Speaker 1: On this episode of This League, the NBA has a
Speaker 1: flopping problem on both sides of the ball, Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: fans are big fucking mad at me in my dms,
Speaker 1: in my comments, pretty much everywhere that they can find me.
Speaker 1: They've crossed platforms from TikTok to Twitter to Instagram to
Speaker 1: my dms. I'm surprised they don't have my phone number already.
Speaker 1: Uh why the Sixers will never win it all with
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons and Kadie gets petty with the NBA after
Speaker 1: all that COVID drama. I feel like this has been
Speaker 1: bubbling for a while now. Coaches don't like it, players
Speaker 1: don't like it, no fans like it none, but.
Speaker 2: Everyone seems to still be doing it everyone.
Speaker 1: The defense says that they're doing it because without that,
Speaker 1: the offense has an unfair advantage. And then the offense
Speaker 1: says that they do it because they're not getting calls
Speaker 1: without an exaggerating it unless they flop. So it's that
Speaker 1: famous who's really responsible?
Speaker 3: Chicken or the egg? Is the reps?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: The league is at the offense is at the defense?
Speaker 1: I don't know, And nothing really personifies how bad it's gotten.
Speaker 1: Then our very favorite Jimmy Buckets, one of the hard
Speaker 1: rocks of the league, pretending that he was.
Speaker 2: Mauled in the eye.
Speaker 1: It became a famous meme on the internet where he
Speaker 1: pokes his eye and looks up to try to draw
Speaker 1: a flagrant foul to get an advantage down the stretch. Right,
Speaker 1: that's not a guy that you would expect to lay down,
Speaker 1: And I mean this is a guy that was homeless.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who's a hard rock and he's
Speaker 1: laying down to try to get an oscar when he
Speaker 1: wasn't even.
Speaker 2: Hitting the eye.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it goes against plenty of things you would think
Speaker 3: he stands for. Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2: So obviously this is now a trend.
Speaker 1: This is now the thing that you must do in
Speaker 1: order to have any level of parody as a competitor.
Speaker 1: And it all started getting national attention back in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the season in December. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember, but the Hawks were playing the nets and
Speaker 1: Trey Young goes around a screen and he stops short
Speaker 1: and then boom, foul the defender. Obviously, when someone's just
Speaker 1: like in traffic, when someone slams on the brakes and
Speaker 1: you're expecting to go through a green light. That was
Speaker 1: Trey Young.
Speaker 2: He slammed on his brakes around a screen.
Speaker 3: And the defender was forced to run into him.
Speaker 1: Yet, yeah, he didn't know, well obviously what was coming.
Speaker 1: And you can't just like be starting and stopping as
Speaker 1: a defender against a guy like Trey Young, because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he's at the bucket, right, So you're
Speaker 1: in a no win spot. And Steve Nash looks at
Speaker 1: the ref and says, that's not basketball. That's just not basketball.
Speaker 1: And the problem is, right now, that is basketball. That's
Speaker 1: that's the big problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it really stinks, honestly because there's such judgment calls.
Speaker 3: And because it's such a judgment call, that's why I
Speaker 3: think these guys whind so much, because they're doing everything
Speaker 3: they can to get that call, give those revs like
Speaker 3: a reason to make that call. So you're seeing the
Speaker 3: game slow down in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually atrocious to watch. Another instance happened with
Speaker 1: Luca against the Warriors. I don't know if you saw that,
Speaker 1: but Luca got this phantom lean in call. Literally he
Speaker 1: throws his body against the defender and then goes up
Speaker 1: and Wiggins gets the foul. This is in late in
Speaker 1: the game, and Steve Kerr after the game was pissed,
Speaker 1: really pissed. Even though he doesn't care about winning games,
Speaker 1: he still is pissed about it. He says, I don't
Speaker 1: fault the officials. I really fault the league. They basically
Speaker 1: are gifting those calls to all of the players. Our
Speaker 1: guys get him too, But to me, this is not
Speaker 1: a basketball play. If you jump three feet forward, I
Speaker 1: don't think you deserve a foul when all you're doing
Speaker 1: is looking for said foul. We've now gotten out of
Speaker 1: control just gifting offensive players the ability to deceive refs.
Speaker 1: We have to give the defensive player some benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt, but the officials have to call it because
Speaker 1: that's the way that the league is dictating that they
Speaker 1: call it. Yeah, no, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. And then
Speaker 1: later later I think this was a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: Lebron the Lakers are playing the Grizzlies, and Lebron pretends
Speaker 1: that Dylan Brooks he's under the rim and they're going
Speaker 1: up to get a rebound, and Lebron pretends that Dylan
Speaker 1: Brooks took his arm and hooked him backwards. So Lebron
Speaker 1: then flies, He literally explodes into the ground and flies
Speaker 1: backwards like three feet y tough one to try to
Speaker 1: get that loose ball call. Uh, and he got it.
Speaker 1: He went to the free throw line. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is I mean, obviously Twitter went crazy, Yeah, what is this?
Speaker 1: The Memphis Grizzlies broadcasters went and sane, this is out
Speaker 1: of control, blah blah blah. But no, like, this is
Speaker 1: just Lebron doing what everyone else is doing, and the
Speaker 1: spotlight is brighter on Lebron James, right. This is just
Speaker 1: the way that the NBA is right now, which is
Speaker 1: actually very funny that Lebron did it against Dylan Brooks
Speaker 1: because Dylan Brooks, I don't know if you remember, but
Speaker 1: is famous for maybe the most egregious flop in basketball
Speaker 1: history when he was playing at Oreon he flopped against Utah.
