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Speaker 1: eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. You know,
Speaker 1: I wish I could sit up here with you guys
Speaker 1: and say, hey, this is why they lost from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of x xs and ohs, Like, here's this coverage
Speaker 1: that wasn't working, here's this specific matchup that wasn't working.
Speaker 1: But I can't. I can't do that because they weren't
Speaker 1: even thinkers were disinterested and even the fundamental actions that
Speaker 1: have to take place on a basketball court in order
Speaker 1: for your team to win. So how can I talk
Speaker 1: about schemes or matchups or personnel or anything like that
Speaker 1: when they don't care. There was a play in the
Speaker 1: in the first quarter shot goes up, Malik Monk and
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook are both standing kind of right around the block,
Speaker 1: and both Houston Rockets players dive in and crash and
Speaker 1: they get an offensive rebound putback, just going right around
Speaker 1: Malik and Russ. They were just kind of watching there, waiting,
Speaker 1: just kind of hoping the ball would fall in your lap.
Speaker 1: Now again, if you're a championship caliber team with championship
Speaker 1: caliber talent, you know the kind of team that if
Speaker 1: you push the gas down on a team like the Rockets,
Speaker 1: you're gonna win by forty. That kind of team. They
Speaker 1: can give up an extra ten offensive rebounds that they
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't give up. They can fail to make out
Speaker 1: of out of area plays, they can fail to make
Speaker 1: extra efforts and get away with it. They can shoot
Speaker 1: poorly and get away with it. But when you don't
Speaker 1: have that amount of talent, you can't. But what's disappointing
Speaker 1: is that even with that talent gap, there was still
Speaker 1: enough with what the Lakers put on the floor tonight
Speaker 1: to go out there and win that game by ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen points. But instead it was close. And what
Speaker 1: happens when the game is close, When the game is close.
Speaker 1: It can go either way. The Lakers should have won
Speaker 1: that game. Still, they had some great looks at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, there's played Lebron's coming off that left wing,
Speaker 1: there's a screen. Defender gets caught on the screen, the
Speaker 1: big sitting way low. Lebron's wide open from the left wing.
Speaker 1: You love that shot, right, but it's not a hundred
Speaker 1: percent shot. It might miss, and he did. Last possession
Speaker 1: of the game, Lebron does what all of us have
Speaker 1: been begging for him to do. Don't settle for a
Speaker 1: jump shot, put your head down and go to the rim.
Speaker 1: He does. He puts his head down, he goes to
Speaker 1: the rim. The Rockets did an amazing job at the
Speaker 1: end of that game, end in overtime of sending multiple
Speaker 1: bodies at Lebron and making his teammates beat them, which
Speaker 1: they weren't able to do. But Lebron does what you
Speaker 1: ask him to do. He drives into the paint, He
Speaker 1: draws multiple defenders, he hits Carmelo Anthony, Carmelo Anthony pump fakes.
Speaker 1: It's a wide open two fter on the right wing,
Speaker 1: and he misses it. Because that's what happens in games
Speaker 1: like this. And you know, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: believe in the basketball gods are not. I tend to
Speaker 1: just in general, it's a general philosophy of life. Call
Speaker 1: it karma, call it whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: But I tend to believe that when you are being
Speaker 1: a brand of basketball that doesn't deserve to win, those
Speaker 1: kinds of shots don't go in. And then meanwhile, on
Speaker 1: the other end, you might see Jalen Green makes some
Speaker 1: crazy step back three as the basketball god's reward him
Speaker 1: for playing hard on a night like tonight. But you know,
Speaker 1: if this was a team with championship character, they come
Speaker 1: into this game, even if they're down a bunch of players,
Speaker 1: and they play with the requisite effort, and they're up
Speaker 1: by ten at the end of the game, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't come down to one or two shots. Nooke not
Speaker 1: going in. That's the that's the game that they played.
Speaker 1: And then in overtime it was like a tidal wave.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked a lot this season. I've been
Speaker 1: talking about it since the summer about the idea of
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrooken, what he the problem that he presents in
Speaker 1: clutch situations because of the fact that teams are inevitably
Speaker 1: going to leave him open. He doesn't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: shoot open three. So it presents this weird conundrum. If
Speaker 1: he's not cutting and being really active off the ball,
Speaker 1: he can really hurt you in late game situations. And
Speaker 1: it really really hurt the acres tonight. Russ was getting
Speaker 1: consistently ignored. He was the first man that his defender
Speaker 1: was offering help on all of these Lebron possessions. Now, again,
Speaker 1: I can't blame just that for a game like this
Speaker 1: where the Lakers barely played you know, coherent basketball. But
Speaker 1: that's an issue that's been rearing its ugly head all season,
Speaker 1: and it reared its ugly head again tonight. When you
Speaker 1: play a guy in the fourth quarter that's not a
Speaker 1: scoring threat got and he's not, he better be just
Speaker 1: an unbelievable defensive weapon that's giving you a ton on
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor, or chances are he's
Speaker 1: actually gonna be a net negative in those situations. Russ
Speaker 1: is playing pretty decent basketball as of late, but those
Speaker 1: are the kinds of problems that you're going to run into.
