Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, welcome in Jason Timpf Hoops Tonight, Great podcast.
Speaker 2: A part of the volume. He and I go live
Speaker 2: immediately after games, and I just I really love what
Speaker 2: Jason does, the way he breaks it down former college
Speaker 2: basketball player. We're going to dive into a couple of topics.
Speaker 2: First of all, the emergence of the physicality of foreign
Speaker 2: born players like Jokic. He is such a complete package offensively,
Speaker 2: There's almost nothing like him in the league over the
Speaker 2: last decade. He doesn't really have off nights because he
Speaker 2: does so many things well thirty twenty and ten. I've
Speaker 2: said before, I think Denver's the better team. I don't
Speaker 2: think Denver has to do anything to win. They can
Speaker 2: just kind of play their game and win. I think
Speaker 2: Miami has to play with great urgency and energy and
Speaker 2: shoot well to win. I mean, Denver's played poorly once
Speaker 2: in their last eight or nine games and they lost.
Speaker 2: And even though they lost at home, they were leading
Speaker 2: by what was at eight points going into the fourth,
Speaker 2: So I thought you saw Denver not only steal home
Speaker 2: court advantage back, but what you're seeing with Denver is
Speaker 2: a lot of the things they do. They do consistently well,
Speaker 2: and a lot of their advantages are physical in terms
Speaker 2: of size and length. And Miami's got to play a
Speaker 2: certain way to win in this series, and they didn't
Speaker 2: do it tonight, and they're wearing down Jimmy Butler. Jimmy
Speaker 2: Butler looked tired tonight. So let's bring on Jason Timp
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Speaker 1: Colin, what did you think was the story of this
Speaker 1: particular game?
Speaker 2: There are certain things that even if you don't play well,
Speaker 2: that you'll win. And one of them is length. Denver's
Speaker 2: just long points in the paint, sixty four to thirty two,
Speaker 2: Denver rebounding fifty seven to thirty two. Now, when you
Speaker 2: combine their length with their effort, it's just those are
Speaker 2: staggering numbers. It's that Denver's really long. Remember, Lakers got
Speaker 2: a little bit of a break. Steven Adams, Brandon Clark
Speaker 2: were out against Memphis. Smaller team. Warriors up next, kept
Speaker 2: Looney off and off the floor, smaller team. How small,
Speaker 2: how big the Lakers looked in the first two series,
Speaker 2: and how small they looked against Denver? Denver Jokich is
Speaker 2: Not only does is Yokich big, but he plays long
Speaker 2: because you know, he shoots the ball above his head,
Speaker 2: so his game is very much shoulders up, you know.
Speaker 2: And when he dribbles the ball, unlike a lot of
Speaker 2: big men, he turns on you, so he puts that
Speaker 2: big butt and that hip in you, so he gives
Speaker 2: you no shot to take it away like most bigs.
Speaker 2: As you know you played, college basketball, coaches preach it,
Speaker 2: don't put the ball on the floor. Doesn't He never
Speaker 2: puts it on the floor, usually within six feet. If
Speaker 2: he does put it on the floor, it's perimeter and
Speaker 2: he turns, so when he gets that ball low, it's
Speaker 2: all up top, it's all up here, and it's just
Speaker 2: they don't have an answer for it. So when you
Speaker 2: combine their length with their effort on the glass, their
Speaker 2: effort and intensity, this is why they were a number
Speaker 2: one seed, Like it was almost tonight. Methodical, Like if
Speaker 2: you watch Altitude TV and Denver and you watch them,
Speaker 2: you know, seventy games a year, you saw this against
Speaker 2: bad teams where it's like they just control the interior.
Speaker 2: They play good enough defense. It's a length mismatch. Jokich
Speaker 2: is overwhelming. That's what they were most of the year
Speaker 2: when we didn't watch. You know, when you play a
Speaker 2: d or when you play Bam out of Bayou, or
Speaker 2: you play the best coaches, you know, the numbers all
Speaker 2: come down. But if you if you start looking at
Speaker 2: Yokics throughout the course of the season, this was very
Speaker 2: much a Denver game, dominating the paint, dominating the borge. Jokics,
Speaker 2: great Murray, played reasonable defense. It felt methodical. It was
Speaker 2: just a methodical hammer away. You got the same point
Speaker 2: told almost every quarter. Twenty six, twenty nine, twenty nine.