Speaker 1: He did a double bunny hop flop, like one bounce
Speaker 1: into another, bounce into the ground.
Speaker 3: No, I don't recall this one.
Speaker 1: Well you gotta, yeah, you gotta look that up. It
Speaker 1: is tremendous. And I get it like I get that
Speaker 1: after Kawhi Leonard. Because the rules have changed a lot
Speaker 1: over time, like they slowly surely changed and gotten more.
Speaker 1: We'll call it friendly to the offense. You saw what
Speaker 1: happened when Kawhi Leonard got his landing space encroached by
Speaker 1: Zaza Pachulia in the playoffs and then it ended ended
Speaker 1: multiple years of his career in his prime, that sent
Speaker 1: him down into a death spiral of that quad injury,
Speaker 1: the foot injury. And now coaches around the league say, yes,
Speaker 1: that obviously is necessary these rule changes so that people
Speaker 1: don't get injured. Are stars, Our money isn't messed up with.
Speaker 1: But this is out of hand. Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau
Speaker 1: also said the same thing and basically said that the
Speaker 1: trend all started with James Harden. He said, he said,
Speaker 1: James Harden did that, he gained the system, and now
Speaker 1: the league is protecting it shooters. And it's interesting having
Speaker 1: coached internationally in FOEBA because they won't give players those calls. Wow, yep, yes, folks,
Speaker 1: everything is James Harden's fault. Everything. He is the sacrificial
Speaker 1: lamb of everything that's wrong with the NBA. The A
Speaker 1: million dribbles, like the shooting three seconds into the shot
Speaker 1: clock from forty, the traveling seven steps like getting to
Speaker 1: the line a million times. But actually this is James
Speaker 1: Harden's fault. This is one hundred percent James Harden's fault.
Speaker 1: He is ground zero for these egregious flops. He learned
Speaker 1: to gain the system like any good offensive player would,
Speaker 1: and then every shooter was like, yo, James Harden can
Speaker 1: do that, Like I could do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just move my feet a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just body into the defender, just ripped through
Speaker 1: into a shock quote unquote phantom shot that you were
Speaker 1: never intending to take, so that you can go to
Speaker 1: the line and like a cancer. Then it's spread of
Speaker 1: the defense. They were like, this is insane. So if
Speaker 1: this is happening on this side of the ball, then
Speaker 1: we have to figure out something on the defensive side
Speaker 1: of the ball. So let's look at Marcus Smart.
Speaker 3: Uh oh, that's your boy, that's my guy.
Speaker 1: One of the best defenders in the league. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he's an elite defender. He doesn't need to flop, but
Speaker 1: he is not we'll call it adverse to flopping. He's
Speaker 1: considered maybe the greatest flopper in the NBA. So he
Speaker 1: gets a five thousand dollars fine for flopping, and he
Speaker 1: just decides like, I am gonna own up to it,
Speaker 1: and he laughs about it. He's like, yeah, I deserved
Speaker 1: everything that came my way after that. I flop on defense, yes,
Speaker 1: but by the way, heads up your favorite players, they
Speaker 1: flop on offense. So I'm just doing what I have
Speaker 1: to do. And especially in a game where the offense
Speaker 1: has nothing but the advantage, the defense has to do
Speaker 1: something to get the advantage back. Wow, that is the
Speaker 1: most truth telling an NBA player has been about these flops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, buy that completely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a flopping arms race. It's like I'm flopping
Speaker 1: and then you're flopping because I'm flopping. The more the
Speaker 1: offense flops, the more the defense feels that they have
Speaker 1: to flop. And that that's how you get Jimmy Buckets
Speaker 1: pretending that he lost an eye. So this is this
Speaker 1: is my stance. This shit is ridiculous and it needs
Speaker 1: to stop right this second.
Speaker 2: No, no more.
Speaker 1: I think it's time that we re evaluate what a
Speaker 1: foul is. Go back to the old school. No more
Speaker 1: lean in fouls, No more jumping three feet in the
Speaker 1: air forward to make your landing space like as much
Speaker 1: as a helicopter can come in. Now, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: No more stopping short tree young, No more rip through
Speaker 1: fowls where the defenders in your space and you rip
Speaker 1: down and that's a foul just because they're playing good defense.
Speaker 1: We say we want to see players d up, get
Speaker 1: all up in your grill, be a lockdown defender. And
Speaker 1: then what does an offensive player do. They just rip
Speaker 1: the ball through and they go to the free throw line. Right,
Speaker 1: that's insane, no wonder. Lucas said. Yeah, it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to score in the NBA than it is in
Speaker 1: Europe because these ticki tag fouls get me points, they
Speaker 1: get me buckets. I don't really need to even do much.
Speaker 1: Just throw my body into someone and cry and points
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 3: He does plenty of that.
Speaker 1: He does plenty of that. Just watch watch any game.
Speaker 1: For all the folks that say that I don't watch
Speaker 1: any games, this happens fifteen times a night at least.
Speaker 1: It's gross. So the whole point, no more intentionally drawing contact.
Speaker 1: Stop doing that. Just go and get yourself a bucket.
Speaker 1: And if someone fouls you in the process, so be it.
Speaker 1: If you're caught doing it shoving your body, I hate,
Speaker 1: that's the one that I hate. The most shoving your
Speaker 1: body forward, creating contact and then shooting offensive foul for you,
Speaker 1: every single time rip through, someone's playing good defense. Rip
Speaker 1: through foul, stop short offensive owl. You can't do that.
