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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to Hoops and I here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Have you Monday? Everybody?
Speaker 2: Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend.
Speaker 1: We are gonna talk.
Speaker 2: About that Travis Steven All Star Game, but we're gonna
Speaker 2: do that in our mail bag portion later on in
Speaker 2: the show today to give you guys a breakdown of
Speaker 2: how this week is going to go. In this episode,
Speaker 2: we're doing power rankings like we do every Monday. Then
Speaker 2: we're gonna do a mail bag. I'd sent out a
Speaker 2: tweet earlier this morning. We had like forty to fifty
Speaker 2: something questions come in, so I've got a bunch from
Speaker 2: there as well as some from the YouTube comments over
Speaker 2: the weekend. So we're gonna do a mailbag in that segment,
Speaker 2: gonna talk about the All Star Game, and then later
Speaker 2: today I'm actually recording with Sammssini from The Athletic, one
Speaker 2: of my favorite people to talk basketball with, one of
Speaker 2: the smartest basketball minds that I interact with. We're gonna
Speaker 2: go through contender rankings that will be coming on the
Speaker 2: YouTube feed on Tuesday, and then we'll actually run all
Speaker 2: of them as breakouts as well throughout the week, so
Speaker 2: you guys can see your specific teams. But I think
Speaker 2: now is a great time to just kind of revisit
Speaker 2: the contenders and really put them into tears and really
Speaker 2: rank them based on what we've seen through fifty some
Speaker 2: games to this point in the season. So that's what
Speaker 2: we're gonna be doing over the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday portion
Speaker 2: of the week, and then Thursday evening when the league
Speaker 2: returns back to gameplay, we'll be back on YouTube Live
Speaker 2: after the final buzzer.
Speaker 1: Of Warriors Lakers.
Speaker 2: There's also a big showdown between the Suns and the
Speaker 2: MAVs that night that will probably have to hit the
Speaker 2: next day because of weird blackout rules involving the Phoenix
Speaker 2: Suns where I live here in Tucson. But we'll hit
Speaker 2: that show that game on Friday as well. But a
Speaker 2: big jam pack schedule over the next couple of weeks
Speaker 2: as the NBA kind of takes control of things now
Speaker 2: that football is over. But that gives you guys a
Speaker 2: little breadown how the week's gonna go again today, just
Speaker 2: power rankings and our mailbag. You guys are the Joe
Speaker 2: fourget started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel mean
Speaker 2: a lot to me, you guys. Take a second to
Speaker 2: scroll down hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our
Speaker 2: podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight.
Speaker 2: It's also super helpful if you guys leave a rating
Speaker 2: and review on that front. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 2: underscore Jason lt for film threads as well as show announcements,
Speaker 2: and the last not least, keep dropping mail back questions
Speaker 2: in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them
Speaker 2: throughout this season. All right, So no in or out
Speaker 2: teams in this year's or this week's power rankings, but
Speaker 2: there is some shuffling based on where we were last week.
Speaker 2: Number ten, the team in free fall since changing their coach,
Speaker 2: the Milwaukee Bucks. They start the week by kicking the
Speaker 2: shit out of the Denver Nuggets and then promptly lose
Speaker 2: two games in a row to the injury ravaged Heat
Speaker 2: and the injury ravaged Memphis Grizzlies. And once again, as
Speaker 2: has been the issue since Dock took over, it's the offense.
Speaker 2: The two losses to Memphis into Miami a one h
Speaker 2: two point five offensive rating, two more stinkers from Dame.
Speaker 2: He was twelve for thirty five from the field in
Speaker 2: those two losses. He has shot below forty percent from
Speaker 2: the field in ten of his last fifteen games. It's
Speaker 2: becoming a pretty consistent trend. And again he's not going
Speaker 2: in the right on that front. He's going in the
Speaker 2: wrong direction on that front. He's had twenty three games
Speaker 2: already this year where he shot below forty percent from
Speaker 2: the field in fifty one games. I think in fifty
Speaker 2: five games last year if I remember quickly, that's the total.
Speaker 2: But he had twenty three games or excuse me, sixteen
Speaker 2: all of last year where he shot below forty percent,
Speaker 2: so sixteen and fifty five games or so last year
Speaker 2: twenty three times in fifty one games this year, ten
Speaker 2: of the last fifteen. Definitely trending in the wrong direction
Speaker 2: on that front. Here's the thing, the entire construct of
Speaker 2: the Milwaukee Bucks when you sent out one of your
Speaker 2: best two way athletes and Drew Holliday, and in general,
Speaker 2: when you look at the team and the fact that
Speaker 2: they just don't really have a ton of veteran speed.
Speaker 2: They've got athletes on the roster, but they're very young
Speaker 2: and not really involved in the rotation.
Speaker 1: You're a slow team.
Speaker 2: This team, the entire construct is built around them being
Speaker 2: a dominant offense, particularly in the half court, and so
Speaker 2: things won't really turn around for them until things turn
Speaker 2: around for Dame. And that's gonna be something we're gonna
Speaker 2: be keeping any I on down the stretch of the season.
Speaker 2: Number nine the New York Knicks, zero in two this
Speaker 2: last week losses to Orlando and Houston. The Knicks lost
Speaker 2: both of their starting forwards on January twenty seventh, oh
Speaker 2: Jiananobi and Julius Randalls. Since then, they are four and
Speaker 2: five eleventh in offense, but twenty third in defense and
Speaker 2: ninth in rebounding. Just to give you guys an idea
Speaker 2: of how bad that it is relative to where they
Speaker 2: usually are at. At the time of their injuries, they were
Speaker 2: seventh in defense on the season and number one in rebounding.
Speaker 2: So the two biggest areas where they like to dominate
Speaker 2: basketball games are fundamentally altered by the fact that their
Speaker 2: two best forwards are out of the lineup. And like, again,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how good Jalen Bruns is playing, It
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, Like none of that matters. You know,
Speaker 2: basketball we have a tendency to like make it very
Speaker 2: video game as can. We focus on who's the best player,
Speaker 2: and what if this best player plays this well or
Speaker 2: you know so and so outplayed this guy, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. Matchups are a big part of
Speaker 2: the game. But at the end of the day, basketball
Speaker 2: is a team sport. It is a five man unit
Speaker 2: against a five man unit, and it doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: good your superstar is if you don't have quality role
Speaker 2: players around them. And this is a great example, like
Speaker 2: decimate one position group that forward position fundamentally alters their
Speaker 2: defense and their ability to dominate the glass of the
Speaker 2: way they do, and now they're struggling to win games.
Speaker 2: Not doesn't mean anything as far as the Knicks and
Speaker 2: their long term potential, because obviously we had to evaluate
Speaker 2: them with og in Julius Randall. But right now it
Speaker 2: doesn't really make a lot of sense to take to
Speaker 2: have major takeaways from the Knicks because they're basically playing
Speaker 2: with a different identity right now while they're waiting to
Speaker 2: get healthy.
Speaker 1: Knicks are down at nine number eight.
Speaker 2: New Orleans Pelicans to beat Memphis and Washington last week,
Speaker 2: obviously a lighter stretch of their schedule. Big things standing
Speaker 2: out to me as of late with the Pelicans is
Speaker 2: Zion Williamson is really starting to pick up steam. His
Speaker 2: first thirty one games this year, he was at twenty
Speaker 2: one point seven points per game fifty eight percent from
Speaker 2: the field, just three thirty point games in thirty one tries.