Speaker 2: It is really good teams make it look methodical, like
Speaker 2: this is what we do. When the Patriots were dominating,
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, that wasn't a special effort. They
Speaker 2: didn't fumble good on third down. You look up and
Speaker 2: they've got thirty two points. They went thirty two to twenty,
Speaker 2: and you're like, yeah, that was just what it was.
Speaker 2: Workingman like Denver is a handful.
Speaker 1: The problem with size is it's there every single night.
Speaker 1: There's no version of this where they show up to
Speaker 1: the game and they're shorter in Game four. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of Laker fans over the course
Speaker 1: of the season ask me like, Hey, what makes this
Speaker 1: team different from the twenty twenty Lakers, And I'd say,
Speaker 1: it's the total of the size. It's not just Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis and Lebron James in the front line. It's also
Speaker 1: Dwight Howard. You know, it's not just Anthony Davis and
Speaker 1: it's it's Alex Caruso, this big, strong, six to six wing.
Speaker 1: It's Kentavious Cabbo Pope, It's Kyle Kuzma. They're huge down
Speaker 1: the roster. In the predicament that that puts you in
Speaker 1: on both in the store. Danny Green was another guy
Speaker 1: that was huge on that team. It's six foot six,
Speaker 1: two hundred something pounds. Denver's got that type of size
Speaker 1: on the roster. It's not just the Nikola Jokiz problem.
Speaker 1: It's Aaron Gordon at six ten. It's Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 1: at six ' ten. It's Kentavious Cabbo Pope at sixty five,
Speaker 1: Christian Brown at six foot six, freaky athletic, just causing
Speaker 1: all sorts of problems in dribble penetration situations. He's incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult to screen. Even Jamal Murray is big compared to
Speaker 1: many of the smaller point guards that we have in
Speaker 1: this league, and that just leans on you and it
Speaker 1: wears on you. I thought, you know, Miami, you played
Speaker 1: a really clean first two games in Denver. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I think they only got out rebounded
Speaker 1: by eight or nine total in the first two games combined.
Speaker 1: It was like the Hoover and Broke tonight. It was
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, all of that effort and focus and
Speaker 1: energy just broke under the unrelenting size that Denver presents
Speaker 1: and the way he broke down Jokic. I was literally
Speaker 1: watching that last night or tonight, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: this is the way I'm going to pitch this to
Speaker 1: you because I'm really curious to hear your opinion. If
Speaker 1: I told you that I thought Nikola Jokic was the
Speaker 1: most unstoppable offensive player since Shack, how would you respond
Speaker 1: to that. I'm not saying I'm saying that yet because
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, But how would you respond if I
Speaker 1: told you that?
Speaker 2: Well, tonight thirty twenty ten. So does rebounding count? Do
Speaker 2: assists count? Well? If they do, he is, He's there's
Speaker 2: so much of his game. You know, we talked about this.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have the power of Shack. He doesn't have
Speaker 2: this the singular shot of Kareem. He's not as good
Speaker 2: a defender as Kareem. He's not as forceful as like
Speaker 2: a chemer, as quick, but the fact that he can
Speaker 2: take you outside the passing is Walton. The shooting is
Speaker 2: kind of unheard of. By the way in the playoffs,
Speaker 2: his touch, he's just you know, when when you know
Speaker 2: they're different players. But I said that the other night.
Speaker 2: I remember when Larry Bird came into the league and
Speaker 2: Sports Illustrated. I read a story in Sports Illustrated about him,
Speaker 2: Jack McCollum, the great writer, And I went back about
Speaker 2: five or ten years ago and I looked up the
Speaker 2: early Larry Bird stories in Sports Illustrated, and they were
Speaker 2: describing him like Larry Bird, like we've never seen anything
Speaker 2: like this now. Then then Lebron comes in and he's
Speaker 2: like Larry Bird, you know, doubled, Like he's faster, bigger,
Speaker 2: stronger and can do stuff and handle the ball like
Speaker 2: like Jokish is a combinat a lot of this. A
Speaker 2: lot of great players are unique. Jokic is a combination
Speaker 2: of a lot of different people, and he takes the
Speaker 2: best of Walton, you know, the way he holds the
Speaker 2: ball over his head, his vision. His body is like Luca.
Speaker 2: It's blocky. It's a lot of shoulders, a lot of hips.
