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Speaker 1: All right, what a weekend? What a crazy game? Denver
Speaker 1: minute Soda the champs this breaking news. They will not
Speaker 1: be back to back champs. Jason Timpf hoops Tonight. Not
Speaker 1: only was this a tale of two series, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first two games look like it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a sweep. The next two you're like, Okay, they've got it.
Speaker 1: This game was nuts. I thought Denver came out with
Speaker 1: a perfect tempo, it was offensive more than defensive, and
Speaker 1: then the t Wolves just shut them down. Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: played well, Jokic did what he did, but Porter and
Speaker 1: Gordon didn't give you anything, really, Gordon nothing offensively. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting watching it. The Western Conference is so good,
Speaker 1: Like I feel bad if there was if you could
Speaker 1: only if you lived in the East watch Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: basketball and you couldn't watch the West, you could only
Speaker 1: watch East, that would be like, Oh, you'd buy whatever
Speaker 1: package it cost you to buy the superior basketball. I
Speaker 1: guess my takeaway is a really good basketball team, Minnesota
Speaker 1: being another really good basketball team, and in the end,
Speaker 1: at the beginning and end of the series, defense prevail.
Speaker 1: That's kind of my take.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this whole series had two different faces to it,
Speaker 3: and either side had the other team dominating, Like and
Speaker 3: whenever Minnesota was locked in defensively, it felt like Denver
Speaker 3: couldn't score. It felt like they were just underneath this
Speaker 3: oppressive wave of size. And then you have Game three,
Speaker 3: four and five where Denver puts up a one twenty
Speaker 3: seven offensive rating, which is off the charts. Boston had
Speaker 3: the best offense in the league this year, and I
Speaker 3: think they were at like one twenty two. So to
Speaker 3: give you an idea, Denver had this unbelievable offensive stretch
Speaker 3: in the middle of the series, and honestly, I thought
Speaker 3: they had a really good stretch in this game. In particular,
Speaker 3: this game actually felt like a little microcosm of the
Speaker 3: entire series. That's in a sense that Denver out executed
Speaker 3: them for the first two and a half quarters and
Speaker 3: then Minnesota really locked in and they just couldn't score.
Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards just did his interview live with the TNT
Speaker 3: guys and he just mentioned and something I'm surprised at
Speaker 3: how forthright he was about it. He's like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: can do other things than score. I can guard the
Speaker 3: other team's best guard, and I can lock up Jamal Murray.
Speaker 3: I felt like that's what I did in the second half,
Speaker 3: and he's right, like, and I cannot remember a time
Speaker 3: where a guy had a more disastrous first half and
Speaker 3: then just found a way to turn it around and
Speaker 3: be impactful. Like the numbers won't show it, but him
Speaker 3: drawing double teams consistently was a huge asset to the
Speaker 3: Minnesota offense. He generated a ton of rim pressure in
Speaker 3: that second half by just saying screw it, I'm putting
Speaker 3: my head down and I'm going to the rim. He
Speaker 3: made a lot of really smart kickout passes to shooters,
Speaker 3: and he's right. He put Jamal Murray in jail, and
Speaker 3: that served a real issue for Denver's offense. And that's
Speaker 3: another layer of this that like, Denver was up twenty
Speaker 3: at home in the second half with a chance to
Speaker 3: go to the Western Conference finals. So I don't want
Speaker 3: to act like they need to make some sort of
Speaker 3: dramatic change, but if you were to point to a
Speaker 3: specific issue, this is a team that generates rim pressure
Speaker 3: through overwhelming size in minutes. Soda negated that, and as
Speaker 3: soon as they negated that, it revealed this other issue,
Speaker 3: which is their perimeter players can't beat people off the dribble,
Speaker 3: and so all of a sudden, they couldn't get the
Speaker 3: defense in rotation and get some of the higher quality
Speaker 3: Nuggets shots that were accustomed to seeing. Meanwhile, for Minnesota,
Speaker 3: it's like nos Reed is slashing, Karl Anthony Towns is slashing,
Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards is slashing. It was an athletic mismatch and
Speaker 3: they were able to take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we saw that in the first two games of
Speaker 1: the series. I also think we just have to give
Speaker 1: Chris Finch a lot of credit. This is a not
Speaker 1: only smartly constructed team, it's a really well coached team
Speaker 1: for him to get aunt Ant could score forty a
Speaker 1: night in most nights when you get great players to
Speaker 1: buy into a team concept, I mean they were looking
Speaker 1: they were going to go bare in the second half.
Speaker 1: Naz Reid doesn't do much for three quarters. Then it's sensational. Late,
Speaker 1: everybody takes their turn. It's a patient team. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that is Finch, a lot of
Speaker 1: it's Mike Conley. You know, you've got guys that have
Speaker 1: been around the lead league all these It's a great
Speaker 1: combination of size, athleticism, coaching, construct, dynamic young star, older
Speaker 1: veteran IQ player. Not to say Ant it's not a
Speaker 1: bright kid, very self aware it's I said this earlier
Speaker 1: in the series. The construct of both teams is sensational. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean usually you can look at a team like
Speaker 1: like you can look at Indiana and go, they have
Speaker 1: some defensive holes. They need better wing defenders. Or you
Speaker 1: can look at the next and go they need another
Speaker 1: pure score. Even Boston sometimes I'm like God, and when
Speaker 1: Porzingis is out, it's like it gets They need threes,
Speaker 1: they need something beyond that. Boy, I look at Minnesota
Speaker 1: and I'm like, as I've always been kind of hot
Speaker 1: and cold on Carl Anthony Towns, but he hit some
Speaker 1: big baskets in his game. He hit big baskets in
Speaker 1: the series. Don't we talk about this in the NFL
Speaker 1: and we don't talk about it in the NBA A
Speaker 1: lot a lot of times in the NFL will just
Speaker 1: go why that team's smartly constructed. Minnesota's front office they're
Speaker 1: coaching this. They have everything, the hustlers, the wings, the
Speaker 1: dynamic star, the size, the IQ distributor colleagues like a quarterback.
Speaker 1: It's like they're unselfish but can then go heavy into
Speaker 1: ant I. It's just it's really well done. They're like
Speaker 1: a smartly constructed pro football team. I don't see the
Speaker 1: holes really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one of the biggest issues that had
Speaker 3: me off of the Minnesota timber Wolves all year was
Speaker 3: their offense. Yes, and like they were a bad offense
Speaker 3: all season, Like the Calves were a better offense, and
Speaker 3: then the Pelicans were a better offense than them. The
Speaker 3: Warriors had just had Steph Curry were a better offense
Speaker 3: than them. Like they were a bad offense all season.
Speaker 3: And it was a lot of inconsistency and honestly, what
Speaker 3: kind of turned this series around after Denver had taken
Speaker 3: the like complete control over it. Denver had complete control
Speaker 3: after Game five. They weren't even competitive in those middle
Speaker 3: three games, Like Minnesota got killed at all three of
Speaker 3: those games. And what was so impressive was Karl Anthony Towns,
Speaker 3: guy who's kind of known as being an consistent offensive player,
Speaker 3: showed up in a big way here in game seven. Yes,
Speaker 3: Jaden McDaniels, a guy who's known as being a bad
Speaker 3: offensive player, showed up in a big way in Game seventeen.