Speaker 1: You know. The overall tone of this game I think
Speaker 1: derives from Lebron and Russ. This is something that has
Speaker 1: been a consistent theme since the All Star Break. Lebron
Speaker 1: and Russ, their effort on both ends of the floor
Speaker 1: has not represented has not been representative of a team
Speaker 1: that cares, and as a result, that percolates down the roster.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked a lot about the young guys
Speaker 1: over the All Star Break and how important they are
Speaker 1: to this team's success. The young guys are starting to
Speaker 1: experience some dip in effort. I was seeing Malik Monk
Speaker 1: and Stanley Johnson start to let up in some of
Speaker 1: the effort areas of the game. And I don't blame them.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they Their leaders are doing the same thing
Speaker 1: and that and that's the confusing part in all this.
Speaker 1: That's why I kept saying, like the Lakers got to
Speaker 1: decide what they want here. They got to decide what
Speaker 1: they want to do, because I've seen Lebron try hard
Speaker 1: for one half since the All Star Break, and that
Speaker 1: was the second half against Golden State. On both ends
Speaker 1: of the floor, He's been trying on offense, he's getting
Speaker 1: his points, he's going after Kareem, but he's put together
Speaker 1: one good defensive half, and god knows how many tries
Speaker 1: since the All Star break. Of course, that's gonna percolate
Speaker 1: down the roster. That's why when you roll up into
Speaker 1: Houston in a game that your team sperainly needs to win,
Speaker 1: you can't get stops. You give up a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty points, and over time it looked like a pickup
Speaker 1: game with the Rockets shooting wide open shots. And so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't We've all just kind of understood
Speaker 1: that Lebron's gonna keep doing this. He wants to chase Corene,
Speaker 1: but this is the product. So we all as Laker fans,
Speaker 1: have to understand that's going to be the rest of
Speaker 1: the journey. The rest of this season is gonna be
Speaker 1: Lebron mailing in the defensive end of the ball, but
Speaker 1: trying like crazy on offense to put up numbers. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna care what happens in the wind lost column,
Speaker 1: and I would venture to guess that a lot of
Speaker 1: you aren't gonna be very happy about that, which is
Speaker 1: what I said was the risk all along. The risk
Speaker 1: here is you have to maintain some basketball integrity to
Speaker 1: build on for next season, and instead it looks like
Speaker 1: it's just going to continue to get uglier and uglier.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are just joining us, this
Speaker 1: is Lakers Tonight, presented by f go Here at the volume,
Speaker 1: I was just talking about the poor Laker effort throughout
Speaker 1: the season. I wanted to talk about a little bit
Speaker 1: about when you and Gabriel and his appearance tonight. Vandel
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Speaker 1: confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope
Speaker 1: and why or text hope and Why to four six
Speaker 1: seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee redline
Speaker 1: dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight
Speaker 1: nine in Tennessee visit www one dot one eight hundred
Speaker 1: gambler dot net. In West Virginia. I've been begging for
Speaker 1: Gabriel to get minutes because of the obvious fact that
Speaker 1: the Lakers lack NBA athleticism all over the floor and
Speaker 1: a group that has been utterly destroyed since the All
Speaker 1: Star break. This group is basically the four bench guards
Speaker 1: and Carmelo Anthony at center. That group has been getting
Speaker 1: completely run over by everybody. They've played since the All
Speaker 1: Star break. I think they've only had one or two
Speaker 1: shifts where they've even held their own. And the reason
Speaker 1: why is they lack the requisite amount of NBA athleticism
Speaker 1: to hang in an NBA game. Even that Houston Rockets
Speaker 1: team that limited injured Houston Rockets team has significantly more
Speaker 1: size and athleticism all over the floor. Yeah, can Lebron
Speaker 1: bully Alpern Seguin, Yeah, absolutely, But the rest of the
Speaker 1: roster there's a lot of a gap there in size
Speaker 1: and athleticism. Just seeing when you in Gabriel down there,
Speaker 1: flying up and down the floor. He's not getting caught
Speaker 1: in the foot race, He's not having trouble keeping up
Speaker 1: with the pace of the game. He's crashing divorce. He
Speaker 1: got two foul calls underneath the basket, just battling for
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds. And the biggest and mo important part of
Speaker 1: those minutes and the reason why, I think when you
Speaker 1: has to keep playing moving forward, look at Russ, Go
Speaker 1: back and watch Russ at the end of the third quarter,
Speaker 1: when when you Gabriel was on the floor, when you
Speaker 1: Gabriel is the only player on the Lakers roster right
Speaker 1: now not named Anthony Davis, who is a legitimate vertical
Speaker 1: threat and a guy who can knock down threes. There
Speaker 1: were handful of possessions where he went to the corner.