Speaker 2: It's hard to get you know. Charles Barkley was much
Speaker 2: smaller than people realized. He was like six to four
Speaker 2: and a half, but he was blocky, he was thick,
Speaker 2: he got he got leverage on you, Like, who do
Speaker 2: you put on Jokic? Like it's just a it's a
Speaker 2: lot of problems. And I think, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think there's there's not a real there's not a real duplicate.
Speaker 2: Like he just does multiple things really well. Like Jimmy
Speaker 2: Butler is a terrific player. He felt small tonight. He
Speaker 2: felt kind of irrelevant in the second half, Like irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Jokic is never irrelevant because he has so many layers
Speaker 2: to what he does. You know, it's Lebron, Like I said,
Speaker 2: I could tell when Lebron was getting old because I
Speaker 2: would sometimes lose him on the floor. Is easy in
Speaker 2: in Lebron's plot prime like twelve years, like you'd turn
Speaker 2: the game on. He was everything on ball, off ball, passing.
Speaker 2: Jokic is It's just he doesn't really have what you
Speaker 2: would call off nights because he does so many things well.
Speaker 1: If I had to break it down, I'd say it
Speaker 1: comes down to four things. His overwhelming size. Two, he's
Speaker 1: a master of leverage, and those are those little spin
Speaker 1: moves and those chicken wings that you were talking about.
Speaker 1: It's like half of the battle with strength is your
Speaker 1: strength is irrelevant if you don't have your feet planted
Speaker 1: on the ground right, like if you're off balance. It's
Speaker 1: a simple concept. If I had you stand with your
Speaker 1: feet next to each other and I pushed on your shoulder,
Speaker 1: You're going to be much more likely to fall over
Speaker 1: than if you're in an athletic stance and you're squatting
Speaker 1: a little bit right, and Jokic uses his fakes to
Speaker 1: get you to lean one way or another. And then
Speaker 1: as soon as you lean that way, he's he's hitting
Speaker 1: that way, and your momentum is carrying that way, and
Speaker 1: so now he's by you. And so the combination of
Speaker 1: the strength with the leverage. And then the third thing
Speaker 1: is unbelievable touch. There's just nobody in the league that
Speaker 1: is more accurate within ten feet of the rim with
Speaker 1: pushots and hook shots than Nikola Jokic. And then the
Speaker 1: fourth ultimate kind of piece that ties it all together
Speaker 1: is the same thing that kills Joel Embiid and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis every single year in the playoffs, and that's his playmaking.
Speaker 1: If you send multiple defenders, he's going to make the
Speaker 1: right play every single time. Those four things combined, to me,
Speaker 1: I actually do think he's got a case. There's a
Speaker 1: couple other names that come to mind. Steph Curry last
Speaker 1: year had that type of unstoppable offensive playoff Run twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Lebron felt kind of inevitable in a lot of like
Speaker 1: it literally felt like nobody could stop him from doing
Speaker 1: what he wanted to do. But like, this is his
Speaker 1: first trip to the NBA Finals, He's twenty eight years old,
Speaker 1: and he's already putting himself into some elite company with
Speaker 1: what he's doing offensively. I thought he was much better
Speaker 1: defensively tonight to protecting the rim. Miami struggled to finish
Speaker 1: round the rim a lot. As a team, they were
Speaker 1: way better. There were a couple really smart adjustments I
Speaker 1: saw from Mike Malone too, so we talked about in
Speaker 1: our last show. There were two things that Miami did
Speaker 1: to bother Denver's offense. It was get Jimmy Butler on
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray and guard the Murray Yokich two man game
Speaker 1: two on two so that they didn't get open shots
Speaker 1: for KCP and Michael Porter Junior on the week side.
Speaker 1: And then it was the zone defense. Well, they started
Speaker 1: running a lot of early screens in the offense to
Speaker 1: get Jimmy off of Jamal Murray before they ran their actions.
Speaker 1: That was a big part of how Jamal Murray got going.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really smart. They moved Jokic out
Speaker 1: of the high post in the zone and actually put
Speaker 1: him down in the short corner. They were able to
Speaker 1: get some stuff there, and they were just started driving
Speaker 1: the zone too. In his zone defense, everyone's in charge
Speaker 1: of a space, but it's still one on one in
Speaker 1: your like, it's still if I'm dribbling on the left
Speaker 1: wing and there's a guy in the corner, guy in
Speaker 1: the court, like I have a guy in front of me,
Speaker 1: So if I beat that guy, I'm going to engage
Speaker 1: a different defender, which is going to generate an opening.
