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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you are having
Speaker 1: a great week so far. Today is my thirty first birthday,
Speaker 1: and we're going to do one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: to do on my birthday today. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: some basketball. Well we have some drama. Kevin Durant, according
Speaker 1: to Sham Surani of the Athletic, has provided an ultimatum
Speaker 1: to Nets owner Joe Sigh, either him or the general
Speaker 1: manager and the coach Steve Nash and Sean Marks. So
Speaker 1: some drama that will dive into. I just want to
Speaker 1: provide some context about where both of these sides are
Speaker 1: coming from and what I think is at stake here,
Speaker 1: and then what I expect to happen. You guys know
Speaker 1: the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes
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Speaker 1: And last but not least, if you miss any of
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Speaker 1: can't get over to YouTube, we do have a podcast
Speaker 1: feed wherever you find your podcast under Hoops Tonight, where
Speaker 1: you can find the audio version of these clips. All right,
Speaker 1: So what I'm gonna do to start here is read
Speaker 1: a small excerpt from Sham's Urania's reports. You guys can
Speaker 1: see just the back store here in it face to
Speaker 1: face meeting with Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Sigh over the weekend.
Speaker 1: This is from the article All NBA star Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: reiterated his trade request and informed Sigh that he needs
Speaker 1: to choose between Durant or the pairing of general manager
Speaker 1: Sean Marks and coach Steve Nash. Sources tell The Athletic
Speaker 1: Durant stated he does not have faith in the team's direction,
Speaker 1: sources said, end quote. So obviously, as it's always the case,
Speaker 1: there are two sides to every story. Katie has a
Speaker 1: little bit of a point. What happened against Boston, even
Speaker 1: despite the fact that Kadie struggled to dribble and shoot
Speaker 1: the basketball uncharacteristically, that Brooklyn Nets team scored more points
Speaker 1: per half court possession than anybody else who played that
Speaker 1: Boston team in that playoff run by a good margin.
Speaker 1: They were about five and a half points better than
Speaker 1: even Golden State Fair, who was the second best team
Speaker 1: against Boston in that playoff run. They did not struggle
Speaker 1: to score the basketball. They got destroyed on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor and in all of the effort
Speaker 1: and physicality areas of the game. What does that typically
Speaker 1: fall to the role players now There's obviously some blame there.
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant obviously could have had a better defensive series,
Speaker 1: could have had a better series taking care of the basketball, handling,
Speaker 1: the physicality. Kevin Durant shares some blame for how that
Speaker 1: series went, a lot of blame. I think he'd be
Speaker 1: the first to tell you that, so does Kyrie Irving.
Speaker 1: But it's unrealistic to expect Kyrie Irving to be some
Speaker 1: menace in the role player areas of the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: And with Kevin Durant with as big of an offensive
Speaker 1: role as he had on that team, it's unfair to
Speaker 1: expect him to go be Defensive Player of the Year
Speaker 1: and average fifteen rebounds a game. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: too much to ask. There is something to be said
Speaker 1: about the expectation on the front office to provide those
Speaker 1: surrounding pieces. There's it's a given to take there. Obviously
Speaker 1: Katie and Kyrie needed to be better, but they obviously
Speaker 1: didn't have the requisite horses to hang in that series.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna, if you're Kevin Durant, you're gonna look
Speaker 1: at that and you're gonna think, hold on, we traded
Speaker 1: James Harden and I've got a guy over there in
Speaker 1: a suit who says that he's not mentally ready to play.
Speaker 1: Why didn't we factor that in when we made that trade.
Speaker 1: You're gonna look at Kessler Edwards and be like, he's
Speaker 1: not ready to play. But I know James Johnson could
Speaker 1: have played in this playoff series, and we let James
Speaker 1: Johnson go for the sake of giving Kes Ledwards a chance,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't ready. You're gonna look at the front
Speaker 1: office there. In general, the approach of this new front
Speaker 1: office has been defined offensive minded, older veteran role players
Speaker 1: Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Mills, sap Goran Dragics, Patty Mills.
Speaker 1: These are all players well on the down slope of
Speaker 1: their careers that even at their best, weren't great defensive players.
Speaker 1: Every one of these players is offensively minded, and Katie
Speaker 1: and Kyrie got that covered. As we've talked about, they
Speaker 1: don't even rely on spacing all that much with their
Speaker 1: ability to shoot over the top of defenses when everything
Speaker 1: is collapsed around the rim. So the reality is is
Speaker 1: there is some stuff there with the front office that's
Speaker 1: legitimate criticism. The question becomes how much of a role.