Speaker 1: So the hardened effect is what I call this, and
Speaker 1: I think it's changed the game tremendously to the point
Speaker 1: where it's almost hard to watch now. The three pointer
Speaker 1: is king why Because defenders can't close out. They legitimately
Speaker 1: can't even get near you in order to defend because
Speaker 1: if you jump and you're there, if they jump and
Speaker 1: you're there, that's a foul. So now you have to
Speaker 1: like kind of stay three feet away from them, but
Speaker 1: your arms have to be so long that you can
Speaker 1: still put a hand in their face in order for
Speaker 1: you to play good defense. That's why wings are so
Speaker 1: important in this NBA, like Jason Tatum, because his reach
Speaker 1: and his wingspan is so long. Yeah, because no one
Speaker 1: can actually no six foot one guard can actually play
Speaker 1: real defense anymore or they're gonna foul out of the game.
Speaker 1: It's fucked. Of Course, I want my stars protected. Of
Speaker 1: course I don't want to see people get injured. But
Speaker 1: I think it's time for the NBA to say I
Speaker 1: think this is getting a little out of hand, and
Speaker 1: maybe we need to make some changes. As an aside,
Speaker 1: if Okse would have paid Harden to begin with, maybe
Speaker 1: he never would have been this Marquis star, and maybe
Speaker 1: he would have continued to be a six man, and
Speaker 1: maybe this would have never happened to begin with. But
Speaker 1: I digress. Change it, the NBA, change it, this league.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 1: How many people are so emotionally invested in Marcus Smart?
Speaker 3: Yeah, people were not too pleased with you.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I had no idea how emotionally connected
Speaker 1: that fans are to him. It was like I made
Speaker 1: some comments about Marcus Smart. I didn't even think it
Speaker 1: was a crazy take about how the Celtics should move
Speaker 1: on from him, like it's time two time defensive player.
Speaker 1: But I think maybe he's not helping your team get
Speaker 1: to where you need them to be. People acted like
Speaker 1: I should on their mom. Like people were coming furiously
Speaker 1: at me, like I was saying their wife was ugly.
Speaker 1: The mob. The mob came came for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like you don't deserve to live anymore.
Speaker 1: One person told me to put a bullet in my
Speaker 1: head because of this basketball take. This is how bad
Speaker 1: it is? How dare you come at the heart and
Speaker 1: the soul of the culture of the Boston Celtics. You
Speaker 1: know nothing, You know nothing about basketball, think that Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart should be moved. That's how you know it's time
Speaker 1: to move on from Marcus Smart. That right there is
Speaker 1: how you know. You're too close. You are too close
Speaker 1: to him. You can't see the forest through the trees.
Speaker 1: You you're just in love, I think, dare I say,
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics fans, you're blind. Your love has made you blind.
Speaker 1: And I get it. I get that because me as
Speaker 1: a Blazer fan, I'm in love too. I've been there.
Speaker 1: I have been forced to make really take a hard
Speaker 1: look at myself because I'm in love with the player
Speaker 1: who is is never gonna win us a championship, and
Speaker 1: I stand for him and I protect him. People shit
Speaker 1: talk how we can't win with Damian Lillard and c
Speaker 1: J McCollum, And I block those people who told me
Speaker 1: that CJ and Dame or a duo, that they cannot
Speaker 1: be split up. They are best friends. Small market players
Speaker 1: came up from the dirt shooters. They can get a
Speaker 1: bucket at any time. One of the most potent backcourts
Speaker 1: in the league. But where has that gotten us? Really?
Speaker 1: We went to the Western Conference Finals once after we
Speaker 1: barely beat the Denver Nuggets in seven. It was a
Speaker 1: fun run and then we got destroyed by the Warriors, destroyed.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even competitive. And the truth is, We're never
Speaker 1: gonna win this way, never. Never. I hate saying that
Speaker 1: CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard are not They're not a
Speaker 1: recipe for a championship, just like Marcus Smart is not
Speaker 1: a recipe for the Boston Celtics to win a championship.
Speaker 1: Probably Kimba Walker too, and definitely Daniel Tyson Thompson. Not
Speaker 1: a solution, not a recipe for winning. And so I
Speaker 1: feel sad. I feel sad for you guys Celtics fans
Speaker 1: who are so enraged because you can't see how he's
Speaker 1: holding you back and you have a piece that's integral
Speaker 1: to your culture, a piece who is very very clearly
Speaker 1: a part of your defensive identity. This Celtics team is
Speaker 1: just not trying anymore without Marcus hard Rock Smart on
Speaker 1: the floor to whip the team into shape. But it
Speaker 1: does not solve the problem is of who's gonna guard
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid is Marcus Smart? Point to no, It does
Speaker 1: not gloss over the fact that Smart will shoot eighteen
Speaker 1: shots in a game and thirteen of them will be
Speaker 1: three pointers. He took thirteen shots from three in games
Speaker 1: one and seven against the Miami Heat and the playoffs,
Speaker 1: and it is a good time to mind people. Hey people,
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart shoots thirty seven percent from the floor in
Speaker 1: his career and thirty two percent from three.
Speaker 3: WHOA, I love him so much.
Speaker 1: If you're a thirty two percent three point shooter over
Speaker 1: the course of your career, you should never shoot thirteen
Speaker 1: threes in a game, let alone in the playoffs. Never.
Speaker 1: Brad Stevens, I tell you what. I'm not a part
Speaker 1: of the Boston Celtics play calling, but I promise you,
Speaker 1: but Brad Stevens is not drawing up plays for Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart to shoot thirteen threes in a game. That is
Speaker 1: not his plan. That is definitely Marcus Smart's plan. There
Speaker 1: are games where it's very clear he's like green light
Speaker 1: on for me, and it doesn't matter if he goes
Speaker 1: two for thirteen, which sometimes he does.
