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Speaker 2: All right, welcome to HOOS today, you're at the volume.
Speaker 2: Happy sun to everybody. You guys are having a great weekend.
Speaker 2: Well today, I woke up this morning thinking we're going
Speaker 2: to crown a new NBA champion today. It's been a
Speaker 2: long time since we've had a game seven of the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals, and it got off to a little bit
Speaker 2: of a bummer start as Tyre's Halliburton goes down with
Speaker 2: what we can only assume is an achilles injury. The
Speaker 2: eighth achilles tear in the NBA this season, a very
Speaker 2: bizarre trend, Colin and I are going to spend some
Speaker 2: time talking about that towards the tail end of the
Speaker 2: show tonight. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five NBA champions. Colin, what's your big takeaway from
Speaker 2: 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 vertical leading score. Who goes against hype for the
Speaker 1: NBA stars we fall in love with And you know
Speaker 1: I've been saying this on FS one. I've been saying
Speaker 1: this for months. Is the NBA now because of the
Speaker 1: Aprons and the CBA is going to be like the NFL.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk more about general managers. You can't
Speaker 1: stack players and I think, you know, they were the
Speaker 1: best team all season. The home court ended up mattering
Speaker 1: against Indie and Denver, you know, really formidable opponents that
Speaker 1: had some older star players. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: in the end, you know, when you look back at
Speaker 1: this season, you'll go, well, they were a dominant regular
Speaker 1: season team. They weren't a great road team in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: but they were dominant at home and that's where they
Speaker 1: were crowned. And you know, that's why the regular season
Speaker 1: does matter. It may not look like the playoffs, but
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, I don't think it's winning this thing on
Speaker 1: the road, and so they earned it. And you know,
Speaker 1: the injuries, gutting, but that stuff happens. I mean, Kd's
Speaker 1: gone down in big games. I mean it happens. So
Speaker 1: and I think over the course of this season, Okase,
Speaker 1: he 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. 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 turned the Pacers over and they got
Speaker 2: out in transition. We 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 turnovers. There's no Haliburton if you don't have
Speaker 1: elite ball handlers against this team. I mean, we've fallen
Speaker 1: 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 I wrote it down here.
Speaker 1: There was a huge nineteen to two Oklahoma City run.
Speaker 1: A lot of that kickstarted by defense, and so they
Speaker 1: just feast on teams, and you know what, you know what,
Speaker 1: they're a little bit like they're like a fighter who
Speaker 1: sends his blood. Like, okay, see, they're not dominant enough
Speaker 1: offensively to just blow you out against great teams, against
Speaker 1: Denver and Indy. They can score, they have runs, but
Speaker 1: when they sense blood, somebody's in foul, trouble, somebody's hurt
Speaker 1: 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 okay, s wins.
Speaker 1: At least we can hang this boy, that's a top
Speaker 1: five defensive team all time. We can hang something that
Speaker 1: sounds like a champion. NBA's leading score, deepest team in years,
Speaker 1: all time, top five defense that sounds like a champion,
Speaker 1: does it not?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Their defense is one of the great defenses that
Speaker 2: has ever played in the NBA like the that was
Speaker 2: true in the metrics, and all we can do to
Speaker 2: tie that case together is the metrics showed in the
Speaker 2: regular season, and then what do you do in the
Speaker 2: playoffs against the competition you faced. This was a Pacers
Speaker 2: offense that was lighting everybody up, Colin and they got
Speaker 2: strangled every single time it mattered. Ye, Nikola Jokic is
Speaker 2: literally the best offensive player I've ever watched. He and
Speaker 2: they had him under control in every pivotal moment of
Speaker 2: that series. That is the type of defense that we watched.
Speaker 2: You know, this Thunder offense was frustrating. Sometimes we're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about Shaye in a few minutes, Like Shae was
Speaker 2: great every time he needed to be great, but there
Speaker 2: were some downsides here. He had a game in this
Speaker 2: series where had zero assists. They had games where they'd
Speaker 2: moved the ball poorly, where they were out of rhythm,
Speaker 2: out of flow. They're young players, young players against elite
Speaker 2: playoff defense. That's going to take some time to figure out.
Speaker 2: And there's no doubt that if the Thunder are going
Speaker 2: to have sustained success in this league, they're going to
Speaker 2: have to figure out some things offensively to be better
Speaker 2: year after year after year. But their defense right now
Speaker 2: is elite hold the trophy defense, and that's what came
Speaker 2: through for them again today.
Speaker 1: I was really interested this if Chet Holmgren could deliver finally,
Speaker 1: and I thought in the second half it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Chet Holmgren played with more confidence. That was my only question.