Speaker 1: Did Katie and Kyrie making a play in those decisions
Speaker 1: where Katie and Kyrie pushing for Blake Griffin and LaMarcus
Speaker 1: Aldridge and Paul millsap I don't know, probably to some extent,
Speaker 1: but it's the same classic dynamic that we saw with
Speaker 1: the Lakers Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Probably we're making
Speaker 1: a questions to the Lakers front office. But it is
Speaker 1: Rob Polinka's job as the team builder. It's his job
Speaker 1: to be so aware of what's happening in the NBA
Speaker 1: by watching so much film that he knows exactly what
Speaker 1: works and what doesn't. And it's his job to be like, hey, Lebron,
Speaker 1: I know Russ is your buddy, and yeah, once upon
Speaker 1: a time that dude was a force to be reckoned with,
Speaker 1: but guess what, he's not that guy anymore. Here. I
Speaker 1: had our video group, a crew put together this for
Speaker 1: you to demonstrate. Here some metrics as well, this is
Speaker 1: not a good idea, And that was Seawan Mark's jobs.
Speaker 1: Sean Mark's job as well. If Katie and Kyrie were
Speaker 1: suggesting players of that ilk, or if they weren't and
Speaker 1: he was suggesting them, then he shares that blame as well,
Speaker 1: that Brooklyn Nets team did not struggle to score the basketball.
Speaker 1: There issue was in the effort in physicality areas of
Speaker 1: the game, and that typically is going to fall on
Speaker 1: team construct action and typically is going to fall on
Speaker 1: the general manager. So Katie does have a point. And
Speaker 1: with the Steve Nash thing, Uh, it's a difficult type
Speaker 1: of team to coach with the way that Kyrie and
Speaker 1: Katie are very isolation heavy and take a lot of
Speaker 1: off the dribble jump shots. You know. Goran Dragicz himself
Speaker 1: said in this offseason that it was a difficult offense
Speaker 1: to play it. And if Steve Nash gave them the
Speaker 1: freedom to do that, there's no guarantee that you're making
Speaker 1: some coaching change. Is gonna what Katie and Kyrie are
Speaker 1: gonna change the way they're gonna play, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: playing in a similar system. Yeah, the defense wasn't great,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have the players to do it, regardless
Speaker 1: of who was at the helm. So the Steve Nash piece,
Speaker 1: I get confused by it, Like sometimes he looks like
Speaker 1: a like a passenger on that team. But I would
Speaker 1: say that's Katie and Kyrie's fault in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: so that the Steve Nash piece is weird. This is
Speaker 1: Joe sighs angle, though, because where Josiah has to look
Speaker 1: back at k D and apply some blame in that
Speaker 1: direction is the Kyrie partnership. Look, Katie and Kyrie are
Speaker 1: extremely close, so close in fact, that I believe Katie
Speaker 1: has a little bit of a blind spot for Kyrie,
Speaker 1: which is fine, we all do. We all have blind
Speaker 1: spots for the people that we love in our lives.
Speaker 1: But Katie feels a certain way about Kyrie in the
Speaker 1: face of overwhelming evidence that the Kyrie thing comes with
Speaker 1: a lot of baggage. At least it did in this
Speaker 1: last couple of years. The partnership with Kyrie, which came
Speaker 1: hand in hand with the Kevin Durant partnership, hurt this
Speaker 1: team over the last couple of years. It put the
Speaker 1: drama over the basketball and the team suffered, and that
Speaker 1: was because of Katie's friendship with Kyrie. Some of that
Speaker 1: blame falls on k D. And again, Kadi puts basketball first.
Speaker 1: You could not pick a better person to partner with
Speaker 1: as a franchise than Kevin freaking Durant. But if that
Speaker 1: partnership comes with Kyrie attached, and Kyrie behaves the way
Speaker 1: he did the last two years, then by you know,
Speaker 1: basically by the transitive property, we know that the partnership
Speaker 1: with Kadie has some baggage that comes along with that.
Speaker 1: You know, it became very difficult for the team to
Speaker 1: build continuity, to build an identity, to build offensive structure,
Speaker 1: to get the players used to playing with each other.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to do any of that when you've
Speaker 1: got a player that, on multiple occasions two years ago
Speaker 1: up and left the team without telling the coach for
Speaker 1: personal reasons, not because he was hurt, he was taking
Speaker 1: PTO during the damn season. And then obviously I don't
Speaker 1: need to get into the vaccine situation this year. So
Speaker 1: from Joe seize angle or if I'm if I'm Sean
Speaker 1: Marks and I'm advocating for myself in a meeting with Josiah,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, look, man, they're the ones running the
Speaker 1: team in a lot of ways, at least to some extent,
Speaker 1: So how much blame can this can really be put
Speaker 1: on me? Here? And I see all sides of the story, because,
Speaker 1: like I laid out earlier, the moves. They've made a
Speaker 1: lot of them I disagree with. But when you partner
Speaker 1: with Katie and Kyrie, there's a lot of baggage that
Speaker 1: comes with that. What's stake, what's at steak here is
Speaker 1: really interesting because this is the latest arena of the
Speaker 1: never ending conflict between NBA ownership and the top tier
Speaker 1: of NBA players and who's really in control here. And
Speaker 1: I would imagine that Josiah is gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of NBA owners calling him and saying things like you
Speaker 1: get rid of him, don't capitulate to Kevin Durant's demands.