Speaker 1: They were handful of possessions where he hung out on
Speaker 1: the wing. There were handful possessions that he hung out
Speaker 1: in the dunker spot. And every time he was in
Speaker 1: those spots, because he's a real athlete with real vertical
Speaker 1: pop and because he can knock down threes, there was
Speaker 1: just that little bit of extra space for us to
Speaker 1: get going. And Russ was putting his head down and
Speaker 1: he was getting to the rim NonStop at the end
Speaker 1: of the third quarter, because that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: run a functional NBA lineup. That lineup was plus four
Speaker 1: in those minutes to end the third quarter. So that
Speaker 1: same lineup that was getting utterly destroyed and all these
Speaker 1: other games was plus four tonight. And that's a huge part,
Speaker 1: a huge lard of that is just what when you
Speaker 1: and Gabriel brings to the table as a functional vertical,
Speaker 1: you know, skilled forward, which is something that we haven't
Speaker 1: had this entire season. So I'm hopeful that when Frank
Speaker 1: watches the tape tomorrow that he sees that, and he
Speaker 1: sees particularly the way that Russ was playing in those lineups,
Speaker 1: and understands that that's something he's gonna have to lean
Speaker 1: into moving forward. He can play mellow with them too.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I think that's really interesting
Speaker 1: to have Melo and when youan together together because uh,
Speaker 1: Carmelo is actually a really good rebounder, and with the
Speaker 1: two of them together on the interior, I think they
Speaker 1: can run a semi competent NBA defense. So I hope
Speaker 1: that they'll continue to lean into that moving forward. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to really quickly before we move on. I
Speaker 1: wanted to expand a little bit on the comments that
Speaker 1: I made about Russell Westbrook in the video that I
Speaker 1: shared yesterday in the evening, because there have been, as
Speaker 1: is typically the case with Twitter, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who kind of tried to twist it into
Speaker 1: something that it wasn't. You know, the Twitter has a
Speaker 1: limit and and how long you're allowed to talk when
Speaker 1: you record those videos two minutes and twenty seconds. So
Speaker 1: as you can see as you watch the video, I'm
Speaker 1: hustling through a bunch of stuff. I'm trying to make
Speaker 1: some points, trying to get some stuff across, and people
Speaker 1: want to try to jump to conclusions and make it
Speaker 1: about something that it's not, and I wanted to clarify that.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't believe this has to be said.
Speaker 1: But of course death threats are a huge problem. There
Speaker 1: an ugly, ugly side of this experience that we have
Speaker 1: on the internet. In so many ways, Twitter has been
Speaker 1: so much fun for me as a place for me
Speaker 1: to talk about basketball when my wife and my friends
Speaker 1: are not really into basketball, and it's like an outlet
Speaker 1: for me. I've made friends on Twitter. I've made friends
Speaker 1: with so many of you Laker fans. I'm thankful for
Speaker 1: all those interactions and all of the good that comes
Speaker 1: from that. I can thank Twitter for this opportunity that
Speaker 1: I've received at the volume. It's how I built my
Speaker 1: platform to the point where I had this opportunity. Twitter
Speaker 1: has been so good. But one of the war things
Speaker 1: about it is the negativity in the way that we
Speaker 1: as as as with with the anonymity, with the ability
Speaker 1: of people to say things without their identity attached to
Speaker 1: it gives them this weird courage to say things that
Speaker 1: no normal human being would ever say, and that's awful,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what the fixes and and I
Speaker 1: feel terrible that Russ's family has had to deal with that,
Speaker 1: and I am thankful that they have the resources to
Speaker 1: at least attempt to handle it better than a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there do not have access to. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't sympathize with the way he's feeling.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean I don't feel terrible. I literally received
Speaker 1: a death threat responding to the video that I've released.
Speaker 1: Like I and again, I'm not experiencing anything like what
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook is experiencing, But I'm just saying this is
Speaker 1: a part of what that experience is like. It's an
Speaker 1: awful place the internet, and I'm not sure that it
Speaker 1: can be fixed. It's a part of the deal, and
Speaker 1: we all need to sympathize with each other and be
Speaker 1: for it would be there for each other in these situations.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to with the video, and I
Speaker 1: hope that this is clear now. I was trying to
Speaker 1: differentiate between fans who are frustrated with Russ's play and
Speaker 1: his attitude and the crazy ass people on any on
Speaker 1: the Internet that are hiding behind fake avatars and that
Speaker 1: are saying awful, awful things that deserve to have them
Speaker 1: thrown in prison. Those are two different things, you know. Literally,
Speaker 1: Russ came into this season and had a meeting with
Speaker 1: Lebron and Anthony Davis and said, I'm gonna change, I'm
Speaker 1: going to fit alongside you guys, and I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to win the title. When he said that,
Speaker 1: Laker fans had a certain expectation that was attached to that.