Speaker 1: And they were actually back to back layps that Denver
Speaker 1: got off of just Christian Brown just ripping through and
Speaker 1: getting into the teeth of the zone and drawing multiple defenders,
Speaker 1: so that I thought they had a lot of really
Speaker 1: smart adjustments. Do you. I do think Denver's better when
Speaker 1: they're at their best. But obviously you predicted a split
Speaker 1: going into this two game set in Miami. I still
Speaker 1: think Game four is going to be a total toss up.
Speaker 1: You has your view on the series changed at all
Speaker 1: after tonight?
Speaker 2: No, I just I kind of felt like it would
Speaker 2: be too two heading to Denver and then Denver would
Speaker 2: win too straight. I think Miami has a way to win,
Speaker 2: which is they've got to play with incredible urgency and
Speaker 2: they've got to hit threes. Denver doesn't really have to
Speaker 2: do anything. I mean, even the game they lost, outside
Speaker 2: of the first four or five minutes, I thought they
Speaker 2: were the better team until about eight minutes ago in
Speaker 2: the fourth, I thought they outplayed him. I feel like
Speaker 2: Denver doesn't have to really do anything. Miami has to
Speaker 2: play a certain way, and they often do. But tonight's
Speaker 2: a great example where Denver matched their urgency and it
Speaker 2: just didn't. It felt lobsided. I mean, Christian Brown's an
Speaker 2: interesting player, the Kansas rookie. First of all, he plays
Speaker 2: like he hasn't played much like he's so really He's
Speaker 2: got such great energy, he can tell you that, such
Speaker 2: fresh legs. But I thought he bothered on a couple
Speaker 2: of possessions. He bothered Jimmy Butler. He matched Butler's energy,
Speaker 2: and he's a kid that doesn't take the pump fit.
Speaker 2: You know. Butler just lives just constantly pump faking you.
Speaker 2: And Christian Brown, like a well coached bill Sell player,
Speaker 2: just didn't buy any of them and He's quick and
Speaker 2: he's twitchy, and it's like, I wonder if when you know,
Speaker 2: the coaching staff Malone looks at that. I wonder if
Speaker 2: they think, you know, he's a little bit of a
Speaker 2: fly in the ointment for Butler, where he's about the
Speaker 2: same size. He's really twitchy. You know, Butler's played a
Speaker 2: lot of minutes. This kid is I mean, he is
Speaker 2: just like he's like a kid, an eight year old
Speaker 2: on candy. He's going one thousand miles an hour, and
Speaker 2: he really stays centered. He doesn't buy into Butler's pump fakes.
Speaker 2: You can put him on Jimmy sporadically and it's like
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of a matchup. I mean, Jimmy's
Speaker 2: obviously a much better player, but when I watched him tonight,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, his energy is something. He's an interesting matchup.
Speaker 2: And I think that goes back to something else. I noticed.
Speaker 2: Jimmy plays with such intensity it burns hot, and he
Speaker 2: he looked a little, you know, gassed, He looked a
Speaker 2: little he looked tired. And you know, you go to Denver,
Speaker 2: you go open the mountains, you come back and it
Speaker 2: just takes all a lot. And he's playing big minutes.
Speaker 2: So I think he'll come back play better, and I
Speaker 2: think it'll be to your point, I think it'll be
Speaker 2: very close. But Denver's rebounding and points in the paint
Speaker 2: edge like it'll change a little, but it's not going away.
Speaker 2: It's kind of who they are, it's how they're constructed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, by one hundred percent agree. I do think Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler has shown over the years, especially in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, like he I think Jimmy hits check
Speaker 1: points in basketball games where he identifies if there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to dig deeper into his reservoir. And
Speaker 1: you saw that just in the last round, for instance,
Speaker 1: Jimmy in games five, six or four, five and six
Speaker 1: was a shell of himself, but then in Game seven
Speaker 1: he came out absolutely gangbusters from the jump, you know.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And then last year in the Eastern Conference Finals against
Speaker 1: the Celtics, he was amazing down the stretch of the
Speaker 1: series in Game six, in Game seven, but he had
Speaker 1: two digit nights. He had a six point game in
Speaker 1: an eight point game in the middle of that series.