Speaker 1: I thought, Man, if this is a three point game
Speaker 1: and there's four minutes left, okay, see Home Favorite could
Speaker 1: get really tight and they left no doubt. But I
Speaker 1: thought Homegroun and Jay Dubb both in the second half,
Speaker 1: played well in that run. So and that was one
Speaker 1: of my concerns is that I've never seen a young
Speaker 1: team like this young win a championship. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this as you were talking about SJ. SGA. Usually,
Speaker 1: let's say, for instance, Shaq wasn't hitting his free throws,
Speaker 1: he still had all time power. If Kobe and MJ
Speaker 1: weren't hitting their jumper, they could go vertical Magic Johnson
Speaker 1: struggling from the field. He just had a size advantage.
Speaker 1: He'd back you down. Sga is not a vertical player.
Speaker 1: So if he's off and he's off center, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have power. He doesn't have speed he doesn't have. He's
Speaker 1: not he's not you know, he's strong for his size.
Speaker 1: He's not a vertical player. He is a mid range
Speaker 1: maven like he is all time stuff. And so you
Speaker 1: know I've said before is he's an all time scorer.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't feel like he's in the Curry class
Speaker 1: where you're like, wow, I've never seen a human like Caitlin.
Speaker 1: Clark's got some of that. You're like, I've never seen that, right, Sga,
Speaker 1: I've seen it, Alex English, Keiki Vandaway. He's just better
Speaker 1: at it. And so I do think you know, when
Speaker 1: you when you play better teams and you can get
Speaker 1: off his game. He has a very centralized game. He's
Speaker 1: tremendous at it. But I think we both admit he
Speaker 1: needs a friendly whistle, and because he's so gifted, he
Speaker 1: almost always gets it. It's not like the hardened whistle,
Speaker 1: which is like and it feels illegal. That's not it.
Speaker 1: It's like that feels unstoppable. Is different than it feels illegal.
Speaker 1: But you know he is. I love him. I love
Speaker 1: his maturity. He's just a smart, hard working kid. He's
Speaker 1: impossible not to root for. I know everybody doesn't like
Speaker 1: you know, all the flopping. But I have a hard
Speaker 1: time not rooting for guys who are more mature than
Speaker 1: their age, with completely refined games where I can see
Speaker 1: the work ethic, I can see the years you've toiled
Speaker 1: in a gym. That to me as a grinder, like,
Speaker 1: I love that kind of basketball, and I think that's
Speaker 1: 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 like
Speaker 2: they're the elder statesman in the locker room. He's the
Speaker 2: elder statesman in the locker room at twenty six years old.
Speaker 2: It's such a bizarre dynamic. But to like, for if
Speaker 2: he was an immature player at twenty six, this whole
Speaker 2: thing could fall apart because of the youth in that
Speaker 2: locker room, and he just brings that veteran presence. This
Speaker 2: is the perfect time for us to get into the
Speaker 2: Microsoft bit and I'm gonna kick it back to you,
Speaker 2: So welcome to course correction, brought to you guys by Microsoft.
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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
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Speaker 2: the Week this week is the twenty twenty five NBA
Speaker 2: Finals MVP. It is now official. Shay gil Jess Alexander Colin.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about a cool way to frame this segment,
Speaker 2: and all I could think about is, like you mentioned
Speaker 2: with the Washington Bullets roster. So 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 Shake 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 there was
Speaker 1: no other Kareem you know there. 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. I that me is a fastball
Speaker 1: Like that, you know you can beat them. And Jay
Speaker 1: Dubb can have thirty two, or Check could have twenty four,
Speaker 1: or Lou Dort hits five threes, but the numbers are
Speaker 1: if he gets to the free throw line, they win.
Speaker 1: Everybody in the league knows it and they can't stop him.
Speaker 1: Like that is precision, That is mastering a craft, and
Speaker 1: I just I just have great respect 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 overwhelming optical appeal, it's just surgically effective. Yeah,
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 Zho,
Speaker 2: you lose that game, series is probably over. Game four,
Speaker 2: you're down to one. You lose, that game. Series is
Speaker 2: probably over. Game five to two, you lose that game,
Speaker 2: series is probably over. And Game seven series tied. If
Speaker 2: you lose that game, obviously the series is over. In
Speaker 2: every one of those games, I thought he was awesome.
Speaker 2: This is actually a hilarious stat Colin. In the four
Speaker 2: games 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 watched 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 Hartenstein
Speaker 2: or Chet, I thought Shay, to his credit, every time
Speaker 2: the team needed him to be great in the series,
Speaker 2: he was great. And I think that is the stereotypical
Speaker 2: Finals MVP performance. I thought he thoroughly deserved it, and
Speaker 2: most players don't even do this well in their first
Speaker 2: time around.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're a great team. I think they
Speaker 1: could be with age, Like next year they'll play and
Speaker 1: watch next year, Okase, he won't be as dominant in
Speaker 1: the regular season. They won't be that there's no need
Speaker 1: to be. You're going to rest players. So next year
Speaker 1: they'll win by an average of six at point eight,
Speaker 1: not twelve point nine. Right, they'll try to build up.
