Speaker 1: All right, everybody, Welcome to the Jason timp Podcast. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking time out of your day
Speaker 1: today to come hang out talk some basketball with Tommy
Speaker 1: and I. I just got him on. Tommy, how are
Speaker 1: you doing today, Man, I'm doing good man, as always,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on. I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this. I was hoping it would be a little
Speaker 1: bit sooner, more close to the end of the finals,
Speaker 1: but um, I was very archaic in my early attempts
Speaker 1: to get this going, and I had to get some
Speaker 1: stuff on the tech end up and running before I
Speaker 1: could really, um, you know, get to any sort of
Speaker 1: offseason content. And I appreciate your patience and appreciate you
Speaker 1: taking the time. Um, I'm really excited to hear your
Speaker 1: take on the Lebron stuff. Primarily today, we're gonna focus
Speaker 1: on what Tommy has to say as kind of a
Speaker 1: rebuttal to everything that I said about Lebron uh last week,
Speaker 1: and we'll have a little bit of a give and
Speaker 1: take there. We're going to talk about where we think
Speaker 1: the top ten list of the NBA stands as of
Speaker 1: right now, and then, last but not least, what I
Speaker 1: want to start with. It's just really quickly, um talking
Speaker 1: about the NBA restart in December, and particularly this idea
Speaker 1: that teams and particularly teams that made deep playoff runs
Speaker 1: could consider not playing in the at the start of
Speaker 1: the season, and so I just want to touch on
Speaker 1: that really quick and then we'll get to the fun stuff.
Speaker 1: But my my initial take on it, it's really simple.
Speaker 1: There are three, like absolute facts of this case. Fact
Speaker 1: number one, for every dollar that the NBA does not make,
Speaker 1: the players don't make fifty cents. So it's a a
Speaker 1: revenue partnership. This is not a situation where the players
Speaker 1: can leverage uh the owners out of money that wouldn't
Speaker 1: automatically leverage themselves out of money. And then facts number two.
Speaker 1: In a normal off season, for two teams that play
Speaker 1: in the finals, you basically have from June to July,
Speaker 1: July to August, August to September, September to October off,
Speaker 1: and then you get back into training camp. And this season,
Speaker 1: every team had at least from March to April, April
Speaker 1: to May made a June, June to July off. And
Speaker 1: for fourteen teams who did not you know, fourteen minus
Speaker 1: the what did they bring five extra teams to the
Speaker 1: bubble or whatever. So for eight of the teams they
Speaker 1: didn't play at all during this entire time, and for
Speaker 1: many of them they've been off for several months since then.
Speaker 1: So the idea that the players have played more this
Speaker 1: season than they had in previous seasons is just not true.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing is that every single game
Speaker 1: from Smith Day this year, which was a Christmas that
Speaker 1: was considered ratings that were down from previous seasons, every
Speaker 1: single game from Chris Christmas Day this year outrated every
Speaker 1: single playoff game, including the finals. So what does that mean.
Speaker 1: That means that the NBA very much needs to get
Speaker 1: back to their regular schedule so they can stop competing
Speaker 1: with you know, elections every two years in the fall
Speaker 1: and with football every single year in the fall. That
Speaker 1: it is very clear that the better schedule for them
Speaker 1: to be on is either October to June or December
Speaker 1: to July, something that goes in that general time frame.
Speaker 1: So the idea that I, while I sympathize with some
Speaker 1: of these teams like the Lakers and the Heat that
Speaker 1: will have to do a quick turnaround, it's not like
Speaker 1: they're facing any sort of long term wear and tear.
Speaker 1: That's more than what they would in a normal season.
Speaker 1: They've had more time off in the last season than
Speaker 1: they normally would, so I don't really understand that angle,
Speaker 1: and the reality is that it's a no brainer for them,
Speaker 1: not only for the health of the league, but the
Speaker 1: simple fact that they will us themselves money by delaying
Speaker 1: it on that split. What's your thoughts on that situation, Tommy? So,
Speaker 1: I agree with basically everything you just laid out, and
Speaker 1: one thing I would actually add on to the tail
Speaker 1: end of that is the Olympics. Apparently the Olympics are
Speaker 1: going to happen in or at least that's what people
Speaker 1: are saying. And I don't know if it's a huge
Speaker 1: deal to have the Superstars there, but if we want
Speaker 1: to win Olympic goal, that obviously gives us the best chance.
Speaker 1: And the Olympics are set to go off right now,
Speaker 1: earlier than normal from what I've seen, I've seen like
Speaker 1: a mid or late July timeline when they're usually I
Speaker 1: think they usually start a little bit later than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's usually late summer. Yeah, exactly, it's usually August. I
Speaker 1: want to say, So, if you just add that on
Speaker 1: top of it, we wouldn't have our starts with the
Speaker 1: Olympics if the season runs into August or September again. Um,
Speaker 1: but that being said, Chris Haines tweeted about twenty five
Speaker 1: minutes ago. Yeah, who sources substantial facts and the players
Speaker 1: and star players pushing for January eighth. Mlk DA start
Speaker 1: free agency starting on December one. That would put teams
Speaker 1: like the Lakers and the Heat on more of a
Speaker 1: normal timeline in terms of an NBA off season, it
Speaker 1: would still be a tiny bit shorter. Um. So, like
Speaker 1: you're saying, I do sympathize with them, but they did
Speaker 1: have it was basically a four and a half month
Speaker 1: break right all the season, so in terms of they
Speaker 1: shouldn't be feeling too far behind. It was a quick
Speaker 1: push on the bubble. But if if this is I've
Speaker 1: seen the number I've seen thrown around, it's about five
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of losses. Um. If they do start
Speaker 1: at this m Olka, they versus December. So if the
Speaker 1: plan is to bring in as much money as possible,
Speaker 1: they need to start in December. Um. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: not seen that Chris Saine's tweet yet. That's interesting. It
Speaker 1: just dropped right at noon, so thirty minutes ago, and
Speaker 1: I guess it. I guess it's not the most shocking
Speaker 1: thing in the world. But like to me, it's like, like,
Speaker 1: of course, you guys would rather wait till Januarry, Like
Speaker 1: like what if someone told you that you were going
Speaker 1: to take a vacation, but you could take an extra
Speaker 1: month off, Like, of course they'd like to. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you if, for whatever reason, in a normal season there
Speaker 1: was some reason to leverage it. I could see the
Speaker 1: players being like, let's start in November instead of October.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt they're the players would like that to
Speaker 1: be the case. It's just they have, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: they have no leverage. If I'm the n b A,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, you're gonna cost yourself money in the form
Speaker 1: of this revenue splitt for for the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the teams, they're actually itching and ready to play. So
Speaker 1: we're making basically massive concessions for the sake of you know,
Speaker 1: one or two teams or two or four teams, depending
Speaker 1: on where you know where you feel about that. But
Speaker 1: it's like, also, you're sacrificing that Christmas Day element, which
Speaker 1: has always been a huge income day for the NBA.
Speaker 1: It's just I really don't understand it. Uh, from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of you know, like, without a doubt, if you're Lebron,
Speaker 1: if you're you know, Jimmy Butler, if you're even the
Speaker 1: Nuggets or the Celtics, it sucks. I get it. It sucks.
Speaker 1: But this is just the nature of the business. What
Speaker 1: would have been your late season and playoff run, instead
Speaker 1: of taking place from March to June, is now going
Speaker 1: to take place from July to October, and and in
Speaker 1: your off season is effectively going to be split in half.
Speaker 1: That's really all that happened. It's it's that simple, and
Speaker 1: it's such a no brainer. Yeah. And I think lastly,
Speaker 1: the the NBA starting later doesn't do anything. At this point,
Speaker 1: fans aren't going to be back in arenas no matter
Speaker 1: when they started, unless they plan on starting in the summer,
Speaker 1: which isn't realistic. So fans are going to be back
Speaker 1: in the arenas either way. There's no point to push
Speaker 1: it back any further. If this season started, and like
Speaker 1: you're saying, have that Christmas Day game, um, and I
Speaker 1: think that it will feel more like a quote on
Speaker 1: normal NBA season if they do do that, which gives
Speaker 1: them a better chance of getting better ratings. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if I'm the NBA, I'm saying, fine, if you want
Speaker 1: to delay to January and now the finals ear in
Speaker 1: July instead of June, like, just do something, not even
Speaker 1: if you have any intention of actually doing that, but
Speaker 1: just to attempt to leverage the players into understanding the
Speaker 1: obvious solution here exactly. Um. But on that note, I
Speaker 1: want to get to some of this fun stuff we
Speaker 1: have been talking about. So basically I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: super quick rehash of what my Lebron thing was because
Speaker 1: I want I want to start with, is your kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, response to that? For lack of a better phrase,
Speaker 1: but essentially, for those of you who didn't hear it,
Speaker 1: I essentially said that before this year, Lebron had no case,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, to be the goat. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a mistake for players, for fans, and for Lebron
Speaker 1: himself to make that stand. But that I do believe
Speaker 1: now he does have a case. I personally probably give
Speaker 1: a very slight edge to m J still at this point,
Speaker 1: but I do believe that you could have a conversation
Speaker 1: about Lebron being the best basketball player ever, and it
Speaker 1: could make enough sense to have like a real conversation
Speaker 1: around it. And I said that the two things that
Speaker 1: that case has to be built on are one his
Speaker 1: winning versatility, the fact that he's won in so many
Speaker 1: different ways. To be clear, it's there have been six
Speaker 1: complete different roster configurations that he's either won a championship
Speaker 1: with taking to the finals, are taken to within two
Speaker 1: games of the final, two wins of the finals. And
Speaker 1: then the other big chunk of it would be his
Speaker 1: mental toughness, just the idea that while guys like Magic
Speaker 1: and Bird and Kareem and other players that were considered
Speaker 1: in that top five to seven range had seasons where
Speaker 1: they lost in the first round or the second round
Speaker 1: of the third round. Duncan is another great example of that.
Speaker 1: Whereas you have Um and Michael Jordan's like having retirements
Speaker 1: in the middle of his career to kind of refresh mentally,
Speaker 1: Lebron just kind of always had this ability to to
Speaker 1: dig deep into approach every single season with that same
Speaker 1: you know, fervor that he did when he was winning.
Speaker 1: And I thought that those two things would be the
Speaker 1: main piece, and then the big third piece that he
Speaker 1: could add in the future that could eventually put him
Speaker 1: definitively over the top is the longevity piece. Because Lebron
Speaker 1: and m j both won titles and finals MVPs at
Speaker 1: thirty five. But now Lebron appears to be, you know,
Speaker 1: on the precipice of potentially adding a couple more. So,
Speaker 1: my question to you, Tommy is do you agree with
Speaker 1: the gist of what I'm saying? And then finally, where
Speaker 1: would you put Lebron all time after this season if
Speaker 1: you had a gun to your head. So I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna agree with you, maybe a little bit more
Speaker 1: than you would expect, because so I've laid this out
Speaker 1: on Twitter multiple times, there are now I would say,
Speaker 1: four guys in NBA history to win four championships as
Speaker 1: the unquestioned best player on their team. Those guys are
Speaker 1: now Michael Jordan's, Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, and now Lebron James.
Speaker 1: Because I would consider Lebron, even though eighty is amazing,
Speaker 1: He's an incredible player. I would consider Lebron to be
Speaker 1: the best player on this lasers and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's super close. I don't I don't see how it
Speaker 1: went anywhere near as many games without Lebron. I just
Speaker 1: don't see the case for eight being the best player.
