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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to hoo tonight. You're at the volume
Speaker 2: heavy Sunday. Everybody, hope all the guys are having a
Speaker 2: great weekend. Well, today, I woke up this morning thinking
Speaker 2: we're going to crown a new NBA champion today. It's
Speaker 2: been a long time since we've had a Game seven
Speaker 2: of the NBA Finals, and it got off to a
Speaker 2: little bit of a bummer start as Tyre's Halliburton goes
Speaker 2: down with what we can only assume is an achilles injury.
Speaker 2: The eight Achilles tear in the NBA this season a
Speaker 2: very bizarre trend, Colin and I are going to spend
Speaker 2: some time talking about that towards the tail end of
Speaker 2: the show tonight. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five NBA champions, Colin, what's your big takeaway
Speaker 2: from the NBA Finals this year?
Speaker 1: Well, our NFL champion Philadelphia is about roster construction and
Speaker 1: the best GM, and you have a clear number one,
Speaker 1: and that's Oklahoma City. Whereas the modern games about scoring
Speaker 1: and wings and high flying, they're about their general manager,
Speaker 1: their depth, their youth, their legs, and a kind of
Speaker 1: non verse article leading score who goes against type. For
Speaker 1: the NBA stars we fall in love with. And you
Speaker 1: know I've been saying this on FS one, I've been
Speaker 1: saying this for months. Is the NBA now because of
Speaker 1: the Aprons and the CBA is going to be like
Speaker 1: the NFL. We're going to talk more about general managers.
Speaker 1: You can't stack players, and I think you know they
Speaker 1: were the best team all season. The home court ended
Speaker 1: up mattering against Indie and Denver, you know, really formidable
Speaker 1: opponents that had some older star players. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think in the end, you know, when you look
Speaker 1: back at this season, you'll go, well, they were a
Speaker 1: dominant regular season team. They weren't a great road team
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, but they were dominant at home and
Speaker 1: that's where they were crowned. And you know, that's why
Speaker 1: the regular season does matter. It may not look like
Speaker 1: the playoffs, but Oklahoma City, I don't think it's winning
Speaker 1: this thing on the road, and so they earned it.
Speaker 1: And you know, the the injuries, gutting, but that stuff happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kd's gone down in big games. I mean
Speaker 1: it happens. So and I think over the course of
Speaker 1: this season, Okasey was the best team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not interested in any talk about asterisks. For
Speaker 2: the most part, in NBA history, almost every championship has
Speaker 2: some injury you can point to that impacted things in
Speaker 2: one way or another. And ultimately, I think Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: did this to healthy teams along the way too.
Speaker 3: They played.
Speaker 2: They played some really good teams, Colin. They went through
Speaker 2: the best the best player in the world and Nicola
Speaker 2: Jokic and played him into the first three consecutive bad
Speaker 2: game stretch I've literally ever seen him play. They took
Speaker 2: that Minnesota team that was kicking everybody's butt and they
Speaker 2: handled them like easily. And then the Pacers, who have
Speaker 2: been the kind of the enigma of this of this
Speaker 2: playoff run, every time they needed to beat them, they
Speaker 2: were able to contain them and keep them under control.
Speaker 2: You Know, we talked after Game five, like there is
Speaker 2: this test that you have to pass to beat the
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City Thunder, and it's that when the shit hits
Speaker 2: the fan and there's a few minutes left in a
Speaker 2: big game where the series is hanging in the balance,
Speaker 2: they are going to tighten the screws defensively. In every
Speaker 2: single series, the opposing team fell apart, whether it was
Speaker 2: Denver at multiple spots in Game four in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: in Game five in the fourth quarter, the entirety of
Speaker 2: Game seven. What we saw in big spots against Minnesota,
Speaker 2: specifically down the stretch of Game four. In this series,
Speaker 2: in Game four, down the stretch, they just strangle the
Speaker 2: life out of Indiana. In Game five, it's ninety five
Speaker 2: ninety three off of a Siakam offensive rebound three. It's
Speaker 2: a two point game. You're like, oh man, this could
Speaker 2: go either way. Literally turns the Pacers over four consecutive
Speaker 2: times just with the strength of their defense, and then
Speaker 2: again tonight. You know, admirable effort from the Pacers there
Speaker 2: in that first half to keep things competitive. TJ McConnell,
Speaker 2: I'll always remember the way he played in this series.
Speaker 2: What a remarkable performance from him. But they came out
Speaker 2: the gates in that third quarter and they tightened the
Speaker 2: screws and they turn the Pacers over and they got
Speaker 2: out in transition. They finished this game with twenty three
Speaker 2: forced turnovers in thirty two points off of turnovers. That's
Speaker 2: the star of this team.
Speaker 1: I said this the other day to you, is the
Speaker 1: one thing you have to have against OKAC is two
Speaker 1: elite ball handlers. So when Halliburton goes down, they play
Speaker 1: with guts and toughness and length, but in the end
Speaker 1: they just it's turnovers. There's no Halliburton if you don't
Speaker 1: have elite ball handlers against this team. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: fallen in love with a three and D in the wings.
Speaker 1: Well o case he's got a lot of them, but
Speaker 1: there is a way to combat that is to have
Speaker 1: guys that can create space that you can't trap and
Speaker 1: double them. And TJ. McCall's excellent. But again, when Halliburton
Speaker 1: got hurt the first time, again they show great courage
Speaker 1: and gusto, but there's just limitations on that. You can
Speaker 1: only play down your most important players so long. So
Speaker 1: you know, there was that I think it was like
Speaker 1: at one point there was a go I wrote it
Speaker 1: down here. There was a huge nineteen to two Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City run. A lot of that kick started by defense,
Speaker 1: and so they just feast on teams and you know what,
Speaker 1: you know what, they're a little bit like they're like
Speaker 1: a fighter who sends his blood. Like, okay, see, they're
Speaker 1: not dominant enough offensively to just blow you out against
Speaker 1: great teams, against Denver and Indy. They can score, they
Speaker 1: have runs, but when they sense blood, somebody's in foul, trouble,
Speaker 1: somebody's hurt your start. You know, they have a matchup advantage. Man.
Speaker 1: They play downhill, they play downhill fast, and you look
Speaker 1: up and you're like, well, this was a four point game.
Speaker 1: Now it's a thirteen point game. And you know that's
Speaker 1: what great teams do. Their run looks different than a
Speaker 1: Jordan explosion or a Shaq Kobe explosion, but nonetheless it's
Speaker 1: a burst, and everybody looks different, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: so I listen all my notes here, I look through.
Speaker 1: I kept waiting for the inevitable run, and it happened,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, it was off turnovers, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of felt like I saw an SRR stat.
Speaker 1: I think that's what it's called, an SRR stat about Indiana.
Speaker 1: And they said, if Indiana wins, they'll be the worst
Speaker 1: champion since the nineteen seventy eight Washington Bullets, which by
Speaker 1: the way, I can name the entire roster because it
Speaker 1: was when I fell in love with basketball. But the
Speaker 1: truth was is if Indiana one, it was probably our
Speaker 1: weakest champion. Though I love them, and okaysee wins. At
Speaker 1: least we can hang this boy, that's a top five
Speaker 1: defensive team all time. We can hang something that sounds
Speaker 1: like a champion, NBA's leading scorer, deepest team in years,
Speaker 1: all time, top five defense that sounds like a champion,
Speaker 1: does it not?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Their defense is one of the great defenses that has
Speaker 2: ever played in the NBA like that was true in
Speaker 2: the metrics, and all we can do to tie that
Speaker 2: case together is what the metrics showed in the regular season,
Speaker 2: and then what do you do in the playoffs against
Speaker 2: the competition you faced. This was a Pacers offense that
Speaker 2: was lighting everybody up, Colin and they got strangled every
Speaker 2: single time it mattered.
