: think draft pre draft stuff like I was making fund
Speaker 1: of Kevin O'Connor is second to go. Like I love
Speaker 1: Kevin O'Connor. I think he knows the stuff, he does,
Speaker 1: his work. He just great. He got he was wrong
Speaker 1: about something and we've all been wrong. And but the
Speaker 1: point is is, like you know, you're you're betting on
Speaker 1: a teenager. Uh, and and God knows what a teenager
Speaker 1: is gonna do. I know I was completely unpredictable as
Speaker 1: a teenager myself. And uh, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like when uh, it's hindsight and now you
Speaker 1: look back at it and you're like, huh, Like young
Speaker 1: bigs are never good. You know, they had enough in
Speaker 1: the front court to be serviceable and have Draymond play
Speaker 1: the five for the most the mid level on a
Speaker 1: big man. You could use the mid level on a
Speaker 1: big man, Like there were things you could have done,
Speaker 1: you could have used there. They had a trade exception.
Speaker 1: They could have used that on a big man if
Speaker 1: they really wanted to there were other avenues to to
Speaker 1: get big men. It's just exactly. And the most frustrating
Speaker 1: part is the front office says, well, we still want
Speaker 1: to contend for titles, then why are you drafting a
Speaker 1: guy that they have admitted when they drafted him. Bob
Speaker 1: Byers has said this, he's raw, he's untap potential. There's
Speaker 1: a long way to go. You can't say you want
Speaker 1: to win titles out of one side of your mouth
Speaker 1: and then try to develop a guy like that on
Speaker 1: the other end. It doesn't work like that, especially if
Speaker 1: you're asking to play a major role in what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, and uh, and it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's like at the end of the day, there's no
Speaker 1: point in complaining about it now. And Wiseman still has
Speaker 1: a great deal of of value UM. Even if it
Speaker 1: may not be the LaMelo's value, he still has a
Speaker 1: great He still brings value to the table. And I'm
Speaker 1: with you that the we've discussed that length that they
Speaker 1: need to move him. So before we talk about our
Speaker 1: last topic, I wanted to this is something I meant
Speaker 1: to jut too when we got to the uh, the
Speaker 1: stuff about UM analytics and UH Um, I wanted to
Speaker 1: just quick kind of circle back. So when we were
Speaker 1: talking about you know, uh, you know analytics, is this
Speaker 1: a lot of the like the core spine of of
Speaker 1: analytics is based on this outside in a coach and
Speaker 1: finding a way to maximize your you know, points per
Speaker 1: possession by doing and the three point shot has an
Speaker 1: increased value which increases your point per possession. Right. Well, again,
Speaker 1: we talked about this a lot earlier. No two shots
Speaker 1: are alike, and I think this is a great example
Speaker 1: to talk about the difference between a Utah Jazz team
Speaker 1: and l A Clippers team. It's just like a fundamental
Speaker 1: difference in basketball. So, for instance, the the l A
Speaker 1: Clippers are i want to say, twenty nine in the
Speaker 1: entire NBA and shot attempts within five ft of the rim?
Speaker 1: Uh they are. They lean heavily on on created jump
Speaker 1: shots off the dribble and especially from their two stars.
Speaker 1: And I think it is manifested negatively in a bunch
Speaker 1: of ways, mainly stagnation because one of the easiest ways
Speaker 1: to get an offense out of a slump is to
Speaker 1: get easy shots, and they kind of just rely on
Speaker 1: difficult shots eventually going and sometimes they just don't, which
Speaker 1: I think is part of the reason why they struggled
Speaker 1: so much in the clutch. So this kind of is
Speaker 1: a great time for me to just kind of, uh,
Speaker 1: you know again, kind of harp on one of my
Speaker 1: core basketball philosophies, which is you can have an outside
Speaker 1: in approach that is built on pressure on the rim.