Speaker 1: As we went into the season. Even me, I was
Speaker 1: I have watched lots of Russell westbrook In previously, so
Speaker 1: I was very pessimistic about the fit. But when he
Speaker 1: came into the Lakers, even I tried to talk myself
Speaker 1: into how it might work. I said things like, hey,
Speaker 1: he's a third option now, maybe that will lead him
Speaker 1: to be more willing to embrace the little details of
Speaker 1: the game. I thought about matchups and the fact that
Speaker 1: when he's playing against teams like Brooklyn or Golden State,
Speaker 1: he might be able to present some physical advantages that
Speaker 1: the Lakers can capitalize on. I thought, I thought, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: in the past, before he was with these bad teams,
Speaker 1: he actually had some success on the defensive end. I
Speaker 1: talked myself into it too. But just like all you
Speaker 1: Laker fans, I watched the games this year and as
Speaker 1: immediately from the start, it looked like the old Russ
Speaker 1: from the start. It was stubbornness from the start. It
Speaker 1: was an unwillingness to embrace the Drew Holli a type
Speaker 1: of role, that defensive minded power guard type of role,
Speaker 1: the obvious role that the Lakers desperately needed him to fill.
Speaker 1: He immediately wasn't interested in doing that. And throughout the
Speaker 1: entire season it was just this cascade of the next
Speaker 1: story and the next thing that he did. It was
Speaker 1: here he got benched in the fourth quarter, and he
Speaker 1: walks off the floor before the final buzzer sounds. Here
Speaker 1: he gets benched again. Now he's in the postgame presser
Speaker 1: saying that his resume is why he should be in
Speaker 1: the closing group. How did you think that was gonna
Speaker 1: land with Laker fans? Laker fans don't care about Lebron's resume.
Speaker 1: What makes you think they're gonna compare? They're gonna care
Speaker 1: about yours. All they care about. These are hardworking people
Speaker 1: that are just as passionate about this team as you players.
Speaker 1: These are people that grew up with this team. These
Speaker 1: are people that live and breathe for these games, and
Speaker 1: they work hard all day and they sit on their
Speaker 1: couch and they see a crap product, especially one that's
Speaker 1: associated to self sabotage, an unwillingness to do the work, uh,
Speaker 1: prideful nature, acting like you're too good for what the
Speaker 1: team is asking you to do. Those are natural, Those
Speaker 1: are those things are naturally going to turn a fan
Speaker 1: base against you. I have no doubt in my mind
Speaker 1: that had Russell Westbrook came into the Lakers and truly
Speaker 1: embraced that culture that the Lakers built in the previous
Speaker 1: two seasons, that none of these conversations would have happened.
Speaker 1: Every single one of us would have vehemently defended him
Speaker 1: to the end. I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: over the course of the last year I came to
Speaker 1: Kyle Kuzma's defense when people were saying he was a
Speaker 1: bad basketball player, and I had to remind people that
Speaker 1: he had turned himself into a very good role player
Speaker 1: in the NBA. I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: people said Alex Crusoe is only famous because he's a Laker,
Speaker 1: and I had to go out of my way to explain, like, no,
Speaker 1: he's a very very good basketball player because of X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z. We all would have done the same
Speaker 1: thing with Russ had he embraced that when he came
Speaker 1: into the team. And it's the problem I have with
Speaker 1: the way Russ approached that postgame presser and the way
Speaker 1: his wife was acting on Twitter was it was very
Speaker 1: directed at Laker fans. You guys did this to my family,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's fair. The crazy people, they
Speaker 1: deserve to be thrown in prison, the people who throw
Speaker 1: the death threats out. I hope one day we find
Speaker 1: a way to solve that problem. That's separate the Laker
Speaker 1: fans who booed the product on the floor, the Laker
Speaker 1: fans who tweeted you know, I can't believe this dude's
Speaker 1: not boxing out, or here's this guy not running back
Speaker 1: and transition, or stop complaining at the refs and get back,
Speaker 1: or stop taking that stupid ass jump. That is just
Speaker 1: fans being fans because they love their team and they're
Speaker 1: not satisfied with the product on the floor. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think Russ's wife said something along the
Speaker 1: lines of like, hey, I hope this doesn't happen to
Speaker 1: the next player that comes in here. I hope so too,
Speaker 1: as it pertains to the death threats and the horrible
Speaker 1: things that some of those people do. But as it
Speaker 1: pertains to the fan base itself. They have seventeen championships,
Speaker 1: They have expectations, and almost every player that has come
Speaker 1: through this team has been held to that same standard.