Speaker 2: Last thirteen games twenty four point one points per game,
Speaker 2: fifty nine percent shooting, and he's had five thirty point
Speaker 2: games in the last thirteen games, so really starting to
Speaker 2: pick up seam on that front. The big one to
Speaker 2: me is his athleticism appears to be getting closer to
Speaker 2: what we expect from Zion. Early in the year, I
Speaker 2: thought he was like eighty percent of the athlete that
Speaker 2: we've grown to custom to seeing with Zion. And then
Speaker 2: he had like that big transition game game winner against
Speaker 2: the Spurs where he got to that left handed scoop
Speaker 2: shot off the glass. That was a really athletic play.
Speaker 2: I can't remember which game it was last week, ILD
Speaker 2: think it was the Memphis game, but where he ended
Speaker 2: up getting his head above the rim on a block
Speaker 2: and like you could just tell like he's starting to
Speaker 2: get more of that vertical pop that we're accustomed to
Speaker 2: seeing from Zion. And again, he relies a lot on
Speaker 2: his physical gifts, and so him getting back into you know,
Speaker 2: peak shape on that front could bode well for the
Speaker 2: additional level they can get to, especially on the offensive
Speaker 2: end of the floor. Number seven the Phoenix Suns. They
Speaker 2: beat Sacramento last week as well as Detroit. Kevin Durant
Speaker 2: it's on a ridiculous heater right now. He shot over
Speaker 2: sixty percent in five of his last eight games, averaging
Speaker 2: twenty eight, eight and six over that span, shooting fifty
Speaker 2: seven percent from the field, forty percent from three, and
Speaker 2: eighty five percent from the line. Also two point nine
Speaker 2: stocks per game steals plus blocks per game over that span.
Speaker 2: The Suns are fourth in defense over their last fifteen games,
Speaker 2: in large part because they're anchored by Kevin Durant. They
Speaker 2: have a big showdown on Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks
Speaker 2: that we will be covering, most likely on Friday morning
Speaker 2: because of the blackout restrictions here in Arizona. But I'm
Speaker 2: really looking forward to that game because both of those
Speaker 2: teams have been facing some easier opponents says of late
Speaker 2: and need a kind of a signature win, and they're
Speaker 2: kind of headed for a showdown there on Thursday night.
Speaker 2: That's going to be a fun one. Number six the
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City Thunder only one game last week.
Speaker 1: They beat the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 2: Jadub and Shake Gilders Alexander were insane in that game.
Speaker 2: They combined for sixty five points.
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams.
Speaker 2: I can't say enough about this kid. He's an absolute stud.
Speaker 2: Absolute porched Orlando in transition. In particular, coming off of
Speaker 2: that wide dribble handoff that Oklahoma City always runs for him,
Speaker 2: hit a couple of nasty step back threes in this game,
Speaker 2: one where he pounded between his legs and the other
Speaker 2: one where he kind of did a hard side step
Speaker 2: and covered a bunch of ground. His pull up shooting
Speaker 2: has been kind of a revelation this year. Fifty three
Speaker 2: percent overall, fifty nine percent an effective field goal percentage
Speaker 2: waited for threes one point one eight points per shot.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys remember about a week
Speaker 2: and a half ago, I was talking to you guys
Speaker 2: about how James Harden has been the best pull up
Speaker 2: jump shooter in the league this year. Guess who's second
Speaker 2: on that list. Jalen Williams. There are forty four players
Speaker 2: excuse me in the league that have attempted at least
Speaker 2: two hundred pull up jump shots this year. Jalen Williams
Speaker 2: is second place on that list at one point one
Speaker 2: eight points per shot. That's highly unusual for a guy
Speaker 2: this early in his career. And again, like and you
Speaker 2: could see it with his ability to turn the corner
Speaker 2: against Orlando and get to that right handed layup off
Speaker 2: the glass, Like it's just a combination of downhill force
Speaker 2: that allows him to get great steparation on those step
Speaker 2: backs because again, as a defender, you got to make decisions.
Speaker 2: And when Jayala Williams is hitting you with that hard
Speaker 2: between the legs dribble to the right, you have an
Speaker 2: option there. You can press up on it, take away
Speaker 2: that step back three. But then you're giving this outstanding
Speaker 2: athlete the ability to blow by you to his strong
Speaker 2: hand to the right hand side, and like again, as
Speaker 2: you saw in that Orlando game in particular, he's just
Speaker 2: so good at getting that left shoulder lower in past
Speaker 2: the defender so that he can kind of turn around
Speaker 2: and pivot and get that right handed scoop shot off
Speaker 2: the glass. It's a really fundamentally sound game, which is
Speaker 2: what's allowing him to be so efficient. It is not
Speaker 2: a reliance on super difficult shot making. It's using his
Speaker 2: athletic gifts to generate high quality shots for himself, and
Speaker 2: he's hitting them at a high rate. His scoring volume
Speaker 2: is going up as well. First thirty five games of
Speaker 2: the year eighteen points per game, his last thirteen games
Speaker 2: twenty two points per game. He's also twenty plus points
Speaker 2: in nine of his last thirteen nights. So hot strike
Speaker 2: there for Jalen Williams. Again, light week for the Thunder,
Speaker 2: but a lot of encouraging stuff coming out of Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: Number five, the Cleveland Cavaliers took a bad loss at
Speaker 2: home against the injury injury riddled Sixers with bad defensive
Speaker 2: effort game for them. They had a one thirty defensive
Speaker 2: rating in that game against Philly, but they did bounce
Speaker 2: back and beat the Bulls. Effort is a huge determining
Speaker 2: factor for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They do not have talent
Speaker 2: advantages over their opponents on most knights, but they have
Speaker 2: a They're very well coached, they play super hard. Every
Speaker 2: guy does their job on defense, and then they're good
Speaker 2: enough running in transition when they have opportunities, and Donovan
Speaker 2: Mitchell's playing well enough that they're able to win games.
Speaker 2: But again, the effort has to be there. They do
Speaker 2: not have talent advantages over most of the teams in
Speaker 2: the league. You see that in the record. By the way,
Speaker 2: they're twenty three and two this year when they play
Speaker 2: teams that are below five hundred, but they're just thirteen
Speaker 2: and fifteen when they play against five hundred or better teams.
Speaker 2: And so that effort, like when they bring nights like
Speaker 2: they did against Philly. They're going to lose in a
Speaker 2: lot of cases. Number four the Denver Nuggets. They dropped
Speaker 2: two games last week to the Bucks and the Kings.
Speaker 2: Contavious Cabbo Pope and Jamal Murray both went down with
Speaker 2: injuries in the Bucks game. KCP I believe was a
Speaker 2: hamstring and then Murray I believe was shin splints if
Speaker 2: I remember correctly, but they were kind of getting punked
Speaker 2: anyway at the time that they left the game. Then
Speaker 2: both guys were out for the Sacramento game. The Sacramento
Speaker 2: loss was kind of weird because I felt like Denver
Speaker 2: was in position to win that one, and then they
Speaker 2: went to this bizarre.
Speaker 1: Like coverage where like the guard was.
Speaker 2: On the ball, which ended up being Justin Holliday and
Speaker 2: Aaron Gordon, but they were in their possessions on dearon Fox.
Speaker 2: They were defending like it was an ice coverage, like
Speaker 2: they were trying to deny the ball screen and force
Speaker 2: him away from the screen, but the actual screen defender.
Speaker 2: Typically in an ice coverage, when a guy is like
Speaker 2: denying the use of the ball screen, the guy that's
Speaker 2: guarding the ball or the guy that's guarding the screen
Speaker 2: or typically drops into the lane so that you're forcing
Speaker 2: him to drive away from the screen right into your helper.