Speaker 3: Nikola Jokic is literally the.
Speaker 2: Best offensive player I've ever watched, and he and they
Speaker 2: had him under control in every pivotal moment of that series.
Speaker 2: That is the type of defense that we watched. You know,
Speaker 2: this Thunder offense was frustrating. Sometimes we're gonna talk about
Speaker 2: Shaye in a few minutes, Like Shay was great every
Speaker 2: time he needed to be great, but there were some
Speaker 2: downsides here. He had a game in this series where
Speaker 2: had zero assists. They had games where they'd moved the
Speaker 2: ball poorly, where they were out of rhythm, out of flow.
Speaker 2: They're young players, young players against elite playoff defense. That
Speaker 2: that's going to take some time to figure out. And
Speaker 2: there's no doubt that if the Thunder are going to
Speaker 2: have sustained success in this league, they're gonna have to
Speaker 2: figure out some things offensively to be better year after
Speaker 2: year after year. But their defense right now is elite
Speaker 2: hold the trophy defense, and that's what came through for them. Again.
Speaker 1: I was really interested to see if chet Holmgren could
Speaker 1: deliver finally, and I thought in the second half it
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, chet Holmgren played with more confidence. That
Speaker 1: was my only question. I thought, Man, if this is
Speaker 1: a three point game and there's four minutes left, okay,
Speaker 1: see Home Favorite could get really tight. And they left
Speaker 1: no doubt. But I thought Homegroun and Jay Dubb both
Speaker 1: in the second half, played well in that run. So
Speaker 1: and that was one of my concerns is that I've
Speaker 1: never seen a young team like this young win a championship.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was thinking about this as you
Speaker 1: were talking about SJ. SGA. Usually, let's say, for instance,
Speaker 1: Shaq wasn't hitting his free throws, he still had all
Speaker 1: time power. If Kobe and MJ weren't hitting their jumper,
Speaker 1: they could go vertical Magic Johnson struggling from the field.
Speaker 1: He just had a size advantage. He'd back you down.
Speaker 1: Sga is not a vertical player. So if he's off
Speaker 1: and he's off center, he doesn't have power. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have speed. He doesn't have He's not he's not you know,
Speaker 1: he's strong for his size. He's not a vertical player.
Speaker 1: He is a mid range maven. Like he is all
Speaker 1: time stuff. And so you know I've said before is
Speaker 1: he's an all time scorer. But he doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: he's in the Curry class where you're like, wow, I've
Speaker 1: never seen a human like Caitlin. Clark's got some of that.
Speaker 1: You're like, I've never seen that, right, Sga, I've seen it,
Speaker 1: Alex English, Keiky Vandaway. He's just better at it. And
Speaker 1: so I do think you know when you when you
Speaker 1: play better teams and you can get it off his game.
Speaker 1: He has a very centralized game. He's tremendous at it.
Speaker 1: But I think we both admit he needs a friendly whistle,
Speaker 1: and because he's so gifted, he almost always gets it.
Speaker 1: It's not like the hardened whistle, which is like feels illegal.
Speaker 1: That's not it. It's like that feels unstoppable. Is different
Speaker 1: then it feels illegal. But you know he is. I
Speaker 1: love him. I love his maturity. He's just a smart,
Speaker 1: hard working kid. He's impossible not to root for. I
Speaker 1: know everybody doesn't like you know, all the flopping. But
Speaker 1: I have a hard time not rooting for guys who
Speaker 1: are more mature than their age, with completely refined games
Speaker 1: where I can see the work ethic, I can see
Speaker 1: the years you've toiled in a gym. That to me
Speaker 1: as a grinder, like, I love that kind of basketball,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what he embodies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's fascinating because at his age, you know,
Speaker 2: being twenty six, he's kind of in this weird role
Speaker 2: that's reminiscent of some of the roles that you've seen
Speaker 2: guys like Tom Brady and Lebron be in where they're
Speaker 2: the elder statesman.
Speaker 3: In the locker room.
Speaker 2: He's the elder statesman in the locker room at twenty
Speaker 2: six years old. It's such a bizarre dynamic. But to like,
Speaker 2: for if he was an immature player at twenty six,
Speaker 2: this whole thing could fall apart because of the youth
Speaker 2: in that locker room, and he just brings that veteran presence.
Speaker 2: This is the perfect time for us to get into
Speaker 2: the Microsoft bit, and I'm gonna kick it back to you.
Speaker 2: So welcome to course correction brought to you guys by Microsoft.
Speaker 2: Just like Star players and teams navigating performance hurdles, and
Speaker 2: business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get
Speaker 2: things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges
Speaker 2: and opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified
Speaker 2: cloud and data management, and trustworthy responsible AI. And when
Speaker 2: you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face.
Speaker 2: In this segment, we will highlight the player every week
Speaker 2: that has risen to the occasion when his team has
Speaker 2: needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with
Speaker 2: the expertise to say, bring it up. Our player of
Speaker 2: the Week this week is the twenty twenty five NBA
Speaker 2: Finals MVP. It is now official. Shay Giljess Alexander Colin.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about a cool way to frame this segment,
Speaker 2: and all I could think about, like you mentioned with
Speaker 2: the Washington Bullets roster, You know, everything for me, as
Speaker 2: I'm talking about all time greats is kind of played
Speaker 2: through this lens of when I started really following the
Speaker 2: league closely, which for me was in the like around
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, two thousand and six. You've been
Speaker 2: watching a lot of NBA basketball for a really long time,
Speaker 2: You've seen a lot of stars come through the league
Speaker 2: as young players leave the league as vets. What has
Speaker 2: been like your first impression of Shay Gill just Alexander
Speaker 2: as a playoff performer in the NBA.
Speaker 1: That if I go back to Kareem and the skyhook,
Speaker 1: which was unstoppable, unblockable, and he mastered a shot. I'd
Speaker 1: never seen a player master a shot when I first
Speaker 1: watched Kareem, I can remember as a kid in my
Speaker 1: backyard doing it like nobody else shot the hook, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's mid range game. If you look at a lot
Speaker 1: of the great players beyond just scores, they are the
Speaker 1: master of their domain. Like I do what I do,
Speaker 1: and they're all different looking. There was no other There
Speaker 1: was no other Kareem, you know. David Thompson was a
Speaker 1: little Michael, but Michael's mid range game he had three
Speaker 1: or four stock moves, you know, Tim Duncan. The great
Speaker 1: fundamental is that a lot of the all time great players,
Speaker 1: and I've said this about Mahomes can be boring. They
Speaker 1: have mastered what they do frustratingly so. And I look
Speaker 1: at a player who knows exactly what he is, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, he knows what he's not and he leans
Speaker 1: into all of his skills, and I think when you
Speaker 1: watch them play, they can be uneven offensively. The greatest
Speaker 1: thing I can say about SGA. He's their clear dominant
Speaker 1: number one score. So when you play them, I don't
Speaker 1: have to pick Tony Parker Duncan Manu. It's like stop
Speaker 1: him and people can't. And that to me is a
Speaker 1: fastball Like that you know you can beat them. And
Speaker 1: Jay Dubb can have thirty two, or Check could have
Speaker 1: twenty four, or Lou Dort hits five threes, but the
Speaker 1: numbers are if he gets to the free throw line,
Speaker 1: they win. Everybody in the league knows it and they
Speaker 1: can't stop him. Like that is precision, That is mastering
Speaker 1: a craft, and I just I just have great respect
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Duncan comp is super fascinating to me because
Speaker 2: Shay doesn't have some super demonstrative personality on the court.