Speaker 1: I literally have been so critical of Lebron for his effort.
Speaker 1: This is not about russ. This is just about standards.
Speaker 1: If you put on the Purple and gold a seventeen
Speaker 1: championship organization, you should be expected to play hard. You
Speaker 1: should be expected to embrace your role. When the coach
Speaker 1: looks to you at a film session and says, here's
Speaker 1: the defensive responsibility you missed, you should be like, my bad,
Speaker 1: I'll do better next time. Not defensive, not not obstinate,
Speaker 1: not stubborn. I don't have any problem with the way
Speaker 1: that Laker fans have handled this season within the realm
Speaker 1: of what's reasonable, not counting the crazies. I have no
Speaker 1: problem with Laker fans being upset. They should be. This
Speaker 1: was an incredibly disappointing season from the Lakers, and so
Speaker 1: much of it was self inflicted. They have every right
Speaker 1: to be upset. That's all I have to say on that.
Speaker 1: I just I needed to clarify that last part because
Speaker 1: I hate I hate how everything gets conflated into two
Speaker 1: completely different things. I'm trying to say one thing and
Speaker 1: someone turns it into something else. We should all do
Speaker 1: a better job of when we see stuff, just trying
Speaker 1: to assume the best rather than assuming the worst. Just
Speaker 1: a glass half full rather than glass half empty type attitude.
Speaker 1: All right, Before we get out of here, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about the top ten players in the NBA
Speaker 1: SO player rankings. Again. I understand some of you guys
Speaker 1: don't like this stuff, but a lot of NBA fans do,
Speaker 1: and I love this stuff. This is this is the
Speaker 1: fun stuff. This is what gets us through slow, boring
Speaker 1: nights like tonight when the Lakers are playing a horrible
Speaker 1: Rockets team and the Miami Heat are are are playing
Speaker 1: against the Phoenix Suns with the COVID ridden Devin Booker
Speaker 1: and no Chris Paul. This is what we do to
Speaker 1: get through the dog days of March. I wanted to, uh,
Speaker 1: just quick give my two cents on the top ten
Speaker 1: players in the NBA. Now, A couple of rules here,
Speaker 1: because what facilitated this idea was Nicolayokich in his rise
Speaker 1: and so many people saying that they thought he deserved
Speaker 1: to be considered the best player in the league. A
Speaker 1: couple of things. I do factor in regular season basketball
Speaker 1: with the way that I evaluate basketball players. But I
Speaker 1: always this is just the way I do it. If
Speaker 1: you do it differently, that's fine. I always am deferential
Speaker 1: to the established, playoff proven stars that we have in
Speaker 1: our league. I am always going to give guys like
Speaker 1: Lebron and Steph and Kevin Durant a little extra juice
Speaker 1: in situations like this because they are stamped, they have resumes.
Speaker 1: Those guys have won seven championships between the three of them.
Speaker 1: We have to wait, I think I got that wrong.
Speaker 1: They've won nine championships between between the three of them.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, we have to
Speaker 1: we have to acknowledge that and not have so much
Speaker 1: recency bias and to be so reactionary to what happens
Speaker 1: right in front of us that we don't pay the
Speaker 1: necessary respect to these guys. So at number ten my
Speaker 1: surprise appearance here, and this is a hard decision, but
Speaker 1: I went with DeMar de Rosen. So DeMar de Rosen
Speaker 1: this season is plus thirteen point four net rating in
Speaker 1: the clutch. That's how good the Bowls have been with
Speaker 1: DeMar de Rosen on the floor. If you it takes
Speaker 1: just his clutch minutes and you look at his scoring
Speaker 1: on a per thirty six minute basis, He's scoring at
Speaker 1: a rate of thirty nine point five points per thirty
Speaker 1: six minutes on sixty four point two percent true shooting.
Speaker 1: That is unfreaking believable. And what's so interesting to me
Speaker 1: about the DeMar de Rosen thing is he has had
Speaker 1: so many fall down Like he has fallen flat on
Speaker 1: his face so many times in his career in the
Speaker 1: postseason that you would think he'd be the kind of
Speaker 1: player that that's just kind of what he is. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the James Harden effect. It's like year
Speaker 1: after year, same thing, same thing. DeMar is doing. The
Speaker 1: exact opposite is it's almost like he's playing like he
Speaker 1: has nothing to lose. He's playing so free. It's like
Speaker 1: a confidence that has come with age for him. And
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it. When I'm ranking the
Speaker 1: best players in the league. One of the important skills,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at his isolation, scoring and playmaking, and
Speaker 1: to bart Rosen is really really good at both of
Speaker 1: those things. His playmaking kind of started developed towards the
Speaker 1: end in Toronto, really took a leap when he was
Speaker 1: in San Antonio. Now he's a problem. He's going to
Speaker 1: be able to score if you leave him in isolation,
Speaker 1: and he's going to be able to create shots for
Speaker 1: his teammates. That automatically is gonna put you in a
Speaker 1: short list of the best players in the league. The
Speaker 1: reason why he's so low is this is a guy
Speaker 1: who can't really impact the game much defensively relative to
Speaker 1: some of his peers. Number nine I have John Moran.