Speaker 3: I hit multiple massive corner threes, little push shots in
Speaker 3: the lane. Obviously, is this incredible defensive player. The story
Speaker 3: for Minnesota is their defense is unbelievably good, but their
Speaker 3: offense can come and go. And when Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 3: is actually well, when Jada McDaniels is playing well, you
Speaker 3: can't beat them because they're are, because they're they're their
Speaker 3: defense is so oppressively good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that's why they wouldn't win. You know,
Speaker 1: when you have a team that you have kind of
Speaker 1: an inconsistent offensive player, you're not gonna win March Madness,
Speaker 1: but you can win an NBA Championship because carlintink for
Speaker 1: three games. And and by the way, Minnesota defensively is consistent.
Speaker 1: Offensively they're not, but they can. Like this game, they
Speaker 1: just sort of hung around and the ant wasn't delivering
Speaker 1: much and then here comes go Baar and then nas
Speaker 1: Reid and then and adds defense in Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 1: When you have a seven game series, it allows you
Speaker 1: to figure stuff out. It allows horrible games, terrible halfs,
Speaker 1: and also in a seven game series, and I think
Speaker 1: Malone and Chris Finch are both great coaches. This really
Speaker 1: came down this old series came down to like eight minutes,
Speaker 1: and in that eight minutes, Minnesota was better defensively, and
Speaker 1: a couple of their inconsistent offensive guys. Hit. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to over be overly cynical with Denver.
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, it's hard to win back to backs.
Speaker 1: It's just hard. It's you know, there's no Jordan right
Speaker 1: now in the league. And even for I mean Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson got to nine finals, won five, lost four. That
Speaker 1: was Kareem Magic, I mean worthy. I mean this stuff
Speaker 1: is hard. I mean, I love Jamal Maray, it's never
Speaker 1: been an All it's never been a first team All
Speaker 1: NBA guy. So it's like you to good teams and
Speaker 1: Ant's just better today than he was last year.
Speaker 2: It's part of what it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's an absolutely insane stat for you, Colin so
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen Calves Warriors, twenty sixteen Calves Warriors, twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: Calves Warriors, twenty eighteen Caves Warriors. Not only that, Like
Speaker 3: it just kind of felt like the Warriors and Calves
Speaker 3: were head and shoulders above their conferences. Yeah, Like it
Speaker 3: one particularly competitive. Right from twenty nineteen on, we've had
Speaker 3: six consecutive seasons where we haven't even had a repeat
Speaker 3: conference champion, let alone to repeat NBA champion, and like
Speaker 3: a big part of that is, like the league is
Speaker 3: just super good now, you know. It's like it's like
Speaker 3: it's like even if you happen to get through Minnesota,
Speaker 3: it's like you've got to get through Dallas, and that
Speaker 3: Dallas team really defends their rimp protection is insane. Luca
Speaker 3: and Kyrie haven't even been playing that well and they're
Speaker 3: still winning. And then you go out East and obviously
Speaker 3: Boston is this incredible team and so like, and Boston
Speaker 3: hasn't even been able to win repeat conference championships with
Speaker 3: all the talent that they have, so like, it really
Speaker 3: is just a testament to how deep the league is
Speaker 3: with talent. And I think if there's one thing to
Speaker 3: point to in terms of Minnesota, it's they their defense
Speaker 3: is reliable on a night to night basis. You mentioned
Speaker 3: that earlier, and the important detail there is there is
Speaker 3: no variance with a defense. There's variance with offense in
Speaker 3: the sense that like sometimes a role player is hot,
Speaker 3: sometimes he's not. Sometimes a ball handler misses his pull
Speaker 3: up jumpers, sometimes he makes him jokis for instance, like
Speaker 3: last year made all of his threes. This year can't
Speaker 3: make a three to save his life. Like there's variance
Speaker 3: to offense. With defense, it's like if you bring the effort,
Speaker 3: you're going to impact the game.
Speaker 1: Like it.
Speaker 3: It is the most reliable thing. And that's why so
Speaker 3: many NBA teams, so many we look at defensive rating
Speaker 3: as like the number one indicator of whether or not
Speaker 3: you can contend for a championship. Denver last year was
Speaker 3: the outlier as a team that was not a defending champion,
Speaker 3: that was not a top ten defense that won the title.
Speaker 3: That was highly unusual. It had been like forty years
Speaker 3: since that had happened. Like generally speaking, it is defense
Speaker 3: that is the most reliable trait a basketball team can
Speaker 3: have at this phase. And for the record, Denver last
Speaker 3: year was a really good defense in the playoffs, and
Speaker 3: so to me, it's it's timely contributions from role players
Speaker 3: like Cat Tonight, Nasriy Tonight, Anthony Edwards coming into tonight
Speaker 3: was averaging thirty six and six on over fifty percent
Speaker 3: from the field, over forty percent from three, over eighty
Speaker 3: percent from the line. He's been playing at a bona fide,
Speaker 3: top tier, super duper star level, and then you have
Speaker 3: this all world defense. It's a really, really good basketball team,
Speaker 3: really difficult to beat four times out of seven.
Speaker 1: So Minnesota will face Dallas. I was in a restaurant.
Speaker 1: I wanted to watch the game. So I have this
Speaker 1: restaurant I go to with a TV and I was
Speaker 1: called a reserve this final cord or bar seat. It's
Speaker 1: only gonna watch Dallas. Okay, see people, it was that
Speaker 1: was That was one of the best games of the
Speaker 1: year in the NBA, the OKAC Dallas game. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to Dallas in a bit. But but Minnesota Dallas,
Speaker 1: as we wrap up here, Minnesota Dallas, your first thoughts
Speaker 1: on what we'll get.
Speaker 3: So obviously it's going to be very much about the
Speaker 3: perimeter defense element in terms of Kyrie and Luca, because
Speaker 3: as we note that that's very much a spread iso
Speaker 3: pick and roll attack. We play your turn, my turn
Speaker 3: between Kyrie and Luca and just kind of have a
Speaker 3: lot of play like Dallas is. Dallas has a lot
Speaker 3: of play finishers, whereas Minnesota, whereas Denver is much more
Speaker 3: of like a five out motion and player ball and
Speaker 3: player movement type of offense. Right, So, like it's going
Speaker 3: to come down to Jada McDaniel's on Luca and a
Speaker 3: lot of Anthony Edwards on Kyrie and how well they
Speaker 3: can hold up in those matchups, and how well they
Speaker 3: can protect guys like like Mike Conley and Karl Anthony
Speaker 3: Towns because we know Luca likes to pick on matchups.
Speaker 3: The bottom line is, though, is I think I think
Speaker 3: Ant right now, because of especially underneath the injury that
Speaker 3: Luca's dealing with with his knee, and it's probably going
Speaker 3: to be the best player in that series going in,
Speaker 3: and they have the size, they have the ability to
Speaker 3: really drag Dallas's offense down into the mud. I think
Speaker 3: I'll probably end up picking picking Minnesota. I'm gonna need
Speaker 3: to look into some film, but they feel like the
Speaker 3: safe bet right now.
Speaker 1: Well else, First of all, I think they're healthier. Second,
Speaker 1: I think they're deeper in terms of it. I like
Speaker 1: the construction of it. I think sometimes Dallas can be
Speaker 1: a bit lopsided. Ant. I really do think to your point,
Speaker 1: I think Ant will be the player of the series.