Speaker 1: He's an incredible player, but he's more towards We'll get
Speaker 1: into where he's at later in terms of lead rankings, UM,
Speaker 1: but I don't see any case for Lebron not being
Speaker 1: the best player on this team. So that puts him
Speaker 1: an elite company. Obviously, he's now one of four guys
Speaker 1: in NBA history who has done this. In my estimation,
Speaker 1: you could probably make an argument for magic because you
Speaker 1: could say he was not the best player on the
Speaker 1: Lakers first title team, but the next four he was.
Speaker 1: But if the if we're saying unquestioned best player, then
Speaker 1: it's just those four ties. So he has put himself
Speaker 1: an elite company. Where I don't think his GOA cases
Speaker 1: maybe as strong as you think, UM for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons, mostly because I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: and maybe not to you, A lot of it to
Speaker 1: a lot of people is getting to eighth straighte finals.
Speaker 1: But where I would push back is well, he did
Speaker 1: have the mental toughness to make the finals every year.
Speaker 1: He also did get a certain sense of resets in
Speaker 1: that he got to change teams halfway through that. When
Speaker 1: Jordan retired in ninety three, he had been with the
Speaker 1: same organization for nine years, and he had been with
Speaker 1: the same real group of guys for six or seven.
Speaker 1: Not really at any point in Lebron's career as he's
Speaker 1: been with the same group of guys for that long
Speaker 1: unless you count that first Cleveland stands right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and even ter turn over Hawn to turnover, especially as
Speaker 1: they were trying to find pieces to fit around him.
Speaker 1: So my argument would be, while he didn't necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: he did make the finals a year, which obviously is
Speaker 1: an incredible, credible feed no matter who you're facing. That
Speaker 1: the East was, I would say historically, especially towards the
Speaker 1: back half of that run. I thought the front end,
Speaker 1: especially the early Miami years, the week He's were still
Speaker 1: pretty good. As we got towards the later Miami years
Speaker 1: and then the Cleveland years, I thought these was terrible,
Speaker 1: to be quite right with you, and he did, and
Speaker 1: he did get that little reset where he gets to
Speaker 1: choose a new group of teammates. So while he's still
Speaker 1: playing all those years, he's there is not that internal
Speaker 1: fatigue organizationally and from a chemistry standpoint of being around
Speaker 1: the same guys over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And we even saw it in the short standing Cleveland,
Speaker 1: where I mean, we know what Kyrie is at this point,
Speaker 1: but him and Lebron got sick of each other after
Speaker 1: three years. You know, if Lebron would have been with
Speaker 1: the same franchise for eight or nine as my cat,
Speaker 1: maybe he's maybe things look a little bit tempering. So
Speaker 1: I don't think that The only reason I would disagree
Speaker 1: with that specific point is like sure like he got
Speaker 1: along extremely well with Dwayne Wade, and he's getting along
Speaker 1: extremely well with Anthony Davis and even Kevin Love, who,
Speaker 1: but for all intents and purposes, was a guy who
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a loner. That's kind of
Speaker 1: his personality. Even him and Lebron kind of figured it
Speaker 1: out towards the end. So I think, like a lot
Speaker 1: of times the Kyrie dynamic has shed a like an
Speaker 1: unfair negative light on that relationship. But like my biggest
Speaker 1: pushback on the Lebron shuffling the deck thing is like,
Speaker 1: to me, the Lebron shuffling the deck thing is was
Speaker 1: his counter to some pretty unfortunate luck with his teammates
Speaker 1: over the years. For instance, I've always said like if
Speaker 1: Lebron was had Anthony Davis drafted a few years after him,
Speaker 1: and he could spend his entire career with Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever leaves Cleveland to begin with.
Speaker 1: I think if Dwyane Wade stays healthy and as much
Speaker 1: of the same player as he was in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven throughout the two thousand and twelve, thousand, thirteen, thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen seasons, I don't think he leaves Miami. And
Speaker 1: then if Kyrie stays and Kevin Love stays and and honestly,
Speaker 1: like I think one of the biggest reasons he went
Speaker 1: to l A was the Kevin Durant thing with the
Speaker 1: Golden State Warriors, Like I think he that coupled with
Speaker 1: the Kyrie Irving, uh, the trade kind of made him
Speaker 1: realize he needed to kind of shuffle his deck again.
Speaker 1: But I think, like for Lebron, different than other stars
Speaker 1: that are in that top tier, he always was kind
Speaker 1: of put in a position where he could have admirably
Speaker 1: continued to fight with the same situation, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: really much of a realistic option. If you look at
Speaker 1: their goats. You've got Michael Jordan, who had Scottie Pippen
Speaker 1: for his entire prime. You've got Tim Duncan, who arguably
Speaker 1: played with the greatest organization, you know, literally potentially in
Speaker 1: the history of modern But that was that? Was that
Speaker 1: more Duncan or was that more of the organization? We
Speaker 1: see where the organization is at now they're middling. They
Speaker 1: struggled to keep Kauaiian in with their organization and now
Speaker 1: they're barely a playoff team. There's truth to that. But
Speaker 1: Pop himself will give Tim Tim Duncan more credit for
Speaker 1: anything for the organization than he'll take and that's Pop
Speaker 1: being Pop partially. But I think there is a lot
Speaker 1: of truth to it. Duncan was the rock of that organization.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it takes two though that that's
Speaker 1: my point is like I think, like if Lebron was
Speaker 1: in a similar situation where he had a good front
Speaker 1: office and they were good at drafting, and they did
Speaker 1: have a cup a really key clutch moves over the
Speaker 1: course of the years that refreshed their roster, like Kauai
Speaker 1: like manor genobly stuff like that. I really do think
Speaker 1: Lebron would have stayed. That's kind of my key with
Speaker 1: my point is like so that but would be what
Speaker 1: about Miami, Well, Miami, So Miami was towards the end.
Speaker 1: I really do think Lebron saw the writing on the
Speaker 1: wall with Dwayne Wade, like I think, so I like,
Speaker 1: there the reality. Like you know, in two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: and two thousand thirteen, d Wade retooled his game to
Speaker 1: maintain impact, especially on the defensive end of the floor
Speaker 1: and as a playmaker and as a mid range score.
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is that, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: in in two thousand and twelve two thousand and thirteen,
Speaker 1: Wade wasn't top three player in the league Dayane Wade.
Speaker 1: He was more like a kind of like we see
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler now, like that guy in that eleven to
Speaker 1: fifteen range who's extremely Although I know you disagree abou
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler, but it was that I think I think
Speaker 1: that I think that d Wade had fallen significantly off
Speaker 1: of that point and a lot of that shine was
Speaker 1: still on the apple, so to speak. So you know,
Speaker 1: you look at the roster and it looked like it
Speaker 1: was incredible, but there especially in those last three years,
Speaker 1: they leaned extremely heavily on Lebron and I mean Bosch.
Speaker 1: You know, the realities is that Miami team was still
Speaker 1: good at the end. I mean, there's a reason why
Speaker 1: they made the finals in two thousand fourteen. Bosch was
Speaker 1: really blossoming as a stretch five at that point. He
Speaker 1: was taking a lot more threes, making a lot more threes.
Speaker 1: But the reality is is like Wade was, Wade was
Speaker 1: barely playing. I think he only played like fifty games
Speaker 1: that season. When he did play, he was in the
Speaker 1: teens as far as points per game goes. He was
Speaker 1: a shell of himself offensively, I think Lebron saw the
Speaker 1: writing on the wall. And my whole point to that is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, like look at Kobe Bryant's career.
Speaker 1: You know, he was happy when he was winning with Shack,
Speaker 1: and then when him and Shack you know, lost a
Speaker 1: couple of years in a row two thousand, three thousand
Speaker 1: four he was kind of burnt out with that situation.
Speaker 1: Then he found himself without Shack understand inning that it
Speaker 1: was a lot harder to win than he thought. And
Speaker 1: then he threw a hissy fit and called into a
Speaker 1: local sports radio broadcast and demanded a trade and like.
Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden he gets pall gasol
Speaker 1: and he's happy again, and now he wants to and
Speaker 1: like and and I don't think on the Kobe stuff,
Speaker 1: but I hear you there, because I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: grew up in l A. All that stuff definitely happened, right.
Speaker 1: There was a time where he was very very unhappy
Speaker 1: with with the organization, and Lebron, to his credit, took
Speaker 1: four things into his power. But I think that's also why,
Speaker 1: in a way you can point to why he I
Speaker 1: don't know if blames the right word, but he deserves
Speaker 1: more blame for some of the ways his career has
Speaker 1: played out, for maybe not winning quote unquote as much,
Speaker 1: even though he does have four championships in seventeen years,
Speaker 1: so it's not like he hasn't won. But he has
Speaker 1: taken more control of his career, for better or for
Speaker 1: worse than anybody in NBA history. Um, So with that
Speaker 1: comes probably more credit, which I think he gets a
Speaker 1: lot of, but it also comes more blame. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why you pointed to this, Yes, why he
Speaker 1: is so polarizing. You know, I think I think it's
Speaker 1: like a trust issue thing, like if you, for instance,
Speaker 1: like I've been fortunate that I've been in relation. My
Speaker 1: marriage is is like you know, rock solid and we're good.
Speaker 1: But like I've heard stories from friends of mine who
Speaker 1: have been cheated on or like things like that, Like
Speaker 1: trust issues linger, and they change the way that you
Speaker 1: approach future relationships. And like, I really do think Lebron
Speaker 1: was so scarred over by Dan Gilbert than Danny Ferry
Speaker 1: that he was like, I don't trust the front office.
Speaker 1: And then there was a big story in two thousand fourteen, uh,
Speaker 1: the heat cut. I believe it was either they cut
Speaker 1: or traded Mike Miller for salary relief, and Lebron, like
Speaker 1: before the Finals, was deeply offended because he was like,
Speaker 1: why aren't you guys willing to spend the extra money
Speaker 1: to to give us this depth that we need now
Speaker 1: Mike Miller wouldn't have made a difference. But my point
Speaker 1: is is, like I think that starting in Cleveland, Lebron
Speaker 1: kind of formed trust issues with the front office. And
Speaker 1: I really do think that his entire career is shaped
Speaker 1: by a simple premise that he's like, I've got to
Speaker 1: do this myself. Now I agree with what My big
Speaker 1: point that I agree with you on is, like I
Speaker 1: do think you'll hear a lot of Lebron fans try
Speaker 1: to portray that as a like, as a positive to Lebron,
Speaker 1: like as a oh, like, Lebron didn't have help, so
Speaker 1: he did all these things. My my equation, my way
Speaker 1: of rationalizing it, is more that this was his version
Speaker 1: of having a great star teammate. While players like Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson and Kareem had each other, and while MJ had Pippen, like,
Speaker 1: Lebron had kind of a smorgaspord of of of supporting
Speaker 1: pieces because he shuffled the deck, and that to me
Speaker 1: kind of amounts to a similar type of effect to
Speaker 1: what those players had. What I'm saying is I'm not
Speaker 1: going to penalize Lebron for it either, you know, because
Speaker 1: I do think you hear some detractors that will say
Speaker 1: that Lebron deserves criticism for shuffling the deck, when I
Speaker 1: think what that was was a guy who took his
Speaker 1: destiny into his own hands because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: have an Anthony Davis type situation where seven years go
Speaker 1: by and you made the playoffs twice. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, which is fair. I just think from my perspective,
Speaker 1: I would exprested that Miami organization more just because patent
Speaker 1: he's proven. I spose it wasn't as proven at the time.
Speaker 1: Now he's proven. Um, I would have trusted that organization
Speaker 1: to get it done more. I agree with you on that.
Speaker 1: I agree, I think it would have worked out. Still,
Speaker 1: I think exactly get in Miami. I mean, i mean,
Speaker 1: look look at look at how they've recovered from losing.
Speaker 1: But nobody else has done even remotely close in this one.