Speaker 3: There was that game in the Bubble, though, where he
Speaker 3: had like nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was also it was fun that game.
Speaker 1: That was a fun game. That's the problem. He is
Speaker 1: feast or famine with a lot of famine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: He just should not be doing that. He shouldn't be
Speaker 1: shooting double digit threes in an extended practice, let alone
Speaker 1: in five playoff games against Toronto and Miami when he
Speaker 1: shot over nine threes every single game. Let's please stop
Speaker 1: for a second evaluate Celtics fans. In what world should
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart shoot more three pointers than Jason Tatum and
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown. None? And he does it a lot. So
Speaker 1: let's just look at Marcus Smart a little closer for
Speaker 1: those who think that I don't have a read on him,
Speaker 1: because I do. He can't hit open threes or catch
Speaker 1: and shoot threes. He's good at setting up Jayleen Brown
Speaker 1: and some of the shooting bigs. Great perimeter defender, but
Speaker 1: a terrible interior defender. He's had a negative impact on
Speaker 1: the Celtics net rating, especially against good teams, and he
Speaker 1: drags the team's pace down, which when you have two
Speaker 1: running gun guys like Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, that
Speaker 1: is a big time problem. So he probably needs to
Speaker 1: be moved. Sorry, probably would be a better fit on
Speaker 1: a team like the Clippers or Milwaukee or Denver or Utah,
Speaker 1: not your team. The time has come to move on.
Speaker 1: Can we just say to the Boston Celtics fans who
Speaker 1: are just dragging me on the internet, who are in love,
Speaker 1: passionately and thoroughly with Marcus Smart, that maybe you really
Speaker 1: don't want him shooting that many threes on your team
Speaker 1: and he will not ever stop. This is not something
Speaker 1: that's changing. He has gone on the record and said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I mean, you have to see that.
Speaker 1: You have to see that Marcus Smart is going to
Speaker 1: continue to shoot even if he shoots ten percent from
Speaker 1: three in a game. If you don't see that, if
Speaker 1: you can't get that through your skull, maybe maybe you're
Speaker 1: in love and maybe love is blind for you and
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart. But you know who's not blind. Danny fucking
Speaker 1: Ainge is not blind. He's been trying to make a
Speaker 1: move on Marcus Smart for like two years. Recently, David
Speaker 1: Aldridge said, yeah, Marcus Smart is not ungettable. So apparently
Speaker 1: he is not the heart and soul of the Celtics
Speaker 1: because he can be moved. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: not the only one who doesn't have love blinders on
Speaker 1: the rest of the league seems to have that same
Speaker 1: opinion as me, and I get it. I get it,
Speaker 1: but the doing the same thing over and over again
Speaker 1: is the definition of insanity when you expect the same
Speaker 1: a different result from the exact same move. Like I said,
Speaker 1: Marcus Smart will never change. He recently said this, Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart doesn't care if you think he shoots too much.
Speaker 1: Can you please tell me what he said to CBS four,
Speaker 1: the local Boston affiliate, about the world thinking he shoots
Speaker 1: too much?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a crazy article. Okay, so the quote
Speaker 3: is been doing the same thing I've been doing. I
Speaker 3: just continue to shoot the ball and shoot with confidence
Speaker 3: and not given f what people say. I get crap
Speaker 3: a lot, but who cares. Just go out and continue
Speaker 3: to do it. My teammates trust me, and I know
Speaker 3: what I can do.
Speaker 1: He literally said, I know that I get shit. I
Speaker 1: know that I get shipped because I shoot too much.
Speaker 1: I know that I'm not a good shooter and I
Speaker 1: shoot way more than I should. But I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue to shoot twelve threes whenever I
Speaker 1: fucking feel like it, and you know what, there is
Speaker 1: nothing you motherfuckers can do because I am the heart
Speaker 1: and soul of this team. I am integral to the defense.
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I'm sorry, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: And Celtics fans are going to continue to love him,
Speaker 1: and you know what that is why you're going to
Speaker 1: continue to fucking lose. How about that? How about that truth?
Speaker 1: Doing the same thing over and over with the same result.
Speaker 1: Please trade Marcus Smart, even if it breaks your heart.
Speaker 1: I have different expectations for my Canada goose jacket that
Speaker 1: I paid twenty four hundred dollars for than I do
Speaker 1: for a two hundred and fifty dollars ll bean jacket
Speaker 1: that I bought on vacation when it just started snowing randomly. Right,
Speaker 1: If I pay a lot for something, I expect it
Speaker 1: to work exactly how I thought it would work, consistently
Speaker 1: every single time. I don't want that coat to only
Speaker 1: work in forty degree weather. I want it to work
Speaker 1: in sub zero weather as well. What's that have to
Speaker 1: do with basketball? Has everything to do with my man,
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons, what you've paid for him, what you expect
Speaker 1: from him, and what he ends up doing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gets paid thirty five million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: He is a point guard. Point guard should shoot, he
Speaker 1: does not shoot. It is time to have a heart
Speaker 1: to heart about Ben Simmons. It's time. It's been brewing,
Speaker 1: it's been coming. The world absolutely stands for him, probably
Speaker 1: more than they do Marcus Smart. I think, actually that's
Speaker 1: the person that said I should put a bullet in
Speaker 1: my head when I said that I would take like
Speaker 1: fifteen other guards over Ben Simmons. People are big mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: People are fiercely loyal in Philly. People are fiercely loyal
Speaker 1: in Boston. And I get that. That's fine. So it's
Speaker 1: been coming. I've been wanting to talk about Ben Simmons
Speaker 1: for a while and I have kind of like, sort
Speaker 1: of So the Sixers are the best team in the East, right,
Speaker 1: and be's legit MVP candidate. Yeah, Tobias Harris coming along right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, playing good in the new system.