Speaker 2: He lacks a vertical element to his game. There's nothing
Speaker 2: that like like people who play a lot of basketball,
Speaker 2: Like I've stolen little bits of footwork and moves from
Speaker 2: him that I think are useful moves for young players
Speaker 2: to work on. He's brought his own little kind of
Speaker 2: unique flare to the two guard position, just like Harden did,
Speaker 2: just like Wade did, just like Kobe did, just like
Speaker 2: MJ did. He's got his own like kind of unique
Speaker 2: take on it. But similar to Duncan, even if there
Speaker 2: wasn't that you know, overwhelming optical appeal, it's just surgically effective.
Speaker 2: And no matter what happened in this playoff run, the
Speaker 2: most reliable play type out there was give the ball
Speaker 2: to Shay at the nail and he's probably going to
Speaker 2: either draw foul or get to a mid range jump
Speaker 2: shot that he can hit about fifty five percent of
Speaker 2: the time. And you know, you know, Colin, it has
Speaker 2: not been a perfect NBA Finals for him. He had
Speaker 2: some rough games. But here's the thing. Just about every
Speaker 2: star struggles in their first NBA finals. Lebron struggled in
Speaker 2: his first two NBA finals. It is an impossible stage
Speaker 2: to be to be I shouldn't say it'smpossible, it's a
Speaker 2: very difficult stage to perform well in. And to his credit,
Speaker 2: every single moment in this series where things could have
Speaker 2: gone south. So like Game two, you're down one zero,
Speaker 2: you lose that game. Series is probably over. Game four,
Speaker 2: you're down to one, you lose.
Speaker 3: That game.
Speaker 2: Series is probably over. Game five two to two, you lose,
Speaker 2: that game. Series is probably over. And Game seven series tied.
Speaker 2: If you lose that game, obviously the series is over.
Speaker 2: In every one of those games, I thought he was awesome.
Speaker 2: This is actually hilarious stat Colin. In the four games
Speaker 2: where I thought he played poorly, which was Game one,
Speaker 2: Game three, Game four, in game six, in those games
Speaker 2: he combined for just nine assists. Okay, just nine in
Speaker 2: those four games. In the other three games, in game two,
Speaker 2: in game five, and in game seven, he had thirty
Speaker 2: thirty assists. He averaged ten in those three games. And
Speaker 2: if you watch those games from the start, just surgical
Speaker 2: and precise with the way he was navigating the late
Speaker 2: double teams, the help at the rim, making the kickouts
Speaker 2: to three point shooters, the role man, whether it's hartensteiner Chet,
Speaker 2: I thought, Shay, to his credit, every time the team
Speaker 2: needed him to be great in the series, he was great.
Speaker 2: And I think that is the stereotypical Finals MVP performance.
Speaker 2: I thought he thoroughly deserved it, and most players don't
Speaker 2: even do this well in their first time around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I think I don't think they're
Speaker 1: a great team. I think they could be with age,
Speaker 1: Like next year they'll play and watch next year, Okase
Speaker 1: won't be as dominant in the regular season. They won't
Speaker 1: be that there's no need to be. You're gonna rest players.
Speaker 1: So next year they'll win by an average of six
Speaker 1: point eight, not twelve point nine. Right, They'll try to
Speaker 1: build up. You know, they're gonna try to build up
Speaker 1: their younger players, make their draft picks. They want to
Speaker 1: see guys that can play. So it'll be interesting. But
Speaker 1: next year they'll play like a champion, and so what
Speaker 1: you'll see they'll be a little less uneven to the
Speaker 1: aforementioned stats where you saw him bounce a little bit,
Speaker 1: you'll probably get a little bit less than that. But
Speaker 1: it's also something that Indiana was better defensively than people
Speaker 1: gave him credit for. They could put a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of length on the floor. And I think we
Speaker 1: are going through We've seen it now with multiple teams,
Speaker 1: and I was fooled with Denver. I say it right now.
Speaker 1: The last seven champions have been very good team. Will
Speaker 1: this be a great team. I'm fascinated to watch the
Speaker 1: Houston Rockets now right like Shangoon, I'm on Thompson, Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: It's I want to give Indiana credit because the Haliburton
Speaker 1: injury didn't matter. But in the end, I still like
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. I think when I look at Oklahoma City's
Speaker 1: rough edges, it's mostly Homebrewn just needs another year to grow.
Speaker 1: Like one of the roughest edges is God Homebrewn did
Speaker 1: nothing tonight, Jay Williams, J Dubb. He can stale Williams.
Speaker 1: He can still be uneven, he can be masterful. But
Speaker 1: I think most of the things about them are a
Speaker 1: lot of them are age specific, as young players in
Speaker 1: big games, especially on the road, aren't as good. And
Speaker 1: I just so I look at them and I think, oh,
Speaker 1: they have a chance to be really good next year,
Speaker 1: plays a more confidite team, and I think by the
Speaker 1: way their coaching staff will grow, everybody will just get better.
Speaker 1: But most of my criticisms of Okay see are you
Speaker 1: know you just didn't know game to game what you
Speaker 1: got with chet Holdron on the offensive end. When he
Speaker 1: played well in the second half, It's like, Wow, that's
Speaker 1: a really hard team to beat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a super interesting concept. I want to
Speaker 2: get a little deeper into this. I do need. We're
Speaker 2: going to wrap up Microsoft real quick. That's it for
Speaker 2: this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you
Speaker 2: to take bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new
Speaker 2: ideas to help drive your business forward. With Microsoft as
Speaker 2: your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey with confidence,
Speaker 2: finding innovative solutions, and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot
Speaker 2: com Slash challengers to learn more. So, Colin, to your point,
Speaker 2: I saw this stat before the game, Oklahoma City's net rating,
Speaker 2: And remember net rating is just how much you outscore
Speaker 2: your opponent. Just waited for pace per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City's net rating at home coming into tonight was
Speaker 2: twenty one. They outscored teams by twenty one points per
Speaker 2: one hundred possessions on the road negative six. And so
Speaker 2: to your point, I actually agree with you. I thought
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City kind of underachieved in this playoff run. They
Speaker 2: should have put Denver away sooner, They should have put
Speaker 2: Indiana away sooner. They were not, to me a great
Speaker 2: offensive team for the majority of this playoff run, downright
Speaker 2: ugly at various points. But as we look back through
Speaker 2: NBA history, this is what I look at the Warriors.
Speaker 2: As a corollary here, it's not just stars that tend
Speaker 2: to struggle when they get to the finals the first
Speaker 2: time teams do. The Celtics in twenty twenty two, they
Speaker 2: really struggled. When they showed up in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: they looked like a bunch of grown ups. They handled
Speaker 2: it way better Golden State. Steph played so poorly in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. I think he still deserved Finals MVP, but
Speaker 2: he played so poorly in twenty fifteen, he didn't get
Speaker 2: a single vote for Finals MVP. They were looking at
Speaker 2: his teammate as somebody to give the vote to. They,
Speaker 2: you know, at various points in that playoff run looked
Speaker 2: a little shaky. They trailed to one to Memphis, they
Speaker 2: trailed to one to Cleveland. It is very typical for
Speaker 2: a team that dominates in the regular season but has
Speaker 2: their first truly pressure filled, serious playoff run to be
Speaker 2: a little bumpy. And so the point is is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this year they were a mediocre playoff offense that had
Speaker 2: an elite playoff defense, which was enough to get them
Speaker 2: over the top. But this team has by far the
Speaker 2: most room for internal improvement year over year. I'd argue
Speaker 2: in the entire NBA, like Jada, you talked about the oscillations.