Speaker 1: So Jimmy has a tendency to be like, oh, like
Speaker 1: this isn't the one we're getting. He's and he's a
Speaker 1: very high IQ player, and I think he kind of
Speaker 1: read the writing on the wall. That was Denver's best punch,
Speaker 1: and that was inevitable. Like I was talking with our
Speaker 1: colleague live the other day and like we like she
Speaker 1: was talking about Jimmy Butler and what she expected in
Speaker 1: Game three, and I said, I don't really expect a
Speaker 1: ton from Game three, more in Game four. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons was Denver had won seven games in
Speaker 1: a row, Like they had won seven games in a
Speaker 1: row again, and that included wins against Kevin Durant and
Speaker 1: Devin Booker and Lebron James and Anthony Davis, like they
Speaker 1: were due for a clunker. And when when we finished
Speaker 1: in our Game two show, and I woke up the
Speaker 1: next morning and I watched the film, it really was
Speaker 1: one of Denver's worst defensive performances from the postseason. Every
Speaker 1: one of them was saying it in the postgame presser.
Speaker 1: It was inevitable that they were going to come out
Speaker 1: and throw just a great punch tonight. And Jimmy is
Speaker 1: the kind of smart guy that will kind of post
Speaker 1: through that and understand that it's he's going to live
Speaker 1: to fight another day, so to speak. I actually I
Speaker 1: had a topic that was presented on Twitter this morning
Speaker 1: that really got me interested and I was curious your opinion.
Speaker 1: So some of the ratings came out, and the ratings
Speaker 1: in this particular finals have been pretty good, not quite
Speaker 1: where they were last year, but pretty good, and which
Speaker 1: is encouraging to me. But you had mentioned this on
Speaker 1: your show the other day, which I thought was super interesting.
Speaker 1: You said, the top four players that you think are
Speaker 1: on the top tier in the league are Yannis, Jokic, Luca,
Speaker 1: and I think Steph was your fourth, and STEP's getting
Speaker 1: there just totally.
Speaker 2: They're not perfect players, but they are literally universally unique
Speaker 2: on the planet.
Speaker 1: They're unique, exactly and so and Steph obviously is thirty
Speaker 1: five years old, and who knows if Golden State can
Speaker 1: retool around him in time.
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Speaker 1: So realistically, a couple of years from now, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be Luca Jokicic in Jannis's league, and those are all
Speaker 1: foreign players. And so my question for you is do
Speaker 1: you think it's bad for the league and what do
Speaker 1: you think it says about American players in the way
Speaker 1: that they are developed here in the States.
Speaker 2: Well, most of the foreign players are big Yannis Embiid Jokic,
Speaker 2: It's a lot of really highly skilled bigs. Most of
Speaker 2: our highly skilled players are wings, and we've almost de
Speaker 2: emphasized bigs in our game right our players are are.
Speaker 2: It's just it's the reality of what has happened. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's bad for the league because I think
Speaker 2: we love basketball. I think we all played it in
Speaker 2: high school. You know, hockey is very international. Most of
Speaker 2: us didn't have a skating rink within an hour of
Speaker 2: our house. So I think basketball is always going to
Speaker 2: be fine. It's a story league. I don't think. I
Speaker 2: don't think Denver will ever be a fascinating team. I
Speaker 2: don't think Milwaukee's fascinating. But you know, the league is
Speaker 2: always broadcast Jason about six teams. They put their arms
Speaker 2: around six teams. If your champion's not fascinating, the Lakers
Speaker 2: will be Boston not winning. Is the jah Morant story?
Speaker 2: Is Phoenix now Durant is. I think there's enough really
Speaker 2: interesting stories. Your champion doesn't have to be enthralling. I
Speaker 2: think a lot Warriors will be. I think they've got
Speaker 2: a couple of punches left. I think there's enough interesting
Speaker 2: storylines around the league. Embad's interesting. You know, Jannis is likable,
Speaker 2: Jokich is kind of a nonverbal It's okay. I think
Speaker 2: the league's in a really good space. I think it's
Speaker 2: a hard league to judge on ratings alone because their
Speaker 2: YouTube numbers and streaming numbers and social media followings are
Speaker 2: much greater than football and a lot of stances. They
Speaker 2: are much more popular on like the IG and on
Speaker 2: TikTok so. I think the league's in a really good space.