Speaker 1: And it's been Cleveland both times. So it's it's tough
Speaker 1: to make to draw an Apple's Apples comparison there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they missed the playoffs the following year, but Boss had
Speaker 1: the blood clot thing and they probably would have made it.
Speaker 1: And then they made it the next year, made it
Speaker 1: to the second round, so I and they got to
Speaker 1: a Game seven with Toronto where they would have had
Speaker 1: a chance to play Cleveland. I agree with you. I like,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like I think Lebron got by d
Speaker 1: Wade's decline, and I think I think he had a
Speaker 1: meeting with pat Riley, and pat Riley was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I got what was the left handed shooter from Duke
Speaker 1: what's his name? Um, uh no, he might even uh
Speaker 1: he was the six ten white dude shooter from Duke
Speaker 1: Josh McRoberts, Josh McRoberts, Josh mct thinking Josh McRoberts and
Speaker 1: uh and Danny Granger, you know, yeah, and you know, like,
Speaker 1: and we're going to resign Bosh to this big max
Speaker 1: contract blah blah blah. And I think Lebron sat there
Speaker 1: and was like, I don't know, I don't think I
Speaker 1: can do it with these guys, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and I And it's it's ironic because you could make
Speaker 1: an argument that had he stayed in Miami, he would
Speaker 1: have won in two thousand fifteen as a result of
Speaker 1: Golden State being kind of green and uh. And I
Speaker 1: think I think that they have a full roster. I'll
Speaker 1: hope you Russell, they probably do be Golden State because
Speaker 1: they were just mentally they probably weren't there yet. And
Speaker 1: you can see that in the first three games of
Speaker 1: the finals in that two thousand Picks Finals, they probably
Speaker 1: weren't quite ready yet. They were just too young. They
Speaker 1: didn't have anybody with the experience. Um. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we're getting too much into the weeds on
Speaker 1: on what Lebron should have done instead of just you know,
Speaker 1: discussing and personally my fault, but discussing, yeah, discussed saying,
Speaker 1: you know, he he had. I thought this was his
Speaker 1: most dominant playoffs and some of that was probably probably
Speaker 1: because two of his biggest competitors were out. But there
Speaker 1: was never a playoff run at any point in his
Speaker 1: career where his team looked this dominant throughout the entire run. Um.
Speaker 1: At no point did I think this Lakers team was
Speaker 1: gonna lose to anybody. Yeah, as much as I wanted
Speaker 1: to fool myself and make make myself think that Miami
Speaker 1: had a chance to pull off three straight and come
Speaker 1: back down from three one in the finals, it wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna happen. They were The Lakers are clearly the best
Speaker 1: team from start to finish, um, And I think that
Speaker 1: does matter when you start talking about goat debates. So
Speaker 1: one of the things you point to is winning versatility,
Speaker 1: which I done, which I do think matters absolutely. Lebron
Speaker 1: can potentially win in more constructs than m J. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say if he can or can't because I
Speaker 1: would say MJ had probably nine or so title contention years.
Speaker 1: He started making the Eastern Conference finals and um and
Speaker 1: if you look at his career even early in his
Speaker 1: early years, every time he lost in the playoffs, it
Speaker 1: was either too the NBA champion or the runner up. Now,
Speaker 1: those early Bulls teams had no shot at winning titles,
Speaker 1: but as soon as Pippin became a reasonably good player,
Speaker 1: they were quote unquote a contender, and that started with Lebron.
Speaker 1: Lebron might playing a more I would say, like helio
Speaker 1: centric style where he was handling a lot of the
Speaker 1: ball handling duties. He was kind of doing everything. He
Speaker 1: was distributing and he's scoring um and then Phil comes in.
Speaker 1: He kind of influences fran goal and then they go
Speaker 1: on kind of an unpresident run of success in modern basketball. UM. So,
Speaker 1: while Lebron might have a winning versatility argument, I would
Speaker 1: say it might not matter as much if both play
Speaker 1: is style of play is so dominant that nobody can
Speaker 1: really touch you. Right, So Lebron has one of more constructs,
Speaker 1: I would say, just because he has been on more
Speaker 1: different rosters. But even if you look at early Bowls
Speaker 1: or nineties versus labels, those rosters are a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I would say they had more scores on the early
Speaker 1: rosters um, and that it was more kind of defensive
Speaker 1: and and um playmakers on the way to roster. They
Speaker 1: really rely on MJ for a lot of scour against layers,
Speaker 1: especially because Pippin really started to decline offensively. If you
Speaker 1: look at it, his playoff covers are horrific in the
Speaker 1: late nineties. They're like worse than the wait when at
Speaker 1: the end of that Miami run. UM. So they really
Speaker 1: really relied on ending for a lot of sparing and
Speaker 1: it was a different game. Uh that pace was nowhere
Speaker 1: near as fast. Teams didn't choose many threes, which is
Speaker 1: why it's so tough to do er and era comparisons. UM.
Speaker 1: But point being, I think just from what we've seen, well,
Speaker 1: like I've said, Lebron might be more personal winning wise,
Speaker 1: I think the bull style play was more dominant to
Speaker 1: their era, which is the only way we can really
Speaker 1: do this right. It's impossible to insert these guys into
Speaker 1: each other's eras, so we have to look at what
Speaker 1: they did in their era. UM for sure, I mean
Speaker 1: everybody like there is no definitive answer to any of
Speaker 1: these questions, like like even you know, uh, Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: before you know, two thousands sixteen, when when some of
Speaker 1: the crazier Lebron fans jumped on the Lebron train, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan was was as close to a consensus. Uh, as
Speaker 1: close to a consensus, uh, you know, goat that you'll
Speaker 1: find in any sport literally like and so from that standpoint, like,
Speaker 1: you know, even at that moment in time, it still
Speaker 1: was contextualized by people saying, you know, oh well Bill
Speaker 1: Russell had eleven titles, but he did it in an
Speaker 1: era where there were barely any teams. And he also
Speaker 1: he also had by far the most talent on his roster,
Speaker 1: you know, and all this other stuff for you would
Speaker 1: have you know, Kareem same thing, like, oh well, Kareem.
Speaker 1: You know, his career was elongated by magic, and he
Speaker 1: won of you at the end of his career when
Speaker 1: he wasn't nearly as good as he was at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And I'm on the team, yeah, exactly, Like you're making
Speaker 1: all of these you're making all these contextualizations and so
Speaker 1: the realities you can do that with the Lebron M
Speaker 1: j debate all day, and my my angle is is,
Speaker 1: like that's why what I think is interesting is the cases, right,
Speaker 1: because like MJ's case is, like you said, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not versatility. It's just a huge amount of the
Speaker 1: same thing. And that. But that's that's a good case.
Speaker 1: The case being like you know, for for the better
Speaker 1: part of a decade, if this dude was on the court,
Speaker 1: you lost, like and and that was the thing. And
Speaker 1: and from that standpoint, like I agree with you, you
Speaker 1: can only be measured definitively against your era, you know,
Speaker 1: Like that that's the thing, Like we can at least
Speaker 1: look back, you know, let's say Lebron and Stepp both
Speaker 1: retired tomorrow, Like you can at least look back on
Speaker 1: the previous you know, eight nine years and be okay
Speaker 1: in this era Lebron one. More so, like there's this
Speaker 1: evidence that I can present to you that this guy
Speaker 1: is better than this guy, Whereas like with Lebron and
Speaker 1: m J, it's entirely based on like you know, they're
Speaker 1: completely unique circumstances. And even you know, like in even
Speaker 1: just in the last thirty years, how much the game
Speaker 1: has changed, just in terms of the xs and os
Speaker 1: and in the way the flow of the game looks
Speaker 1: in a half court and in transition. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's all based on these contextualizations. My thing is,
Speaker 1: like the case that a Lebron kit fan can make
Speaker 1: is if I'm picking five random dudes or four random dudes,
Speaker 1: and I'm picking ten random bench players, and I'm picking
Speaker 1: a random coach, like I can point to evidence that
Speaker 1: shows that Lebron would be more likely to win with
Speaker 1: those guys. It doesn't mean that there's bad evidence for MJ.
Speaker 1: It just means that there's less good evidence because of
Speaker 1: the fact that he won in one specific way. So
Speaker 1: like I know that if I have, you know. But
Speaker 1: but the reality is is like if you're a GM
Speaker 1: of a team and you know MJ can win in
Speaker 1: one way, you can go out and build a roster
Speaker 1: that you know will fit with what MJ does. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, like, while MJ's cases this like
Speaker 1: dominance in his era that is kind of repetitive, Lebron's
Speaker 1: cases like this just ridiculous versatility spanning a very large,
Speaker 1: uh period of time, you know, And those are the
Speaker 1: differing cases. And at that point, and so much of
Speaker 1: this is subjective, Like I just you know, some people
Speaker 1: watch Lebron and don't see the impact. You know, they
Speaker 1: watch him and they go like, what is up with
Speaker 1: these funky isolations at the top of the key where
Speaker 1: he's doing these weird dribbles and shooting a pull up
Speaker 1: or oh, man, like every time he goes to the basket,
Speaker 1: he's just bowling dudes over and you know, oh, like
Speaker 1: I hate it when he passes on the last shot.
Speaker 1: And then you have other people that watch and they're like,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, he's strangling the pace of this game,
Speaker 1: and oh, well, that was an ugly basket, But that's
Speaker 1: an ugly basket that you can depend on in the
Speaker 1: half court of a playoff series. And you know, s
Speaker 1: he did kick out to uh Kyle Korver for a
Speaker 1: miss or to Danny Green for a miss, but he
Speaker 1: also beat the Celtics by passing out to Chris Bosh
Speaker 1: for a huge three in Game seven, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: like that, there are huge plays that are the opposite
Speaker 1: version of that as well. And so like people either
Speaker 1: look at Lebron and MJ and they like what they
Speaker 1: see or they don't. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I brought you on is like, I think
Speaker 1: you're one of the people like me, even though you
Speaker 1: would side with m J. I think you're one of
Speaker 1: the people like me who genuinely sees the positive, positive
Speaker 1: impact of both because like I love MJ. My very
Speaker 1: first piece of basketball memorabilia was an MJ sports illustrating poster.
Speaker 1: Like MJ, I have the exact same body as MJ.
Speaker 1: Nowhere near as athletic, but like I structured a lot
Speaker 1: of what I do around him. MJ is as a
Speaker 1: as a basketball fan, He's one of my favorite players ever,
Speaker 1: I just grew up as a Lebron fan. That's literally
Speaker 1: the only difference, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: I think, like it's impossible to have this debate with
Speaker 1: somebody who will look at Lebron and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the seventh best player in the league, you know,
Speaker 1: like my buddy Jeremiah. Like it's like I can't have
Speaker 1: that conversation with you, because like you're coming at it
Speaker 1: with too much bias, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I definitely wasn't willing to have any type of
Speaker 1: go conversation with the problem before this year. I'm more
Speaker 1: willing to have it now, I still wouldn't, like I
Speaker 1: still mean m JA because I'm an mp A guy,
Speaker 1: and I probably will unless Lebron does some pretty incredible
Speaker 1: things over the next couple of years. Um, but I
Speaker 1: think to kind of put a bow on it, Like
Speaker 1: I said, he's one of the four guys who has
Speaker 1: that accomplishment of best player on four championship teams. You
Speaker 1: know that is that is an incredible accomplishment matter how
Speaker 1: you slice it, right, And you know, he got lucky
Speaker 1: with it this year, but there's other years where he's
Speaker 1: gotten unlucky with ines' lucky with other things. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he definitely benefited from some things breaking his way this season.