Speaker 1: And this is what Utah does so well. Utah does
Speaker 1: not dribble up the floor and take a bunch of
Speaker 1: contested threes or threes off the dribble. Their guards will
Speaker 1: shoot threes if you go under pick and roll, but
Speaker 1: the the entire premise of their offense is putting pressure
Speaker 1: on the rim with Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley, which
Speaker 1: starts a cascading effect where there are other wings. Will
Speaker 1: then drive out of a close out and it's driving
Speaker 1: kick and driving kick, and then they find this wide
Speaker 1: open three and it doesn't feel like settling because of
Speaker 1: the pressure that you put on the rim. And it's
Speaker 1: what allows a guy, a guy that's really like set
Speaker 1: in in and ready for a catch and shoot opportunity.
Speaker 1: You know, that kind of three point it's tempt carries
Speaker 1: so much more value than in off the drooble attempt
Speaker 1: because of the rhythm and because of the pressure that
Speaker 1: you put on the rim and the way you're fatiguing
Speaker 1: the defense instead of the other way around. And I
Speaker 1: do think it's a it's an interesting difference that you
Speaker 1: see between the Clippers and the Jazz and the way
Speaker 1: they generate their jump shots because both teams are considered
Speaker 1: jump shooting teams, and the Jazz, for the record, I
Speaker 1: think are twenty in shot attempts within five ft of
Speaker 1: the room, so they also lean heavily on jump shooting.
Speaker 1: But to me, and you can tell me if you disagree,
Speaker 1: I just feel like they're like fundamentally in the way
Speaker 1: that they've discover and search out those types of shots.
Speaker 1: It's an it's an inside out approach, if that makes sense. No,
Speaker 1: it definitely is. And they use Gobert's roll gravity to
Speaker 1: do that too, like they you know, they have them
Speaker 1: constantly rolling to the rim to suck ind week side
Speaker 1: defenders and then kick out the shooters on the weak side.
Speaker 1: And then they're, like you're saying, they're re driving it
Speaker 1: with their wings. I don't fundamentally disagree where it's where
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I keep going back and forth on this
Speaker 1: Utah team. Some nights I think, man, maybe they can
Speaker 1: win the championship. Like for the first half last night
Speaker 1: when they were playing the the Sixers, I was like, God,
Speaker 1: they look so good, like they are getting any look
Speaker 1: they want. Donovan Mitchell is getting any look he wants.
Speaker 1: He's abusing Ben Simmons, just absolutely taking him to task.
Speaker 1: And then that second half of that fourth quarter happens,
Speaker 1: and You're like, oh, there it is. They can't get
Speaker 1: any good looks late, like or Donovan Mitchell isn't willing
Speaker 1: to shoot the good looks, like he kept coming off
Speaker 1: picking rolls late in that game, and and he was
Speaker 1: playing like a pretty heavy drop coverage, and Mitchell just wouldn't.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't either just take an easy pull up or
Speaker 1: drive harder and beat and sucked the week side in
Speaker 1: to get kind of that driving kick action going. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I think the Jazz are, like on
Speaker 1: equivocally a better regular season team and the Clippers, but
Speaker 1: in a playoff matchup, the Clippers kind of survive on
Speaker 1: those tough shots. And if I would trust them more
Speaker 1: to make those tough shots, because eventually Utah is gonna
Speaker 1: have to make those tough shots, and it's probably just
Speaker 1: gonna come down to Donovan Mitchell making them right. I
Speaker 1: don't really see another guy who can do that for them.
Speaker 1: Maybe Bogdanovitch a little bit. He's got a nice little
Speaker 1: mid range game and post game and he can he
Speaker 1: can get kind of crafty with how he scores. But
Speaker 1: if he's going up against Kawai and Paul George, I
Speaker 1: think the Clippers are winning that battle. So it's just
Speaker 1: this really interesting conversation in how much should we value
Speaker 1: regular season success? And we talked about it all the time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they definitely are different place styles though to
Speaker 1: your point, they totally are, even though they are, on
Speaker 1: their face both shooting a lot of jump shots. Well,
Speaker 1: like even just something silly like James Harden putting pressure
Speaker 1: on the rim as a as an as a pick
Speaker 1: and roll an isolation guy, completely changes the complexion of
Speaker 1: Brooklyn's offense compared to the Clippers. Um, but it's just
Speaker 1: you know, but you're right, you need to be able
Speaker 1: to do both. And that's what makes the Clippers so
Speaker 1: scary is if they if they always stay in a
Speaker 1: rhythm for a playoff series, good luck beating them. But
Speaker 1: like you know, That's why I'm always going to lean
Speaker 1: on teams like the Lakers in the sixth is as
Speaker 1: the most dangerous teams in the league because they do
Speaker 1: they cross all of the they check all the boxes.