Speaker 1: This is a bad look for all of us, and
Speaker 1: the ultimate decision falls in the hands of Josiah. But
Speaker 1: it's a legitimate concern if you allow a player, even
Speaker 1: if you think he's right, even if you even if
Speaker 1: you're Josiah and you truly believe in your heart of
Speaker 1: hearts that Kevin Durant is right about Sean Marks and
Speaker 1: Steve Nash, if you do this, it doesn't look good.
Speaker 1: It looks like you're a week owner who is capitulating
Speaker 1: to the demands of a disgruntled star. That's the optics
Speaker 1: of it, regardless of the real power dynamics at play,
Speaker 1: and so Josiah has a decision to make. Is he
Speaker 1: gonna fight for some sort of core principle here or
Speaker 1: does he want to win? Because the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is is if you keep Kevin Durant and you
Speaker 1: keep Kyrie Irving and some of the damn good acquisitions
Speaker 1: from Sean Marks this summer, getting Royce O'Neil, getting t J. Warren,
Speaker 1: if you if you bring everybody back, you're going to
Speaker 1: win more. Ben Simmons could be playing this year, assuming
Speaker 1: he still likes to play basketball. Ben Simmons could be
Speaker 1: playing this year and you could have a really good team.
Speaker 1: If you trade Kevin Durant, you will not be as
Speaker 1: good this year. But that's where the principle comes in,
Speaker 1: because you can trade Katie and get a player at
Speaker 1: least the caliber of Jalen Brown a bunch of draft picks, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good foundation to start with. You could trade
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons and get something less but similar. I'd have
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons play some basketball this year. First, you can
Speaker 1: trade Kyrie Irving to the Lakers and get at least
Speaker 1: one first round draft pick, so you could rebuild around
Speaker 1: a new principle of team over player and try to
Speaker 1: construct a basketball first culture here. But you will suffer
Speaker 1: in the short term because you're giving up Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: near the peak of his powers. So it's a really
Speaker 1: difficult decision. My expectation is that this ends in a trade. Still,
Speaker 1: I just have a hard time believing Josiah pulls the
Speaker 1: trigger on that. If I was running the team, I'd
Speaker 1: probably approach KD. What I would say is, look, man,
Speaker 1: I will do this. I will fire Steve Nash, I
Speaker 1: will fire Sean Marks, but you have to let me
Speaker 1: trade Kyrie Irving. That's what I would do because the
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant partnership, that's a great partnership. The Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: and Kyrie partnership, that comes with a lot of ups
Speaker 1: and downs. One last note from the article at the
Speaker 1: end quote the Celtics Toronto Raptors in Miami heat remained
Speaker 1: the most significant candidates to require Durant, sources said, with
Speaker 1: Boston's package centering out all star forward Jalen Brown seen
Speaker 1: as a viable deal. Sy and the Nets have made
Speaker 1: clear privately that they will take every last asset from
Speaker 1: a team that trades for Durant. Sources said Durant has
Speaker 1: grown close with Boston coach Email Udoka in recent years,
Speaker 1: after Udoka spent a year with Durant as an assistant
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn and later with Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics.
Speaker 1: End quote, interesting thing there is Toronto still in the mix.
Speaker 1: I think they're the team that makes the most sense.
Speaker 1: The Boston Celtics are still in the mix there. That's
Speaker 1: a deal that I think Boston should be doing everything
Speaker 1: they can to try to make um the Miami Heat.
Speaker 1: I still don't know how they're even in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I don't know what pieces they're offering there that that
Speaker 1: really perk Brooklyn's attention. But the interesting thing there is
Speaker 1: two teams that I was high on early in this process.
Speaker 1: Toronto and Boston are still leading the pack there. And
Speaker 1: if and look, man if, if Kevin Durant is concerned
Speaker 1: about franchise direction and competency and wants to go to
Speaker 1: a place that's basketball for dude, You're gonna love it
Speaker 1: in Boston. You're gonna love being under Brad Stevens. You're
Speaker 1: gonna love being under Email Udoka, and you're gonna be
Speaker 1: You're gonna love being with Jason Tatum and those guys.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best pace place for him. Well,
Speaker 1: more drama, it is what it is. Um. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I still think this ends into Kevin Durant trade, but
Speaker 1: I did want to take some time today to kind
Speaker 1: of dive into that dynamic between him in the front office.
Speaker 1: The volume