Speaker 1: You know, they're going to try to build up their
Speaker 1: younger players, make their draft picks. They want to see
Speaker 1: guys that can play, so it'll be interesting. But next
Speaker 1: year they'll play like a champion, and so what you'll
Speaker 1: see they'll be a little less uneven to the aforementioned
Speaker 1: stats where you saw him bounce a little bit, you'll
Speaker 1: probably get a little bit less than that. But it's
Speaker 1: also something that Indiana was better defensively than people gave
Speaker 1: him credit for. They could put a lot of length
Speaker 1: on the floor. And I think we are going through
Speaker 1: We've seen it now with multiple teams, and I was
Speaker 1: fooled with Denver. I say it right now. The last
Speaker 1: seven champions have been very good teams. Will this be
Speaker 1: a great team. I'm fascinated to watch the Houston Rockets now. Right,
Speaker 1: Like Shamgoon, I'm on Thompson, Kevin Durant. It's I want
Speaker 1: to give Indiana credit because the Haliburton injury didn't matter.
Speaker 1: But in the end, I still like Oklahoma City. I
Speaker 1: think when I look at Oklahoma City's rough edges, it's
Speaker 1: mostly homebrewn just needs another year to grow. Like one
Speaker 1: of the roughest standards edges is God Holmbren did nothing tonight.
Speaker 1: Jay Williams, J Dubb he can Jaleen Williams, he can
Speaker 1: still be uneven. He can be a masterful. But I
Speaker 1: think most of the things about them are a lot
Speaker 1: of them are age specific because young players in big games,
Speaker 1: especially on the road, aren't as good. And I just
Speaker 1: so I look at them and I think, oh, they
Speaker 1: have a chance to be really good next year, plays
Speaker 1: a more confident team, and I think by the way
Speaker 1: their coaching staff will grow, everybody will just get better.
Speaker 1: But most of my criticisms are, Okay, see, are you
Speaker 1: know you just didn't know game to game what you
Speaker 1: got with chet Holmgren 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 Jadub 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: and you'll be a nice jock, and then they'll go
Speaker 2: on the next possession and they'll do something completely different.
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 struggle
Speaker 2: to cut out mistakes and they struggle to repeat their
Speaker 2: successes young players over time. You don't think Shay remembers
Speaker 2: how he played those three bad in those four bad games.
Speaker 2: He knows, he knows, he learned lessons in that in
Speaker 2: that process, and Shay will be better. Shay will just
Speaker 2: be more consistent. I believe Ja Dub can get substantially better.
Speaker 2: Chet was a nightmare offensively in this postseason run. 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 I think Houston now has to be
Speaker 1: considered very interesting. I contend Dallas when everybody's healthy now,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly where Kyrie is going to be.
Speaker 1: I 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 said
Speaker 1: it in the NFL, it's attrition some of these playoffs.
Speaker 1: Cleveland fell apart the year before New York fell apart,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a lot of it. I think
Speaker 1: the West is gonna be razor thin keep you know,
Speaker 1: we all know San Antonio Is could take a jump.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of it is if we're
Speaker 1: going to keep doing seven game series. Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of it is who's healthy because a lot of guys
Speaker 1: went to the floor this year.
Speaker 2: And okay, Seer and yeah and okay, so he's super young,
Speaker 2: and they just held up. They kind of physically wore
Speaker 2: everybody down over the course of this playoffron because they
Speaker 2: just have this deep rotation of young players. I agree
Speaker 2: with you. For the record, I want to be clear,
Speaker 2: like I do not think this Oklahoma City team is
Speaker 2: the k D STEPH Warriors, Like that team felt borderline
Speaker 2: unbeatable when they were healthy. Like I don't think this
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City team is unbeatable. I just think we haven't
Speaker 2: seen their ceiling yet. I think there's a level they
Speaker 2: can get to, especially in the offensive end of the floor.
Speaker 2: That we haven't seen yet, and I'm curious to see
Speaker 2: where that ends up. Is does that end up being
Speaker 2: a team that's just like all the other champions they
Speaker 2: can't repeat, or does it end up being a team
Speaker 2: that ends up making a mark on this air. But
Speaker 2: the injuries thing is fascinating. So we have a shout
Speaker 2: out to Josh. It gave us the stat before the show,
Speaker 2: the Tyres Haliburton achilles tear. If that confirms to be
Speaker 2: what it is, which is what it looked like. I
Speaker 2: mean ABC made us watch it thirty times. I have
Speaker 2: no idea what that was all about, but that would
Speaker 2: be the eighth achilles tear in the NBA this year.
Speaker 2: The previous season high was five. What do you make
Speaker 2: of this? Like upticking these weird severe injuries in.
Speaker 1: The nbakay, 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 to college
Speaker 1: basketball 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's been, you know,
Speaker 1: much more progressive, willing to experiment. League sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: the new ball. David Stern didn't even give the players
Speaker 1: a heads up. But the Lee Adam Silver has made,
Speaker 1: you know, the nd season tournament, I think you have
Speaker 1: to really examine. And when I had him on, we
Speaker 1: talked about this is that embrace college basketball. You know
Speaker 1: how you know what Indi, 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 just think you
Speaker 1: can Money's not the problem. We got seventy six billion
Speaker 1: coming Like, Money's not the issue. The owners are all billionaires.