Speaker 1: You know, they defend at an extremely high level. They
Speaker 1: have individual defenders that can stifle your stars like Lebron,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and Ben Stimmons are all players that if
Speaker 1: you put them on Kawhi Leonard, like kawais in for
Speaker 1: a hell of a night, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And those those are those are advantages. And then they're
Speaker 1: versatile defensively too, because they don't, you know, rely on
Speaker 1: one specific type of defense. For instance, the Jazz rely
Speaker 1: so much on Rudy Gobert and the paint If you
Speaker 1: put a stretch big on him, and it's a stretch
Speaker 1: big that Rudy has to respect and Pep won't just
Speaker 1: leave open, there's a there's it changes the complexion of
Speaker 1: their defense, whereas like the Lakers can defend and scramble
Speaker 1: and you know, the six are same thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: but then there's the offensive side of the ball, and
Speaker 1: it's like the Lakers and the Sixers both put immense
Speaker 1: pressure on the rim to generate three point shots. Now,
Speaker 1: the Lakers for the record not shooting well lately, but
Speaker 1: in my opinion, a big part of that is Lebron
Speaker 1: kind of taking it easy and Anthony Davis being out
Speaker 1: so they're not pressuring the rim like they're just not
Speaker 1: pressuring the rim the way they do in a playoff series.
Speaker 1: I believe the reason why the Lakers made shots when
Speaker 1: it counted in the playoffs last year was the quality
Speaker 1: of three point shots that they were getting when things
Speaker 1: mattered was extremely high because Lebron and A d were
Speaker 1: one engaged and pressuring the rim, and it was generating
Speaker 1: those types of shots. But then the Sixers with m
Speaker 1: B being as good as he is, and then the
Speaker 1: Lebron Anthony Davis effect. Those teams can also to the
Speaker 1: teams that are shutting off the rim or packing things
Speaker 1: in and jumpers aren't following on the other with from
Speaker 1: the spot up shooters. They have these guys that can
Speaker 1: create extremely difficult shots in isolation as well, so they
Speaker 1: kind of check all three boxes. If you go to
Speaker 1: any of the other teams like Brooklyn, they don't bring
Speaker 1: it on the defensive end of the ball. The Clippers.
Speaker 1: They don't pressure the rim enough. You know, Utah they
Speaker 1: lack that elite high end shot creation. Uh defense, They're
Speaker 1: gonna struggle to lock players down in the playoffs if
Speaker 1: we just used last night's game as an example first
Speaker 1: of all, and be dominated Gobert, Who's probably gonna win
Speaker 1: Defensive Player of the Year again, which is just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But indeed, I mean it's within a week. I think
Speaker 1: embiad and Yo Kitcher some other big men have just
Speaker 1: absolutely just how dumb does that John hollingder really go
Speaker 1: bear m v P piece? Look? I thought about that
Speaker 1: last night. I almost texted you about it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'll just talk. I tweeted it. I tweeted it.
Speaker 1: I said, we need to send John Hollinger to Mars
Speaker 1: for saying Uncle Bart's the top three m VP candidate.
Speaker 1: But told Bias Harris was dominating the Jazz Wings last
Speaker 1: night late in that game. So Bias is a really
Speaker 1: nice player. I don't want to take anything away from him.
Speaker 1: What's that gonna look like when it's Kauai or Paul
Speaker 1: George or Lebron James. It's gonna get really ugly for
Speaker 1: Utah and that's where as much as I want to believe,
Speaker 1: I really do want to believe in that team because
Speaker 1: they're I think they're doing things in a very unique way.