Speaker 1: There are so many advantages to having Minnesota size on
Speaker 1: the front line. You can be more aggressive on a
Speaker 1: Kyrie and Aluca you can just you can take more chances.
Speaker 1: Ant's aggressive anyway, and my feeling is Minnesota the construct
Speaker 1: of the I mean, I think Minnesota physically size aggressiveness
Speaker 1: an Ant. I also think we have to remember Ant.
Speaker 1: This was such a great series for Aunt. Even though
Speaker 1: he wasn't great every game, this was the first series
Speaker 1: he was in that felt like a final like this.
Speaker 1: This felt like Jordan getting past Detroit, Jordan getting past Boston.
Speaker 1: Forget the championship, getting through these just Western Conference heavyweight
Speaker 1: all Fraser fights. You move, I mean you you it's
Speaker 1: it's you beat you know. It's like you you beat
Speaker 1: a Brady or a Mahomes in the playoffs. It is
Speaker 1: as big as the super Bowl. It feel it's the
Speaker 1: same thing, the same arc. And I feel like this
Speaker 1: is a really memorable moment in Ant's career. We'll go
Speaker 1: back and go, God, remember the Nuggets series, remember that fight.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like Ant will put the cape on,
Speaker 1: He'll he'll sleep on. This gonna be a great flight
Speaker 1: home to Minnesota. You celebrate, you get off night's sleep,
Speaker 1: then you start gearing in. But I do feel like
Speaker 1: and we saw when you see this with great players,
Speaker 1: they take steps, and I think this is the first
Speaker 1: step of Ant, Like that's the first round of his career,
Speaker 1: the first big heavyweight fight. Uh and I think Minnesota
Speaker 1: and Ant will prevail. Now for a segment called making
Speaker 1: it look easy, the Indiana Pacers made it look easy,
Speaker 1: shot eighty in the first half, almost in sixty seven
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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan. Winning in the NBA is hard hiring.
Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan, it's easy, let's go to the Knicks Pacers.
Speaker 1: So obviously New York fell apart. I don't think Indiana
Speaker 1: matches up with Boston terribly well if Porzingis is back
Speaker 1: at any point in the series. It's just too much
Speaker 1: offense against the poor defensive team. Halliburton played so well today,
Speaker 1: But I was thinking about New York because there is
Speaker 1: sort of a history with Tibbs in Chicago. People fall
Speaker 1: in love with Tibbs, his team's grind. American sports fans
Speaker 1: pay so much money to go to games. They love
Speaker 1: teams to play hard. Those Bulls teams played so hard
Speaker 1: and so many minutes, and then they break down and
Speaker 1: they don't win the title, and eventually everybody turns on TIBs.
Speaker 1: Get him out of town. And you watch this New
Speaker 1: York team, Jason, and you're like, too many guys got hurt.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an injury. Like four of their best players
Speaker 1: are hurt at the end. And my takeaway is there's
Speaker 1: gonna be some perspective. How do you get fewer minutes?
Speaker 1: How does this not happen again? You don't get much
Speaker 1: immediate help in the This is not football, and So
Speaker 1: I look at the Knicks and I'm like, God, I
Speaker 1: hope they don't give up de Vincenzo. He's such a
Speaker 1: good catch and shoot guy. Now he's so New York Brunson.
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at him and I think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know you got to make a move, but don't
Speaker 1: f this up, Like, don't screw up. I mean, you
Speaker 1: just posted something today. You play with your guys, You
Speaker 1: have your guys. All it takes is one wrong guy
Speaker 1: in basketball, and the whole chemistry is off and it's
Speaker 1: hard to and I feel like, God, you can't bring
Speaker 1: it back because they do need another score. But God,
Speaker 1: I want you to bring back everything else. And I
Speaker 1: think it's harder than you just think of just plug in,
Speaker 1: Paul George. I think it's harder than that. What do
Speaker 1: the Knicks do?
Speaker 3: So I one hundred percent agree with you that you
Speaker 3: don't want to tweak the chemistry. And I specifically think
Speaker 3: of things like like the Nova guys, Like you want
Speaker 3: to keep those guys, Yes, right, you want to. I
Speaker 3: think o Jan Andobi A in a big way represents
Speaker 3: part of the kind of identity of the Knicks. And
Speaker 3: you know, I want to cut Tom Thibodeau some slack
Speaker 3: in the sense that this particular team everything you said
Speaker 3: about Chicago so true. This particular team only could win
Speaker 3: by playing their dude's huge minutes, like that was their
Speaker 3: only shot. Like so I kind of understood the angle
Speaker 3: in the sense that like he leaned into that because
Speaker 3: that was their one shot at it. But like the
Speaker 3: Mitchell Robinson thing, it's like embiid kind of grabs his
Speaker 3: ankle and twists right. Jalen Brunson's hand that was bad luck.
Speaker 3: But everything else was like a wear and tear injury.
Speaker 3: Like OG's hammy that was like in a barn burner
Speaker 3: of a Game two. At the end, you could tell
Speaker 3: he was tired and he went into transition situation and
Speaker 3: pulled up like that's a wear and tear injury. The
Speaker 3: Josh Hart abdominal injury, that's a were and tear injury.
Speaker 3: The Jalen Brunson foot injury that was aware and tear injury.
Speaker 3: So I do think that the workload did end up
Speaker 3: breaking them down at the end of the day. So
Speaker 3: what you you really need to do is find a
Speaker 3: way to bring in firepower without messing up. Yes, the
Speaker 3: chemistry way it can be rotational guys.
Speaker 1: Somebody gives Brunson eight minutes off a night, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean you could get that in the draft, or
Speaker 1: can you Like I almost wonder now, Jason, not to
Speaker 1: interrupt you, but do you go in the draft and
Speaker 1: do you find older guys without high expectations who can
Speaker 1: just give Josh Hart deefndenzo Og Brunson Just you go
Speaker 1: from forty four minutes to thirty seven. Like, this team's
Speaker 1: too mature to bring in a bunch of kids. It's
Speaker 1: too mature, it's too smart. Tibbs asks too much of you.
Speaker 1: You can't bring in kids on this roster. You have
Speaker 1: to bring in guys almost like veterans, who are like
Speaker 1: I like this. I'm a grinder, I'm a rotational player
Speaker 1: because I think what Tibbs asks of you. I'm just
Speaker 1: it's so precious. It doesn't even look like any other
Speaker 1: NBA team.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's like the Christian Brown type of draft pick,
Speaker 3: which is like the kid who was like a guy
Speaker 3: stuck around in college for a while, won a lot,
Speaker 3: you know, a guy who doesn't have a ton of upside,
Speaker 3: but that has a lot of like winning characteristics, you know,
Speaker 3: because Christian around won in high school, he won in college.
Speaker 3: Like it just is just been around winning situations his
Speaker 3: whole life. As far as like this is where we
Speaker 3: got to give Leon Rose from credit because like they
Speaker 3: they they actually have a lot of salaries that they
Speaker 3: can package in a trade without having to worry about
Speaker 3: messing with their depth. Julius Randall's on the books for
Speaker 3: thirty million next year. Yeah, that's a contract you can trade.