Speaker 1: Playing great in the new system. They've been doing things
Speaker 1: that we would hope from them. They got Danny Green,
Speaker 1: they got Seth Curry. They need shooters, and they got that.
Speaker 1: They are a matchup problem for pretty much everyone in
Speaker 1: the East, So what's wrong? Why are we talking about this? Then?
Speaker 1: What's wrong is that they just went west and they
Speaker 1: got fucking dog walked dog walked And that was not
Speaker 1: a fluke, that was just more of the same. That
Speaker 1: was a consequence of glittering issues with the roster construction,
Speaker 1: and if you look closely, it was there all along. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's look at who they've lost to so far this season. Calves, Nets, Hawks, Nuggets, Pistons,
Speaker 1: Blazers once without Dame and CJ once without CJ, Sons, Grizzlies.
Speaker 1: What do all these teams have in common?
Speaker 3: Uh, some pretty good guard play on those rosters.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, dynamic backcourts and potent scoring sex Land Nets,
Speaker 1: Big Three, Trey Young, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter junior,
Speaker 1: Dame and Gary Trent Junior or even mellow book and
Speaker 1: CP three. The other teams that beat the Sixers they
Speaker 1: play without Joel and beat so they don't matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, each one more cooked Philly too.
Speaker 1: Each one more cooked Philly. I mean that's a big
Speaker 1: time problem. I think. Also, your boy what's his face
Speaker 1: from Detroit also cooked Philly. Josh Jackson, Josh Jackson and
Speaker 1: Wayne Ellington also. Yeah, So there are glaring issues right
Speaker 1: that are hiding in plain sight. No one's talking about them.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. Because the East, they're number one in
Speaker 1: the East, and everyone thinks that that just means you're
Speaker 1: a world beater. But the truth is that the East
Speaker 1: has had very hobbled guard play due to COVID due
Speaker 1: to injuries. So what makes you look better than you
Speaker 1: really are? Philly is like a boyfriend with two phones,
Speaker 1: just super suss sus enough and enough for me to
Speaker 1: give the confidence to say, you know, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: really sad when Philly gets bounced early in the playoffs
Speaker 1: and no one sees it coming. And I bask in
Speaker 1: the sun of being right, just like I love to do.
Speaker 1: I just take get a nice little tan, get nice
Speaker 1: tan lines from how right I am with how warm
Speaker 1: that sun is. That is the best case scenario. Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference finals is the best case scenario for Philly. They
Speaker 1: will not not go to the finals, they will not
Speaker 1: win it all, and that all that trouble, I would say,
Speaker 1: revolves around our boy, Ben Simmons, our man, our man
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons. Why let's just talk about what he does well?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: Six eleven point guard. That's insane, right, six eleven point
Speaker 1: guard an anomaly in itself. Right. He can pass, he
Speaker 1: can playmake, he can lead the break in transition. He's
Speaker 1: bullying guards, posting them up, gets in the lane very easily,
Speaker 1: great crafty around the rim. He's a fucking monster. But
Speaker 1: he's getting thirty five million dollars a year because he's
Speaker 1: a lock, lockdown, lockdown defense. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It might be one of the best in the league one, Yeah,
Speaker 3: is one of the best, might be the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, considers himself the best defender in the NBA. That's
Speaker 1: he's supposed to take the pressure off the rest of
Speaker 1: the defense in a bunch of different ways because they
Speaker 1: have either glaring issues on the perimeter or Joe l
Speaker 1: Embid really doesn't want to defend that much because he
Speaker 1: has obviously he's injury prone. Yeah. See, folks, I do
Speaker 1: watch Sixers games. You know, I do watch basketball, So
Speaker 1: what's the problem. Even though Ben Simmons is probably gonna
Speaker 1: win Defensive Player of the Year, he's definitely gonna make
Speaker 1: first team All Defense defense, when you look closely, he's
Speaker 1: actually not that good defending guards. He's phenomenal guarding forward.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. But when he's matched up against guards,
Speaker 1: they shoot a staggering forty two percent against him from
Speaker 1: three point range. They're getting he's getting cooked. He's getting cooked.
Speaker 1: That seems actually impossible since he's six inches taller than
Speaker 1: most of the guards that he's defending. But that's the
Speaker 1: that's the league for you, I guess now, unstoppable guard play.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's a fucking problem. Yes, he leads
Speaker 1: the break, he's good at that getting out in transition,
Speaker 1: but the facts are that the pace of play actually
Speaker 1: goes down when he's on the floor.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, the paces dropped from one hundred and five
Speaker 3: point seven percent in December to one hundred point seven
Speaker 3: three percent in February.
Speaker 1: Yikes. Yeah, yeah, yes, he can facilitate, but he actually
Speaker 1: averages three turnovers a game, which is some of the
Speaker 1: worst for a point guard. The biggest issue, that's not
Speaker 1: even these are just little issues. The biggest issue is
Speaker 1: our man in a league where three pointers are king,
Speaker 1: which we just talked about a couple of segments ago
Speaker 1: and why three pointers are king, and Ben Simmons refuses
Speaker 1: to shoot them. He actually refuses to shoot at all
Speaker 1: outside of the restricted area. He has shot nine times
Speaker 1: outside of fifteen feet nine nine this entire season. Nine
Speaker 1: And just let that sink in for a second.
Speaker 3: How many of those were heaves?
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't even know. He's only made one.