Speaker 1: They've actually, as I've said, they've tried to do the
Speaker 1: three point thing the correct way. They've actually gotten good
Speaker 1: shooters to do it. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's probably not gonna matter because they one they don't
Speaker 1: have the perimeter defense to get it done, and too
Speaker 1: they don't have the high and shock creader to get
Speaker 1: it done. Um, where are you at on Philly right now?
Speaker 1: Because I thought that was a huge win for them
Speaker 1: last night, but it also took basically everything they had
Speaker 1: to get that win. So again I I put them
Speaker 1: there in my top three. I I have Lakers, Philly
Speaker 1: and Brooklyn as my top three. I Philly has struggled
Speaker 1: a little bit, especially against really good teams this year,
Speaker 1: so they're far from perfect. Um, but the reason why
Speaker 1: I view them is dangerous is those three things. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I think what will eventually get them beat
Speaker 1: And the reason why I'm not sure if they can
Speaker 1: beat Brooklyn is at the end of the day, their
Speaker 1: offense is going to degenerate into Joe l Embiid, which
Speaker 1: is what happens to all of the best teams. Like
Speaker 1: all the Brooklyn offense looks so free flowing and nice.
Speaker 1: Guess what it's gonna turn into elite high end shot
Speaker 1: creation from their best players. It's gonna get stagnant. Same
Speaker 1: thing goes for the Lakers. And I'm just referring to
Speaker 1: the late rounds against the best of the best on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the ball. But who do you
Speaker 1: trust more in those moments? Like I know Brown is
Speaker 1: going to find a way to to kind of like
Speaker 1: decipher that to some extent, you know. And the same
Speaker 1: goes for the Kevin Duran, Kyrie James Harden trio. Joel Embiid.
Speaker 1: I can't remember this off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to mess it up. But I
Speaker 1: believe he's averaging more turnovers than assists this year. I
Speaker 1: might need to double check that. But but he's not
Speaker 1: He's not great and in the at deciphering the defenses
Speaker 1: when they really load up on him. And in almost
Speaker 1: every matchup that I've seen, he's incredible. For the record,
Speaker 1: like his little his little step back three that he
Speaker 1: made over I think it was but Bogdanovitch at the
Speaker 1: end of game last night. That literally reminded me of
Speaker 1: one of those memes that makes fun of the big
Speaker 1: guy who runs the three point line. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen that mean where they're talking about the different players
Speaker 1: and they like throw the guy to the ball, to
Speaker 1: the guy in the post, and then he just runs
Speaker 1: to the three point linetitudes like, that's what in B
Speaker 1: did on that play. It was funny like and beats incredible.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to undercut him in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form, but when you're nitpicking amongst the very top
Speaker 1: of the league, you know, Brooklyn in l A, They're
Speaker 1: They're not a team you can double out of existence.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's just not gonna happen. They're going to
Speaker 1: find a way to continue to counter and beat that.
Speaker 1: Whereas whereas I've really seen Philly struggle when embaid when
Speaker 1: the defense really loads up on embeat at the end
Speaker 1: of games. Uh. And it's something that that I that
Speaker 1: has been a problem in the past, and it's just
Speaker 1: something to keep it on. Did you have been looking
Speaker 1: the up the m B. Yeah, it's he's one to one,
Speaker 1: it's three point three. Is since three point two turnovers.
Speaker 1: And that's basically it's not very good. No, it's terrible
Speaker 1: that and that spells trouble for because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: In the playoff series, they're gonna make him pass. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: And in every matchup I've seen this here against the
Speaker 1: best of the best defenses, they've made him pass, you know, yep,
Speaker 1: And especially when you're best passer. Simmons, who is a
Speaker 1: really really good passer, he can't really operate in the
Speaker 1: half court well when he doesn't dictate the double teams.
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing, Like he he can dictate it,
Speaker 1: like he can pass, but can't dictate the double teams.