Speaker 3: Boy in Bogdanovich. He's on the books for nineteen million.
Speaker 3: It's not guaranteed, but they could guarantee the contract and
Speaker 3: then trade him. Like you have depth a at certain
Speaker 3: position groups, like you've proven that you're still pretty good.
Speaker 3: I Mitchell Robinson was very important to this team, especially
Speaker 3: in the Sixers series. But my guess is you can
Speaker 3: look on the margins like a guy like Duce McBride
Speaker 3: is a guy that somebody around the league's gonna want.
Speaker 3: He can he can defend shoot threes and run second
Speaker 3: side action when your guy passes the ball to him
Speaker 3: late in the shot clock. That's a guy you could
Speaker 3: put in a deal. Mitchell Robbinson. And if you committed
Speaker 3: to a guy like Isaiah Hartenstein, you could get a
Speaker 3: lower level, cheaper backup center, and I think they can
Speaker 3: make this type of pivot without having to disrupt the chemistry.
Speaker 3: To your point, I think another thing that would help
Speaker 3: is if you have another shot creator and you are
Speaker 3: a better offensive team in the half court, that alleviates
Speaker 3: some of the I don't need to play every single
Speaker 3: possession like it's the final possession of Game seven of
Speaker 3: the NBA Finals, you know what I mean. Like it
Speaker 3: allows you to kind of ease through the season a
Speaker 3: little bit, take it easier on your bodies, cut minutes down.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's the big one for me, is like
Speaker 3: they need to find a secondary shot creator without tweaking
Speaker 3: the actual core of the team, and if they do so,
Speaker 3: they will have the depth to be able to kind
Speaker 3: of like ease their way through the season. But the
Speaker 3: huge I think silver lining in all of this, I
Speaker 3: personally think Jalen Brunson proved this year that he can
Speaker 3: be the best player on a championship team as long
Speaker 3: as his number two is really good. I think his
Speaker 3: number two needs to be really good. But Jalen Brunson,
Speaker 3: you can make a case he's the best small guard
Speaker 3: in the league right now. He's been incredible in like
Speaker 3: a big part. He wore down in this series. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but like I thought he was incredible for the most
Speaker 3: part in this playoff.
Speaker 1: And I also think shot creation. He for a small player,
Speaker 1: gets such great looks. He's so clever, he's so quick. Hell,
Speaker 1: he gets he gets good looks within eight feet. I
Speaker 1: mean he's in he's in the lane open a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's like, that's that's that's the Redwoods. So I
Speaker 1: look at him, and it doesn't happen very often in
Speaker 1: the NBA where somebody develops into a star. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1: I remember Michael Red came into the league and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you looked up and you're like, who's
Speaker 1: Michael Red. He's an All Stars And then it didn't
Speaker 1: last very long. But generally, if you're like a Chris Middleton,
Speaker 1: you develop into a good two, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what you are, and then it's
Speaker 1: quick and then you move back to being maybe a three. No,
Speaker 1: Jalen's a one. I think it's also when you find
Speaker 1: your one, like you find a staff, you know, you
Speaker 1: find a Kobe or whoever it is that you have
Speaker 1: to have players that compliment them. And so like Devindenzo
Speaker 1: is a catch and shoot guy. He doesn't need the
Speaker 1: ball in his hands. It's great. You can't let him go.
Speaker 1: He's he's really become classic Villanova guy. You know, he's
Speaker 1: between Villanova and the NBA's bounced around. But he's really
Speaker 1: valuable to that team, I thought. And he's by the way,
Speaker 1: chip on his shoulder. You know, he's a tough guy,
Speaker 1: like he really fits the culture. That's the guy I
Speaker 1: would really cling to. But you gotta find somebody that's
Speaker 1: a good wing defender we'll put in the minutes, doesn't
Speaker 1: need the ball a ton you know, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get KD. But KD you know if he wasn't,
Speaker 1: he didn't bring other stuff kind of a get the
Speaker 1: ball late in the shot clock score. I do think
Speaker 1: Paul George is fascinating. I just don't know going into
Speaker 1: a new building if Steve Balmer, I mean, I just
Speaker 1: where do you thin? What do you think they do?
Speaker 1: What do you think the Clippers do with with with Paul,
Speaker 1: Because Paul's going to have options.
Speaker 3: I think that they I think the Clippers end up
Speaker 3: keeping him. But I think I think here's the thing.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stars available this summer. This is
Speaker 3: setting up to be like an absolutely wild summer because
Speaker 3: one of Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell is going to get traded,
Speaker 3: Trey Young and de Jontay Murray, I would venture to
Speaker 3: guess one of them is going to get traded. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised if Brain and Ingram gets traded from
Speaker 3: the Pelicans. Paul George is going to be a guy
Speaker 3: that people are targeting. Michale Bridges from the Nets is
Speaker 3: going to be a guy people are targeting. There will
Speaker 3: be teams that call Phoenix and try to poach one
Speaker 3: of their stars and be like, hey, there's a disappointing season.
Speaker 3: How does all this stuff sound? You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Lauri Markinen is another guy like if you were looking
Speaker 3: for a guy who could give you twenty five points
Speaker 3: a night and some rebounding support while also being primarily
Speaker 3: a play finisher off the ball, that's a guy like
Speaker 3: if you if you went og and Andobi Lori Markin
Speaker 3: and Isaiah Hartenstein, that's an awesome front.
Speaker 1: Market is a very productive player. I don't know why
Speaker 1: Chicago moved off him. I think he's very productive.
Speaker 3: I know it, so like, yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 3: things where there's just a plethora of options. And so
Speaker 3: one of the things that that does is it's kind
Speaker 3: of different than what we talked about last summer where
Speaker 3: or this last deadline. Remember this last deadline, you and
Speaker 3: I had conversations about how it was kind of like
Speaker 3: a seller's market, like there was very few people looking
Speaker 3: to sell and all these people looking to buy, and
Speaker 3: so it just didn't look like much materialized. This summer
Speaker 3: is going to be the opposite. There's gonna be a
Speaker 3: lot of people looking to sell, and so you might
Speaker 3: be able to get a player of higher quality without
Speaker 3: having to throw a ton of value into it. And
Speaker 3: so I think that there's gonna be options out there.
Speaker 3: It really depends. The problem with the Lori marketing type
Speaker 3: is again, I do think it would be advantageous to
Speaker 3: make it so that Brunson didn't have to initiate every
Speaker 3: single possession. Yes, it'd be great if there was a
Speaker 3: kde or a Paul George, because with that guy you
Speaker 3: could be like, hey, Brunson can play thirty four minutes
Speaker 3: a night, and we're going to get great offense in
Speaker 3: the other fourteen minutes because we can run it through
Speaker 3: this other guy, or Brunson has a bad matchup in
Speaker 3: this series, so we can go through another angle. Or
Speaker 3: you know, Brunson just took three possessions on in a row.
Speaker 3: Now he's tired. He can go stand in the corner
Speaker 3: and be a spot up shooter while this guy goes
Speaker 3: to work. Like, I do think they'll probably prioritize a
Speaker 3: shot creator. I wonder you know, Brandon Ingram is kind
Speaker 3: of an interesting type of player. The one problem with
Speaker 3: him is like he's had a lot of injury stuff,
Speaker 3: but he's probably going to be the discount option. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm really curious to see you ends up getting him
Speaker 3: because he's going to be a discount option. But I
Speaker 3: do think they'll go after some kind of upgrade.