Speaker 2: And I also think increasingly we know, I mean I've
Speaker 2: seen more Victor Wembin Yama. You know, we now see
Speaker 2: international players like it's a real thing. Now you get
Speaker 2: games broadcast. So I don't I think it's in a
Speaker 2: really good space. I think I think the sport in
Speaker 2: America that it's going to always have problems is hockey.
Speaker 2: We don't play it. It's not terribly diverse. There are
Speaker 2: just communities where it's not. It's just not a thing.
Speaker 2: It's very international. Whereas basketball, we do follow their minor
Speaker 2: league system college basketball to a degree, not to the
Speaker 2: level of college football, but we all watch college basketball
Speaker 2: March madness. We don't watch college hockey. You know, when
Speaker 2: you when your minor league system is irrelevant your feeder system,
Speaker 2: it hurts. So I think football and basketball are in
Speaker 2: a good space. I think the tradition of baseball, though
Speaker 2: it trends old, is fine. Baseball the advantage baseball has.
Speaker 2: It's good in the right markets Atlanta, New York, Houston, LA,
Speaker 2: San Francisco, big cities because no salary cap, the big
Speaker 2: city's can afford it. So it's driven by Philadelphia, New York, LA, Houston, Atlanta.
Speaker 2: You know it works. But I think basketball is fine,
Speaker 2: and I think the game. I think the players have
Speaker 2: never been more skilled. The game remains creative and artistic.
Speaker 2: It's embraceable. There's big players, there's small players, there's flashy players,
Speaker 2: there's flawed players. It's fun. It's a fun like. I
Speaker 2: I like it more now than I ever have. I
Speaker 2: do think sometimes I think I like the layering of it.
Speaker 2: I like Joki Jokic. Denver is a two point team,
Speaker 2: Miami's a three. I like these kind of old school
Speaker 2: basketball teams that have length and get points in the paint.
Speaker 2: Denver is a very old school I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in lockstep with you on this one. I
Speaker 1: think it's I don't think it hurts the game at
Speaker 1: all whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I think the
Speaker 1: best evidence of this is just the way that Americans
Speaker 1: react to these foreign players, Like what happened in Philly.
Speaker 1: They were all like, get Ben Simmons out of here,
Speaker 1: we like Himbiid, you know, And it's because Ben Simmons
Speaker 1: had all these qualities that didn't resonate with them. And
Speaker 1: then Joel Embiid was this freaky competitive kid who was
Speaker 1: super coordinated because he grew up playing soccer, and they
Speaker 1: just gravitated towards that guy. Denver fans are rallying around
Speaker 1: lo Jokic like you wouldn't believe. Obviously, Luka Doncic has
Speaker 1: been you know, I would argue his hype and support
Speaker 1: has actually superseded what he's actually accomplished so far to
Speaker 1: this point, you know. And so I don't think it
Speaker 1: hurts the game at all as far as it goes
Speaker 1: with the American players. I do think there's an interesting
Speaker 1: dynamic that takes place, and I think it's a product
Speaker 1: of how quickly overseas we get players into professional basketball
Speaker 1: compared to the way it is here in the States.
Speaker 1: And again, I just remember this from my own experience,
Speaker 1: and this was really starting when I was first coming
Speaker 1: up in college. But there's an emphasis in America some
Speaker 1: of the more flashy elements of basketball, like you know,
Speaker 1: the high and you mentioned social media engagement, and you're right,
Speaker 1: basketball is consumed in a large in a large capacity
Speaker 1: through social media here in the US. And what does
Speaker 1: well on social media dunks, you know, crazy highlight, you know,
Speaker 1: sixteen dribble combinations into oh look at this crazy move
Speaker 1: that Kyrie Irving did, and those things are an important
Speaker 1: part of basketball. But let me tell you this, some
Speaker 1: of the best athletes I ever saw were in junior college.
Speaker 1: You know, like, like guys that can dunk don't necessarily
Speaker 1: succeed in the NBA, and meanwhile overseas, Like, I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that's been beneficial is what do
Speaker 1: you I don't think it's a coincidence that all three
Speaker 1: of those guys are huge, like in play a physical
Speaker 1: brand of basketball. You talked a lot about Jokic and
Speaker 1: his game of leverage. Luca does the same thing as
Speaker 1: a perimeter player. Like to a t he's just getting
Speaker 1: you to move an inch and then he's pushing you
Speaker 1: off of your spot in that inch to get to
Speaker 1: where he wants to go to get an easier shot
Speaker 1: closer to the basket. I think a big part of
Speaker 1: that has come from playing against grown ass men from
Speaker 1: the time they turn sixteen years old and it being
Speaker 1: all about winning from the time they turn sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: And I do think that we will see a resurgence.