Speaker 2: The oscillations are classic young player stuff. I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how many times anybody who spends any time coaching
Speaker 2: young basketball players, you'll see them do something that works.
Speaker 2: You'll be a nice job, and then they'll go on
Speaker 2: the next possession and they'll do something completely different and
Speaker 2: you're like, just do the same thing, do the same
Speaker 2: thing that you just did, and it works, and then
Speaker 2: when they make mistakes, they can repeat them. They struggled
Speaker 2: to cut out mistakes and the struggle to repeat their
Speaker 2: successes young players over time. You don't think Shay remembers
Speaker 2: how he played in those three bad in those four
Speaker 2: bad games. He knows, he knows, he learned lessons in
Speaker 2: that in that process, and Shay will be better. Shay
Speaker 2: will just be more consistent. I believe Ja dub can
Speaker 2: get substantially better. Chet was a nightmare offensively in this
Speaker 2: postseason run.
Speaker 3: Nightmare.
Speaker 2: And this is a guy who spends summers working out
Speaker 2: with Kevin Durant, who has, like all he has all
Speaker 2: NBA offensive potential, and so maybe they're not that team yet,
Speaker 2: but they absolutely can get there. And all you have
Speaker 2: to do in this era where nobody's winning multiple championships
Speaker 2: is win multiple championships and pretty quickly you will like
Speaker 2: establish yourself as one of the all time great teams.
Speaker 2: I'm with you, they were. This was a rocky road,
Speaker 2: but they got it done. If you were gonna beat
Speaker 2: the Thunder, this was the year. This was the year
Speaker 2: where they're young, they're thin. Chet has never been in
Speaker 2: these big moments before, Like this was the year to
Speaker 2: beat them and nobody could get it done. And it's
Speaker 2: only gonna go up from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think Houston now has to be considered
Speaker 1: very interesting. I contend Dallas when everybody's healthy. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly where Kyrie is going to be. I
Speaker 1: love their size and length. I also think, you know,
Speaker 1: the NBA, especially out West, has some really good gms.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of levers to pull here. And even
Speaker 1: though and I've told you, I think draft picks are
Speaker 1: going to matter more. Like everybody's banging on the suns today,
Speaker 1: what if that number ten pick ends up being a really,
Speaker 1: really good player and they have all these second round
Speaker 1: picks and they can figure out a way to move
Speaker 1: one of the other players and get another first round pick.
Speaker 1: And I think Oklahoma City is going to be very
Speaker 1: good for a very long time. But I still think
Speaker 1: and we've seen it this year, these long playoff runs.
Speaker 1: You see it with pitching staffs, and you see it
Speaker 1: with teams. You keep going to seven games against Western
Speaker 1: teams and in the finals, I don't like it. I
Speaker 1: think you're going to have more injuries. I don't remember
Speaker 1: a two year stretch where we had more key injuries
Speaker 1: to star players. So you know, it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: They've got the they've got a lot of depth, but
Speaker 1: they do have one dependable score So keeping SGA healthy
Speaker 1: and trying to develop second, third, and fourth scorers is
Speaker 1: a real thing because they're inconsistent there. But it is
Speaker 1: you know, as I look at this playoff series, one
Speaker 1: of my takeaways is, and I've been on this four years,
Speaker 1: you do not need seven games in the first round,
Speaker 1: like and you say, well, it could be a sweep.
Speaker 1: You do not need four game sweeps. You could do it.
Speaker 1: You could do it in five games or three games.
Speaker 1: So I think OKAC is not good enough to be brittle,
Speaker 1: injury riddled. I think healthy. You know, we always say
Speaker 1: it in the NFL, it's attrition these playoffs. Cleveland fell
Speaker 1: apart the year before New York fell apart, and that
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of it. I think the
Speaker 1: West is gonna be razor thin keep you know, we
Speaker 1: all know San Antonio is gonna take a jump. So
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it is if we're gonna
Speaker 1: keep doing seven game series. Well, a lot of it
Speaker 1: is who's healthy because a lot of guys went to
Speaker 1: the floor this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Okay, so he's super young, and they just
Speaker 2: held up. They kind of physically wore everybody down over
Speaker 2: the course of this Playffron because they just have this
Speaker 2: deep rotation of young players.
Speaker 3: I agree. I agree with you.
Speaker 2: For the record, I want to be clear, like I
Speaker 2: do not think this Oklahoma City team is the KD
Speaker 2: STEPH Warriors, Like that team felt borderline unbeatable when they
Speaker 2: were healthy. Like I don't think this Oklahoma City team
Speaker 2: is unbeatable. I just think we haven't seen their ceiling yet.
Speaker 2: I think there's a level they can get to, especially
Speaker 2: in the offensive end of the floor, that we haven't
Speaker 2: seen yet, and I'm curious to see where that ends
Speaker 2: up is does that end up being a team that's
Speaker 2: just like all the other champions recently they can't repeat,
Speaker 2: or does it end up being a team that ends
Speaker 2: up making a mark on this air. But the injuries
Speaker 2: thing is fascinating. So we have a shout out to Josh.
Speaker 2: It gave us the stat before the show, the Tyres
Speaker 2: Haliburton achilles tear. If that confirms to be what it is,
Speaker 2: which is what it looked like. I mean ABC made
Speaker 2: us watch it thirty times. I have no idea what
Speaker 2: that was all about, but that would be the eighth
Speaker 2: achilles tear in the NBA this year. The previous season
Speaker 2: high was five. What do you make of this, like
Speaker 2: upticking these weird severe injuries in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, the pace is faster, the players are better,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a more physical postseason. It's just
Speaker 1: more taxing on the bodies and these athletes now come
Speaker 1: into the season in shape. You're just asking a lot.
Speaker 1: I means, you know, like we can criticize Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: of Denver sort of playing himself into shape and Luca,
Speaker 1: but I think I think there are very few Lebron's
Speaker 1: out there where the body just holds up. And I think,
Speaker 1: I think guys, I think the level of play, the
Speaker 1: level of pace, the level of physicality. These guys are
Speaker 1: more like tightly tuned violins and it just doesn't take much.
Speaker 1: And so I don't I just do. Listen, college basketball
Speaker 1: doesn't have near the quality of talent of the NBA,
Speaker 1: But why are their ratings often beating NBA playoff games?
Speaker 1: Because of the urgency And we all know baseball you
Speaker 1: have to have a longer series because such a big
Speaker 1: component of baseball as starting pitching, so you know you're
Speaker 1: setting up your pitching. That's part of the chess match
Speaker 1: of baseball. But I don't think in basketball I need
Speaker 1: a seven game series. Michael Jordan's big years it was
Speaker 1: a five gamer until you get to later rounds. And
Speaker 1: I just think, I think Adam Silver and I'll give
Speaker 1: Rob Manfred and Roger Goodell credit. I think our commissioners
Speaker 1: see this. They're very open minded. Manford's made multiple big swings,
Speaker 1: you know, which goes against baseball's history. Basketball has been,
Speaker 1: you know, a much more progressive, willing to experiment league. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, the new ball David Sturn didn't even give
Speaker 1: the players a heads up. But the lee Adam Silver
Speaker 1: has made you know, the nd season tournament, I think
Speaker 1: you have to really examine. And when I had him on,
Speaker 1: we talked about this is that embrace college basketball. You
Speaker 1: know how you know what Indie, Oklahoma City is to me.