Speaker 1: And I think the deficiencies with Ingram are okay because
Speaker 1: he's covered by the next You don't think of him
Speaker 1: as a tough guy or a play through injury guy.
Speaker 1: What you think of him as a skinny jeans can
Speaker 1: give you thirty four and any night can be a
Speaker 1: little moody, sometimes kind of disengaged, but the team is
Speaker 1: the most engaged team in the league, so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, like they always say, if you have a
Speaker 1: strong locker room, you know in any sport you can overcome.
Speaker 1: And the Patriots had Randy Moss is fine, Randy King
Speaker 1: with stuff Ingram can be disengaged. When I when I
Speaker 1: my whole career, even in l when I watched him
Speaker 1: his whole career, I've always felt like I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: sure what's showing up tonight. A little Rashid Wallace. On
Speaker 1: the good nights, you're like, why isn't he Why isn't
Speaker 1: he first team on NBA in our standas, But those
Speaker 1: he has nights where he just doesn't feel like he
Speaker 1: even wants the ball. But the Knicks are so smartly,
Speaker 1: they're so clearly built. It's such a defined culture you
Speaker 1: can handle. A guy who sometimes is a bit disengaged,
Speaker 1: has to be prodded because what they've proven is they
Speaker 1: don't need I feel with Zion's weight and injuries, like
Speaker 1: a lot of times the Pelicans are like, we need
Speaker 1: Brandon tonight, and sometimes he doesn't show. The Knicks won't
Speaker 1: need him every night. Like the culture is set. New
Speaker 1: Orleans was trying to figure their culture out. New York's
Speaker 1: is set and Ingram's it's not going to be built
Speaker 1: a rounding room. That's what I always said with Kad
Speaker 1: and Golden State was perfect. They didn't need him for
Speaker 1: culture and leadership. Hit shots like Brandon could be like
Speaker 1: hitch shots. They could use a finesse player. They've got
Speaker 1: pro wrestlers, you know, they got like fullbacks everywhere. They
Speaker 1: need a wide receiver on the sideline.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So with the brandon Ingram thing, to be clear,
Speaker 3: like I think New York will hunt a bigger fish.
Speaker 3: I think they'll look for a KD. They'll look for
Speaker 3: Paul George. But there is a scenario this summer where
Speaker 3: Matt Spiez like, no, I'm not trading him. Sorry, And
Speaker 3: there's a there's a scenario where Seve Falmer's like, I'm
Speaker 3: opening up a new arena. We're not training Paul George.
Speaker 3: That's what I think he'll do exactly. And so if
Speaker 3: that's the case, then brandon Ingram becomes like a fallback option.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing with Brandon Ingram, which I think
Speaker 3: is super fascinating. I think this shine in a big
Speaker 3: way in two recent instance instances. One when Zion Williamson
Speaker 3: kind of took the keys in two when he played
Speaker 3: on Team USA, it became pretty apparent that Brandon Ingram
Speaker 3: was a guy that kind of needed to have the
Speaker 3: ball in his hands, right, but so specifically with New
Speaker 3: York though, they're looking for that. They need someone so
Speaker 3: that Brunson doesn't have to do everything because de Vincenzo
Speaker 3: can play off the ball, because ogn and O, we
Speaker 3: can play off the ball, because Josh Heart plays off
Speaker 3: the ball. Like everybody on their roster is an off
Speaker 3: ball threat primarily except for Brunson. And so having a
Speaker 3: guy like that, like and you can imagine next to
Speaker 3: Og and Andobi, it's like OG's going to take the
Speaker 3: primary point of attack assignment for wing players, so he
Speaker 3: can primarily focus on being, you know, kind of a
Speaker 3: help defender, which, by the way, Brandon Ingram had an
Speaker 3: awesome season as a help defender for New Orleans this
Speaker 3: year because he's got super long arms and he can
Speaker 3: read plays and stuff like that. So he'd be an
Speaker 3: example of a guy that could go with that. I
Speaker 3: think raises their physical profile without messing with the chemistry
Speaker 3: of the team while giving them a secondary ball handler
Speaker 3: while being relatively affordable. I don't think they're going to
Speaker 3: have to pay much. Brandon Ingram's stock is at an
Speaker 3: all time low right now because of the Olympics and
Speaker 3: because he just went into a series fresh off of
Speaker 3: an injury and got his butt kicked by the thunder,
Speaker 3: so he would be an interesting kind of fallback option
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 1: Indiana against Boston, they're so poor defensively. I'll give him credit.
Speaker 1: They showed no signs of mental toughness in the series
Speaker 1: until Game seven. I thought, you know, once Og got
Speaker 1: hurt early and then Brunton, You're like, okay, whatever. They
Speaker 1: don't exhibit a lot of toughness. I really do believe
Speaker 1: if the Knicks were completely healthy, even without Randall, I
Speaker 1: think they could give the Celtics trouble. Like I think
Speaker 1: they would just make them uncomfortable. Like you, they're not
Speaker 1: the most skilled team, but Boston I think can be
Speaker 1: pushed around a little bit and intimidated. I think Indiana
Speaker 1: is it's again. The games will be fun. Offensively, I
Speaker 1: think the games will look like two really talented offensive teams.
Speaker 1: Boston's the better. I think there'll be a lot of points.
Speaker 1: That's kind of my take on what You'll have five
Speaker 1: games series Boston and there'll be some one twenty six
Speaker 1: is one thirteens. It'll be fun basketball. I just don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think Philip. I don't think Indiana can make
Speaker 1: stops if they have to in the series.
Speaker 2: That's my take, Yeah, Indiana.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, I believe Indiana is undefeated at
Speaker 3: home in this postseason run. So, like that's one of
Speaker 3: their big angles is they're this super young, energetic, fast,
Speaker 3: playing in trainsition type of team, and that can be
Speaker 3: a buzzsaw when you go on the road. And uh,
Speaker 3: but like and by the way, we saw Indiana beat
Speaker 3: Boston in the nd season tournament. Now one of the
Speaker 3: couple things there that was before Halliburton heard his hamstring
Speaker 3: and what you saw for the handful of games in
Speaker 3: this series where when you saw Haliburton's upside, that was
Speaker 3: kind of what he was like every night before his
Speaker 3: hamstring injury. Like he was the Steve Nash two point zero.
Speaker 3: He's super fast, he could shoot, he could get into
Speaker 3: the peyton and generate all these high quality shots. So
Speaker 3: like the way I look at it, it's like Indiana
Speaker 3: is a team full of specialists. It's like two great
Speaker 3: play initiators and TJ. McConnell and Tyrese Haliburton, and then
Speaker 3: a bunch of play finishers, guys like Miles Turner, Pascal Siakam,
Speaker 3: all these guys, right, Pascal Siakam can play on an
Speaker 3: island a little bit, but like they're they've They're just
Speaker 3: this specialist team, whereas Boston is a team that's got
Speaker 3: like a bunch of stars basically, or fringe stars that
Speaker 3: are like learning how to play together. And so the
Speaker 3: case for Indiana is like Indiana's optimized Boston's note Indiana
Speaker 3: lives in transition. Maybe they just make the whole series
Speaker 3: attract meet, maybe they make a bunch of shots, maybe
Speaker 3: they win. But Boston is like so much better defensively,
Speaker 3: and they do have more talent overall offensively as well,
Speaker 3: Like they're just better on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 3: So it's hard to find a pathway to victory. I
Speaker 3: just think with Indiana's home court advantage, they'll probably push
Speaker 3: the series to five or six. But I have a
Speaker 3: really hard time believe in Indiana gets a win in
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 1: So Dallas beats Okase and probably one of the top
Speaker 1: two or three games of the year in the NBA.