Speaker 2: But what Denver was doing, which was weird, is they
Speaker 2: had the on ball guy up denying the screen like
Speaker 2: he was icing, and then they had the screen defender
Speaker 2: all the way out on the other side of the
Speaker 2: screen for a hedge, which doesn't make any sense. Why
Speaker 2: would you deny use of the ball screen but then
Speaker 2: also have help at the ball screen. The whole point
Speaker 2: is the on ball defenders not letting him get there.
Speaker 2: Darren Fox was just like literally just driving into a
Speaker 2: hand crafted, easy driving lane and just torched Denver at
Speaker 2: the end of the game with layups and floaters, and
Speaker 2: it was just a really really confusing defensive strategy down
Speaker 2: the stretch.
Speaker 1: And again, like here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not worried about Denver, but the lifeless losses are
Speaker 2: starting to pile up just a little bit, and all
Speaker 2: it means is that they do need to kick in
Speaker 2: with a little bit more urgency here down the stretch
Speaker 2: of the season. Number three, the Los Angeles Clippers Minnesota
Speaker 2: loss was a bit concerning. They got strangled by the
Speaker 2: perimeter defense of Minnesota and then overwhelmed by their size
Speaker 2: on the offensive end of the floor. But I was
Speaker 2: really impressed by the Golden State Warriors win the other night. No,
Speaker 2: Kawhi Leonard had a big run from Golden State like
Speaker 2: they typically bring in the third quarter as they went
Speaker 2: up double digits.
Speaker 1: Would have been really easy just to be like not
Speaker 1: our night, but nope, they weathered it.
Speaker 2: They played Clippers basketball down the stretch, really smart, driving
Speaker 2: kick possessions to great shooters in the corners, and they
Speaker 2: got a really impressive road win, hitting a lot of
Speaker 2: the checkboxes that I look for championship contenders. The Clippers
Speaker 2: at number three, number two, the Minnesota Timberwolves three and
Speaker 2: oh week followed up their dominance of the Clippers with
Speaker 2: back to back wins over the Blazers. They've won four
Speaker 2: to row since their clutch collapse against the Chicago Bulls
Speaker 2: and all have been blowouts. And again, if you have
Speaker 2: issues with late game execution, that's a great way to
Speaker 2: avoid those situations be a dominant basketball team. This was
Speaker 2: a big thing for the Lakers in the twenty twenty year,
Speaker 2: where like they leaned heavily on defensive personnel, ran a
Speaker 2: lot of big lineups where they play, you know, a
Speaker 2: center next to Anthony Davis and stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: what ended up happening is throughout that season they would
Speaker 2: struggle a little bit in the half court just because
Speaker 2: of the lack of offensive skill off of Lebron James
Speaker 2: and Anthony Davis. But they just defended like crazy, got
Speaker 2: out in transition a bunch, and didn't let games get
Speaker 2: close late, you know, like and like even if you
Speaker 2: look in the finals, it's like they lose that one
Speaker 2: game where Jimmy Butler scores all those points, but then
Speaker 2: they just blow them out in Game six. And that's
Speaker 2: got to be the pathway for Minnesota. They're not going
Speaker 2: they don't have the personnel to be a surgical half
Speaker 2: court offense, but they do have the personnel to win
Speaker 2: games by ten to fifteen points strangling teams with their defense,
Speaker 2: and that just needs to be their mo here down
Speaker 2: the stretch. Number one Boston Celtics two to zero with
Speaker 2: two wins over the Nets. As I predicted before the season,
Speaker 2: I thought they'd run away with the conference. They are
Speaker 2: now six games up on the East two seed. They
Speaker 2: have a four game lead over the Minnesota Timberwolves for
Speaker 2: the Number one overall seed. They also have the third
Speaker 2: easiest remaining sky Like, they prove themselves to be the
Speaker 2: best regular season team while playing a very tough schedule.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the year, most of.
Speaker 2: Their tougher opponents were front loaded, and so they actually
Speaker 2: have a much easier schedule here down the stretch. And
Speaker 2: so their reward is they can be really cautious with
Speaker 2: injuries and guys that are a little banged up. They
Speaker 2: can mess with lineups, they can tweak strategies and and
Speaker 2: and they can They just have an enormous margin for air.
Speaker 2: They have the ability to really kind of like flush
Speaker 2: things out in terms of what they want to have
Speaker 2: in their bag, is like punches and counters and adjustments
Speaker 2: when they get to the postseason, just because of all
Speaker 2: of the leeway that they've built for themselves in the standings,
Speaker 2: they do have a little bit of a tough schedule.
Speaker 2: To kick off the post All Star stretch. They go
Speaker 2: to Chicago, then to New York, although the Knicks are
Speaker 2: a little beat up right now. Then they come home
Speaker 2: for Philly and Golden State. That's a little bit lighter stretch.
Speaker 2: But then they go to Cleveland to Denver too, Phoenix
Speaker 2: so gonna learn a lot about the Celtics and some
Speaker 2: of their offensive progression here in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: But then they're like their schedules up again after that.
Speaker 2: So I don't think it'll matter in the standings at all.
Speaker 2: But this next few weeks is going to be a
Speaker 2: good opportunity for us to learn more about the Celtics.
Speaker 2: We're going to be covering them very closely over that stretch.
Speaker 2: There you go, there's our power rankings for this Monday,
Speaker 2: February nineteenth. Have you guys ever had a bad ticket
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Speaker 2: let's move on to the mailbag. I got seventeen different
Speaker 2: versions of this particular question, but I just picked one
Speaker 2: how would you because I thought this was the best
Speaker 2: one that kind of encapsulated like the broader issue, how
Speaker 2: would you incentivize players to play more competitive in the
Speaker 2: All Star Game? It feels like the game becomes more
Speaker 2: boring to watch every year, and the offensive highlights cannot
Speaker 2: compensate for the lack of competition. Greetings from Germany. Really
Speaker 2: enjoy watching the show. Thank you for supporting the show.
Speaker 2: As always, I appreciate the kind words that you guys
Speaker 2: drop in the comments. I didn't even watch the game
Speaker 2: last night. I was actually joking with my wife as
Speaker 2: we were just relaxing. We typically takes Sunday to kind
Speaker 2: of Saturdays, more of like a busy do stuff around
Speaker 2: the house day, and then Sunday's like a chill day.
Speaker 2: And at one point I looked over at the clock
Speaker 2: and it was like seven, and I told my wife,
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm pretty sure the All Star Game
Speaker 2: is like on now or starting soon, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I could not care less about watching the game. I
Speaker 2: remember the last time that was like appointment viewing for
Speaker 2: me with the All Star was when they lunch the
Speaker 2: elam ending, just because I have always been a fan
Speaker 2: of the elam ending and I wanted to see it.
Speaker 2: And we've got a couple of good ones, and then
Speaker 2: the elam ending even ended up kind of crapping out
Speaker 2: there towards the end, and like, I think part of
Speaker 2: the issue too, like one of my like fundamental things
Speaker 2: that I think causes the poor effort. First of all,
Speaker 2: Anthony Edwards is right. The guys just they're looking for
Speaker 2: a break. They don't want to compete, they want to break.
Speaker 2: Just imagine the grind of the eighty two game regular
Speaker 2: season and then suddenly it's like, okay, from Thursday to Thursday,
Speaker 2: there's no games, so you can take a break. And
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, but I have to fly to Indiana
Speaker 2: for this All Star event. You know, even Lebron like
Speaker 2: comes in the day of the game, right, you know,
Speaker 2: like these guys are they're they're exhausted from the eighty
Speaker 2: two This is just another thing they have to deal with.