Speaker 1: We're all the G League guys. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: guys who played a lot of years of college embrace
Speaker 1: college basketball as an almost educational basketball tool, not the
Speaker 1: school part. Just be what Tom is over two or
Speaker 1: three years, like it matters. And also, you have to
Speaker 1: really examine the value of these players. If you're signing
Speaker 1: a seventy six billion dollar contract for eleven years, you
Speaker 1: want your stars playing as long as they can. Halliburton's
Speaker 1: injury made me sick to my stomach. The game didn't
Speaker 1: feel the same after that injury. I was so fired
Speaker 1: up all day. I got home early, I watched two
Speaker 1: hours of the pregame show a sick to my stomach.
Speaker 1: I'm like wow, and and again I am. I just
Speaker 1: think you can the money's not the problem. We got
Speaker 1: seventy six billion coming like, money's not the issue. The
Speaker 1: owners are all billionaires, let's protect the players. There's no
Speaker 1: reason for seven days deniable.
Speaker 2: And it keep the thing is calling too, It keeps
Speaker 2: happening on the same play, the same like what they
Speaker 2: call it the negative step, where you like step backwards
Speaker 2: to try to launch yourself forwards. Essentially the body is
Speaker 2: fatiguing to the point that when they're trying to explode
Speaker 2: forward at these points, the body's failing, and it's happening
Speaker 2: at an increasingly high rate. And it I think it
Speaker 2: has a lot to do with just the way the
Speaker 2: game has changed, in the sense that the point at
Speaker 2: which players are engaging defenders, the point at which players
Speaker 2: are being asked to contend with physicalities extended substantially further
Speaker 2: away from the basket. You're facing ball pressure and being
Speaker 2: guarded thirty thirty five feet from the basket.
Speaker 3: Some of these times.
Speaker 2: I bet if you tracked an individual player's movement and
Speaker 2: just how often he runs around the floor, just the
Speaker 2: straight line distance that he runs, it's probably double what
Speaker 2: it was in the nineties in a single game, just
Speaker 2: because of the pace, the amount of ball in player
Speaker 2: movement that occurs on every single possession.
Speaker 3: It's just a lot.
Speaker 2: And so to your point, like I understand the TV aspect,
Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, we go, we get money from
Speaker 2: these games. We can't cut games because it costs us money.
Speaker 2: If anything, we're trying to add games. Here's the Ncason Tournament,
Speaker 2: here's the play in tournament. You know they added that
Speaker 2: seventh game to the first round after it used to
Speaker 2: be five. Like they are adding inventory that the players
Speaker 2: can't handle. And if you really dig into it and
Speaker 2: you actually start to look at the way it affects
Speaker 2: the product, I'm so glad you mentioned that, Colin. This
Speaker 2: is the most excited I've vent for games so long.
Speaker 2: And what a buzzkill to watch the best player on
Speaker 2: the other team come out hit three straight three, start
Speaker 2: talking a bunch of shit to the crowd. Next thing
Speaker 2: you know, he's on in a heap on the ground.
Speaker 2: It's a huge bummer. And like, these guys can't be
Speaker 2: asked to play back to these guys can't be asked
Speaker 2: to play an additional two.
Speaker 3: It is June twenty.
Speaker 2: Second, Colin, you know how this playoff runt has been
Speaker 2: going on forever, Like it is a long stretch. They
Speaker 2: have to find a way to make this actually achievable
Speaker 2: for these bodies, they are not holding up. In my
Speaker 2: theory is that if you tweak it in a way
Speaker 2: to where guys can hold up, it'll improve the ratings
Speaker 2: just by virtue of everyone being present and bringing the
Speaker 2: urgency due to the lower inventory.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just like baseball ratings when when you shorten
Speaker 1: the game create urgency. Everybody's I mean, I've done this
Speaker 1: ad nauseam. Everybody's on their phones. People are just I'm
Speaker 1: watching the game tonight and I'm I'm literally in the
Speaker 1: first quarter. You know, I'm sitting there watching the game
Speaker 1: and I'm writing some notes, but I'm also reading an
Speaker 1: article on the finals as I'm watching the finals. We're
Speaker 1: all distracted, So you know, I just I think the
Speaker 1: reality is you just anytime you can make make a
Speaker 1: game feel like an event, everybody wins. The players win,
Speaker 1: I win, you win, the networks win. So it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting now because the NBA is going to be on
Speaker 1: so many networks and it's going to dilute some of
Speaker 1: the coverage. But you're going to have to make it special.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, this is what Baseball did.
Speaker 1: Fox went to Baseball and said, you guys have to
Speaker 1: create the home run Derby's your highest rated non World
Speaker 1: Series moment. Create more things like that. So they did
Speaker 1: the Cornfield game. They put the Mets in the Phillies,
Speaker 1: you know, overseas, and I watched all of them. So
Speaker 1: I do think there's a certain apathy in the regular season.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the league officiates different in the postseason.
Speaker 1: They understand the urgency. So I think they'll get it right.
Speaker 1: I think Adam will eventually get it right. He's not
Speaker 1: a stubborn guy. I don't think any of our commissioners are.
Speaker 1: And I think going from seven games to five games,
Speaker 1: you may not think it's a big deal, but I
Speaker 1: over the course, it could be four less, four or
Speaker 1: fewer playoff games. You know. I feel like Halliburton's body
Speaker 1: just gave out tonight. It just it was exhausted. He
Speaker 1: just pushed it and pushed it and pushed it.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly what happened. Again, it's becoming undeniable.
Speaker 2: Like there was a point where it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: injuries are on the rise, but hey, it's only been
Speaker 2: like two or three years. It might be just anecdotal
Speaker 2: or too small of a sample size. We're in an
Speaker 2: extended stretch here where like dudes are breaking down every
Speaker 2: year in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: Remember last year.
Speaker 2: It was like, oh, the calves are going on Donovan
Speaker 2: Mitchell's foot and how were you know? And then oh,
Speaker 2: like here come the Pacers and the tyres. Haliburton gets it.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's this like it's basically turning into
Speaker 2: a war of attrition more than it's turning into a
Speaker 2: battle of basketball. And that's what they have to figure
Speaker 2: out because otherwise what you're going to see is the deepest,
Speaker 2: youngest team win every year. I mean, and that's more
Speaker 2: or less what we saw in the finals, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, on so many different levels. But anyway, Colin,
Speaker 2: we did get a new piece of news this morning.
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant is now Houston Rocket and in return, the
Speaker 2: Phoenix Suns are getting Jalen Green, a young player with
Speaker 2: tons of potential but maddening downsides at this point, Dylan Brooks,
Speaker 2: who I actually think is a very good role player
Speaker 2: in the NBA, the tenth pick in this upcoming draft,
Speaker 2: and five second round picks. What was like your first
Speaker 2: impression when you heard the news today, Well.
Speaker 1: My first impression the Suns were three and seventeen. When
Speaker 1: Katie didn't play this year, they stunk. It wasn't him.
Speaker 1: He still get a bucket. If he's a leader in Houston,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. If you need a bucket in Houston,
Speaker 1: it works. And I think today you have to look
Speaker 1: at the Rockets. My take is he's gonna give you
Speaker 1: about sixty five games in the regular season. If we
Speaker 1: get two healthy years, then everybody's going to watch Houston
Speaker 1: via for the NBA Championship and feel like they dominated
Speaker 1: the trade. It is, however, a very good draft, so
Speaker 1: Phoenix gets the number two ten pick. Well, many people
Speaker 1: are theorizing there are twelve players in this draft, the
Speaker 1: top twelve players who are All Star potential. So if
Speaker 1: they stay at ten or move up to six or eight,
Speaker 1: they're getting a potentially really good player, probably with more
Speaker 1: than one year in college. And again, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody will ever unlock Jalen Green, like I think he's
Speaker 1: the classic, doesn't have a defined game, never probably will,
Speaker 1: but we can't deny that he can drop thirty in
Speaker 1: any given moment, that he's wildly talented. I don't like
Speaker 1: his game, but I'm not going to deny that he's
Speaker 1: you know, long, twitchy, fast, very good transition player. He's
Speaker 1: just and there are a lot of these guys in
Speaker 1: the NBA. You know, they come in and they're talented,
Speaker 1: and maybe either they don't work on their game, or
Speaker 1: they don't get the right coaching, or they just they
Speaker 1: probably have so much talent from sixth grade on that
Speaker 1: they never really there's no catalyst for them to like
Speaker 1: really burrow down on a specialized you know, not everybody
Speaker 1: has just driven as MJ. Right, Like I'm reading the
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark book. I mean, that girl's be he is MJ.