Speaker 1: It was just an insane matchup with tremendous offensive players,
Speaker 1: and I kind of feel like this is when it
Speaker 1: was over. I'm like, yeah, this is the way it
Speaker 1: should have ended. Is that the young team took a
Speaker 1: baby step. And whereas Minnesota has some veterans, some Godbert
Speaker 1: and Karl Anthony Towns. You know, okac ready doesn't They're
Speaker 1: all kind of you know, it's kind of kids. They
Speaker 1: could have used probably a thirty three year old guy
Speaker 1: in big moments, you know, they could depend on, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of this is what they were. So I
Speaker 1: think Lahoma City flyes home and thinks this was a
Speaker 1: great season. I think Dallas needed to win it. You know,
Speaker 1: I've said this before. I know Lucas great. I've been
Speaker 1: watching the NBA since seventy two. He's one of the
Speaker 1: more gifted, unstoppable offensive players. And it's surprising how many
Speaker 1: great offensive players are unorthodox. They're different, they're weird. You know.
Speaker 1: I grew up with George Gervin, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: finger rolls from twelve feet, Moses Malone, a lot of
Speaker 1: these prodigious scores, the skyhook, it ain't jumpers. You know,
Speaker 1: Alex English led the eighties in scoring and couldn't jump
Speaker 1: right like some guys are just they're just scores. Luca
Speaker 1: is so different. He always looks heavy and it's like
Speaker 1: Dirk Novitsky fall away but not as pretty. I will
Speaker 1: give him credit though, to bring in at times a
Speaker 1: ball centric guy with a unique personality Kyrie, and to
Speaker 1: sort of step back on ball usage, play better defense,
Speaker 1: like he's not stubborn like Mellow. To me almost felt stubborn,
Speaker 1: like Luca's got some self awareness Luca's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: my takeaway, is that the most if I was a
Speaker 1: Maverick fan, I'm like our guy kind of looked at
Speaker 1: himself and when I got to be a better defender,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna look great, but I'm gonna put the
Speaker 1: effort in and I'm gonna get the ball out of
Speaker 1: my hands. And it's like that's something. The self awareness
Speaker 1: is something.
Speaker 2: That's what I see. First of all.
Speaker 3: That bit about the scorers being weird is so interesting,
Speaker 3: and I've never thought about that before because as you
Speaker 3: go back, a lot of them are like that, Like
Speaker 3: Jokich is this weird, wide bodied refrigerator. Of a player
Speaker 3: that just shoots all these like kind of funky shots,
Speaker 3: like James Harden is a lefty that is like two
Speaker 3: dimensional and either just will drive left or take a
Speaker 3: step back jump er going right. That's like the only
Speaker 3: two things he does. But no one could guard him
Speaker 3: for like a four year period. I think he was
Speaker 3: completely unstoppable. There's so many of these like kind of
Speaker 3: weird players out there. I wonder if that has to
Speaker 3: do with just the unorthodox nature of guarding those players
Speaker 3: versus the traditional matchups that players see elsewhere around the league.
Speaker 3: But like one of the things that I think k
Speaker 3: Kyrie I think is one of those players that is,
Speaker 3: when he has slotted in the right role, impacts winning
Speaker 3: like a top fifteen player in the league. But when
Speaker 3: he's outside of that right role, you start to kind
Speaker 3: of see some of his warts. And you know, we
Speaker 3: saw that in Boston when it's like, Okay, he can't
Speaker 3: be the number one, Like he just clearly is incapable
Speaker 3: of doing that. Even in Brooklyn, you know, I by
Speaker 3: the way, that Brooklyn team was pretty good. I think
Speaker 3: that was a turned ankle in a strained hamstring away
Speaker 3: from probably winning the title in twenty twenty one, but again,
Speaker 3: he wasn't playing alongside to do everything forward. That's what's
Speaker 3: unique about the Luca in Lebron experience, because I don't
Speaker 3: think it's a coincidence. Kyrie is playing this incredible defense
Speaker 3: that he's playing this season. This is his best defensive
Speaker 3: season since twenty sixteen, when he hit the game winner
Speaker 3: in Game seven of the NBA Finals and guarded Steph
Speaker 3: the majority of the series. The reason why is on
Speaker 3: that team, because Lebron could take sixty percent of the
Speaker 3: offensive possessions and just eat up all that usage. Kyrie
Speaker 3: was an excellent off ball player. He could spot up
Speaker 3: and space the floor, but then it was like here's
Speaker 3: here's a third of the game, go cook, But this
Speaker 3: rest of the time I got you. Then that allowed
Speaker 3: him to kind of handle all of his energy distribution
Speaker 3: in all of these useful ways. And like Kyrie's had
Speaker 3: some kind of iffy statistical games in this playoff run
Speaker 3: where I thought he was awesome. He had a game
Speaker 3: earlier this series where he took like eight shots, but
Speaker 3: he had like eleven assists and was unbelievable defensively. Like Kyrie,
Speaker 3: I think when he plays alongside a Swiss Army knife
Speaker 3: forward that can really run an offense for the majority
Speaker 3: of a game. He can focus his energy into his
Speaker 3: his elite traits, and he's got some real elite traits.
Speaker 3: And then I think, and this is the one last
Speaker 3: thing I want to say about Dallas, and it's a
Speaker 3: really interesting factor coming into the Minnesota series. Denver can't
Speaker 3: protect the rim. It is their biggest weakness and that
Speaker 3: ended up being an issue. You see Nasried and Carrolltown
Speaker 3: slashing to the rim, Anthony Edward slashing to the rim.
Speaker 3: Look at what the Lakers did to them. They eviscerated
Speaker 3: their front line defensively. Minnesota is going into Dallas. Dallas
Speaker 3: is an excellent rim protection team. Derek Lively and Daniel
Speaker 3: Gafford have transformed that defense into like are you talk
Speaker 3: about redwoods? Those dudes underneath the basket can really protect
Speaker 3: the right.
Speaker 1: Was a trade deadline move, like, I mean, it's amazing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing what you can do with the trade Deavl.
Speaker 1: That was one of the great trade deadline that didn't
Speaker 1: get a ton of press. It didn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of attention.
Speaker 3: To your point, because you had talked about how Oklahoma's
Speaker 3: You said Dallas or Denver Dallas. Excuse me, you said
Speaker 3: Dallas needed that series. You're right, it's an absolute catastrophe
Speaker 3: if they lose that serious it's like a complete in
Speaker 3: total catastrophe because they gave up first round draft compensation
Speaker 3: for PJ. Washington and Daniel Gafford. So like, now looking
Speaker 3: back at it, it looks it looks genius, But there
Speaker 3: was a lot of state for Dallas in that series.