Speaker 1: He's only made one of nine attempts outside of fifteen
Speaker 1: feet and he is your point guard. Yikes, he's actually
Speaker 1: because people will say, oh, Triste, he's gotten so much better,
Speaker 1: he's progressing, he's improving. No, he's actually gotten worse as
Speaker 1: a shooter as his career has progressed. So that's the facts.
Speaker 1: Did I also mention that he's the top three highest
Speaker 1: paid player in the league next to Curry. Damian Lillard
Speaker 1: makes more than Damian Lillard Ben Simmons. Damian Lillard shoots
Speaker 1: nine times in a quarter outside of fifteen feet, Like what? So?
Speaker 1: The problem really is that when the playoffs come, things change,
Speaker 1: Transition gets taken away. This becomes a half court offense,
Speaker 1: guard play elevated. It just automatically happens, just based on
Speaker 1: the teams that are gonna be in the playoffs. Coaches
Speaker 1: will scheme for you, and they will scheme for the
Speaker 1: fact that we all know Ben Simmons will not shoot
Speaker 1: They will scheme and say Ben, leave him open, let
Speaker 1: him shoot, let him shoot. He will not shoot. Teams
Speaker 1: are gonna pack the paint and double Joel and force
Speaker 1: every single other person to shoot. Sixers fans have a
Speaker 1: question for you, do you trust Seth Curry and Tobias
Speaker 1: Harris get you to the finals?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because if Joel Embiid is taken away
Speaker 1: and Ben Simmons can't do what he does best, then
Speaker 1: what do you have? Even if your shooters shoot lights out.
Speaker 1: Even if those role players like Danny Green get hot,
Speaker 1: Tyrese Maxey get hot, the Sixers are still not going
Speaker 1: to be able to keep up pace with the likes
Speaker 1: of Brooklyn and Milwaukee, who you are scoring I think
Speaker 1: like one hundred and twenty points a game a lot's
Speaker 1: that's just not gonna happen. Why Because Ben Then he
Speaker 1: defends the best scorer. We'll call it like brook or
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, We'll say he guards Kyrie. Now
Speaker 1: you've got matchup issues on the perimeter elsewhere, because you
Speaker 1: have to have three guards on the floor at at
Speaker 1: any given time. Because you've got a player in Ben
Speaker 1: Simmons who's not a guard who can't score. So that's
Speaker 1: a big, big time issue because now that team can
Speaker 1: get buckets everywhere else besides the guard play, and the
Speaker 1: guards still will get off. Devin Booker the other night
Speaker 1: still put thirty four on his head. Damian Lillard still
Speaker 1: put thirty on his head. So that's not going to
Speaker 1: make up. No matter how much he can defend, that
Speaker 1: will not make up for the ability to shoot on
Speaker 1: the other side. That's damning. I'm sorry, folks, I know
Speaker 1: that you love Ben Simmons. I know that you hate
Speaker 1: me because I'm pointing out all of the flaws that
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons has. Someone said to me in my DMS
Speaker 1: the other day, Ben Simmons doesn't need to learn how
Speaker 1: to shoot, because then he would become a perfect player.
Speaker 1: And we don't need he don't need him to become
Speaker 1: a perfect player. All I want is him to attempt
Speaker 1: to shoot. Simmons is a problem because he will not shoot.
Speaker 1: He is one of the least efficient sixers as the
Speaker 1: primary ball handler for pick and roll. He can't lock
Speaker 1: down guards on the other end of the floor. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? What are we doing? Like I
Speaker 1: don't It almost doesn't matter what I say. I have
Speaker 1: all these facts, I have all these stats that show
Speaker 1: you your man's is a problem. Your man's is not
Speaker 1: going to help you succeed in a bunch of different
Speaker 1: ways because of how the playoffs just are as a fact.
Speaker 1: And you won't listen, you won't hear me out. All
Speaker 1: you want to do is fight. All you want to
Speaker 1: do is tell me I don't listen to basketball or
Speaker 1: watch basketball, and how I should never speak about sports
Speaker 1: ever again. Can you just imagine for your second, in
Speaker 1: your mind, for a second, what your team would look
Speaker 1: like with a legit point guard, one that could actually shoot,
Speaker 1: run the pick and roll, give embid some fucking space
Speaker 1: so that he can work on offense, like a James
Speaker 1: Harden who Philly wanted to trade Ben Simmons for Oof.
Speaker 1: You need a point guard, Philly fans who can put
Speaker 1: up thirty consistently. You need one that when it's five
Speaker 1: seconds left in the game, that you can scheme for
Speaker 1: to hit a last second shot. There is no SENI
Speaker 1: no scenario where Doc Rivers is like three point two
Speaker 1: seconds left on the clock and we're going to Ben Simmons.
Speaker 1: There is no I don't even think that exists in
Speaker 1: the playbook. So until Ben Simmons will shoot the ball,
Speaker 1: He's like that ll bean coat, but one that I
Speaker 1: paid twenty five hundred dollars for, just an overpaid unicorn.
Speaker 1: That becomes a liability in the fucking playoffs. We had
Speaker 1: a little drama bruin in Brooklyn, So we remember that
Speaker 1: whole thing with COVID and KD.
Speaker 3: Right, mhm, oh yeah, quite well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's missed a bunch of games because COVID protocol.
Speaker 1: He's never had cod COVID this season, could possibly be
Speaker 1: COVID immune, has had ninety negative COVID tests and yet
Speaker 1: has somehow missed five games due to COVID. KD remembers too.
Speaker 1: So the latest news is that KD is now out
Speaker 1: at least two games with a hammy string against the
Speaker 1: Suns and the Lakers and ESPN marquee matchups on national television.
Speaker 3: Such a shame, Such a shame.