Speaker 1: So I did a little thing on John morand last week.
Speaker 1: A lot of people compare him to Derrick Rose, A
Speaker 1: lot of people compare him to Russell Westbrook, a lot
Speaker 1: of people compare him to John wall I don't see
Speaker 1: that at all. Those guys all had escaping weaknesses at
Speaker 1: some point in the early parts of their careers, and
Speaker 1: John doesn't seem to have that. I remember there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a conversation about the fact that
Speaker 1: Jaw can't shoot well. Guess what Jah's last six games,
Speaker 1: he's from three on six attempts per game. So I
Speaker 1: I've long been preaching that Jaw has a good jump shot,
Speaker 1: that there's good form there, that he will inevitably become
Speaker 1: a good jump shooter. He is a great perimeter guard
Speaker 1: who can get into the lane, who has stuff in
Speaker 1: the mid range floaters and pull up jump shots and
Speaker 1: things along those lines, and as an acrobatic finisher around
Speaker 1: the basket, and is a great passer. He is way
Speaker 1: better than Wall or Rose or Russ ever were, and
Speaker 1: he is going to be a legitimate, bona fide top
Speaker 1: tier superstar sometime in the next couple of years. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge believer in John Moran. He plays so much
Speaker 1: more under control than Rusted too, so I think he's
Speaker 1: better at impacting winning. He is a freaking stud and
Speaker 1: I have him at number nine right now. Number eight
Speaker 1: I have Jayson Tatum. I talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier today on Twitter. I don't think he's good
Speaker 1: enough to be considered in that like should he be
Speaker 1: considered for m v P territory. I have some rules
Speaker 1: for m VP. The gist of it says, hey, if
Speaker 1: you're not in conversation for being the best player in
Speaker 1: the world, he can't be considered there. Tatum is not
Speaker 1: quite at that level yet, but he's trending in that direction.
Speaker 1: He's twenty eight eight and five since January eight and
Speaker 1: during that span he's shooting true shooting. He's turned into
Speaker 1: a legitimate bona fide two ways superstar wing and the
Speaker 1: biggest improvement and one of the biggest reasons why the
Speaker 1: Celtics are playing so much better lately. We have a
Speaker 1: special video about this coming out later this weekend. But
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum is becoming a much better playmaker. He's handling
Speaker 1: double teams a lot better, he's reading the floor better,
Speaker 1: he's playing a lot more under control, and that's giving
Speaker 1: him the ability to handle the difficult defensive coverages that
Speaker 1: come with being a superstar. And so that's a credit
Speaker 1: to Jayson Tatum, and it's a big part of why
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics are a bona fide championship contender in
Speaker 1: my opinion. Like I said, later this weekend, I'll have
Speaker 1: a video coming out specifically about that number seven. I
Speaker 1: have Steph Curry, and this makes me sad because he's
Speaker 1: my second favorite player in the league. Lebron is my favorite.
Speaker 1: Steps my second favorite player. I love the way he
Speaker 1: leads his team. I love the way that he contributes
Speaker 1: to winning in so many ways other than just his shooting.
Speaker 1: And I so so often that gets swept under the rug,
Speaker 1: and it really bothers me because this dude is just
Speaker 1: a flat out winner. But again, even if I just
Speaker 1: take his last seven games, he's thirty three percent from three.
Speaker 1: This is like a slump that never ends. There is
Speaker 1: I at a certain point, if it's been like forty
Speaker 1: games and you're shooting ten percent worse than you used to,
Speaker 1: I can't just be like shots aren't going in anymore.
Speaker 1: This is a decline. Steph is falling off a little bit.
Speaker 1: I still think he's one of the top four or
Speaker 1: five guys that I would want in a playoff series
Speaker 1: if I had to just have a player for seven games,
Speaker 1: But because of his physical limitations and because of his
Speaker 1: decline in shooting, I don't think you can realistically call
Speaker 1: him a top tier superstar anymore, which sucks. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it makes me sad. It's just the reality, and I
Speaker 1: think we have to acknowledge it at this point. Number six,
Speaker 1: I have Luca. Luca is starting to hold up a
Speaker 1: lot better defensively at his position. He is probably the
Speaker 1: most devastating, slow down, half court, switch everything offensive player
Speaker 1: that we have in the league because of his combination
Speaker 1: of size and skill, and because he can score from
Speaker 1: literally any spot on the floor. He's just incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: to guard when he can just hunt and look for
Speaker 1: switches and attack guys. But also he's that type of
Speaker 1: gifted playmaker that you can't send multiple bodies at him
Speaker 1: or will make you pay every time I I I am.