Speaker 1: Joan and b can dictate the double teams, but he
Speaker 1: can't pass. So it's kind of like this like kind
Speaker 1: of that's the worst of both worlds. Should it's it'd
Speaker 1: be tough to do because the beat has gotten so
Speaker 1: good as an isolation score. His his isolation game is
Speaker 1: like so much smoother this year. He's he's like really
Speaker 1: working at a triple threat. Well, he's basically dictating to
Speaker 1: any one on one matchup exactly what he wants. He
Speaker 1: gets what he wants anytime unless they bring a double
Speaker 1: right so it'd be really tough to do this, but
Speaker 1: like you almost want to look at posting up Simmons
Speaker 1: a little bit late in those games situations and having
Speaker 1: him beat spot up because his three ball is real
Speaker 1: this year. I want to say he's still around from
Speaker 1: three on the year. He's had his shooting performance that
Speaker 1: looks like Anthony Davis last year where it's like you're like,
Speaker 1: is he making a leap? You know, like a here
Speaker 1: like that exactly, so you could you know, they do
Speaker 1: have maybe enough shooting around like a Simmons post up
Speaker 1: to work. You could put and beat Curry and Tobias
Speaker 1: on the perimeter with one more guy, maybe thigh bol
Speaker 1: just because he's a good cutter and he's a good
Speaker 1: defensive player. Finished with those five post up Simmons a
Speaker 1: little bit more because he would be really good working
Speaker 1: out of those double teams. You get some cutters of
Speaker 1: the rim, you have guys spotting up. Maybe the the
Speaker 1: late game offense looks a little bit better against the
Speaker 1: best teams. But then and Bead has been so good
Speaker 1: this year, how do you tell them that? And that's
Speaker 1: a human part of coaching, where how do you tell
Speaker 1: a guy who's averaging just observed number like twenty eight
Speaker 1: and twelve, and he's doing everything for you. How do
Speaker 1: you tell him, hey, man, we're gonna go to somebody
Speaker 1: else down the stretch, especially a guy who scores like
Speaker 1: fifteen a game. Good luck, Like he's not gonna listen
Speaker 1: to that. So, yeah, they just Philly feels like a
Speaker 1: team to where if they're ever gonna get it done,
Speaker 1: Like if they're ever actually gonna win a title with
Speaker 1: this corp of guys, with them beating Simmons, they're probably
Speaker 1: still a year away, Like they're probably still one or
Speaker 1: two good roster moves away, and they're just they're getting
Speaker 1: to the point where, yeah, they can beat really good
Speaker 1: teams right there there there. But typically when you see
Speaker 1: a true title team, they're blowing out most opponents and
Speaker 1: they're like putting the beat down on a lot of
Speaker 1: good teams. Like they're not just beating good teams, they're
Speaker 1: beating them soundly, and Philly is not really doing that yet.
Speaker 1: And you know, they're probably not at that point yet.
Speaker 1: And Beads only twenty six years old. Most guys don't
Speaker 1: until eight when they're winning a title, right. I think
Speaker 1: Jordan same with Lebron, so by no means should be
Speaker 1: closing the book on Philly as a whole, but just
Speaker 1: just from watching them a little bit more closely, because
Speaker 1: I still have them tentatively as my pick out of
Speaker 1: the East. I still think they're probably about a year away,
Speaker 1: like in terms of actually winning an NBA championship, unless
Speaker 1: some injuries happened this year. I think they're a year
Speaker 1: away this year. To me, anything can happened. It's weird,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, even with the Brooklyn thing, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn kind of reminds me a little bit about of
Speaker 1: the two thousand sixteen Warriors, where they're a little bit
Speaker 1: uh scheme proof in the regular season, but it's something
Speaker 1: a team that's a little easier to game plan for,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think the Warriors, like I don't think
Speaker 1: the Warriors were as good as like everyone appoints to
Speaker 1: the Oh Lebron beat the seventy three one team. Oh
Speaker 1: Lebron w bet the seventy three one team. And don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, that team was really really good. But
Speaker 1: I think that team's record was a little bit better
Speaker 1: than what they projected to be in the playoffs, and
Speaker 1: I think that showed and and I think that's why
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City gave them so many problems as well, Like
Speaker 1: just this basic idea that you had this guy that
Speaker 1: you had to guard in a way that was different
Speaker 1: than anybody had ever guarded. And then suddenly Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, when they had time to game plan for him,
Speaker 1: found out a way to make him a little more uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: That kind of reminds me of Brooklyn's defense, where it's like,
Speaker 1: in the regular season, no one can figure out how
Speaker 1: to attack the switching defense. No one can figure out.