Speaker 2: During the season, and so I think I think that's
Speaker 2: why they don't necessarily want to go all out while
Speaker 2: they're there. But then the format itself, it kind of
Speaker 2: like breeds a certain amount of lackadaisical effort. What I
Speaker 2: mean by that is like, let's say I'm throwing in
Speaker 2: the opening there's forty eight minutes of basketball to play.
Speaker 2: If there's forty eight minutes of basketball to play, like,
Speaker 2: of course you're gonna be chilling at the start of
Speaker 2: that game. One of the things that I think made
Speaker 2: the elam ending work, at least there at the beginning,
Speaker 2: was like it was a very small sample size of
Speaker 2: basketball at the end of the game, twenty four points.
Speaker 2: You get twenty four points here.
Speaker 1: At the end.
Speaker 2: But even then, when we got to the later phases
Speaker 2: of that elam ending phase, one team would be up
Speaker 2: ten twelve points by the time they got to the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter, and so it didn't really feel like it
Speaker 2: was in flux. But and so like there's different things
Speaker 2: you can try. I've seen people say, well, what if
Speaker 2: we did USA versus the World? Yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: would I think that's a little thing that would breed
Speaker 2: more competitiveness. Is like the guys just out of pride
Speaker 2: might feel more interested in competing. But that's never gonna
Speaker 2: work because you can't have a system where you pick
Speaker 2: twelve All Stars from outside the US and twelve All
Speaker 2: Stars from inside the US. It doesn't balance out equally
Speaker 2: with the with the talent or the conferences. It just
Speaker 2: would never work. And so there would be you know,
Speaker 2: maybe eight four and All Stars and you know, fourteen
Speaker 2: US All Stars. It just wouldn't work. You could never
Speaker 2: do that. So it's a good idea, but would never work.
Speaker 2: What if you had the home court advantage in the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals determined by who wins that game. That's a
Speaker 2: terrible idea because that specific format is already so loose
Speaker 2: and sloppy, and it's way too big of a swing
Speaker 2: to leave in the hands of basically just for fun
Speaker 2: type of event. You know, Baseball doesn't rely on effort.
Speaker 2: That's why they can get away with that. Baseball doesn't
Speaker 2: rely on effort. So like they can have an All
Speaker 2: Star game, and like, guys are gonna still have like
Speaker 2: a pretty normal looking baseball game because it's not that
Speaker 2: type of environment, right, So, like, I don't think that's
Speaker 2: a good idea for an NBA All Star Game to
Speaker 2: have some sort of massive like swinging factor of the
Speaker 2: NBA Playoffs at stake in that environment. They're what I
Speaker 2: would do if I wanted to try to manufacture some
Speaker 2: competitiveness is create a shorter game.
Speaker 1: And what that.
Speaker 2: Means is like, what if you just took ten all
Speaker 2: stars from both conferences and you made four teams of
Speaker 2: five and you played four or you played two elam
Speaker 2: ending games. Just game to twenty four twos and threes,
Speaker 2: toss up the ball, let's play. Then do another game
Speaker 2: to twenty four twos and threes, toss up the ball.
Speaker 1: Let's play.
Speaker 2: Maybe you add a king of the court element by
Speaker 2: position group, Like how fun would that be to watch
Speaker 2: like Jokicen ANDMB just play one on one against each other,
Speaker 2: or like the stuff that you see at Team USA
Speaker 2: where you see Paul George and Kevin Durant and all
Speaker 2: these guys just playing king of the court from the
Speaker 2: elbow to dribble limit that kind of stuff, Like I
Speaker 2: would turn it into an event where you have these
Speaker 2: shorter bursts of higher competitive energy two five on five
Speaker 2: pickup games where all the bench guys goes all the
Speaker 2: bench guys go against each other, all the starters go
Speaker 2: against each other, because that's the thing, Like you throw
Speaker 2: the ball up at center court and it's like first
Speaker 2: one to make ten baskets basically, like that's a way
Speaker 2: more like achievable effort thing then to throw the ball
Speaker 2: up center court in a forty eight minute game and
Speaker 2: be like, come on, guys, play hard at the at
Speaker 2: the very least, they're sitting there going like, we're gonna
Speaker 2: at least chill for twenty of these minutes, maybe thirty
Speaker 2: of these minutes, and maybe we'll pick it up towards
Speaker 2: the end. Like forty eight minutes is way too long
Speaker 2: to expect guys to go hard.
Speaker 1: In that environment.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, make no mistake,
Speaker 2: even with my idea, the idea of like having a
Speaker 2: couple of pickup games and maybe some king of the
Speaker 2: Court stuff, even in that specific format, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: unless the guys compete. And so everything fundamentally comes back
Speaker 2: to what Anthony Edwards says. We can do whatever we
Speaker 2: want to try to foist some competitive energy onto them,
Speaker 2: but they have to bring it. It's inevitably on the players,
Speaker 2: and the players have told us they don't care about
Speaker 2: playing hard in this environment. And so what I've always
Speaker 2: told everybody on the show is like, if you're a
Speaker 2: fan of a team and the team you're rooting for
Speaker 2: is not bought into the goal and they're not playing
Speaker 2: hard on a nightly basis, then you need to adjust
Speaker 2: your expectations with what you expect from that team. Same
Speaker 2: thing goes for the All Star Game. If the players
Speaker 2: aren't interested in it, adjust your expectations and then you
Speaker 2: won't be disappointed. Like, it's very clear that they don't care,
Speaker 2: but if I was the league and I was trying
Speaker 2: to force them to care, that I think is the
Speaker 2: move smaller bits of basketball that don't have this long,
Speaker 2: forty eight minute commitment, where you can get guys to
Speaker 2: play hard for a short burst of time. The one
Speaker 2: thing I like about the King of the Court format, too,
Speaker 2: is I think guys would be a little less worried
Speaker 2: about injuries because you're not as worried about, you know,
Speaker 2: stepping on a help defender's foot or going up for
Speaker 2: a rebound and having a guy come up underneath you.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit easier to avoid injuries in a
Speaker 2: one on one format, which I think could could bring
Speaker 2: some more effort out of the guys. But I mean,
Speaker 2: here's the thing, guys, your guess is as good as mine.
Speaker 1: The leagu's tried everything and nothing's worked. So it is
Speaker 1: what it is at this point.
Speaker 2: Next question, Hey, Jason, thoughts on the biggest MV peace
Speaker 2: snub ever? Is there a year that sticks out to
Speaker 2: you and makes you think, for instance, twenty seventeen Harden
Speaker 2: instead of Russ. For example, twenty seventeen Harden over Us
Speaker 2: is a really good example. The one that always sticks
Speaker 2: in micro obviously as a Lebron fan is twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I thought, who is the best basketball player in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty Lebron? Who is the best basketball team in twenty twenty?
Speaker 2: The Los Angeles Lakers. Literally, the league was incredibly deep
Speaker 2: in the Western Conference, and then the bottom of the
Speaker 2: Eastern Conference was historically bad.
Speaker 1: There were like eight terrible.
Speaker 2: Teams in the Eastern Conference, and so Jannis in the
Speaker 2: Bucks would just beat the living shit out of all
Speaker 2: of these bad teams. And remember, you play the other
Speaker 2: conference for thirty of your games. You play your conference
Speaker 2: for fifty two of your games. So like when the
Speaker 2: East and by the way, it's happening again this year,
Speaker 2: same things happening in the Eastern Conference this year, a
Speaker 2: less dramatic version of it. But the bottom of the
Speaker 2: Eastern Conference is substantially weaker than the him of the
Speaker 2: Western Conference. That's why when you look at the cross
Speaker 2: conference record, the West is kicking the shit out of
Speaker 2: the East in their interconference play. But anyway, in that
Speaker 2: twenty twenty season, the Bucks kicked the shit out of everybody.