Speaker 1: But I don't think you could hold that against him
Speaker 1: because he definitely had some stuff not operak his way
Speaker 1: in the back exactly exactly, so it's tough to hold
Speaker 1: it against him in either fashion. Um. So oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I I don't really like this is
Speaker 1: gonna sound like a cop out, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: haven't done a top ten list of all time and
Speaker 1: so long. I don't know exactly where I put him.
Speaker 1: I think I had him before this year somewhere around
Speaker 1: six or seven, eight, something like that. I'd say he's
Speaker 1: definitely top five. Now, Um, it's a short list, it's him,
Speaker 1: it's m J. For me, it's probably Bill Russell. I
Speaker 1: have Duncan in there because I love Duncan Um, and
Speaker 1: then I don't even know. I guess I probably throw
Speaker 1: Magic in there, um, But I mean that's there. I
Speaker 1: could hear the argument for Kobe Um. I would probably
Speaker 1: be Magic for Kobe UM at five. And I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't really do the top ten list thing,
Speaker 1: but I think it's basically those five or six guys
Speaker 1: all time where you could rely on them for a
Speaker 1: longer period of time for winning than basically anybody else
Speaker 1: in MBIA history. Right, Kobe came any one championship early
Speaker 1: one champhip, ten years later Magic. I mean, if Magic
Speaker 1: doesn't have to retire because AIDS, he might have competed
Speaker 1: for champions for three or four more years he wanted.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things that could have changed
Speaker 1: the nineties because then the breaks that MJ had in
Speaker 1: the nineties essentially centered around expansion and the careers ending shortly.
Speaker 1: Because the way that lebron Is Kauai now is the
Speaker 1: way that magic should have been to m J. Sure,
Speaker 1: but my rebuttal would be, so Lebron is gonna have
Speaker 1: a longevity part on the back end here that I
Speaker 1: don't think was afforded to guys like Mike for magic
Speaker 1: referred because the technology wasn't, the sports science wasn't as good.
Speaker 1: They care for your body wasn't when it wasn't as good.
Speaker 1: Lebron can, you know, get his body to be basically
Speaker 1: a well old machine. I can play into his forties
Speaker 1: even if those guys. The only thing that pushed back
Speaker 1: on you there is look at how many players from
Speaker 1: Lebron strafter still in the league. That's the only way
Speaker 1: I pushed back on you, like while Lebron. I agree
Speaker 1: in principle that the league has better or more technology now,
Speaker 1: for sure, But theree reality is is Lebron's longevity is impressive,
Speaker 1: even just within the lens of this era. Sure, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I would disagree with that, um, but I think there's
Speaker 1: also something to Lebron coming into the league when he
Speaker 1: was eighteen, and most of the guys in that draft
Speaker 1: get it right for sure. And that's why I said
Speaker 1: I can't I can't factor in counting stats or seventeen
Speaker 1: years for Labroo. Yet, like Lebron's longevity argument has to
Speaker 1: be built from this point forward. It hasn't been built
Speaker 1: from age. It's not built from years in the league
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because it's not like so it's not
Speaker 1: like Michael Jordan wasn't playing basketball games. He wasn't playing
Speaker 1: his mini at the same age, and he's playing thirties
Speaker 1: something versus eighty something. But they were also probably running
Speaker 1: three out practices in North Carolina because it was the
Speaker 1: eighties and nobodys were probably ridiculous, exactly exactly. So I
Speaker 1: I've never viewed that. Yeah, so it's the longeverything. Has
Speaker 1: never been based on years in the NBA. To me,
Speaker 1: that's the dumb argument. It's age. Age is what matters.
Speaker 1: That's the longevity argument. So yeah, like I said, I
Speaker 1: think he's I would probably have him top five all
Speaker 1: the time now, just because there's been an extended period
Speaker 1: to hear him obviously basically twelve thirteen years of championship contention,
Speaker 1: which is insane. Um. So yeah, I mean that's where
Speaker 1: I would land on it. People are gonna get mad
Speaker 1: at me, They're gonna call me plunch for that, but whatever, man,
Speaker 1: like I gotta be honest with what I see on
Speaker 1: the floor, it's better to do it that way. Like,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, Like I I understand that taking
Speaker 1: crazy stances plays really well on TV and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but to me, it's just so yeah, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm just not interested in having that kind of debate.
Speaker 1: And like the the debate is more interesting if it's closer,
Speaker 1: so like when people are being honest, the debate is
Speaker 1: genuinely more interesting as opposed to you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's this massive chasm between the two. Okay, well now
Speaker 1: why are we even having to talk about it? You
Speaker 1: know if that's the case? Um, And then the last
Speaker 1: thing I'll say about it before we move on is
Speaker 1: just like his story is not over. He's probably gonna
Speaker 1: go into this season, is the favorite he uh. The
Speaker 1: reality is is like if his body holds up, he's
Speaker 1: going to have an opportunity, opportunity to add more to
Speaker 1: this k Ason. And I do think at that point,
Speaker 1: like with each passing season, there will be more to
Speaker 1: talk about here. But I do think that this point,
Speaker 1: the summer between his seventeenth and eighteenth season is the
Speaker 1: first time that you can actually sit down and make
Speaker 1: a case for him that makes some sense. And that's
Speaker 1: that's really the part that I found to be interesting.
Speaker 1: All right. On that note, I want to move on
Speaker 1: to this NBA hierarchy thing. I've called it a horse race.
Speaker 1: I view it as like, you know, a story beneath
Speaker 1: the story. At the end of the day, it's a
Speaker 1: team sport. And you know, I think for most fans,
Speaker 1: casual fans that exist on you know, on the periphery,
Speaker 1: who are monitor who are just rooting for their teams,
Speaker 1: this cannot be super super interesting. But for people like
Speaker 1: me and for a lot of the basketball junkies out there,
Speaker 1: like I enjoy the idea of of kind of like
Speaker 1: gauging where these players are at any given moment in
Speaker 1: the NBA history. The reason why is I do think
Speaker 1: that I think a basketball more so than any other
Speaker 1: sport that I've been a part of that's a team sport,
Speaker 1: is a very in your face, mono imano type of sport.
Speaker 1: Like like I go play pick up still to this day,
Speaker 1: and when I'm in the gym, I'm measuring as I'm
Speaker 1: trying to win team games, I'm measuring myself as an
Speaker 1: individual against the other individuals in the gym, and I
Speaker 1: really do think that other NBA players do that, and
Speaker 1: I think that that isn't you know, I think that
Speaker 1: we are foolish to pretend that doesn't exist when I
Speaker 1: guarantee you the players think about that. I guarantee you
Speaker 1: every single player in the NBA thinks a lot about
Speaker 1: where they stand in comparison to their peers as individuals,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I find that debate to be interesting.
Speaker 1: So real quick, just to to before we get into
Speaker 1: what uh what you have is your list? I had
Speaker 1: lebron one. I put Steph Curry, to which I think
Speaker 1: you and I, um uh, you and I have similar
Speaker 1: feelings probably in that regard will find out. And then
Speaker 1: I put Quiet three over a D because I was
Speaker 1: really disappointed in Anthony Davis's offensive repertoire being kind of
Speaker 1: shut down by Miami in the finals. I thought that
Speaker 1: he still was deeply impactful, so it's not an indictment
Speaker 1: on his impact, but I thought that a lot of
Speaker 1: the things he was able to do in the earlier
Speaker 1: rounds were schemed out by spolstra Um. I had Kevin
Speaker 1: Durantist five, mainly because of his complete lack of dedication
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the ball in his over
Speaker 1: reliance on isolation scoring. I had Janis six for all
Speaker 1: of the reasons you could probably guess. I had Lucas seven,
Speaker 1: James Harden eight, Yo Kitchen nine, and Dame Lillard ten.
Speaker 1: So my main, uh, I guess my first question would
Speaker 1: be what does your list look like? And then what
Speaker 1: are the things that you would push back on in
Speaker 1: my list? Okay, do you want me to just run
Speaker 1: through my list? Yeah? Why don't you run through yours first?
Speaker 1: And then as you get to one that's not the
Speaker 1: same as mine, kind of explained why sure, So my
Speaker 1: top to her the same exact as yours, um process,
Speaker 1: and I you know, Braun clearly deserves the crowd at
Speaker 1: this point. You know his team won the championship, even
Speaker 1: though Steph was injured. Doesn't matter. The guy who was
Speaker 1: the best player on the best team in the league
Speaker 1: most years deserves that guy. It's rare when that guy
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve the crowd. It's usually like a two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen Spurs situation. Oh for Pistons, it's the outlier. Typically,
Speaker 1: if you're the best player on the best team, You're
Speaker 1: the best player in the league. So my top two
Speaker 1: are the same exact as yours for basically all the
Speaker 1: reasons you laid out there. I think they are offensive
Speaker 1: engines on an all time level, whereas I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody else on this list is. Well, they may be
Speaker 1: better at specific offensive skills, right like you could point
Speaker 1: to maybe Katie and Quiet being better players or whatever,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they are the same type of
Speaker 1: offensive engine. Is either one of those guys I think
Speaker 1: Lebron had said brings such a unique um offensive creation.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this before. They do it almost
Speaker 1: total opposite ways, um, but it's superferent but similar impacts.
Speaker 1: It's similar impact, and they free at their teammates for
Speaker 1: open looks consistently every single night, and it's it's probably
Speaker 1: the most dependable thing in basketball that those guys teams
Speaker 1: are going to get open looks on a pretty consistent
Speaker 1: basis against against any defense, any right, exactly against any
Speaker 1: defense of any level. UM. So my top two are
Speaker 1: the exact same. I had Kevin Durant at three because
Speaker 1: the way I look at it, there are three that
Speaker 1: we're basing this on Kevin Durant's health. For the record,
Speaker 1: I'm saying Kevin Durant is fully healthy. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant being fully healthy or well, you know, as close,
Speaker 1: which I think to his game the past couple of
Speaker 1: years has not been super athletic defendant. He has been
Speaker 1: working more out of the mid range than ever. Um,
Speaker 1: he doesn't take a ton of threes, but he's been
Speaker 1: taking you know, a good volume of him, like five
Speaker 1: a game. I want to say, um, so, my my
Speaker 1: counter to you would be and I heard the defensive part.
Speaker 1: I don't Thinkai plays defense anymore either, and that's why
Speaker 1: I have him over Kauai. Um And I think he
Speaker 1: is a well a D has improved as a score.
Speaker 1: I think he is a far superior score to eighties. Still,
Speaker 1: I think Duran is one of the five greatest scores
Speaker 1: of all time, while a D really has no there's
Speaker 1: a chasm between a D and Kati and an offense exactly.
Speaker 1: But there's also a chasm of the defensive end for
Speaker 1: whatever there is there is. But I think offensive impact
Speaker 1: is more important than defensive impact. We're talking top ten
Speaker 1: list because if you look at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Every year, the guys that are left standing are the
Speaker 1: best offensive players typically and sometimes it's the best defensive guy,
Speaker 1: but it's typically just the best offensive players. Um So,
Speaker 1: in my case for Katie would be over Kauai. His
Speaker 1: team is not in any single playoffs in his career
Speaker 1: has gone out like Hawai's team and not is not
Speaker 1: from the three one standpoint, we talked about that Clippers
Speaker 1: lass and now it's maybe the most embarrassing laws in
Speaker 1: NBA history. Um if I did this, I think the
Speaker 1: other day I ran down Oklahoma Cities laws is in
Speaker 1: the playoffs? Um since well, basically all Kevin Durant's playoff
Speaker 1: pearans is Yeah, I would say the closest thing would
Speaker 1: be two thousand thirteen or two third team against Memphis, Right,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna touch on that one too. So his
Speaker 1: first playoffs ever two thousand ten, they lose the Lakers
Speaker 1: in the first round. Lake was going to win the title.