Speaker 1: Let's protect the players. There's no reason for seven game series.
Speaker 1: In the first two rounds.
Speaker 2: The data is becoming undeniable and its the thing is
Speaker 2: calling too. It keeps happening on the same play the
Speaker 2: same like what they call it the negative step, where
Speaker 2: you step backwards to try to launch yourself forwards. Essentially,
Speaker 2: the body is fatiguing to the point that when they're
Speaker 2: trying to explode forward at these points, the body's failing,
Speaker 2: and it's happening at an increasingly high rate. And I
Speaker 2: think it has a lot to do with just the
Speaker 2: way the game has changed, in the sense that the
Speaker 2: point at which players are engaging defenders, the point at
Speaker 2: which players are being asked to contend with physicalities extended
Speaker 2: substantially further away from the basket. You're facing ball pressure
Speaker 2: and being guarded thirty thirty five feet from the basket
Speaker 2: some of these times. I bet if you tracked an
Speaker 2: individual player movement and just how often he runs around
Speaker 2: the floor, just the straight line distance that he runs,
Speaker 2: it's probably double what it was in the nineties in
Speaker 2: a single game, just because of the pace, the amount
Speaker 2: of ball in player movement that occurs on every single possession.
Speaker 2: It's just a lot, and so to your point, like
Speaker 2: I understand the TV aspect, and it's like, okay, we
Speaker 2: got we get money from these games. We can't cut
Speaker 2: games because it costs us money. If anything, we're trying
Speaker 2: to add games. Here's the Ncason Tournament, here's the play
Speaker 2: in tournament. You know they added that seventh game to
Speaker 2: the first round after it used to be five. Like
Speaker 2: they are adding inventory that the players can't handle. And
Speaker 2: if you really dig into it and you actually start
Speaker 2: to look at the way it affects the product, I'm
Speaker 2: so glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: Colin.
Speaker 2: This is the most excited I've vent for game 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. Yeah, next
Speaker 2: thing 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 backs, these guys can't be
Speaker 2: asked to play an additional two. It is June twenty second, Colin,
Speaker 2: you know how this playoff runt has been going on.
Speaker 1: Forever, Like it is a long stretch.
Speaker 2: They have to find a way to make this actually
Speaker 2: achievable for these bodies. They are not holding up. And
Speaker 2: my theory is that if you tweak it in a
Speaker 2: way to where guys can hold up, it'll improve the
Speaker 2: ratings just by virtue of everyone being present and bringing
Speaker 2: the urgency due to the lower inventory.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just like baseball ratings when you shortened the
Speaker 1: game create urgency. Everybody's I mean, I've done this ad nauseam.
Speaker 1: Everybody's on their phones. People are I'm watching the game
Speaker 1: tonight and I'm I'm literally in the first quarter. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there watching the game and I'm writing some notes,
Speaker 1: but I'm also reading an article on the finals as
Speaker 1: I'm watching the finals. We're all distracted. So you know,
Speaker 1: I just I think the reality is you just anytime
Speaker 1: you can make a game feel like an event and
Speaker 1: everybody wins. The players win, I win, you win, the
Speaker 1: networks win. So it'll be interesting now because the NBA
Speaker 1: is going to be on so many networks and it's
Speaker 1: going to dilute some of the coverage. But you're going
Speaker 1: to have to make it special. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this is what Baseball did. Fox went to Baseball and said,
Speaker 1: you guys have to create the home run Derby's your
Speaker 1: highest rated non World Series moment, create more things like that.
Speaker 1: So they did the Cornfield game. They put the Mets
Speaker 1: in the Phillies, you know, overseas, and I watched all
Speaker 1: of them. So I do think there's a certain apathy
Speaker 1: in the regular season. I mean, even the league officiates
Speaker 1: different in the postseason. They understand the urgency, so I
Speaker 1: think they'll get it right. I think Adam will eventually
Speaker 1: get it right. He's not a stubborn guy. I don't
Speaker 1: think any of our commissioners are. And I think going
Speaker 1: from seven games to five games, you may not think
Speaker 1: it's a big deal, but I over the course it
Speaker 1: could be four less, four or fewer playoff games. You know.
Speaker 1: I feel like Halliburton's body just gave out tonight. It
Speaker 1: just it was exhausted. He just pushed it and pushed
Speaker 1: it and pushed it, and it just gave out.
Speaker 2: Oh I think that's I think that's exactly what happened. Again,
Speaker 2: it's becoming undeniable. Like there was a point where it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, injuries are on the rise, but hey,
Speaker 2: it's only been like two or three years. It might
Speaker 2: be just anecdotal or too small of a sample size.