Speaker 3: For the record, I thought Dallas deserved to win. I
Speaker 3: thought they were the better team. Yeah, but again, like
Speaker 3: they have some real rim protection, and that's going to
Speaker 3: be an interesting angle on the Minnesota series because Minnesota
Speaker 3: likes to attack the rim. There's slashing, dribble, penetration, attack
Speaker 3: the rim type of offense, and Dallas is kind of
Speaker 3: built to withstand that. So that'll be a really really
Speaker 3: interesting element in the next round.
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta talk about this. You know, Jason hoops tonight,
Speaker 1: he watches more film than probably anybody on the internet.
Speaker 1: So I watched Bronnie. I watched Bronnie, and first of all,
Speaker 1: there's the revelation that he's like three inches smaller. So
Speaker 1: now he's going to be a backup point guard. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what he's got to be. So I always
Speaker 1: feel like you got to be about six ' four
Speaker 1: in the NBA to be a two, and then at
Speaker 1: six ' four you got to be pretty tenacious because
Speaker 1: you're gonna face six six guys a lot. But somebody
Speaker 1: pointed out in the Internet. I apologize for not remembering
Speaker 1: who it was, but they said, Wow, that jumper starts
Speaker 1: really low, really low. You can get away with that
Speaker 1: in high school, AU and probably college, but man, that
Speaker 1: that's a half second. That's a third of a second.
Speaker 1: And I watched Bronni and he's athletic enough, he runs
Speaker 1: the floor. Well, you know he's going to be a
Speaker 1: smart kid. I don't wantry to buy any of the
Speaker 1: intangible stuff, but I looked at that jumper and I thought,
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not a scout. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pretend I know. But you've seen it. Is that have
Speaker 1: to be corrected for Bronnie?
Speaker 2: I think it probably does.
Speaker 3: That was actually the video that went around where you
Speaker 3: did the star drill at the draft and the combine
Speaker 3: and he hit nineteen for twenty five. The first thing
Speaker 3: that stood out to me is like that releases a
Speaker 3: little slow, like he was running to the spot and
Speaker 3: then taking his time to load up and knock down
Speaker 3: the shot. And like just compare that for compared, just
Speaker 3: as a juxtaposition, watch a Dante DiVincenzo three as he
Speaker 3: comes flying off a screen like it's a it is
Speaker 3: lightning quick, really says, he gets it into his pocket
Speaker 3: and elevates right. So like here's the thing, though, let's
Speaker 3: not fool ourselves. None of us saw Brownie as a
Speaker 3: lottery pick. He's a project. But he's a project who
Speaker 3: with basketball shoes on, is going to be the better
Speaker 3: part of six to three. He's two hundred and ten
Speaker 3: pounds of solid muscle with strong like yeah, like I
Speaker 3: was considered a strong forward in college and I was
Speaker 3: two twenty five, So like to give you an idea,
Speaker 3: he's like big and strong. You know, he's got super
Speaker 3: long arms. He's got like six eight wingspan. He's what
Speaker 3: had the third best vertical leap at the combine, Like
Speaker 3: he is an elite athlete at his position who's got
Speaker 3: good strength and length. So, like, what does he project
Speaker 3: to be in the NBA? Probably, like you said, either
Speaker 3: a backup guard kind of like a ducemicc bride. Duce
Speaker 3: McBride is like kind of the low end, and then
Speaker 3: the high end is like the guy like a Jalen Suggs,
Speaker 3: where maybe he could start and be kind of like
Speaker 3: the point guard or two guard on the team that
Speaker 3: uses forwards to initiate offense, you know, because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of teams out there, kind of like the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty Lakers they started Casey and Danny Green, Like, you
Speaker 3: don't need a point guard if your forwards are stars.
Speaker 3: So like, there are teams out there that could use
Speaker 3: a player like that. My thing is is like he's
Speaker 3: clearly a project, So you're right, he's gonna have to
Speaker 3: get a shot blocked fifteen times in practice until he
Speaker 3: listens to the coach that says like, hey man, we
Speaker 3: got to tweak your release. Let's get in, let's work
Speaker 3: on this. It's gonna be a process. But like, I
Speaker 3: have no problem with him getting his chance. I think
Speaker 3: I don't know about you, Colin, but I think it's
Speaker 3: absolutely hilarious everyone's focusing on the nepotism angle because it's
Speaker 3: literally as if it hasn't been. Every level of basketball
Speaker 3: is like that. I remember when I when I was
Speaker 3: at the U of A. It'd be like they'd sign
Speaker 3: some five star recruit and they'd bring two of his friends,
Speaker 3: one to be a manager and one would get a
Speaker 3: spot on the team. You know, of course that the
Speaker 3: nassis on antenne Koumpo plays for the Bucks that he
Speaker 3: like barely looks like an NBA player. Sometimes like at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, like this is such an
Speaker 3: ordinary thing in life, and like he's going to get
Speaker 3: his opportunity because of his dad, no doubt. But no
Speaker 3: real coach is going to put him on the floor
Speaker 3: and give him minutes in a meaningful game unless he
Speaker 3: earns it right, and he will have his opportunity to
Speaker 3: earn it. He does have legitimate NBA tools, And that's
Speaker 3: the part that I think it's gloss over too much.
Speaker 3: He has NBA tools. Let him have his opportunity. Let's
Speaker 3: see what he makes of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched them a couple of times at USC.
Speaker 1: He's got hops, he'll defend, he's powerful, a quick jumper,
Speaker 1: runs the floor really well. By the way, the same
Speaker 1: guy who would complain about Bronnie doesn't watch the NBA
Speaker 1: and probably got a job or went to a school
Speaker 1: because his dad got him into college, and his dad
Speaker 1: got into college because his grandpa got him into college.
Speaker 1: It's like, people take a deep breath on this shit.
Speaker 1: It's like politics, the Clintons, the Bushes, the I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the way the world works, like corporate America,
Speaker 1: political America. I mean, how many NFL coaches try to
Speaker 1: squeeze their kid on the staff? You know, Pete Carroll
Speaker 1: was well known squeezed. You know, he wants his kid
Speaker 1: on the staff, and Belichick, by the way, put his
Speaker 1: kid on the staff. I just don't have a problem again,
Speaker 1: Brownie is when you when I watch him talk, when
Speaker 1: I watch the soundbites, he's very grateful for it. This
Speaker 1: isn't some arrogant kid who feels like he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, like everybody gets it in the room.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't bother me at all. I want to
Speaker 1: point on this too. So you know, I've said this
Speaker 1: before that the thing that worries me a little bit
Speaker 1: about the NBA, and I saw this. Hockey's always been
Speaker 1: international and has never landed for the TV audience in America.
Speaker 1: Baseball is increasingly over the last twenty international, and it's
Speaker 1: lost its currency it's social currency in America, still very
Speaker 1: popular in person, not on TV. The NBA will have
Speaker 1: some challenges as it moves to some streaming services and
Speaker 1: as it becomes international, but it did get its money. Baseball.
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball signed a recent deal with Roku. It
Speaker 1: made thirty million dollars, I mean a million dollars a team.
Speaker 1: It's an nothing against Roku. It's absolutely an embarrassing contract.