Speaker 1: He's him in the Mavericks are one of my favorite
Speaker 1: dark horse picks to win the title this year. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge believer in his style of play. Way too
Speaker 1: many people want to characterize him as Oh he lost
Speaker 1: in the first round twice, even though he was the
Speaker 1: best player in both of those series is by a
Speaker 1: country mile. I'm I'm really high on on Luca. I
Speaker 1: have at number six, Number five Joel Embiid. He's arguably
Speaker 1: the biggest matchup problem in the league. If you're an
Speaker 1: NBA coach and your game planning for the next night,
Speaker 1: and Beat's probably at the very top of the list
Speaker 1: of guys that I would not want to see. I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine from a game planning perspective how you
Speaker 1: could hope to keep him in single coverage. There are
Speaker 1: probably only two or three players in the entire league
Speaker 1: that you could put on and beat in single coverage.
Speaker 1: Maybe honest, you know, maybe maybe Anthony Davis. Maybe, But
Speaker 1: I've seen and be give Anthony Davis major problems. So
Speaker 1: the point is is like, from that standpoint, you can
Speaker 1: bank on having to send multiple bodies that embied for
Speaker 1: the entire series. That instantly makes him a top tier superstar.
Speaker 1: The flip side of that, though, is he's still not
Speaker 1: great at handling those double teams and handling those jankie
Speaker 1: coverages and handling those zone defenses. He's still hasn't quite
Speaker 1: figured out the chess match part yet, and we should
Speaker 1: all hope that he doesn't because if he does, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a problem. And then, lastly, he relies way
Speaker 1: too much on the whistle, still too much at this
Speaker 1: point in his career. That will always be an issue
Speaker 1: in the postseason when the refs just simply don't fall
Speaker 1: for foul bal bating is often That's why I have
Speaker 1: him down at number five, number four. I've Nikola Yokichi's
Speaker 1: my m v P this year. Yeah, a couple of
Speaker 1: things with Yokas and this is the reason why I
Speaker 1: have him down below at four when so many people
Speaker 1: have him so high. I understand that he's been the
Speaker 1: best regular season player in basketball this year. I think
Speaker 1: he's actually been that guy by a comfortable margin. I
Speaker 1: understand that all the advanced metrics say that he's having
Speaker 1: one of the best seasons of all time. But we
Speaker 1: have to differentiate between playoff basketball and regular season basketball,
Speaker 1: especially with big guys who play the center position. For instance,
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert. Rudy Gobert is the best defensive player that
Speaker 1: we've all seen and in the in this era in
Speaker 1: terms of like your rim protecting traditional big, tall center guy, right,
Speaker 1: But we've seen when you play against the five out team,
Speaker 1: it's really easy for teams to scheme around. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that Rudy becomes unplayable, that's an inaccurate characterization, but
Speaker 1: it's easier to game playing around him. The same thing
Speaker 1: goes for Nikola yoke A huge part of why Nikola
Speaker 1: Yokich has taken a leap as a player. A huge
Speaker 1: part of why his teams are winning is he's become
Speaker 1: a very good drop coverage big. He's very good with
Speaker 1: his hands. He's deceptively like good at positioning himself around
Speaker 1: the basket to bother guys, even though he's not a
Speaker 1: great vertical athlete. But again, in a postseason series, they're
Speaker 1: gonna find a way. There's he's gonna end up in
Speaker 1: matchups that put put him in five out scenarios where
Speaker 1: he has to cover a lot of ground, and he's
Speaker 1: going to struggle in those scenarios. I truly believe he will,
Speaker 1: which is why it's part of why we have to
Speaker 1: differentiate between again playoff basketball in regular season basketball. Same
Speaker 1: thing goes from a game planning perspective, and we saw
Speaker 1: this last year when they play Phoenix in the second round.
Speaker 1: It is just harder to handle those double teams and
Speaker 1: to handle all the defensive coverage sent at you when
Speaker 1: they have extra time to game plan, when they can read, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the way he likes to pick us apart.
Speaker 1: So these are the other places we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: counter that when he has Jamal Murray. It's a much
Speaker 1: less it's much less of a problem. And maybe he
Speaker 1: will have Jamal Murray and that will be okay. But
Speaker 1: for me, with Nick will Yogi, I can't vault him
Speaker 1: above the next guys on this list until he wins
Speaker 1: a championship. That's just my rule. I understand you guys
Speaker 1: operating on a different rules. If you want to say
Speaker 1: that Yoki is better than Janice, be my guests. If
Speaker 1: you want to say he's better than k D, be
Speaker 1: my guest. But for me, I'm gonna wait until he
Speaker 1: hoists that trophy, which is why I'm getting to number
Speaker 1: three now and getting to Lebron, a guy who's hoisted
Speaker 1: the trophy four times. Okay, Lebron, he's a bad GM.