Speaker 1: She's obsessed, and it's just like, not everybody's like that.
Speaker 1: Some people are just talented. And so between Aman Thompson
Speaker 1: and shn Goon is beautiful touch, Kevin Durant and a
Speaker 1: series of four or five very good young players. And
Speaker 1: I think Adokah is a very good coach. That's a
Speaker 1: real team. But I think it's easy to look at
Speaker 1: Phoenix and just go, well, they got Green's productive. Dylan
Speaker 1: Brooks is a very good small forward defender, can give
Speaker 1: you seventeen a night. You got the number ten pick,
Speaker 1: you got a bunch of second round picks which you
Speaker 1: can turn those into things. Phoenix wanted her a little
Speaker 1: bit of a reboot. They got it. But people on
Speaker 1: the internet are like, oh, Houston dominated. If Katie got
Speaker 1: hurt in Game thirty six, it wouldn't feel like Houston dominated. Right.
Speaker 1: They're not bringing him there to be a foundational piece.
Speaker 1: They're bringing him in to get a bucket like he
Speaker 1: will not be the leader is shen Gun will still
Speaker 1: be the I think the centerpiece of the team. Aman
Speaker 1: Thompson will be your best athlete and your defensive stopper.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be a bucket guy. So that's why I
Speaker 1: think it works. He's still one of the top twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty six best players in the league. I would argue,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was on the plane when I was
Speaker 1: flying in today, I started writing down numbers and I
Speaker 1: got to like twenty one. I'm like, he's in that space.
Speaker 1: And again, Phoenix was terrible when he didn't play. So
Speaker 1: that's my long winded answer on I think Houston will
Speaker 1: look like they won the trade, but Phoenix got.
Speaker 2: Asked in Phoenix is a sign that like yeah, KD,
Speaker 2: Steph Lebron, these guys they're not floor razors anymore.
Speaker 3: At their age.
Speaker 2: They're not going to turn a bad roster into a
Speaker 2: fifty win team the way that twenty seven year old
Speaker 2: Nikola Jokic could like that. That goes without saying I don't.
Speaker 2: I do think though, that kd has been dramatically underrated
Speaker 2: because he's been on such a poor roster. I put
Speaker 2: this together for you, callin. This is three stats to
Speaker 2: show that Kevin Durant is still one of the very
Speaker 2: best players in the NBA. He was the best jump
Speaker 2: shooter in the world this year. Among fifty eight players
Speaker 2: in the NBA to take at least five hundred jump shots,
Speaker 2: Kadi was the only player in the league to make
Speaker 2: over half of them, and he in second place with
Speaker 2: Shay who made forty five percent. And if you waited
Speaker 2: it for threes, his one point two to two points
Speaker 2: per shot was still number one in.
Speaker 3: The NBA number two.
Speaker 2: He was the only player in the NBA last year
Speaker 2: to make at least two hundred pull up jump shots,
Speaker 2: meaning off the dribble, while making more than half of
Speaker 2: them in three He was far and away the best
Speaker 2: isolation player in the world last year. Out of the
Speaker 2: ten players around at least two hundred and fifty ISOs.
Speaker 2: His one point one to six points per possession including
Speaker 2: passes ranked number one in the league, a full six
Speaker 2: points per one hundred possessions, ahead of Shay who is
Speaker 2: in second place. I think he is when it comes
Speaker 2: to refined offensive skill, he is still one of the
Speaker 2: very best players in the league. I would put him
Speaker 2: in that six to fifteen range, depending on and we
Speaker 2: haven't seen him play enough high leverage basketball lately to
Speaker 2: see where he really lands in there, but I think
Speaker 2: he's still in that range. And if you asked me
Speaker 2: what the Rockets issue was, this is a deep team
Speaker 2: with a load of big, physical athletes. If you ask
Speaker 2: me what their one week at weakness was, it's refined
Speaker 2: offensive skill. And that's what KD comes into address. We
Speaker 2: were just talking about this with Desmond Baine in the
Speaker 2: Orlando Magic the other day. When you take a bunch
Speaker 2: of big athletes that kind of struggle with spacing and
Speaker 2: you bring in a guy who like, just run him
Speaker 2: off a screen and he's automatically gonna pull two defenders
Speaker 2: out thirty feet from the basket and unlocks a world
Speaker 2: of possibilities on the short role. A men Thompson will
Speaker 2: be an amazing short role player. You know that thing
Speaker 2: that Draymond Green did for Steph where Steph would come
Speaker 2: off of Draymond to take two players and then Draymond
Speaker 2: would go right down the middle of the floor and
Speaker 2: make the play that broke the defense down. That is
Speaker 2: a thing that a Men Thompson has been unable to
Speaker 2: do in Houston because they just don't generate many of
Speaker 2: those opportunities because none of their shooters are good enough. Hey,
Speaker 2: d will unlock that part of a Men Thompson's game.
Speaker 2: It is not a perfect roster. I was writing down
Speaker 2: all the names on the roster today. They're a little
Speaker 2: light on ball handling, that sort of thing they can get.
Speaker 2: You know what's so funny, Colin, I remember when the
Speaker 2: Sun signed Highest Jones last summer. I was like, why
Speaker 2: you already have this redundancy of all these dudes who
Speaker 2: can dribble and you're just not athletic enough and you're
Speaker 2: not good enough on defense. Like you need athletes and
Speaker 2: dudes that can like like beat up people in these
Speaker 2: physical environments. You know who could really use Highest Jones Houston? Like,
Speaker 2: I think they should call I think Kevin Durant should
Speaker 2: call up highest tomorrow and be like, hey, dude, come
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think Phoenix. I wish Phoenix would have
Speaker 1: gotten actually a size. I think Phoenix needs size, and
Speaker 1: I think Houston needs a ball handler. And our takeaway
Speaker 1: when we watched Golden State beat Houston, we were like, God,
Speaker 1: they're so bad in a half court offense. If you
Speaker 1: stop shn good, it's over right, like it's just and
Speaker 1: so you and I talked about this. He was a
Speaker 1: perfect fit there. I thought he worked in New York
Speaker 1: because the Jalen Brunson's you know, has the ball a
Speaker 1: lot in his hands. I thought he would work with
Speaker 1: that offense, whereas Cat can kind of. I always felt
Speaker 1: like Cat and Brunston were playing you know, your turn,
Speaker 1: my turn, your turn, my turn. Kd's kind of like
Speaker 1: I'll sit in the I did it with Russ Westbrook.
Speaker 1: I'll sit in the corner. Get it to me eventually.
Speaker 1: So I think he fits really, really well, and I
Speaker 1: think they have the coach. I think again, it's so
Speaker 1: hard to judge Houston because so much of their roster
Speaker 1: is young. I like feel like everybody's in the fourth inning,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, Amen, Thompson could take a big leap.