Speaker 1: Why Why? Because I'm fucking petty. That's why I'm getting
Speaker 1: back at you, That's why. And I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it so much. I love Katie getting back at
Speaker 1: Adam Silver how muchever he can, taking whatever control he
Speaker 1: can do to just stick it to him. Payback's a bitch,
Speaker 1: That's what Katie's saying after the league held him out
Speaker 1: for two games this last time in three games this time,
Speaker 1: it appears he's getting revenge. Fuck the game everyone has
Speaker 1: had on their calendar for the entire year Nets versus Lakers. Nope,
Speaker 1: not gonna watch that one now, just Kyrie and Harden.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe if I wasn't lying on the
Speaker 1: couch for the last ten days, maybe my Hammi would
Speaker 1: be a lot more warm. Hammi's feeling kind of tight now.
Speaker 1: Just played the Warriors one game back after missing two
Speaker 1: and a half, and you know what, it's just tight
Speaker 1: all of a sudden again, too bad. Damn shame missing
Speaker 1: against the Suns, missing against the Lakers. I don't know
Speaker 1: when I'll be back. Maybe that game against the Wizards
Speaker 1: on a Thursday night. I don't know. And you're probably thinking, Trista,
Speaker 1: you're insane. This is not how things go. Katie is
Speaker 1: a baller. He loves the ball. He would never do
Speaker 1: such a thing. He is one of the most hungry
Speaker 1: players in the league. He would just never, ever, ever
Speaker 1: do that. Guess what. KD has a podcast and on
Speaker 1: the latest episode, he pretty much came out and admitted
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm saying. He said, hope I missed the
Speaker 1: Laker game just because of that. I might extend my
Speaker 1: quarantine just to miss that game, you know, the one
Speaker 1: that's supposed to drive all of the ratings and money
Speaker 1: and advertising for the league. I might just miss that
Speaker 1: game just so that I can laugh at y'all in
Speaker 1: the group chat. How is that for revenge? Oh my god? Yep.
Speaker 1: What this all tells me is there's two things that
Speaker 1: KD loves, and we know which one he loves more.
Speaker 1: He's a competitor and he is more petty than he
Speaker 1: loves basketball. That's what we know. His pettiness knows no bounce.
Speaker 1: Kd's pettiness knows no bounce. I think we only have
Speaker 1: time for like maybe two.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right? Leading off, Uh, why do you hate
Speaker 3: the Bucks? Trista? Do you not like small market teams winning?
Speaker 1: Why do I hate the Bucks? Do I not like
Speaker 1: small teams? Small market teams winning?
Speaker 2: Here's a little.
Speaker 1: Fun fact folks should know. Grew up in Portland, right,
Speaker 1: and I grew up as a Portland Trailblazers fan, and
Speaker 1: around fourteen, I realized that there is no scenario where
Speaker 1: the Portland Trailblazers will ever win a championship when I'm alive.
Speaker 1: They just will not happen. The salary cap and Portland
Speaker 1: not being a great destination and it being a small
Speaker 1: city is just not going to happen. We're never going
Speaker 1: to attract free agents. And so that's going to be
Speaker 1: the case for pretty much every small market team. And
Speaker 1: I learned that twenty years ago, and so I know
Speaker 1: what the fade is for a team like Milwaukee. I
Speaker 1: know what the fade is for a team like New
Speaker 1: Orleans because I have lived it my entire life. Secondly,
Speaker 1: when I'm in the media, which is where I came from,
Speaker 1: Big Jay journalism, all the media cares about let me
Speaker 1: just a little fun fact. All they care about our ratings.
Speaker 1: We don't care about how good the basketball is, whether
Speaker 1: the actual matchups themselves are going to be entice because
Speaker 1: fans don't give a fuck. Fans care about markets, fans
Speaker 1: care about teams. That is what we are measured on
Speaker 1: is ratings. So if the ratings of the television is good,
Speaker 1: then the clicks on our content are better. So a
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Finals don't want that. Don't want that because the
Speaker 1: ratings are not gonna be good, and then our clicks
Speaker 1: are bad. And then my manager's Matt and they say, Trista,
Speaker 1: you're performing thirty percent worse than last year. And I say, well,
Speaker 1: it's the Milwaukee Bucks. No one gives a fuck's that's
Speaker 1: the big time case. So yeah, I don't root for
Speaker 1: small market teams to do well. I'm sorry, that's not
Speaker 1: what anyone wants. The only team that I root for,
Speaker 1: the small market team is Portland, and that's only because
Speaker 1: I'm a fan. If I didn't grow up in Portland,
Speaker 1: I would be feeling the exact same thing that I'm
Speaker 1: feeling about the Bucks, which is like, fuck them, win
Speaker 1: sixty games, get bounced the first round, because that's what
Speaker 1: we all want. I know that is a very tough
Speaker 1: pill to swallow. I don't even know. I think Phoenix
Speaker 1: is probably an exception. I think that they're a big
Speaker 1: market sort of big market team top ten, and they've
Speaker 1: been relevant. I think also another thing is if that
Speaker 1: you've been relevant in like a quote unquote dynasty in
Speaker 1: the past, we like to have that nostalgia come back around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, until like ten years ago when we started this
Speaker 3: like deep dive that we're on. We were I think,
Speaker 3: like the fourth most winningest franchise in the league. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like something like that. We've been consistently good for a
Speaker 3: long time for sure.