Speaker 1: I think you'll see more bigs come out of the
Speaker 1: United States. I think you'll see coaches in AAU basketball
Speaker 1: and all of them respond and kind of change their
Speaker 1: approach a little bit. But like we're in this situation
Speaker 1: where it's like, Okay, who's the next American star? Okay,
Speaker 1: is it John Moritt? Is it Zion Williamson? Is it
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards? Like those guys feel miles behind the dudes
Speaker 1: we just mentioned well.
Speaker 2: And also sometimes with our players, maturity is an issue, right,
Speaker 2: whereas sometimes the international players. And this is true when
Speaker 2: I go overseas. I just came from Iceland for a week.
Speaker 2: When I visit a country, I'm more polite. I'm a visitor.
Speaker 2: It's not my soil, you know. I think these foreign
Speaker 2: born players come into America, they're very adult, very respectful.
Speaker 2: Basketball is their life. They're focused, they don't get sidetracked.
Speaker 2: Zion is sidetracked, John Morant sidetracked. They're much more comfortable here.
Speaker 2: I think it's a real thing, Like how do you
Speaker 2: act anybody listening to us, when you go overseas, it's different,
Speaker 2: you act different. You're a visitor. And I think I
Speaker 2: was told this year's ago by a general manager that
Speaker 2: a foreign born player is less likely to leave. He's
Speaker 2: very grateful for the opportunity to go to Milwaukee. Milwaukee
Speaker 2: is his Lakers. Milwaukee is much better than his international team.
Speaker 2: He's treated like the arenas bigger, the players are better,
Speaker 2: the TV's better, the crowds are bigger. So he doesn't
Speaker 2: look at it as a step down. That is his Lakers,
Speaker 2: that's his Yankees. And so I think the foreign born
Speaker 2: players come in here with very conscientious, very grateful. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying, you know, jaws not grateful, but I
Speaker 2: we're all a little different at home. You know, we're
Speaker 2: all a little different when we're comfortable. And I think
Speaker 2: these players come in and they are ready to go.
Speaker 2: They see this as a one time opportunity. They're not
Speaker 2: going to be given a FOURD of the opportunity two
Speaker 2: or three. You know, a lot of these international players
Speaker 2: don't get the big shoe deal, you know, right, Like
Speaker 2: they're not on ig So like the basketball is their focus,
Speaker 2: it's their income, it's their revenue, and I think you
Speaker 2: see it on the court. And I also think for
Speaker 2: years and years we talked about how soft international players were,
Speaker 2: and they heard it, and you hear something over and over,
Speaker 2: you're not this, You're not this. I think over the
Speaker 2: last ten years, they have increasingly gotten much more physical.
Speaker 2: Because the Tony Kukoach story was legendary where Michael and
Speaker 2: Scottie Pippen bullied him and picked on him. Well, that
Speaker 2: story got told over there for ten years and like it.
Speaker 2: So these international guys sharpen their elbows when they come
Speaker 2: over here. They're ready to play. You can see even
Speaker 2: the way Luca plays in Jokic, it's a very elbow
Speaker 2: angle initiate contact game. It's they come in a little heavier.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it's purposeful weight. They play with a
Speaker 2: lot of knees up and angles, and I think that's
Speaker 2: part of the physical game that they want to They
Speaker 2: want to, Hey, they don't want to be pushed around.
Speaker 2: Kuk Coach was a great player. He got pushed around
Speaker 2: in this league and that stuff made its way back.
Speaker 2: So I like, I love watching international players.
Speaker 1: Oh agree, and you're you're absolutely Like. Giannis uses his
Speaker 1: off arm like crazy, that chicken wing when he's driving
Speaker 1: by people. He's got a nasty streak. Uh, Luca's got
Speaker 1: a big time nasty streak. That dude's talking shit on
Speaker 1: every single possession. Joel Embiid is literally like scoring buckets
Speaker 1: on you and your home arena and then taunting you
Speaker 1: in front of your stands like these dudes all are nasty,
Speaker 1: physical players. I am really curious to see how American
Speaker 1: basketball responds over the next few decades.
Speaker 2: M the volume