Speaker 1: I mean, shne Goon's the only one where I look
Speaker 1: at him and I think, oh that again. I used
Speaker 1: this word a lot. But that's a defined and refined
Speaker 1: offensive game. He's got European touch, like he has a game.
Speaker 1: A lot of their players I feel like they're just
Speaker 1: in early innings. I don't know what they are. So
Speaker 1: Aman Thompson's obviously defensively defined. He's so strong and athletic
Speaker 1: and aggressive. But KD gives them refinement. This is a
Speaker 1: second offensive player. I know exactly what I'm getting. And
Speaker 1: that's that goes back to a little Oklahoma city that
Speaker 1: one of the reasons Indiana kind gave OKC problems. Sciakam
Speaker 1: has an offensive half court game, Haliburton does, TJ McConnell does. Like,
Speaker 1: that's three guys, even Obi Toppen. When he hits threes,
Speaker 1: You're like, he's athletic and hit threes. They had guys
Speaker 1: that they Rick Carlile knew, Okay, this is what this
Speaker 1: player does with Houston. Houston's like a younger OKAC. I'm
Speaker 1: just not sure what everybody is like. I just need
Speaker 1: more guys that I go into a game and go yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get twenty fourth tonight from KD and
Speaker 1: I can drop two or three plays for so Houston
Speaker 1: to me is early innings they could end up being.
Speaker 1: They could end up looking at If you told me
Speaker 1: next year a team explodes in the West and ends
Speaker 1: up winning by seven point eight points, I would guess
Speaker 1: Houston because they have so many players that are just
Speaker 1: going to springboard to another level here in the.
Speaker 2: Next BASKETBALLSSI upside, I think they could very easily be
Speaker 2: the second best team in the West and the biggest
Speaker 2: threat to the Thunder next year. I think that's absolutely
Speaker 2: on the table. They match up well with OKC two
Speaker 2: because they have all the big physical size. The ball
Speaker 2: handling will be the week as we saw with Indiana,
Speaker 2: even Oklahoma City struggled because of their lack of depth
Speaker 2: and ball handling against Indiana's ball pressure. But the youth,
Speaker 2: the thing that you're talking about in terms of the
Speaker 2: wide range of outcomes is super interesting because as I
Speaker 2: was breaking down their depth chart today, I'm looking at
Speaker 2: it and I'm like, Okay, Fred van Vliet, legit point guard.
Speaker 2: You know, Shane gun center, Heyd's you're four, Amen, Thompson.
Speaker 2: I think defensively functions as either a two or three,
Speaker 2: so that could be either. But then it's like Jabari
Speaker 2: Smith Junior is kind of a four. He plays basically
Speaker 2: the same position as Katie. I don't think he moves
Speaker 2: his feet well enough to be a three. Cam Whittmore
Speaker 2: could be one of those guys. Reed, Shephard could be
Speaker 2: one of those guys, but like, who knows. And here's
Speaker 2: the other thing too, callin Houston's gave up one first
Speaker 2: round draft pick in this deal. They still have a
Speaker 2: boat load of first round draft picks at their disposal,
Speaker 2: so they're high.
Speaker 3: They're like a high likelihood for.
Speaker 2: Like a we bring this team into camp, we watch
Speaker 2: them for twenty games, and we go, oh, here are
Speaker 2: the two things we're missing. Let's go get what we
Speaker 2: need to get. Like they are, they're extremely well equipped
Speaker 2: heading into this next season.
Speaker 1: That's where Houston won the trade. They didn't have to
Speaker 1: give up another first round pick. That that's where they
Speaker 1: won the trade. It's not just KD because my guess
Speaker 1: is because of their depth, they won't play Kad more
Speaker 1: than like sixty to sixty five games. They want him
Speaker 1: for the postseason. There's no reason to play him seventy
Speaker 1: five eighty games, because they also know if you're in
Speaker 1: the West, Jason, you know you're going to be in
Speaker 1: long series. So there's no you know you're going to
Speaker 1: be in six game series. In the West. It's not
Speaker 1: like the East where you kind of feel like if
Speaker 1: Aliberton comes back next year, they're just certain you're gonna
Speaker 1: win a lot of series really quickly. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: long series in the West, no reason to have you know,
Speaker 1: I want KD going into the playoffs, you know, off
Speaker 1: about a two games and nine days stretch, healthy and
Speaker 1: ready to go. And I think you have to think
Speaker 1: about that as a GM with an older player in
Speaker 1: the West, if you have a Steph for a KD the.
Speaker 2: Series, that's the thing. Like if they get a Ties Jones,
Speaker 2: if they get you know, one other guy of that ILK,
Speaker 2: then they will be able to rest Katie not just
Speaker 2: for the regular season, but even in the postseason. Like
Speaker 2: we saw Houston give themselves a really good chance to
Speaker 2: win games even without high level offensive skill because they
Speaker 2: just go here's Tarry Eason and and Amn Thompson and
Speaker 2: we're picking up full court and you're turning the ball over.
Speaker 2: Now and it's a mess. Like they are able, like
Speaker 2: they are able to prevent the redundancy that Phoenix had,
Speaker 2: where you have a bunch of guys who do the
Speaker 2: same thing on Houston. What KD does is so specialized
Speaker 2: for them that they kind of have an identity separate,
Speaker 2: separate from him, so they will be able to win
Speaker 2: games without him. They will be able to carry the
Speaker 2: load so that he can come in and lift them
Speaker 2: over the top. I think it's a I think it's
Speaker 2: a fantastic on paper basketball fit. It'll be ugly sometimes,
Speaker 2: Katie's gonna have some nights where maybe the statistical performance
Speaker 2: isn't there because it's ugly. They can't space the floor
Speaker 2: as well for him, but they will in turn do
Speaker 2: the same thing to the other team. So what to
Speaker 2: buy Kevin that more for air? Before we get out
Speaker 2: of here tonight, con I didn't want to run this
Speaker 2: by you because I've seen a lot of victory lapping criticism.
Speaker 2: You know. Let's just say the Phoenix Suns have been
Speaker 2: the butt of the joke today because they took McHale
Speaker 2: Bridges and Cam Johnson and Chris Paul and they turned
Speaker 2: them into basically Bradley Beal and Dylan Brooks and Jalen
Speaker 2: Green in one first round pick. I get that it
Speaker 2: looks bad. Here is where this is where my brain
Speaker 2: went this morning. They made it to the finals a
Speaker 2: year where because of COVID everyone was hurt, and we
Speaker 2: had a Trey Young Hawks team in the conference finals,
Speaker 2: a Paul George Clippers team with an injured Kawhi in
Speaker 2: the conference finals, and that Sons team. And by the way,
Speaker 2: they ran into Giannis, and Giannis beat them four straight
Speaker 2: times for the title. So they weren't good enough. Then
Speaker 2: the next year they kind of a great regular season
Speaker 2: and Luca like embarrasses them, like embarrasses them for the
Speaker 2: world to see. In the second round, they weren't good enough,
Speaker 2: so they made an aggressive trade. They went and got
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant. Every one of us would have done the
Speaker 2: same thing at that point in time. It was Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant and we had just seen him be so amazing
Speaker 2: for Brooklyn in those couple of previous playoff runs. Even
Speaker 2: the Chris Paul thing that I would argue they should
Speaker 2: have used Chris Paul's salary as a vehicle with which
Speaker 2: to bring in more size and athleticism. But they like,
Speaker 2: you're like Chris Paul for Bradley Beal, Like, I mean,
Speaker 2: come on, right, you could talk yourself into it.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: It wasn't perfect. There were mistakes. There are certain things
Speaker 2: I would have done differently. But now we're on the
Speaker 2: other side of this and it's like self awareness. We're
Speaker 2: not good enough. We just missed the playoffs in the
Speaker 2: Western Conference, like Katie misses a few games and we
Speaker 2: completely fall apart. Like I understand it looks bad when
Speaker 2: you zoom out, but to me, what happened to Phoenix
Speaker 2: is just what happens when you get aggressive and it
Speaker 2: doesn't work, and the truth of the matter is that
Speaker 2: there's risk.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, they had the well yeah, the Bradley Beal deal,
Speaker 1: and I can't criticize it because for years, I mean
Speaker 1: I must have been on the air for five years
Speaker 1: saying I really like Bradley Beal. He's playing with John Wall.