Speaker 1: Two thousand eleven, they losing the conference finals to the Mavericks.
Speaker 1: The Matters go on to win the title. Two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: we know what happened there. The finals, they lose to
Speaker 1: Miami Durant is I want to say, twenty three or
Speaker 1: twenty four years old at that time, super young, leading
Speaker 1: a super super young team to the finals and actually
Speaker 1: played really well. Um Russ was hit or miss and
Speaker 1: Harden was absolutely awful in that series. They lose the
Speaker 1: Memphis No Russ. The starters in that series Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: Reggie Accent, Serge Baca, Tabos Stefalosha, and Kendrickkins. Derek Fisher
Speaker 1: was Derrek Fisher played a hundred four minutes in that
Speaker 1: series in five games, so he's averaging around thirty minutes
Speaker 1: a game. H Kevin Martin was playing like thirty minutes
Speaker 1: a game. Redgie Acson played like thirty five minutes a game.
Speaker 1: That was a god awful basketball team. And Katie did
Speaker 1: not play well well. I shouldn't even say that. He
Speaker 1: sport game from the field, so it's not like he
Speaker 1: played awful. But that was a bad Oklahoma City team.
Speaker 1: They're starting Kendrick Purpose, who were okay players back then,
Speaker 1: but but nothing specialeen. They lose to a vengeful Spurs
Speaker 1: team who goes on and wins the title. And that
Speaker 1: series was close, a lot closer than the Miami Super
Speaker 1: It was two oh, and then they got to back
Speaker 1: up back and went to two two and the first
Speaker 1: somehow get it it out just because I think they
Speaker 1: were so motivated to get back to the finals. Um,
Speaker 1: there was more work at play there than just you know,
Speaker 1: a one on one series between the Spurs in the Thunder,
Speaker 1: they were on a revenge tour. The Spurs work. Next year,
Speaker 1: Katie gets injured, they don't even make the playoffs without him.
Speaker 1: Team we all know what happened that both three one
Speaker 1: lead to a seventy three and nine team. Uh, seventeen
Speaker 1: and eighteen he wins the title. Nineteen he gets injured,
Speaker 1: his team doesn't win the title, partially because he's not
Speaker 1: on the floor. This is your easily. So my point
Speaker 1: would be, I don't think at any time, maybe the
Speaker 1: season when Kwai was really really good. I think that's
Speaker 1: the only season you can really make an argument for
Speaker 1: Kauai over Katie. But even that, your Katie ends up
Speaker 1: winning finals MVP. UM. So point being, I don't think
Speaker 1: at any point and his career has quite been a
Speaker 1: better player than Kevin Durant. And my biggest thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you can build a championship level
Speaker 1: team around anybody besides those three guys. I think you
Speaker 1: can't around Kauai at this point, but it's for hit
Speaker 1: or missed because of the injury stuff and if his
Speaker 1: mid range game isn't going, really has nothing else to
Speaker 1: rely on. But I know for a fact I can
Speaker 1: build a championship contention level roster given average parks. I
Speaker 1: know I can do it along around Lebron. I know
Speaker 1: I can do it around Staff, and I know I
Speaker 1: can do it around Kevin Durant. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can do it around anybody else. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a rebuttal to that way
Speaker 1: to it, but I don't know if there is one. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I mostly agree with you the in the in
Speaker 1: terms of your points, I think it's important to disclose
Speaker 1: that I think after I think that there's given Lebron's
Speaker 1: defensive impact, there's a little bit of a gap between
Speaker 1: Lebron and Steph and then I And then I think
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a gap between Steph and
Speaker 1: the next three guys. I think A, D, K, D,
Speaker 1: and Kauai are all very close in my opinion. That's
Speaker 1: just my take on it now. So if you had
Speaker 1: k d above Anthony Davis and Kuai, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's much of a difference in my opinion between
Speaker 1: what I said, um that said my my biggest thief
Speaker 1: with Kitty. His entire career has been like that. And
Speaker 1: you and I talked to about this at length. But
Speaker 1: he he has the physical gifts of Anthony Davis, but
Speaker 1: has has the like similar defensive impact to like Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: because you know, and I know that sounds absolutely insane,
Speaker 1: but the biggest reason why is because Kevin Durant is
Speaker 1: he gambles a lot. He is constantly standing straight up,
Speaker 1: he gets out of position all the time. So even
Speaker 1: though he has these amazing athletic gifts and physical gifts,
Speaker 1: he makes a lot of flash plays. Defensive point, he
Speaker 1: makes a lot of it, makes a lot of flash plays.
Speaker 1: But the possession effort besides, really in first half I'd
Speaker 1: say it wasn't there, yeah, and and like it was,
Speaker 1: Whereas like Steph Curry, who's six ft three and relatively slow,
Speaker 1: what he does amazingly well is he's always in the
Speaker 1: right place, and he's always committed to the team defensive
Speaker 1: goal and he does a great job of playing defense
Speaker 1: with his feet and with his chest as opposed to
Speaker 1: playing defense with his hands and like. And when he
Speaker 1: does reach, it's always very timely, and it's always very
Speaker 1: like appointed and focused as opposed to just you know,
Speaker 1: like like Kevin Durant's defensive focus and effort in his
Speaker 1: career has been kind of laughably bad for a guy
Speaker 1: who's as good as he is. And I think I
Speaker 1: think he goes it goes to show you that how
Speaker 1: much we value offense, that we even see him as
Speaker 1: high as we do. But I think my case for
Speaker 1: putting Kauai and Anthony Davis ever so slightly above Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant is the fact that even though Kauai I agree,
Speaker 1: since San Antonio has taken his foot off the gas
Speaker 1: a little bit on that side of the ball, I
Speaker 1: still think him and Anthony Davis is overall defensive impact
Speaker 1: is so much greater than that of Kevin Durance that
Speaker 1: that that to me, would be a differentiator. Um And
Speaker 1: and for the record, that's my biggest worry about that
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets team is just you're looking at the elite
Speaker 1: do duos in the league. I'm looking at you know,
Speaker 1: Lebron and a d who are just they're attacking both
Speaker 1: ends of the ball. And I'm looking at you know,
Speaker 1: Tatum and Brown, and I'm looking at you know, a
Speaker 1: Kauai and Paul George, and I'm looking at all the
Speaker 1: even Stephan Clay. It's like Stephan Clay aren't the same
Speaker 1: physical talents, but Clay is an elite defensive player and
Speaker 1: Steph tries to be. And so from those standpoints, it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to get optimistic about a Brooklyn team
Speaker 1: who's two stars are basically going to look at the
Speaker 1: rest of the roster and be like, you guys do it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that that that could end
Speaker 1: up being something that could hurt them. But essentially, like
Speaker 1: the last single saying Katie and then we can move
Speaker 1: on your list, like I that, I think the top
Speaker 1: of the league right now is deeper than it's been
Speaker 1: at any point since the late nineteen eighties, basically when
Speaker 1: all the eighties stars were at the end of their prime,
Speaker 1: and when the you know MJ's of the world where
Speaker 1: at the at the start of their prime. And right
Speaker 1: now when you're looking at that list, a list that
Speaker 1: has guys like James Harden, for me at eight and
Speaker 1: be honest at six, like a ridiculously tough list. I
Speaker 1: think you've got to differentiate yourself in some way. And
Speaker 1: you know, for Lebron and Staff, it's that elite offensive playmaking,
Speaker 1: you know, And for Lebron it's his defense, and you know,
Speaker 1: for Anthony Davis it's you know, his defense and what
Speaker 1: I thought was one of the most dominant defensive playoff
Speaker 1: runs in league history. And joannest just one a Defensive
Speaker 1: Player of the Year, and you know, and when you
Speaker 1: get down to like Luca in Yokich, it's this unbelievable
Speaker 1: passing and playmaking ability that arguably is in the top
Speaker 1: two or three in the league in that regard. And
Speaker 1: like so you have these differentiating skills and Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: is scoring, but I think he I think he does
Speaker 1: leave a lot to be desired, desired in the other
Speaker 1: ends of his game. And last or not least, like
Speaker 1: I really do think that Kevin Durant from a basketball
Speaker 1: i Q standpoint, is a little over reliant on isolation scoring.
Speaker 1: And like you said, and he has been there at
Speaker 1: the end with every in every season, either losing to
Speaker 1: the eventual champion or being the champion. I think there's
Speaker 1: help permitting that's been the case every single year I
Speaker 1: and I agree with that, but I could also make
Speaker 1: an argument that part of the reason why he's come
Speaker 1: up short is the fact that he over relies on
Speaker 1: that side of his game, and like, and I think
Speaker 1: the greatest example of it would be, you know, well
Speaker 1: to two real quick ones two thousand sixteen, going you know,
Speaker 1: like shooting horrifically bad in the last few games of
Speaker 1: the series and taking like thirty shots a game, and
Speaker 1: then two uh in two thousand nineteen him him going
Speaker 1: on like the most magnificent, like efficient scoring run we've
Speaker 1: ever seen against the Clippers, and in the first four
Speaker 1: games against Houston or anybody watching the TV's like, dear god,
Speaker 1: this guy is unbelievable. He's making everything, but the team's
Speaker 1: not winning. And the team because they were too too
Speaker 1: against Houston, and they even let the Clippers take two
Speaker 1: off of them, and then as soon as they as
Speaker 1: soon as Kevin Durant goes down, you know, the the
Speaker 1: Warriors start playing their free flowing style with step again
Speaker 1: and then they take off. Now, my, there's some context there.
Speaker 1: You know, Portland wasn't super good but but, but they
Speaker 1: did take two quick ones off of Houston. And I
Speaker 1: guess my point is is like when when stepan Quin
Speaker 1: won seven of eight, when stephan Quite were healthy, they
Speaker 1: won six in a row and then they dropped the
Speaker 1: game one in Toronto, They wont game to win Toronto,
Speaker 1: and then play was basing in and out of the
Speaker 1: series for the rest of it. Yeah, he sat out
Speaker 1: Game three. Yeah, you're right, and like and that That's
Speaker 1: all I'm saying is like I think, like I think
Speaker 1: my beef with Kevin Durant would be you know, and
Speaker 1: I said this the other day on the podcast, but
Speaker 1: like he he was, you know, someone he did an
Speaker 1: interview with that guy from the Elite group Cam who's
Speaker 1: running the group, and he said, he goes, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like what are you what are you working on this summer?
Speaker 1: And and Kevin Durance just like just doing one on
Speaker 1: ones and it's like you can tell his view of
Speaker 1: the game is like I Am going to be the
Speaker 1: greatest one on one player of all time. And while
Speaker 1: I do think that's a huge asset to winning and
Speaker 1: why agree with you that you can be the best
Speaker 1: player in the championship team. I'm just saying that. I
Speaker 1: think there are a few guys that take over and
Speaker 1: because of his over reliance on that ability, and that's
Speaker 1: that's entirely fair. But I think he is so good
Speaker 1: as an I score, it doesn't matter. And I think
Speaker 1: when he wants to be, he's a better distributor than
Speaker 1: both of those guys. He's a he's a been natural passer. UM.
Speaker 1: So I would just rely on a team built around
Speaker 1: his offense, given you know, a baseline of defensive effort,
Speaker 1: I would I would trust a team with his him
Speaker 1: running the offense more than either one of those guys. UM.
Speaker 1: Like it took a lot for the Wise Raptors. It
Speaker 1: took a lot of extra playmakers for them to win
Speaker 1: that title, because I was going to do any of that.
Speaker 1: And A D eighties phenomenal, He's a phenomenal player. UM.