Speaker 2: We're in an extended stretch here where like dudes are
Speaker 2: breaking down every year in the playoffs. Remember last year,
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, the calves are going on Donovan
Speaker 2: Mitchell's foot, and now we're you know, and then oh,
Speaker 2: like here come the Pacers and the tyres Haliburt and
Speaker 2: gets it. It's like it's it's this like it's basically
Speaker 2: turning into a war of attrition more than it's turning
Speaker 2: into a battle of basketball. And that's what they have
Speaker 2: to figure out because otherwise what you're going to see
Speaker 2: is the deepest, youngest team win every year. I mean,
Speaker 2: and that's more or less what we saw in the finals,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, on so many different levels. Anyway, call,
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.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tenth pick in this upcoming draft and five
Speaker 2: second round picks. What was like your first impression. Well,
Speaker 2: you heard my first impression. The Suns were three and seventeen.
Speaker 2: When Katie didn't play this year, they stump it wasn't him.
Speaker 2: He still get a bucket. If he's a leader in Houston,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. If you need a bucket in Houston,
Speaker 2: it works. And I think today you have to look
Speaker 2: at the Rockets.
Speaker 1: My take is he's going to give you about sixty
Speaker 1: five games in the regular season. If we get two
Speaker 1: healthy years, then everybody's going to watch Houston via for
Speaker 1: the NBA Championship and feel like they dominated the trade.
Speaker 1: It is, however, a very good draft, So Phoenix gets
Speaker 1: the number two ten pick. Well, many people are theorizing
Speaker 1: there are twelve players in this draft, the top twelve
Speaker 1: players who are All Star potential. So if they stay
Speaker 1: at ten or move up to six or eight, they're
Speaker 1: getting a potentially really good player, probably with more than
Speaker 1: one year in college. And again, I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: will ever unlock Jalen Green, like I think he's the classic,
Speaker 1: doesn't have a defined game, never probably will, but we
Speaker 1: can't deny that he can drop thirty in any given moment,
Speaker 1: that he's wildly talented. I don't like his game, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to deny that he's you know, long, twitchy, fast,
Speaker 1: very good transition player. He's just and that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys in the NBA. You know,
Speaker 1: they come in and they're talented, and maybe either they
Speaker 1: don't work on their game but they don't get the
Speaker 1: right coaching, or they just they probably have so much
Speaker 1: talent from sixth grade on that they never really there's
Speaker 1: no catalyst for them to like really burrow down on
Speaker 1: a specialized you know, not everybody is just driven as MJ. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm reading the Caitlin Clark book. I mean that girl's
Speaker 1: she is MJ. She's obsessed, and it's just like, not
Speaker 1: everybody's like that. Some people are just talented. And so
Speaker 1: between Aman Thompson and Shangon is a beautiful touch. Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant and a series of four or five very good
Speaker 1: young players. And I think Adokah is a very good coach.
Speaker 1: That's a real team. But I think it's easy to
Speaker 1: look at Phoenix and just go, well, they got Green's productive.
Speaker 1: Dylan Brooks is a very good small forward defender, can
Speaker 1: give 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 Goon will still
Speaker 1: be this I think the centerpiece of the team, Aman
Speaker 1: Thompson will be your best athlete and your defensive stopper.
Speaker 1: He's going to be a bucket guy. So that's why
Speaker 1: I think it works. He's still one of the top
Speaker 1: twenty three, twenty six best players in the league. I
Speaker 1: would argue. I mean, I was on the plane when
Speaker 1: I was flying in today, I started writing down numbers
Speaker 1: and I got to like twenty one. I'm like, he's
Speaker 1: in that space. And again, Phoenix was terrible when he
Speaker 1: didn't play. So that's my long winded answer on I
Speaker 1: think Houston will look like they won the trade, but
Speaker 1: Phoenix got assets too.
Speaker 2: I think that what happened in Phoenix is a sign
Speaker 2: that like, Yeah, KD, Steph Lebron, these guys they're not
Speaker 2: floor razors anymore. At their age. They're not going to
Speaker 2: turn a bad roster into a fifty win team the
Speaker 2: way that twenty seven year old Nikola Jokic could. Like
Speaker 2: that goes without saying I don't. I do think though,
Speaker 2: that KD has been dramatically underrated because he's been on
Speaker 2: such a poor roster. Yes, put this together for you, Colin.
Speaker 2: This is three stats to show that Kevin Durant is
Speaker 2: still one of the very best players in the NBA.
Speaker 2: He was the best jump shooter in the world this year.
Speaker 2: Among fifty eight players in the NBA to take at
Speaker 2: least five hundred jump shots, KD was the only player
Speaker 2: in the league to make over half of them, and
Speaker 2: he in second place was Shay who made forty five percent.