Speaker 1: The NBA is going to get like four billion a
Speaker 1: year or something like that billion a year, five whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And one of the things, the two things
Speaker 1: why the NBA will never become baseball a they know
Speaker 1: how to market. It's a star driven league. Even the
Speaker 1: international guys they're all one word. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, just think of how many guys in the NBA.
Speaker 1: It's like Luca, Yannis Jokic. You know, it's like Pele Messe, Ronaldo,
Speaker 1: like that matters, Share Madonna sting music, right, like you know,
Speaker 1: you go if you become a nickname sport. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid growing up, it was that baseball players
Speaker 1: often had like nicknames, and so the international players go
Speaker 1: by one name or a nickname. There's a star ingredient
Speaker 1: that the NBA has. The second thing is the juice
Speaker 1: and energy I am watching these playoff games. These crowds
Speaker 1: are I mean it is. The fans are just you know,
Speaker 1: like they're giving their heart signs in New York. What
Speaker 1: the NBA provides, and we all kind of know this
Speaker 1: is it. A regular season doesn't matter as much. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't. It's okay, the NFL is different scarcity of games,
Speaker 1: But these playoffs, man, I'm telling you, I'm watching these things.
Speaker 1: I can't turn away so like on Friday nights sometimes
Speaker 1: in Saturday, because I know I'm not on the next day.
Speaker 1: I won't sit home and take notes. I won't. I'll
Speaker 1: go to a restaurant. I'll get park next to it.
Speaker 1: I'm in a restaurant in LA and Okac and Dallas
Speaker 1: are playing and people are gasping. La Beach people are going,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I'm like, you don't do that for baseball.
Speaker 1: You just don't do it for baseball. The quality of
Speaker 1: energy and juice in these games. I mean, you're like
Speaker 1: a savant of this stuff, But I tend to view
Speaker 1: stuff almost as a generalist. Does it play to the masses,
Speaker 1: Like I stopped talking baseball fifteen years ago. I didn't
Speaker 1: see the juice. I didn't see the stars. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I talk to NBA. Just watch these crowds,
Speaker 1: watch the energy. Jesus. Every possession Denver and Minnesota, OKC
Speaker 1: Dallas for an hour, every possession matter.
Speaker 2: Like your late third quarter.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god, that's a huge three. So
Speaker 1: the NBA gets And I don't know if it's the
Speaker 1: sport that talks more politics or takes more cultural stands.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some people have a problem with it.
Speaker 1: I don't, but I think these playoffs have been remarkable.
Speaker 1: I mean even teams that are lower and skilled, like
Speaker 1: New York can't turn them off.
Speaker 3: First of all, that Roku stat you gave his insane
Speaker 3: because like, didn't the Liberty Fever game get over a
Speaker 3: million dollars just in the in ticket sales from that
Speaker 3: one game? Yes, in Major League Baseball teams are getting
Speaker 3: a million for a contract with Roku. That's that's that
Speaker 3: is flat out embarrassing. There's no other way to look
Speaker 3: at it. Yeah, you know, I was listening to the
Speaker 3: Bill Simmons podcast last week and he had Ethan Strauss
Speaker 3: on and they were talking a little bit about the
Speaker 3: difference between Ethan was trying to make a point. Basically,
Speaker 3: what he was saying is is like, even though NHL
Speaker 3: and baseball and basketball all are like these inventory sports,
Speaker 3: he was saying, the NBA just feels like it's worth more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And one of the big things that I see with
Speaker 3: the NBA that these other leagues don't have is the
Speaker 3: moments Like so, for instance, both of those Boston Denver
Speaker 3: games this year, those were moments like every NBA fan
Speaker 3: was like, this is an NBA Finals preview, We're gonna
Speaker 3: sit down, We're gonna watch this in both games were incredible.
Speaker 3: Some of those Lebron's death battles were insane. Some of
Speaker 3: those lebron kd battles were insane. To your point. Remember
Speaker 3: the Kyrie lefty hook shot to beat Denver at the
Speaker 3: buzzer towards the tail end of season. I was at
Speaker 3: a restaurant watching that game. The restaurant went crazy. No
Speaker 3: one's doing that for a d Backs Yankees game on
Speaker 3: a Tuesday, Like, it's just it's it is. There is
Speaker 3: an energy in like a the the NBA has the
Speaker 3: ability to be it can be boring for five straight days,
Speaker 3: but then it can have like a random Friday night
Speaker 3: that is like an instant classic, and that I think
Speaker 3: is something unique.
Speaker 1: Well, also, never forget this in baseball, like if Otani
Speaker 1: or Bryce Harper or Dhing in a two hour and
Speaker 1: fifty five minute game, you may see five minutes Atani
Speaker 1: or Bryce Harper. In hockey, you know, if a forward
Speaker 1: places twenty minutes because you're lying, you're only on the
Speaker 1: ice for fifty seconds. In the NBA, Lucas on the
Speaker 1: court for forty three minutes and has the ball every possession,
Speaker 1: and quarterbacks and NBA Stars they're on the field, they
Speaker 1: touched the ball. I mean, this is one of the
Speaker 1: things with baseball. They've shortened the game smartly, but what
Speaker 1: they've also done is they've reduced the time for it. Bats.
Speaker 1: You want Bryce Harper like you don't want Bryce Harper ever, Dhing,
Speaker 1: you want Bryce Harper. I mean Bryce Harper going from
Speaker 1: right field to first base. I see more of Bryce Harper.
Speaker 1: I want his face. This was taught to me years
Speaker 1: ago by Glenn Jacobs at ESPN when and I sort
Speaker 1: of moved off baseball as a topic. He said, and
Speaker 1: he taught me this. He said, how much is your
Speaker 1: star on TV. I want to see Shack in his
Speaker 1: prime on TV, close up ISO cameras all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's Brady, Brady Gronk, Brady Mahomes, Kelsey, Andy Reid.
Speaker 1: Your stars are constantly on hockey baseball. They're not. So
Speaker 1: the NBA has that advantage is that like the quarterback
Speaker 1: I get, I mean Sga, Luka, Kyrie, Sga, Holme, Luca,
Speaker 1: like four guys just back and forth, back and forth,
Speaker 1: the occasional lou Dort, you know. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: have occasional guys that don't stick out. But like I'm
Speaker 1: watching that thing today and it's just I mean, Jokic,
Speaker 1: Murray and even Quirky Gobaar, we know him. He's been around.
Speaker 1: So the NBA's it's it's just I wouldn't talk it.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're a generalist, I have to talk
Speaker 1: in headlines on FS one. I wouldn't talk it if
Speaker 1: it didn't work. I talk NFL, NBA College for well
Speaker 1: and an occasional moment. So NBA is fine. That's why
Speaker 1: that's why there's a bidding war right now between NBC
Speaker 1: and TNT and ESPN, and you know they'll probably all
Speaker 1: get it all right. Oops tonight, Jason, timph this was
Speaker 1: just good. What a great day, what a great weekend.
Speaker 1: I love doing this so much with you and keep
Speaker 1: crushing it season.
Speaker 3: To see you next time calling. Hopefully our conference finals
Speaker 3: live up to the billing.
Speaker 1: Yep, I think they will the volume. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, take a moment,
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