Speaker 1: I have nothing bad to say about the guy. UM,
Speaker 1: But I don't know if he could ever be the
Speaker 1: true number one option on a championship team. He's gonna
Speaker 1: I think you'll get to that point. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's there yet. That's what it depends. How he can
Speaker 1: start playing out of double teams and stuff. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be a huge part of his development. We'll see how
Speaker 1: Lebron factors into that, because I think he will. Um.
Speaker 1: But point being, I mean those guys are I would
Speaker 1: have Katie closer to the step of Brontier I think
Speaker 1: than you would. But I do hear your argument, and
Speaker 1: I do see why you put in kind of that
Speaker 1: next year. Um, So I had Katie three, I had
Speaker 1: Kauai four, which I think you had quite three, right,
Speaker 1: and then I actually had um and here's let's see,
Speaker 1: let's hear the reason for so here, here's my reasoning.
Speaker 1: Number one, the playoffs stuff in New Orleans. I mean
Speaker 1: the guy in the playoffs like two times and seven years,
Speaker 1: I believe is what is what happened. Um. And I
Speaker 1: do see the argument for a D in terms of
Speaker 1: being a better score I guess in ISO situations. Um.
Speaker 1: And he's an incredible defender, So you can't I think
Speaker 1: when you're choosing between honest and a D, you're kind
Speaker 1: of splitting hairs defensively, even though I would like to
Speaker 1: see Janice fully unleashed on that end, which he really
Speaker 1: is an inbut system he's playing drop covers half the time,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, I know it's effective at certain situations.
Speaker 1: But I'd love to see him play the five more
Speaker 1: and get to switch and just be like super duper,
Speaker 1: just because we've seen, like even in like the All
Speaker 1: Star Game, when he got Super into the All Star Game,
Speaker 1: it was like bananas, how distructive he was, like pushing
Speaker 1: out guys in the perimeter and just pausing chaos. So
Speaker 1: I think he could do more of that in a
Speaker 1: better construct or better scheme. Um. But my biggest reason
Speaker 1: is I trust Johanna's more on a night tonight basis
Speaker 1: to bring the the physical and mental side of his
Speaker 1: game than I do Anthony Davis At this point, I
Speaker 1: think a DA has improved greatly in that in that area,
Speaker 1: but even the couple of stinkers he had against like
Speaker 1: my aunt or you would have like one or two
Speaker 1: stinkers a series. And not that Joanna doesn't do that
Speaker 1: um in the playoffs, but he's also carrying a much
Speaker 1: larger um I guess load in terms of offensive and
Speaker 1: defensive responsibility. UM. I know one of the things you
Speaker 1: pointed to when you were arguing a d over Ghanes
Speaker 1: was the fact that ad was able to get his
Speaker 1: points in different ways when you know his ISO game
Speaker 1: wasn't going. My pushback on that would be he's playing
Speaker 1: with Lebron James. You know, he's getting points. The dunker
Speaker 1: spot is getting points in like you know these easy
Speaker 1: way by being a cutter. The Milwaukee is a horrendous
Speaker 1: passing tune. Well, I think Chris Middleson is a very
Speaker 1: good player and has become almost somewhat underrated by some
Speaker 1: people and operrated by others. Like he's not a top
Speaker 1: ten player, but he's also probably not outside the top
Speaker 1: thirty or top te five. He's really good, but he's
Speaker 1: not a guy that's gonna be setting up honest on
Speaker 1: a consistent basis. And that's what you honest needs at
Speaker 1: this point, because if you can get him a guy
Speaker 1: like that, he's gonna be insanely impactful. You're right, they're
Speaker 1: the best playmaker on the team. Might be what George
Speaker 1: Hill here bledsoe. I mean that there are so many
Speaker 1: times where I'm watching Bucks games and you honestly has
Speaker 1: a guy skilled on his back or he's like open
Speaker 1: cutting down the lane and they just flat out and
Speaker 1: miss him. You know, it's like, Okay, that's an easy
Speaker 1: two points. That's an easy two points. That was that
Speaker 1: he probably have gotten Thoult on that cut. You know,
Speaker 1: it's and it starts to add up where he's I
Speaker 1: don't like the way that he's almost been taught to
Speaker 1: play at this point by Bud and that Buck stat. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm relieving a lot of the blame from the
Speaker 1: honest here and I realized that. Um. But I think
Speaker 1: my my bigger point sorts around that he's led sixty
Speaker 1: win teams basically in back to back seasons, and even
Speaker 1: though there are the playoff failures, they were two games
Speaker 1: away from making the NBA Finals last year. Um. If
Speaker 1: a couple of things go differently, they're up three oh
Speaker 1: in that series and they're probably playing in the finals. Um.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I just trust him more on
Speaker 1: a night to night basis, I just do just from
Speaker 1: an effort Standpad, I agree with you on the mental
Speaker 1: and effort stuff. I think that Janice's motor is as
Speaker 1: good you'll find in the league. He actually reminds me
Speaker 1: of young Lebron in that regard, just that like every night,
Speaker 1: it's like it could be like in Portland on a
Speaker 1: random Tuesday, and he's just bringing that intensity. I guess
Speaker 1: my question or my my like angle on it was,
Speaker 1: I'm evaluating them both as players who are not best
Speaker 1: player on championship team level players because I think we've
Speaker 1: gone past that on our list now. I think after
Speaker 1: I think the tea fours that I think Kauai, Katie,
Speaker 1: uh Lebron and Steph or for me, you know, Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: I put Kevin Durant down as well, But most of
Speaker 1: that Kevin and most of the Anthony Davis over Kevin
Speaker 1: duranthing for the record has to do with like rewarding
Speaker 1: this playoff run, you know, like understanding that, like in
Speaker 1: the proverbial horse race. You know, Anthony Davis should be
Speaker 1: able to go into next year with a certain amount
Speaker 1: of clout as a result of doing what he did.
Speaker 1: And uh and I you know, the chances are I'll
Speaker 1: watch Kevin Durand at Brooklyn, Jersey next year and immediately
Speaker 1: remember that I'm crazy for making that decision. But regardless,
Speaker 1: as far as as far as A d and Jannice go,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at them both as players who
Speaker 1: can't be the best player in the championship team. So
Speaker 1: I'm evaluating them in a different land. Do you think
Speaker 1: from the and from go ahead. Do you think Johannes
Speaker 1: would be meaningfully worse or well, okay, would the Lakers
Speaker 1: be meaningfully worse with Janice there instead of a D.
Speaker 1: So I think it completely changes their team because the
Speaker 1: way Anthony Davis space is there. So I think I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned this earlier, but I I said this
Speaker 1: in my in my Top ten podcast. I think I
Speaker 1: think uh A d and Joannice are the two best
Speaker 1: defensive players in the league, and there's a huge gap
Speaker 1: after them. Like I think, I think like the Goberts
Speaker 1: and the Quais of the world are not even in
Speaker 1: the same like stratosphere as Anthony Davis and honest, because
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis and Janice are the only two perimeter defender
Speaker 1: lockdown perimeter defenders who also happened to be seven feet
Speaker 1: in the league. Like guys like embiid and and and
Speaker 1: uh and uh Gobert are are examples of really tall
Speaker 1: players who can lock down the paint, but you can
Speaker 1: scheme them out of the paint as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: like like whereas Anthony Davis and Janice can, you could
Speaker 1: literally put them on on DJ Augustine and they to
Speaker 1: shut them down, you know, and from that standpoint, I
Speaker 1: think that uniquely qualifies them for defensive impact that all
Speaker 1: of the other four forty eight players in the league
Speaker 1: cannot qualify for. But aside from that, and now I'm
Speaker 1: looking at them as set and best offensive players on teams.
Speaker 1: So Janice is miscast. Now I agree with you, as
Speaker 1: the best offensive player on his team, but I do
Speaker 1: think that I do think that it's telling that you know,
Speaker 1: when when your offensive isolation game gets shut down, you
Speaker 1: have to find other ways to score. So for most players,
Speaker 1: you know it involves closing down the lane. So with
Speaker 1: the Lebron and Janice and Anthony Davis, a Kauai, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, you shut down the lane, you turn them
Speaker 1: into jump shooters, right, So so there's this huge gap
Speaker 1: between Anthony Davis and Jannie in terms of their jump shooting,
Speaker 1: which is part of the reason why in the in
Speaker 1: the finals, even though Eric Spoelster completely closed down the lane,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis was still able to get to his twenty
Speaker 1: six point points per game on ridiculous sufficiency, as opposed
Speaker 1: to Janice falling down to I think like twenty two,
Speaker 1: and then the previous year against Toronto like twenty three.
Speaker 1: I think that both of them can be based on
Speaker 1: the offensive glass, and I think you saw that. I
Speaker 1: think even in the Miami series, a lot of Johannice's
Speaker 1: baskets came on the offensive glass. Both of them can
Speaker 1: operate out of the dunker spot with a playmaker. Now,
Speaker 1: to your point, Johannest doesn't really have that luxury which
Speaker 1: can really affect him in that regard. But Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: can uh shoot the ball from the perimeter extremely well.
Speaker 1: I guess the only I guess if I'm being fair, though,
Speaker 1: I would you could say the same thing about Janice's
Speaker 1: playmaking ability. While I don't think Janice is a great playmaker,
Speaker 1: I think he's pretty average. I think Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: pretty far below average, and so I think that there's
Speaker 1: a gap that can be uh talked about there. But
Speaker 1: I think part of it is rewarding Anthony Davis for
Speaker 1: what was a championship run. And then the other part
Speaker 1: of it is just the way that Anthony Davis. I
Speaker 1: was impressed that when the defense completely took him out
Speaker 1: of his of his post up game and basically turned
Speaker 1: him into a contested jump shooter, a spot up three
Speaker 1: point shooter. And a guy who operated out of the
Speaker 1: dunker spot that he still had a pretty damn big
Speaker 1: impact on the game from that standpoint. Um, but I agree.
Speaker 1: I agree with you that like it kind of is
Speaker 1: similar to the Lebron MJ thing where we're kind of
Speaker 1: contextualizing and entirely different circumstances. Like Honest is now a
Speaker 1: number one, Anthony Davis is a number two a D.
Speaker 1: A D is playing with the player that accentuates and
Speaker 1: uh accentuates his strengths and kind of masks his flaws,
Speaker 1: whereas the honest is by himself. So when the team
Speaker 1: like Miami exposes his flaws, it's like glaring, you know.
Speaker 1: But I see where we're coming from on there, and
Speaker 1: I'll allow it. So let's let's move on to the
Speaker 1: next one on your list. So that five, eight, six
Speaker 1: I had Yoka to seven? Is that where you had him?
Speaker 1: And where nine? Okay? Yeah, I I have heard seven. Um,
Speaker 1: I think he's a championship level offensive engine if you
Speaker 1: put the right pieces around him. But because why I
Speaker 1: haven't brother done to listen some of those other guys,
Speaker 1: Because the defense as a center, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: build around a guy who can't detect the him at
Speaker 1: a fairly elite level, right if you're if you can
Speaker 1: you can hide guards defensively, you can even hide wings
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, not as much, but you can't
Speaker 1: really hide centers. Um. So if he was better defensively,
Speaker 1: if he somehow figures out that end, they're gonna be scary.