Speaker 2: And if you waited it for threes, his one point
Speaker 2: two to two points per shot was still number one
Speaker 2: in the NBA number two. He was the only player
Speaker 2: in the NBA last year to make at least two
Speaker 2: hundred pull up jump shots, meaning off the dribble, while
Speaker 2: making more than half of them. In three he was
Speaker 2: far and away the best isolation player in the world
Speaker 2: last year, out of the ten players ran at least
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty ISOs. His one point one to
Speaker 2: six points per possession including passes ranked number one in
Speaker 2: the league, a full six points per one hundred possessions,
Speaker 2: ahead of Shay who was in second place. I think
Speaker 2: he is when it comes to refined offensive skill, he
Speaker 2: is still one of the very best players in the league.
Speaker 2: So I would put him in that sixth to fifteen range,
Speaker 2: depending on and we haven't seen him play enough high
Speaker 2: leverage basketball lately to see where he really lands in there,
Speaker 2: but I think he's still in that range. And if
Speaker 2: you ask me what the Rockets issue was, this is
Speaker 2: a deep team with a load of big, physical athletes.
Speaker 2: If you ask me what their one week at weakness was,
Speaker 2: it's refined offensive skill. And that's what Kad comes into address.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about this with Desmond Baine in
Speaker 2: the Orlando Magic the other day. Yeah, when you take
Speaker 2: a bunch of big athletes that kind of struggle with
Speaker 2: spacing and you bring in a guy who like just
Speaker 2: run him off a screen and he's automatically going to
Speaker 2: pull two defenders out thirty feet from the basket and
Speaker 2: unlocks a world of possibilities on the short role. A
Speaker 2: men Thompson will be an amazing short role player. You
Speaker 2: know that thing that Draymond Green did for Steph where
Speaker 2: Steph would come off of Draymond to take two players
Speaker 2: and then Draymond would go right down the middle of
Speaker 2: the floor and make the play that broke the defense down.
Speaker 2: That is a thing that A Men Thompson has been
Speaker 2: unable to do in Houston because they just don't generate
Speaker 2: many of those opportunities because none of their shooters are
Speaker 2: good enough. KD will lock that part of him N
Speaker 2: Thompson's game. It is not a perfect roster. I was
Speaker 2: writing down all the names on the roster today. They're
Speaker 2: a little light on ball handling, but that sort of
Speaker 2: thing they can get. You know what's so funny, Colin.
Speaker 2: I remember when the Sun signed Highest Jones last summer.
Speaker 2: I was like, why you already have this redundancy of
Speaker 2: all these dudes who can dribble and you're just not
Speaker 2: athletic enough and you're not good enough on defense, Like
Speaker 2: you need athletes and dudes that can like like beat
Speaker 2: up people in these physical environments. You know who could
Speaker 2: really use Highest Jones Houston, like, I think they should
Speaker 2: call I think Kevin Duran should call up Highest tomorrow
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, dude, come with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I think Phoenix. I wish Phoenix would
Speaker 1: have gotten actually a size. I think Phoenix needs size,
Speaker 1: and I think Houston needs a ball handler. And our
Speaker 1: takeaway when we watch Golden State beat Houston, we were like, God,
Speaker 1: they're so bad in the 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. I thought he worked in New York because
Speaker 1: of Jalen Brunson's you know, has the ball a lot
Speaker 1: in his hands. He would work with that offense, whereas
Speaker 1: Cat can kind of. I always felt like Cat and
Speaker 1: Brunson were playing you know, your turn, my turn, your turn,
Speaker 1: my turn. Kd's kind of like, I'll sit in I
Speaker 1: did it with Russ Westbrook. I'll sit in the corner.
Speaker 1: Get it to me eventually. So I think he fits
Speaker 1: really really well, and I think they have the coach.
Speaker 1: I think again, it's so hard to judge Houston because
Speaker 1: so much of their roster is young. I like feel
Speaker 1: like everybody's in the fourth inning, Like, I mean, Amen
Speaker 1: Thompson could take a big leap. I mean, shn Goon's
Speaker 1: the only one where I look at him and I think,
Speaker 1: oh that again. I use this word a lot. But
Speaker 1: that's a defined and refined offensive game. He's got European touch,
Speaker 1: like he has a game. A lot of their players,
Speaker 1: I feel like they're just in early innings. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they are so Aman Thompson's obviously defensively defined.
Speaker 1: He's so strong and athletic and aggressive, but KD gives
Speaker 1: them refinement. This is a second offensive player. I know
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm getting. And that's that goes back to
Speaker 1: a little Oklahoma city that one of the reasons Indiana
Speaker 1: gave OKC problems. Syakam has an offensive half court game,
Speaker 1: Halliburton does, TJ McConnell does, Like that's three guy. Even
Speaker 1: Obi Toppen when he hits threes, You're like, he's athletic
Speaker 1: and hit threes. They had guys that they Rick Carlile knew, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what this player does with Houston. Houston's like
Speaker 1: a younger OKC. I'm just not sure what everybody is
Speaker 1: like I just need more guys that I go into
Speaker 1: a game and go, yeah, I'm going to get twenty
Speaker 1: fourth tonight from KD and I can draw up two
Speaker 1: or three plays for him. So Houston to me is
Speaker 1: early innings they could end up being. They could end
Speaker 1: up looking at If you told me next year a
Speaker 1: team explodes in the West and ends up winning by
Speaker 1: seven point eight points, I would guess Houston because they
Speaker 1: have so many players that are just going to springboard
Speaker 1: to another level here in the next fifty to one
Speaker 1: hundred basketball games.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I totally agree. I think they have massive upside.