Speaker 1: But but at the in a playoff series, when there's
Speaker 1: extensive watching of tape and really really smart offensive players,
Speaker 1: whether it's a Kai or a Lebron or an Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: Paul George or you know, a Joel Embiat or whoever
Speaker 1: it is, Jimmy Butler even might like Jimmy Butler, might
Speaker 1: find a way to like and dam might find a
Speaker 1: way to relentlessly attack that that Brooklyn defense. I just
Speaker 1: don't think, you know, I don't think anybody on a
Speaker 1: random Tuesday night, in one forty eight minute sample cannot
Speaker 1: be thrown off by the Brooklyn defense, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And and so I don't find them as scary as
Speaker 1: they've looked. And then Utah, we've discussed that length. You know,
Speaker 1: the Lakers have looked overly dominant this year. I looked
Speaker 1: like the two through I want to say, the two
Speaker 1: through six seeds are all a half game apart right now.
Speaker 1: Overall overall in the entire league, like there's just everyone is,
Speaker 1: you know, like everyone's not very good. It seems like
Speaker 1: that's the weird part to me. A lot of it
Speaker 1: is just injuries and COVID, Like said, teams have just
Speaker 1: been really banged up this year. Like and just from
Speaker 1: an injury standpoint, even if COVID wasn't a thing, I
Speaker 1: think it would still be really jumbled because there have
Speaker 1: been just a lot of injuries, two key players for
Speaker 1: a lot of teams. So it's eight out of ten
Speaker 1: and it's I want to say, six out of eight,
Speaker 1: and it's because they've been missing all their guys. Like
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. It is what
Speaker 1: it is. There's nothing you can do if all your
Speaker 1: best players are out. So it's just a weird year.
Speaker 1: It's just a weird year. And I still tendively have
Speaker 1: the Lakers is the favorite but we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a default at this point. I think
Speaker 1: the picture will get I think the picture will get
Speaker 1: a lot clearer after the All Star break. Hopefully teams
Speaker 1: get healthy. Nobody comes back from All Are with COVID,
Speaker 1: which we'll see what happens. That could be really messy
Speaker 1: down there. Um And if that happens, hopefully teams are healthier.
Speaker 1: Maybe COVID cases continue to go down, and we get
Speaker 1: like a more regular second half of the NBA season,
Speaker 1: But we'll see. I think it's all gonna be. It
Speaker 1: still has a chance to be all really jumbled heading
Speaker 1: into May real quickly before I let you go, like,
Speaker 1: I think that's been one of the interesting things to
Speaker 1: me is every team this year has had a stretch
Speaker 1: where they looked over like dominant, with exception of Utah
Speaker 1: in my opinion, and I'm not talking about in the record.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like really convincing wins. So for instance,
Speaker 1: like Philly, do you mean over good teams? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: really really good teams. So for example, Utah went through
Speaker 1: this stretch here where every time they played a contender
Speaker 1: they were down stars and then they finally play Philly,
Speaker 1: and they lose. You know, they finally play the Clippers
Speaker 1: with Kawai and Paul George and they lose. So uh so,
Speaker 1: for instance, like Philly, they can look at themselves in
Speaker 1: the mirror and be like, we beat the Lakers and
Speaker 1: Jazz at full strength. You know, the Lakers can look
Speaker 1: themselves in the mirror. They have a bunch of convincing
Speaker 1: like they beat the living ship out of Denver, they
Speaker 1: went into uh went into Milwaukee and they were really dominant.