Speaker 2: Giannis only played like thirty two minutes a game or
Speaker 2: something like that, and it was because they were playing
Speaker 2: all these bad teams, and it massively inflated all the
Speaker 2: advanced metrics. Remember the whole thing about per thirty six,
Speaker 2: and like Giannis is averaging this per thirty six, and
Speaker 2: it's like Lebron was a better basketball player, playing better
Speaker 2: basketball for a better team and a tougher conference. Still
Speaker 2: was right next to him in the standings. It just
Speaker 2: beat him head to head. Before the end of the season.
Speaker 2: The only reason they won in Milwaukee is Milwaukee won
Speaker 2: in Milwaukee was because Jannis made five threes in the game.
Speaker 2: Like the Lakers were just better. Lebron was just better.
Speaker 2: I thought he clearly deserved MVP. That season. It's actually
Speaker 2: of all of the season in Lebron's career, it's the
Speaker 2: one time I thought he got robbed. Lebron fans like
Speaker 2: to say that he deserves to have ten MVPs and
Speaker 2: voter fatigue is what killed him, and I tend to
Speaker 2: go the other way on that, because Lebron tends to
Speaker 2: be a guy after Miami who super chills in the
Speaker 2: regular season. But that one year, that twenty twenty season
Speaker 2: with the Lakers, from the started training camp to the
Speaker 2: moment he hoisted the trophy, he attacked the season with
Speaker 2: a crazy level of intensity. I thought he was by
Speaker 2: far the best player in the world that year. I
Speaker 2: thought he got robbed of the MVP that should have
Speaker 2: been his number five. Next question, it's no secret that's
Speaker 2: Steph and Lebron draw the best ratings. However, is it
Speaker 2: a factor of Stephan Lebron just being simply better or
Speaker 2: is it an issue of the NBA failing to market
Speaker 2: the new the newer teams better in Minnesota, Oklahoma City,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So I actually think the league does a
Speaker 2: better job of marketing, maybe not relative to what we want,
Speaker 2: but relative to what it used to be because of
Speaker 2: the tools we have at our disposal because of social media,
Speaker 2: because of even like little things like just League Pass,
Speaker 2: and how easy it is to find NBA content, whether
Speaker 2: it's team specific podcasts, YouTube channels. So many people out
Speaker 2: there do such an amazing job covering the league. But
Speaker 2: like when people complain about, like, oh, ESPN, they never
Speaker 2: talk about these other teams. All they do is talk
Speaker 2: about Lebron and stuff on first take, And it's like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, sure, but like, you don't have to
Speaker 2: turn on ESPN. I never ever ever turn on ESPN
Speaker 2: unless I'm watching an NBA game on ESPN. Like, if
Speaker 2: I want to listen to NBA content, I go to
Speaker 2: the people I want to listen to. So that to me,
Speaker 2: and it's easy to find that stuff. So like, to me,
Speaker 2: I've never understood the like like the league is responsible
Speaker 2: for no, we all are all of us as fans
Speaker 2: by virtue of the way this new ecosystem works, we
Speaker 2: are responsible for how the league is marketed. There's Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City fans and media members who do an amazing job
Speaker 2: marketing their talent, Minnesota fans and they all do a
Speaker 2: great job. You want to know why, Stephan Lebron are
Speaker 2: more famous and popular than all these other players because
Speaker 2: they've won eight of the last twelve championships. Guys, they've
Speaker 2: won eight of the last twelve. Think about that. The
Speaker 2: rest of the league has won the same number of
Speaker 2: titles as Lebron and Steph individually have won over the
Speaker 2: last twelve years. That is why Steph and Lebron are
Speaker 2: revered the way that they are. That is why they
Speaker 2: are the face of the league. That is why they
Speaker 2: are such a big draw on national television. By the way,
Speaker 2: you know what, one of our at hoops tonight, one
Speaker 2: of our more successful teams to cover as of late
Speaker 2: in terms of performance on the channel, the Denver Nuggets.
Speaker 2: You know why, because they're a truly special basketball team
Speaker 2: with an all time great player who, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: as long as he stays healthy and his team stays healthy,
Speaker 2: is going to win a bunch of championships over course
Speaker 2: in the next five years. And guess what, by the
Speaker 2: time we get further down the line there, Nicole Jokic
Speaker 2: will have a level of fame and notoriety here in
Speaker 2: the US similar to what Steph Curry and Lebron James
Speaker 2: do throughout NBA history, throughout all of history. That's the
Speaker 2: way it works. Who are the most famous players in
Speaker 2: NBA history. Michael Jordan's six championships, Kobe Bryant five championships,
Speaker 2: Magic Johnson five championships, Larry Bird three championships. Like that's
Speaker 2: that's how you become a legend. That's how you become
Speaker 2: famous in this league. You hoist the damn trophy. And
Speaker 2: by the way, that is why I'm the loyalist to
Speaker 2: the banner. That's why I care about it so much.
Speaker 2: It is eternal, it is everlasting. It is the thing
Speaker 2: that it's the one thing you can do in this
Speaker 2: league that transcends everything else. Stephen Lebron have done it
Speaker 2: more than everybody else. That's why they're the faces of
Speaker 2: the league. That's why they're as popular as they are.
Speaker 2: Thanks question, what do you think of the Paul George
Speaker 2: fit with the Warriors if they somehow manage to sign
Speaker 2: him as a free agent next season. So the idea
Speaker 2: behind this kind of idea is and by the way,
Speaker 2: like Paul George has not signed an extension yet, the
Speaker 2: idea here is the second apron And the more and
Speaker 2: more I talk to people around the league or other
Speaker 2: people cover the league. The biggest thing that's becoming like
Speaker 2: a talking point as of late is the new CBA
Speaker 2: and the fact that, like starting next year, there's all
Speaker 2: of these crazy rules in place that make it a
Speaker 2: lot harder to work around the margins once you enter
Speaker 2: into that second apron And so I think in general,
Speaker 2: you're going to see a lot of teams that are
Speaker 2: going to make tough decisions on who they retain and
Speaker 2: who they don't. So like, for the record, my guess is,
Speaker 2: knowing Steve Balmer, he's probably going to find a way
Speaker 2: to bring Paul George back. I expect him to be
Speaker 2: a Clipper. But if there's a version of this where
Speaker 2: goes south, what it would look like is the Clippers
Speaker 2: would sit down and they go, hey, we want to
Speaker 2: have a sustainably great team. We just built this brand
Speaker 2: new arena. It's going to I think they're moving into
Speaker 2: it next year, Like, we need to build.
Speaker 1: A sustainable model.
Speaker 2: We cannot just go all in on this Kawhi Paul
Speaker 2: George fit and then have a situation where they both
Speaker 2: age out and then suddenly we're a complete full rebuild team.