Speaker 2: I think they could very easily be the second best
Speaker 2: team in the West and the biggest threat to the
Speaker 2: Thunder next year. I think that's absolutely on the table.
Speaker 2: They match up well with OKC too, because they have
Speaker 2: all the big physical size. The ball handling will be
Speaker 2: the weakness, as we saw with Indiana. Even Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: struggled because of their lack of depth in ball handling
Speaker 2: against Indiana's ball pressure. But the youth, the thing that
Speaker 2: you're talking about in terms of the wide range of
Speaker 2: outcomes is super interesting because as I was breaking down
Speaker 2: their depth chart today, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: Fred van Vliet, legit point guard. You know, Shane gun center.
Speaker 2: Kd's your four. A men Thompson, I think defensively functions
Speaker 2: as either a two or a three, so that could
Speaker 2: be either. But then it's like Jabari Smith Junior is
Speaker 2: kind of a four. He plays basically the same position
Speaker 2: as Kadie. I don't think he moves his feet well
Speaker 2: enough to be a three. Cam Whittmore could be one
Speaker 2: of those guys. Reed Shepherd could be one of those guys,
Speaker 2: but like, who knows. And here's the other thing to
Speaker 2: call it. Houston gave up one first round draft pick
Speaker 2: in this deal. They still have a boat load of
Speaker 2: first round draft picks at they're disposal, so they're high.
Speaker 2: They're like a high likelihood for like a we bring
Speaker 2: this team into camp, we watch them for twenty games,
Speaker 2: and we go, oh, here are the two things.
Speaker 1: We're missing exactly right, Let's go get what we get
Speaker 1: to get.
Speaker 2: Like they are, they're extremely well equipped heading into this
Speaker 2: 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: Aliburton 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 Kde 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 had 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 a KD, all
Speaker 1: these series are long series.
Speaker 2: If they get a couple more ball handlers, like that's
Speaker 2: the thing, Like if they get a Tis Jones, if
Speaker 2: they get you know, one other guy of that ILK,
Speaker 2: then they will be able to rest Kde, 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 Amen Thompson and
Speaker 2: we're picking up full court and you're turning the ball
Speaker 2: over now and it's a mess. Like they are able,
Speaker 2: like 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: Kdie'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 to buy
Speaker 2: Kevin that margin for air. Before we get out of
Speaker 2: here tonight, Coln, I didn't want to run this by
Speaker 2: 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: him 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 tray young Hawks team in the conference finals,
Speaker 2: a Paul George Clippers team with an injured Kawhi in
Speaker 2: the conference final, 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 have a great regular
Speaker 2: season and Luca like embarrasses them, like embarrasses them for
Speaker 2: the world to see. In the second round, they weren't
Speaker 2: good enough, so they made an aggressive trade. They went
Speaker 2: and got Kevin Durant. Every one of us would have
Speaker 2: done the same thing at that point in time. It
Speaker 2: was Kevin Durant and we had just seen him be
Speaker 2: so amazing for Brooklyn in those couple of previous playoff runs.
Speaker 2: Even the Chris Paul thing. Now, I would argue they
Speaker 2: should have used Chris Paul's salary as a vehicle with
Speaker 2: which 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. 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. Well, yeah, matter is there's risk.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, the Bradley Beal deal. And I can't criticize
Speaker 1: it because for years, I mean I must have been
Speaker 1: on the air for five years saying I really like
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal. He's playing with John Wall. You're never going
Speaker 1: to flourish with John Wall. You got to get into,
Speaker 1: you know, a more mature group of veteran players, and
Speaker 1: then it's just like, over the course of a year
Speaker 1: or two, he got really old, really fast, and really
Speaker 1: banged up, and he just he just withered down. So
Speaker 1: I was a Bradley Beal fan for years. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand why he was so loyal to Washington, which was
Speaker 1: poorly runed and poorly owned. So I can't I can't criticism,
Speaker 1: and I always tend to be a big fan of
Speaker 1: being aggressive. I like what Orlando just did to get banged,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I can't bang. And I'm again, if they
Speaker 1: hit on the number ten pick, they've got enough second
Speaker 1: round picks, they got enough pieces to I think you
Speaker 1: just have to take more big swings. I think with
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal, I wonder if you just don't buy out
Speaker 1: the contract, like I mean, that's how bad of a
Speaker 1: deal it was. So, you know, I think if they
Speaker 1: were in the East, you'd have a better vibe or
Speaker 1: more optimism. I just think I look at San Antonio,
Speaker 1: and look, I still think Denver's going to be really good.