Speaker 1: I'm missing off the top of my head. But or
Speaker 1: they can at least fall back on what they did
Speaker 1: last year, you know, like, okay, we had this success
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. The Clippers have a bunch of really
Speaker 1: convincing wins. They were the ones that beat Utah. For instance.
Speaker 1: If you go out East Brooklyn can look at them
Speaker 1: and be like, look, we lost Kadie and we ran
Speaker 1: through all these teams. We beat both l A teams
Speaker 1: in l A. You know, we we were dominant. We
Speaker 1: went to Phoenix and we won, and we did all
Speaker 1: this stuff. You know. The Utah It's weird because the
Speaker 1: two times that they've played a contender at full strength
Speaker 1: in the last couple of months, they lost, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's where it gets a little tricky in the
Speaker 1: sense that you know, I compare them a lot with
Speaker 1: you to the to the Bucks last year, but there
Speaker 1: are much less impressive version of them in terms of
Speaker 1: what they've actually accomplished on the court. Yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: sucks for Utah because they also get the two thousan
Speaker 1: fifteen Hawks comparison a lot. Yeah, and they're they're they're
Speaker 1: better than that. They're better than that Hawks team. That's
Speaker 1: what sucks. Like if they were in the East and
Speaker 1: two dollar fifteen, maybe they come out of the East,
Speaker 1: but with as good as the West is right now,
Speaker 1: they might be a second round exit. After winning, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty five to sixty games in a seventy two games season.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have an outstanding regular season, whether they keep
Speaker 1: losing the good teams or not. Um, But yeah, it
Speaker 1: just sucks that they're probably gonna have this spectacular regular
Speaker 1: season then they're gonna flame out in the playoffs and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to do the whole referendum on three
Speaker 1: point shooting thing again. Like it's just it's just one
Speaker 1: big cyclical conversation that we're never gonna stop having until
Speaker 1: the team like Utah wins one if they ever do,
Speaker 1: which they probably won't. Well and we we we everybody's
Speaker 1: a fraud when they lose, which is so unfair, Like
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's it's like the uh uh, the
Speaker 1: stupid simple fact that twenty nine of the thirty teams
Speaker 1: are gonna lose and every one of them is going
Speaker 1: to have this massive referendum on what they do, like
Speaker 1: get ready, Like the Lakers I think are the best team,
Speaker 1: but there's a good chance they lose this year and
Speaker 1: if they do, immediately, it's gonna be time to throw
Speaker 1: out last season as as like a team that is
Speaker 1: an extremely lucky team and what they've been and fitted
Speaker 1: from in circumstance, And it's just unfortunate because that's the
Speaker 1: way we are. And we talked about this earlier, like
Speaker 1: Twitter is just you know, a place that lacks context
Speaker 1: and nuance and all that good stuff. But anyway, dude, hey,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time to hop on today.
Speaker 1: I need to get you out of here for your
Speaker 1: meeting everybody. I'm really really sorry about the WiFi stuff.
Speaker 1: Promise I'll get it figured out. Going through a move
Speaker 1: right now. So it's a little complicated, but I will
Speaker 1: get it figured out. I feel bad for Tommy because
Speaker 1: he's over there just looking like what am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do? We're good. We're good now. I think I
Speaker 1: think we can have some fun conversations around uh small
Speaker 1: star stuff next week if we want to do that.
Speaker 1: So just some some halfway awards stuff like that, some
Speaker 1: stuff that's pretty fun. Um, talk about how the league looks,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff, and maybe touch on some teams
Speaker 1: that we haven't yet, some of the uh the more
Speaker 1: middling teams in the league. Yeah, we could do some
Speaker 1: like half season grades or something. There we go. Um.
Speaker 1: I also need a name for the podcast. Please send
Speaker 1: me some stuff. Okay, all right, everybody, enjoy the rest
Speaker 1: of your weekend. I am on with Raj tomorrow morning
Speaker 1: at eight am. Hopefully the WiFi supports me in that regard. Tommy,
Speaker 1: have a good night, man, I'll talculator. Thanks everybody. M