Speaker 1: That Denver team is gonna be really scary because I
Speaker 1: think they're starting to build something there. Um. And he
Speaker 1: is a tremendous, tremendous offensive talent. I mean, I obviously
Speaker 1: wasn't old enough to watch anybody like Bill Walton play,
Speaker 1: but or or Vitus a bonus really, but those are
Speaker 1: kind of the two names that are throwing around as
Speaker 1: the greatest passing big men ever. Um, I would be
Speaker 1: shocked if yog which wasn't right there with those guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is a tremendous pastor. He can score
Speaker 1: an isolation. Not as good as some of the other guys,
Speaker 1: and I think you pointed this to not as good
Speaker 1: as some of the best guys, but he can absolutely
Speaker 1: do it. Um. His numbers get better in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: his shooting percentages, his scoring. I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: a Cisco up or down, but he usually outperforms his
Speaker 1: reagul their season. At least through the first two playoff
Speaker 1: appearances of his career, he outperforms his regular season in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, which is huge, big margin, by a big margin.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I could really even hear an argument
Speaker 1: for putting him as high as like five, but I would,
Speaker 1: I really just because of the chasm between the defensive
Speaker 1: end between him and a D And honest, I would
Speaker 1: have a really tough time gating that because they're both
Speaker 1: so unpactful defenders. They're they're defensive player of the year
Speaker 1: type of defenders, while Yokich is middle tier at best. Um.
Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously it's for mendas player, um, a
Speaker 1: guy that I love watching play, But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: seventh about right for him. Who do you have at seven?
Speaker 1: So I I put Luca at seven and got part
Speaker 1: in an eight. And the big reason why I put
Speaker 1: below those guys centers around what you said before, like
Speaker 1: the difficulty around scheming for a bad defensive center and
Speaker 1: then to just like not quite as dumb and it
Speaker 1: as a as a score. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people would say a lot of people would say oh, well,
Speaker 1: why did Yogis beat the Clippers and Luca didn't? And
Speaker 1: I think what I would tell you is that I
Speaker 1: really do think that the Kristaps injury hurt that Dallas team,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a really good case that that
Speaker 1: could have been a first round loss if if Kristaps
Speaker 1: was healthy. And the reality is is what I view
Speaker 1: Luca as is basically a perimeter Yogis who's a better
Speaker 1: score and who's easier to scheme around defensively. So that
Speaker 1: was the big reason why I had him up there.
Speaker 1: And then the big and and then Harden similar thing.
Speaker 1: Harden just uh, Harden's uh this postseason Actually, as much
Speaker 1: as I could slander him for other things, he still
Speaker 1: managed to score the ball pretty efficiently. And then James
Speaker 1: Harden has definitively turned himself into kind of like a
Speaker 1: Steph level defensive player, a guy who knows where to stand,
Speaker 1: who cannot be victimized in switches, who really his main
Speaker 1: defensive shortcomings come in the form of little quick lapses,
Speaker 1: like a random time that he doesn't get back in transition,
Speaker 1: or a random time where he gets caught falling asleep.
Speaker 1: But for the quickness to and he's strong, and he said,
Speaker 1: you can do that. He's turned himself into an average
Speaker 1: defensive player. But like, this is another tier thing where
Speaker 1: I think, like for me, I have, uh, these three guys, Harden,
Speaker 1: Yokich and Luca all kind of in the same tiers.
Speaker 1: So I think you're splitting hairs kind of uh, differentiating
Speaker 1: between those guys. And I'm kind of going against my
Speaker 1: own ideology here because theoretically we should reward Yokis for
Speaker 1: what was this dominant playoff run that said, like I
Speaker 1: the reason why I put Luca in James Harden above
Speaker 1: him center around that position that I've always viewed more valuable.
Speaker 1: You and I've argued about this in the past. I
Speaker 1: just I'm always gonna lean perimeter initiator in a situation
Speaker 1: like this. And then secondly, just that like the reality
Speaker 1: is is like yokich Is you mentioned this earlier. He
Speaker 1: is a very good score who on any given night
Speaker 1: can be a dominant scoring player if you leave him
Speaker 1: in isolation and you don't send help. But but it's
Speaker 1: so clear that guys like Harden and Luca are advanced
Speaker 1: beyond his skill level in that regard. But I do
Speaker 1: agree with you and I view, I view, particularly Luca
Speaker 1: and Yoki, is guys who could one day be guys
Speaker 1: who have that Steph Lebron type impact where it's like
Speaker 1: this supreme offensive engine, me too, me too, um, and
Speaker 1: my my pushback would be on the permitter initiative things.
Speaker 1: I think in some ways Yokich almost is a permitter initiator.
Speaker 1: He does have Jamal Murray on his team, but I mean,
Speaker 1: Murray was obviously fremendous in the playoffs. I don't want
Speaker 1: to take anything away from him, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the time it's his decision making leads a lot to
Speaker 1: be desired. For sure, he's a great score. I think
Speaker 1: we I think we even get super duper hot for
Speaker 1: extend a periods of time. But Yokich is the primary
Speaker 1: creator from that team, and a lot of times he's
Speaker 1: having the phone going off, um the defensive blash, he's
Speaker 1: bringing it up, and teams are pressuring their point guards,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't. That's a weird thing about Yoki. He
Speaker 1: doesn't fit queenly into any you know one archetype. He's
Speaker 1: so unique um And I think guys like that with
Speaker 1: his skill level are so hard to game plant for
Speaker 1: because you really haven't seen anything, you know, that combination
Speaker 1: of scoring and blaymaking from a guy that big, and
Speaker 1: and because of the shifts that have occurred around the league,
Speaker 1: Like I think that's a big part of it too,
Speaker 1: is just Yokis is kind of a market inefficiency in
Speaker 1: the same way that Steph was in two thousand fifteen.
Speaker 1: Like he's precisely, he's so ahead of ahead of his
Speaker 1: position that like right now, people don't know how to
Speaker 1: guard it. I mean, like in two thousand fifteen, like
Speaker 1: guards didn't even know to pick up Steph Curry after
Speaker 1: half court for like the first season and a half,
Speaker 1: like it seems for so puting drop coverag against roll. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's like and I think Yokas just kind
Speaker 1: of taking advantage of that right now, whereas like, uh,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what ended up hurting them against
Speaker 1: the Lakers was the fact that the Lakers had someone
Speaker 1: that could physically match up it's a bad matchup for him.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And but like the bottom line is, like
Speaker 1: I I think that I agree with you, and I
Speaker 1: like all the things about Yokos that you like. I'm
Speaker 1: just when I'm splitting hairs between him and Harden, and Luca.
Speaker 1: That's what I Those are the reasons why I put
Speaker 1: him above. So what do you got after Yokich at seven?
Speaker 1: I got Luca eight, and I'm Jimmy Butler at nine.
Speaker 1: So you have Hardened at ten. I got Dame it ten,
Speaker 1: So you have hearted outside of the top ten. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this isn't even an anti like he was thinking.
Speaker 1: This isn't like me being a Warriors fan and hating
Speaker 1: on the Houston Rockets. I just I'm to the point
Speaker 1: with Harden where it's like it's the same thing every year.
Speaker 1: And if I'm starting a team right now and you say,
Speaker 1: do you want Damian Lillard or James Harden, I'm taking
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard. I'm sorry. If I'm starting a franchise and
Speaker 1: you're as might be, I might be on your side.
Speaker 1: That's what this is what I'm saying because and and
Speaker 1: and it's well, Hardened might be a better isolation score,
Speaker 1: and he might have better look. So I'll preface everything
Speaker 1: that I'm saying about Harden with this. He is one
Speaker 1: of the most tremendously talented offensive players I have ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life. He's an absurdly talented offensive player,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't use his skill set in the correct way.
Speaker 1: He has become so reliant on isolation basketball, like way
Speaker 1: more than even Kevin Durand to the to the point
Speaker 1: where it's so predictable. And we talked about this when
Speaker 1: we analyze the Houston l A series. L A was
Speaker 1: just sending a double at him. They knew he was
Speaker 1: going to pass it out of the double one stand,
Speaker 1: so as soon as he picked up the ball, they
Speaker 1: were already rotating out of the double team almost they
Speaker 1: were already they were pre rotating because they knew exactly
Speaker 1: what was coming. It makes his team, while he still
Speaker 1: got his numbers efficiently this year, it makes his team
Speaker 1: so easy to garden, so easy to guard. And a
Speaker 1: lot of that I think was the way they tried
Speaker 1: to build around him. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: his his statistical dominance has been been because of the
Speaker 1: way they both around him. It's particularly in the regular season.
Speaker 1: They've built around trying to have a guy who could
Speaker 1: be the most statistically dominant player in basketball. And my
Speaker 1: second point would be why I would take game over him.
Speaker 1: If we're gonna talk leadership and wanting to center your
Speaker 1: franchise around one person, This isn't even a conversation. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's not. I mean, we don't even have
Speaker 1: to have the conversation. James Harden runs teammates out Damian
Speaker 1: Lillard has been playing with a guy who really is
Speaker 1: not played made to play with him and C. J McCollum.
Speaker 1: But Calum, I think could be really successful and some
Speaker 1: other um team constructs. You know, I think it could
Speaker 1: be like really good and Philly because they need a
Speaker 1: guy like that. But Dame could have Wind three or
Speaker 1: four years ago. Hey, you need to get somebody in
Speaker 1: here who can actually defend next to me, who breaking
Speaker 1: a different type of skill set. He hasn't done that.
Speaker 1: All he does is trying to lead his team to
Speaker 1: to win, no matter what's happening. So I think you're
Speaker 1: going to get a bunch of crap for this, But
Speaker 1: totally you don't. You don't sound that crazy, be honestly exactly,
Speaker 1: And I know it's an observed take. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I prefaced this was saying Harden is one of the
Speaker 1: most talented offensive players I've ever Well, it's I think
Speaker 1: I think your point. It's gonna feel like Harden slander.
Speaker 1: But I think half of it is just acknowledging that
Speaker 1: the NBA is so ridiculously deep right now. Absolutely, that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of it too. Um So yeah, look, man,
Speaker 1: I a couple of years ago you could have convinced
Speaker 1: me that guy was the top three player in the league.
Speaker 1: But just seeing the way it is now, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing every year. It never changes and there's never
Speaker 1: any progress. If anything, it just gets for us. The
Speaker 1: one year that he had actual playoffs success, he had
Speaker 1: top five point part of all time at his side,
Speaker 1: you got amassed a lot of his flaws exactly. That
Speaker 1: was able to control pace for him, that was able
Speaker 1: to get his teammates efficient looks when when he couldn't
Speaker 1: because his style and play stagnated. Um yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's stuff that we've talked about what's hardened before. So
Speaker 1: I said this in my top ten list. The I
Speaker 1: think that he's one of the few guys is on
Speaker 1: this list that there's a proven way to beat him.
Speaker 1: And I think that that I think that that exact
Speaker 1: point I thought I had him low at at eight.
Speaker 1: So the so I think from that standpoint, like, um,
Speaker 1: I think we're coming from the same at this from
Speaker 1: the same page here. And you know it's funny because
Speaker 1: I as I was looking at Tears, I was comparing
Speaker 1: hard into your kitchen, Luca, And you're right, like, I
Speaker 1: think what he does, I think right, no, I And
Speaker 1: I made that case based on his his versatility, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I think Luca, I think Luca as a playmaker,
Speaker 1: and I think James Harden is a guy who can pass.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a huge difference. And uh and
Speaker 1: but you're right, like now that I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: from the angle of Dame versus Harden, like that's like
Speaker 1: I have to think about that one and Game and
Speaker 1: to be clear, game as a case. To be clear,
Speaker 1: game has not been a great playoff performance, Like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna lay that out there as well. But
Speaker 1: he just had an all time statistical regular season. Um,
Speaker 1: not that Harden hasn't. But once again, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff that happened to Dame in the
Speaker 1: playoffs situde a team construct. I just think they have
Speaker 1: not done a great job. This is a great This
Speaker 1: is a great segue because I had Dame over Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler because I said that if Dame was in Miami
Speaker 1: that he would look, you know, like he'd be doing this,
Speaker 1: he'd be making finals runs and stuff. So my question,
Speaker 1: so this will actually be a perfect one for us
Speaker 1: to end on. And I think it's good because I've
Speaker 1: taken a lot of flak for this one, and you're
Speaker 1: kind of a good opposite perspective. Why do you have
Speaker 1: Jimmy so high? I wanted to have him as high
Speaker 1: as seven, but I couldn't. I couldn't be honest with
Speaker 1: myself and do that. So I refresh my mind here.