Speaker 1: I think they just, you know, I just look at
Speaker 1: the West, the better gms, better rosters, deeper teams. I mean, God,
Speaker 1: we've almost forgotten about what they're building in San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Holy crap, do they have a lot of talent. They're
Speaker 1: in the second inning. So I just think a phoenix
Speaker 1: relative to the conference. You know, they just feel like
Speaker 1: I have not, and they probably are. But I I mean,
Speaker 1: I know Matt Ishbia and Justin Ishbia. I know Justin
Speaker 1: actually I met him when I moved to Chicago. He's
Speaker 1: part of the White Sox. I think ownership group now
Speaker 1: and Matt got really agree. And I think one of
Speaker 1: the things I've learned over the course of my life, Jason,
Speaker 1: it's I made a lot of mistakes, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to master two things. Like Michael Jordan tried baseball, right,
Speaker 1: Randy Moss tried basketball. It's really hard. And I think
Speaker 1: sometimes when aggressive owners come in and they think, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, because the sons like don't have the biggest
Speaker 1: scouting department, and the owner comes in and thinks, I
Speaker 1: want stars, what you're really saying is I'm moving into
Speaker 1: a completely different world and I'm smarter than Sam Presty. Right,
Speaker 1: Like even Sam Presty the James Harden deal early, he
Speaker 1: didn't get enough like it's it's I mean, I look
Speaker 1: at GMS and football and basketball who I like, and
Speaker 1: they make big mistakes. Shabbaz Napier the draft pick for
Speaker 1: pat Riley in the heat, Like great people make mistakes.
Speaker 1: Nobody on the internet, you know, the roles don't want
Speaker 1: to ever admit it, but I think they came in
Speaker 1: and the owner was a little hot and a little aggressive,
Speaker 1: and this is a hard sport to master, even the
Speaker 1: best people just you know, you're you're drafting nineteen and
Speaker 1: twenty year olds, and I think, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to bang on the suns because when they made
Speaker 1: the moves, I was like, I kind of like it,
Speaker 1: and then a year later I'm like, man, was I wrong?
Speaker 1: So I can't be I can't stand on any HIGHUS
Speaker 1: mountain today because I like their moves. I thought, Bradley Beal,
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal's been a disaster. There's nothing else you can say.
Speaker 1: It's just been a disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't work, And that happens sometimes, Like I mean,
Speaker 2: like the most recent example I can think of as
Speaker 2: the Raptors, Like I remember when the Raptors traded for Kawhi.
Speaker 2: Everyone was like, why would you do that. He's going
Speaker 2: to go to Los Angeles. He's telling everybody he's going
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles. His family's out there, he wants to
Speaker 2: be out there. That's where he's going. This is a rental.
Speaker 2: And it was by the way, if you like remove
Speaker 2: the championship from the equation, it's like he went there
Speaker 2: and then he left and he went to LA and
Speaker 2: the Raptors tanked, Like the Raptors fell apart after that,
Speaker 2: Like that's what happened, but they won the title. But
Speaker 2: even if you zoom in on the series, it's like
Speaker 2: three three in Philly and Kawhi hits like a leaning
Speaker 2: jump shot while falling out of bounds that hits every
Speaker 2: part of the rim and then falls in Like that
Speaker 2: was the gap. That was the gap between the Gamble
Speaker 2: being a success and being a failure. And so ultimately,
Speaker 2: I feel like we're just playing the results when we
Speaker 2: say that, and like, yeah, you know, I look at it.
Speaker 2: It's like you draft, you trade it for KD. There
Speaker 2: was one team who gave the twenty twenty three Nuggets trouble,
Speaker 2: one team, the Phoenix Suns. That the Phoenix Suns were
Speaker 2: the team that pushed them to two to two in
Speaker 2: the series, and it looked like everything was hanging in
Speaker 2: the balance, and so like, for whatever it's worth, it
Speaker 2: wasn't enough. But yeah, my take was less like, look
Speaker 2: at the Suns. They butchered everything, and like they acknowledged
Speaker 2: to themselves that they weren't good enough to win the title.
Speaker 2: They made an aggressive move for one of the twelve
Speaker 2: greatest players of all time when he was still playing
Speaker 2: really well, and it didn't work out, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's just how it goes sometimes. But Colin, it was
Speaker 2: great to see you today. Thanks so much for coming
Speaker 2: on the show. This has been a really fun season.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the NBA for giving us our first
Speaker 2: good NBA final in a very long time.
Speaker 1: Our best domestic draft coming up in forever. This is
Speaker 1: a great domestic draft. So 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 coaching 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 2: Yeah, I'm super excited. The extended NBA Finals have put
Speaker 2: us right up against it.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 2: I have Sam Vessini coming on the show tomorrow. He
Speaker 2: does an incredible draft guide. We'll be doing a full
Speaker 2: NBA Draft preview. The Action Sure 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 some callers, so that's playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight.
Speaker 2: I'll see you guys there. Everyone else, Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for 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 1: Thanks Bud the volume