Speaker 2: So let's figure out a way to do this. How
Speaker 2: about James Harden. We could bring him back for twenty
Speaker 2: million a year and how him long term? Or we
Speaker 2: can bring Paul George back and we have to pay
Speaker 2: him fifty to sixty million a year. Well what if
Speaker 2: we just bring back James Harden and what if we
Speaker 2: you know, kind of let Paul George go. Is our
Speaker 2: means with which to have a more sustainable model in
Speaker 2: terms of having more flexibility to make moves on the
Speaker 2: margins and to come up with cap space quickly if needed,
Speaker 2: and things along those lines. Okay, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: Paul George becomes a free agent, or the Clippers look
Speaker 2: to trade him to get asset return so that they
Speaker 2: don't lose him for nothing. Okay, Now a team like
Speaker 2: Golden State jumps in and goes, here's Jonathan kaminga, here's
Speaker 2: you know, two first round draft picks, whatever it is
Speaker 2: like that, that would be the framework of how that
Speaker 2: would work. I don't think that's going to happen. I
Speaker 2: think Paul George is going to stay with the Clippers.
Speaker 2: But I do think you will see teams around the
Speaker 2: league that will make tough decisions about really great players
Speaker 2: because of their goal to avoid that second apron and
Speaker 2: all of the limitations that come with it. Does Paul
Speaker 2: George fit with the Clippers, Absolutely, He'd be amazing in
Speaker 2: that situation, not just as one of the best closed
Speaker 2: out attackers in the league, but I think he's a
Speaker 2: good enough passer and off screen player to thrive in
Speaker 2: their five out system. He's an excellent two way player,
Speaker 2: can defend the other team's best player.
Speaker 1: He's just a way way, way, way, way way way.
Speaker 2: Better version of either Andrew Wiggins or Jonathan Kaminga. And
Speaker 2: like now, I think Jonathan Mingka has the potential to
Speaker 2: be better than Paul George in the long run. But
Speaker 2: the idea there is you put Steph Curry with Paul
Speaker 2: George and Draymond Green, you instantaneously become a top tier
Speaker 2: championship contender.
Speaker 1: That's the idea.
Speaker 2: So again, we're gonna talk about this in a bunch
Speaker 2: of ways over the course of this summer, when we
Speaker 2: get into free agency and stuff like, don't Galaxy brain
Speaker 2: this stuff. When you put two gall when you put
Speaker 2: two all time great basketball players next to each other,
Speaker 2: they tend to figure it out. So the fit with
Speaker 2: the Warriors for Paul George would be excellent, but again
Speaker 2: it's unlikely, although I do think we'll see some more
Speaker 2: player movement in the future surrounding the CBA. Next question,
Speaker 2: what are your most intriguing teams coming back from the break?
Speaker 2: What will you be looking for with the team? So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna for this question, I picked one from each conference.
Speaker 2: In the Eastern Conference, I'm really gonna be watching the
Speaker 2: Milwaukee Bucks. They have the third toughest remaining schedule by
Speaker 2: opponent win percentage, and they're already in free fall, have
Speaker 2: lost seven of their last ten games. I think over
Speaker 2: the next twenty six games, the final twenty six games
Speaker 2: of the season, in order for the Bucks to be
Speaker 2: on track for their ultimate goal to win the title,
Speaker 2: I think they need an offensive rating over one twenty
Speaker 2: and a defensive rating below one fifteen.
Speaker 1: I don't care about anything else to this point in
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 2: If from right now, over the final twenty six an
Speaker 2: offensive rating over one twenty tells me that they have
Speaker 2: gotten to their own offensive ceiling. They've figured out with
Speaker 2: that group how to score a high enough rate to
Speaker 2: buy them margin for air on the defensive end of
Speaker 2: the floor. A defensive rating below one to fifteen to me,
Speaker 2: would tell me that they are committed enough to the
Speaker 2: details to positionally be in the right spots enough on
Speaker 2: defense to at least defend well enough so that their
Speaker 2: offense can put them over the top. That to me
Speaker 2: is the is the benchmark. An offensive rating over one twenty,
Speaker 2: a defensive rating below one fifteen. Here down the stretch
Speaker 2: of the season, that's gonna be what we're watching with
Speaker 2: Milwaukee on a night in, night out basis out West.
Speaker 2: The team I'm gonna be watching most closely is the
Speaker 2: Dallas Mavericks. I've had a lot of people say why
Speaker 2: even she talked about Dallas more. Dallas has been a
Speaker 2: really hard team for me to learn about.
Speaker 1: And one of the main.
Speaker 2: Reasons why is they're just they've they've every time I
Speaker 2: turn them on, it's a different team. They've had sixteen
Speaker 2: different players start a game. They've had eleven different players
Speaker 2: start at least five games. As a point of reference,
Speaker 2: Sacramento Kings have had only eight different players start a
Speaker 2: game as opposed to sixteen for the Maps. That's half
Speaker 2: as many. They've had six different players start at least
Speaker 2: five games. That's half as many, So that it gives
Speaker 2: you an idea of just the level of turnover they've had.
Speaker 2: Luca and Kyrie themselves have combined to miss thirty games.
Speaker 2: Even it's like, I really want to watch some more
Speaker 2: Daniel Gafford. I really want to watch some more Jal
Speaker 2: McDaniels as we're trying to not Janie McDaniels, excuse me, PJ. Washington,
Speaker 2: as we're trying to figure out whether or not these
Speaker 2: additions can kind of move the needle for Dallas post deadline,
Speaker 2: and it's like I'm watching them against the San Antonio Spurs, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, Daniel Gafford. Daniel Gafford fits into a mold
Speaker 2: that we've seen a lot around the league, which is
Speaker 2: like the undersized big that's a really good athlete and
Speaker 2: a really solid role man with his ability to finish
Speaker 2: around the rim, but has some defensive limitations and it
Speaker 2: because he's not necessarily the biggest guy to have around
Speaker 2: the rim. We've seen a lot of these guys over
Speaker 2: the years, whether it's like a Montrez Harrol or like
Speaker 2: a like a Thomas Bryant, where they're like good athletes,
Speaker 2: they play hard there, they have length and they can
Speaker 2: finish above the rim, but they're just they're just a
Speaker 2: little bit undersized for the position, and they're not great
Speaker 2: defensive players, and so like, for instance, like there are
Speaker 2: some possessions where we're watching Daniel Gafford against San Antonio
Speaker 2: and I'm like, Yeah, this is not gonna be good
Speaker 2: enough pick and roll defense to get the job done.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's against the damn San
Speaker 2: Antonio Spurs. You don't need to play hard necessarily to
Speaker 2: beat those guys. And so I'm excited just to see
Speaker 2: them post deadline, get healthy, have a bunch of games
Speaker 2: in a row where they have you know, consistency in
Speaker 2: the lineup, so we can learn about them. Finally, it's
Speaker 2: been tough to learn about them. Even in the six
Speaker 2: game winning streak. It's like they blew out the Thunder.
Speaker 2: That was a huge win, dominant, impressive performance. But there
Speaker 2: are other five wins. We're against the injury ravaged Sixers,
Speaker 2: the injury ravaged Nicks, the Washington Wizards, the San Antonio Spurs,
Speaker 2: and the Brooklyn Nets.
Speaker 1: We are going to learn.
Speaker 2: A ton about the Dallas Mavericks over the course of
Speaker 2: the next few weeks. And they've played Phoenix on Thursday
Speaker 2: and that major showdown I told you guys about. Then
Speaker 2: they immediately go on the road to Indy, on the
Speaker 2: road to Cleveland, on the road to Boston, and so
Speaker 2: we're gonna find out a lot more about Dallas over
Speaker 2: that span. I just want to see some consistency in
Speaker 2: the rotation so we can actually learn about what this
Speaker 2: group is capable of, specifically defensively and on the glass.