Speaker 1: So I like the Bucks as if you if you
Speaker 1: said that the Bucks weren't the Bucks and they were
Speaker 1: another team, I would love them. They have a bunch
Speaker 1: of shooters, They've got Yannis. They they did everything that
Speaker 1: they could to keep Jannis. They have a new arena
Speaker 1: they swung for the future. Jannis will probably ask for
Speaker 1: a trade later, But like, you did everything that you could, Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: There's a reason though that when they won night, when
Speaker 1: they won sixty games, that no one in the NBA
Speaker 1: wanted them to win. And how pissed I was when
Speaker 1: ESPN said that they had an eighty three percent chance
Speaker 1: of winning it all. I was like, yeah, fucking right,
Speaker 1: no way. Absolutely, the NBA one hundred percent. When they
Speaker 1: were in the Eastern Conference finals against Toronto, they were
Speaker 1: one hundred percent rooting for Toronto.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, yeah, big time.
Speaker 1: And Toronto is in another country. So that tells you
Speaker 1: everything that you need to know. That tells you everything
Speaker 1: that you need to know about small market teams. There
Speaker 1: are like six teams that the NBA wants to see.
Speaker 1: It's like the Celtics, the Lakers, maybe the Clippers, the Heat,
Speaker 1: the Knicks that'll ever problem. Maybe the Nets now because
Speaker 1: the big big Stars Bulls maybe just to kind of reinvigorate,
Speaker 1: but I think they've kind of been a forgotten franchise
Speaker 1: now the biggest Do you want to know what the
Speaker 1: biggest lie is in history?
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 1: Everyone loves the Cinderella story. The truth is, no one
Speaker 1: loves the Cinderella story. No one. We say we do,
Speaker 1: and then we're like, yeah, I've had a enough of
Speaker 1: Saint Mary's. I don't want to see him in my
Speaker 1: final four. That's just I want to see blue Bloods.
Speaker 1: That's period. We want to see Lebron, we want to
Speaker 1: see KD. We want to see Kyrie, and that's about it.
Speaker 1: That's it. We say like, oh, we fucking hate dynasties.
Speaker 1: No we don't, No we don't. That is fucking a lie.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants glitz and glam, so I'm sorry, fan, Like
Speaker 1: the only person the only people that care about the
Speaker 1: Bucks and the Bucks winning and are invested in the
Speaker 1: Bucks winning are people that are either from Wisconsin, have
Speaker 1: family from Wisconsin, or they're from Greece. That's it. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's the legitimate cold heart truth.
Speaker 3: Last up we have is Fred van Vliet an All Star?
Speaker 3: What a tough question.
Speaker 1: That's such a tough question. Is Fred van Fleet an
Speaker 1: All Star? I don't think they're gonna do it. I
Speaker 1: just it's released. It's sad it is. You talk about
Speaker 1: the NBA and how they're basically the Gestapo, and they
Speaker 1: decide based on storylines and how storylines lead everything. Fred
Speaker 1: van Fleet is a Cinderella story and and I love
Speaker 1: Fred van Fleet, but he's exactly what the NBA does
Speaker 1: not want people a name that people casual fans don't know. Yes,
Speaker 1: the real NBA fan loves some fucking Fred van Fleet.
Speaker 1: He's he's just pulling that team out of the depths
Speaker 1: of hell yea and doing a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: But my friend that watches like four NBA games a
Speaker 1: year and maybe tunes into the All Star Game is like,
Speaker 1: who's that? Who's that little dude with the side spin
Speaker 1: on his ball? Yeah, he s it's Fred van Fleet.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he's gonna I think he is
Speaker 1: an All Star but won't be an All Star. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, Devin Booker for years.
Speaker 1: He's that's Devin Booker for years. Exactly. Like when you're
Speaker 1: at a point that plays who are putting up ungodly
Speaker 1: numbers like Bradley Beal and still lose, are still becoming
Speaker 1: All Stars. That's how you know what the league cares.
Speaker 3: About well in leading and voting.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's like the Wizards. The Wizards current. The
Speaker 1: Wizards currently are the worst team in the East, and
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal is going to be an All Star. So
Speaker 1: that's where we are. Fred van Fleet, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the things that he's done well. He is. I think
Speaker 1: he's the top assisting shooting guard in the league or
Speaker 1: in the conference, in the Eastern Conference, like six and
Speaker 1: a half assists a game. He's I think, rebounding like
Speaker 1: crazy this year, scoring more than he ever has, and
Speaker 1: he's probably the main reason that Toronto's still relevant because
Speaker 1: Kyle Lowry has been kind of on and off the
Speaker 1: court with injuries, the chemistry issue has been weird, Pascal
Speaker 1: Siaka has been up and down. Obviously, they lost a
Speaker 1: bunch of pieces, so I I think he deserves an
Speaker 1: All Star spot, but there's gonna be buzzier names that
Speaker 1: end up getting voted in over him. I think he's
Speaker 1: tenth in voting right now in guards, which is fucking it.
Speaker 3: Suck it suck buzzier. Are you implying LaMelo Ball might
Speaker 3: be employed?
Speaker 1: No, but like I definitely think that wouldn't be something outside.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to talk about big names
Speaker 1: and names that drive storylines, like LaMelo Ball drive storylines.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Lonzo's family. The Ball's family is a
Speaker 1: huge storyline. So yeah, I would say if the Hornets
Speaker 1: were like the fifth seed in the East, LaMelo Ball
Speaker 1: could for sure be an All Star because people would
Speaker 1: be like O. All the reason is because LaMelo is,
Speaker 1: like you forgot about Gordon Hayward. But whatever. That's the
Speaker 1: that's it. So most people want Fred van Fleet that
Speaker 1: watch basketball, But these fucking idiots that don't watch basketball,
Speaker 1: they they're not voting for him.
Speaker 3: So yeah, all.
Speaker 1: Right, that's all the time that we have for this
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