Speaker 1: You're never going to flourish with John Wall. You got
Speaker 1: to get into a more mature group of veteran players.
Speaker 1: And then it's just like, over the course of a
Speaker 1: year or two, he got really old, really fast, and
Speaker 1: really banged up, and he just he just withered down.
Speaker 1: So I was a Bradley Beal fan for years. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand why he was so loyal to Washington, which
Speaker 1: was poorly runed and poorly owned. So I can't I
Speaker 1: can't criticism, and I always tend to be a big
Speaker 1: fan of being aggressive. I like what Orlando just did
Speaker 1: to get banged, So yeah, I can't bang it. I'm again,
Speaker 1: if they hit on the number ten pick, They've got
Speaker 1: enough second round picks, they got enough pieces to I
Speaker 1: think you just have to take more big swings. I
Speaker 1: think with Bradley Beal, I wonder if you just don't
Speaker 1: buy out the contract, like I mean, that's how bad
Speaker 1: of a deal it was. So you know, I think
Speaker 1: if they were in the East, you'd have a better
Speaker 1: vibe or more optimism. I just think I look at
Speaker 1: San Antonio and I look, I still think Denver is
Speaker 1: going to be really good. I think they just you know,
Speaker 1: I just look at the West, the better gms, better rosters,
Speaker 1: deeper teams. I mean, god, we've almost forgotten about what
Speaker 1: they're building in San Antonio. Holy crap, do they have
Speaker 1: a lot of talent. They're in the second inning. So
Speaker 1: I just think a Phoenix relative to the conference. You know,
Speaker 1: they just feel like I have not, and they probably are.
Speaker 1: But I I mean, I know Matt Iseshbia and Justin Ishbia.
Speaker 1: I know Justin actually I met him when I moved
Speaker 1: to Chicago. He's part of the White Sox. I think
Speaker 1: ownership group now and Matt got really aggressive, and I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I've learned over the course
Speaker 1: of my life, Jason, it's I made a lot of mistakes,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to master two things. Like Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: tried baseball, all right, Randy Moss tried basketball. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes when aggressive owners come in and
Speaker 1: they think, hey, you know because the sons like don't
Speaker 1: have the biggest scouting department, and the owner comes in
Speaker 1: and thinks, I want stars, what you're really saying is
Speaker 1: I'm moving into a completely different world and I'm smarter
Speaker 1: than Sam Presty, right, Like even Sam Presty the James
Speaker 1: Harden deal early, he didn't get enough like it's it's
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at GMS and football and basketball
Speaker 1: who I like and they make big mistakes. Shabbaz Napier,
Speaker 1: the draft pick for pat Riley in the heat like,
Speaker 1: great people make mistakes. Nobody on the internet, you know,
Speaker 1: the trolls don't want to ever admit it, but I
Speaker 1: think they came in and the owner was a little
Speaker 1: hot and a little aggressive, and this is a hard
Speaker 1: sport to master, even the best people. Just you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're drafting nineteen and twenty year olds, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to bang on the Suns
Speaker 1: because when they made the moves, I was like, I
Speaker 1: kind of like it, and then a year later, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: was I wrong? So I can't be I can't stand
Speaker 1: on any pious mountain today because I like their moves.
Speaker 1: I thought, Bradley be Bradley Beal's been a disaster. There's
Speaker 1: nothing else you can say. It's just been a.
Speaker 2: Day that happens sometimes, Like I mean, like the most
Speaker 2: recent example I can think of is the Raptors. Like
Speaker 2: I remember when the Raptors traded for Kawhi. Everyone was like,
Speaker 2: why would you do that? He's going to go to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. He's telling everybody he's going to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: His family's out there, he wants to be out there.
Speaker 2: That's where he's going. This is a rental and it
Speaker 2: was by the way, if you like remove the championship
Speaker 2: from the equation, it's like he went there and then
Speaker 2: he left and he went to La and the Raptors
Speaker 2: take like the Raptors fell apart after that, Like that's
Speaker 2: what happened, but they won the title. But even if
Speaker 2: you zoom in on the series, it's like three to
Speaker 2: three in Philly and Kawhi hits like a leaning jump
Speaker 2: shot while falling out of bounds that hits every part
Speaker 2: of the rim and then falls in Like that.
Speaker 3: Was the gap.
Speaker 2: That was the gap between the Gamble being a success
Speaker 2: and being a failure. And so ultimately, I feel like
Speaker 2: we're just playing the results when we say that, and like,
Speaker 2: you know, I look at it, it's like you draft,
Speaker 2: you've traded for KD. There was one team who gave
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty three Nuggets trouble, one team, the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 2: That the Phoenix Suns were the team that pushed them
Speaker 2: to two to two in the series, and it looked
Speaker 2: like everything was hanging in the balance, and so like,
Speaker 2: for whatever it's worth, it wasn't enough. But yeah, my
Speaker 2: take was less like, uh, look.
Speaker 3: At the Suns.
Speaker 2: They butchered everything, and like they acknowledged to themselves that
Speaker 2: they weren't good enough to win the title. They made
Speaker 2: an aggressive move for one of the twelve greatest players
Speaker 2: of all time when he was still playing really well,
Speaker 2: and it didn't work out, you know, And that's just
Speaker 2: how it goes sometimes. But Colin, it was great to
Speaker 2: see you today. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: This has been a really fun season. Shout out to
Speaker 2: the NBA for giving us our first good NBA final
Speaker 2: in a very long time.
Speaker 1: And our best domestic draft coming up in forever. This
Speaker 1: is a great domestic draft. So's that's we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: I think with NIL, I think you're going to have
Speaker 1: more players staying in college, the drafts are going to
Speaker 1: get more domestic. We're also poaching the best European players
Speaker 1: with the NIL money. I think draft picks over the
Speaker 1: next ten years are going to fortify teams much more
Speaker 1: quickly than they have for the previous twenty where it's
Speaker 1: eighteen year olds who are just not ready to play.
Speaker 1: So this will be a really fun draft to watch.
Speaker 1: There's some really special players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm super excited.
Speaker 2: The extended NBA finals have put us right up against it, guys.
Speaker 2: I have Sam Vessini coming on the show tomorrow. He
Speaker 2: is an incredible draft guide. We'll be doing a full
Speaker 2: NBA draft preview that the actual draft is on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: It's literally right around the corner, so everything's right here.
Speaker 2: Colin is great to see. Thanks so much for giving
Speaker 2: us your time. For all of you guys who are
Speaker 2: on the YouTube stream, we're headed over to playback to
Speaker 2: take so that's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight. I'll
Speaker 2: see you guys there everyone else. Thanks so much for
Speaker 2: supporting us this season. It's been an incredibly successful season.
Speaker 2: I can't say enough about the way you guys have
Speaker 2: supported us in the show over the course of this year.
Speaker 2: And we will see you guys tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: What's up guys.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
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Speaker 3: And leave a rating and a review. As always, I
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Speaker 1: The volume