Speaker 2: They've defended extremely well. They have the number one defensive
Speaker 2: rating in the league over this six game span. But again,
Speaker 2: they're playing against some inferior competition, and so I really
Speaker 2: want to see what holds up what is translatable to
Speaker 2: the postseason among their upcoming opponents in the tougher stretch
Speaker 2: of their schedule here in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: So those are the two teams that I'm most intrigued
Speaker 2: by after the break, and that will probably be covering
Speaker 2: pretty closely Milwaukee and Dallas. Next question not a question
Speaker 2: about the All Star events, but I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: about how you brought up that young and fast teams
Speaker 2: tends to win a lot of games in the January
Speaker 2: to February part of the season, and with the Cavs
Speaker 2: recent and out of nowhere explosion. Do you think it's
Speaker 2: legit or just January woes. So here's the thing, I
Speaker 2: don't I think it's I think it's always a combination
Speaker 2: of factors. I don't want to undercut the success of
Speaker 2: some specific players on the Cavs. Donovan Mitchell's having the
Speaker 2: best season of his career in my opinion. His playmaking
Speaker 2: is better than it's ever been, his defense is better
Speaker 2: than it's ever been. That's going a long way towards
Speaker 2: helping that situation. Dean Wade turning into like a really
Speaker 2: impressive two way player very important for the turnaround of
Speaker 2: this particular team. Just around the board, Jared Allen's playing
Speaker 2: incredibly well. They're just getting really impressive two way performances
Speaker 2: from these guys. But there's something to be said about
Speaker 2: the fact that they're young, they're hungry, they're well coached,
Speaker 2: they're playing harder than everybody, and that absolutely will manifest
Speaker 2: and wins, particularly in the January February stretch of the season.
Speaker 2: This is the stretch of the year where the younger,
Speaker 2: more athletic teams that play hard more consistently will carry
Speaker 2: weight in the standings. This is also the stretch of
Speaker 2: the year where the older veteran teams that have had
Speaker 2: a lot of playoff experience that struggle to get up
Speaker 2: for regular season games, You'll see them drop a bunch
Speaker 2: of games in this stretch of the season. I think,
Speaker 2: like I mentioned earlier in the power rankings, I think
Speaker 2: you see that in the way that the Cavs wins
Speaker 2: have broken down. They're thirteen and fifteen when they play
Speaker 2: teams that are five hundred or better, and they're twenty
Speaker 2: three and two when they play teams that are below
Speaker 2: five hundred. They are very much an effort in energy
Speaker 2: and speed type of team. Next question, which of these
Speaker 2: teams do you think is more of a threat in
Speaker 2: the playoffs this year? The Pelicans, the MAVs or the Kings.
Speaker 2: I love this question. By the way, these types of questions.
Speaker 2: More of those please in the mailbags, like little choices
Speaker 2: between different options. I've always had fun with those. So
Speaker 2: bigger threat in the playoffs the Pelicans, the MAVs or
Speaker 2: the Kings. I go with the MAVs, no question. And
Speaker 2: it's really a simple. If you're ranking playoff performers out
Speaker 2: of that group, Luca is a clear number one. Number
Speaker 2: two in my opinion, it's like a toss up between
Speaker 2: either Brandon Ingram, Dearn Fox, or Kyrie Irving. I think
Speaker 2: Kyrie Irving's in that group as one of his three
Speaker 2: level shot creation is just so incredibly valuable, especially in
Speaker 2: a secondary role. Like and again everyone wants to say, like, oh,
Speaker 2: who's the best player in a vacuum, That doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: All that matters is how much you impact winning in
Speaker 2: your specific situation. That's what actually translates to the goal
Speaker 2: of getting the trophy. And so I'm always going to like,
Speaker 2: like Jamal Murray with the Nuggets for instance, to me,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how he stacks up against you know,
Speaker 2: a Deer and Fox who was in a different role.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It's not his role.
Speaker 2: His role is next to Nicole Jokic, and he impacts
Speaker 2: winning at an incredibly high level next to Nicolejokic. That's
Speaker 2: who he is as a basketball player in the real
Speaker 2: sense of what matters in this season in the pursuit
Speaker 2: of the trophy. And so again, give me Luca and
Speaker 2: Kyrie with athletes versus Brandon Ingram with athletes, versus Daron
Speaker 2: Fox and Malik Monk with athletes and Demonisabonis with athletes
Speaker 2: like I just think I think when they get into
Speaker 2: that setting that Luca and Kyrie just bring so much
Speaker 2: more to the table in terms of that slow down,
Speaker 2: half court environment.
Speaker 1: I would lean into the MAVs. There.
Speaker 2: Next question, why isn't Luca the MVP right now? The
Speaker 2: answer is really simple. They have the twelfth best record
Speaker 2: in the league. The last time a team with a
Speaker 2: bad record won the MVP was Russell Westbrook in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: They had the tenth best record in the league. So
Speaker 2: if Luca won the MVP right now, he would literally
Speaker 2: be an even bigger stretch in terms of where they
Speaker 2: are relative to the rest of the field in the standings.
Speaker 2: Then Russell Westbrook was in twenty seventeen, which retrospectively most
Speaker 2: people look back at as a mistake as someone who
Speaker 2: didn't deserve it right. We talked about that earlier with
Speaker 2: James Harden. So again, do I think Luca can win
Speaker 2: the MVP? Yeah, but they've got to win a ton
Speaker 2: of games over the last twenty six and by the
Speaker 2: way I get it, they've been ravaged by injuries.
Speaker 1: We talked about all of that.
Speaker 2: Luca's been incredible this year massively, especially as a pull
Speaker 2: up jump shooter. I also think he's having a better
Speaker 2: defense and rebounding season than he's had in either of
Speaker 2: the last couple of seasons. Like, I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: undercut what Luca is doing at all. They just have
Speaker 2: the twelve best record in the league, and like again,
Speaker 2: NBA history tells us the MVP is typically a guy
Speaker 2: from one of the best teams in the league in
Speaker 2: terms of where they land in the standings. Two more
Speaker 2: questions than we're out of here, how do you analyze
Speaker 2: clutch time defense? Feels like everyone makes a big deal
Speaker 2: about clutch offense, but I don't hear a lot of
Speaker 2: analys about what makes clutch defense successful. So clutch defense,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, becomes more about personnel than it does
Speaker 2: about execution. It's the biggest difference between the kind of
Speaker 2: like run of the mill regular season defensive rating stuff.
Speaker 2: It's a big reason why I view clutched numbers as
Speaker 2: an important indicator of what a playoff team is capable of.
Speaker 2: By the way, while we're talking about Dallas, you know
Speaker 2: he's been an excellent clutch team this year on both
Speaker 2: ends of the floor. Dallas they've actually been like an elite,
Speaker 2: like top tier late game, clutch situation defense this year.