Speaker 1: I know there were three things that you laid out
Speaker 1: as what you value for um being a top ten planer.
Speaker 1: It was defensive versatility, UM isolation scoring, and then uh, playmaking.
Speaker 1: I think we're the three. Yeah. It was like a
Speaker 1: leite high end playmaker, elate high end isolation scoring, and
Speaker 1: elite high end defensive versatility. Okay, so I would say
Speaker 1: Jimmy is very good to elite and all three of
Speaker 1: those categories. He's incredibly defensive versatile. He can basically guard
Speaker 1: anything one through four. He the way he reads rotations
Speaker 1: defensively is almost Draymond Greenlight off the ball. He arrives
Speaker 1: at spots before the offensive player even knows they're gonna
Speaker 1: be there, And that's like a super super rare trade
Speaker 1: that you don't see from you see like five six
Speaker 1: guys in the league. Maybe if that so, he's super
Speaker 1: defensively versatile. People say, oh, is isolation scoring? Is this
Speaker 1: or that number one? How many guys in the league
Speaker 1: are actually better at than him as an isolation score
Speaker 1: I know, it doesn't look pretty. Doesn't look pretty with
Speaker 1: like and I'm not making a dead comparison between two.
Speaker 1: Doesn't look pretty with Lebron a lot at the time, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily have to look pretty. So well, what's
Speaker 1: your well, what's your rational zation for the fact that, like,
Speaker 1: statistically speaking, he's not even in the top two, three
Speaker 1: four tiers of scorers and games. Yeah, he's a twenties
Speaker 1: pointing game guy. He's like Chris Middleton in terms of
Speaker 1: statistical production. Well, he has a super high free throw rate.
Speaker 1: You get to the free throw free throw line at
Speaker 1: a higher rate than almost anybody in the league. And
Speaker 1: when when the and I know you said, well, the
Speaker 1: Lakers gave bad defensive meator when they left him in isolation.
Speaker 1: He had a forty point triple double without two of
Speaker 1: his best teammates on the floor, and then he had
Speaker 1: a thirty five point Game five, where Lebron was probably
Speaker 1: better in that game, but Jimmy was damn good. How
Speaker 1: many guys can say they've gone total total Lebron and
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, same position only for two games and had
Speaker 1: the worst team and gotten wins. Well, I think I
Speaker 1: think this is where people, uh, like they're overvaluing the finals.
Speaker 1: I people, you know, I think this is where people
Speaker 1: went cross wise with me and I and I got confused,
Speaker 1: you know, as to where the pushback was coming from,
Speaker 1: because like, like, I think there's different conversations to have.
Speaker 1: Like there's a conversation around how amazing Jimmy was in
Speaker 1: the finals, and then there's a conversation about how good
Speaker 1: is he at basketball compared to some of his peers,
Speaker 1: because like, for instance, you know, Rondo was unfreaking believable
Speaker 1: and you know in four or five of the of
Speaker 1: the playoff games, including games six of the finals, but
Speaker 1: like he was also like terrible in a bunch of
Speaker 1: the other games. And I don't think anybody in the
Speaker 1: world would say he's a top fifteen point guard, you know,
Speaker 1: but he was the best of the arguably the best
Speaker 1: point guard in the floor in the finals. So like
Speaker 1: the thing is, like when I'm when I'm talking about this,
Speaker 1: I think people confuse me, you know, dissecting Jimmy's game
Speaker 1: with slandering his performance. His performance in the finals was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: He was he was the reason why that series win
Speaker 1: six games. There's absolutely no other opinion you can hold.
Speaker 1: And I'm not slandering that. I'm just saying, you know.
Speaker 1: And for instance, one of the reasons why I spoke
Speaker 1: so much about the Laker defensive effort is the Lakers
Speaker 1: defense has never been a great isolation defense team. They
Speaker 1: consistently have had have put weak individual defenders on the floor.
Speaker 1: Danny Green was a weak individual defender this year. Cantabious
Speaker 1: call Bo Pope was a weak individual defender this year.
Speaker 1: There are centers. While they did okay, like Dwight had
Speaker 1: some success against your kids, but there their centers were
Speaker 1: not good in switches this year. Their whole scheme was
Speaker 1: built on if you got you, you would put Lebron
Speaker 1: or a d on the best player, but if for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, a screen or some sort of action got
Speaker 1: them off of the body, you would send help in double,
Speaker 1: And that was the problem that I had with it,
Speaker 1: is like, you're right, Jimmy absolutely towards Mark Keith Morris,
Speaker 1: and he absolutely torched contabious, called Pope Pope, and he
Speaker 1: absolutely towards you know, Caruso when he was too small,
Speaker 1: and all these other things. But I I always just
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, we had all of this evidence
Speaker 1: for basically six years that Jimmy was a twenty point
Speaker 1: of game playoff guy, the twenty one point a game
Speaker 1: regular season guy, and then two games in the finals happened.
Speaker 1: And while those finals performances should be lauded for what
Speaker 1: they are, which is amazing finals performances, and Jimmy deserves
Speaker 1: credit all of the above. If I'm projecting forward, like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the Anthony Davis jump shooting thing,
Speaker 1: Like Anthony Davis deserves all this credit for making a
Speaker 1: ton of amazing contested jump shots in that playoff run.
Speaker 1: But the reality is is that, like, if you're projecting
Speaker 1: for next season, he's probably he's probably not gonna be
Speaker 1: a fifty mid range guy, you know, so, and that's
Speaker 1: that's all I'm saying with Jimmy, is like Jimmy's Finals
Speaker 1: performance was unbelievable, But we have six years of evidence
Speaker 1: that he's a below average isolation scorer or you know,
Speaker 1: in that Chris Middleton tier, meaning like he's very good,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of guys who are better than him.
Speaker 1: So my my pushback would be, I think he's more
Speaker 1: reliable in the playoffs because she can get to the
Speaker 1: free throw line in Middleton camp for sure. And I
Speaker 1: for the record, Jimmy Butler, I'm just saying, I'm saying that,
Speaker 1: like his impact goes beyond his stats. I'm just saying that,
Speaker 1: like I don't. I think he's closer to what his
Speaker 1: averages are than thirty point triple double guy. Sure, And
Speaker 1: that's so my argument would set in the center around
Speaker 1: Jimmy being uniquely impacted. He is one of the most
Speaker 1: scalable players in the league. I think we've seen if
Speaker 1: you need him to get thirty, he can't if you
Speaker 1: don't want to have to do it every night. But
Speaker 1: if you need him to do it, he can't. He's
Speaker 1: also a super duper underrating playmaker. He's a really good
Speaker 1: pastor um and I think his ISO game is more
Speaker 1: reliable in the playoffs than other guys. Is that Sixers
Speaker 1: team last year took the Rappers, the eventual champion Rappers,
Speaker 1: to seven games, but then be scoring like seventeen points
Speaker 1: a game on like thirty seven percent shooting like and
Speaker 1: that a lot of that was due to Jimmy being
Speaker 1: able to go head to head with Kauai and not
Speaker 1: from a scoring standpoint, but just being impactful in so
Speaker 1: many unique ways. It's it's the same argument that I'd
Speaker 1: almost made from Draymond four or five years ago being
Speaker 1: a top ten player. Right, The numbers are never gonna
Speaker 1: look great, you know. Some of it is dependent on
Speaker 1: team construct where you can put certain guys around him.
Speaker 1: But if those guys around him, he is so impactful
Speaker 1: that he's going to give your team like Conference Finals
Speaker 1: four basically, right. So while I do understand not putting
Speaker 1: him there for the reasons you laid out, I think
Speaker 1: he can fit into so many different constructs and he
Speaker 1: the same amount of impactful or more impactful depending on
Speaker 1: where he is that I think he has a case
Speaker 1: for top ten. I mean, so you had you had
Speaker 1: a player on the final seven, right or was it
Speaker 1: I can't remember Jimmy yeah, nine, nine, nine, So I
Speaker 1: guess I had him behind Luke. So before the season,
Speaker 1: he won three playoffs series, one when he was a
Speaker 1: very small role role player with the Bowls I think
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve or something, and then uh,
Speaker 1: and then he basically won two first round playoff series
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference, the terrible, terrible Eastern Conference. Other
Speaker 1: than that, he hasn't won a playoff series. So I
Speaker 1: guess my question for you would be, you know a
Speaker 1: player at that level, you know, I would like to
Speaker 1: see And I guess that's I guess the other guys
Speaker 1: in his peer in his his peers in that tier,
Speaker 1: like like Luca and Yo Kits are also kind of
Speaker 1: you know, lacking the volume of success. So I'm with
Speaker 1: I think that again it's splitting hairs because like for
Speaker 1: me putting him at eleven, all I'm doing is I'm
Speaker 1: putting Damon James Harden about him and you're not, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's not that I think he's been in terrible
Speaker 1: situations until basically this year, I mean, like uniquely bad situation.
Speaker 1: Chicago tried that whole three Alpha's thing with him and
Speaker 1: Wade and Rondo Um and then he was in Minister.
Speaker 1: He took that MINNITOA the team the playoffs in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: fret that hadn't been in the playoffs in seventeen years
Speaker 1: and they haven't been sent And we know the story
Speaker 1: on Caton Wiggins. Now those guys aren't winning players. Um
Speaker 1: and then Philly, that organization is a dumpster fire most
Speaker 1: playoffs success. And then this year, you know, the he
Speaker 1: team that hadn't been hadn't really sniffed the finals in
Speaker 1: a while, he took him there. So and and I
Speaker 1: think what he has the ability to do is say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need just to try to get thirty on this night.
Speaker 1: I can help by scoring volume. I can try to
Speaker 1: get to the free throw line more. I can take
Speaker 1: a couple more jump shots on nights where you know
Speaker 1: band has it going. I'm gonna be the most impactful
Speaker 1: defensive player on the floor. You know a nights were
Speaker 1: go on doing more the playmate. I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: great cutter. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1: For most guys, I don't think are willing to do that.
Speaker 1: And I think that is super duper value valuable, and
Speaker 1: I think we actually undervalue it, the willingness to play
Speaker 1: different rules at a highly highly impactful level, and he
Speaker 1: could do all of them. The only he can't do
Speaker 1: it is super highly impact the level is shoot three
Speaker 1: pointers and and that would be my argument. He does
Speaker 1: so many things that a really elite level. Well tell me,
Speaker 1: I think I think you have at least got me
Speaker 1: to open up my mind a little bit on a
Speaker 1: couple of things, namely that my James harden Slader may
Speaker 1: not be enough that uh, I actually see the Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: you honest thing from a different light. And I understand
Speaker 1: your case for Kevin Duranti's highest three. Um. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is why I wanted to have you on. I think
Speaker 1: you bring an interesting perspective and uh, I think you
Speaker 1: and I disagree on a lot of stuff, which I
Speaker 1: think is good. But at the same time, you're not
Speaker 1: an absolute pain in the ass about it, so that
Speaker 1: makes it a little bit easier. But anyway, dude, I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking the time to come on. That
Speaker 1: was a good a wow, an hour and a half
Speaker 1: and a half that was got back to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear you, I hear you, But thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to convert this into an audio file,
Speaker 1: so that I can put it on my podcast feed
Speaker 1: for all of you who have listened. Um, but again thanks,
Speaker 1: and then at some point in the future during this
Speaker 1: UH offseason, we'll come up with something fun else to
Speaker 1: talk about, just to kill a time, all right, brother,
Speaker 1: have a good one. Letter