Speaker 1: We've seen that proven this season once again, as his
Speaker 1: priorities and what he envisioned for the roster ended up
Speaker 1: not being what the team needed. It's not all his fault,
Speaker 1: a lot of it's rob a lot of its genie,
Speaker 1: but Lebron is partially responsible for the roster being the
Speaker 1: way that it is. But even though he's been a
Speaker 1: bad GM this year, he has been a very good player.
Speaker 1: I tweeted this out the other day. The top four
Speaker 1: scorers in the league are all averaging over twenty nine
Speaker 1: points per game. It's indeed, Janice, Kevin Durant, Lebron. They're
Speaker 1: all averaging over twenty nine points per game and over
Speaker 1: six shooting. How insane is it that Lebron, in his
Speaker 1: nineteen season, with all the mileage on his body, is
Speaker 1: still doing this. I was looking it up before the
Speaker 1: game when he's he got hurt in the Brooklyn Nets game.
Speaker 1: In every game since the Brooklyn Nets game, he's averaging
Speaker 1: over thirty points and shooting on a bum knee. How
Speaker 1: insane is that that at his age, with all the mileage,
Speaker 1: with the injury, he's still able to do this. I
Speaker 1: would have to see a significant decline from Lebron in
Speaker 1: order for me to drop him below that top tier
Speaker 1: because of his postseason resume and because of the fact
Speaker 1: that he's still doing what he's doing in his age. Now,
Speaker 1: why do I have him at three? Because he's pretty
Speaker 1: much completely let go of the defensive rope at this
Speaker 1: point in the season. That has to be factored in here.
Speaker 1: I can't in good faith put him ahead of guys
Speaker 1: right now that are just simply playing better basketball, which
Speaker 1: brings me the honest at number two. This guy crosses
Speaker 1: every box for being the guy who should be considered
Speaker 1: the best player in the world. Right just won the title,
Speaker 1: just scored fifty points in Game six, unbelievable defensive play,
Speaker 1: crosses all the boxes that we look for in terms
Speaker 1: of a guy that would be considered a best player
Speaker 1: in the league. But there's one reason I haven't met
Speaker 1: number two, and it's because the last time I saw
Speaker 1: him in a playoff series against Kevin Durant, they played
Speaker 1: seven games, and I thought Kevin Duright was better. I
Speaker 1: thought Kevin Duright was clearly better, and I thought if
Speaker 1: he wasn't completely injury decimated from his role players, I
Speaker 1: think he would have won that series, and I think
Speaker 1: he would have won the trophy at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, which brings me my number one, Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: I think this guy very much clearly deserves to this
Speaker 1: this recognition. At this point, I thought he deserved to
Speaker 1: win m VP before he sprained his knee. He was
Speaker 1: playing the best defensive basketball I've seen him play since
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. To look at those early NETS games,
Speaker 1: they were winning with defense. Joe Harris was out, James
Speaker 1: Harden was barely playing, Kyrie Irving was clear completely out.
Speaker 1: They were winning playing defense, and with Kevin Durant playing
Speaker 1: m VP level offensive basketball. He deserves a ton of
Speaker 1: credit for that. He's one of the few guys in
Speaker 1: the league that's completely unschemable. You saw that in that
Speaker 1: Boston game. They threw a couple of random doubles at
Speaker 1: him on Sunday, a couple of random stunts and doubles.
Speaker 1: He just he splits everything because he's so comfortable with
Speaker 1: the basketball. He's a much better passer at this point
Speaker 1: in his career than he's ever been. He's the best
Speaker 1: player in the league in my opinion. I don't think
Speaker 1: that the Nets have enough juice or enough time to
Speaker 1: get their things together to to win the trophy this year.
Speaker 1: But I think he deserves to be considered the best
Speaker 1: player in the world at this point. And as is
Speaker 1: always the case, we'll revisit this after some playoff basketball,
Speaker 1: when guys have a chance to move around a little bit.
Speaker 1: All Right, that's all I have for tonight. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much for coming to hang out. As always,
Speaker 1: we will be back Friday night for a home game
Speaker 1: against the Washington Wizards, a little Kyle Kusma revenge game.
Speaker 1: It should be fun. Who knows if the Lakers will
Speaker 1: try hard. They haven't for the most part, so it'll
Speaker 1: probably be another ugly one, but we'll be here covering
Speaker 1: it anyway. I appreciate your support as always, and we'll
Speaker 1: see you guys in a couple of days. The volume