Speaker 2: I think their defensive rating is like around a one
Speaker 2: oh four if I remember correctly. In clutch situations, they've
Speaker 2: been a team that's demonstrated that they have the personnel
Speaker 2: to get stops in late game situations. Why do I
Speaker 2: say it leans more on personnel than scheme? Over the
Speaker 2: course of eighty two, there's a lot of traditional coverages,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of base schemes. As a result of that,
Speaker 2: It's more about effort on a night in, night out
Speaker 2: basis right, And that's why I view defensive rating is
Speaker 2: more of an effort stat than a defense stat. But
Speaker 2: when you get into late game situations, typically you're just
Speaker 2: running a set. Isn't gonna get you a bucket because
Speaker 2: they're probably gonna switch it, and chances are they scouted
Speaker 2: a lot of your late game stuff and they know
Speaker 2: how to get in front of it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Also, more contact is allowed on both ends of the floor,
Speaker 2: so you're not gonna get some of the kind of
Speaker 2: cheap whistles that you get elsewhere in the game. So
Speaker 2: in that situation where there's more switching, more scouting, less
Speaker 2: foul calling. It becomes way more about picking on matchups
Speaker 2: and what athletic gifts your lineup has. And so there
Speaker 2: are a lot of teams, for instance, that will be
Speaker 2: able to get stops for large portions of the game,
Speaker 2: and then they get into the final minutes and they
Speaker 2: struggle to get stops, and that to me is a
Speaker 2: big indicator of some of the issues they might have
Speaker 2: down the line when they get into the postseason. And
Speaker 2: so on that note, I mean, like I'll give you
Speaker 2: an example, like, do you remember the Utah Jazz teams
Speaker 2: with Rudy Gobert. They would consistently be an excellent defense
Speaker 2: in the regular season. Then they get to the postseason
Speaker 2: and their defense fell apart because it turned out base
Speaker 2: scheme of chasing guys over the top and funneling them
Speaker 2: to Rudy Gobert worked great over the eighty two but
Speaker 2: when they got into the postseason, it was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: all we have to do is get Rudy into rotation,
Speaker 2: and as long as we're a little bit more deliberate
Speaker 2: about the next layer of our attack, Rudy won't be
Speaker 2: there anymore. That's when we can kind of pick them apart.
Speaker 2: For catch and shoot threes and or driving layups, and
Speaker 2: like that was when they started to kind of figure
Speaker 2: things out, and the Clippers just picked the Jazz apart
Speaker 2: at that point. So like again, when you get into
Speaker 2: the clutch situations, it more closely resembles playoff basketball. It
Speaker 2: becomes more about the actual athletic tools of your defensive lineup.
Speaker 2: That's why I look at clutch defense as closely as
Speaker 2: I do. Last question, and I actually have two of
Speaker 2: them here because I wanted to just kind of make
Speaker 2: a larger point about the way.
Speaker 1: We do the show.
Speaker 2: The way Jason has ditched Cleveland all season long is disappointing.
Speaker 2: The second one I got was from the nerd sesh guys.
Speaker 2: Seventeen minutes of talking about a trade that is very
Speaker 2: unlikely and can't happen until the summer while we are
Speaker 2: in the middle of one of the best NBA regular seasons.
Speaker 2: Is an interesting decision. So usually when I see stuff
Speaker 2: like this, it annoys me just because of the fact that, like,
Speaker 2: we structure the show for this very reason, So you
Speaker 2: got to think of it like this. There is the
Speaker 2: basketball nerd side of this show, but then there's the
Speaker 2: business side of this show, and in a typical situation,
Speaker 2: it's difficult to manage that dynamic from a time standpoint,
Speaker 2: and so you kind of have to pick one or
Speaker 2: the other, right And so you'll see major television shows
Speaker 2: lean big into the business side, and it's a lot
Speaker 2: of lebron it's a lot of Lakers, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of Warriors, it's a lot of you know, big picture
Speaker 2: NBA topics being argued about on TV, and then the
Speaker 2: niche podcasting world, they'll devote all their energy to more
Speaker 2: of the basketball nerd stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, our show is.
Speaker 2: Unique in the sense that we just do more than
Speaker 2: most shows, meaning like in terms of the hours of
Speaker 2: content that we do. Like I, on average during the
Speaker 2: season do like six episodes a week. How many niche
Speaker 2: podcasts out there are doing six episodes a week, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like they're usually they're doing three,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So what we do is
Speaker 2: both Like guess what, I did a deep dive on
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Cavaliers with Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down
Speaker 2: podcast less than a month ago, brought them on. We
Speaker 2: did forty eight minutes of calves for that episode. I
Speaker 2: watched a bunch of Calves tape this year. I've watched
Speaker 2: plenty of Calves. The difference is like what happens is
Speaker 2: over the course of a week, we'll have three hours
Speaker 2: of content that we put out. Usually it's more it's
Speaker 2: like four hours, and so yeah, in that four hours
Speaker 2: of content, you know, half of it might be business stuff.
Speaker 2: Here's Lebron topics. We cover the Warriors very closely. You
Speaker 2: know why we have a large Warriors fan base. We
Speaker 2: cover the Lakers very closely. You know why we have
Speaker 2: a large Lakers fan base. We cover the top teams
Speaker 2: in the league a lot. Why they are the ones
Speaker 2: that have the most engaged fan bases because their teams
Speaker 2: are good, and so we can get more of the
Speaker 2: business side out of it. But we work so much
Speaker 2: here that we're able to hit on everything. This one
Speaker 2: is the funniest one to me. Seventeen minutes of talking
Speaker 2: about a trade that is very unlikely and can't happen
Speaker 2: until the summer while we are in the middle of
Speaker 2: one of the best NBA regular seasons is an interesting decision.
Speaker 1: It was an hour and a half long show. It
Speaker 1: was an hour and a half.
Speaker 2: We talked like we got into an argument forever about
Speaker 2: like the Timberwolves versus the Oklahoma City like we were
Speaker 2: we did rookie rankings.
Speaker 1: We were all over the weeds in that episode. That's
Speaker 1: the beauty of it.
Speaker 2: When you talk for an hour and a half, you
Speaker 2: can spend seventeen minutes talking about a tray young Anthony
Speaker 2: Davis duo and how it stacks up to the rest
Speaker 2: of the league.
Speaker 1: That's the way it works here.
Speaker 2: Like, yes, you're gonna get a lot of Lakers, You're
Speaker 2: gonna get a lot of Warriors. But I don't just
Speaker 2: do Lakers and Warriors. I do a ton of additional stuff.
Speaker 2: We break it all out into additional clips, and we
Speaker 2: market it so you guys can see it. Like I,
Speaker 2: I go above and beyond to make sure that we
Speaker 2: get to as much of this stuff as possible. Our
Speaker 2: staff behind the scenes works really hard to edit all
Speaker 2: that stuff and get it put out in a way
Speaker 2: that is easily digestible for you guys. So, like again,
Speaker 2: like I, chances are if you want to hear me
Speaker 2: talk about your team, all you have to do is
Speaker 2: look in the feed. It's in there somewhere. It just
Speaker 2: it might not be at the start of the show.
Speaker 2: It might not be marketed in the full show thumbnail,
Speaker 2: but it's in there somewhere. You just got to look
Speaker 2: for it. We do that much content for that very reason.
Speaker 2: And again, the only reason why I'm kind of ranting
Speaker 2: about this right now is like, I want these people
Speaker 2: to know that stuff's there. Like, if you're like, I
Speaker 2: encourage you CALVS fans. We did a big deep dive,
Speaker 2: not just on the group that went on a run
Speaker 2: without Evan Mobley and without Darius Carlin. We even broke
Speaker 2: down how those two guys when they return to the lineup,
Speaker 2: how it's going to kind of change things. We even
Speaker 2: broke down big picture, what the Calves look like in
Speaker 2: five years. It was an hour of Calves content. Go
Speaker 2: find it.
Speaker 1: It's there. I encourage you to check it out. Carter
Speaker 1: does great work.
Speaker 2: It was awesome that he came on the show and
Speaker 2: gave us his time and gave us an interesting perspective.
Speaker 2: I just want you guys to know that stuff's there
Speaker 2: because we work too hard for it to go unnoticed.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense, all right, I'm off my soapbox.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll be
Speaker 2: back with Sam Bessini for contender rankings tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I will see you guys there.
Speaker 2: The volume